Year's Best Science Fiction 01 # 1984 Page 16

  Ikimoto blanched and started to scream. As he did, he lifted into the air as if chopped in the chest with an ax, arms and legs flailing, a wail of revulsion coming from his emptied lungs.

  He passed the bales marking the edge of the ring—one foot dragging the ground, upending a boundary bale—and smashed to the ground between the ring and the bales at the plastic walls.

  The referee signaled Killer Kudzu the winner. As he squatted the gyoji offered him a small envelope signifying a cash prize from his sponsors. Kudzu, left hand on his knee, with his right hand made three chopping gestures from the left, right, and above—thanking man, earth, and heaven. Kudzu took the envelope, then stepped through the doorway of the plastic enclosure and left the arena to rejoin the other west-side wrestlers.

  The audience of eleven thousand was on its feet as one, cheering. Across Japan and around the world, two hundred million viewers watched television.

  Ground Sloth Ikimoto had risen to his feet, bowed, and left by the other door. Attendants rushed in to repair the damaged ring. Man-Mountain Gentian looked up at the scoring clock. The entire match had taken a mere 4.1324 seconds.

  It was three-twenty in the afternoon on the fourteenth day of the Tokyo invitational tournament.

  The next match would pit Cast Iron Pekowski of Poland against the heavily favored Hokkaidan, Typhoon Takanaka.

  After that would be Gentian’s bout with the South African, Knockdown Krugerrand. Man-Mountain Gentian stood at 13-0 in the tournament, having defeated an opponent each day so far. He wanted to retire as the first Grand champion to win six tournaments in a row, undefeated. He was not very worried about his contest with Knockdown Krugerrand slated for this afternoon.

  Tomorrow, though, the last day of the January tournament would be Killer Kudzu, who after this match also stood undefeated at 14-0.

  Man-Mountain Gentian was 1.976 meters tall and weighed exactly two hundred kilos. He had been a sumotori for six years, had been yokozuna for the last two of those. He was twice holder of the Emperor’s Cup. He was the highest paid, most famous Zen-sumotori in the world.

  He was twenty-three years old.

  He and Knockdown Krugerrand finished their shikiris. They got on their marks. The gyoji flipped his fan.

  The match was over in 3.1916 seconds. He helped Krugerrand to his feet, accepted the envelope and the thunderous applause of the crowd, and left the reverberating plastic enclosure.

  “You are the wife of Man-Mountain Gentian?” asked a voice next to her.

  Melissa put on her public smile and turned to the voice. Her nephew, on the other side, leaned around to look.

  The man talking to her had five stars tattooed to his forehead. She knew he was a famous sumotori, though he was very slim and his chon-mage had been combed out and washed, and his hair was now a fluffy explosion above his head.

  “I am Killer Kudzu,” he said. “I’m surprised you weren’t at the tournament.”

  “I am here with my nephew, Hari. Hari, this is Mr. Killer Kudzu.” The nephew, dressed in his winter Little League outfit, shook hands firmly. “His team, the Mitsubishi Zeroes, will play the Kawasaki Claudes next game.”

  They paused while a foul ball caused great excitement a few rows down the bleachers. Hari made a stab for it, but some construction foreman of a father came up grinning triumphantly with the ball.

  “And what position do you play?” asked Killer Kudzu.

  “Utility outfield. When I get to play,” said Hari sheepishly, averting his eyes and sitting back down.

  “Oh. How’s your batting average?”

  “Pretty bad. One twenty-three for the year,” said Hari.

  “Well, maybe this will be the night you shine,” Killer Kudzu said with a smile.

  “I hope so,” said Hari. “Half our team has the American flu.”

  “Just the reason I’m here,” said Kudzu. “I was to meet a businessman whose son was to play this game. I find him not to be here, as his son has the influenza also.”

  It was hot in the domed stadium, and Kudzu insisted they let him buy them Sno-Kones. Just as the vendor got to them, Hari’s coach signaled, and the nephew ran down the bleachers and followed the rest of his teammates into the warm-up area under the stadium.

