by David Kirk
They talked for a short while of nothing. Before Munisai excused himself, Shinmen presented him with a small cask. It was wet and smelled of seawater. Inside were four large oysters still alive in their shells, a favorite of Munisai’s, a rare delicacy. He had told no one of this, but Shinmen had known nonetheless.
He bowed to his smiling lord, speechless at the gift.
Back within his house, he stoked coals under a cast-iron grill, prised the oysters open with a knife, and then placed them over the heat to cook in their half shells. The gray flesh slowly began to sizzle. He watched them, savoring the smell, listening to the pop and hiss of seawater as though hearing it for the first and not the last time.
They were soon ready. Normally, even as he enjoyed them, at the back of his mind he would worry about them turning his stomach. But what fear had he of that today? Perhaps because of that absence, the four oysters tasted perfect.
His last meal done, he bathed with scented oils and soaps, shaved the pate of his head and his face, and bound his long hair up into the top knot. Then came time to dress.
The ceremonial kimono he would wear was a beautiful, perfect white. Donning it was a ritual and a challenge; the garment was designed to stop his body thrashing and spasming obscenely once his head left his shoulders, and so it contained many hidden constricting belts and binds. He found that tying them with his enfeebled left hand was nearly impossible. Munisai resorted to trying to use his mouth, but found that he simply ended up contorting himself into progressively stranger poses.
Sighing in resignation, he spat a cord out of his mouth and let the kimono slump around his feet. He realized how ridiculous he must look, half naked and half trussed for death. Suddenly he felt like laughing.
“Autumn, they say, is the best season to die,” said a voice behind him. He turned to find that Dorinbo had entered the house quietly and was standing in the doorway. “You see neither the death of the world in winter, and neither are you robbed of the promise of life that spring offers. The perfect cusp.
“Of course, these are the same men who describe what you are to perform this afternoon as the bloodflower. Quite how much faith I put in the words of men who see petals blooming instead of red blood being soaked up by a white kimono, I don’t know.”
“You’ve come,” said Munisai, “brother.”
“I’ve come, brother,” said Dorinbo, and he gestured at the garment on the floor. “Would you like some help?”
There was no enmity in the monk’s eyes. Munisai nodded assent silently, and his brother entered the room, picked the kimono from around his feet, and began to arrange it. Dorinbo’s binding of the prayer boughs had been good practice. He worked quickly, tying the knots with a surprising strength.
“I came to say thank you,” said Dorinbo as he worked. “It is brave of you to do this for Bennosuke.”
After a moment Munisai forced himself to say, “It’s not just for him.”
“What do you mean?” asked Dorinbo. Munisai could feel his brother’s expression, even though the monk was behind him. He looked at the floor as the words slowly and awkwardly crept out.
“Today, I cross the Sanzu River. Yoshiko will be waiting for me there, upon the far banks of the dead. I wronged her. She did not deserve to die. But what I will do today: dying for Bennosuke—dying for her son. She’ll forgive me, won’t she?”
“I’m not in the habit of giving blind absolution, Munisai,” said Dorinbo quietly.
“But she has to,” said Munisai. “A death for a death—the karma balanced.”
“This is no simple mathematics, brother,” said Dorinbo, and he let out a slight sigh that was half irritated and half pitying. “Let me ask you—are you really sacrificing yourself in atonement? Or are you merely saying that, and killing yourself because deep down within your soul it pleases your pride?”
“What are you talking about?” said Munisai. “That is not it at all.”
“Your soul is yours alone, and only you know the depths of it. But I’ve seen you wandering around last night and today with this wistful smile on your face, like a great poem is ending itself around you. Like things are so very … proper. And I can’t tell which this is—sacrifice or vainglory.”
“I am certain of myself,” said Munisai.
“Well then, tell me, if so certain are you that this is sacrifice,” said Dorinbo. “In all the years since that night, have you ever once felt shame or a need to atone for all the peasants you murdered alongside Yoshiko?”
