THE LANTERN BOATS an utterly gripping and heart-breaking historical novel set in post-war Japan (Historical Fiction Standalones)

by TESSA MORRIS-SUZUKI

  ‘You’re planning to stay in Japan for the foreseeable future, I gather,’ said Mr Watanabe. They both nodded. ‘And you’ve never been in any trouble with the law?’ the lawyer continued. ‘No little misdemeanours that might raise eyebrows?’

  ‘Nothing. Apart from that bank I robbed last week, of course,’ joked Fergus. Elly found herself thinking about Ken. Had her brother been in trouble with the police? He was unlikely to have told her if he had. She could only hope that the family court’s scrutiny of her moral character wouldn’t extend to other members of her family.

  ‘It’s important,’ Watanabe said, ignoring Fergus’ attempt at humour. The lawyer’s sharp eyes peered at them over the top of his glasses. ‘You know what it’s like here. Guilty until proven innocent. The court has a lot of power in a case like this, and the slightest hint of impropriety could ruin your chances. But,’ he went on, ‘you certainly seem to have a good case: husband with a well-paid job, wife with family connections to Japan, and the best-possible reference from the best-possible sponsor.’

  When they left Watanabe’s office, Fergus set off for the Press Club to file his article about Mr Ogiri and his vision for the future of Japan, while Elly returned home. Summer was at its oppressive height — the time of year she found most exhausting. The highland air in Bandung and the dry summer heat of Tatura had never seemed as debilitating as Tokyo in August. She noticed how dark the sky was becoming. It was hard to breathe. The humid atmosphere seemed charged with electricity, and she longed for a thunderstorm to clear the air. But, in spite of the muggy weather, walking up the hill towards Atago-yama, Elly felt more hopeful than she had done at any time since the meeting with Madame Sawada back in April. She was longing to see Maya again, but had promised herself that she would wait until the sponsorship was organized before trying to arrange another trip to the children’s home in Oiso. Now, at last, she felt that that the adoption process was moving forward, and she could allow herself to plan a second visit.

  When she opened the front door, she discovered that the post had arrived. A single white envelope was lying on the doormat. It was addressed in green ink and in Japanese script, except for Fergus’ name, which had been added at the bottom in flowing Roman characters. Above the firmly sealed flap of the envelope, the sender had written, not their own name and address, but simply a large letter ‘V’. Elly’s heart tightened a little. Vida had still not replied to the note that Elly had left for her over a week ago, but now, it seemed, the poet was trying to contact Fergus again. Unable to resist, Elly examined the postmark and saw that the letter had been posted two days earlier in Hongo — from the post office opposite Vida’s apartment block, she presumed. What was this game that Vida was playing, disappearing and reappearing, ignoring Elly’s tentative attempt at contact, and writing instead to Fergus?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the clang of the bell that hung outside the entrance to their house. She turned, slightly puzzled. Her teenage pupils would be coming for their English lesson that afternoon, but they were not due to arrive for another forty minutes. She opened the door, and found herself face to face with Ken.

  Her instant impression was that her brother had changed in some indefinable but dramatic way since she last saw him. He seemed to have lost weight, his face had sharpened, and there were dark smudges under his eyes. His hair, which had previously been cropped short, was now longer, swept back from his forehead in a fashionable slick, and when she reached out instinctively to embrace him, she caught a powerful whiff of brilliantine.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she cried, with a mixture of relief and annoyance. ‘I had to hunt for you everywhere!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Ken seemed uncharacteristically subdued. ‘I’ve moved to Yokohama now. Better for business. A friend passed on the note you left at the Moulin Rouge. How’s Mother? Is it bad?’

  ‘It’s very serious, Ken. I don’t think she’ll make it. She’s still conscious. She’ll still know you if you go to see her, and it will make her immensely happy. But you’ll find her very weak. She can barely keep up a proper conversation anymore. The doctors say that they’re doing their best, and that she could last another three months, even more, but they’re not holding out any hope of a cure.’

  Ken slumped down on a chair in the front room.

