The Fifth Profession

details.

One item that attracted obsessive attention was the discovery of a diary that Shirai had kept. As he'd said to Savage and Akira, he intended to create a legend, convinced that the nation would talk about it for a thousand years. Of course, in his diary Shirai did not reveal the lie at the core of the legend. Instead he attempted to bolster the legend by comparing himself to great historical figures, to Japanese heroes who'd so boldly altered the course of their nation's history that they'd achieved the magnificence of myth. Shirai's intention had evidently been to release the diary shortly before or after his death, so his followers could revere his written legacy just as they worshiped his kami.

The hero whom Shirai most identified with was Oshio Heihachiro, a political activist in the nineteenth century. Outraged by the poverty of the lower classes, Oshio had organized a revolt, so committed to his cause that he'd sold his belongings to buy swords and firearms for starving farmers. In 1837, his rebels sacked and burned rich estates. The city of Osaka was soon in flames. However, the authorities managed to defeat the revolt. Oshio's followers were executed, but only after being tortured. Oshio himself was caught and avoided dishonor by committing seppuku.

Shirai's decision to compare himself with this particular hero seemed puzzling at first, and Shirai admitted as much in his diary. After all, Oshio's rebellion, though brave, had ended in defeat. But Shirai went on to explain that the cause for which Oshio sacrificed his life had consequences of which Shirai greatly approved. After Commodore Perry's “black ships” anchored in Yokohama Bay in 1853, a new generation of rebels protested America 's demand that Japan lift its cultural quarantine and allow foreigners to import mechandise, to become a satellite of the West. Inspired by Oshio's principles, these new rebels reaffirmed the cultural purity of the Tokugawa Shogunate. They insisted on the mystical uniqueness of their nation, their god-ordained nihonjinron, their divine Japaneseness bequeathed to them by the sun goddess, Amaterasu. Warriors, masterless samurai who called themselves shishi, swore to expel all intruding foreigners and in some cases slaughtered Western settlers. Shirai emphasized deceitfully in his diary that he didn't advocate bloodshed but rather an overwhelming political movement in which the Force of Amaterasu would accomplish the dream of Oshio's later followers, “Expel the barbarians,” and return Japan to Japan.

When put in this context, Oshio did seem the proper hero for Shirai to emulate. But there were ironic disturbing implications that Shirai either didn't recognize or didn't want to admit, for his diary abruptly changed topic and described its author's patriotic zeal in conceiving, organizing, and unleashing the Force of Amaterasu, which his diary took for granted would be successful. The implications that Shirai's diary ignored were that Oshio's later followers had taken their dead leader's principles-”Feed the poor”-to such an extreme that “Expel the barbarians” and “Keep Japan pure” became synonymous with “Revere the emperor.” Since 1600, the Tokugawa Shogunate had insisted on keeping the emperor in the background, in Kyoto, far from the shogun's center of power in what is now called Tokyo. But the zealots, who unwittingly perverted Oshio's intentions, so identified their Japaneseness with the former sanctity of the imperial institution that they insisted on reinstating it, on bringing the emperor from Kyoto to the shogun's capital, and on reaffirming him as a symbol of the greatness of Japan.

Thus in 1867 the Meiji Restoration occurred. After more than two and a half centuries, the Tokugawa Shogunate fell, and calculating bureaucrats realized that they could benefit financially and politically from this amazing shift in power. Secluding, surrounding, and above all controlling the emperor and his attitudes, they embraced what they saw as the lucrative pronationalistic consequences of Commodore Perry's “black ships.” In the words of Masayoshi Hotta, who'd seen the future in 1857, four years after the “black ships” arrived:

I am therefore convinced that our policy should be to stake everything on the present opportunity, to conclude friendly alliances, to send ships to foreign countries everywhere and conduct trade, to copy the foreigners where they are at their best, and so repair our shortcomings, to foster our national strength and complete our armaments, and so gradually subject the foreigners to our influence until in the end all the countries of the world know the blessings of perfect tranquillity and our hegemony is acknowledged throughout the globe.

Shirai-attempting to change history-had been blind to it. Akira, though, had recognized the truth. As he'd told Savage en route to their destiny at Shirai's mountaintop retreat, “We can try to learn from history, but it's impossible to reverse its trend.” In other words, we move forward, Savage thought. Relentlessly. We can try to build on the past, but the present-a wedge between then and soon-makes all the difference, contributes new factors, guarantees that soon will be different from then.

We can never go back, he sadly concluded, recalling the innocent happiness of his youth and the night his father shot himself. But what does that say about ambition, hope, and especially love? Are they pointless, doomed to fail? Because the present emerges, is programmed by, but at a certain point is divorced from the past… and the future is by definition a change, controlled by unanticipated circumstances?

Jamais vu. Deja vu.

False memory. Disinformation.

For months, I relived a past that wasn't true, he thought.

I then confronted a present that seemed to replay the past. But with a difference. Yes… Savage swallowed… Akira died. (Dear God, how much I miss him.) But his death was not an exact replication of my nightmare. He was…

Beheaded. Yes.

And his head struck the floor, rolled toward me, and blinked.

(How much I miss him.)

But before his body toppled, his lifeless hands gave me the sword.

It wasn't the same! It wasn't the past!

So maybe we can reverse, change, alter, correct what's behind us.

But in that case, the past was a lie. It never happened. It was all a damned trick played on our memory.

Isn't everything? Remember what you read in the book Dr. Santizo gave you. Memory isn't a year ago, a month ago, a day ago. It's a second ago, as the past becomes the present, about to change to the future. I'm trapped in my mind, in my momentary perceptions. The past can't be proved. The future's a mystery. I exist forever now. Until I'm dead.

So what about hope and love? What about Rachel? What about…?

Tomorrow? Will my dreams collapse, my hopes fall apart, my love dissolve?

I don't think so.

Because Rachel knows the truth. She's told me often enough.

Abraham believed.

By virtue of the absurd.

The alternative is unacceptable. As long as I act with good will-

– and I know there'll be pain, disasters-

– as long as I struggle forward-

– with good will-

– despite the disasters-

– despite the pain-

– with the help of God-

– by virtue of the absurd-

– I won't be fortune's hostage.

A COMPLICITY OF LIES

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