“I …” began Munisai, and faltered.
He hadn’t. It left him reeling for a moment. The monk had spoken so casually, never breaking pace in his work. Part of Munisai wondered if this was what it felt like in the final moments of all the men he had killed—a helpless gaping at a masterful, fateful blow that appeared to have been struck with the utmost ease.
“Yoshiko will forgive me,” said Munisai, shaking his head. He could not be distracted, and so he forced the monk’s thoughts from his mind. “She has to.”
“I truly hope so,” said Dorinbo. “It is not my role to pass that kind of judgment—I leave that to higher things than us, and those you must face this day. They will be far harsher than I, so do so honestly, brother.”
He finished tying the final binding. The monk stepped around from behind Munisai, and took a few paces backward to cast a critical eye over the finished appearance. He nodded approvingly, and then picked up the large overkimono.
“Regardless—thank you, Munisai,” he said. “Bennosuke will be raised well.”
“He already has,” said Munisai. “Thank you for that—for everything.”
Dorinbo held the overkimono open, and Munisai slid into it. It was pure white too, with large, bamboo-wired shoulders that arched out and hid his true shape. Dorinbo tied the thick white sash around his waist, and then came the swords upon the left hip as always. It was finished. There was nothing left to do but die.
They both knew this. They looked at each other in silence for a moment, and then Dorinbo bowed. He went to the door and slid it open. The afternoon sun poured in, and the monk took a deep breath as he let it wash over him, motes of dust caught in the light dancing around him.
“Would my arm ever have healed?” asked Munisai, if only for something to say in the silence. The monk turned to look at him through the corner of his eye.
“No,” he said, “not without a blessing from the gods.”
It was not funny, but they laughed anyway, for it was better to remember each other like that than the coldness between them. Munisai felt sudden regret wash through him for that, and all the years of separation before it. But it was forlorn and fleeting. When the smiles had died on their lips, Dorinbo lifted one hand in a gesture to the high sun.
“Amaterasu is watching,” he said. “Die well, Munisai.”
“I shall,” said Munisai.
They bowed to each other, and then the monk left. Dorinbo would not be attending the seppuku. The next time he saw Munisai, his body would be cold and his soul gone to face whatever judgment that he could not give.
Kazuteru approached Munisai’s house with trepidation. A great burden had been placed upon him. He stopped, checked his kimono, checked his hands for dirt, checked even if his breath smelled the slightest bit rotten. Nothing had deteriorated since the last time he had stopped thirty paces before.
The gate of the wall that surrounded the estate was open. He saw no need to knock; Munisai would be expecting someone, if not him. Silently he entered the courtyard, and found his commander standing with his back to him, staring at the minutest details of a tree.
“My Lord Munisai,” he said, dropping to one knee and bowing his head. Munisai turned to him, the white shoulders of his kimono wide like two turtle shells, a dry purple leaf in his hand.
“Kazuteru?” he said after a moment.
“Yes, my lord,” Kazuteru said, whatever small amount of pride he felt at being remembered dwarfed by worry. He licked his lips. “Our Lor
d Shinmen has nominated me to be your second.”
It would be he who struck Munisai’s head from his shoulders once Munisai had forced the dagger up into his stomach. It was a duty that was an honor in name only. At best you performed the role flawlessly, and no one remembered you. If you made a mistake—failing to cut the head from the body in one swift stroke, or swung too hard so that you overbalanced and staggered like a drunkard—you would be cursed as one who soiled another’s ultimate moment.
Those were worries for the ritual itself, however. The first possible dishonor was being refused by the one who would perform seppuku. Kazuteru kept his head down, awaited Munisai’s judgment. He honestly didn’t know which answer he would prefer.
“You are rather young for this,” said Munisai.
“I am, my lord.”
“But Lord Shinmen selected you?” the samurai said.
“He did, my lord,” said Kazuteru, and strange though it was, it was true. An older samurai from the lord’s personal bodyguard would be expected; one who Munisai knew well. But it was Kazuteru whom Shinmen had summoned, and the young samurai’s protests of age and inexperience that he had ignored.
