I stopped my struggle. "Why?"

He gave me his beautiful smile but he chose not to reply. Instead he asked, in an almost childlike voice, "Will it hurt?"

"No," I said. From the depths of my knowledge, of my lives lived, I could say to him, "It won't hurt. They'll do it properly."

And then the crowd began to whisper our name again, like a wave beginning far out at sea, growing in strength as it surged toward the shore. Endo-san gave a warning to Goro and the Japanese soldiers not to fire their weapons. The chanting "Hutton! Hutton!" rolled on, increasing in volume and emotion.

"Listen to that!" my father said. "Make our name live on. Let it always have those qualities associated with it. Only the good."

Endo-san removed my father's chains and made him comfortable. Goro, feeling cheated, protested but Endo-san said, "He dies a free man."

My father squeezed his wrists and then placed them behind his back. How often had I seen him walk, enjoying his garden, with his hands clasped behind him? He straightened his back and lifted his chin.

Endo-san stood up, bowed his head for a moment and unsheathed his katana. It came out silently, like a ray of sunlight piercing through a bank of rain-cloud and just as brilliant. He bowed low to my father. "I would be honored if you would allow me to complete this."

My father dipped his head in assent and then opened his eyes, which blazed brighter than I had ever seen them. He looked up to the sun, now rising rapidly, feeling its warmth for the last time. The clock tower struck half past nine as the morning wind cooled our burning faces and lifted his hair.

He reached across and stroked my head. "Never forget you are a Hutton. Never forget you are my son."

Endo-san bowed again and raised his sword. I recognized that stance. Happo. Both hands brought to the right shoulder, feet planted firmly on the ground, the sword raised like the purest voice to Heaven. The chanting of the crowd quickened and I found my lips moving along to the cadence of our name.

I forced myself to watch. I told myself that I would not turn away, that I would be with my father to the end. Endo-san took a breath in and brought the blade down. The crowd was silenced. High up in the sky, unseen, a squadron of Halifaxes could be heard on their daily run.

Endo-san arranged for my father to be buried in the grounds in Istana, next to William's memorial stone, and not displayed publicly as Hiroshi and Fujihara had wanted. Days after his death I was led out of Fort Cornwallis, weak and half blinded by the light reflecting off the walls, the godly light of Penang that I loved so much. I had not eaten anything and the water left daily by Endo-san had stagnated as I lay curled in a corner. I did not speak to Endo-san during his visits and left his questions unanswered.

I was released and placed under house arrest, which meant I was restricted to Istana and in Endo-san's custody.

"Did Hiroshi order my release?"

"Hiroshi-san is dying. I issued the order."

As we drove to Istana I wound down the windows and, for the first time in days, I breathed clean, true air. I still could not feel anything of the layers of events piling upon each other.

I had slept badly in my cell, pursued by vivid dreams and memories. Now, as we drove along the winding coastal road I felt my wounds being soothed by my old friend, the sea. How many times had I made this journey with my father? He was often a source of the most bizarre information-"There's that tree where the branch fell on the resident councillor's car and broke his wrists"-"That house there has an underground secret passageway leading to the beach"-"That stall serves the best assam laksa money can buy."

Everything I knew of my home I had learned from my father.

And I would never see him again.

Endo-san put his hands on my shoulders and turned me around. I tried not to flinch, but he saw my swiftly hidden expression and let go of me. I went out to the balcony outside my room, its tiles still hot from the day, pleasurable under my feet. The sea was turning red as the sun dropped and his island lay innocent, fired by the light like a pot placed in a kiln. Clouds of birds circled it, flying in from the corners of the sky. Brahminy kites floated on the heated air. Reluctant to return home, they soared endlessly like mythical creatures that never needed to touch the earth, not even once in all their lives.

"Thank you for arranging the funeral," I said in a formal tone, and bowed to Endo-san. In my mind I still saw those kites in the sky and I envied them.

From within his yukata he removed an envelope. "Your father requested writing materials the last time I visited him."

I received the envelope with both hands. He continued, "You are of course still under house arrest. You are not allowed to leave Istana without my authority. I have your sword in my care. You are not allowed to carry it. Please see to it that you obey these orders. I would find it difficult to intercede on your behalf again."

