The Japanese Corpse ac-5

by Janwillem Van De Wetering

  Dorin seemed confused. He was bending forward, almost falling off the stage and his otherwise so carefully brushed hair hung down into his eyes.

  The three Chinese bartenders rushed from behind the screen and pushed the yakusa to the sides of the hall. They were gliding about on their velvet slippers and making exaggerated gestures. The yakusa allowed themselves to be pushed, grinning at the antics of the three pompous but elegant men in their brocade vests and wide trousers. The bartenders, as if they wanted to excuse themselves for their rude behavior, retreated to the screen while they held hands and did a kind of shuffle, bowing and bobbing their pigtails, gracefully following the rhythm of the music which had started up again.

  A round dim moon glowed softly as the paper lanterns were switched off, one by one. Miss Ahboombah stood at the lake shore, and felt the water with a carefully extended foot. The soft light was reflected in a bleached cloth wrapped around her body. Only percussion and bass accompanied her slow dreamy movements. When she pulled a boat toward her, with small jerks on a long rope, the trumpet became audible too, whispered sounds spaced by dark lulls wherein the piano touched short double notes. The boat moved away from the shore again, powered by long paddle strokes. She stood in the rear of the boat, which glided over the swell of the lake's surface.

  The commissaris sighed. There was no boat, no shore, no rope, no water; there was nothing but a floor made out of wide boards, a floor in a vast hall. But Miss Ahboombah had taken him to an African lake; there were palm trees on the shore, there would be a native village not far away, with round straw-topped huts. He saw how she looked up, following the flight of a bird, gliding about on large dark wings. He felt the slow heat of a tropical night. The bleached cloth fell off her as she dived; a long leap powered by the muscles of her legs and the resistance of the boat that glided on, empty and alone. He saw the slender body cut through heaving waves and circles formed by the splash of the leap. He saw her break through the surface and swim with stretched strokes, bending and pushing her hands through cool water. She turned and swam back to the boat and swung a glistening leg into the narrow hollowed-out tree trunk. She was squatting down and came up in a single movement, standing with the paddle back in her hand.

  The light died in the paper moon, the music had gone with it, only the bass vibrated in the hall. When the paper lanterns came on again the hall was empty. The commissaris didn't want to break the silence. He heard the daimyo breathing quietly next to him and the trumpeter's leg rubbing against the side of the piano. But the applause came, hesitantly at first, then swelling till it filled the hall.

  De Gier had stood in a corner, half hidden by the dragon screen. He had shaken his head unbelievingly when the dance began. He had expected a wild performance, a strip act stressed by heavy drumbeats and piercing trumpet bursts working up to some rough orgasm in which the saxophone would blare and sob and wheeze. A nightclub dancer, intent on holding her public enthralled, who will show all, while bits of garments whirl to the floor.

  But de Gier had followed the woman too, on and in the lake, which had reminded him of his balcony, as the commissaris had been reminded of his garden. She had taken him to a protected spot, hidden deep under his thoughts, to the quiet glade that had to be at the end of the path which he sometimes followed in his dreams.

  He pushed himself free from the wall and saw the commissaris wave, and he crossed the hall that began to fill up with yakusa, waiting for the bar to open.

  "Good party, sir," he said. "Pity that the Snow Monkeys will smash it to smithereens in a minute. I suppose they can come any moment now, right?"

  The small shape of the commissaris on the edge of the stage seemed as unreal as the rest of his entourage and his words formed themselves with difficulty. "Not yet," the commissaris said, and grabbed a glass from a passing tray. "We still have a few hours. I am glad that the ambassador remembered to send the jenever and that you were able to pick up the cases from the airport this morning."

  "Forty-eight bottles of the very best," de Gier said. "If they get themselves stuck into that lot, it'll be a bit of a mess, sir."

  The commissaris looked at the bar, which was disappearing behind the dragon screen again. "The daimyo is disciplining them pretty well up to now, sergeant, but I suppose he'll loosen up as the night moves on. You and I will have to join the merriment; let's see who can get the most drunk, you or I."