  Soon the other lackluster game was over, and Hari’s team took the field.

  The first batter for the Kawasaki Claudes, a twelve year old built like an orangutan, got up and smashed a line drive off the Mitsubishi Zeroes’ third baseman’s chest. The third baseman had been waving to his mother. They carried him into the dugout. Melissa soon saw him up yelling again.

  So it went through three innings. The Claudes had the Zeroes down by three runs, 6-3.

  In the fourth inning, Hari took right field, injuries having whittled the flu-ridden team down to the third-stringers.

  One of the Kawasaki Claudes hit a high looping fly straight to right field. Hari started in after it, but something happened with his feet; he fell, and the ball dropped a meter from his outstretched glove. The center fielder chased it down and made the relay, and by a miracle they got the runner sliding into home plate. He took out the Zeroes’ catcher doing it.

  “It doesn’t look good for the Zeroes,” said Melissa.

  “Oh, things must get better,” said Killer Kudzu. “Didn’t you know? The opera’s not over till the fat lady sings.”

  “A diva couldn’t do much worse out there,” said Melissa.

  “They still don’t like baseball in my country,” he said. “Decadent. Bourgeois, they say. As if anything could be more decadent and middle-class than China.”

  “Yet, you wear the flag?” She pointed toward the tatoo on his head.

  “Let’s just call it a gesture to former greatness,” he said.

  Bottom of the seventh, last inning in Little League. The Zeroes had the bases loaded, but they incurred two outs in the process. Hari came up to bat.

  Things were tense. The infield was back, ready for the force-out. The outfielders were nearly falling down from tension.

  The pitcher threw a blistering curve that got the outside. Hari was caught looking.

  From the dugout the manager’s voice saying unkind things carried to the crowd.

  Eight thousand people were on their feet.

  The pitcher wound up and threw.

  Hari started a swing that should have ended in a grounder or a pop-up. Halfway through, it looked as if someone had speeded up a projector. The leisurely swing blurred.

  Hari literally threw himself to the ground. The bat cracked and broke neatly in two at his feet.

  The ball, a frozen white streak, whizzed through the air and hit the scoreboard one hundred ten meters away with a terrific crash, putting the inning indicator out of commission.

  Everyone was stock-still. Hari was staring. Every player was turned toward the scoreboard.

  “It’s a home run, kid,” the umpire reminded Hari.

  Slowly, unbelieving, Hari began to trot toward first base.

  The place exploded, fans jumping to their feet. Hari’s teammates on the bases headed for home. The dugout emptied, waiting for him to round third.

  The Claudes stood dejected. The Zeroes climbed all over Hari.

  “I didn’t know you could do that more than once a day,” said Melissa, her eyes narrowed.

  “Who, me?” asked Kudzu.

  “You’re perverting your talent,” she said.

  “We’re not supposed to be able to do that more than once every twenty-four hours,” said Kudzu, flashing a smile.

  “I know that’s not true, at least really,” said Melissa.

  “Oh, yes. You are married to a sumotori, aren’t you?”

  Melissa blushed.

  “The kid seemed to feel bad enough about that fly ball he dropped in the fourth inning. Besides, it’s just a game.”

  At home plate, Hari’s teammates congratulated him, slapping him on the back.

  The game was over, the scoreboard said 7-6, and the t
echnicians were already climbing over the inning indicator.

  Melissa rose. “I have to go pick up Hari. I suppose I will see you at the tournament tomorrow.”

  “How are you getting home?” asked Killer Kudzu.

  “We walk. Hari lives near.”

  “It’s snowing.”

  “Oh.”

  “Let me give you a ride. My electric vehicle is outside.”

  “That would be nice. I live several kilometers away from—”

  “I know where you live, of course.”

  “Fine, then.”

  Hari ran up. “Aunt Melissa! Did you see? I don’t know what happened! I just felt, I don’t know, I just hit it!”

  “That was wonderful.” She smiled at him. Killer Kudzu was looking up, very interested in the stadium support structure.

