December 6

by Martin Cruz Smith

  “Excuse me, that was impolite. Worse, it was melodramatic.”

  “No, it was wonderful,” Gen said. “It was the real thing.”

  “Not yet,” the customer said, “but in time we will see the real thing. It is unavoidable.”

  “He’s with the Kwantung army,” Gen told Harry. “That means Manchuria. They’ll see action there.”

  “We should be going,” Harry said. “Let’s go, Gen.”

  Gen said, “It would be rude to leave.”

  The customer replaced the sword on the wall. He drew Gen up by the hand. “No, your friend is right, and there are more important things I’m supposed to be doing than entertaining every urchin who comes off the street.”

  “Can I come again?”

  “Perhaps you’ll deliver another print.”

  “You’ve been very kind.” Harry tugged Gen toward the door.

  Gen moved stiffly, reluctantly slipping his feet into his geta. The customer seemed to dismiss the two boys without as much as a nod, but as they stepped over the threshold, he told them to wait, went to the vase and bestowed on Gen the single chrysanthemum. Gen accepted the flower as if it were a sword itself, and although his thick black hair fell forward when he bowed, Harry saw a violet blush of pleasure spread across his cheeks.

  HARRY FOUND KATO at the Folies, in the balcony with the manager watching a final act called “Amusing Violin.” The manager wore a greasy boater and snickered through an overbite stained from cigarettes and tea. He and Harry had never gotten along since the day Harry first stumbled into the dressing room. Onstage, a comic musician playing “The Flight of the Bumblebee” was afflicted with a rubbery bow and ridiculously overlong European tails that flopped around his feet. His bow caught in the strings, flew offstage like an arrow and was retrieved by Oharu in a skimpy one-piece and net stockings. She handed the sagging bow to the comedian. As he watched her stride away, his bow stiffened. The manager laughed in and out like a donkey.

  Kato said to Harry, “I hear you let Gen deliver the print to the customer. I told you that only you should take it.”

  “Nothing happened. He seemed to like Gen more than me.”

  “Why not? Gen is a far more attractive boy than you. You are a mongrel, and Gen is the ideal.”

  Flustered by Oharu, the comedian reached into his violin case and brought out a fan to cool himself. Not enough. He brought out an electric fan with a long cord and asked a musician in the orchestra pit to plug it in. The comedian directed its breeze up and down his body and along the bow.

  “Tell me exactly what happened,” Kato said.

  Harry recounted the scene at the customer’s house. Meanwhile, onstage, the comedian started “The Bumblebee” again but noticed a piece of paper drifting by and, in the midst of playing, speared it with his bow. It was sticky paper. It stuck to his bow, his shoe, his hand, finally to his forehead, and he played while blowing the paper up from his eyes. The audience around Harry laughed so hard they stuffed handkerchiefs into their mouths.

  “This is great stuff,” the manager said.

  Kato said, “He gave Gen a white chrysanthemum?”

  “A gift.”

  “And the customer, Harry. Tell me again, did he introduce himself?”

  “No.”

  “Then I will tell you. His name is Ishigami. Lieutenant Ishigami is a rising man in the army. He is the natural son of a royal prince, no one is quite sure who, so he has the protection of the court and a stipend from the imperial household. He could have gone into banking or writing poetry, instead he chose the army. He joined the Kwantung army so that he would be sure to come under fire from bandits or Russians or Chinese, and he acquitted himself so well that admirers call him a virtual samurai. So you might ask why he is here in Tokyo. Because, Harry, Ishigami is in disgrace. A board of inquiry is looking into the accusation that he is one of a circle of junior army officers agitating against the civilian government. Ishigami says his allegiance is to the emperor, not to politicians. This has made him even more popular with the army, and with patriotic groups in general, but while the board of inquiry meets, he is forced to lie low and waste his time with the likes of you and me and, apparently, your friend Gen. That’s why I wanted to send you. Ishigami wouldn’t touch you. You’re not his type.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The manager leaned over. “He means that a white chrysanthemum isn’t just a flower. It represents a boy’s tight little asshole. You didn’t know that, Harry? So I guess you don’t know everything after all. There is a certain kind of samurai, and there always has been. Don’t take it seriously, it’s just sex.”

  The bow flew offstage again. Again Oharu retrieved it and peeled the paper from the comedian’s forehead. She had a languid way of strolling off forever. Harry felt a proprietary claim on those legs, those long flanks to which he had administered so many vitamin shots. The comic lectured his stiffening bow, but the bow tried to follow her, dragging him across the stage.

  Harry was angry and confused. “Not Gen.”

  “Why not?” the manager said. “Gen is a poor boy. Ishigami is a hero. His attention is worth seeking. All Gen has to offer is his beauty. If it means pulling down his pants, why not?”

  “Gen’s not that way.”

  “What way?” Kato said. “Up, down? Right, left? How would you know?” For the first time, Kato turned his eyes to Harry, who could see what a foul humor he was in. “You shouldn’t have let Gen take the package, Harry. You should have done as I told you.”

  “I didn’t think it would make any difference.”

  “Obviously it did.”

  “I always made the deliveries. Gen wanted a turn.”

