The Love of Stones

by Tobias Hill

  We head east-north-east. Back into the centre, out towards the river. For days now it has felt as if I have been heading in only one direction. But then east is where the old stones come from. Always the East, Oriental and Saracenic. When I write the history of the Three Brethren it seems to belong to Europe as much as Asia, but this is a lie. The jewel is nothing if not Asian. Its gems were unearthed more than four centuries before the diamond alluvia of Africa and Brazil were mined, or the gold ores of America and Australia. It comes from a time when the great balases still came from Badakshán, pigeon-blood rubies only from the Mogok Tract, diamonds from India. If the Brethren comes from anywhere it is the East.

  The man in white gloves drives like a surgeon. Office blocks give way to quieter streets. Prefabricated houses support older wooden structures. There is little traffic here. We cross the Sumida river on a stone bridge no wider than two lanes of traffic and reach the bar after five blocks.

  It is set back behind tall cedars, window lights showing through them. While the taxi pulls away I stand on the soft earth under the trees, taking in their smell. It is like that in the courtyard of Glött’s stone house. I think of her, and of Hassan. I miss them, although I hope I never see them again. I make no apologies for it. I know I am selfish and self-possessed. Neither of these things is wrong all the time.

  A footpath leads through the trees, lights set flush into the paving. The building at their end is half-timbered, a thatched roof sloping almost to the ground on two sides. There is the sound of water and air-conditioners and, more faintly, the familiar noises of a bar at night. Music and voices. Not all of them are male. The door is imitation lacquer and paper and it slides back automatically as I reach it.

  Inside is a lobby, empty, with a cupboard full of slippers and shoes. Beside the footwear are two Lalique vases, lilies and orchids arranged in a Western style. I can smell them, funereal, as I take off my boots. It is a long time now since I have enjoyed cut flowers. They still remind me of the dead.

  None of the slippers fits. I take small steps to the bar, an ugly sister trying her best to be beautiful. The room is high and raftered, the tatami-matted floor broken only by a mezzaluna drinks counter. There are a number of old men in socks and suits and varying stages of drunkenness, and three women in summer kimonos, serving and talking.

  Japanese folk music is playing. The man nearest the entrance is crooning into a microphone, his eyes fixed on a karaoke screen. Lyrics scroll across it along with a montage of incongruous images: a boatload of trawlermen and a net full of tuna; a woman potter making bowls. From the sound of the music and the singer’s face something monumentally sad has taken place, but apart from the fish I can’t make out who it has been happening to.

  No one except the women are in a state to notice much. They aren’t young and they don’t act it. One of them brings the karaoke man a bowl of grilled dumplings and they talk. There is little flirtation in their voices or faces. With one hand he gestures to the bottle-keeps. The woman sees me as she turns.

  ‘Konbanwa.’ She manages to make a question out of the greeting.

  ‘Good evening. I’m sorry, do you speak any English? I’m looking for a Mister Mushanokoji.’

  ‘Of course,’ she says, as if she knows. Her voice is too soft, artificial as the building around her. ‘Are you a guest of Mushanokoji-san?’

  I lie almost without noticing. The hostess leads me around the curve of the bar to a man at its far end. He sits alone, both hands around a glass. Face set, perceiving nothing outside himself. He is tall by Japanese standards, with muscular cheeks and wiry black hair. For an old man he is still masculine, all corners and no curves. I wonder if Mr Three Diamonds looked the same.

  He listens to what the woman has to say before his eyes move to me. The hostess asks him something else and he nods and doesn’t talk until she has bowed and left us. Then he puts out a hand. ‘Hideki.’

  ‘Katharine.’ We shake. The use of first names surprises me. I expect the old and wealthy to be more formal. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re welcome. What for?’

  ‘For lying about me.’

  ‘Well. Seeing as how you’re my guest, will you join me for a drink?’

  His voice itself is also unexpected. His English is American, the accent Brooklyn-broad and somehow dated. I sit down. ‘I could do with a coffee.’

  ‘Come on. This is rice spirit, have you tried that? You don’t live over here, right? Oh, you should try, it’s good. The spirit, not Japan.’ He takes off his steel-rimmed spectacles and wipes his eyes with a napkin from the bar. ‘Ah. What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Katharine.’

  ‘Hello, Katharine. I’m Hideki, but maybe I told you that.’ We shake hands again. He puts his glasses back on, takes me in. He doesn’t appear interested to see me, only resigned to it. He looks like someone used to feeling resigned. ‘And I’m in the soy industry, but maybe you know that too. What’s your business, Katharine?’