  The stable in which Man-Mountain Gentian trained was being entertained that night. That meant that the wrestlers would have to do all the entertaining.

  Even at the top of his sport, Man-Mountain had never gotten used to the fans. Their kingly prizes, their raucous behavior at matches, their donations of gifts, clothing, vehicles, and in some cases houses and land to their favorite wrestlers. It was all appalling to him.

  It was a carryover from traditional sumo, he knew. But Zen-sumo had become a worldwide, not just a national, sport. Many saved for years to come to Japan to watch the January or May tournaments. People here in Japan sometimes sacrificed at home to be able to contribute toward new kesho-mawashis, elaborate, heavy brocade and silk aprons used in the wrestlers’ ring-entering ceremonies.

  Money, in this business, flowed like water, appearing in small envelopes in the mail, in the locker room, after feasts such as the one tonight.

  Once a month Man-Mountain Gentian gathered them all up and took them to his accountant, who had instructions to give it all, above a certain princely level, away to charity. Other wrestlers had more, or less, or none of the same arrangements. Their tax men never seemed surprised by whatever wrestlers reported.

  He entered the club. Things were already rocking. One of the hostesses took his shoes and coat. She had to put the overcoat over her shoulders to carry it into the cloakroom.

  The party was a haze of blue smoke, dishes, bottles, businessmen, wrestlers, and funny paper hats. Waitresses came in and out with more food. Three musicians played unheard on a raised dais at one side of the room.

  Someone was telling a snappy story. The room exploded with laughter.

  “Ah!” said someone. “Yokozuna Gentian has arrived.”

  Man-Mountain bowed deeply. They made two or three places for him at the low table. He saw that several of the host party were Americans. Probably one or more were from the CIA.

  They and the Russians were still trying to perfect Zen-sumo as an assassination weapon. They offered active and retired sumotori large amounts of money in an effort to get them to develop their powers in some nominally destructive form. So far, no one he knew of had. There were rumors about the Brazilians, however.

  He could see it now, a future with premiers, millionaires, presidents, and paranoids in all walks of life wearing wire-mesh clothing and checking their Eveready batteries before going out each morning.

  He had been approached twice by each side. He was sometimes followed. They all were. People in governments simply did not understand.

  He began to talk, while sake flowed, with Cast Iron Pekowski. Pekowski, now 12-2 for the tournament, had graciously lost his match with Typhoon Takanaka. (There was an old saying: In a tournament, no one who won more than nine matches ever beat an opponent who has lost seven. That had been the case with Takanaka. Eight was the number of wins needed to maintain current ranking.)

  “I could feel him going,” said Pekowski, in Polish. “I think we should talk to him about the May tournament.”

  “Have you mentioned this to his stablemaster?”

  “I thouht of doing so after the tournament. I was hoping you could come with me to see him.”

  “I’ll be just another retired wrestler by then.”

  “Takanaka respects you above all the others. Your dampatsu-shiki ceremony won’t be for another two weeks. They won’t have cut off all your hair yet. And while we’re at it, I still wish you would change your mind.”

  “Perhaps I could be Takanaka’s dew sweeper and carry his ceremonial cloth for him when he enters his last tournament. I would be honored.”

  “Good! You’ll come with me then, Friday morning?”

  “Yes.”

  The hosts were much drunker than the wrestlers. Nayakano the stablemaster was feeling no pain but still remained upright. Mounds of food were being consumed. A businessman tried to grab-ass a waitress. This was going to become every bit as nasty as all such parties.

  “A song! A song!” yelled the head of the fan club, a businessman in his sixties. “Who will favor us with a song?”

  Man-Mountain Gentian got to his feet, went over to the musicians. He talked with the samisen player. Then he stood facing his drunk, attentive audience.

  How many of these parties had he been to in his career? Two, three hundred? Always the same, drunkenness, discord, braggadocio on the part of the host clubs. Some fans really loved the sport, some lived vicariously through it. He would not miss the parties. But as the player began the tune he realized this might be the last party he would have to face.

