by Morris West
‘You flatter me Kenji; but the politics won’t just go away. The Americans are offering massive funds as the price of Soviet intervention in the Persian Gulf. The Germans are paying something like five billion marks as the price for Moscow’s non-intervention in the reunification of East and West. Japan is holding out for the return of the Kuril Islands, taken by Russia after the war. A settlement will take time and rough bargaining.’
‘Exactly! What is needed now is private enterprise, accelerated by the profit motive. The Soviets don’t want to become vassals of American capital. Germany is their natural bridgehead into Europe. Japan is their natural springboard into Asia.’
‘It’s ironic, isn’t it?’ I could not hold back the comment. ‘Fifty years down the track the Russians themselves want to revive the Berlin/Tokyo Axis.’
Tanaka frowned in obvious distaste. ‘The last thing we need, Gil, is a political label on this! It’s pure commerce. We’re asked to come up with a plan for the import, storage, processing, preservation and distribution of essential foodstuffs across the landmass of the Soviet Union. It’s a huge undertaking. The climate works against it. The transport and distribution system is fifty years out of date. The armed forces have the only half-way efficient transport organisation. A large percentage of perishable foodstuffs is lost in storage or transit. Even in the grain-belt there have never been enough silos…Already people are tightening their belts for a hard winter. The folk in the Kremlin are having nightmares about food riots. Once we get this agreement through there will need to be massive propaganda on television and in the press and an interim programme of food imports to bridge the gap.’
‘And you hope to finalise the agreement at the Bangkok meeting?’
‘We must. There can be no “ifs” or “maybes”. All the delegates are coming with full authority to sign or reject without reference. Our best hope is to act under the pressure of necessity and then sort out difficulties as they arise on the ground. That’s why your role is so important: to damp down debate and hasten decision.’
‘Do all the other parties understand that role?’
‘They say they do. They have been informed of your record. They accept your presence. Naturally, each delegate will be bringing his own staff of advisers and interpreters, so you’ll have a certain amount of critical competition.’
‘That’s no problem, provided I have daily access to all principals.’
‘That, too, has been made clear.’
‘One more question. Why Bangkok?’
Tanaka grinned like a cat with milk all over its whiskers. ‘Because I like the place and the people. I’m always comfortable in the Oriental hotel. Their conference facilities are good and their security is tight. It’s also a convenient one-leg flight from Moscow, London, Frankfurt and Tokyo. The delegates don’t have to touch down in Mediterranean airports or overfly the trouble-spots in the Gulf. Also, thanks to our excellent relations with the Thai military and police forces, we are able to guarantee safe and healthy entertainment for all our colleagues.’
He was expecting me to rise to the bait; but I was not going to give him that satisfaction. His excellent relations in Thailand were maintained in part by the Yakuza, who did a thriving business importing Thai girls for Japanese clubs and entertainment circuits. They had other links, too, to the amphetamine traffic and the arms rackets; but they still functioned freely within a set of unwritten rules and guidelines. One of the richest men in the country was still Ryoichi Sasakawa, Godfather of Godfathers, who even went jogging with Jimmy Carter and contributed to his presidential library at Emory University. I have no tolerance for thuggery. I have seen too many people hurt by underworld exploiters. I have no patience left for historical justifications of their necessary role in society. As for the safe and healthy entertainment guaranteed by Tanaka – in Bangkok of all places! – I would not bet a dollar on it, let alone my life. One of the closest conspiracies in Thailand is the attempt to keep the massive proliferation of AIDS out of the tourist news. However, I was invited as a commercial mediator, not as a censor of morals, so I held my peace.
As if he had read my thoughts, Tanaka said ‘We have provided you with a large two-bedroomed suite at the Oriental. You will need work and conference space, but there will be room for a lady friend, if you care to bring one.’
‘I’ll bring a secretary and her assistant. So far I have no other arrangements. When do you want me in Bangkok?’
