An Exquisite Sense of What Is Beautiful

by J David Simons

  The manager not only arranged for a chair but also a small wooden desk for his typewriter and an umbrella for shade. Tanakasan was right. The Japanese did appreciate their artists. And even though he was a foreign artist, Edward realised he had been ascribed a certain status within this hotel. He was the writer-in-residence. The foreign penman supposedly successful enough to rent a suite indefinitely. To be pointed out to guests as he sat reading in the lobby or eating alone at his table in the dining room.

  It was with such comforting thoughts he readied himself for a late evening glass of malt that he had arranged with the obliging manager down in the hotel bar. A thank-you drink for the provision of the desk and umbrella out by the waterwheel. A young American, Jerome Fisk, would be joining them. Fisk had arrived in Japan after the war, stayed on after the Occupation had ended, inveigled himself into a university position and was now holed-up at the hotel for a few weeks finishing a research paper. A brash New Yorker with strong patriotic views, but a sharp conversationalist nevertheless. Edward was looking forward to the evening. He put aside his pen, closed his notebook, washed the ink stains from his hands and slipped back into his shoes. He hummed to himself despite the frustrations of another unproductive day.

  He opened the bedroom door just in time to glimpse one of the hotel chambermaids scuttling down the corridor. An American naval officer, no doubt on R&R out of the nearby base at Yokosuka, was following her with long strides. He was a close-cropped blond man, tanned, his big, shiny-pink lips grinning sloppily over his big teeth as he chased after the girl. Without thinking, Edward stuck out his foot as the officer passed. The American stumbled but did not fall completely to the ground. Instead with hands spread-out in front, he stalled into a crouching position, like an on-your-marks sprinter, hanging there for a few seconds. And then he was on his feet, swivelling round quickly for such a heavy man, pushing his hands hard into Edward’s chest. It was a solid blow and Edward was knocked back a few steps into his room, just managing to claw the top of the dresser for balance. His breath full squeezed out of him so he had to suck in quick and loud for air. The American was also breathing heavily, scrutinising him in this sudden male stand-off.

  ‘What the fuck happened there?’ the American snarled.

  Edward stared back at the officer. The man was bigger and stronger and no doubt combat-fit into the bargain. A full-on fight would be pointless.

  ‘They’re pretty fast on their feet,’ he said.

  ‘Wha’?’ The big American looked at him puzzled. ‘Wha’ dya say there?’

  ‘Fast on their feet. These chambermaids. Dashing around here and there. Hard to catch one when you need one.’

  ‘Yeah,’ the officer said, his attention now on the lapels of his own uniform, which he started to brush into some kind of imaginary straightness. ‘Yeah. Just like you say. Hard to catch.’ Then he just grunted, turned round and left in the direction from which he had appeared.

  Edward watched him go, feeling the fear that had rushed through him begin to subside, leaving him giddy with relief. He clutched his neck, felt the pulse there, waited for his breathing to return to normal.

  ‘I just saw one of your guests chasing a chambermaid down a corridor,’ Edward told Ishikawa-san, the hotel manager, down in the bar. Ishikawa-san was a remarkably small man who wore enormous, thick-lensed glasses. It was like talking to a shop window. ‘He was an American officer.’

  The hotel manager typically shrugged off the criticism of any of his clientele but Fisk rose to the defence.

  ‘Just a case of high jinks, pal. That’s what it sounds like to me. High jinks. You know what these guys are like.’

  ‘High jinks, Fisk? If a Japanese man did that in New York he’d be arrested for assault.’

  ‘These men get cooped up in the base for weeks on end. I’m sure he was just letting off some harmless steam. Sure he was, pal.’

  ‘That’s not an excuse to terrorise a poor chambermaid.’

  ‘Like I said. Letting off steam.’

  ‘It reeks of American colonialism to me.’

  ‘Perhaps you should write about it, Eddie,’ Fisk countered. ‘If it causes you so much concern. Man’s injustice to woman, something like that, eh? How the Americans screwed the Japanese. No offence meant, Mr Ishikawa.’

  And he did write about it. The next day, with the gentle creak of the waterwheel providing the backbeat to his work, he suddenly found creative ideas come easily to him. Little mushrooms of fresh thought popping up here and there. It was such an exhilarating feeling, it made him breathless. For the first time he was experiencing a kind of creative flow, what Tanaka at Tokyo Autos must have meant by an open heart direct to his art. He had found his big theme and the context in which to place it. Rough parts of the narrative began to unfold, as well as sketches for one or two of the characters to drive it. He abandoned his typewriter to write longhand. He was sweating from the frenzy of it all, desperate to get everything on to paper while he could. For as much as he might have wanted to will it, he knew this cloudburst of creativity couldn’t last. After several hours of concentrated work, he had written almost four thousand words. He had counted every precious one of them. He read the manuscript through again. And as he did so, he became aware of an unusual understanding about what he had written. He sensed that the whole process contained in the last few hours was not one of creation, but of uncovering. As if the work of fiction he was about to embark on already existed somewhere fully completed and in its perfect form. His task was therefore not to make something new, but to somehow scrape away the dust and the sands of his conscious mind in order to discover the inscriptions of his novel that lay underneath.

