Strokes of Deceit

By Kevin Farran

Growing up in war ravaged Tokyo, Ichiro and Taro were brothers of divergent character. Their hearts fell to the same girl, Sayuri, but her choice could fall to only one love. In the desperate days of the war both young men were thrust to the forefront to honor Imperial Japan. On an impulse, in a rush of madness, an innocent choice was made which led to decades of seething doubt. Duplicity, like truth will come out and when it does there is no mercy in the depth of its retribution.

A bushido tale of love, honor, brotherhood and... deceit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kevin Farran
• Release date: Apr 26, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386996873

Book preview

1

Above the South Pacific Ocean

The base of his skull cracked forward. The clunk was hard, like a gunshot yet not as crisp. Gunshot cracks with a sharpness that slices the air. No , Taro thought, this was more like the dull thud of a toothache or perhaps of a ship butting against its berth - a bit of humor . His breath drew slowly through his nostrils, the breath was placid and mature; it held the tranquility of old cedars watching over a temple. Strands of air rustling downwards refreshed him like the first lap of the ocean tide when it rushes over your feet, rippling and playing cool across your toes. The tang of sea spray, the salty taste of dried seaweed lingered on his lips from lunch. The commander had thrown a good departure, very honorable. The pride and excitement of a positive action echoed across the stark tablecloth and made the dried cuttlefish and sake all the sweeter. Taro remembered glancing over at his brother, Ichiro, he looked so proud and contained his tears of disappointment in having been denied his chance. Taro admired Ichiro’s ability to conceal his misfortune, but then that was what had always made the two brothers so vastly different. Ichiro’s ability to control his destiny and Taro’s desire to live his destiny.

He looked up to see the bottom of her fuselage, she was already insignificant, a gull in the distance. They were falling away from each other so rapidly. A torrent of emptiness opened between them. He had half hoped for a wave or acknowledgement, but obviously, that was not possible. She would have to run and conceal herself so she may make another delivery, if the opportunity arose.

He wasn’t lonely, it would be less than five minutes, and there was much to do, he felt as though time was passing slowly, not suspended, just wandering. It reminded him of hot summer days, along the Tama riverbank. He and Ichiro used to watch the lazy submerged reeds sleepily dance below the surface, waving at the scorching sun in their cool, wet world. In the sultry summer heat, even the incessant pulsing buzz of cicada can be an acute piercing cry, crystal clear, yet the mood is hazy and languorous.

Taro examined the small flight control panel immediately before his hands. The precise positioning of the three dials fitted snuggly into place, tight and secure in the tiny vibrating craft. The wood panel had been oiled and the glass on the dials meticulously polished. They must have worked through the night while he slept. A flash of regret at not having helped the mechanics crossed his mind. The care and attention applied by the crew to his cocoon-like world, over such a short time, had been excruciating for just one journey. It was an honor. The faces of the tired engineers running beside him, waving as he left, flashed through his mind. The pride welled up in their smiles, waving as their hours of labor embarked on destruction. His cradle was immaculate, there was not a smear or smudge of dust anywhere. The inside was sleek, silky, like a woman’s skin. His loins warmed at the memory of the only skin he had ever been honored to touch. Her neck was like waving summer wheat, cascading on the wind, flowing down like sleep between her small, firm breasts. They were like Satsuma oranges. The sweetness and juicy burst of the orange’s flesh flushed his taste buds, an orgasm of memory. Taro glanced at the photo of Sayuri he had taped to the right of the altimeter. She gazed back at him, a faint smile on her lips. Seeing her, he came alive. She was with him. Her music flowed from the photograph, each string of her precious koto vibrated a chord in his heart. Her laughter, like hot water, cascaded over him. It bathed him, baptized him. He felt the hot moist warmth of her belly as she rocked on top of him. He throbbed inside her, his mind spun with the hunger of her desires. She looked down at him, her smile parted in a dizzy ecstasy. She leaned forward, and he could smell her among the cherry blossoms, her breasts bobbled with her rocking. She gave all of herself, lost into him. The cherry blossoms gazed at her, envious of her passion. Her lips were salty, there were tears running down them. The tears wandered their small journey from her almond eyes over the dunes of her cheeks to encase their kiss. The one moment together was slow, as if their passion, welded deep between them, might erupt in a torrent contained within their one skin. One skin soaked in an orgasm of consuming, groaning desire.

