"I am glad too that Admiral Yamamoto will not be attending," Koki was saying.
Hiroki glanced over to where the short, thickset Naval officer in a medal-encrusted uniform stood speaking to a cluster of listeners.
"Why is that?"
"He sounds much like your brother."
"Does he?"
He had been ready to do almost anything short of murder to keep Matsuo from attending the Imperial Conference. He would not normally have been invited, but if Father had got it into his head that he wanted Matsuo there, an invitation would have been issued.
Hiroki's fears had proved groundless. Matsuo had no interest in politics. After the incident at the summer house, he had retreated from the family. For the first year he had limited his contact to visits for birthdays and an occasional local festival, spending most of his time with Naval Intelligence. He had thrown himself into the work—transferred to Panama for two years to set up a clearinghouse for intelligence from America, and now he was back.
He was gaining quite a reputation as an expert on America. For that reason he might have been invited to the conference if the Tosei-ha had not screened all invitations, weeding out any participants who might speak against the alliance. They wanted no dark clouds of doubt over the conference.
Curious now about Yamamoto, Hiroki sidled closer to the group, trying to make his movement appear to be aimless wandering. As he stopped to listen, a member of the cluster courteously brought him into the conversation.
"Ah, Okumo-san—the admiral was just describing what he sees as the drawbacks of the Tripartite Alliance."
Hiroki knew that after the Imperial Conference today, when the Emperor himself would give approval to Japan's alignment with Germany and Italy, the Alliance would be a fact, with only the formal documents to be signed. But he knew that Yamamoto had attended Harvard and had been Naval Attaché in Washington, DC for a number of years. He was curious to hear what the man had to say. He bowed to him.
"I would be honored to hear the admiral's thoughts."
Yamamoto returned the bow. "As I have been saying, I find many drawbacks, but the two most glaring are these: The pact intimates that Japan has something to gain from alliance with Germany and Italy. I disagree. I find their conduct of the war in Europe despicable. Any association with them taints Japan's honor as a nation."
Hiroki made no reply, although he had to admit that under normal circumstances he would fully agree with Yamamoto's sentiments. But the Tripartite Alliance was a political necessity at the moment. It could be broken later.
"But the most ominous outcome of the alliance is that it means war with the United States."
"Does the admiral feel that Japan should fear war with the United States?"
"I feel Japan should avoid any war she cannot win."
The group's attention was suddenly focused entirely on Hiroki. He did not feel he should leave that statement unanswered.
"The United States is led by a sick, crippled old man who is advised by a cabinet of other sick old men. We have nothing to fear from the likes of them."
Yamamoto shook his head slowly. "It will not be sick old men who build the ships and aircraft they can send after us in an endless stream; it will not be sick old men milling their uniforms and machining their rifles and growing their food; it will not be sick old men marching against us." He straightened his shoulders. "If war must be, I will fight like a thousand devils for Japan. We can give the Americans the fight of their lives… for six months. After that they will simply overwhelm us with their material superiority, no matter how bravely we fight."
He bowed and strode away.
As the group broke up, Hiroki watched the admiral leave the room. He realized why Yamamoto had taken his last chance to speak against the alliance. After today, the alliance would carry the approval of the Imperial Will and no voice could be raised against it.
But Koki had been right. Yamamoto did sound like Matsuo. Did it mean something that the two men in Japan most knowledgeable about the United States were the two who seemed to fear war with her most?
A disquieting thought, one he did not allow himself to dwell on.
* * *
Hiroki knelt beside his father in the Imperial Palace. He kept his back rigid, his hands on his knees. He had already bowed so low that his forehead had touched the rough surface of the tatami beneath him. Above him on the dais, the Emperor himself sat on an ornately carved throne before a screen of delicately woven gold. Hiroki would never get used to how meek and bookish this Son of Heaven looked with his smooth round face, his sparse mustache, and his owlish eyes behind the thick lenses of his glasses. Arrayed before Him on either side of Hiroki were the highest-ranking officers and politicians in Japan, all on their knees, supplicants before a God.
Hiroki bit down on the inside of his cheek to suppress the tension pounding within him.
An Imperial Conference is a formality, he told himself for the thousandth time. Just a formality.
The government had made a firm decision to join the German-Italian Axis and transform it into a three-way alliance. By tradition and by the law of the Meiji Constitution, the government had to petition the Emperor's sanction on a national policy of such enormity. The Emperor had no true veto power, however, and had never been known to attempt one. The Emperor's role at an Imperial Conference was to hear the decisions of his advisors and to make no comment.
Just a formality.
But rumor had it that the Emperor was uneasy about the alliance, and that made Hiroki very anxious. One word, one syllable, one hint of disapproval by so much as the arching of an eyebrow, and the alliance would be off. Months—years—of maneuvering by the Tosei-ha and its allies would fall into complete disarray.
And if that happened, Hiroki knew he would be largely to blame.
