‘OK, I won’t tell anyone who you are,’ Jerome had conceded.
‘You can introduce me as Aldous. Professor Aldous. A former colleague.’
‘But surely people will recognise you anyway?’
‘Of course they won’t. I’m a writer.’
One or two had stood out in the past. Ernest, of course. But that was because of his other antics. And the suicide. Kingsley, in certain circles. Graham, because he was so tall. But who would have recognised Camus, Boll, Pasternak, Steinbeck, Sholokhov walking along a Tokyo street? The Japanese might even have had trouble with their very own Kawabata. Nobel laureates all. Nowadays it was different. Photographs on the inside cover. Book tours. Interviews. Festivals. He had seen Kingsley’s son a few times on television. And then there was that Rushdie chap. Ten years or whatever it was in hiding, yet the most recognised writer on the planet.
‘Hey, Eddie.’ Jerome calling to him from the patio doors. ‘Come and see this.’
It was quite a sight. A parade through the entrance hall headed by a piper, then the ambassador and his wife, the chairman of the Association holding a plate of steaming haggis aloft, followed by a troupe of Japanese men and women in full Highland dress. In his malt-fuelled mood, Edward found the whole bizarre scene quite entertaining. He even joined the guests in their rhythmic clapping and whooping as together they crushed into a large chandeliered reception room. A butler announced the ambassador would make a toast, which he did, flushed in the cheeks no doubt from his own libations. Then the British national anthem sung boisterously by the guests, irrespective of their nationality.
‘The Queen,’ the ambassador said on its conclusion.
Edward raised his own glass in salute as the kilted band of Japanese took up position in two lines spread out across the parquet floor. The piper pumped up his bag. There was going to be a Highland reel. And then he felt it. A powerful, jagged, jarring thud. Just like the Shinkansen hitting a tunnel. The whole world jolted a fraction then back again. A sudden silence, except for the dying drone of the pipes. An audible gasp from one of the uninitiated. The grasp for a table top. Whisky lapping at the insides of bottles. The swaying of the chandelier. The smash of a glass. Edward had forgotten what this could be like. The waiting to see if this was the big one. That awful moment when the solid ground underfoot could no longer be relied upon. When there was no place to run. When the jaws of the earth threatened to open up and swallow its tormentors in one horrifying act of divine retribution. Another tremor. Longer but not so intense. He looked around. The terrified faces of the Scottish distillers and their staff. The ambassador calm and still, head cocked in readiness for another ripple. Edward could hear the sound of his own heart. A lesser tremor. Fading away. Another minute of held-breath stillness. And the experienced knew it was over. The ambassador with his glass in the air.
‘Music, maestro, please,’ the Queen’s representative shouted. ‘Let there be music.’ And everyone clapped, happy to slap away their fear.
Edward found himself an armchair in one of the smaller reception rooms, glad to sit down, legs wobbly on his cane from the whisky and the quake. Jerome came in too, ruddy-faced and sweating, parked himself on a hard-backed chair beside him, glass gripped in one hand, bottle in another.
‘Never got used to them,’ Jerome said. He looked really old and tired now, the flesh on his face hanging loose like burnt skin.
‘I thought the buildings were better designed these days.’
‘Until the big one comes along.’ Jerome knocked back the contents of his glass, poured himself another, hand trembling. ‘Damn good stuff this. So, tell me, why did you come back? A little adventure while you still can? Or escape?’
‘The first time I came to Japan, someone asked me that too. The manager of Argos Motors. Good man. Can’t even remember his name.’
‘So what’s the answer?’
‘If you must know. Escape.’
‘What do you need to escape from? Your knightship must have a glittering life back there in good old England.’
‘It’s too complicated.’
‘Go on. Spill the beans to your old buddy.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Just tell me, for fuck’s sake.’
‘This is what I’ll tell you. I think you should ease up on the drinking.’
‘You know what, Eddie? You and my doctor agree on that one. But you know what I say? I say – what do you think it’s gonna do? Fucking kill me? Cut a few years off my life? I’m already past the average age of life expectancy. I’m living on rented time, don’t you know.’