The vibration in his hands grew stronger. The memory vanished. He knew he must hold on. He had to remain controlled, focused. His cocoon, once so silky, now seemed to blur. The shaking was hazing all that surrounded him. He took his gaze away from the photo and up, outward. Clouds wafted by, white and billowing. They must be the surf up here, he thought, rolling and churning. His world shuddered. He felt the enamel on his teeth clatter. He clenched down on them.

Initially, there had been no sound. After the thud of the release had jarred through him, he was adrift on a wave of nothingness. It was an absolute. He was floating, gliding effortlessly, blossom-like. The air embalmed him, yet he could slide through it, a child in a birth canal. The wind had built gradually. The rush of wind that had slipped shyly through to establish itself in his world now thundered through him. It intruded on his thoughts like a giant parasite. The force wanted to devour, consume his honor. The rage in its breath demanded attention and shook him out of his reverie.

He glanced up to see if anyone was nearby to notice or chronicle his journey. Only the sun lorded over him. It did not bless him—it burned him, yet it sheltered him and protected him. No one would know of his presence until he terrified them with his spirit.

His angle was correct. Only a small gray cloud lingered in front and sauntered toward him. The cloud seemed to hang motionless, inviting him on. His speed of almost two hundred miles per hour seared through the gray strands of the sleepy rain cloud, rupturing its tranquility. It was a cold and cruel shower. With no canopy, only the small windshield, his womb-like world became drenched. Water pooled in his crotch on the hard, wooden seat. It was cold, not hot, so at least he had not dishonored himself by pissing his trousers, though who would know.

The photo of Sayuri had become wet and fallen to the floor. It rested near his feet behind the canister that contained the rocket fuel. He tried to reach it but dared not let go as the shaking now tugged and rattled him. His elbows felt like jelly. He gripped the control shaft tighter. It anchored his purpose.

His velocity had cleaved the cloud, and now the howl in his ears welcomed him above the vast blue expanse below. He glanced around hoping to see one of the other eight bomb-laden petals plunging from the sky. There was only a lonely blue world. Focusing forward, he felt his goggles press hard beneath his eyes pulling the skin down making them dry. His eyes and intention pulled him forward. Was he able to blink?

He flicked the switch to engage the rockets to provide nine seconds of thrust. As the engine thundered the previous cold that had chilled through him was replaced with a hot flush. Taro saw the white threads of wake that welcomed his arrival. Which thread he thought. He tried to adjust his path for the largest wake and focused his nose and gaze steeper. At a plunge of fifty degrees, he was thrown against the harness that held his ardor in place. His teeth crunched into a solid block. His eyes were pressed against the glass of his goggles. The whine behind him ripped at his ears as heat from the engine blistered his skin.

He could see them scampering below. Insects. It must be what a sparrow sees when he gazes down searching for fodder. He glanced to find the picture of Sayuri but couldn’t. The scream of wind pierced his ears and eyes. Focus drew him closer to the windshield his face pulled by the increasing velocity.

He hurtled forward. A white flash caught his eye. A butterfly had become trapped inside the windshield. Its wings ripped by the wind. Then suddenly it vanished, torn from this world. He dashed his eyes forward to the massive gray metal bulk below. The aircraft carrier rushed at him.

2

Above the Pacific Ocean

The air was dry and dull. The monotonous hum of the plane reverberated in his head, as if a woolen cap encompassed his brain, pulled too tight, it suffocated his thoughts. The hum intruded, he felt he was in an old-fashioned upright washing machine. The wringer of the old washer squeezed his gray matter. He envisioned his thoughts slowly being pressed through the double wringer and with it his life spat out, dribbled into a pathetic, transpacific, seven-hour marathon.

Ryu hated flying.

The air, he was convinced, had been filtered through old socks, probably the pilot’s. Ryu glanced over at his children Reiko and Shaw, who were both glued to the television screen, their earphones isolating them from the oppression of the plane. How could they do that for hours on end? he wondered. The escape from the world of the plane was not afforded to him. He clenched his teeth. It was a long trip to Tokyo, and the children’s excitement was a contagion he could happily do without. Of course, they would be excited by the prospect of the entire summer in Japan, followed at some time by international school, but did it have to start on the flight over? He pressed his eyes closed and lowered his head into his palms. The accumulating problems, like bumper cars, battered around behind his brow. The highly anticipated trip back to Japan to spend the summer with his parents before the actual permanent move had been hurled into a fast forward, deer-in-the-headlights, kind of madness because of his father, again.