  ‘I . . . I don’t know what to say,’ he murmured. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Poor Mother,’ sighed Elly, ‘it seems so unfair, after all she’s lived through. At least she doesn’t seem to be in too much pain. I’ve been trying to see her as often as I can. She asks after you every time I see her, and I never even know what to tell her. You should have let me know that you’d moved,’ she went on, unable to supress the irritation in her own voice. She turned away from him and put a kettle on the stove for tea. ‘What are you doing these days, anyway?’ she continued.

  ‘Oh, I’ve gone into business with a guy in Yokohama. Transport. That sort of thing.’

  Elly noticed that his speech seemed to have become more American since she last met him. He didn’t ask how she and Fergus were, and seemed somehow edgy and ill at ease.

  As they drank their tea, she pulled out her battered map and showed Ken how to get to the hospital in Tsukiji.

  ‘Go and see Mother today, right away,’ she commanded. ‘There’s still time for you to visit her this afternoon. They’ll allow you into the ward if you get there before five. Anyway, I can’t talk properly now. I’ve got an English class to teach at four, and I haven’t finished preparing yet. But you must give me your address, and please do come back here after you’ve seen Mother.’

  Ken jotted down his address for her and rose to go, but then hesitated, half turned towards her and said, ‘One thing, though, Elly. Do you think you could lend me 7,000 yen? Just for a week? I’ve got into a bit of difficulty with some money I borrowed. I promise I’ll get it back to you right away. I’m just waiting for a deal to come through . . .’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, Ken!’ cried Elly, exasperated. She should have guessed this was coming. ‘Mother’s sick, and I haven’t seen you for months, and all you can do is come here and ask for money. You’re supposed to be a responsible adult now. When are you going to get your life in order? Besides, I don’t keep that much money in the house.’

  She glanced at her brother’s pinched and anxious face with a mixture of anger and pity.

  ‘Look,’ she said, after a moment’s hesitation, opening the cash box where she kept her little store of savings for emergencies, ‘I can give you 3,000. You’ll have to sort the rest out yourself.’

  ‘Thanks, Elly. You’re the world’s best sister. You’ll get it back, I promise.’

  The frustration surged up again.

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Ken,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t care whether you pay me back or not. I just don’t want to hear you lying. And go and see Mother now. If you leave it too late, you’ll never forgive yourself.’

  She slammed the door shut behind him as he headed down the path, and then leaned against the inside of the door, breathing deeply and trying to recover her composure. It was always the same, she thought. Every encounter with her brother in the past few years had left her feeling that she wanted to take him by the scruff of his neck and shake some sense into him, but at the same time feeling in some obscure way as though she had failed him. Why, she cried to herself, why does he have to do this every time?

  CHAPTER 15

  Jun was astonished at the hollow ache that he felt in his heart. His world had crumbled. The Fox had become the centre of his existence: watching her, following her, thinking about her. She had started to appear in his dreams. Two nights ago, he had dreamed that he was observing her through the shiny glass window of a café when she suddenly caught his eye and smiled at him, as though he were an old friend. In his dream, she lifted a hand from beneath the folds of her shawl and beckoned him to come inside, but when he opened the door and crossed the threshold, he found that everything inside was dark. He was
stepping not into the brightly lit café, but back into the flooded cell in the basement of the mansion near Ueno Station . . .

  Now, before he had even had a chance to speak to her, the Fox had been removed from his life. He couldn’t bear the thought of never knowing what became of her. He needed to go back one more time, to see if there was any sign of life in her apartment. Perhaps one of the neighbours — the dour café owner or the man who ran the post office — would be able to tell him whether she had moved away, or at least give him some news of her. So far, he had avoided questioning them about her, for fear of alerting the Fox to the fact that she was under surveillance. But none of that mattered anymore.

  This time, as Jun walked down the street towards the Fox’s apartment block, he noticed, with some surprise, that a light was shining again in the front room of her apartment. So she was still living there. But he could see no shadows of people moving around in the room. The street itself was empty, except for a couple of passing cyclists and a group of girls in their sailor-suit uniforms heading home from some after-school activity — choir practice, presumably, since they were singing together in tolerable harmony as they wandered down the road.

