Mr. Jones

by Margaret Sweatman

  Kazuo lit a cigar and strolled off into the darkness that surrounded the stage, leaving Emmett alone with Jim from the New Jersey insurance company. Jim pulled a flask from his pocket and poured whisky into Emmett’s tea before adding some to his own. “These places were illegal after the war,” he said. “We weren’t too keen on Japs doing martial arts.”

  “Yes. I remember.”

  “Our ban was lifted in ’52. You were gone by then.”

  Emmett’s face didn’t reveal any surprise at Jim’s knowledge of his history. He said, “That’s right. I was back in Canada.” He was thinking, Jim probably knows that the Canadian government has sold me off, given my personal files to the FBI. That would be what had brought me to Jim’s attention, whoever Jim really is.

  Jim was watching the match. Emmett added, “I think I’ll hit the road.”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’ll say goodnight to Mr. Kazuo.” He finished his spiked tea and stood to go. “Thanks for the nightcap.”

  “Sit down.”

  Emmett sat down again, and Jim poured more whisky into his cup. “You were on your way to a pretty good position on the Southeast Asia desk when they pulled you. Why’d they do that?”

  “How do you know about this?”

  Jim shrugged. “It’s my job.”

  “You’re not with Prudential.”

  “Nope.” Jim smiled boyishly. He didn’t apply that allknowing irony, the smirking one-upmanship Emmett had come to associate with snoops. “So?” Jim said. “What happened in 1951, made you fall down the ladder?”

  “Sounds like you already know the whole story.”

  “There’s never a whole story, is there.”

  “My name came up. You know that part, I imagine.”

  “Sure. But why? You a communist?”

  “No.”

  “Just when we need men with some real understanding over here, my government fires everybody who knows anything about Southeast Asia. So now what are we going to do? Let ’em have their goddamn war in peace?”

  Jim was talking about Vietnam. But the war wasn’t yet official. Emmett said nothing. He had a fleeting impulse to point out that it wasn’t Jim’s government that had “fired” him.

  Jim grumbled, “We wouldn’t be backing Diem if we had anybody with any brains making policy. But” — shrugging good naturedly — “who listens?”

  Jim’s manner was expansive; he appeared to be worldly and disinterested. He asked Emmett if he’d like to work in Asia, in South Vietnam, saying, “It’s a nice place if you can stay out of trouble.” When Emmett didn’t answer, Jim went on, “They’re keeping you out. Aren’t they? But you know, there are other ways to skin a cat.”

  “I don’t think I’m interested in cutting loose from External.”

  “Why not?” Jim emptied the flask into Emmett’s cup. “You don’t like risk?”

  “Are you suggesting some kind of — consultancy?”

  “That’s one word for it,” Jim said, smiling. “Hasn’t anybody ever approached you till now? Seems hard to believe. Not even when you were stationed in Tokyo? Before you got tangled up in the McCarthy circus?”

  “I like working as an analyst.” Emmett was watching the match when he said this. All Jim could see of his eyes was the light from the stage glancing off his glasses.

  Jim leaned back in his chair to view Emmett better. He said, “You have a talent for finding the little pieces, putting them together so they make sense. You’re a rare bird, Mr. Jones.” He was exaggerating. Emmett knew he was intended to understand that he had a reputation extending further than anyone had ever let him know. He wondered just how much Jim knew about him. “Tell me,” Jim went on, “what do you think’s going to happen in Vietnam?”

  Here was a test. Emmett said, “I think the Lao Dong party is going to step up an insurgency.” It was a relief to use his mind, a cold relief from the heat of his frustrations. But he was sure now that he was being played, and he told himself not to fuck it up by getting angry.

  Jim was nodding thoughtfully.

  Emmett went on, calmly analytic, a policy analyst. “Hanoi waited a long time for a political solution. It never came. It could have. But the moment passed. President Diem is a dictator. Something like” — he glanced around the club looking for Kazuo — “not far off from our friend here, but more dangerous. Maybe even crazy. Now the Vietcong have been pushed to the extreme. They’ll get backing from the Politburo. They’ll go to war. And it’ll be like a bushfire, impossible to put out.” He was reiterating the observations he’d made in his memorandum to Prime Minister Diefenbaker, but here in the gangster’s karate club the information felt more powerful.