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  He looked up from his papers to see a young kimono-clad woman standing before him, holding a black lacquer tray.

  ‘I didn’t order anything.’

  ‘I thought perhaps you will like some green tea and biscuits,’ she said, the ease of her English surprising him. Most of the staff could manage their greetings and their thank-yous and that was about it. ‘It is quite hot and you work a long time.’ She took a step forward, looked round about where he sat. He quickly gathered his manuscript from the table and she put down her tray. She then gracefully crouched down beside him, poured out the tea into a tiny cup. He could see the curve of her neck as she bowed over her task, a few tendrils of hair loose from their clasp running back into the collar of her robe. A small mole graced the space just above her upper lip. Light pads of make-up on her cheek, her flowery scent, just the tiniest dots of perspiration on the side of her nose. There was an obvious grace to her, but also a toughness. He had detected that in the slight insistence in her voice, the way she had confidently moved into his space. She finished pouring, turned to him and smiled. ‘Biscuit?’ she asked.

  ‘Just the tea will be fine,’ he said. ‘Thank you. It is very thoughtful of you.’ As he sipped at his cup he realised the aroma from the tea was not that dissimilar to her own scent. He was about to remark on this when she said:

  ‘I must thank you.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Last evening you stopped American soldier for me.’

  ‘Ah, so that was you.’

  ‘Yes, that was me.’ She stood up from her crouch and bowed elegantly before him. ‘My name is Sumiko.’

  He returned the bow from his seating position. ‘And I am Edward Strathairn. Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘I know who you are,’ she said, smiling. ‘You are famous writer.’

  He laughed and wagged a finger at her. ‘No, no, no. I am not a famous writer at all. Just a beginning writer.’

  She looked puzzled. ‘But you live in Fuji Suite like home?’

  ‘That’s not because I am a famous writer.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. Another smile, then she bowed quickly. ‘Now I must go. Or manager will look for me. I will return later for the tray.’

  ‘Before you go. Tell me, where did you learn to speak Eng
lish so well?’

  ‘From the Americans,’ she said, blushing. ‘From the Americans.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Hakone, Japan • 2003

  ‘Ah, Sir Edward,’ Takahashi said, looking up from a ledger spread open on the reception desk. The hotel manager appeared just as fresh, alert and impeccable as when Edward had left him in the morning. ‘I trust you had a pleasant trip to Tokyo?’

  ‘No, I did not.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Nothing for you to be sorry about. Now, are there any messages?’

  ‘Yes. Ms Blythe asked if you could contact her immediately on your return. If you were not too late. Are you too late, Sir Edward?’

  ‘No, I am not too late.’

  ‘Shall I ring her from here?’

  ‘No, I will call from my room, thank you. I would dearly love a bath.’

  ‘Ah, in that case, you may like to take advantage of the hotel onsen. The pools and washing areas have been very much modernised since your last stay with us. Very fine Italian marble has been used in the refurbishing.’

  ‘I shall proceed to my room, Takahashi-san.’

  He was just about to leave the reception area when Takahashi came out from behind his desk, caught up with him.

  ‘You may recall, Sir Edward,’ he said, almost in a whisper. ‘You may recall there was an arrangement to have a little get-together.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, Takahashi-san. Not now. Please let me be.’

  Edward didn’t even turn round to see the hotel manager’s face. He just set off along the corridor, thrashing out with his cane at the leaves of a pot plant on the way.

  The bath boasted a giant brass funnel of a faucet that produced a disturbing, clunking sound way back somewhere in the pipe network, an enormous wheeze, then a tremendous gush of water. Good, he thought. This will be full in a few minutes. He noticed a small bottle of bath oil in a scalloped soap dish, poured the full contents into the torrent and retreated into his bedroom. The plan was to see if the telephone would stretch all the way into the bathroom. After much bending, unfurling of wire and tipping up of table legs, he found that it did. He undressed, turned off the raging flow, scrubbed himself clean in the shower, then slowly eased himself into the scented water until he was submerged chest-high in bubbles and blessed heat. He felt better already. Remarkable how at his age he could still haul his aching body in and out of various transport systems, institutional buildings, badly designed chairs and deep baths. He reached for the receiver, punched out the room number.

  ‘Did I wake you?’

  ‘No, no. It’s fine.’

  ‘You sound sleepy?’

  ‘I’m fine. How was your day with Professor Fisk?’

  ‘It had its ups and downs.’

  ‘You didn’t argue, did you?’

  ‘A leopard doesn’t change its spots.’

  ‘And which one of you two was the leopard?’

  ‘We both were unfortunately.’ He eased himself even lower in the bath so that both his chin and the receiver remained just out of the water. He noticed that his other hand had strayed unconsciously beyond his milky belly to between his legs to fondle his penis. ‘Well, not to worry,’ he said. ‘At least, there was no press.’

  ‘And I have some good news for you. The BBC has been in touch. They want to know if they can include you in a series of interviews. It is to be called Conversations with Wise Men. For next September.’

  ‘That’s nearly a year away. Do they need a reply now?’

