Taro raised the katana. His hands were steady. His eyes were dry.
“Harakiri,” Kazuo replied, with a bitter smile. “They are the same act. The same two characters. But you are right. The word matters.” He paused. “ Seppuku —the writing suggests ‘cutting the belly with order and ritual.’ A noble death. A gift. Harakiri —‘belly-slashing’—is what the common people call it. What the Americans called it in their war magazines. They drew cartoons of it, you know. Little yellow men gutting themselves for the Emperor.”
Kazuo plunged the blade into the left side of his belly. He drew it to the right in a single, shuddering slice. He did not cry out. His face was a mask of concentration, of agony transformed into purpose. Then he turned the blade upward—the second cut, the one that most men failed to complete. His breath hissed between his teeth.
Kazuo closed his eyes. The garden was silent except for the distant clatter of a tram and the cry of a crow. He opened his eyes and picked up a brush. With swift, certain strokes, he wrote:
