The Toyotomi Blades

20

By the end of the morning I had two enhanced prints of the blades from Rotterdam and New York. A Nissan stockholder might think the computer power burned up to get me those prints might be better spent designing cup holders for minivans, but I was pretty pleased with the results. On the Rotterdam blade I could make out a single slash on the tang that Kiyohara told me was the number one, and on both blades I could see the patterns. One had what looked like a village on it and the other had a mountain and a waterfall. Just as important, I got an offer of more help.

“We’ve been talking about this mystery,” he told me when he gave me the finished prints, “and perhaps there’s more we can do for you. The digitized map of Japan we’ve been working on has things like temples and mountains on it, just like the designs that are on these blades. If you’re right about the blades forming a map, maybe we can match that map against our digitized map of Japan to help you pinpoint where the treasure is.”

“Can you help me figure out where the blade I’m missing is? There are supposed to be six blades, and I’ve only got images for five.”

He laughed. “No. Perhaps you should go to a …” He sought the English word. “A psychic.” I wasn’t sure he was kidding.

I spent the rest of the day working on finding the sixth blade with very little to show for it. Junko called Professor Hirota, but his assistant said he was already off on another trip. I talked to Sonoda-san in Kyoto, but although he seemed pleased to talk to me, he wasn’t able to give me any more information than he had when I was in Kyoto. Junko and I searched every database to which News Pop had access, in English and Japanese, and we even tried calling the U.S. to try some databases I knew about. No luck.

Mariko and I had dinner together, and she told me about her sightseeing that day. I was so engrossed in trying to figure out a way to find the sixth blade that I wasn’t much company. While Mariko watched an English-language movie on TV, I sat on the bed looking at the enhanced prints and the rubbings of the blades, trying to make sense of them. When we fell asleep I dreamed about colored sword blades dancing in the air, forming endless patterns as they combined in different combinations. If Walt Disney had been Japanese, perhaps something like that would have been in Fantasia.

The next morning the light woke me. I had forgotten to close the curtains in the room. I looked at the clock and saw it was only 6:10 A.M. I was tired, but not sleepy, and after lying in bed a couple of minutes, I slipped out of bed and got up.

Without waking the still sleeping Mariko, I dressed quickly, putting on a jogging suit and my running shoes. I got my jacket from the closet, wrote a quick note to Mariko, and checked to make sure I had my passport and wallet.

I walked out the front door of the Imperial and strolled to the corner where a light would let me cross the street to Hibiya Park. The chill air invigorated me and I started some simple stretching exercises while waiting for the light to change. When the light turned green I started jogging across the street and into the park.

Despite being bordered by busy streets, the park was quiet in the early morning hours, although by no means lifeless. As I jogged along I came across a group of Japanese students standing in their black uniforms doing calisthenics. Another student, acting as exercise leader, stood in front of the group of eight or ten of them.

I went past a lake with a fountain decorated with bronze cranes. The graceful bronze birds curved into the morning air. The earth by the side of the path was slightly muddy. It was fall and the bite of winter was in the air. Coming from California where there really isn’t a winter, I felt both wonder and excitement at the ancient cycle of seasons surrounding me.

As I curved around the lake, I saw a pavilion over to the side. In the pavilion a middle-aged man sat reading. I wondered idly what he was reading and why he decided to get up so early in the morning to read it in the chilled park.

I continued jogging and came across another path. I cut to the right on the path and slowed down to a walk. I felt better. My brain was clearer. With the short jog and the morning air, I started to relax, looking about me at the trees and the foliage.

Up ahead I saw a small snack stand and decided I would stop and try to get some hot chocolate or coffee. I walked up to the stand and an old man in an olive jacket, fatigue pants, and rubber boots was standing behind the counter. He grinned a toothy grin at me and gave some greeting in Japanese.

“Ohayo,” I said, smiling back. “Do you speak English?”

“English?” the man said with a thick accent. The man laughed and shook his head. “No. No English.”

Then as an afterthought, he dredged his way through an obviously meager vocabulary and added, “Sorry.”

I smiled at the man and said, “That’s all right.” I started looking over the wares being offered. There were a variety of colorful boxes, all of which seemed to contain different types of crackers or cookies. In a little glass-sided cabinet there were white buns of some sort made of rice dough and with some kind of filling, as well as cans of coffee. From the condensation on the inside of the cabinet, I could tell that these items were heated. I reached out and put my fingertips against the glass and felt the warmth.

I pointed at the cabinet and said, “I would like some coffee.”

