by Ian Fleming
Marc-Ange looked as if he would burst into tears. Bond relented. He said, ‘It’s very kind of you, Marc-Ange, and I appreciate it from the heart. I’ll tell you what. If I swear to come to you if either of us ever needs help, will that do? There may be illnesses and things. Perhaps it would be nice if we had a cottage in the country somewhere. We may need help if we have children. Now. How about that? Is it a bargain?’
Marc-Ange turned doubtful, dogs’ eyes on Bond. ‘You promise? You would not cheat me of helping you, adding to your happiness when you allow me to?’
Bond reached over and took Marc-Ange’s right hand and pressed it. ‘My word on it. Now come on, pull yourself together. Here comes Tracy. She’ll think we’ve been having a fight.’
‘So we have,’ said Marc-Ange gloomily. ‘And it is the first fight I have ever lost.’
Chapter 27
All the Time in the World
‘I do.’
James Bond said the words at ten-thirty in the morning of a crystal-clear New Year’s Day in the British Consul General’s drawing-room.
And he meant them.
The Consul General had proved himself, as British Consuls so often do, to be a man of efficiency and a man with a heart. It was a holiday for him and, as he confessed, he should have been recovering from a New Year’s Eve hangover. And he had shaved many days off the formal period of notice, but that, he explained, he had occasionally, and improperly, risked in his career if there were exceptional circumstances such as the imminent death of either party. ‘You both look healthy enough,’ he had said when they first visited him together, ‘but that’s a nasty cut on your head, Commander Bond, and the Countess is perhaps looking a little pale. And I have taken the precaution of obtaining special dispensation from the Foreign Secretary, which I may say, to my surprise, was immediately forthcoming. So let’s make it New Year’s Day. And come to my home. My wife is hopelessly sentimental about these occasional jobs I have to do, and I know she’d love to meet you both.’
The papers were signed, and Head of Station M., who had agreed to act as Bond’s best man and who was secretly longing to write a sensational note to the head of his London Section about all this, produced a handful of confetti and threw most of it over Marc-Ange, who had turned up in a ‘cylindre’ and a full suit of very French tails with, surprisingly, two rows of medals of which the last, to Bond’s astonishment, was the King’s Medal for foreign resistance-fighters.
‘I will tell you all about it one day, my dear James,’ he had said in answer to Bond’s admiring inquiry. ‘It was tremendous fun. I had myself what the Americans call “a ball.” And’ — his voice sank to a whisper and he put one finger along his brown, sensitive nose — ‘I confess that I profited by the occasion to lay my hands on the secret funds of a certain section of the Abwehr. But Herkos Odonton, my dear James! Herkos Odonton! Medals are so often just the badges of good luck. If I am a hero, it is for things for which no medals are awarded. And’ — he drew lines with his fingers across his chest — ‘there is hardly room on the breast of this “frac,” which, by the way, is by courtesy of the excellent Galeries Barbés in Marseilles, for all that I am due under that heading.’
The farewells were said and Bond submitted himself, he swore for the last time, to Marc-Ange’s embraces, and they went down the steps to the waiting Lancia. Someone, Bond suspected the Consul’s wife, had tied white ribbons from the corners of the wind-screen to the grill of the radiator, and there was a small group of bystanders, passers-by, who had stopped, as they do all over the world, to see who it was, what they looked like.
The Consul General shook Bond by the hand. ‘I’m afraid we haven’t managed to keep this as private as you’d have liked. A woman reporter came on from the Münchener Illustrierte this morning. Wouldn’t say who she was. Gossip-writer, I suppose. I had to give her the bare facts. She particularly wanted to know the time of the ceremony, if you can call it that, so that they could send a camera-man along. At least you’ve been spared that. All still tight, I suppose. Well, so long and the best of luck.’
Tracy, who had elected to ‘go away’ in a dark-grey Tyroler outfit with the traditional dark-green trimmings and stag’s-horn buttons, threw her saucy mountaineer’s hat with its gay chamois’ beard cockade into the back seat, climbed in, and pressed the starter. The engine purred and then roared softly as she went through the gears down the empty street. They both waved one hand out of a window and Bond, looking back, saw Marc-Ange’s ‘cylindre’ whirling up into the air. There was a small flutter of answering hands from the pavement and then they were round the corner and away.
