"So desu," Miss Mori interjected abruptly, startling even Ken. She seemed to be lecturing directly to Tam. "We all know our Emperor today is directly descended from him. In fact, he is precisely the one hundred and twenty-fourth emperor after Jimmu. Japan and the Imperial line were born simultaneously, and every Japanese is related to him. We are a monoracial state."
Tam glanced at her. By God, she wasn't kidding.
"Well, it's possible the traditional account has reworked historical facts a trifle," Noda continued smoothly. "Actually the peoples who became our modern Japanese seem to have made their way here to the main island from somewhere in the South Pacific and settled in this area around Ise. Near here we still find burial mounds that contain replicas of their early symbols of Imperial authority—mirrors, gems, swords."
"But the sword you found? Did it really come down from on high?" Tam asked, half hoping to rankle Akira Mori.
"You mean was it that very first one?" Noda shrugged. "Who could locate the original Garden of Eden? Please, we all must allow for a certain element of poetic license in our myths. But it is unquestionably the sword referred to in the ancient chronicles such as the Heite Monogatari, which dates from the Heian era, the ninth through twelfth centuries. That sword was lost in 1185, and now it's been recovered. That's all we know for sure."
Mori, walking along in her quick, Japanese-woman pace, obviously was not satisfied with Noda's rationalist version of history.
"Dr. Richardson," she cut in again, "what the recovery of the sword has achieved is to remind the Japanese people that we are unique. We Japanese have a special soul, a Yamato minzoku of pure blood and spiritual unity. All Japanese are related to each other and to the Emperor, so there is a oneness of spirit, a blood-and-soul relation, between the Emperor and his people. Yamatoists believe, rightly, that a temporary eclipse of our Japanese minzoku was brought about by the American occupation, whose imposed constitution and educational system were acts of racial revenge against Japan. Our postwar identity crisis, our negative image of ourselves, was created by Americans. But that time is over. Although we have no single God, as in the Judeo-Christian tradition, we have something even more powerful. Through our Emperor we have a line of descent that harkens back to the beginning of our world. Perhaps we no longer choose to claim he is divine, but that makes him no less an embodiment of Japan's special place."
Akira Mori, Tam suddenly realized, was a closet Yamatoist, those new right-wing racist firebrands of modern Japan. Time to give her a little heat.
"Surely nobody today seriously thinks the Emperor's forefather came down from the skies?" She turned back to Noda. "You don't believe it, do you?"
He shrugged. "Ours is a skeptical world, Dr. Richardson. Is your pope really infallible, or did he acquire his right to be divine spokesman by winning a small election? Nonetheless, popes and kings are like ancient tribal leaders. Despite all our modern democracy, we still yearn for a figure to embody our identity. For the Japanese to have an emperor who, if only in legend, has blood kinship with the gods who created our homeland—what could be more important?"