‘We all are.’
‘All right. I’ll ask you something else then. What do you think of the new Japan?’
‘Are we going to argue?’
‘We always used to.’
‘And now?’
‘Depends.’
‘On what?’
‘If you’ve changed.’
‘The truth doesn’t change, Jerome.’
‘Don’t be so self-righteous. Just tell me what you think.’
‘No comment. I’ve only seen some crass commercialism from the back of a taxi.’
‘You gotta have some opinions.’
‘What do you want me to say?’ He knew where this conversation was headed, didn’t want to go there, but the whisky would take them both there anyway. ‘That modern Japan is just one big American success story?’
‘You could at least give us some credit.’
‘I give absolutely no credit to a nation that wiped out a quarter of a million civilians with firebombs and atomic weapons. I didn’t do so then, and will not do so now.’
He could hear the sound of the bagpipes filtering through from the other room. More clapping. The irreverent stamping of feet. As if to show this fragile earth who was really boss. He just wanted to close his eyes, sink back into the comfort of this armchair and fall asleep. But Jerome was close in, shouting above the music.
‘Those atomic bombs saved a million lives.’
Even in his weariness, Edward had to rise to the bait. ‘Look, Jerome, why don’t you forget about that tired old argument. Do you know what really bothers me now? It’s that you Yanks refuse to take a good look at what happened here. Even the Germans went back and took stock of what they did during the Holocaust. But the Americans… the Americans never batted an eyelid over Nagasaki. That is what I’ve never forgiven. Until they confront the tragedy of Nagasaki, we will never see any enlightened foreign policy coming out of your country.’
He saw that Jerome had stiffened quite dramatically. Patterns of behaviour. So hard to break. Jerome ending up apoplectic and defensive over Nagasaki. It was a blind spot. His American friend was an intelligent man, there was no doubt about that. But when it came to Nagasaki, he just seemed to shut down his brain, turn off his compassion.
‘Can’t believe you said that,’ Jerome spluttered.
‘I stood up for the victims. Now you know why The Waterwheel didn’t sell well in America.’
‘Don’t be flippant. How can you compare us with the Nazis?’
‘That’s not what I said. I just said it would help if America did some public soul-searching over Nagasaki, the way the Germans did over the Holocaust.’
‘And you think the Japanese have done any soul-searching over what they did? I don’t hear a lot of apologies being made from this corner of the globe for all the atrocities that occurred. You might think you’re some kind of hero over here. Christ, you’ve even got the dean fawning all over you. But a helluva lot of Japanese used you and your stupid novel as propaganda to cover up their own misdeeds.’
‘All right, Jerome, that’s enough,’ he said, struggling up from his chair. ‘There’s nothing more to be gained from this.’
Jerome pulled at his sleeve. ‘Sorry, Eddie, no offence meant. Come on, sit down, stay for another. One for the road.’
‘No, I’m leaving. Please thank the dean again for his gift. Wherever it is.’<
br />
‘You left it in the cloakroom.’
He waited for Jerome to stand too, but he didn’t move from his chair. ‘Come on. We can’t part like this.’
Jerome stretched out a limp hand in a half-hearted wave. ‘Nothing’s changed, Eddie.’
Edward turned his back, felt his entire body taut with rage as he strode off to the cloakroom. His blood pressure must have been right off the scale. There were some tablets if he could only remember where he had put them. An elderly Japanese couple approached as he fumbled at the desk for his ticket.
‘We’re very sorry to trouble you. But my wife believes you are the writer Edward…’
‘Leave me alone, will you? Just leave me alone.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
Japan • 1956
When Edward first arrived in Japan, he imagined himself as this tiny, isolated dot of a soul lost among millions of other souls. And after eighteen months, that was how he remained, not joining the dots, but carving out a lonely existence for himself between his little box of an apartment and the offices of Tokyo Autos. Japan happened all around him, and he wondered at it, absorbed it, learned from it as he added another perspective to his way of thinking. But he kept apart from it. And he found he liked it that way. When he wrote to Aldous about his propensity towards contented isolation, he received the comment: ‘You are very fortunate to possess the most important quality for being a writer.’