He put his arms around me once more and held me in a strong embrace. And then he left me there on the balcony, alone except for a scattering of evening stars.

He appeared on the beach moments later, walking stiffly, leaving smudges on the sand behind him. He pulled his boat down to the water, climbed in, and rowed across to his home.

I opened the envelope and read the shaky writing and the unwavering words.

Fort Cornwallis Prison Penang 31st July, 1945 My dearest son, There are so many things unspoken between us and now time has decreed that we shall never have the moment to voice them.

I was initially distraught at your relationship with Mr. Endo and with the Japanese. They are a cruel people-perhaps no more cruel than the English or the Chinese, some would argue-but I will never fully comprehend them or their unnecessary savagery. My distress at your closeness with Mr. Endo was somewhat lessened by the influence he has had on you: learn from him, for he has much to impart, but make your own decisions. Do not let your ties to the past-or fear of the future-direct the course of your life, because, however many lives we have ahead of us to redeem and repair our failings, I feel we have a God-given duty to live this life as best we can.

I have known for some time of some of your humanitarian activities-the father of your friend often kept me informed of the good you have achieved while working for Mr. Endo. Thus, on the day of my death, I can walk out with my head held high, secure in the knowledge that none of my children-not one-ever took the easy road; that they strove to keep sanity, reason, and compassion alive and burning in these tragic times.

Mr. Endo and I have spoken much during these last days. I have finally gained a sense of who and what he is and was and I feel I can trust him with my life. Such different beliefs we have! But having spent all my life out here in the East, I sense more than a grain of truth in his.

I have made a pact with him. He has informed me that he is only able to give one of us a reprieve, because apparently you did strike a terrible blow against the Japanese. I am aware of your repeated requests to see me, but I have asked Mr. Endo not to allow it, for I fear you will sense my eventual intention.

So, time runs on. Already I can hear the crowd outside. I know that in time they too will know the extent of our sacrifice and forgive us our ties with the Japanese. I have never regretted staying behind to defend our home. We have done the right thing and I know that History will judge us fairly and kindly.

My son, grieve if you must but not for too long. I fear for you and the burdens imposed on you by your duty. In the last fragments of my life I truly wish, in spite of my Christian faith, to believe that we will all live again and again so that I may be blessed, perhaps in some future life on the far side of a new morning, to meet you again and to tell you how much I love you.

With the greatest of love, Your father I heard his voice clearly, so full of the love he had felt for me, for all his children. I leaned against the balcony railings, all my strength snuffed out as suddenly as a candle flame. The hollowness in me expanded; I shivered all over and clenched my fists as I finally let myself grieve.

Chapter Seventeen.

I had to wait a few days after our dinner at the restaurant before Michiko felt strong enough to show me where my father had hidden his collection of keris. She now spent all of her days in my house and I had taken to shortening my hours at the office to have more time with her.

"It was cruel of me to show Endo-san's sword to you. I did not know he had used it to execute your father," she said one evening after I had finished telling her of Noel's death. Both of us were in a somber mood. I had not thought about it in such a long time, yet every detail remained so clear.

"I never saw it again after that. I never knew what he had done with it. To hold it in my hand again, after all this time, was a shock to me. I wanted you to leave immediately."

"And what changed your mind?" she asked.

I took a long time to find a reply that made sense. "I felt that there must have been a reason why you showed up here. And to turn you away seemed a grave disrespect to Endo-san's memory."

There was also something else that I had wanted to ask her, and now I felt we knew each other sufficiently well for me to do so. "The bags that you arrived with, they are all that you have left?"

"Yes. I have tidied up all my affairs. My husband's company is in good hands."

"It must have been difficult to let it all go." I was thinking of the time when I too would have to do the same. I had been making the requisite arrangements to trim away the unnecessary strands of my life but I was faltering, not yet ready to take the final step.

"It was necessary," she replied. "That is what growing old consists of, mostly. One starts giving away items and belongings until only the memories are left. In the end, what else do we really require?"

I examined her words carefully, and the answer came slowly but without any equivocation. "Someone to share those memories with," I said finally, surprising myself. I had never actually made the decision not to discuss my activities during the Japanese Occupation. The stagnation of my memories and my unwillingness to voice them had happened naturally, coagulated over the years by a combination of guilt, loss, a sense of failure, and the certain knowledge that no one could ever understand what I had gone through.