  Jim whistled. “Are you sure you’re not already working for us?”

  Emmett caught the bait, us, ignored it, and said, “I’m talking too much.” He had used bait of his own; he wanted to know who Jim Smith worked for.

  “How’d you come to such dire conclusions, Mr. Jones?”

  “Osmosis.”

  “You sure are a puzzle.”

  Emmett didn’t respond. A match had ended with a shout. Now a man in his twenties faced his much older opponent. They circled and engaged.

  For a while Jim seemed intent on watching the white blur of action. Then he clicked his tongue wistfully and said, “Here, you find what remains of the old Samurai ways. The Bushido. Perfect raw material for evil bastards like Kishi. Like Ikeda. Like our good friend Kazuo. If there was one, if there was one first crime in the war, it was in corrupting a fine old tradition.” Jim returned his attention to Emmett. “You ever noticed, how one thing always contains its opposite?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have.”

  Jim put his elbows on the table, his hands pressed together so his chin rested on his thumbs. “A man’s strength is also his weakness. Same with a system. The greatest systems on earth carry the germ of their own destruction.

  “Let me ask you something,” Jim went on. “It’s pure speculation and it won’t cost you a cent.”

  “Go ahead.” Emmett took a drink.

  “I happen to know you for a specialist when it comes to Japan. You know more than most civilians about the whole Asia problem.”

  Emmett was about to demur, but Jim cut him off, “You know a lot about Bushido.”

  “I’ve read about it,” Emmett said and laughed.

  But Jim remained serious, slightly ponderous, as if he’d had too much to drink. “The principles these karate masters live by. Makoto and all that.”

  “Yes.” Emmett felt that he was more sober than Jim was. He corrected Jim’s pronunciation. “Makoto,” he said, “yes.”

  “Say you had to choose one principle, one virtue out of all the virtues. What would it be?” Jim asked.

  Emmett thought about it. Makoto is admirable. Truthfulness, sincerity. In a child. Sincerity can make you a fool; it can make you delusional. Duplicity, compassionate duplicity, is a more natural skill in a man with real integrity. He recalled several of the other Japanese words associated with Bushido. Yuki, for one: bravery, heroism. With a quiet surge of love he thought about Suzanne, he thought about Lenore, and James, his son. He thought about the abiding love and stubborn hope that had driven him, and the loneliness of his position. His private life was an endurance test. His heroism, if he dared call it that, existed in his loves.

  He let Jim wait a moment and then he said, “Chugi. It means loyalty. Devotion. But in Japanese terms. It doesn’t quite translate. But yes, I would say, chugi. That is what I live by.”

  Jim was watching him with bleary, unfocused eyes. He seemed quite drunk; he showed the drunk’s tendency to hear too much in what is being simply expressed. He slurringly repeated, “Chugi.”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “Loyalty.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Devotion.”

  “Yes.”

  Jim sat back in his chair, vaguely astonished. “I would’ve thought, given the cards that’ve
been dealt you, you’d’ve come to quite a different conclusion.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Oh. I don’t know. Your country accuses you of being a traitor. You stand up to them. You stand up and clear your name. You retain your honour. You don’t cave.”

  “Yes.”

  Jim said, “Don’t you ever want to break away? I mean, even in your own mind? You have been betrayed. And you play loyal public servant?” Jim hit the table with the palm of his hand and repeated, “Betrayed.”

  “That’s my own affair.”

  “I don’t dispute it. What I don’t get is why you haven’t struck out on your own. With what you know, your languages, your background. With what you’ve learned the hard way, how things work, how things can swing against you, easy as a blade to the heart. Why not break for it? Chugi,” he added contemptuously, “it’s for amateurs. Inferiors.”

