by Meira Chand
‘Thank you I feel better. I’ll get a taxi home now,’ she told the old woman who now reappeared, followed by two men.
One had a crew cut, the other permed hair, one wore a black suit and the other a shirt of a shiny material. Kate recognised them as gangsters, and wondered if Tamura had sent them. The men sat down at the table with her. They smiled, showing mouths with gold teeth.
‘I’ll bring some tea. The old woman hurried out again,
Kate was left alone with the men. From upstairs came the sound of an argument and then a sudden laugh. The men regarded Kate silently. The one in a black suit lit a cigarette and spat from his lip a speck of tobacco.
‘You want work?’ asked the one in a gaudy shirt. ‘You want money?’ He undressed her with his eyes.
‘I was lost, someone was following me. It’s all right now. All I need is a taxi home,’ Kate said firmly. She wondered if there was a chance of running from the room.
‘You could earn good money. There are many opportunities for a foreign woman in the bars,’ the one in a white suit told her, leaning across the table.
Kate noticed that his nails were coated with clear varnish and neatly manicured, like a woman.
‘What kind of work? I might be interested. I need the money.’ She made the words sound as innocent as she could, a plan forming in her head. The one in the bright shirt laughed and nodded.
‘Of course you need the money. We can show you where it is.’ He exchanged a vulgar laugh with the black suit next to him.
The old woman returned with bottles of beer, and filled two glasses for the men.
‘How good would the money be?’ Kate asked.
‘That would all depend on you,’ the white suit laughed into his glass. ‘We’ll take you to someone who can tell you more.’
‘Then I’d better smarten up,’ Kate stood up, and asked the old woman the way to the bathroom.
Kate stopped as if to adjust a slipper as they stepped beyond the room. The old woman turned left along the corridor, but Kate stepped to the right and fled. In a single movement she seemed to reach the porch, and push her feet into her waiting shoes. She was in the road once more. From the house she heard a roar of anger and began to run again, the men following behind her. She had a slight headstart, but nothing more.
She was back again in the dark narrow alleys, crowded with rows of tiny, huddled houses. Behind her the insistent beat of feet closed in. A stone underfoot threw her almost off balance. The silhouette of houses pressed against the sky and seemed to swing wildly about her as she ran; a sudden, bright window slashed the blackness. There seemed no way to end this night. She felt like a rat in a laboratory maze, and the fear of capture seized her.
There was another wide road before her, traversed by a level crossing. The lighted entrance to a subway appeared, but she rejected that and ran on. She found herself in the lighted tunnel of a deserted shopping arcade, windows shuttered by metal blinds. Advertisements for yogurt, cosmetics and pornographic films flashed from walls and billboards as she ran. In the arcade a few elderly women stood about, and they called to her and to any passing men. The rhythm of feet drew nearer. A small house, shuttered for the night was before her and Kate crouched down behind some potted bushes beside the door. The men came level with the gate, and passed it, running on. As last there was silence. She waited until it seemed to be safe, and then stood up, setting off in the direction she had just come, crossing the arcade into the darkness of the opposite side. She prayed for a main road and a taxi to release her from the nightmare. It seemed she had fallen into another dimension from which there was no way out. She watched the moon blankly as it sailed on its way high above her. She did not know where she was.
Three men stood before a small fire at the side of the road beneath a low bridge. They looked up as she came level with them. The light of the flames shredded their faces, throwing shadows about their eyes. One had matted hair and wore a long ragged overcoat, another was bald and the third pulled a woollen cap low over his brow. All three wore footwear common amongst Japanese labourers, a long canvas sock with a black rubber sole and divided toes, and resembled the cloven hooves of animals. Breathless and terrified, Kate was unsure for a moment if she faced men, or Satyrs.
One of the men called out and began to walk towards her. His eyes were in shadow beneath his woollen hat. She wanted to run and could not, standing petrified before him. Then blackness welled up within her again.
19
Jun watched his mother unfold the letter and push it across her desk to him.
‘Read it,’ said Itsuko hoarsely, her face old as antique china. The letter lay on the glass-topped desk, dominating the room. Itsuko seemed to recede behind it, beyond her files and telephones and the waiting day. They had barely arrived in Osaka, hardly settled at their respective desks in adjoining office rooms, before she summoned him. Her voice on the interphone had been so faint he came at once, he thought she was ill.
‘Read it,’ she commanded again.
He looked first at the end. It was signed by Tamura.
It was the greatest pleasure last night in Osaka, to meet for the first time at the club, Golden Dream, your beautiful daughter-in-law. We spoke for some time, and I was able to observe what an intelligent and charming woman you have bestowed your illustrious name on. I explained my acquaintance with your family, and at the end of the evening, wishing to offer what assistance I could to the daughter-in-law of an old friend, inquired if I could provide the convenience of my car for her journey back to Kobe. She told me your son was in Tokyo, and she was staying with friends during his absence. She accepted my offer, but after a short distance asked to be set down. Surprised as I was, I complied with her wish. We were at this point near an undesirable area of Osaka and I was concerned. Your daughter-in-law is a foreigner, new to Japan and innocent. I felt sure she did not know of the notoriety of this particular part of Osaka. I followed her in my car at a distance, until I could be sure she was safely on her way. I was troubled to find that she seemed deliberately to enter that disreputable quarter, Kamagasaki, and moreover there in the Tobita area, an establishment of ill repute, a house of prostitution. My mind refuses to wonder at her purpose there, and it grieves me to be the one to convey this information to you. But my obligation as an old friend, forces me to overcome my hesitation. This information is of importance to you.