  ‘I’m afraid they do. Autumn scheduling, I believe. And they would like to know if you’re on board. They said it would help reel in others.’

  ‘Well, tell them “no”. The last thing I need right now is to have the BBC poking into my life.’ Quite remarkably, he noticed his penis had grown under his ministrations. Not a full-blown erection. Not even half-mast. But a stiffness he hadn’t been able to create for as long as he could remember.

  ‘They will be very disappointed. I understand Sir David is to conduct the one-to-one interviews. The two of you seemed to get on so well last year on his show. I thought you would be pleased.’

  ‘Pleased. Why should I be pleased?’

  ‘Well, it means the Beeb hasn’t heard the rumours. Perhaps everything has blown over.’

  ‘For the moment.’

  ‘And if something does happen, then this would be an opportunity to put the record straight. To tell your side of the story.’

  ‘I appreciate your concern, Enid. But as I keep telling you, there is no “my side to the story”.’

  Silence.

  ‘Enid?’

  ‘I’m still here.’

  ‘All right. Tell them I’ll agree to some interviews. At home, mind you. Not in some scorching studio. And only with David. And I want some sort of final editing approval.’

  ‘Sir David has already sent over a list of topics he would like to discuss. Would you like to hear them?’

  ‘As long as there are no bloody questions about my ex-wife.’

  ‘There are none.’

  ‘Good. And by the way, I’ve found the most beautiful cloisonné bowl for you.’

  ‘That’s very thoughtful of you.’

  He realised his erection had become quite pronounced. Was it the malt whisky? Or the sushi? Had he eaten oysters at that lunchtime buffet? Or was it Enid? She was still an attractive woman. In her late fifties. Devoted to him. Would do anything for him. Perhaps it was the heat of the water coupled with the excitement of his trip and a female voice in his ear. He could feel the hardness fade now anyway. It had reached its apex and was now a mere tortoise head returning to its carapace of crumpled skin. But what a little triumph!

  ‘Sir Edward? Are you all right? There is such a strange echo? Where are you?’

  ‘I’m fine. Just tired. I must go now. I must sleep. It has been a long day. A very long day.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Hakone, Japan • 1957

  It was like a game of cat and mouse. Except he didn’t know if he was the cat or the mouse. He would be eating his breakfast and suddenly, there she was, just beyond the dining room window, carrying a basket of linen across the stepping stones of the pond. He couldn’t remember if she had always performed this task at this time of day and he had never noticed, or whether this was a completely new occurrence. He would go out to his workplace by the waterwheel and a tray with tea and biscuits would be waiting. He would return to his room after dinner and the bed would be turned down, a lamp conveniently left on and the scent of her green tea perfume still lingering. Each swish of kimono or pad of footsteps in the corridor had him turning his head or rushing to the corner for a glimpse of her. But she evaded his capture. Until one evening he decided to stay in his room rather than go down to the dining room. He sat by the window in an armchair, the curtains cracked open to reveal the shadowy outlines of the furniture. As he waited, he realised how excited he was at the prospect she might turn up. It reminded him of the times he used to wait for Macy. Heart racing, mind restless, limbs restless, until the thrill of anticipation peaked and he was left with the disappointment of her non-appearance. But there was a sweetness in Sumiko’s toying with him while with Macy there had been a vindictive edge to the way she drew him in then pushed him away.

  A light tapping on the door. His body tensed. He regretted not having a glass of Scotch by his side, a cigarette between his fingers. Lock turning, door opening slowly. A glow from the hallway. A petite female figure entering. The light snapped on. Sumiko. A large ring of keys in her hand. He leapt out of the armchair. That had not been his intention. Rather he had depicted himself casually delivering some Japanese bon mot from his chair. But a baser instinct had prevailed, propelling him from his seat. He grabbed her. And she screamed. Another instinct forced his hand over her mouth. She was shaking so much he thought she might collapse to the floor. Keys jangling. He pulled his hand away from her mouth. A speechless, choking sound in her thro
at. Her eyes bulging. What was he doing? Why had he not thought this through?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he stammered. ‘God. I’m so sorry.’

  She shook her head from side to side. Like an hysterical puppy. With one hand, he reached out for the door, pulled it wide open. She spun out of his grasp, ran out of the room.

  He slept fitfully, the episode with Sumiko making him feel no better a person than her GI pursuer he had tripped in the corridor, reminding him of how he had behaved in Brighton with Macy. He twisted and turned so much during the night that at one point he fell out of bed. The tight wind of the blankets had saved him so that he burst awake to find himself dangling in mid-air with his shoulder swinging just above the floor. His subconscious had betrayed his body. It had ignored the usual boundaries and taken a leap into the void. He hauled himself back into bed. The incident had scared him, making him suspicious of his own nature. If it happened again, he would have to sleep on a futon.

  At breakfast, he remained tense to her possible appearance in the garden outside the dining room window. He ate too quickly, spilled tea over his newspaper. He could now add indigestion to lack of sleep as part of his condition for the day. He wondered how she felt, what she thought he had been trying to do to her. What had he been trying to do to her?