‘Ten days from now, Sunday 16th. We convene at nine on the Monday morning.’
‘How long do you expect the conference to last?’
‘Two weeks. After all the groundwork we’ve done, if we can’t conclude a basic agreement in that time, Leibig and I will walk away. So you see, you carry a heavy responsibility, Gil.’
‘You know how I work, Kenji. I don’t guarantee success, only an even-handed mediation.’
‘We expect no more and no less.’ He waited a moment, framing the phrases with great care. ‘Do you remember the day when you challenged me to buy you out and set my own price on your Japanese shares?’
‘I remember it very well. That was the moment when I believe we became true friends.’
‘I suppose it was.’ He did not sound very certain. He had another thought in his mind. ‘You didn’t know it then, Gil, but the whole thing turned out to be a joke with a double meaning. In the Yakuza, when a man makes a mistake, he cuts off a finger joint to show regret and make amends to his oyabun, his father-chief. I made a mistake with you. I thought I could guarantee your co-operation. That mistake cost me more than a finger joint. I lost twenty million dollars…No matter! If this project works, I shall recoup it a hundred times over. So you see, my dear friend, I am relying very much on your skills as a negotiator…Now let’s dry off and have some dinner!’
I was halfway to my room when the true import of the words hit me. In Tanaka’s eyes, in the value system to which he had been bred, I was his debtor. He had made a concession to me which had cost him dearly. Now it was time for me to acknowledge the debt and pay it. I should do that by changing my role at the conference from independent mediator to partisan promoter of Tanaka’s interests.
The strange and difficult part was that Tanaka saw it as the most natural thing in the world. He was not threatening me. He was not bargaining. He was doing nothing dishonourable. He was simply reminding me that, as one to whom a service had been rendered, I was bound by on – an obligation which might be deferred but could never be abrogated. Tanaka and I were using the same language; each of us was locked into a different system of logic. I might rage, protest, resign from the conference; but none of it would make any sense at all to him.
The bitterest irony of all was that I could play Judas to myself and no one would ever know. If the conference failed, no one would blame me. If it succeeded, no one would remember whether I had delivered an honest plea or a partisan one. I felt suddenly sick with anger and frustration. There was a taste of bile in my gullet. It took me another ten minutes to compose myself and put on a smiling face for dinner.
That night Miko ate with us, while the maids served our meal. I noted with wry admiration how well she played the complex role which she had accepted in Tanaka’s life. She was instant with small services, pouring his liquor, feeding him choice morsels, giggling behind her hand at his jokes. She was also a skilled raconteur and she spun out a whole series of pungent observations about business and politics and public officials in Washington and Hawaii.
For me, the male guest, she had another kind of attention, a teasing interest in the details of my sex life, my girlfriends, my relations with my secretary and my children. It was all very skilful, the sort of act which geisha spend all their girlhood learning. But this one was no geisha. She was like a grafted plant who had reverted, in a magical transformation, to the original Japanese rootstock.
Tanaka doted on her. I liked and admired her. I think she found me agreeable enough. I knew she was observing me closely and that her j
udgments would be passed later to Kenji Tanaka. So, I took pains to be an entertaining guest. I opened my grab-bag of memories: my boyhood travels with my father, my first encounters with the upland tribes of New Guinea, who worshipped a pig-god and believed that their magicians could change themselves into cassowary birds and travel as fast as the wind from village to village. I told them of the voodoo rites we had witnessed in the favelas of Rio and the day we stood in a back street in Tunis and watched a bored workman excavate rows of little urns, the ashes of first-born sacrificed in the fiery belly of Baal.
It was, I confess, a carefully calculated performance, designed to charm Miko and impress Tanaka. I could not come within a shout of his wealth, his power, even his mobility. His private jet could whisk him at any moment to the ends of the earth. But every Japanese, however widely travelled, lives always encapsulated in his own history, his own culture, his own language. There is, in fact, a whole subspecies of modern literature called nihon-jinron - Japanese look at themselves. It is pulp magazine stuff for the most part, which emphasises the racial uniqueness and superiority of the Japanese people. Naturally enough, the conviction of uniqueness and superiority provokes a counter-current, a sense of isolation and inferiority. This was the only weapon on which I could call if my relations with Tanaka turned hostile.