The old and illustrious name of Nagai makes your family particularly vulnerable. I would not like this information to get into the hands of any of our more spurious magazines, whose aim is only to spread the vicious practice of slander and character defamation. My concern is that this information be kept only to ourselves, and that these consequences be avoided. A foreigner, in an area like that, can easily be traced. To this end you can be sure I have sworn my chauffeur, who witnessed with me all I have described, to absolute silence. He will keep his word as a loyal retainer. As for myself, you can put all trust in my discretion.
I continue this letter with a request, but I am sure you will at once see the pertinent connection with the above matter. Both our companies have been involved recently in the development of a certain new mechanical process. Your knowledge and development is in advance of my own, and I have for some time considered approaching you for a form of direct collaboration. This seems to me to be a convenient moment. A sharing of your knowledge would facilitate a quicker termination of my own project.
In view of the first matter discussed in this letter, I suggest an immediate delivery of your blueprints would be in your best interests. I am not an unreasonable man and am prepared to wait forty-eight hours before I shall be forced to consider taking certain regrettable steps. I enclose herein a trinket left by your daughter-in-law in my car. Perhaps it will help to verify all that is stated here.
Jun could not look up, but kept his eyes on the letter. The shock beat through him, embroidering rapidly in his mind strange scenes and disjointed fragments that refused to fit together. His mouth w
as dry, he could make no sense of things. It must be a lie. How could Kate have met Tamura? He lifted his eyes to the desk upon which Itsuko now laid a thin, linked chain. He stared at it in distress. There was no doubt it was Kate’s, he had given it to her himself. Kate knew little of Osaka, and nothing of the notoriety of the area called Kamagasaki. He went over the letter again, trying to read between the lines. On the desk the bracelet was closed at the clasp and broken along the chain, as if it had been ripped from Kate’s wrist. There must have been good reason she wished to leave Tamura’s car. She did not know him as they did, he had told her he was a friend. Jun looked up at Itsuko in agitation. She appeared to have shrivelled within herself.
‘She’s in danger, she’s in trouble. God knows what has already happened to her, what Tamura might have done.’ He stepped forward urgently, his mind dissolved by fear for Kate. He knew the club mentioned by Tamura. How was Kate there and with Tamura?
Behind her desk Itsuko stirred, blood flowed back into her face. She saw a future that waited now like a door to receive her exit. She clenched her fist in exasperation. Their honour was in jeopardy and all Jun still thought of was Kate, whose fate was inconsequential, compared to the destiny of the Nagais and all they stood to lose.
‘Do you not see what she may do to us, the position she has put us in?’ Itsuko rasped across her desk.
He understood the blackmail, he understood the horror that must fill his mother’s mind. But what seized him now before all else, was simply the thought of Kate. Perhaps it was proof of how much he had changed, proof of his own confusions, that he could not give more than a passing thought to the fears that filled his mother’s mind. She thought first, beyond the loss of life or even her blueprints, to the loss of family honour that slander, real or false, would bring. As close as the throb of her blood, was the duty to their name. To Itsuko the shame of notoriety was more unthinkable than death. She clenched her fist again. She would not be defeated by that upstart, Tamura.
‘I must go and find her. It’s the only way,’ Jun decided.
‘I must go,’ he repeated desperately.
‘No,’ Itsuko ordered, she sat forward in her chair; the word creaked about her. In the glass of the desk and the blade of a paper knife Jun observed her reflection.
‘What are you thinking of? How can you go? Think clearly and beyond your emotions. If Tamura has had the audacity to be this bold, you can be sure he will let no movement of ours slip through his fingers. Tamura’s connections reach beyond ours, that gangster Sakamoto is his brother-in-law. Who knows what spies they have around, you would be followed. Then who knows what more they might have to load against us or misconstrue if you were seen in that area. No person of repute sets foot in there. I forbid it,’ Itsuko drummed her fingers imperiously on the desk.
She was right, factual as usual, crafty as an animal, protected by detachment at a moment of danger.
‘Then we must go to the police.’ He argued heatedly, pictures of Kate, too terrible to translate, filling his mind. ‘We do not know what might have happened to her, I cannot sit here and do nothing, her life may be in danger. I must find her. Only the police can help.’ His voice broke in desperation. ‘I’ll phone now. I’ll phone.’ He stepped towards the desk, but Itsuko half-stood as he reached for the receiver and held his arm, her hand determined and reproachful.
‘What are you thinking of? Have you lost all rationality? To go to the police would be to make the whole thing public. We do not know what your wife has done, what the situation is, nor even where she is exactly. We know nothing except that our own position appears most vulnerable. To go to the police at this stage is to lay everything in the open. Who knows then where it may go.’
‘But we cannot sit here like this and do nothing!’ Jun’s voice rose, Itsuko cautioned him to speak quietly, she glanced nervously at the door.
‘Who said we shall do nothing? Do you think I am not concerned for you, for me, for your foolish wife, for our name? I will not accept this intimidation by Tamura, how dare he. I intend to hire private detectives. There is a firm we have sometimes dealt with for routine office matters, for checking the backgrounds of personnel. They are discreet and thorough. I will phone them at once. Tamura will not have his way,’ Itsuko announced, her anger thin and sharp.
She reached for her telephone book, then dialled the number of the detective company, but it was engaged. As they waited to try again, a secretary announced a visitor for Jun and he reluctantly turned to go.
‘I’ll let you know when I get through. Take hold of yourself. Keep calm,’ Itsuko advised.
His visitor was from an insurance company, an appointment arranged some days before and soon over. Jun leaned back in his chair alone in his room, filled with agitation. Light fell through the open slats of the blind shading a brilliant sun, and lay in bars across a corner of his desk. The room was still and quiet and looked out through a glass window into the activity of the outer office. There was movement, he saw the luminous patterning of data information on a computer screen, a girl with a tray moved slowly between the rows of desks handing out green tea. He stood up and paced about, jumping to the phone as it rang.
‘They are coming within half-an-hour,’ Itsuko told him, her voice precise and in control again. Jun nodded and replaced the receiver.
He sat down again and tried to convince himself that a solution was near, but nothing helped. He stared ahead of him into the office, thoughts running wildly through his head. Kate. There was nothing he would not give for her safety and return. He reached again for the phone, he must speak to Pete, the Baileys would have been the last people to have seen her. Before he could make the call, Pete himself phoned.
‘Is Kate with you?’ he asked.
‘I had my hand on the phone to ring you,’ Jun said.
‘We’re worried,’ Pete explained briefly about Kate’s depression and the job with Steve Lever that they had hoped would help.
‘She rang in the afternoon and told Paula she was going with Steve and these Spaniards to Osaka for the evening. We were glad, we thought it would do her good. But she didn’t come back, it got late and we were worried. I phoned Steve, he was already back home and said Kate left well before him with a man called Tamura, who said he knew you. He was to drop Kate back in Kobe. Then, not long afterwards, we got a call from Kate. She sounded strange, she wouldn’t talk or say where she was, except that she was all right and she would not be back. She sounded confused, just kept repeating she was all right and that we shouldn’t worry. Then she rang off abruptly. I can’t tell you how we felt. But then we thought maybe she was back with you, we were sure of it. We thought that would explain her emotional state, and that she didn’t want to tell us. But if she’s not with you, where the hell is she?’
‘Have you heard of a place called Kamagasaki?’ Jun asked.
‘It’s an area or dropouts or untouchables or something, isn’t it?’ Pete said. ‘A place no one wants to speak about.’
Jun began to explain from the beginning of that morning, his side of the story and Tamura’s threat. He explained about the area Kate was trapped in, the kind of place it was.
‘Private detectives will take too long. I cannot wait. I must go myself, without my mother knowing. I shall find her,’ Jun said, suddenly filled with decision. He could not expect Pete to understand Itsuko’s labyrinthine reasoning. But it seemed he did, for he at once agreed with her.
‘She’s right,’ Pete said. ‘You should not go there at this moment, whatever you feel. Who knows what Tamura has in mind, what move he might be waiting for you to make. You cannot take the risk if this place is as you say. Where would you start? How could you go from whorehouse to whorehouse asking for your wife. God, its unthinkable, you’re open to anything then. No you can’t go, but I could. I could go without any kind of risk.’
‘You?’ Jun asked, hope spreading through him.
‘It’s the only way.’ Pete’s mind was clear. ‘I’ll find her, if
she’s there.’
Jun’s replaced the receiver slowly on the hook, filled with relief and sudden hope. Occasionally in the outer office faces looked up, glanced briefly at him and then returned to their work. The truth of his need for Kate was now clear. He rested his forehead in his hands and wished that experience was not so bitterly bequeathed.
20
‘I do not see,’ said Sakamoto ‘how this can any longer concern me. I deal in success not in bungling. My reputation is at stake, whatever our relationship. If it is known I am connected with you and your inability to do a job, people will laugh. Sakamoto is not laughed at.’ He scratched his crotch below a red silk smoking jacket.
He had not wanted to see Tamura. He had bigger things on hand than this trifling feud between his brother-in-law and the Nagais. Every few days Tamura turned up to discuss some harebrained plan or beg advice, almost paranoid about his tiresome spinning machine. It was of no interest to Sakamoto, it was not his line of things.
‘I gave you some men. They could have got those blueprints for you, had you planned the operation with more precision. I have done what I can, this is your affair, it is not of interest to me. Some things you must do yourself.’ Sakamoto was firm.
Sakamoto’s favourite Alsatian dog, five years dead, was stuffed and sat beside him still, glass eyes faithful and unmoving. Sakamoto placed an ashtray on its head and knocked a cigar against it. Tamura was an embarrassment.