  It was as he reached the front of the brown apartment building that Jun noticed something else rather puzzling. The front door of the building, which the Fox always carefully locked when she went in and out, was now slightly ajar. Jun stood very still a short distance away, watching the door to see if anyone came out, but nothing happened. It was early evening, starting to grow dark, but still the front door of the building remained open. There was something discomforting about that small black aperture in the doorway.

  No one seemed to be observing him, so after a while Jun took a deep breath, walked up to the door and pushed it a little further open. The hallway inside was in darkness, and had a slightly unpleasant smell, like the smell of cats. Quickly, before he could be seen, Jun stepped through the open door and into the building. The doors on either side of the hallway were closed, and everything was utterly silent, but a faint glow of light shone down the stairwell from the top floor.

  Very quietly, Jun crept up the staircase that led to the Fox’s apartment. He had spent so many days watching the outside of this place and imagining what it might be like within. He had imagined the crumpled quilts on the futon where the Fox slept with her American lover; the mirror she gazed into as she combed out her long black hair; a cupboard, or a safe perhaps, where she concealed secret documents . . . He strained his ears to catch the sound of voices, but could hear nothing but the pounding of blood in his own head.

  When he reached the door of the apartment, he found that it was painted green, and had a little bouquet of dried lavender tied to a hook on the outside. And this door, like the main entrance downstairs, stood slightly ajar.

  Jun hesitated. Should he knock? He could pretend to be an innocent visitor. ‘I’m looking for Mr Nomura of Nomura Offices,’ he could say. Would that sound plausible?

  There was absolute silence inside the apartment. Perhaps the Fox was not here after all? But the light was on. Jun pushed the apartment door gently with the palm of his hand. It only opened halfway, because something was blocking it from within. He squeezed his thin frame through the gap, and gazed around in bewilderment.

  He was standing in a living room where everything was in chaos. The room had been turned upside down. A sofa against one wall had its cushions scattered across the floor, and its upholstery had been slashed with some kind of sharp object. A small table next to the sofa lay on its side, and the blue-and-white vase that had presumably stood on the table was smashed in fragments across the tatami matting. The drawers had been pulled from the desk on the other side of the room, and papers were scattered everywhere. A large blue holdall had been emptied of the clothes that it had contained, and a skirt and shawl and a pair of lace knickers hung in a tangle over its side.

  Beyond this chaos, another door opened into an inner room where a lamp seemed to be lit. His throat constricting with fear, Jun tiptoed very slowly towards that door, but just before he reached it, he almost stumbled over a long rectangular box that lay partly open on the floor: the box that he had seen the Badger give to the Fox on the day he left for America. Very cautiously, Jun pushed the lid of the box aside and peered into it.

  A kind of dizzy nausea overcame him as he caught sight of the contents. Inside was a large golden-brown teddy bear wearing a red bow tie. The body of the bear had been sliced open, so that a mass of grey cotton wadding burst out of its stomach. The neck just above the bow tie had been slashed so deeply that the head had almost been detached from the body.

  And it was as Jun gazed in disbelief at this spectacle that he heard the cry.

  CHAPTER 16

  It wasn’t surprising that Ken failed to reappear later in the day. He was doubtless feeling ashamed of himself. Elly still believed that, for all his failings, her brother had a conscience. When Fergus got home she started to tell him about the events of the afternoon, enjoying the chance to relieve her feelings by complaining about Ken’s bad behaviour. She decided, though, that she wasn’t going to mention the money she had lent him. She knew that she probably should, but also that Fergus would disapprove and tell her that she was too soft on her delinquent brother. She’d leave it for now. Maybe Ken really would repay her (maybe pigs would fly), but if not, she could be frugal for the next few months, and no one would notice. Her experiences in the first year after their repatriation to Tokyo had taught her a lot about frugality.

  Despite her despair at Ken’s chaotic life, she felt in a celebratory mood after the encouraging meeting with their lawyer, but hadn’t had time to go out to the shops in search of something special for dinner, so she prepared the pork cutlets she had already bought, all the while thinking about a little feast to make the next day.