  “I don’t think you understand how the principles of Bushido work.”

  “Meiyo,” Jim said. His accent was alarming but was close enough. Now it was Emmett’s turn to feel contemptuous. “Meiyo,” Jim repeated more loudly.

  “I understand.”

  “Glory!” Jim said loudly. “Glory! What else is worth fighting for? What else but glory drives great men? Civilization might dissolve into a puddle of piss, but there will still be the few, the few men strong enough to abide by the principle of meiyo!”

  The expression was so baldly hyperbolic, he wondered if Jim was joking. Jim’s eyes slid sideways to look at him. He now appeared to be entirely sober. “Like I said. You are a puzzle, Emmett Jones.”

  “A boring sort of puzzle then.”

  “Boring.” Jim snorted. “That’s quite clever.”

  “I assure you, what you see is a loyal civil servant.”

  Jim snorted. “Okay.”

  “Do I present anything other than the well-mannered profile of a devoted subject of the Dominion?”

  “Not for a minute.”

  “There.” Emmett finished the whisky in his cup. “You promised the ambassador you’d see me safely back to my hotel.”

  Jim stood. “I’ll tell our host that you’re leaving.”

  “Thank you.”

  Jim left him alone at the table. Ten minutes passed and Jim reappeared and said, “A driver’s outside.”

  He thanked Jim without further question, and was making his way to the door when he heard Jim say, “I suggest you stay home tonight.”

  He turned.

  “I’m suggesting you call it a night. No wandering around all on your lonesome.” Jim’s winking smile insinuated ownership, domination.

  “Yes,” Emmett waved vaguely. “Good night, Jim.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Emmett held his hat in his hands while Aoi ushered him into her suite and guided him to a western-style living room with a plush white carpet, white leather furniture, and a glass coffee table. He’d always associated her with the old house on the estate, and now he was disoriented to see her here, in this chic apartment that looked like outer space. He was her guest for lunch. He had come as a modest saviour, prepared to reassess his contributions to her household. He’d brought his chequebook.

  He was careful not to cut his shins on the glass while he navigated, dizzy with light, toward the sofa. Aoi kneeled at the table. He was fascinated by her eyes, the winged black eyeliner, the false eyelashes. She wore narrow black pants and a white blouse with a scarf at her throat, maybe playing the part of an Italian moll. A cigarette case sat beside a matching lighter on the glass table, as if suspended in mid-air. She opened it and offered him a cigarette. He declined and she took one for herself. He’d never seen her smoke before. She gave him one of her frank looks, a candid mockery of her own poses.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked him.

  “Is James going to join us?”

  “My cook has prepared your favourite meal.”

  “Thank you.” You have a cook? he wondered. The suite was spare of ornament, except for a fine woodblock print, and the dining room table set with Chinese porcelain. And a beautiful Kakejiku, a silk scroll, herons in reeds with snow, trembling slightly as if with age.

  Aoi saw him admiring the scroll and said, “Meiji-era.” Then she said, “Mackerel. Miso. Stewed cherries. I remember what you like.”

  The fan whirred soothingly. The apartment block was on a busy street but soundproof. He said, “You look beautiful.” She laughed. “And James,” he persisted, leaning toward her. He liked the smell of cigarettes. “He’s happy?”

  “You saw him.” She smiled to indicate that yes, he’s obviously happy.

  “When will he be joining us?”

  “In a moment. I told him I want to speak with you alone first.”

  “All right.” He waited.

  She dragged on her cigarette and then stamped it out carefully with her polished hands. Quietly she asked, “Do you wonder how I manage so well?”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “But you don’t owe me an explanation. I still want to contribute to his care.”

  She acknowledged this with a slight bow of the head. “It’s not necessary. Your money.”

  “It’s necessary to me,” he said.

  And she nodded again, declining to press him on the measure of his guilt in abandoning her. “I have a profession,” Aoi said.

  “Yes, I thought you must.”

  “I work for the Americans. Since the war, I’ve worked for the Americans.”’