  "You are serious, sir? That won't be difficult. The bar is loaded with whisky and brandy and our jenever will be poured on top of that."

  "Yes," the commissaris said, and nodded. "Drunk, that's what we'll have to be, dead drunk, smashed, the worse the better."

  "But shouldn't we be able to look about? You know what Dorin is planning. Maybe we should be on our feet by the time the helicopters come."

  The commissaris pointed with his head. De Gier looked round and saw Dorin, finding his way slowly through the massed yakusa. "Don't worry, Rinus," the commissaris said softly. "Maybe they'll have to carry us out, but tomorrow we'll wake up as usual, with a bit of a hangover I imagine, but safe and sound."

  "I was talking to Kono just now," Dorin said. "He took the bandage off his hand. The wound seems to be doing well."

  "A nice man," the commissaris said.

  "A darling," Dorin said, "just like all those other sweetie pies. Their pleasantness makes me sick to my stomach. They are doing it much too well tonight, I have to tell myself over and over again that they are the worst bastards you might ever want to avoid, because if I don't I forget, and I forget all the same, every time one of them comes over for a chat and a smile."

  "Is that so bad?" the commissaris asked, and made the cubes in his glass tinkle.

  "Yes, that's bad." Dorm's smile had become a sneer. "I hate that filth. If I could have a chance to think clearly, I would know that they are of exactly the same type as the Chinese warlords and their cronies who rotted their own country to the point where farmers wouldn't bother to sow their land and babies were left in the ditch because their starving mothers couldn't feed them. The yakusa are a living plague and they should be crushed the minute they reveal themselves, without ceremony, without a second thought. When the daimyo danced just now he showed his true spirit, a vampire, a sucking vermin, but a minute later he was the ideal host who can create a perfect atmosphere by a single gesture."

  "Perhaps," the commissaris said. "But he isn't a common man, not by any means, and I doubt whether he is the maniac you seem to think he is. Perhaps the fact that he exists proves that this society in which he lives allows room for his existence, wants him to be, perhaps. In another society he would act a different part, maybe a part which could be defined as good."

  Dorin tried to light a filter cigarette at the wrong end. He pulled the smoldering cigarette from his mouth and rubbed it into the floor with his heel. "No."

  "What do you think, de Gier?" the commissaris asked, but the sergeant didn't answer. Ridiculous, de Gier thought, I shot my cat, I am in a castle in the Rokko Mountains, a black angel has danced all through my soul just now.

  "De Gier?"

  Esther is dead, de Gier thought, and the earth in my flowerpots is caked and has burst. I can't go back, but I am free, I have been free for weeks, and I have no idea what I should do with my freedom. I have slept with a Japanese woman and all I saw were fern leaves growing from a lake. And all the people in this hall are my deadly enemies.

  "Where are you?" the commissaris asked.

  "Yes, sir," de Gier said, and walked away.

  The daimyo, holding Yuiko's hand, came to fetch his guests. Tables were being carried in, and the bartenders, helped by cooks in white uniforms, brought in trays loaded with dishes and bowls.

  "I had some special food prepared for you," the daimyo said. "I heard that you have been living on Japanese dishes so far, and I thought that you might be ready for a change. There is some steak, and lamb chops and fried potatoes and salads and…" He pointed and described the various dishes, and pulled the
commissaris and Yuiko with him. "The salads are the cook's specialty and he also knows how to prepare the right dressings. The salads come from Kono's garden, I helped him with the harvest this morning, we often work together in the fields, too often perhaps, I am neglecting my duties these days. The pleasure of a man about to retire."

  "You are retiring soon?" the commissaris asked.

  "In another year perhaps, but I will remain interested. Old men still have some value in Japan. Perhaps I will be asked to advise from time to time."

  "Here," the daimyo said. "Please feel free to serve yourselves, I'll be back in a minute, I have to cut the carp on the other table."

  Dorin was looking at his watch. "The airstrip should be in our hands by now," he said into the commissaris' ear, "and the castle should be surrounded. I don't suppose the guards had a chance to resist, if there were any guards. The daimyo has lived safely behind the bribe barrier, for years and years."

