The Diamond Chariot

THUS SPAKE TAMBA




Tamba said:

‘The sun will rise soon. Let’s go up on to the cliff, watch the dawn and talk.’

They went back to the spot where Masa was waiting, surly and offended. They changed their clothes.

Erast Petrovich had already realised why the old ninja didn’t kill him in the pavilion. It would have contradicted the story of the Don’s supposed natural death and cause problems for Shirota in taking the dead man’s place.

There was only one thing he could do now: try to save Masa.

Calling his servant off to one side, the titular counsellor handed him a note and told him to run to Doronin at the consulate as fast as his legs would carry him.

Tamba observed this scene impassively – he was obviously certain that Masa would not escape from him anyway.

Probably that was it. But the note said: ‘Send my servant to the embassy immediately, his life is in danger’. Doronin was an intelligent and reliable man – he would do it. Tamba probably wouldn’t bother to break into a foreign embassy in order to kill a witness who was not really all that much of a threat. And in the final analysis, the jonin had only one assistant now.

So that Masa would not suspect anything was amiss, Erast Petrovich smiled at him cheerily.

His servant stopped sulking straight away, replied with a beaming smile of his own and exclaimed something in a joyful voice.

‘He is happy that his master is smiling,’ Dan translated. ‘He says that vengeance has done his master good. He is very sorry for Midori-san, of course, but there will be other women.’

Then Masa ran off to carry out his errand, and they let Dan go too.

The two of them were left alone.

‘There is a good view from over there,’ said the jonin, pointing to a high cliff with white breakers foaming at its foot.

They started walking up a narrow path: the shinobi in front, the titular counsellor behind.

Erast Petrovich was almost half as tall again as him, he had his trusty Herstal lying in its holster and his adversary was even standing with his back to him, but Fandorin knew that against this lean little old man he was as helpless as a baby. The jonin could kill him at any moment.

Well, let him, thought Erast Petrovich. Death didn’t frighten him. Or even interest him very much.

They sat side by side on the edge of the cliff, with their legs dangling.

‘Of course, watching the dawn on the edge of the precipice was much better.’ Tamba sighed, no doubt remembering his ruined house. ‘But here there is the sea.’

Just then the sun peeped over the edge of the world, transforming the watery plain into a steppe blazing with wildfire.

Despite himself, the titular counsellor felt something like gratitude – he was going to be killed beautifully. No doubt about it, the Japanese were connoisseurs when it came to death.

‘There’s just one thing I don’t understand,’ he said, without looking at his companion. ‘Why am I still alive?’

Tamba said:

‘She had two requests. The first was for me not to kill you.’

‘And the second?’

‘To teach you the Way. If you wanted me to. I have kept my first promise, and I will keep the second. Even though I know that our Way is not for you.’

‘I don’t want your Way, thank you very much,’ Fandorin said with a sideways glance at the jonin, not sure whether he could trust him. What if this was just another Jesuitical trick? A simple movement of his elbow, and the vice-consul would go flying down on to the sharp rocks below. ‘A fine Way it is, built on villainy and deception.’

Tamba said:

‘I brought you here so that you could see the departure of darkness and the arrival of light. But I should have brought you at sunset, when the opposite happens. Tell me, which is better, sunrise or sunset?’

‘A strange question,’ Fandorin said with a shrug. ‘They are both natural events, essential phenomena of nature.’

‘Precisely. The world consists of Light and Darkness. Of Good and Evil. The man who adheres to Good alone is unfree, he is restricted, like a traveller who only dares to travel by the bright light of day, or a ship that can only sail with a fair wind. The man who is truly strong and free is the one who is not afraid to wander through a dark thicket at night. That dark thicket is the world in all its completeness, it is the human soul with all its contradictions. Do you know about Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhism?’

‘Yes, I have heard about that. The Hinayana, or Lesser Vehicle, is when a man seeks to save himself through self-improvement. The Mahayana, or Greater Vehicle, is when you seek to save the whole of m-mankind, or something of the sort.’