  He began to sing:

  “I met my lover by still Lake Biwa

  just before Taira war banners flew …”

  And so on through all six verses, in a clear, pure voice belonging to a man half his size.

  They stood and applauded him, some of the wrestlers in the stable looking away, as only they, not even the stablemaster, knew of his retirement plans and what this party probably meant.

  He went to the stablemaster, who took him to the club host, made apologies concerning the tournament and a slight cold, shook hands, bowed, and went out into the lobby, where the hostess valiantly brought him his shoes and overcoat. He wanted to help her, but she reshouldered the coat grimly and brought it to him.

  He handed her a tip and signed the autograph she asked for.

  It had begun to snow outside. The neon made the sky a swirling, multicolored smudge. Man-Mountain Gentian walked through the quickly emptying streets. Even the ever-present taxis scurried from the snow like roaches from a light. His home was only two kilometers away. He liked the falling snow, the quietness of the city in times such as these.

  “Shelter for a stormy night?” asked a ragged old man on a corner. Man-Mountain Gentian stopped.

  “Change for shelter for an old man?” asked the beggar again, looking very far up at Gentian’s face.

  Man-Mountain Gentian reached in his pocket and took out three or four small, ornate paper envelopes that had been thrust on him as he left the club.

  The old man took them, opened one. Then another and another.

  “There must be more than eight hundred thousand yen here,” he said, very quietly and very slowly.

  “I suggest either the Imperial or the Hilton,” said Gentian, then the wrestler turned and walked away.

  The old man laughed, then straightened himself with dignity, stepped to the curb, and imperiously summoned an approaching pedicab.

  Melissa was not home.

  He turned on the entry light as he took off his shoes. He passed through the sparsely furnished, low living room, turned off the light at the other switch.

  He went to the bathroom, put depilatory gel on his face, wiped it off.

  He went to the kitchen, picked up half a ham, ate it, washing it down with three liters of milk. He returned to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, went to the bedroom, unrolled his futon, and placed his cinder block at the head of it.

  He punched a button on the hidden tape deck, and an old recording of Kimio Eto playing “Rukodan” on the koto quietly filled the house.

  The only decoration in the sleeping room was Shuncho’s print The S
trongest and the Most Fair, showing a theater-district beauty and a sumotori three times her size: it was hanging on the far wall.

  He turned off the light. Instantly the silhouettes of falling snowflakes showed through the paper walls of the house, cast by the strong streetlight outside. He watched the snowflakes fall as he listened to the music, and he was filled with mono no aware for the transience of beauty in the world.

  Man-Mountain Gentian pulled up the puffed cotton covers, put his head on the building block, and drifted off to sleep.

  They had let Hari off at his house. The interior of the runabout was warm. They were drinking coffee in the near-empty parking lot of Tokyo Sonic #113.

  “I read somewhere you were an architect,” said Killer Kudzu.

  “Barely,” said Melissa.

  “Would you like to see Kudzu House?” he asked.

  For an architect, it was like being asked to one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s vacation homes or one of the birdlike buildings designed by Eero Saarinen in the later twentieth century. Melissa considered.

  “I should call home first,” she said after a moment.

  “I think your husband will still be at the Nue Vue Club, whooping it up with the money men.”

  “You’re probably right. I’ll call him later. I’d love to see your house.”

  The old man lay dying on his bed.

  “I see you finally heard,” he said. His voice was tired. Man-Mountain Gentian had not seen him in seven years. He had always been old, but he had never looked this old, this weak.

  Dr. Wu had been his mentor. He had started him on the path toward Zen-sumo (though he did not know it at the time). Dr. Wu had not been one of those cryptic koan-spouting quiet men. He had been boisterous, laughing, playing with his pupils, yelling at them, whatever was needed to get them to see.

  There had been the occasional letter from him. Now, for the first time, there was a call in the middle of the night.

  “I’m sorry,” said Man-Mountain Gentian. “It’s snowing outside.”