After all, hadn't he proposed the idea of saturating the nation with the idea of the Emperor's indisputable Divinity? Hadn't he urged the members of the Tosei-ha to use their influence in the diet to pass laws which made it a punishable offense even to imply otherwise? He had taken the plan from history. The Tokugawa Shoguns had done exactly the same thing: They had bolstered the Emperor's divine status, made him a remote God whose every whim was a mandate to his subjects; and then they had ruled for centuries, doing whatever they pleased in his name.
The country was again at that stage. With the Emperor effectively isolated from his public and the workings of his government, the Tosei-ha could do almost whatever it wished in His name. A nearly foolproof situation except for a full-dress Imperial Conference such as this. The Emperor's divine status could backfire here if he made an objection known.
Hiroki listened as the last of the cabinet members and service chiefs rose, bowed, and gave his reasons why he thought the Emperor should accept the Tripartite Alliance. He watched the Emperor sit mute and expressionless on his throne. This was the moment. If the Emperor did as he should and let the conference end without comment, the nation's future course would be set: the point of no return. Once the Tripartite Alliance was signed, there could be no turning back.
Emperor Hirohito did not move. Instead of rising to signal the end of the Imperial Conference, he sat like a stone carving, his eyes unreadable behind his thick lenses. The conference room fell into utter silence. The rustle of clothing, even the soft susurration of human breath stopped as the Emperor leaned forward a few degrees.
Is he going to speak?
Hiroki broke out in a sweat over his entire body. He could feel the droplets of perspiration collect on his forehead and upper lip.
Why is he waiting?
As the seconds ticked by in the frozen room, Hiroki's heart picked up tempo until he thought it would leap out of his chest.
And then, very suddenly, it was over. Without a word, the Emperor rose to leave. As Hiroki bowed his head to the tatami along with all the others, it took all of his control to suppress a shout of joy.
We've done it! He wanted to run and tell Shimazu. N
othing can stop us now!
1941
THE YEAR OF THE SNAKE
JANUARY
THE ‘AU’AU CHANNEL, OFF MAUI
Meiko watched Frank as he leaned over the side of the boat with his head in a bucket—a glass-bottom bucket. He was looking for humpbacks.
"You have to see them," he had said with unbridled enthusiasm. "They come to the channel every winter to mate. You have to see the whales!"
And so here they were in a tiny outboard motorboat off Lahaina, peering into the water.
Actually, she had seen plenty of whales already, gliding up and gracefully breaking the surface to blow spume and take a breath, and then down again in a graceful glide, so monstrously huge, and yet so undeniably gentle. Anything but gentle, however, when they launched their forty or fifty tons entirely out of the water to land in an explosion of spray and a slap like a cannon shot. They were frightening then.
But Frank was not content to watch them broach from a distance. He wanted to watch them down below, at home, in the depths.
"There's one!" he cried, his voice echoing in the bucket. "A big one!" He slid the bucket toward her along the surface of the water. "Quick! Straight down!"
She looked and in the flickering light filtering through the crystalline water she saw smaller, rainbow-colored fish in the upper layers—triggers, trumpets, unicorns, tangs, and butterflies—and below them, not one but three humpback whales passing in two different directions.
Where are you going? she wondered. What are you thinking?
She sensed a lumbering wa about them, a contagious inner peace that Meiko could sense seeping into her soul by small degrees as she watched them.
And then they were gone. But the tranquillity remained. She watched for a while but they did not return.
She slid the bucket back to Frank. "They are beautiful."
He grinned. "I told you you'd love it. Maybe we can see some more."
Meiko watched him put his head back down into the bucket and thought of the many things Frank had helped her see in the past months. The world had been a gray, drab, empty place during the years since Matsuo's death. She had spent that time in a state of emotional anesthesia—a living death, really—with no joy, no pain, no pleasure, no hopes, no plans for the future. Sleepwalking through life.
Now she was awake again, with the salt smell of the water, the sun overhead in a blue sky, and the four islands around them: the lush green hills of Maui and Lanai on either side, the squat massiveness of Molokai behind, each wearing its white lei of clouds; far to the south sat their poor stunted sister: low, brown, barren Kahoolawe. And all about, these great gentle leviathans leaping and gliding back and forth between the surface and the depths. She had been here for years and had never seen any of this beauty before; now she was feeling what she had thought she would never feel again: peace.
And she owed it all to Frank.
She watched him now, craning his neck into that bucket. A good, kind, gentle man. He had celebrated his thirtieth birthday last summer and yet still took such boyish pleasure in the wonders of the world. Since their reunion his quiet love of life had slowly infected her until she too felt alive again. Eight months with Frank now and growing closer all the time, but yet to share that ultimate closeness.
Sitting here in this little boat with him brought back memories of another sunny day in another boat nearly four years ago. Suddenly she saw Matsuo sitting against the transom with his arm draped over the steering arm of the outboard motor. She blinked her eyes and he was gone, but his memory lingered.
Matsuo had been so different—always in motion, always chasing something and never finding it. He had always seemed at odds with the world around him, always fighting for his place in it. Currents of turbulence seemed to follow him wherever he went. The world was always an exciting place when he was around.
She wondered how she could be attracted to two such opposite poles. Perhaps because the last thing she needed in her life right now was excitement. She needed Frank.