And at that moment I realized that the corollary to that state of affairs was the loss of my ability to trust, the very cornerstone of aikido. When training as a student in Tokyo I insisted as often as I could on being the nage, the one receiving the attack and the one controlling the outcome. This contravened the etiquette of all dojo, which requires the equal sharing of opposing roles. It made me unpopular with my fellow pupils, although I viewed my preference as being only the extension of a strong personality, something in which I took pride. When I became an instructor I never ceded the role of nage to anyone and I was never again the uke, the one who was thrown, where once I had reveled in flight.

This knowledge, like all great and worthwhile enlightenment relating to the human condition, was bittersweet and came too late.

"I appreciate what you are doing. I know it is hard for you," Michiko said, her gentle tone breaking into my thoughts like the passage of a bird's low flight across the face of a pond.

I swept her words away with my hand. "It took great courage and strength for you to make the journey here too. I'm glad you came."

"I took a long time to decide. It was not an act of impulse to come and upset the tranquillity of your life here." She asked me to help her to her feet. "I shall show you where your father concealed his blades tomorrow morning."

She was waiting for me when I finished my morning practice session, her Panama hat shading her face, holding a spade in her hand. I had asked her to train with me daily, and at first she had, but as her strength began to wane she preferred to walk on the beach instead and watch each day arrive.

She took me to the river where we had watched the fireflies, using the spade as a walking stick. Although the sun was shaded by the clouds and we walked beneath the shadows of the overhanging trees, it was a warm morning. Only as we approached the river did the air become cooler. At the frangipani tree my mother had planted she stopped. "Dig around here," she said.

"How can you be so certain?" I was doubtful, but willing to indulge her.

"The clues were all in what you have been telling me."

I dug deep into the ground around the tree, taking care not to damage its roots. About four feet down I hit something that sounded metallic. I dropped the spade and scrabbled with my hands and finally loosened a rusted box from the grip of the earth.

It was heavy and it took all my strength to prise the lid open. Inside, wrapped in layers of stiffened oilcloth, were the eight keris my father had collected. They were all in good condition, except for a light dusting of rust on their blades. I picked up the keris that Noel had purchased from the deposed sultan and dipped it into a bar of sunlight. The diamonds on the hilt fractured the light into the trees and it was as though fireflies were moving through them, competing with the glare of the day. One scale of light danced on Michiko's cheek.

"I can understand your father's interest in them," she said. "They are magnificent. What are you going to do with them?"

I shook my head. "I don't know." I shoveled the mound of earth back into the hole. My arms were aching by the time I finished. We sat on the banks, the box between us. There grew in me an inexplicable sadness, which she sensed.

Michiko's arrival with Endo-san's katana that I had long thought lost, the discovery of my father's keris, all these seemed only to underline to me the inescapable fact that I had never had any choice in the direction of my life. Everything had already been planned for me, long before I was born. My mother's hopes for me, in her choice of my abandoned name, had not been borne out.

I told Michiko all this and she said, "If it is true, then you are a very blessed man."

She saw that I did not understand her and she tried to clarify. "To have the awareness that there is a greater power directing our destinies must give great comfort. It would give a sense of meaning to our lives, knowing that we are not running around vainly like mice in a maze. It would soothe me to know that all these," she tapped her chest, "my illness, my pain and loss, and yes, my meeting you, all have a reason."

She saw the stubborn set of my face. "I've never felt blessed," I said. "There must be free will to choose. Do you know the poem about the two roads, and the one not taken?"

"Yes. That has always amused me, because who created the two roads in the first place?"

It was a question I had never considered.

Chapter Eighteen.

Endo-san once said, "All fights revolve around the interplay of forces," and these words, I began to realize, could also be applied to wars. The balance had shifted and the Allied forces, wearied but stubborn, were advancing steadily against the Japanese. The Halifaxes now visited us daily, alternating bombs with pamphlets that told us of Allied victories. We heard about the kamikaze pilots, warriors of the Divine Wind, but even they could not stop the Allies. Although isolated in Istana, I still caught snippets of news. I could tell how the war was going just by the faces of the servants.

