He said, “That’s one.”
18
THERE WAS AN ETIQUETTE to geisha parties: no groping, no show of money, no sake once rice was served, although the rules were often violated by wartime profiteers who knew no better. Ishigami was a gentleman of the old school, who fueled on nothing but high-octane sake. Screw the rice. Anyway, who was sleepy? Not Ishigami, who sat in a white kimono spotted with blood and tended his sword with an oily rag.
Ishigami seemed to swell and fill the room. Perhaps because every sense of Harry’s was sensitized, Ishigami was magnified, every pore of his hatchet face, the blue cap of his cropped hair, the black wires of his brows and lashes, the dark mirrors of his eyes, not to mention the smell of salty sweat tinged by background accents of incense and blood. Harry noticed the checkmarks of fragmentation grenades on the colonel’s scalp, a notched ear, the way his neck swelled like a forearm when he leaned back. He studied how Ishigami’s hands curled around the handle of the sword the way a baseball glove would fit around a ball. Harry had to wonder whether Ishigami had soaked his hands and sword in neat’s-foot oil for a better grip. He noted the white kimono, which suggested a sense of ceremony and dedication to a task. He also noticed how little air was in the room, as if he and Ishigami had labored to the thin atmosphere of a mountain peak.
The problem was that Ishigami was smart, moral and psychotic, the worst possible combination. He couldn’t be gulled, bought or reasoned with. The last option was to kill him, and Harry couldn’t imagine accomplishing that without the gun he had just buried under the floorboards across the street. There was Ishigami’s own sword, but the colonel was just waiting for Harry to try.
Meanwhile, there were other plates to keep spinning. For example, the DC-3 being readied in its hangar at Haneda Field. DC-3s were built on license by Nakajima Aircraft, which also built excellent bombers. A crew would work around the clock to make sure the plane shone like a silver spoon on Monday. Harry anticipated speeches at the foot of the ramp from the Foreign Ministry and Nippon Air, appropriate remarks from passengers about the glowing future of the Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, bouquets, bon voyages, bows all around. Thirty-six hours from now. None of this would include him if he were involved in a homicide, let alone if he were dead.
The other fly in the soup, so to speak, was Hawaii. Harry thought he had helped discourage any adventure in that direction with the phony oil-tank farm. Now, however, Ishigami said he had found the emperor perusing sea charts and maps. A sea chart was for locating a point in the ocean. A map was for finding Pearl Harbor and Battleship Row. Maybe His Majesty was being consulted, but he had about as much influence as the Indian on the hood of a Pontiac. It seemed impossible for the Japanese fleet to get close enough to attack Pearl, but after all, Yamamoto was the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo. And his fleet was missing. However, if Harry had to bet, he’d say a raid on Pearl was no more than fifty-fifty, and not until he had winged his way back to California, assuming he survived the night.
He pictured the fatally surprised DeGeorge while Michiko laughed and chattered on. Lady Macbeth could learn from Michiko, Harry thought. No craven “Out, damned spot!” from this girl. With her long-sleeved kimono, elaborate wig and her face flattened by matte white, the geisha Michiko was a dangerous two-dimensional version of herself. Over time, the getup actually looked less bizarre and more like Michiko’s true face. He couldn’t believe he had slept with this woman, known her literally inside out, taught her the difference between an upbeat and down. At least he had never said “I love you,” he’d never been that big a fool. Between Ishigami and Michiko, Harry felt as if he had wandered into a samurai drama.
And the sword? Harry had once attempted counterfeiting swords. In fact, his first impulse when he got his hands on a welding torch was to attach an ordinary blade to a tang signed by a famous swordsmith, so he had an eye. Ishigami’s long sword had the unusual length, smoky temper line and elegant sweep of a Bizen. All Harry could see of the short sword tucked into the colonel’s kimono sash was a worn leather handle. Well, it was good to see these old beauties used instead of being hung on a wall. Think of a sword that had been chopping heads for four hundred years. It took your breath away.
Michiko clapped her hands. “Let’s do some haiku. I’ll go first.”
Haiku, that should pick up the party. Harry thought it had lost its festive air.
Michiko poured more sake, sat back on her heels and began:
“The world was born when the
Goddess Izanami
Spoke the first word.”
“That’s it?” Harry asked.
“That’s it. Five syllables, seven syllables, five. Haiku.”
In spite of themselves, Harry and Ishigami shared a glance of amusement.
“That’s not it,” Harry said. “There’s much more to haiku.”
Ishigami agreed. “Haiku contains a word that evokes the season. You use the word ‘winter,’ or you suggest it with ‘icicles,’ or ‘spring’ or ‘cherry blossoms.’ Your poem doesn’t have either.”
Michiko shrugged in a pretty way. “Because in the beginning there were no seasons.”
“More importantly,” Ishigami said, “you have the story wrong. When the goddess Izanami and the god Izanagi came down from heaven to create the islands of Japan, yes, Izanami spoke first, saying, ‘What a nice man you are.’ But Izanagi was offended, because a man should speak first, so nothing was created. Then Izanagi spoke, saying, ‘What a beautiful lady you are,’ and only then did they create the islands of Japan.”
Michiko pouted. “Like any man. It’s obvious he never would have said a word if she hadn’t gone first. And then he takes the credit.”
“That is why women should never be allowed to write poetry,” Ishigami told Harry. “They want the first word and the last.”
She laughed, and the bells in her hair rang softly. She told Ishigami, “Now you go.”
“Harry?” Ishigami offered to wait.
“No, please.” Harry hated to break up the flirtation between Michiko and the colonel. There were moments when he felt as if Ishigami and Michiko were enjoying a picnic on his grave.
Ishigami thought for a moment. “This is a favorite of mine.”
“This will be very good,” Michiko said.
“Can’t wait,” said Harry.
Ishigami stopped oiling the sword.
“They call this flower white peony
Yes, but
A little red.”
Michiko clapped, eyes bright. “The petals are like that. It makes me think of a white kimono edged in red.”
“Harry, you seem to know something about haiku. What does it make you think of?” Ishigami asked.
“Round shoulders and blood.” What else? Like florists said in the States, “Say it with flowers.”
“Yes.” Ishigami picked out a fresh cloth to clean the blade. “You and I, Harry, we seem to be on the same wavelength.”
“Women just don’t understand.”
“England has poetry, Shakespeare and Donne. Is there poetry in America?”
“It’s different.”
“I would think so. It takes history to be distilled into poetry.”
“No, there’s poetry everywhere you go.”
“Such as?”
“Such as:
“His face was smooth
And cool as ice
And oh! Louise!
He smelled
So nice
Burma-Shave.”
Harry even remembered seeing the ad outside Palm Springs. He had been driving an ingenue to have her nose bobbed, hair dyed and teeth aligned. The girl sobbed the whole ride. She’d planned to be a nun, for God’s sake. In Palm Springs, Harry put her on a bus bound for Iowa City, called the producer and said she skipped. One week later, she was back at the studio begging and worse for a second chance, and Harry had to drive her down all over again. That was when he decided to get out of L.A. Now, admittedly, he was reviewing
his life choices. Palm Springs was pretty nice in December.
“Or,” Harry said:
“The answer to
A maiden’s prayer
Is not a chin
Of stubby hair
Burma-Shave.”
“Commercial haiku,” Ishigami said. “Now that is American.”
“Whatever makes the cash register ring,” said Harry. Such an amiable conversation, he thought, if only he ignored the blood on Ishigami’s kimono. It was typical of the colonel that he’d spared his uniform. Thinking about the uniform, Harry asked, “You’re in the Third Regiment? The Tokyo regiment, is that what you’re in?”
“A good regiment. Kyushu boys are known for recklessness, and Osaka boys aren’t quite reckless enough. Tokyo boys are just right.”
“To Tokyo boys.” Harry raised his cup.
“Tokyo boys!”
“Tokyo!”
For a party that was essentially an execution, this was pretty good, Harry thought. Except his legs ached. Since he was used to sitting on his heels, he realized that the only thing his legs could have ached from was fear. From the waist down, he was scared to death. Ishigami wore a look of satisfaction. Once, when Harry was sick in bed as a boy, he had watched a cat play with a mouse for hours, holding it by its tail, flipping it in the air, gnawing gently. Harry had feverish dreams about the mouse for days. He added that picture to his memory of the Chinese prisoners in Nanking. It would be nice to be rescued. For once Harry even missed Shozo and Go. The Thought Police had been watching him for days, and now they were —dare he say it?— thoughtlessly gone. Doing what? Didn’t matter. Harry had squirmed out of tight spots all his life, and he would get out of this one. There were ways. For example: when in doubt, flatter.
“What would you have told the emperor if you had been able to see him alone?” he asked.
“I would have told him about parasites like you.”
“Besides me, what else?”
“That his troops were ready to carry out any mission and overcome any enemy, but that our real enemy on the mainland was not China but Russia, who is happy to see us waste our blood against the Chinese. I would have said we are no longer at war with any aim but to assure obscene profits for Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Datsun as we buy their tanks and guns. I would have told him that the army with the purest ideals in the world has become an opium broker. I would have said that I no longer recognize the army I have served in for twenty years. I no longer recognize myself.”
That wasn’t what Harry had expected. Insight and feelings, they always stun us coming from another human being, Harry thought. Especially from a murderer.
“You’re against the war?”
“No, but I am for a war with honor.”
“Against both the Bolsheviks and the capitalists?”
“Yes.”
“Against the workers and the owners? At what point does this touch on reality?”
“Japanese reality is different.”
Harry had heard that the moon was different in Japan, the cherry trees were different, the seasons were different, the mountains were different, the rice was different. Add them all up and he supposed that reality itself was different. Japanese swords were different.
“Okay.”
“Japanese are different because they live for an ideal, for the veneration of the emperor. Without the ideal, we do not deserve an empire. The idea that Izanami and Izanagi came down from heaven is ridiculous, of course. That the emperor is a living god is a myth. But it is a transformative myth that makes every Japanese godlike. It is an ideal, an ambition that lifts us to heaven.”
“Too much ambition. There’s a war memorial at Kyoto of forty thousand Korean ears. Has to look like chopped squid. You have to be really ambitious to collect forty thousand ears.”
“It’s a start.”
“It’s the cult of the sword. Yamato spirit. The need of attack.”
“Always attack, that’s true.”
Harry was aware of being a little drunk, but he also felt he was on to something. “Ten Japanese against one enemy, attack. One Japanese against ten enemies, attack.”
“The element of surprise is decisive.”
“Always close combat.”
“The closer the better,” Ishigami agreed.
“Bayonet work.”
“A man with a sword is worth ten rifles. War is spiritual. What is your ideal, Harry?”
“Decent odds and an honest game, I ask nothing more. What would you say my chances are of cutting cards to an ace ten times in a row? If I do it, you let me go, and I’ll even dispose of the body in the other room. You have a brilliant military record and a great future ahead of you. Don’t throw them both away for vengeance on some lowlife like me. Remember your obligations. The army needs you in China. The emperor needs you in China. Ten cards. That’s fate.”
Ishigami touched his sword. “This is fate.”
“So serious, you two. Like a pair of monks.” Michiko frowned at them. “We should sing silly songs. Anyone serious is too sober.”
Harry wished he could see some drunkenness or inattention on Ishigami’s part, but the colonel seemed to burn off alcohol like a spirit lamp. He also seemed willing to indulge Michiko. Geisha had that talent.
“Well, what shall we sing?” Ishigami asked.
Michiko said, “I have just the song. And to make it interesting, as Harry often says, there will be a little wager. Whoever fails to sing the chorus in one breath must drink his sake in one swallow.”
“What if we don’t know the song?” Harry asked.
“Oh, you will know it,” she said. “But I will go first to make it easy for you.”
She sat up straighter and began,
“This is the song of the frog
I can hear the sound of it…”
With even the first words, memory flooded back. This was one of the first songs learned by all Japanese children. Harry remembered being in kindergarten, seated next to the open window on a rainy day, picking at the elbow of his sweater and looking wistfully out at a canal while the entire classroom sang in a round,
“Croak…croak…croak…croak.
Croakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroak.”
Michiko finished like a cat with cream on its whiskers, and Ishigami picked up the song. Did they sing this childish round at the Peers’ School, too? Harry wondered. At the most exclusive school on earth, set on the imperial palace grounds, had the young Ishigami’s eyes wandered to the moat? Apparently so, because he sang with gusto, imparting animation to the call of the frog:
“Croakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroak.”
It was funny, it was undeniably silly. It was a geisha party with a macabre hilarity built out of Michiko’s laughs, Ishigami’s baritone frog, the sheer innocence of the song, the unsheathed sword on the table and the invisible DeGeorge in the next room.
“Your turn, Harry,” Michiko said.
Harry cleared his throat. He wasn’t going to wait any longer, because sooner or later Ishigami was going to kill him, either in the house or in the street. He would come up one “croak” short, lift his cup and throw his hot sake in Ishigami’s eyes. He figured the odds of snatching the sword first were about even. Of prevailing with the long sword against Ishigami’s short sword —realistically, factoring in skill— about four to one against. Not the best odds. Like a game of Fifty-two Pickup, it was going to be messy. Ishigami liked attack, surprise, close work? Harry would try to give it to him. The question was what Michiko would do.
Harry had a tenor that he roughed up when he sang along with Fats or Louie, but it fit nicely to a child’s tune. “I hear the song of the frog…” He reminded himself to stay relaxed; Ishigami would sense a tensing of the shoulders.
“Croakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroakcroak.”
“That was only nine croaks,” Michiko said.
“Ten,” Harry protested.
“Nine. You lose,” said Ishigami.
>
“I counted ten,” Harry said.
“Nine!” Both Michiko and Ishigami shouted Harry down.
“Drink up, that’s your penalty,” Michiko said, but when she went to fill his cup, the sake flask was empty. “A second.”
“Cold sake is fine,” Harry said.
“No, no, it’s not such good sake, it’s better hot.”
Ishigami gathered his sword. “Maybe Harry and I should go now. We will see who we meet in the street.”
“No,” Michiko insisted. “Harry has to pay. I have the sake on a hot plate. It will be ready in a minute.” She returned to the table and smiled like a doll. “That was fun. We should sing some more. Please?”
“Very well,” Ishigami said.
“Sure,” said Harry.
From her knees, Michiko sang a ditty about a virgin learning “The Forty-eight Positions,” suggesting with her fingers the more complicated ones. She acted a scene between a beauty and a flea. It was all puerile and inane. What was most maddening to Harry was how attractive Michiko was. He noticed where perspiration had eroded the white paint behind her ear. No one ever touched a geisha’s face, that would be like smearing a painting, but he felt the impulse to pull her mouth down to his and taste the red bud of her lip. Geisha wore nothing underneath the kimono. Harry wanted to slip his hand through the folds of her ice-blue kimono and raise his hand between the two columns of her legs to listen to the sound of the bells in her hair.