  "I hope the Snow Monkeys have been trained in patience too," the commissaris said, and tipped a spoon above his salad, allowing the dark red dressing to dribble down on the fresh leaves. "They should come in only when our friends are nicely drunk, and that event hasn't come to pass yet, not by a long way."

  Dorin stabbed his spoon into a silver bucket filled with a white creamy fluid. "Sure," he said. "They are trained in many ways. This is a Russian sauce, I always choose Russian dishes, so that I will be accustomed to them when the time comes. They can be here within a few hours."

  "The Russians?"

  "The Russians. I saw them last month through my binoculars. They were exercising just off our north coast. Their islands are so close that they sometimes get onto our beaches after a swim and we have to ferry them back." The spoon shot free, creating a vacuum that filled with a sick gurgle. "Don't you worry about the Russians? They must form the same menace in Europe that they do here."

  The commissaris was cutting his steak with slow careful cuts of a very sharp knife. The red bloody slices fell over on his plate.

  "No," he said hesitatingly. "No, I don't suppose I do. Perhaps when the time comes, but it hasn't come yet. And so many things are coming. Death, for instance."

  De Gier joined them, with Ahboombah holding his arm. The dancer was dressed in a long gown, closing at the elongated neck. She held her plate and de Gier dropped lettuce leaves on it, while she smiled approvingly.

  "You are a true artist," the commissaris said. "I enjoyed your dance very much." She laughed. "I hope you weren't disappointed? I usually dance in a different style, but the daimyo wanted me to do this pantomime. He had seen me do it in New York."

  De Gier touched Dorin's elbow, while the commissaris and the dancer talked.

  "Yes?"

  "I don't know what your plans are for the rest of the evening," de Gier whispered, "but the old man has to get out of this." His whisper was cold and fierce and Dorin jumped.

  "Don't fuss, man," he hissed back. "Of course he'll get out of this. This is a party, isn't it? A jolly party! We are with friends, aren't we?"

  De Gier didn't have a chance to answer. Dorin had banged his plate on the table and stalked off, his face twitching and his arms swinging.

  The daimyo came back and got into the conversation, and wandered off again, taking Ahboombah. The commissaris watched the pair move across the hall. The dancer's long hand, each tapered finger ending in a long curved silver nail, rested on the daimyo's shoulder and her face was bent down to his head, her cheek touching a bristling tufted eyebrow.

  Maybe I don't have to get all that drunk, the commissaris thought, but shook his head despondently. He would have to get drunk and afterward he would be ill. Headache, thirst, cramps most probably, diarrhea if the worst came to the worst. But he cheered up again. He could always take a bath, the Japanese baths had done wonders so far, his legs didn't hurt much anymore.

  The daimyo turned up again, offering delicacies. Giant shrimps fried in batter and some pieces of squid floating in a thick dark gravy.

  "Tomorrow," the daimyo said. "Tomorrow we can talk quietly, while we walk and look at things. Kono wants to show off his birds. He has some new pheasants, very wonderful creatures, and there are swans too now, black Australian swans. His birds are his pride, just as my bears were mine once, but they are too old now, and they never wanted to breed."

  "I saw your bears," the commissaris said, "when we came in, in a cage near the gates. A peacock was sitting on the cage's roof and I saw a bear's face, in between the tail feathers of the peacock. A sight of great beauty. You do live in splendor, sir."

  "I live in my dream," the daimyo said, "and the dream changes, not always in the way I want to change. But now that my years are catching up with me I try to live with the change and not to force it anymore, as I used to. And the dream is about to finish. I will be leaving this place and I am getting used to the thought."

  "Where will you go?" the commissaris said, and took a bite of seaweed. He kept the slimy substance in the front of his mouth and chewed softly.

  "I think I will find myself a small house, maybe on an island in the Inland Sea. A house with a vegetable garden; I've been enjoying growing things lately. Why don't you come and see me then? You can stay with me and perhaps we can do some traveling and you can tell me what you see and I will experience my country through your eyes. It will be an adventure we can share."

  "Yes," the commissaris said, and swallowed, trying not to shiver.