I entered the kitchen and spoke to Ah Jin, the cook. "Go into town and get me a few cans of paint on the black market," I said, handing her a basket of banana notes and telling her which colors I wanted.

She returned a few hours later. "Aiyah, sir, the town going crazy, everyone spend, spend, spend. Fifty thousand Japanese dollars for a loaf of stale bread." She handed me six tins of paint but I told her to leave them on the landing beneath the attic stairs, along with some brushes.

"Everyone's getting rid of their banana notes," I said. "Do you know what that means?"

She looked out of the kitchen windows to where Endo-san, who had moved into Istana, stood peering through a pair of binoculars, sweeping the sky and the sea.

"Ya-lah, the Jipunakui will be chased out very soon," she said.

I went into the study and returned with more banana notes. "Take this and give it to the others. Spend it all, as fast as you wish." She beamed and went to the kitchen, where I soon heard her excited voice calling the rest of the servants.

Early the next morning I left my room and checked that Endo-san was still sleeping. I carried the six cans of paint up into the attic, moving carefully through the unused furniture and wrinkled leather trunks, many still bearing P&O Liner labels, all large enough for me to lie inside. My footfalls raised only silent dust. I opened a small window and climbed out onto the ledge. The wind breathed softly and the sun seemed undecided about rising.

I crawled up the steep clay tiles of the roof. My fear of heights was gone. I had learned that there were other, greater things to fear. I opened one of the cans and dipped my brush in it.

I had to make many trips and each time the climb made me breathless. As the sun floated up I started to perspire. By the time I was finished I had cracked eighteen of the tiles with my weight. But at last I stood on the ledge, satisfied with my efforts.

On the sloping roof, facing the sea, facing the direction from which the planes often flew in, a rather rudimentary Union Jack, with its rough red, blue and white lines, shone bright and welcoming in the rising sun.

There was nothing much for me to do now. I could not leave Istana and so I spent my days on the beach, staring out to sea. An eerie sense of anticipation hovered like a hungry ghost in the air and, although people would later say it was a figment of my imagination, I was certain of what I saw that day.

The light in the eastern sky throbbed, intensified, as though the wick of an oil lamp had been suddenly turned up. It burned with a terrible sheen of pure brightness and pulsed into red, violet, and shades never seen before. On Endo-san's island, birds in the trees clattered out in a panic-stricken flapping of wings. A numbing coldness spread out from the very center of my being; I had to choke for air, as I had not breathed in those seconds. A silence so oppressive halted the world that even the waves seemed to pause in their march to the shore.

The moment lengthened and then passed, and left me quiet. The world sounded different, less sure of itself.

News of the Hiroshima bombing reached us that evening. I was certain the servants had a radio hidden in the house, for the mood in Istana changed subtly, and the dark moods of the previous weeks perceptibly lifted.

I waited for Endo-san on the lawn and we drank his bitter tea as he told me the full extent of the destruction to that city. His entire home on the outskirts of Hiroshima was gone. "It is as though my family had never existed, as though I had never existed. You are talking to a ghost. There is no past now, no living ties left." He had been written out of history.

I tried to imagine Penang obliterated, its roads and buildings turned to sand, the sand melted to glass, then dissolved further by the heat, and finally scattered by the terrible wind, a wind that was not divine, the toxic air killing me with every shallow breath.

"We have our Divine Wind, and now the Americans have theirs," he said. The war was over that day and we both knew it.

This time it was I who went to him, I who held him as he wept. How strangely comforting it was to feel his tears. My thumb wiped them gently from his eyes, yet still they came. A lifetime's sorrow flowed from him that day. I licked my thumb and tasted his tears, and I was not at all surprised to discover that there was nothing unfamiliar about them. I had tasted them before, a long, long time ago.

Endo-san accepted the subsequent bombing of Nagasaki without emotion. I knew he slept with difficulty. I saw him often on the balcony, looking homeward like a yearning sailor. I did not have to wonder what weighed down his thoughts and kept him from rest.

The emperor of Japan, once a boy who crouched over a tidal pool near Endo-san's father's estate, fishing for samples for his marine biology collection, surrendered three days later.