The First Tokyo Motor Show propelled Edward slightly more into the limelight. The show was a great success with over half a million people attending, and he enjoyed his assignment dealing with the few English-speaking customers at the Tokyo Autos stand. He felt proud of his contribution as a bridge of cultural understanding, his edited brochures in both English and Japanese outlining “the outstanding co-operation in licensed technology between Tokyo Autos and Argos Motors as a cornerstone for the future development of the Japanese automobile industry”. Although Tokyo Autos still manufactured many of its passenger vehicles simply by welding car bodies on to the chassis of small trucks, “the company was seriously committed towards producing cars according to international standards and held a long-term belief that it could compete in the global export market”. He reported these views back to Digby in London who replied with the letter he now held as he leaned back in his chair, feet up on his desk, in the small office allocated to him by his Japanese hosts. “International Officer” was the sign on his door, ostentatiously describing his position as an English copywriter. The room’s tiny window allowed him a view over the skyline of a central Tokyo that seemed to be growing by the minute.
“I am delighted to hear of the contribution our beloved Argos is making to domestic production in Japan,” Digby wrote. “But I dismiss as totally fanciful the idea that Tokyo Autos might be able to come up with its own car to compete in the export market. Such a thought is madness, but humour your hosts anyway.”
Edward didn’t think the idea was madness at all. The American army of occupation had departed, leaving the Japanese to fall back on their boundless capacity for hard work, their resourcefulness at adapting the inventiveness of others to their own ends. They even had a phrase for it. Wakon-Yoshi. Japanese spirit, Western ability. And what a combination those qualities were proving to be. He just had to look out of the window to see the result. High-rise office and apartment buildings, department stores, nightclubs, pachinko parlours, all springing up like wild mushrooms in the humid streets below while underfoot new subway lines were being hacked out of the scorched earth. He could even walk out of the front door of Tokyo Autos, cross the road and order an American-style pizza and a half-bottle of Chianti at a newly established Italian restaurant. A new Japan was rising out of the ashes and debris. It was already beginning to hold its own in the global shipbuilding and textile industries and the automobile industry would be next. The country was experiencing strong economic growth, the demand for good quality cars was increasing. Only the lack of paved roads dampened enthusiasm and with a new national highway construction plan underway Edward expected even that obstacle to expansion to fade away rapidly. The success of the motor show had shown that consumer confidence was on the up and up. Digby would be proved wrong. He was sure of it.
A knock on the door. Ah, the tea girl, Edward thought, providing her customary round of green-leaf refreshment. He relished the cleansing taste of her brew as he called out for her to enter. But it was not the delightful kimono-clad Mie who appeared, but the grim and very male Kobayashi, the English translator whose formally worded texts Edward spent all his working days revising. He hurriedly whipped his feet off the desk, knocking over a pile of brochures in the process.
Kobayashi smirked at the chaos, his tiny caterpillar of a moustache twitching above his upper lip. The translator bowed, then ceremoniously held out an envelope balanced on open palms. ‘Specific delivery.’
‘Special delivery,’ Edward corrected. He felt he could easily be employed editing Kobayashi’s whole being, not just his translations. The moustache could go for a start. And something needed to be done about the bad breath, the dirty fingernails and the ill-fitting suit. Yet this was an unusual interruption. Edward normally collected his mail from his pigeonhole in the main staff room. And this envelope that Kobayashi proffered was not made from the usual flimsy onion-skin material either, but from thick brown paper stamped all over by some enthusiastic postal worker. Edward plucked it from the man’s outstretched hands and turned it over. It was from his Aunt Cathy in Edinburgh. He thanked the retreating Kobayashi and hurriedly slit open the envelope with the Japanese knife his mother had given him.