“You are young, but you are loyal to me, Kazuteru,” the lord had said warmly. “Your loyalty is unquestioned. You will wait for my command to strike. Other samurai, who are closer to Munisai, might take pity upon him and take his head too soon. It is difficult not to. But you—I know you are loyal to me above all others, and will wait for my command to strike so that the ritual can be finished properly. You can do that, can’t you?”
“Of course, my lord,” Kazuteru had said, and bowed.
“Do you believe yourself capable?” asked Munisai now.
“Yes, my lord,” lied Kazuteru.
“Very well, Kazuteru,” said Munisai. “You displayed your skill with the shortsword to me once before. I trust your longsword is equal in ability.”
“I shall not fail you, my lord,” said Kazuteru. He pressed his head as close to the ground as he could go without dirtying his forehead, and offered up a prayer for this to come to be.
“Is all prepared at the dojo?” asked Munisai, once Kazuteru had risen.
“Yes, my lord.” He nodded.
“Then let us go,” said Munisai, and he let the leaf fall from his hand to rest upon the carefully raked sand. The samurai’s wooden sandals left footprints beside it that the servants who tended the gardens would hesitate to erase the next morning.
They walked down side by side toward the dojo. Munisai did not look back. The village was utterly silent, the peasants having been ordered to stay in their hovels for the afternoon. Guards wearing both Shinmen’s blue and Nakata’s burgundy bowed as they passed.
A palisade of white cloth had been erected around the dojo, preventing anyone unworthy from seeing inside. Priests of both Shinto and Buddhism circled the building, chanting low and tossing purifying salt before them. Munisai stopped fifty paces short.
“Give me a moment,” he said.
“Very well, Lord,” said Kazuteru, not knowing if this was to be expected but not wanting to question it. “We shall await you. The north entrance is on our left. I shall enter from the south.”
“Of course,” said Munisai. Kazuteru bowed to him, and then left him alone.
Munisai had never before realized how massive the sky was. He looked up at it, a perfect blue streaked with high white lines of clouds. The sun shone golden on him, so small. Even through his sandals the gravel beneath his feet had texture he would never have imagined. There was the scent of burning herbs upon the breeze, escaping from within the dojo as they sweetened the air there.
He brought his eyes back down to the earth. He found himself close to a barrel, and then he found himself looking down into it. The water within was deep and dark and still and clear. His face looked back at him clearer than in any copper mirror.
One worry alone remained to be purged. It had grown sharper the closer he had come to the dojo, the closer he drew to the ritual. He had panicked on the ridge when he had seen Bennosuke’s tears. The sudden confrontation with honest emotion had shocked and flustered him, and then the samurai within him had spoken in defense. He had not said what he—the very essence of him, his true, secret self—had wanted to say to the boy, which was:
Live, Bennosuke. Your simple survival would be a better revenge upon the Nakata than any amount of limbs you could lop off. Live, Bennosuke. Even though it goes against everything that I believe in, I cannot deny that the very base of me wants you to live.
But he had proved a coward for that moment, and his last words to the boy had been harsh and dogmatic. There was nothing he could do to correct that either—the moment was gone, like every other moment he had known, and the boy was in the dojo now alongside men in front of whom he could never admit such feelings.
He wondered if this was what the true measure of a life was—the number of words unsaid and the deeds undone you left behind. But what of the things you said in error, or the things you did and regretted? He had those as well. Finding balance, reason, or meaning was impossible now. Men had spent decades pondering such things and found no answer, and what time did he have left now? The rest of his life, of course, and that was not enough.
Munisai took deep breaths, and forced the anxiety out. He needed emptiness. He could not face the seppuku as he should if he harbored even the smallest doubt in his heart. He told himself that as Shinmen had given him a chance once before, he now had given the boy a chance and nothing more—and if the boy was worthy, as he knew him to be, nothing more was needed.
A final breath as a man.
Just live, Bennosuke, he prayed. Hear this, somehow.
Looking down into the water, Munisai disavowed himself of the notion that what looked back was the entirety of him. He became a vessel for his soul, nothing more. He realized the truth—that he was a wonderful idea constrained and trapped within a prison of tubes and meat and phlegm.
His hand plunged into the water, shattering the image. The ripples calmed, and Munisai was gone.
Bennosuke awaited; they all awaited in perfect silence.
Tasumi was to his left, his face solemn. Around the walls of the dojo hall men knelt in ranks. The Nakata had invited them from Ukita’s court in Okayama to come and bear witness, and many had wanted to see the end of a renowned swordsman like Munisai. They were from all across Japan—samurai, courtiers, emissaries, and nobles—all wearing the formal winged overkimonos in many different colors and liveries.
None wore white, though. That color was for the dead alone.
Lord Ukita had not deigned to come, and so Lord Shinmen, Lord Nakata, and Hayato sat upon small stools in the position of honor in the center of the hall, hands upon their knees. They sat with distant eyes and stony faces.
Bennosuke had watched the Nakata suspiciously, but he had seen nothing to suggest that they planned to do anything other than follow the ritual through. There was none of the smug triumph Bennosuke had expected. Hayato had not even looked at Bennosuke, though the boy eyed him warily.
There was little he could do in any case. For the first time since he could remember, he was without his shortsword. Though his head was not yet shaved like a monk, he had been made to cede the weapon, so there was at least some appearance of his punishment. He felt uneasy without it.
Neither did he want to disrupt the ceremony—not because his father had ordered him not to, but because he wanted to understand it. He did not know why Munisai had chosen seppuku instead of fleeing, why he had spoken of it with reverence and the adulation of a lover in his eyes. He could not share the sense of anticipation in the air now; the men neither lewd nor voyeuristic, but sitting rigid as though they were daring to look upon some holy artifact, bracing themselves to bask in its purity.
Why were they this way? These were men in high positions from across the breadth of the country, not some isolated, sick cult of degenerates, yet they had gathered to watch a man spill his guts.
The only way to understand it must be to experience it. If seppuku was the true measure of man—as these men all evidently believed—then Bennosuke wanted to see, to feel, to know what that was.
Even if it meant watching his father die.
His “father” … It was shameful that he had cried before Munisai, childish and embarrassing, but that he had done so told Bennosuke that perhaps he had accepted the man further within himself than he had thought. At the very least the process had begun, but now whatever may have come to pass and whatever peace they may have found in time was being ripped away before it could flourish.
He hated how his life had become. He wished for the simplicity of childhood once again. But childhood was gone, and now a man’s task lay ahead of him. He thought of Munisai’s words of what a samurai ought to do. He thought of vengeance and looked at Hayato once more. Still the young lord was unreadable.
Could he fulfill what Munisai had asked of him? Could he give his own life in the pursuit of that? He did not know.
Perhaps, when Munisai had shown him how to die, he would. All he could do now was wait. All he could do was try to be samurai, like those around him.
They became aware of Munisai’s arrival by the vague shadows of the men standing watch around the outside of the dojo bowing one by one as he silently passed, gray and spectral upon the white of the palisade. Things assumed a measured pacing now, heartbeats carefully counted and actions slow and deliberate.
The north door of the dojo slid open, and Munisai entered. He waited until it was slid closed behind him once more, and then he bowed low to all present. He silently came before Shinmen and the Nakata, where he lowered himself to his knees and pressed his head to the ground. The lords nodded back to him, and he rose to a rigid kneel.
“The most honorable Munisai Shinmen,” intoned a courtier from the side, teeth blackened and his mustache long and drooping, “commander and vassal of the most noble Lord Sokan Shinmen. You are summoned here by the will of the most noble Lord Hideie Ukita to immolate thyself through cutting of the stomach to atone for the crime of the mutilation of the most noble Lord Hayato Nakata committed by your son. Do you question this?”
