Shibumi by Trevanian Page A

expressed more economically, more angularly in the boy. Where will he find friends, this young man? Where will he find soil appropriate to his roots, this boy who speaks six languages and thinks in five, but who lacks the smallest fragment of useful training? Can there be a place in the world for him?
    “Sir?”
    “Yes? Oh… ah… Have you played, Nikko?”
    “Some time ago, sir.”
    “Ah, yes, Excuse me. And do you mind telling me where you played?”
    Nicholai pointed out his stone, and Kishikawa-san frowned because the unlikely placement had the taste of a
tenuki.
He marshaled his fragmented attention and examined the board carefully, mentally reviewing the outcome of each placement available to him. When he looked up, Nicholai’s bottle-green eyes were on him, smiling with relish. The game could be played on for several hours, and the outcome would be close. But it was inevitable that Nicholai would win. This was the first time.
    The General regarded Nicholai appraisingly for some seconds, then he laughed. “You are a demon, Nicholai.”
    “That is true, sir,” Nicholai admitted, enormously pleased with himself. “Your attention was wandering.”
    “And you took advantage of that?”
    “Of course.”
    The General began to collect his stones and return them to the
Gô ke.
“Yes,” he said to himself. “Of course.” Then he laughed again. “What do you say to a cup of tea, Nikko?” Kishikawa-san’s major vice was his habit of drinking strong, bitter tea at all hours of day and night. In the heraldry of their affectionate but reserved relationship, the offer of a cup of tea was the signal for a chat. While the General’s batman prepared the tea, they walked out into the cool night air of the veranda, both wearing
yukatas.
    After a silence during which the General’s eye wandered over the city, where the occasional light in the ancient walled town indicated that someone was celebrating, or studying, or dying, or selling herself, he asked Nicholai, seemingly apropos of nothing, “Do you ever think about the war?”
    “No, sir. It has nothing to do with me.”
    The egoism of youth. The confident egoism of a young man brought up in the knowledge that he was the last and most rarefied of a line of selective breeding that had its sources long before tinkers became Henry Fords, before coinchangers became Rothschilds, before merchants became Medici.
    “I am afraid, Nikko, that our little war is going to touch you after all.” And with this entrée, the General told the young man of the orders transferring him to combat, and of his plans to send Nicholai to Japan where he would live in the home of a famous player and teacher of Gô.
    “…my oldest and closest friend, Otake-san—whom you know by reputation as Otake of the Seventh
Dan.”
    Nicholai did indeed recognize the name. He had read Otake-san’s lucid commentaries on the middle game.
    “I have arranged for you to live with Otake-san and his family, among the other disciples of his school. It is a very great honor, Nikko.”
    “I realize that, sir. And I am excited about learning from Otake-san. But won’t he scorn wasting his instruction on an amateur?”
    The General chuckled. “Scorn is not a style of mind that my old friend would employ. Ah! Our tea is ready.”
    The batman had taken away the
Gô ban
of
kaya,
and in its place was a low table set for tea. The General and Nicholai returned to their cushions. After the first cup, the General sat back slightly and spoke in a businesslike tone. “Your mother had very little money as it turns out. Her investments were scattered in small local companies, most of which collapsed upon the eve of our occupation. The men who owned the companies simply returned to Britain with the capital in their pockets. It appears that, for the Westerner, the great moral crisis of war obscures minor ethical considerations. There is this house… and very little more. I have arranged to sell the house for you. The