When they found the Autobahn exit for Salzburg and Kufstein, Bond said, ‘Be an angel and pull in to the side, Tracy. I’ve got two things to do.’
She pulled in on to the grass verge. The brown grass of winter showed through the thin snow. Bond reached for her and took her in his arms. He kissed her tenderly. ‘That’s the first thing, and I just wanted to say that I’ll look after you, Tracy. Will you mind being looked after?’
She held him away from her and looked at him. She smiled. Her eyes were introspective. ‘That’s what it means being Mr and Mrs, doesn’t it? They don’t say Mrs and Mr. But you need looking after too. Let’s just look after each other.’
‘All right. But I’d rather have my job than yours. Now. I simply must get out and take down those ribbons. I can’t stand looking like a coronation. D’you mind?’
She laughed. ‘You like being anonymous. I want everyone to cheer as we go by. I know you’re going to have this car sprayed grey or black as soon as you get a chance. That’s all right. But nothing’s going to stop me wearing you like a flag from now on. Will you sometimes feel like wearing me like a flag?’
‘On all holidays and feast days.’ Bond got out and removed the ribbons. He looked up at the cloudless sky. The sun felt warm on his face. He said, ‘Do you think we’d be too cold if we took the roof down?’
‘No, let’s. We can only see half the world with it up. And it’s a lovely drive from here to Kitzbühel. We can always put it up again if we want to.’
Bond unscrewed the two butterfly nuts and folded the canvas top back behind the seats. He had a look up and down the Autobahn. There was plenty of traffic. At the big Shell station on the roundabout they had just passed, his eye was caught by a bright-red open Maserati being tanked up. Fast job. And a typical sporty couple, a man and a woman in the driving-seat — white dust-coats and linen helmets buttoned under the chin. Big dark-green talc goggles that obscured most of the rest of the faces. Usual German speedsters’ uniform. Too far away to see if they were good-looking enough for the car, but the silhouette of the woman wasn’t promising. Bond got in beside Tracy and they set off again down the beautifully landscaped road.
They didn’t talk much. Tracy kept at about eighty and there was wind-roar. That was the trouble about open cars. Bond glanced at his watch. 11.45. They would get to Kufstein at about one. There was a splendid Gasthaus up the winding streets towards the great castle. Here was a tiny lane of pleasure, full of the heart-plucking whine of zither music and the gentle melancholy of Tyrolean yodellers. It was here that the German tourist traditionally stopped after his day’s outing into cheap Austria, just outside the German frontier, for a last giant meal of Austrian food and wine. Bond put his mouth up close to Tracy’s ear and told her about it and about the other attraction at Kufstein — the most imaginative war memorial, for the 1914-18 war, ever devised. Punctually at midday every day, the windows of the castle are thrown open and a voluntary is played on the great organ inside. It can be heard for kilometres down the valley between the giant mountain ranges for which Kufstein provides the gateway. ‘But we shall miss it. It’s coming up for twelve now.’
‘Never mind,’ said Tracy, ‘I’ll make do with the zithers while you guzzle your beer and schnapps.’ She turned in to the right-hand fork leading to the underpass for Kufstein, and they were at once through Rosenheim and the great white
peaks were immediately ahead.
The traffic was much sparser now and there were kilometres where theirs was the only car on the road that arrowed away between white meadows and larch copses, towards the glittering barrier where blood had been shed between warring armies for centuries. Bond glanced behind him. Miles away down the great highway was a speck of red. The Maserati? They certainly hadn’t got much competitive spirit if they couldn’t catch the Lancia at eighty! No good having a car like that if you didn’t drive it so as to lose all other traffic in your mirror. Perhaps he was doing them an injustice. Perhaps they too only wanted to motor quietly along and enjoy the day.
Ten minutes later, Tracy said, ‘There’s a red car coming up fast behind. Do you want me to lose him?’
‘No,’ said Bond. ‘Let him go. We’ve got all the time in the world.’
Now he could hear the rasping whine of the eight cylinders. He leaned over to the left and jerked a laconic thumb forwards, waving the Maserati past.