  “Gen would do anything you do. He admires you. He also resents you. You are the stray dog that won favor, which I think made Gen all the more susceptible to attention from Ishigami. Gen has changed now, thanks to you. Not that part of Gen wasn’t that way. In the end, it’s all a matter of taste, and who are we to be judges, right, Harry? Well, I suppose we all admire you, you’re the best example of a survivor we’ve ever seen. That first day when they chased you up the stairway to the dressing room, I said to myself, Here is a fish that could live in a tree if it had to. I got very fond of you. I got too close.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Kato went back to watching the show. “I don’t think I’ll be using you anymore, Harry, that was a mistake. You should spend more time with your family. Won’t you be going back to America soon?”

  “I’ve never been there.”

  “Well, you should get ready.”

  Apart from movies and music, America didn’t interest Harry. In Tokyo he ran his own life, and he suspected that once in the States, he would be supervised to the point of suffocation by his parents, church people, aunts and uncles and ignorant cousins. Tokyo was the world’s center of color, beauty, life. What was Kentucky? He had seen films with hillbillies sitting around cracker barrels, boots up, aiming tobacco juice at spittoons. Was that him? How many times had he looked into a mirror and hoped to find himself magically given a new body of smooth skin, straight black hair and properly narrowed eyes? It almost had to happen.

  “I’ll make up for it,” Harry said. “I’ll deliver everything myself.”

  “Not anymore, Harry. Don’t come around.”

  Harry tried to catch a tease in Kato’s eye. “You’re kidding.”

  Kato ignored him.

  Harry tried a different tone of voice. “I’m sorry about Gen. I shouldn’t have let him take it.”

  “Too late.”

  “I could lay off for a while.”

  “Stay away for good. I’m bored with you, Harry. You are no longer amusing.”

  Harry lost his breath from the swiftness of his demotion from Kato’s favorite pet and confidant to… nothing, as if on a whim the artist had erased him from a picture.

  Kato added, “No backstage visits, either. Stay away from Oharu.”

  “Oharu and I—
”

  “Oharu is no longer a friend of yours. Stay away from her.”

  The manager leaned across Kato to twist the knife himself. “No backstage, no girls. In fact, forget the whole theater. I’ll have you tossed out the next time I see you in here.”

  “You can’t stop me,” Harry said.

  “See,” the manager said. “A Japanese boy would have been genuinely contrite.”

  “East is East and West is West, Harry,” Kato said. “You were a guest, and now it’s time for you to go.”

  The manager tugged on Kato’s sleeve. “Oh, this is the finale I wanted you to see.”

  Kato smiled as Oharu returned with a large bee she attached to the tip of the comedian’s bow. The bee buzzed menacingly. The comedian tried to shake off the bee one moment and fence with it the next while, all the time, incredibly, he went on playing, coattails wrapped around him in his passion, faster and faster and faster until he dropped to the stage like a dead man and the bow dropped from fatigue.

  “Wait,” the manager said.

  Oharu returned with a sun flag she placed in the comedian’s hand, and at once he was revived and on his feet. The curtains opened, and the entire cast of the revue —actors, chorus girls, acrobats, ventriloquists and magicians— stepped forward for a final bow, each one waving a flag. Behind them rose a battleship, an elaborate prop with triple-barreled guns and a flying bridge with more chorus girls and lines trimmed in pennants. Gun barrels boomed. Smoke rings shot from the muzzles and floated toward the balcony.

  Kato turned on the manager. “When did you put this in the show? What does this militaristic garbage have to do with the music hall?”

  “It’s not military, it’s patriotic.”

  “It’s supreme stupidity. You’re playing to the worst instincts in people.”

  The manager shrugged. “People love it.”

  Harry hadn’t cried for years —with dry eyes he had survived bruises, the absence of parents, the death of pets— but now his eyes stung. Through a blur, he watched a smoke ring float by out of reach.

  14

  HARRY TOOK A river bus, intending to drop the gun in the water somewhere between downtown and Asakusa. The boat was narrow and the cabin crowded with shaggy students, a straw-hat brigade of young salarymen, a go hustler with his board, housewives with mesh bags of winter melon, children carrying smaller children. Harry braved the evening chill and rode in the forward open area, alone except for a businessman reading a newspaper by the lamp on the bow and a boy rolling a toy tank that sprayed sparks on the deck.

  The night sky was a deep blue edged by the softest light of any major city in the world, light that escaped from paper windows and sliding doors or was the tear-shaped light of streetlamps along the banks of the Sumida. At this distance from the Ginza, there were no office buildings to blot out the view, only occasional spikes of neon like the Ebisu Beer tower or the giant illuminated clock of Ueno Station, otherwise only a steady churn behind the backs of obscure one- and two-story houses. Half-seen figures wrung clothes on balconies that overhung the water. A muted glow of patched windows gave way to a bright corner with a streetlamp, neighborhood pump, the calls of children around a street musician, which in turn gave way to the next stretch of blind windows, music swallowed as quickly as it had emerged. The only river traffic was other river buses or barges that eased in and out of canals. Harry intended to tell Michiko tonight. He’d garb his betrayal with small decencies, like leaving her the apartment and the income from the Happy Paris. That was what she was cut out for, anyway, a tough little mama-san. It was a better deal for her, she’d have to see that. He slipped his hand through the rail and let his fingers trail in icy water. He was reaching for the gun when a passenger came out of the cabin, apologized to the boy for trespassing on the battleground of the toy tank and sat next to Harry. It was Sergeant Shozo of the Special Higher Police with a briefcase, the picture of a man headed home from a hard day’s work.