“Ah, hai, kah-fee” he said, reaching into the cabinet and bringing out a can of coffee.

I reached into my pocket and took out a handful of Japanese coins and held them out to the man. The man laughed, and peering at the coins, picked through them and selected a few. Then he handed me the can of coffee.

“Thank you,” I said. “Arigato.”

The man smiled back his gap-toothed grin and dipped his head. “Do itashimashite,” he answered.

I tore the aluminum tab off the can, went to a nearby bench, and sat down. The short contact with the man running the concession stand seemed to cheer me up. I thought that the man seemed like a happy soul, content with his life and with meeting people in the park. I wished my own life was not so complicated or filled with theft, murder, and six ancient blades.

The coffee was bitter but it was hot and satisfying, and I sipped at the can as I looked around the park. The trees were wearing a protective girdle of straw put on them by patient gardeners. Another sign that winter would be coming soon.

Down the path came a woman with a young child. The woman had a quilted coat and carried a shopping bag. The child looked six or seven. She had a red jacket, blue pants, and red rubber boots. Her hair was cut in the inevitable bangs, and bright eyes peered out from a round, cute face.

The woman walked over to the stand and bought one of the white rice buns and a foam cup of hot green tea. She took some napkins from the holder and walked over to the bench next to mine. They sat down and the woman offered the child a bite of the bun. The child nibbled at it and the mother picked up one of the napkins and dabbed at the child’s mouth.

The child was at the age where she felt that her dignity was being infringed upon by this action and she pushed the napkin away. The mother lectured her for a few seconds, then handed the napkin over to the child, offering the bun for another bite. The child bit at the bun and this time wiped her own mouth. She said something to the mother, who reached into her shopping bag and pulled out a little plastic sack with a variety of toys in it.

The child reached in the sack and brought out a handkerchief which had its four corners tied together. The child undid the handkerchief and took out some pieces of plastic. They were brightly colored; red on one side and blue on the other.

I was fascinated by what kind of game this was. I noticed that the pieces were not all the same shape. Some were triangles, others were rectangles, and all of various sizes. The child dumped the pieces out on the bench and started arranging them so all the blue sides were up. Then she started moving the pieces around on the bench, placing the pieces next to each other, moving a piece from one side to the next and trying different combinations of the various forms. After a few minutes she said something to her mother, who looked at the pattern created by the child and nodded. Her mother went back to eating the bun as the child started rearranging the pieces.

I was intrigued, and when the child stopped and asked her mother to look, I stood up so I could get a clear picture of what the pattern was. I didn’t want to intrude on her privacy, but I was intensely curious as to what the child was doing. The pieces of plastic had been pushed around, forming a head, stumpy triangular legs, and a little triangular tail. The pattern looked like it could be a cubist rendition of a horse or dog.

Once again the child started moving the pieces around, forming another pattern. She was aware that I was observing her, and acted nonchalant. Still, I think she liked the audience. This time she shoved the pieces around into what looked like a stylized tree. She didn’t seem satisfied by that and moved the pieces around again.

Finally, after many rearrangements, she ended up with a triangular sail and the hull of a sailboat. Excitedly, she said something to the mother who looked down and nodded. The mother said something and the child flipped the pieces forming the sail over, changing the sail from blue to red, ending up with a bluehulled boat with a red sail. The child seemed very pleased by this and as I watched I also became pleased.

I now had a way to unravel the secret of the sword blades.

The woman and the child finished their snack and moved on. I sat on the bench thinking about my solution to the problem, thinking through the computer techniques necessary to implement it. I took a scrap of paper and a pen from my pocket and tried sketching out my solution to see if I was right. I was so immersed that I didn’t notice the two men walking up the path towards me.

As they came close, I glanced up and dropped the pen and paper. It was my two Yakuza pursuers, back again and mad. The tall one let fly with a fist to my head. I’d like to say my catlike reflexes allowed me to avoid the blow, but the only cat my reflexes match is the chubby cartoon character Garfield. I did manage to move my head enough so the blow was just glancing, but it still hurt. A lot.

I tried twisting away but the tall guy grabbed the sleeve of my jacket so I couldn’t run. Sitting on a bench is not the best fighting posture, but it does have the advantage of leaving your legs free to kick. Leaning over, I brought my right leg up between the legs of the shorter man. I connected hard, actually lifting him off the ground slightly. The enthusiasm for the fight drained from his face, along with most of his blood. He grabbed his crotch and doubled over.