The whine changed to a shattering roar. The wind-screen of the Lancia disappeared as if hit by a monster fist. Bond caught a glimpse of a taut, snarling mouth under a syphilitic nose, the flash-eliminator of some automatic gun being withdrawn, and then the red car was past and the Lancia was going like hell off the verge across a stretch of snow and smashing a path through a young copse. Then Bond’s head crashed into the wind-screen frame and he was out.
When he came to, a man in the khaki uniform of the Autobahn Patrol was shaking him. The young face was stark with horror. ‘Was ist denn geschehen? Was ist denn geschehen?’
Bond turned towards Tracy. She was lying forward with her face buried in the ruins of the steering-wheel. Her pink handkerchief had come off and the bell of golden hair hung down and hid her face. Bond put his arm round her shoulders, across which the dark patches had begun to flower.
He pressed her against him. He looked up at the young man and smiled his reassurance.
‘It’s all right,’ he said in a clear voice as if explaining something to a child. ‘It’s quite all right. She’s having a rest. We’ll be going on soon. There’s no hurry. You see —’ Bond’s head sank down against hers and he whispered into her hair — ‘you see, we’ve got all the time in the world.’
The young patrolman took a last scared look at the motionless couple, hurried over to his motor cycle, picked up the hand-microphone, and began talking urgently to the rescue headquarters.
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
Originally published in 1964.
*
You only live twice:
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face.
After BASHO, Japanese poet, 1643-94
Part One
‘it Is Better To Travel Hopefully…
Chapter 1
Scissors Cut Paper
The geisha called ‘Trembling Leaf,’ on her knees beside James Bond, leant forward from the waist and kissed him chastely on the right cheek.
‘That’s a cheat,’ said Bond severely. ‘You agreed that if I won it would be a real kiss on the mouth. At the very least,’ he added.
‘Grey Pearl,’ the Madame, who had black lacquered teeth, a bizarre affectation, and was so thickly made up that she looked like a character out of a No play, translated. There was much giggling and cries of encouragement. Trembling Leaf covered her face with her pretty hands as if she were being required to perform some ultimate obscenity. But then the fingers divided and the pert brown eyes examined Bond’s mouth, as if taking aim, and her body lanced forward. This time the kiss was full on the lips and it lingered fractionally. In invitation? In promise? Bond remembered that he had been promised a ‘pillow geisha.’ Technically, this would be a geisha of low caste. She would not be proficient in the traditional arts of her calling — she would not be able to tell humorous stories, sing, paint or compose verses about her patron. But, unlike her cultured sisters, she might agree to perform more robust services — discreetly, of course, in conditions of the utmost privacy and at a high price. But, to the boorish, brutalized tastes of a gaijin, a foreigner, this made more sense than having a tanka of thirty-one syllables, which in any case he couldn’t understand, equate, in exquisite ideograms, his charms with budding chrysanthemums on the slopes of Mount Fuji.
The applause which greeted this unbridled exhibition of lasciviousness died quickly and respectfully. The powerful, chunky man in the black yukata, sitting directly across the low red lacquer table from Bond, had taken the Dunhill filter holder from between his golden teeth and had laid it beside his ashtray. ‘Bondo-san,’ said Tiger Tanaka, Head of the Japanese Secret Service, ‘I will now challenge you to this ridiculous game, and I promise you in advance that you will not win.’ The big, creased brown face that Bond had come to know so well in the past month split expansively. The wide smile closed the almond eyes to slits — slits that glittered. Bond knew that smile. It wasn’t a smile. It was a mask with a golden hole in it.
Bond laughed. ‘All right, Tiger. But first, more saké! And not in these ridiculous thimbles. I’ve drunk five flasks of the stuff and its effect is about the same as one double Martini. I shall need another double Martini if I am to go on demonstrating the superiority of Western instinct over the wiles of the Orient. Is there such a thing as a lowly glass tumbler discarded in some corner behind the cabinets of Ming?’