They had gone quickly, one after the other, like a pair of dominoes flicked over by the fingernail of God or whoever else was responsible for masterminding these events. First his father, then his mother three days later. “A blessing in disguise” his aunt wrote in a small, tight script that immediately conjured up her mean lips, bitten hard into concentration over her composition. “I do not know how she would have coped without him to look after her. After your father died, I was just about to telegram you to come back but then when your mother passed away so soon after I felt it was pointless. A letter is so much more comforting than a telegram anyway, I think. And there was nothing really you could have done, so far away from home.” It was strange to find Aunt Cathy in such a consoling mood towards him. She had been far from compassionate when he had taken up the educational legacy provided by her late husband, his Uncle Rob. “You can be reassured that both your parents passed away quickly and with little pain.” His father had died of a sudden heart attack, while his mother “had just given up on life. Her memory had deteriorated so much recently that I am not even sure if she knew who your father was. I took care of all the necessary funeral arrangements. That solicitor chap, Wilson Guthrie, who was also your Uncle Rob’s lawyer, is the executor and will administer the estate. No doubt he will get in touch with you in due course about the sale of the house and its contents. I have given him your address. I’m so sorry. I have enclosed a few keepsakes for you in the meantime. There are some valuables – watches, jewellery and the like – but I did not want to entrust these items to the international post. Love…” Included in the bulky envelope were two handkerchiefs, one embroidered with his father’s initials, the other with his mother’s. A photograph of his parents on their wedding day. Another with him sitting between them on a spread-out picnic blanket.
He stared out of the window. Dark clouds were pushing in quickly from the east. It was the rainy season. The Japanese had officially decreed it thus and it was so. Just as there were days that marked the beginning and end of summer, irrespective of whether the sun was actually shining or not. He could see the delineation of the weather front quite clearly, bright sunshine on one side, a sheet of rain on the other. Workmen who had been padding across girders on a building site in front of his office began scurrying down from their positions, skipping across planked walkways, sliding down ladders, hardly touching the
sides as they went. He didn’t really know what to do with himself. Except to sit there on the corner of his desk, the edge biting quite uncomfortably into his left buttock. His parents had died. One after another. On the other side of the world, so remote from where he was now, that he felt as if the fact of their deaths must surely be within the domain of another person and not his own.
The day grew blacker and he observed the first streaks of rain cut across the windowpane. It would be both wet and warm outside. An interesting combination so unlike the damp coldness of the British weather. Such an odd thing for his aunt to do, sending these two handkerchiefs. He picked up his father’s. Plain white linen, except for the blue-stitched initials in one corner. He imagined his mother doing the stitching, nimbly working her fingers and the needle, then a quick cut of the thread with her teeth. ‘Done’ she would have said. He put the material to his nose. Freshly laundered. Nothing of his father. No pipe tobacco. No hair oil. No shaving lotion. No starched shirt. No hidden sweets in the pocket. No towel rub-down at the swimming pool. No waiting by the window for the hand upon the gate. No footstep on the stairway. No Scottish burr overheard from the bedroom darkness. He put the handkerchief aside and picked up his mother’s. Cream silk with a pale green border. He brought it to his nose and smelt it also. His mother’s perfume. And then he felt the tears on his cheek, hot like the monsoon raindrops on the other side of the pane. They came quickly in a sudden burst, then they were gone. He wiped his face with his mother’s handkerchief, sat down behind his desk.
Tokyo Autos supplied Edward with an office and secretarial support, commissioned work and organised his apartment, but in actuality he was an employee of Argos Motors. Argos paid his salary, his rent, his transportation and his bonus. It was to Argos he owed his allegiance. He expected nothing from the Japanese firm, yet when news of his parents’ death spread throughout the company, he became the recipient of a tsunami of sympathy and kindness from his co-workers. It was the miserable Kobayashi who had been the conduit. The translator had returned to the office later that afternoon with the rain hammering against the window to enquire politely whether the package of special delivery had contained any important news. When he had told Kobayashi what had happened, the black-bordered cards of condolence began to arrive almost immediately. They were followed by small gifts. Boxes of chocolates. A selection of soaps. A set of hand-towels. Bundles of incense. All accompanied by the corresponding business cards of the senders. People he didn’t even know. Two days later he was led by a solemn Kobayashi to the office of Mr Tanaka, the company’s general manager.
An Exquisite Sense of What Is Beautiful Page 12