The taller man was still active and threw another punch at me. I raised my arm to block it and was too slow. It hit me in the chest so hard that tears formed in my eyes. My assailant was too close to kick, so I tried to return the compliment with some punches of my own. He was able to easily block my off-balanced flailing and the SOB actually smiled at my attempts to defend myself. A gold front tooth glinted back at me through my tear-stained vision.

He yanked at my jacket to get me in position for another shot at my head and managed to pull me off the bench. I fell to the earth with a hard thump to my shoulder. I knew what was probably coming next, and I was already rolling away when he drew back his leg to kick me.

I managed to roll under the bench. I’d like to say my tormentor hurt his leg by kicking the bench, but he saw what I was doing and quickly crossed over to the other side of the bench to kick me from that side. Naturally, I reversed my direction and rolled under the bench the other way.

He barked an order to the shorter man and once again came around the bench to kick me. I changed direction again, rolling to put the bench between us for protection.

I don’t know how long I could have kept up my impression of a rolling log, but I did know that as soon as the other thug recovered from my kick to the gonads, my little game would be over. The tall guy would get on one side of the bench and the short one would get on the other. I’d be the piece of meat caught in the middle, and a stomping by two pissed-off gangsters is not how I pictured my trip to Japan ending.

The old man at the concession stand shouted something at the two thugs. The taller man once again came around the bench, forcing me to reverse direction. If I continued rolling, I’d never be able to get to my feet, but if I stopped rolling, I was sure I’d get a well-placed kick to my head or ribs.

The old man at the snack stand gave a second shout. From under the bench I could see the old man running from the stand towards the fight. He ran with a rolling, bowlegged gait, like a sailor on a tossing ship. Under other circumstances, it would have been comical. The old man was waving a knife. It was a short kitchen knife, probably used for slicing steamed buns. Despite the knife, the two Yakuza didn’t take flight. Instead, the tall man quickly turned around and faced the approaching snack stand owner, growling something in Japanese. The old man slowed and then came to a stop, unsure about what he should do next.

The Yakuza then stared down at me. I looked up at him through the slats of the bench seat. He pointed a finger at me and said in heavily accented English, “Leave swords alone!” I blinked at him in surprise. I heard a noise behind me and glanced over my shoulder to see the shorter man starting to shuffle towards me, still clutching his crotch.

“Leave swords alone!” the tall man roared. I turned my attention to him and nodded vigorously. At my affirmative nod, the man grunted and repeated, “Leave swords alone.” I nodded even more vigorously and said, “Hai.”

The man nodded, looked at the smaller man and said something. The smaller man argued with the tall man, but the tall man seemed in charge. I don’t know what they said, but I got a hint as the smaller man aimed a kick at me that landed on my hip instead of a more delicate part of my anatomy. The small guy wanted revenge.

Instead, he obeyed orders and the men started moving away from the bench, one man backing up and the other sort of shuffling as he continued to hold on to his crotch.

At the retreat of the thugs, the old man came up to the bench and peered down at me. He looked concerned and said something in Japanese.

Now that the shock of the attack was over, the pain was more noticeable and it was with great effort that I was able to roll out from underneath the bench and get to my feet. Despite the pain, I was more embarrassed than hurt.

“Arigato,” I said, thanking the old man. I tried to think of a more polite way of saying thank you, but the phrases wouldn’t come to mind. “Arigato,” I repeated. The old man was saying something in Japanese, but I didn’t understand.

“I’m staying at the hotel. Hotel,” I said, pointing towards the Imperial. I couldn’t remember the Japanese name for it. The old man nodded his understanding, and started to help me hobble towards the hotel. After a few steps, I stopped and shook off the old man’s hand.

“No, thank you. I don’t think I need you to help me get back to the hotel.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wallet. I took out a fistful of Japanese bills and thrust them towards the old man. The old man shook his head no. He shoved the money back at me.

“Okay, I understand,” I said. “Thank you for your help. Arigato.” I hobbled towards the hotel with the old man staring after me.

During Vietnam, the federal government and U.S. Army spent a lot of money on me in an effort to turn me into a fighting machine. Because of a back injury, I spent less than three weeks in Vietnam, so the government didn’t get its money’s worth. Now, over twenty years later, I wish I had paid more attention to the hand-to-hand combat part of the training.

I stopped. Then I returned to the bench as fast as my sore body would let me so I could recover my note on how to solve the problem with the blades. Of course, I had no intention of keeping my promise to those SOBs to stay away from the swords.