‘Bondo-san. Ming is Chinese. Your knowledge of porcelain is as meagre as your drinking habits are gross. Moreover, it is unwise to underestimate saké. We have a saying, “It is the man who drinks the first flask of saké; then the second flask drinks the first; then it is the saké that drinks the man.’” Tiger Tanaka turned to Grey Pearl and there followed a laughing conversation which Bond interpreted as jokes at the expense of this uncouth Westerner and his monstrous appetites. At a word from the Madame, Trembling Leaf bowed low and scurried out of the room. Tiger turned to Bond. ‘You have gained much face, Bondo-san. It is only the sumo wrestlers who drink saké in these quantities without showing it. She says you are undoubtedly an eight-flask man.’ Tiger’s face became sly. ‘But she also suggests that you will not make much of a companion for Trembling Leaf at the end of the evening.’
‘Tell her that I am more interested in her own more mature charms. She will certainly possess talents in the art of love-making which will overcome any temporary lassitude on my part.’
This leaden gallantry got what it deserved. There came a spirited crackle of Japanese from Grey Pearl. Tiger translated. ‘Bondo-san, this is a woman of some wit. She has made a joke. She says she is already respectably married to one bonsan and there is no room on her futon for another. Bonsan means a priest, a greybeard. Futon, as you know, is a bed. She has made a joke on your name.’
The geisha party had been going on for two hours, and Bond’s jaws were aching with the unending smiles and polite repartee. Far from being entertained by the geisha, or bewitched by the inscrutable discords issuing from the catskin-covered box of the three-stringed samisen, Bond had found himself having to try desperately to make the party go. He also knew that Tiger Tanaka had been observing his effort with a sadistic pleasure. Dikko Henderson had warned him that geisha parties were more or less the equivalent, for a foreigner, of trying to entertain a lot of unknown children in a nursery with a strict governess, the Madame, looking on. But Dikko had also warned him that he was being done a great honour by Tiger Tanaka, that the party would cost Tiger a small fortune, whether from secret funds or from his own pocket, and that Bond had better put a good face on the whole thing since this looked like being a breakthrough in Bond’s mission. But it could equally well be disaster.
So now Bond smiled and clapped his hands in admiration. He said to Tiger, ‘Tell the old bitch she’s a clever old bitch,’ accepted the brimming tumbler of hot saké from the apparently adoring hands of Trembling Leaf, and downed it in two tremendous gulps. He repeated the performance so that more saké had to be fetched from the kitchen, then he place
d his fist decisively on the red lacquer table and said with mock belligerence, ‘All right, Tiger! Go to it!’
It was the old game of Scissors cut Paper, Paper wraps Stone, Stone blunts Scissors, that is played by children all over the world. The fist is the Stone, two outstretched fingers are the Scissors, and a flat hand is the Paper. The closed fist is hammered twice in the air simultaneously by the two opponents and, at the third downward stroke, the chosen emblem is revealed. The game consists of guessing which emblem the opponent will choose, and of you yourself choosing one that will defeat him. Best of three goes or more. It is a game of bluff.
Tiger Tanaka rested his fist on the table opposite Bond. The two men looked carefully into each other’s eyes. There was dead silence in the box-like little lath-and-paper room, and the soft gurgling of the tiny brook in the ornamental square of garden outside the opened partition could be heard clearly for the first time that evening. Perhaps it was this silence, after all the talk and giggling, or perhaps it was the deep seriousness and purpose that was suddenly evident in Tiger Tanaka’s formidable, cruel, samurai face, but Bond’s skin momentarily crawled. For some reason this had become more than a children’s game. Tiger had promised he would beat Bond. To fail would be to lose much face. How much? Enough to breach a friendship that had become oddly real between the two of them over the past weeks? This was one of the most powerful men in Japan. To be defeated by a miserable gaijin in front of the two women might be a matter of great moment to this man. The defeat might leak out through the women. In the West, such a trifle would be farcically insignificant, like a cabinet minister losing a game of backgammon at Blades. But in the East? In a very short while, Dikko Henderson had taught Bond total respect for Oriental conventions, however old-fashioned or seemingly trivial, but Bond was still at sea in their gradations. This was a case in point. Should Bond try and win at this baby game of bluff and double-bluff, or should he try to lose? But to try and lose involved the same cleverness at correctly guessing the other man’s symbols in advance. It was just as difficult to lose on purpose as to win. And anyway did it really matter? Unfortunately, on the curious assignment in which James Bond was involved, he had a nasty feeling that even this idiotic little gambit had significance towards success or failure.
