not forging. And a good sensei must teach, not simply humiliate.
But now, I came at him for real. I shot toward him so fast that I got inside the striking radius of his sword. For a moment, Rick froze. I shot diagonally to the left across his front my right hand let go of the bokken, and my free arm curled up and across his neck. I saw the realization of what was happening come into his eyes, but by then it was too late. I was facing his rear, our hips on the same line. I extended forward and down, driving him into the floor. It wasn’t a hard throw, and I didn’t put all my energy into it, but coming down like that onto a hard wooden floor is bound to ring some bells in your head. I kicked his sword away and it skittered across the wooden floor.
Rick looked slightly cross-eyed for a moment, and then he shook it off. Even half stunned, he began to roll to his feet. I nodded in approval. Training is designed to help your body respond even before the conscious mind orders it to. But I must have dumped him harder than I had intended. His movements seemed slower than usual. Yet he doggedly began the long slog to his feet. I liked him for that, and felt the urge to help him up. But I didn’t. In the end, what we teach is not victory, but the capacity to endure. He deserved the small dignity of the struggle to stand upright once again.
Rick took a breath and set himself for the next attack. His sword was gone, so he set his hands in front of him in the unarmed tegatana posture, and waited. I nodded in approval, then backed away, showing him there would be no further attack.
“Irimi nage,” I told the class. “You’ve probably all seen it at one time or another, right?” Rick nodded ruefully and some other heads nodded as well. “So what happened?” I gestured to him, someone handed him his bokken, and we slowly went through the motions of what I had just done.
“We’re working on sword techniques and you’re getting tired. So you’re trying to compensate and you’re trying really hard. But your brain is sticking, focusing on the idea of using the sword.” I looked at Rick. “Here I come.”
I replicated my move and got in close. “For Rick to strike me, he needs to take a step back and swing the sword up, right? But that’ll be too late. So …” I smiled at them, “here’s Burke’s secret technique for the day.” I gestured at Rick. “You come in at me and do the same thing I did.” Rick glided in and across my front. He was now inside my strike radius to my right and my arms were extended in front of me, holding the bokken in the classic two-handed grip. “Now the sword is useless, yes?” I could hear Yamashita’s vocal cadence sneaking into my own. “But look!” I let go of the bokken with my left hand and raised the weapon horizontally and mimed hammering the butt of the sword into the side of Rick’s head. Well, maybe I gave him a poke in the nerve point under the ear where the jaw hinges. I pivoted around and placed my left hand against the back of the sword, slicing it down in a deep, vicious arc across the triceps of the arm that should have been snaking across my neck to throw me.
Rick nodded. I ran through the sequence again, letting him try the technique. We bowed to each other.
“The sword is a great weapon,” I told them. “But don’t get locked into thinking about it one way. It’s a spear. It’s a cleaver. A hammer. And sometimes it’s just an impediment. In fighting, there’s only one way to use a sword,” I told the class. “The way that gets the job done.” I swept my arm up and they reformed the line.
“Hajime,” I said. Begin.
Some people won’t take no for an answer.
Ito unfurled the small tube of paper, carefully smoothing it down on the coffee table between us. Below the loft apartment, the dojo was silent and empty. I could hear the refrigerator’s compressor cycle on in the kitchen and the distant hum of street traffic. Before me, the old paper crinkled.
It was a sheet of calligraphy in a vaguely familiar hand. The two large characters at the head of the paper were clear enough: seiyaku, a written vow.
“Can you read this?” Ito asked. He wasn’t being arrogant: the grass writing of personal calligraphy is cursive and often more suggestive than precise. But the characters were simple enough. It was addressed simply to a woman named Chika-hime.
I glanced at Ito. “Hime? An honorific of some sort?”
He nodded. “Princess.”
I scanned the lines, striving to get an English translation that mirrored the elegance on the page. “Each snow an … echo of this warrior’s promise … heart and sword.”
“Kokoro ken to,” Ito repeated—heart and sword—pleased with my rendering. “You see the signature below, Dr. Burke?”
I said nothing, staring at the calligraphy. It was the product of a younger brush, but the underlying stylistic structure was there. There was no denying I knew the handwriting: it was the same thick sprawl of ink that marked my training certificates as authentic, the signature of Yamashita Rinsuke. My sensei.
I didn’t know what to think or what to say. Yamashita’s past was largely a mystery to me. This note offered a glimpse into his secret life. It was as if a heavy curtain had shifted in a breeze and a shaft of light had briefly flickered across a dark room. I was intrigued, yet felt vaguely guilty. A pledge from the heart. Surely it was meant for only one pair of eyes other than his, and they weren’t mine. Yet the impulse to question Ito was real and irresistible. I gave in, but only a little. “It’s not dated,” I said.
“No, it isn’t,” Ito admitted. “If we were to ask Yamashita Sensei, however, he would surely remember the date.”
I squinted at the man sitting across from me. “Why would I ask him that?”
Ito shrugged. “You wish to know the date.”
“No, I don’t. Not enough to bother him.” But the protest sounded feeble and untrue, even to my ears.
Ito smiled tightly, then sat back and watched me calmly for a time. He leaned forward and carefully rolled the note up and placed it in the narrow bamboo tube. “It was written in the winter of 1962. Your master was twenty, Dr. Burke.”
“And the woman?”
Ito’s eyes widened. “It does seem a heartfelt note, does it not? Terribly sincere. Terribly young.”
“Terribly sad, I think,” I told him.
Ito nodded in agreement. “Oh, very much so. It was the last … well, the only note between them, Dr. Burke.”
“But someone went to great pains to preserve it,” I noted.
“Just so,” Ito agreed. “It must have seemed important. And a pledge is something to honor.” The implication was unmistakable. It had occurred to me even as I read the note. But Ito didn’t know me very well; he wouldn’t suspect that I’d be sensitive to issues of honor. The Japanese tend to believe they have a monopoly on this quality. When he looked at me, despite his polish, Ito looked with Japanese eyes and saw just another gaijin, a foreigner with little or no subtlety.
“I’d like to meet this woman,” I said. “For Yamashita Sensei to write this … She must be a remarkable person. I assume you know her, Ito-san? After all, she gave you this very personal note.” I was needling him a little, letting him know I was wondering how he got hold of something that wasn’t meant for anyone but her.
Ito let out a sigh. “Miyazaki Chika was a remarkable woman, Dr. Burke. A precious child of