It was not at all impossible. Before we concluded our deal to set up a Japanese branch of Polyglot Press, I had sat through days of haggling with him and his senior staff. He knew every trick in the book. He could be as rough as sandpaper, as smooth as lacquer. Whenever he felt an argument running against him he would make a sudden display of anger, swift and threatening as a swordsman’s lunge. I learned that I should never recoil from it, but move in close, body to body, blade on blade, for the parry. It was too early to know whether we would come to battle during the Bangkok conference; but I had to be prepared.
By the time the meal was over, however, we were both mellow with liquor and Tanaka was listing a little when Miko helped him to his feet. I had noticed in other encounters that he had a poor head for liquor. He rarely drank heavily except in private.
When he bade me goodnight he was loquacious and affectionate: ‘Sleep well, Gil. I am very fond of you. You are a good friend and a very clever man. Your only problem is you work too hard and don’t play enough…I work hard, but I know how to enjoy myself. Ask Miko here. Do I not enjoy myself? Do we not have fun together…? Even now, when there may be war at any moment, we are preparing for a great adventure. You are like my German friend, Carl Leibig; very stiff, very correct. Which reminds me, you must see him before you leave Tokyo. Telephone him in the morning. I know you will get along together very well…Oh, and one last warning, Gil. Don’t walk in the garden in the moonlight. That’s when the fox-woman prowls. Tell him about the fox-woman, Miko. No, don’t laugh. Fox-women look like beautiful maidens but they bring death and disaster. One of them seduced the Emperor Hansoku and on her account he murdered a thousand of his most loyal samurai. We know one of them lives in this garden; but you don’t have to worry. She will never come inside unless you invite her. So go to bed, my friend. Pull the covers over your head and dream happy dreams…’
Finally, Miko managed to coax him away. I stood and watched her supporting him all the way to their bedroom.
For me, sleep was long coming. I tossed restlessly on the futon and lapsed in and out of shallow sleep. Twenty minutes after midnight I woke to a moment of pure terror. A woman’s face, moon-pale, was suspended in the darkness above my head. It was Miko, dressed in a black yukata, her dark hair unbound and trailing to her waist. I swore in English.
‘For Christ’s sake, woman. What is this?’
She sealed my lips with her fingertips and answered in English. ‘Don’t worry. Kenji was quite drunk tonight. He will sleep for hours yet. I must talk with you.’
‘Can’t it wait?’
‘No. The helicopter is picking us up at nine. This is the only chance I’ll have to talk to you.’
‘About what?’
‘Kenji believes you are angry with him.’
‘I was. I’m not now.’
‘If it’s about the conference…’
‘Listen to me, Miko! With Kenji, I work one to one, no go-betweens, no hidden agenda. If he has questions, he asks them himself. Did he send you to me?’
‘God, no! He would hate me if he knew.’
‘I might tell him. Have you thought of that?’
‘You won’t. You’re not that sort of man.’
‘Don’t bet on it. So Kenji knows I was angry with him. He must know why.’
‘He does. He’s too proud to explain himself to…’
‘To a gaijin?’
‘To a friend who may misunderstand. So will you listen to me please? Don’t interrupt, don’t argue. Just let me say it and I’ll be gone. Please?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Kenji is a sick man. The doctors here and in Europe have diagnosed leukaemia. You know what that means in terms of treatment. He will not face that. I know he will decide at some moment to end his life rather than submit to the indignities of this illness. So our conference has become very important to him. It represents a limited goal which he knows he can achieve before he declines too far. Rightly or wrongly, he believes that it can lead to an early treaty for the return of the Kuril Islands to Japan. That he sees as the crowning of a life work, a tribute to the memory of his father and the ancestors, a gift to the Emperor and the nation. I can understand how he feels. It would help if you could understand it too.’
