A real
akunin
–
Husky laugh, knife in his teeth
And wild, crazy eyes
THUS SPAKE TAMBA
Tamba said:
‘The sun will rise soon. Let’s go up on to the cliff, watch the dawn and talk.’
They went back to the spot where Masa was waiting, surly and offended. They changed their clothes.
Erast Petrovich had already realised why the old ninja didn’t kill him in the pavilion. It would have contradicted the story of the Don’s supposed natural death and cause problems for Shirota in taking the dead man’s place.
There was only one thing he could do now: try to save Masa.
Calling his servant off to one side, the titular counsellor handed him a note and told him to run to Doronin at the consulate as fast as his legs would carry him.
Tamba observed this scene impassively – he was obviously certain that Masa would not escape from him anyway.
Probably that was it. But the note said: ‘Send my servant to the embassy immediately, his life is in danger’. Doronin was an intelligent and reliable man – he would do it. Tamba probably wouldn’t bother to break into a foreign embassy in order to kill a witness who was not really all that much of a threat. And in the final analysis, the jonin had only one assistant now.
So that Masa would not suspect anything was amiss, Erast Petrovich smiled at him cheerily.
His servant stopped sulking straight away, replied with a beaming smile of his own and exclaimed something in a joyful voice.
‘He is happy that his master is smiling,’ Dan translated. ‘He says that vengeance has done his master good. He is very sorry for Midori-san, of course, but there will be other women.’
Then Masa ran off to carry out his errand, and they let Dan go too.
The two of them were left alone.
‘There is a good view from over there,’ said the jonin, pointing to a high cliff with white breakers foaming at its foot.
They started walking up a narrow path: the shinobi in front, the titular counsellor behind.
Erast Petrovich was almost half as tall again as him, he had his trusty Herstal lying in its holster and his adversary was even standing with his back to him, but Fandorin knew that against this lean little old man he was as helpless as a baby. The jonin could kill him at any moment.
Well, let him, thought Erast Petrovich. Death didn’t frighten him. Or even interest him very much.
They sat side by side on the edge of the cliff, with their legs dangling.
‘Of course, watching the dawn on the edge of the precipice was much better.’ Tamba sighed, no doubt remembering his ruined house. ‘But here there is the sea.’
Just then the sun peeped over the edge of the world, transforming the watery plain into a steppe blazing with wildfire.
Despite himself, the titular counsellor felt something like gratitude – he was going to be killed beautifully. No doubt about it, the Japanese were connoisseurs when it came to death.
‘There’s just one thing I don’t understand,’ he said, without looking at his companion. ‘Why am I still alive?’
Tamba said:
‘She had two requests. The first was for me not to kill you.’
‘And the second?’
‘To teach you the Way. If you wanted me to. I have kept my first promise, and I will keep the second. Even though I know that our Way is not for you.’
‘I don’t want your Way, thank you very much,’ Fandorin said with a sideways glance at the jonin, not sure whether he could trust him. What if this was just another Jesuitical trick? A simple movement of his elbow, and the vice-consul would go flying down on to the sharp rocks below. ‘A fine Way it is, built on villainy and deception.’
Tamba said:
‘I brought you here so that you could see the departure of darkness and the arrival of light. But I should have brought you at sunset, when the opposite happens. Tell me, which is better, sunrise or sunset?’
‘A strange question,’ Fandorin said with a shrug. ‘They are both natural events, essential phenomena of nature.’
‘Precisely. The world consists of Light and Darkness. Of Good and Evil. The man who adheres to Good alone is unfree, he is restricted, like a traveller who only dares to travel by the bright light of day, or a ship that can only sail with a fair wind. The man who is truly strong and free is the one who is not afraid to wander through a dark thicket at night. That dark thicket is the world in all its completeness, it is the human soul with all its contradictions. Do you know about Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhism?’
‘Yes, I have heard about that. The Hinayana, or Lesser Vehicle, is when a man seeks to save himself through self-improvement. The Mahayana, or Greater Vehicle, is when you seek to save the whole of m-mankind, or something of the sort.’
Tamba said:
‘In reality these two vehicles are the same. They both call on men to live only by the laws of Good. They are intended for ordinary, weak people – in other words they are one-sided, incomplete. A strong man has no need to restrict himself to the Good, he does not need to squeeze one eye tight shut to avoid accidentally seeing something terrible.’
Tamba said:
‘There is a third vehicle, and the privilege of mounting it is granted only to a small number of the elect. It is called Kongojyo, the Diamond Chariot, because it is as strong as diamond. We Stealthy Ones are riders in the Diamond Chariot. To ride in it means to live by the rules of the entire creation, including Evil. And that is the same as living without rules and contrary to the rules: the Way of the Diamond Chariot is the Way to truth through comprehension of the laws of Evil. It is a secret teaching for the initiated, who are willing to make any sacrifices in order to discover themselves.’
Tamba said:
‘The Way of the Diamond Chariot teaches that the Greater World, which is the world of a man’s soul, is incomparably more important than the Lesser World, which is the world of human relations. In actual fact, sacrificing yourself for the sake of others is the worst possible crime in the eyes of the Buddha. A man is born, lives and dies face to face with God alone. Everything else is merely visions created by a Higher Power in order to subject a man to tests. The great religious teacher Shinran stated: “Reflecting profoundly on the will of the Buddha Amida, I shall find that the whole of creation was conceived for me alone”.’
Tamba said:
‘Ordinary people are torn between the illusory world of human relations and the real world of the free soul, and constantly betray the latter in the name of the former. We Stealthy Ones are able to distinguish diamond from coal. All things exalted by ordinary morality are mere empty words to us. Killing is not a sin, deception is not a sin, cruelty is not a sin, if they are necessary in order to race on along the appointed Way in the Diamond Chariot. To riders in the Diamond Chariot, the crimes for which riders in the Greater and Lesser Chariots are cast down into hell are merely the means to attaining Buddha nature.’
The titular counsellor had to protest at that:
‘If human relations are nothing for you diamond riders and deception is no sin, why keep your word to someone who is no longer among the living? What does it matter if you did promise your daughter? Treachery is a virtue for you, is it not? Kill me, and it’s all over and done with. Why waste time on me, reading me sermons?’
Tamba said:
‘You are right and wrong at the same time. Right, because to break the promise given to my dead daughter would be to act correctly, it would raise me to a higher level of freedom. And wrong because Midori was more than a daughter to me. She was an Initiate, my companion in the Diamond Chariot. This chariot is cramped, those who ride in it must follow certain rules – but only in relation to each other. Otherwise we will start jostling each other with our elbows, and the Chariot will overturn. That is the only law by which we abide. It is much stricter than the ten commandments that the Buddha proclaimed for ordinary weak people. Our rules say: If a companion in the Chariot has asked you to die, then do it; even if he has asked you to jump out of the Chariot, do it – otherwise you will not reach the Destination to which you aspire. What is Midori’s little whim in comparison with this?’