  "But that time hasn't come yet," the daimyo said sadly. "For the time being we are driven by our own plans. Although…" He cut his sentence, leaving Yuiko in the middle of a word. "Perhaps you will understand me better later tonight. I will be acting in a little play, a Noh play. The Noh plays are true Japanese, the only art form which we didn't import from China."

  "A play?" the commissaris asked. "What about?"

  "About a bad man. I will be the bad man. He is bad because he doesn't know what is good. A very complicated theme, but I will try to act simply. I will dance and sing and the yakusa will sing too and the musicians will accompany us. They are getting ready now, there they are already; I will have to go and change."

  The commissaris walked over to de Gier and they found their way to the stage together.

  "How are things, sergeant?"

  De Gier smiled uncertainly. "Very good, sir, too good, perhaps. I can hardly stand it. I keep on seeing the helicopters taking off. I saw helicopters exercise in Holland once. They have heavy machine guns mounted on bars protruding from the sides of the cockpit, fed by ammunition belts that swing out. Slow machines, ponderous, but you can't defend yourself against them, for they can move in any direction. And each helicopter filled with those nasty little men, destructive apes. They will break and burn everything here. There'll be nothing left, a smoldering heap of rubbish, and then they will raise themselves and take off again."

  The commissaris was carrying a bowl of ice cream. "I don't really want this, sergeant, why don't you eat it?"

  "Thank you." De Gier began to eat.

  "But you look cheerful enough," the commissaris said.

  "That's the point I was trying to make, sir. The music is excellent and that dance got me too. It's as if everything fits exactly tonight. I am, in fact, completely happy, but 'happy' is such a ridiculous word."

  The commissaris patted him on the back. "You are doing very well, sergeant. Keep it up for a while. We'll see what all this will lead to, and in the meantime we can live for the moment."

  Dorin caught up with them. "I don't think they are armed," he said, "but we'll have to watch it, there must be a store of arms in the castle."

  "They'll be drunk in an hour," the commissaris said pleasantly. "We'll have to drink with them, you too, Dorin. The daimyo is a sensitive and intelligent man. If we show any reluctance he'll know immediately."

  A shrill shriek erupted from the stage and the lights dimmed and disappeared, changing the hall into a large black hole. Three lanterns appeared from behind the dragon scr
een, carried by the bartenders, who had changed into black kimonos. They formed a half circle and waited, raising their lights.

  A man's voice sang, a deep voice, mouthing sad words. A wide-shouldered shape jumped into the weak light. Short drum taps punctuated the song. A flute trembled through the percussion, high and thin, detached notes modulating into a glass-sharp trill.

  "The daimyo," Dorin said, pointing at the actor. "He is much better than I thought he would be. I know the piece too. It has to do with a warrior who has lost his lord and is trying to find a new base for his life. A difficult piece and written in such antique language that most of its implications are obscure. It ends badly, that much is certain. I think he loses his mind, a strange piece to use for a party."

  A second shape became visible, threatening the singer.

  "Ahboombah," de Gier said, "with a mask and a white wig."

  The woman leaped around the daimyo and stopped directly in front of him, her hands raised. The mask had been cut in an expression of sneering fury, with drawn lips and triangular gleaming teeth. The head began to shudder and the white hair spread in a broad fringe. The daimyo retreated slowly and the woman followed him, bending her arms and threatening him with quivering long bent nails. Other actors appeared and attacked the daimyo, who tried to defend himself but had to cover his face to lock the vision out. The flute accentuated the threat, but changed back into a soft alluring melody, and the daimyo appeared to rest. The enemy regrouped and attacked afresh and the demons of fear won, forcing the daimyo into an abject kneeling posture that shifted into total surrender as he dropped to the ground. The lanterns shuffled back toward the screen and disappeared behind it.

  The hall was lit again, and the musicians struck up a gay throbbing tune while the bartenders wheeled the bar into the center of the hall.

  The change had been too quick for the commissaris. He was still hunched up, staring at the spot where the daimyo had been destroyed a moment ago.

  "My word," the commissaris mumbled. He was glad to hear de Gier's cough next to him, and looked up. "What did you think of that, Rinus?"