Tamba said:

‘In reality these two vehicles are the same. They both call on men to live only by the laws of Good. They are intended for ordinary, weak people – in other words they are one-sided, incomplete. A strong man has no need to restrict himself to the Good, he does not need to squeeze one eye tight shut to avoid accidentally seeing something terrible.’

Tamba said:

‘There is a third vehicle, and the privilege of mounting it is granted only to a small number of the elect. It is called Kongojyo, the Diamond Chariot, because it is as strong as diamond. We Stealthy Ones are riders in the Diamond Chariot. To ride in it means to live by the rules of the entire creation, including Evil. And that is the same as living without rules and contrary to the rules: the Way of the Diamond Chariot is the Way to truth through comprehension of the laws of Evil. It is a secret teaching for the initiated, who are willing to make any sacrifices in order to discover themselves.’

Tamba said:

‘The Way of the Diamond Chariot teaches that the Greater World, which is the world of a man’s soul, is incomparably more important than the Lesser World, which is the world of human relations. In actual fact, sacrificing yourself for the sake of others is the worst possible crime in the eyes of the Buddha. A man is born, lives and dies face to face with God alone. Everything else is merely visions created by a Higher Power in order to subject a man to tests. The great religious teacher Shinran stated: “Reflecting profoundly on the will of the Buddha Amida, I shall find that the whole of creation was conceived for me alone”.’

Tamba said:

‘Ordinary people are torn between the illusory world of human relations and the real world of the free soul, and constantly betray the latter in the name of the former. We Stealthy Ones are able to distinguish diamond from coal. All things exalted by ordinary morality are mere empty words to us. Killing is not a sin, deception is not a sin, cruelty is not a sin, if they are necessary in order to race on along the appointed Way in the Diamond Chariot. To riders in the Diamond Chariot, the crimes for which riders in the Greater and Lesser Chariots are cast down into hell are merely the means to attaining Buddha nature.’

The titular counsellor had to protest at that:

‘If human relations are nothing for you diamond riders and deception is no sin, why keep your word to someone who is no longer among the living? What does it matter if you did promise your daughter? Treachery is a virtue for you, is it not? Kill me, and it’s all over and done with. Why waste time on me, reading me sermons?’

Tamba said:

‘You are right and wrong at the same time. Right, because to break the promise given to my dead daughter would be to act correctly, it would raise me to a higher level of freedom. And wrong because Midori was more than a daughter to me. She was an Initiate, my companion in the Diamond Chariot. This chariot is cramped, those who ride in it must follow certain rules – but only in relation to each other. Otherwise we will start jostling each other with our elbows, and the Chariot will overturn. That is the only law by which we abide. It is much stricter than the ten commandments that the Buddha proclaimed for ordinary weak people. Our rules say: If a companion in the Chariot has asked you to die, then do it; even if he has asked you to jump out of the Chariot, do it – otherwise you will not reach the Destination to which you aspire. What is Midori’s little whim in comparison with this?’

‘I am a little whim,’ Erast Petrovich muttered.

Tamba said:

‘It is not important what you believe in and what you dedicate your life to. That does not matter to the Buddha. What is important is to be faithful to your calling – that is the essential thing, because then you are faithful to yourself, which means you are also faithful to the Buddha. We shinobi serve a client for money and, if necessary, we willingly give our lives – but not for the sake of money, and even less for the sake of the client, whom we often despise. We are faithful to Fidelity and we serve Service. Everyone around us is warm or hot, we alone are always cold, but our icy chill scorches more powerfully than fire.’

Tamba said:

‘I will tell you a true legend about something said by Buddha, one which is known only to a few initiates. The Supreme One once appeared to the bodhisattvas and told them: “If you kill living things, excel in falsehood, consume excrement and wash it down with urine – only then will you become Buddha. If you fornicate with your mother, sister and daughter and commit a thousand other atrocities, there is an exalted place in store for you in the kingdom of the Buddha”. The virtuous bodhisattvas were horrified by these words, they trembled and fell to the ground.’

