With some trepidation, Nobu had his father revived and personally supervised his father’s training and education, wondering if the adult that finally emerged from all this would be the same father he had known. Gradually, Saito’s mind returned. He was the same man. And yet not.
The first hint of Saito’s different personality came the morning that the psychologists finally pronounced their work was finished. Nobu brought his father to his office in New Kyoto. It had once been Saito’s office, the center of power for a world-spanning corporation.
Saito strode into the office alongside his son, beaming cheerfully until the door closed and they were alone.
He looked around curiously at the big curved desk, the plush chairs, the silk prints on the walls. “You haven’t changed it at all.”
Nobuhiko had carefully returned the office to the way it had been when his father was declared clinically dead.
Saito peered into his son’s eyes, studied his face for long, silent moments. “My god,” he said at last, “it’s like looking into a mirror.”
Indeed, they looked more like twin brothers than father and son. Both men were stocky, with round faces and deep-set almond eyes. Both wore western business suits of identical sky blue.
Saito threw back his head and laughed, a hearty, full-throated bellow of amusement. “You’re as old as I am!”
Automatically, Nobu replied, “But not as wise.”
Saito clapped his son on the shoulder. “They’ve told me about the problems you’ve faced. And dealt with. I doubt that I could have done better.”
Nobu stood in the middle of the office. His father looked just as he remembered him. It was something of a shock for Nobu to realize that he himself looked almost exactly the same.
Feeling nervous, uncertain, Nobu gestured toward the sweeping curve of the desk. “It’s been waiting for you, Father.”
Saito grew serious. “No. It’s your desk now. This is your office.”
“But—”
“I’m finished with it,” said Saito. “I’ve decided to retire. I have no intention of returning to work.”
Nobu blinked with surprise. “But all this is yours, Father. It’s—”
Shaking his head, Saito repeated, “I’m finished with it. The world I once lived in is gone. All the people I knew, all my friends, they’re all gone.”
“They’re not all dead.”
“No, but the years have changed them so much I would hardly recognize them. I don’t want to try to relive a life that once was. The world moves on. This corporation is your responsibility now, Nobu. I don’t want any part of it.”
Stunned, Nobuhiko asked, “But what will you do?”
The answer was that Saito retired to a monastery high in the Himalayas, to a life of study and contemplation. Nobu could not have been more shocked if his father had become a serial killer or a child molester.
But even though he filled his days by writing his memoirs (or perhaps because he began to write his memoirs) Saito Yamagata could not entirely divorce himself from the corporation on which he had spent his first life. Whenever his son called him, Saito listened greedily to the events of the hour, then offered Nobuhiko the gift of his advice. At first Nobu was wary of his father’s simmering interest in the corporation. Gradually, however, he came to cherish his father’s wisdom, and even to rely upon it.
So now Nobuhiko flew to Nepal in a corporate tilt-rotor. Videophone calls were all well and good, but still nothing could replace a personal visit, face to face, where no one could possibly eavesdrop.
It was bitingly cold in the mountains. Swirls of snow swept around the plane when it touched down lightly on the crushed gravel pad outside the monastery’s gray stone walls. Despite his hooded parka, Nobu was thoroughly chilled by the time a saffron-robed lama conducted him through the thick wooden door and into a hallway paneled with polished oak.
Saito was waiting for him in a small room with a single window that looked out on the snow-clad mountains. A low lacquered table and two kneeling mats were the only furniture, but there was a warm fire crackling in the soot-blackened fireplace. Nobu folded his parka neatly on the floor and stood before the fireplace, gratefully absorbing its warmth.