"Good Lord!" he cried as he straightened abruptly.
He threw the bucket into the boat and grabbed one of the paddles.
"What's wrong?" Meiko said, alarmed at his frantic motion.
"There's one coming up!" He pointed behind her between strokes. "Right over there!"
Meiko turned and saw nothing but calm water. She kept watching as Frank kept paddling. Suddenly the water directly to her left surged up and fell away as a huge, smooth, glistening gray mass rose to the surface. The globe of an eye bigger than her fist stared impassively in passing. She squealed as the bubbling blowhole appeared and showered the boat with warm, salty spume.
"Touch it!" Frank shouted.
She glanced back and saw him leaning precariously out over the gunwale with his arm stretched to its limit. She looked back at the whale as its flank glided along the surface, paralleling the boat's course in a slow, graceful arc. She too reached out—
—and touched the whale.
Its hide was smooth and slick, surprisingly soft. She let her hand slide along its skin, a gleaming surface that seemed to go on forever. Finally, the whale sank from sight and touch, a tail fin brushing the bottom of the boat as it sounded again, totally oblivious to the touch of the two humans and the puny craft in which they floated.
"We did it!" Frank said breathlessly. He was slumped over the gunwale, staring dazedly at the water. "We actually touched one. I've always wanted to do that. It was like… like…"
"Like touching a god," Meiko said, staring at her slick palm. She looked up to find Frank gazing at her in wonder.
"Yeah. That's exactly how it was!"
He reached out his hand to her and she took it. The hands that had touched the god joined over the water.
MARCH
TOKYO
To relieve his tension, Matsuo paced back and forth along the length of the spacious office in the Navy Building. The admiral had sent word that he wanted to speak to him on an important matter. He had been attending the annual Nehan-E—the ceremony of Nirvana—at the Tofuku-ji in Kyoto where he had meditated in the Karasansui-type garden in the Founder's Hall of the temple, seeking tranquillity in its mixture of greenery and white sand.
He had found himself gravitating more and more to the ancient city since Meiko's death, and had missed it terribly during the years in Panama. Kyoto had become a sanctuary of sorts for him. The agelessness of its countless shrines and temples, and the beauty of its surrounding hills acted as buffers against the growing strife throughout the rest of Japan. He could walk where so many Emperors had walked when Kyoto was the Imperial City, or sit beneath the trees surrounding the five-story pagoda of the To-ji temple, or catch the reflection of the gold-foiled upper levels of the Kinkaku-ji in the placid water that lapped its foundation. He would try to imagine himself living in a less turbulent time.
The only other place where he could find similar peace was high in the air, with Japan spread green, blue, and serene below him.
He found no peace on his futon, that was certain. Especially on nights when he slept with Nagata's daisho within reach. Every so often, the swords would provide him with dreams of Meiko, happy dreams in which she was still alive and walking along an endless shore with someone. He could never see the other, but sensed he was not Japanese. Yet Meiko seemed content. Were these sword-dreams, as he came to call them, visions of the next life? If so, he was glad Meiko was happy.
He heard a door open behind him. Matsuo turned and bowed as Admiral Yamamoto, wearing an unadorned blue wool pea jacket, entered. The admiral returned his bow, then embraced him.
"It has been a long time since Kasumigaura," he said. "Are you still adding to your flight time?"
Matsuo nodded. "Whenever possible. And you?"
"The same, although each passing year affords me less time to escape into the air." He gestured to the chair opposite his desk. "Please, sit down."
As he took his seat, Matsuo scrutinized his old commander
, who remained standing. Yamamoto had been in charge of the Navy flight school at Kasumigaura when Matsuo had gone there for training. The admiral had infected him with his vision of air power as an integral part of sea power. Yamamoto had moved on from Kasumigaura to director of the Aeronautical Department of the Navy, and from there to his present position as Commander of the Combined Fleet. Matsuo remembered him as an indefatigable gambler who would think nothing of playing poker, shogi, or bridge all night.
But despite the years and all the late nights, he looked little older than when Matsuo had last seen him—his hair was as short and bristly, his jaw as square, his eyes as bright as ever.
"It is the Year of the Snake and next month I will turn fifty-seven years old," he said as he walked to the window and stood gazing out at Tokyo awakening to spring. He paused, then turned and looked Matsuo in the eye. "I fear that by the time I am fifty-eight we will be at war with America."
Matsuo stood silent and stunned. Japan was already at war with China and had annexed portions of the Dutch and French territories in Indochina. Matsuo knew the chest-beating militarists like War Minister Tojo were building toward a wider conflict, perhaps even a challenge to the US, but to hear Admiral Yamamoto say it with such conviction was devastating.
"Surely there's some way to avoid that," Matsuo managed to say.
Yamamoto shook his head. "I'm afraid not. From what I remember of our discussions at Kasumigaura, I know your views on war with America are at odds with your brother's. I share your views. We've both seen America from the inside. We both know that Japan cannot survive a war of any duration against it. But the Empire must either expand soon or turn inward forever. If we move into the Philippines, which we must if we expand southward, we run the risk of war with America."