  “I thought it was you,” he told Harry. “I was just saying to myself that looked like Harry Niles, and it’s you. But you have a car, why are you going by boat?”

  “It’s a change.”

  “Yes, I know what you mean. I always enjoy the river.” He settled into a contemplative pose while Harry tucked the gun more out of sight. “But how are you getting back to your car?”

  “Boat, I suppose. Maybe swim.”

  “If you flew, I wouldn’t be surprised.” Shozo produced a broad smile. He leaned against the rail to take in the opposite embankment, a dark ridge edged in branches. “Cherry trees. I brought my son here last year when they were in bloom. We had just seen Tarzan. All he wanted to do was climb the trees. Eight years old.” Shozo shook his head.

  “Did you like the movie?” Harry asked.

  “Very much. A little racist but highly entertaining. Do you agree?”

  “Terrific movie. Big boy in leather skivvies. Upper-class girl. They meet cute in the jungle, build a house in the trees and adopt a chimp. It’s got everything.”

  “When you put it that way, yes. What I found interesting about Tarzan was his desire first to be an ape and then the recognition that he is different, setting off great psychological tension, it seems to me. What are your thoughts?”

  “I’m sure Tarzan was torn.”

  “How was it for you when you returned to your home in the United States?”

  “Well, it wasn’t my home. My home was here.”

  “Yes. That must have been difficult.”

  “People adjust.”

  Shozo nodded sympathetically. “I’m curious. When you went back, what struck you most?”

  Harry thought about it. “Dirty floors.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Sour tea.”

  “Yes?”

  “Dullness.” No banners, no color, no design.

  “I want to get this down.” The sergeant opened his briefcase to take out a notebook. He unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen. “I was wondering, what did you do on your return?”

  “Is this an official interrogation?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Do you?”

  Harry did not like the trend of the conversation. Shozo was proving to have an easygoing slyness that would have served well in a card game.

  A tugboat pushed by towing a coal barge. A man sitting on the coal waved the orange arc of a cigarette.

  Harry finally said, “A little schooling. I was remiss on my American history and the war between the states. A short spell in Bible college and then I was on my own. Pumped gas in Kentucky, set up beach chairs in Florida, water-skied.”

  “Odds and ends. Mostly gambling?”

  “Gambling was more steady.”

  Shozo smiled as if sharing the adventure. “Then you headed for California? For a young man like you, a free spirit, that must have been a logical destination.” He flipped a couple of pages. “Hollywood.”

  “Lifeguard, pool boy, record rep. Selling records and sheet music to music stores, getting the music played on radio.”

  “But still mainly gambling?”

  “Gambling was a way to meet people. Being a record rep, I met mostly cowboys with guitars. A lot of movie people play cards. Losing money helps them relax. I played my way into a job at Paramount in promotion.”

  “You didn’t have any higher education in business?”

  “No one in the movies has a higher education in anything. Education is the last thing you want.”

  “Three years at Paramount?”

  “Three years of taking ingenues and wonder dogs to opening nights. Then I got an offer from another studio to open a branch here. I flew the Clipper to Manila and took the first boat from there. By the time I landed at Yokohama, the studio had folded and the job was gone.”

  “But you stayed,” Shozo said.

  “I found employment.”

  “You’ve done well.” The sergeant reflected. “I find fulfillment in my own work. Not the counterespionage, that’s
largely mechanical. Detection and apprehension, any police can do that. What makes the work of the Special Higher Police—”

  “The Thought Police.”

  “Thought Police, yes, is that we deal in a realm apart from ordinary crimes. We anticipate crimes. Say a man is mentally ill or Communist, isn’t it better to catch him before he physically harms anyone else? Some people are not even aware of the dangerous ideas they carry. They are like innocent bearers of typhoid. Shouldn’t they be isolated for the general health?”

  “Then you cure them?”

  “Yes and no. A gaijin is as riddled with deviant ideas as a dog with ticks. He isn’t worth the time. Japanese are, by nature, healthier. We sit with them, talk with them, listen patiently to them. You know the saying that each man has a book? I believe that each man has a confession. It’s a purgative process, a cleansing. I don’t know why women tend to be more incorrigible, but every man has written a confession that is heartbreaking in its sincerity. I was wondering where you would fall in that range. If you were Japanese enough to be worth the effort.”

  Moths spun around the lamp and landed on the businessman’s newspaper. He read, shook the paper, read. Harry’s eye was caught by an ad with a sleek black train muscling its way through the night: THE ASIA EXPRESS: TOUR MANCHUKUO IN COMFORT. Right now it sounded like a good idea to Harry.

  Shozo asked, “What was the Magic Show? It comes up when your name is mentioned, but no one seems to know what it was.”