‘I do. You must believe that. I’ve always read it as one of his goals. I don’t oppose it. I can, and probably will, plead the case eloquently in the conference. But what I can’t do, will not do, is assume the role of exclusive advocate for Kenji Tanaka. My task, my clearly stated function for which I accept money, is to help work out a deal acceptable to all parties. To do that I must be seen to be acting even-handedly and in good faith. Kenji knows that, has always known it. I was angry today because I felt he was trying to manipulate me into another position. There’s a name for it in Japanese: Shiso zendo – thought guidance. I don’t blame him for trying; but there’s no rule that says I have to like it. So what more is there to say?’
‘Nothing. Except that Kenji finds it hard to understand your special kind of morality.’
‘What’s so strange in that? He has his own thought guidance: the ancestors, the Emperor, the social contract. I don’t subscribe to them myself, but I have no difficulty in understanding them.’
‘You’re a hard man, Gil.’
‘And Kenji is not?’
‘Not always, and never with me. I love him, Gil. Old-fashioned Western style, I love him!’
‘And he loves you?’
‘In his own fashion, yes. I am the comfortable corner, the playroom of his life. He is happy to confess that, as he did tonight; but at the same time he resents it as weakness. In the end, I know he will find dependence intolerable and he will begin to practise the cruelties that will force me to leave him. Then, I am sure, he will kill himself.’ She gave a small rueful laugh. ‘As you have already discovered, Gil, we Japanese are a very complicated people. Do you know what Kenji most admires about you?’
‘I haven’t given any thought to it.’
‘He says you have a certain primitive simplicity, which he admires greatly.’
‘And that’s a compliment?’
‘He means it so. Though I don’t agree with him. I think that you are a very complex man.’
‘Go to bed, Miko, for God’s sake!’
‘I’m going. Thank you for listening.’
She touched her fingers to her lips, then laid them, light as a butterfly touch, on my mouth. The next moment she was gone.
Sleep was impossible now. I got up and slid back the shoji screen that opened on to the garden. Above the crater rim the moon was riding high, a silver boat on a dark sea dotted with stars. In the garden, the light on the leaftips wa
s sparse and cold. The shadows under the shrubbery were dark, the sound of the stream thin and tremulous. Then, loud and clear and very close, I heard the ghostly screech of a vixen in heat.
Two
Carl Albert Leibig surprised me. I do not know why, but I had expected an ageing man, sturdy, chunky and grim of visage, the perfect stereotype of an old-time Baltic trader. Instead, the man I received in my office was a trim, blond, athletic fellow in his late thirties, beautifully tailored, with a cheerful smile, a firm handshake and impeccable manners. He greeted me in German and our conversation continued in that language.
We exchanged cards and courtesies. I found he was much better briefed on my activities than I was on his. He was even able to make intelligent conversation on my latest Japanese publishing venture, an illustrated, multilingual guide to traditional craftsmen in modern Japan – painters, sculptors, designers of brocades, wood-block printmakers and the like.
We discussed the technicalities of the job and he promised to send my editor a list of little known masters from the northern provinces. He also gave me valuable information on a new colour printing plant which his company had just installed in Seoul. He told me the Koreans were looking for start-up business and I might well be able to strike an advantageous deal.
‘…Especially as you speak and write the language. However, you will need to exercise rigid quality control in the beginning of your relationship. Our company has been established there since 1886, so we have what you might call mature connections. You have not yet begun publishing there, I think.’
‘Not yet. We have licensed certain titles: science textbooks, economic surveys, that sort of thing. We’ve had a few problems, mostly in the accounting area.’
He laughed and quoted in Korean a piece of bawdy doggerel about a kisaeng girl and a tourist from America. He gave a grin of approval when I rendered it in Reeperbahn slang.