  They were halfway through eating, and Fergus was in the middle of telling her a mildly defamatory story about his senior editor, Duncan Cromer, whom he described as ‘that pretentious gasbag’, when Elly suddenly remembered Vida’s letter. How could she have forgotten about it? She must have been distracted by Ken’s arrival, and then the rush to prepare her English class in time and get the dinner on the stove — unless perhaps her subversive subconscious had been trying to frustrate communication between Vida and Fergus. She had left the envelope with its flowing green writing on the little side table in the entrance hall when she opened the door to Ken. The letter must still be lying there.

  ‘Hang on a moment, Fergus,’ she said, getting up from the table. ‘There was some post for you today.’

  She fetched the letter from the hall table and handed it over to Fergus without comment, watching him as he scrutinized the envelope. He got up from the table and walked over towards the window, where he stood facing away from her as he read the letter. When he turned to look at her again, his forehead was creased by a puzzled and anxious frown.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Elly,’ he said. ‘I’m going to have to go out for a bit.’

  ‘What — now?’ asked Elly. ‘Surely you can at least finish your dinner?’

  ‘I’d love to, Elly, but . . .’ Fergus hesitated for a moment. ‘This letter. It’s from Vida. I think there’s something wrong. I can’t really make head or tail of what she’s saying, but she’s asked me to contact her as soon as I get the letter.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘It’s nearly eight already. If I go now, I should be able to catch her at home this evening.’

  He didn’t offer to show Elly the letter, and in any case she knew that it would be written in Chinese. But at least he hadn’t tried to conceal it, or pretend it was from someone else.

  ‘When will you be back? What does she say?’ Elly felt a rush of annoyance that the poet was intruding on their lives yet again, but also yet another twinge of guilt at having failed to make contact with Vida herself. Maybe the woman was in real trouble. Maybe, she thought, I didn’t take Ted’s concerns seriously enough.

  ‘It’s got somet
hing to do with those photos. She says, “I think I’ve seen the man in the photo. He’s everywhere.” Doesn’t say which man, though. And what does that mean — “He’s everywhere”? It makes no sense. Where are those photos anyway?’ Fergus glanced around, spotted the brown paper packet still lying on the table, and snatched it up as he headed for the door.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I won’t stay long. I’ll be back by ten at the latest.’ He blew Elly a hasty kiss, and then headed out of the door almost at a run before she could ask him any of the questions that were on the tip of her tongue.

  After Fergus had gone, Elly put on a record of Paul Robeson singing spirituals that she usually found soothing — she didn’t feel like listening to the jovial tones of the Far East Network compère. She washed the dishes and then picked up the newspaper and tried to read it while she waited for Fergus to return, but found that she couldn’t concentrate. Her buoyant mood of a few hours ago had dissolved, and she felt restless and irritable.

  When the phone rang in the upstairs study, she ignored it at first, assuming that it would be something to do with Fergus’ work, but the ringing went on and on, and she started to wonder whether it might be the hospital calling about Mother, or maybe Ken in trouble again.

  Suddenly alarmed, she ran up the stairs and grabbed the receiver.

  ‘Elly?’ It was Fergus’ voice, shaking, almost as though he was in tears. ‘Oh God, Elly. You’ve got to come. Something terrible’s happened.’

  ‘What?’ cried Elly. ‘Are you all right? Is it Vida?’

  ‘I . . . I can’t say it over the phone. Please come. Quickly.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In Vida’s apartment. You know where it is, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. OK. I’ll be there. I’ll get a taxi. Just . . .’ She didn’t know what to say, so she simply repeated, ‘Stay there. I’ll be there right away.’

  Without even bothering to turn off the lights, Elly seized her handbag, locked the front door and started to run through the warm, rainy darkness, down the slope towards the main road. Her head was swirling with a confused mass of fears. What was going on? Why did Fergus need her there? Was he in trouble, or was Vida? Nothing made sense, but as she hailed the taxi and asked the driver to take her to Tokyo University, she felt a dreadful certainty in her heart that her world was about to change for ever.