  He remembered a blue kimono passing in near darkness on the road past Sachiko’s house.

  “At first I had nothing and needed their protection,” she said. “They trained me in financial services. Now I’m useful to them. They want the government to go a certain way, I help them.”

  Emmett thought of New Jersey, the craggy head with its light pinfeathers, and observed, “The Americans are involved with the deal we’re arranging with Kobe Steel.”

  “They’re involved with everything. Everything is an American deal with Kishi. The Americans want the LDP to run the country forever.”

  The Liberal Democratic Party. America’s choice of Japanese governments. Prime Minister Kishi playing golf with President Eisenhower.

  “I invest the Americans’ money in various companies that I create,” she said. “They pay me a good commission!” She laughed quietly, frowning. “I’m being very candid with you, Emmett.”

  He said, “It sounds like money laundering.”

  She lifted her face to him, inhaling the smoke rising from her lips. “It is very much like money laundering.”

  He looked around the apartment. “Lucrative,” he said.

  “You and Mrs. Jones don’t need to send me money. I provide for James very well.”

  “Please,” he said.

  She shrugged.

  “When will James be joining us?” he asked again.

  A door opened and the boy approached almost silently across the white carpet. He was classically dressed, as if from pre-war Showa, in belted white trousers and white shoes.

  Emmett stood up, undecided as to whether he should offer to shake his son’s hand. He searched for himself in James’s face. James blushed and tried not to smile, just the way Lennie would do, repressing a grin. It was eerie, an improbable constellation of influence. Emmett had never doubted that he had fathered this boy. He thought of him often, his ghost son, loved him instinctively, compulsively. Now here he was, James, tall for his age, well mannered, self-possessed despite the heat that had risen to his face.

  Emmett said hello. “Thank you for seeing me.” Then he regretted saying that; the boy was only nine, too young to judge his father.

  If a cook had prepared lunch, she wasn’t there now to serve it. Aoi brought the meal on a tray from the kitchen. It was good food, but the soup was cold; it had been left ready to serve some time ago. He realized that he’d seen the cook clamber down the front stoop as he arrived; he’d held the door for her and she had looked at him closely, with a glim
mer of malice.

  Aoi encouraged James at lunch, “Go ahead. Ask him.”

  The boy began to speak in Japanese. Aoi reprimanded him, “In English.” He began again. Did he live in a house in Canada? Did it have a big yard? Is the ocean nearby? Then he asked, “Does my sister look like me?”

  Aoi rose and gathered the plates on the tray and took them to the kitchen.

  Emmett, glad to be alone with him, said, “No. Except she’s tall like you.”

  “Will I ever meet her?”

  “Would you like to?”

  “My mother refuses to go to Canada.”

  “Well, she has work to do here.”

  “She says they would never give her permission.”

  Emmett wondered what the boy knew. “Who?” he asked tentatively. “Who are they?”

  James shrugged, kicked the legs of his chair, and said, “Mr. Smith.”

  “Who is Mr. Smith?”

  “He said.”

  “What?”

  “We must not go away.”

  “Did he say why?”

  James darkened. Emmett thought, Children are so unerringly averse to deception. James looked toward the swinging door leading to the kitchen and said, “I don’t know.”

  Aoi returned. “You may leave the table now.” She ran her hand through her boy’s hair and nudged him gently off his chair. “Go, darling.”

  James wiped his hands on the back of his white trousers as he stood stubbornly beside his chair.

  Aoi straightened. Emmett sensed that she was surprised at this small show of defiance; she had strong discipline over him.

  James walked around till he was standing close to Emmett. Emmett lightly put his hand under the boy’s chin. “I’m very happy to see you.”

  “Thank you,” James said.

  “You’re a good boy. Your mother is lucky.”

  James smiled, his pride restored. “If we could go to Canada —”

  “That’s enough,” said Aoi firmly.

  James blushed and quietly left the room. When he was gone and had closed the door behind him, Emmett turned to Aoi. “Who is Mr. Smith?”

  “There are many. You met one last night.”