The River. Part One. Chapter One

On the day he turned five, the world fractured.

Before that, it had been whole, warm, and had belonged to him entirely, just as the interior of a paper lantern belongs to the light of the candle. He had been the emperor of this little world, woven from the scent of tatami, the creak of floorboards, and the quiet voice of his mother humming a lullaby. Everything around him was an extension of himself: a ray of sunlight on the wall, an ant crawling along the veranda, the taste of a rice cake on his tongue.

The punishment arrived suddenly, like a summer thunderstorm. He did not remember his offense, only the sensation of sticky shame and the heat flooding his cheeks. He had broken a cup, perhaps. Or simply cried too loudly. His father entered the room, and his shadow fell across the floor, crossing out the square of sunlight. He did not shout. His voice was even and cold, like water in a winter well.

“You are no longer the emperor, Ichiro,” he said, and these words were not an explanation, but a verdict.

Little emperor — that was what they had always called him. From his first cry, from his first step. He had been the center of their little universe; the sun around which the planets of parental love revolved.

“There is only one Emperor,” his father continued. “His name is Hirohito. And you are his future warrior. His samurai.”

Ichiro looked at his mother. She sat in the corner, her eyes cast down, her hands folded in her lap like two frightened birds. She remained silent. And in her silence lay an agreement, firmer and more irrevocable than his father’s words. The world that had been his suddenly recoiled, became alien, acquired sharp, cold edges.

Then his father handed him a sword — his “gendaito.” It was made of pale, smoothly polished wood, yet it felt impossibly heavy. On the blade, along the hamon line, a clumsy yet diligent hand had burned the characters — a name he was only just learning to write. The name of the Emperor. The hilt of the sword was too large for his palm, cold and alien. He took it, and his fingers closed around the wood, but felt no warmth. For the first time, he sensed this coldness, emanating not from the object, but from within. The cold of loneliness.

He struggled to hold it, and the point jabbed into the mat.

“You will learn to hold it. The sword is the soul of a warrior,” his father said. “Every morning you will practice. A hundred swings. Without fail.”

“But I…”

The blow landed on his cheek — not hard, but sharp, like the crack of a whip. Ichiro did not cry. Not out of bravery, but out of astonishment. His father had never struck him before.

“A samurai does not say ‘but’,” his father’s voice was as even as the surface of water. “A samurai says ‘hai’. Do you understand?”

“Hai,” Ichiro whispered.

From that day on, everything changed. The games were over. The day was regimented like a military campaign map. Waking with the first rays of the sun. Dousing oneself with ice-cold water. Memorizing the names of ancestors and the feats of heroes. His father, a petty official with tired eyes and a back straight as a rod, saw in him not a son, but a project. The project of a loyal soldier whose life would be offered as a gift to the nation.

In the evenings, when the house fell silent, Ichiro lay on his futon and stared at the wooden sword standing by the wall. Moonlight glided along its blade, and the burned-in characters seemed to glow from within. The sword was his only confidant, his shadow, his future. I am no longer an emperor, he thought. I am a soldier.

Once, during a military parade to which his father had taken him, he saw a real gendaito. It hung at the belt of a handsome young officer with flawless bearing. The steel blade flashed in the sun, and this cold, lethal gleam blinded Ichiro. The steel, cold and perfect, with a bluish tint, shone like a winter sky before the snow. The hilt was wrapped in white ray skin, and the tsuba gleamed with dull gold. He realized: his wooden sword was but a pale copy, a larva. But this — steel, alive, capable of taking life — this was true, absolute beauty. A beauty that contained nothing superfluous — neither warmth, nor doubt, nor pity. Only the purity of function.

From that day on, his own wooden sword ceased to feel heavy and alien. It began to seem beautiful in its incompleteness. It was a promise of that ideal, steel beauty toward which his soul now yearned.

But back then, at night, he could still hear his mother crying softly behind the thin paper partition. And in the morning, she was once again silent and submissive, and her hands, handing him his bowl of rice, were as cold as the hilt of his wooden sword. Discipline became his second skin. It shielded him from pain, from thoughts, from his very self. And when he started school, it turned out he was better prepared for it than the others. He already knew how to keep silent, how to endure, and how to obey. He already knew how to be a sword.

Part One. Chapter Two →
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