Ryu felt her hand on his right thigh, it squeezed gently as she leaned over to kiss his neck. She was always near and knew he would not be resting. She snuggled closer pressing her cheek against his shoulder. Her hand slid further under the blanket up his thigh. She played with his inner thigh. Images welled up in his mind as a warm buttery glow swirled below his belt line. A smile pushed its way onto his lips. But soon the soft caressing slowed and was finally replaced by the soft sigh of her melting sleep. She was wonderful, so giving.

Odd to think, with her hand limp between his legs, she was in many ways so like his mother. Though of a different nationality, she embodied the same purity of spirit and honor, unwavering dedication. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave up on the hoped-for thoughts. The swirling in his loins abated. Diane, his soul mate, snuggled tighter into him.

His eyes glanced at the wrinkled newspaper that poked out of the seat pocket in front of him. The paper was only two days old, yet its wrinkles belied its age. The paper had been tossed and wrung and stuffed into angry pockets more times than he cared to remember. The issues that interested him, the ones that had made him hold on to it, were decades old, perhaps centuries if one wanted to go down that morose road. Then he needn’t do that, the flight was morose enough, and it was a long flight.

Above the lip of the seat pocket he could just make out half the heading of the last article he’d read, or in fact, reread. He’d read it time and again, now though, the necessity of taking suitable action was approaching with each and every air mile. Of course, he would undoubtedly fight again with his father over the details, the explanations, but to what end? His father’s opinions would not change. Ryu knew that the solution had two sides, simple or complex. He stared at the frayed paper and wondered, Were simple answers ever really not complex? Was there a Zen book to deal with the problem? Not the Zen of motorcycle maintenance more like the Zen of damage control. He could write a chapter regarding his father.

Like so much in Japan it was all about the expression of shame, not guilt. A fine line few Westerners understood. How could his father be guilty of anything—insensitivity or bad business practice, yes, but nothing more? To suggest anything more would be to imply a conscious malice and the comments were just a matter of the way things were, the way he was, so he only had to express a sense of shame—not culpability. If he could get his father to issue a bland statement, then resign, it would be swept under the carpet in no time. Shame expressed. The challenge would be in getting him to make the statement, to recant it in some way. It had been foolish he thought, hardly provoked, yet his father in his usual domineering manner, had let fly with his opinions on the war. Now it was all about damage limitation and restructuring. The family company was too large to merely hope the comments would fade away. The press had more than inflamed the issue to assure that the West had been alerted to the festering scab of imperialist thought. An exasperated breath, like a raging rhino, gushed from his nostrils. God, what a mess. He shook it clear.

Ryu glanced at his two teenagers entrenched in their movies. They would adjust well to international school. It wouldn’t be cheap but it would be better than anything they could find in California at present, and they needed to renew the Japanese half of their heritage. His wife Diane’s breath was hot and moist across his chest. She rarely got alarmed, always so stable and calm. It was that which he happily connected to. Their hearts were tied, not through reason or necessity or lust, but by some cord, some string that bound them. He remembered his mother said that in Japanese lore great loves were joined by an invisible red umbilical cord - perhaps. It was as if their life was a three-legged race; unable to part from the other, never wanting to, but still separate and together. He drew another breath and glanced at the static world inside the plane. He hated flying!

Ryu had enjoyed the past decade of international work. Not the flights perhaps, but all the projects from Vietnam and Cambodia through India and the Middle East to where he was now based in America. The position had provided him an insight and acceptance of others that his father sorely missed. It was a wise move of his father, one of many he had made in business, to expand across the globe. They were one of the biggest road and bridge construction companies in the world, and Ryu shouldered an enormous workload. His English and French capability had proved invaluable in securing contracts and government cooperation. Yet his father disrupted the entire cart without even leaving Japan. Amazing, he thought. How long would it take to sweep this all aside? Not long in Japan - a few weeks, a few apologies and the replacement of his father. It would be done within a week and forgotten in two. But the international community would be different, and he would have to fly more, spend more time away to secure trust again. Why did his father destroy it all?

It was difficult to gauge the US and European response to his father, Ichiro’s, off-the-cuff statements. Ryu believed there were many, on both sides of the water, who harbored similar resentments or suspicions toward the Middle East or at least their extremist factions. Other business leaders were at least circumspect enough to keep their opinions discreetly to themselves, but not his father. As soon as the suicide bombers made their first frantic attacks, his opinions erupted like scornful lava melting and scorching everything in its path. His father was scathing about the suicide bombers. Ryu was in no doubt that unless those comments were aggressively checked and buried, his family was the only one likely to get burned. It was unfathomable that after the initial statement and outcry, instead of letting it harden and crisp over, conveniently forgotten, his father then included the entire Second World War into