‘And they did right!’ Fandorin observed.

‘No. They did not understand what the Supreme One was talking about.’

‘Well, what was he talking about?’

‘About the fact that Good and Evil do not really exist. The first commandment in both your religion and ours is: Do not kill. Tell me, is it good or bad to kill?’

‘Bad.’

‘And to kill a tigress that has attacked a child, is that good or bad?’

‘Good.’

‘Good for whom? For the child, or for the tigress and her cubs? This is what the Buddha was expounding to the holy beings. Surely, under a certain set of circumstances, the actions that He listed, which seemed so vile to the bodhisattvas, can be an expression of supreme nobility or self-sacrifice? Think before you answer.’

The titular counsellor thought.

‘Probably they can …’

Tamba said:

‘And if this is so, of what great value is a commandment that restrains Evil? There must be someone to possess complete mastery of the art of Evil, so that it will be transformed from a fearsome enemy into an obedient slave.’

Tamba said:

‘The Diamond Chariot is the Way for those who live by murder, theft and all the other mortal sins, but still do not lose hope of attaining Nirvana. There cannot be many of us, but we must exist and we always do. The world needs us, and the Buddha does not forget us. We are as much His servants as all the others. We are the knife with which He cuts the umbilical cord, and the nail with which He tears the scab off the body.’

‘No!’ Erast Petrovich exclaimed. ‘I don’t agree with you! You have chosen the way of Evil, because that is what you wanted for yourself. It is not what God wants!’

Tamba said:

‘I did not promise to persuade you, I promised to explain. I told my daughter: He is not one of the chosen. You will not attain the Greater knowledge, you will be confined to the Lesser. I shall do what I promised Midori. You will come to me and I shall teach you, little by little, all that you are capable of mastering. That will be enough for you to pass for a strong man in the world of people of the West. Are you willing to learn?’

‘The Lesser Knowledge, yes. But I do not want your Greater Knowledge.’

‘Well then, so be it … To begin with, forget everything you have ever learned. Including what I have taught you before. We are only starting our real studies now. Let us start with the great art of kiai: how to focus and direct the spiritual energy of ki while maintaining the quiescence of the shin, which Western people call the soul. Look into my eyes and listen.’

Forget your reading.

Learn to read all things anew.

Thus spake the sensei





PS. THE LETTER WRITTEN AND BURNED BY THE PRISONER KNOWN AS THE ACROBAT 27 MAY 1905




Father,

It feels strange to call you that, for since I was a boy I have been used to addressing someone else, the man in whose house I grew up, as ‘father’.

Today I looked at you and recalled what I had been told about you by my grandfather, my mother and my adopted relatives.

My journey has reached its end. I have been faithful to my Way and walked it as I was taught, trying not to succumb to doubts. It is all the same to me how this war ends. I have not fought against your country. I have fought to overcome the obstacles which malicious Fate has raised up on the Path of my Chariot in order to test me. The most difficult test of all was the one at which the heart softens, but I have overcome even that.

I am not writing this letter out of sentimentality, but to fulfil a request from my late mother.

She once said to me: ‘In the world of Buddha there are many wonders, and it may happen that someday you will meet your father. Tell him that I wished to part from him beautifully, but your grandfather was adamant; “If you wish your gaijin to live, then do my bidding. He must see you dead and mutilated. Only then will he do what I require”. I did as he ordered, and it has tormented me for the rest of my life’.

I know this story, I have heard it many times – how my mother sheltered from the blast in a secret hiding place, how my grandfather dragged her out from under the rubble, how she lay on the funeral pyre with black clay daubed over half her face.

The only thing I do not know is the meaning of the phrase that my mother asked me to relay to you if a miracle were to happen and we should meet.

That phrase is this: YOU CAN LOVE.