  ‘Stones.’

  ‘Stones. How interesting. Is there any money in it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have we met?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Do I owe you money? I don’t recall buying any stones recently.’

  ‘You don’t owe me anything.’

  ‘Uhuh.’ When he grins his eyes almost disappear between smile lines. ‘Stones. Unbelievable. Why don’t we have champagne? I always thought how champagne tastes like crystal would if it was liquid. You ever think that?’

  He waves to the nearest hostess. The magnum comes in a stone cooler, pink granite, iron oxidised in the crystalline structure. Hideki Mushanokoji prises the bottle open while he talks.

  ‘Well, I have to say this is a nice surprise. I was just sitting here, alone, thinking too much. I was almost ready to resort to karaoke, that’s like ritual suicide, death by folk song. Actually, I like doing the Western numbers. I’m the only one. The other boys don’t go in for them in a real hurry.’

  I don’t listen to him. Instead I look at his face and think of his ancestor. A similar man, nine decades ago in cold East London. I resist the desire to touch Hideki, to reach out and feel the face in front of me. As if by doing so I could close all distance between myself and Three Diamonds.

  ‘I do U2, and Elvis Presley of course. “Rub Me Tender”, as you think we say here in Japan. And now you walked in and saved me, Katharine.’

  He passes me a flute of champagne. Bubbles rise inside it. Lines and spirals and double helices. It is cold and so dry it tastes almost mineral.

  ‘Your English is very good. Did you study abroad?’

  ‘University of Manchukuo, class of forty-five.’ He smiles again. Light glares off his spectacles. ‘The Americans caught me. I already spoke some English, they set me up as a radio operator.’ He circles his hand slowly in the air. Revolutions of time passing. ‘Afterwards they kept me at work in the States a few years. New York. Upstate.’

  ‘I thought you were younger than that.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

  I can place the accent better now. Mr Mushanokoji sounds disconcertingly like an American GI from an old war film. ‘Stones. Hey, you’re English, right? You like Sherlock Holmes? I learned English from Sherlock Holmes. The Blue Carbuncle – do you know that one? “It’s a bonny thing,” said he. “Just see how it glints and sparkles, Watson. Of course it is a nucleus and focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil’s pet baits.” Eh?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Oh. Well, now you know my war story. I don’t have any others, unless you want to hear about soybeans or bad marriages.’

  The hostess comes and tries to refill my glass. The champagne’s aftertaste is strong in my mouth. I can feel the alcohol reaching my blood already. The bar feels too hot and I sit back. ‘Actually, there’s a relative of yours I’m interested in. Enzo Mushanokoji.’

  ‘Enzo.’ He wrinkles up his face. ‘Enzo? Jesus.’

  ‘He use
d a false name in his company business. Three Diamonds.’

  ‘He needed it. Enzo!’ He puts his elbows on the bar. It brings his body closer. ‘He’s barely my relation. My grandfather’s cousin. The black sheep of the family. Or –’ he frowns, searching for words ‘– the wolf in black sheep’s clothing. Can you say that? Did he run a company?’

  ‘His name is on the records.’

  ‘I didn’t know that. My mother wouldn’t say his name. She was very – yashashii, I forget the words – giving, forgiving. Enzo used to import all kinds of things. War Office contracts. These days they call it Defence. There were other customers too.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The kind of companies who wanted what he traded.’ He looks around blearily. ‘The kind who don’t like being talked about. You want to know something about Enzo? He was the first man to bring phosgene gas into Japan. His claim to fame. Dirty business. The – who was that English guy?’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘You must know, you’re one of them. The potato guy.’

  ‘Walter Raleigh?’

  ‘Right. That was Enzo. The Walter Raleigh of poison gas.’

  ‘He must have been rich.’

  ‘I don’t think so. He worked in the south somewhere.’

  ‘What about his children?’

  ‘Tell you the truth, I’m not a whole lot interested in family.’ He leans closer. I can smell his breath now, the pureness of the champagne soured by his flesh. ‘But listen, I’m interested in you. You’re very strong, eh? Very strong. Not cold. But why are you so strong, Katharine? I have this theory that you can divide people into two types. You wanna hear it? There are business people and pleasure people. Which are you?’

  ‘I’m the kind who keeps her business to herself.’

  ‘Aha ha! Very good. In Japan we say, to keep the lid down on the stinking pot. Have another drink. What’s your poison?’

  ‘I don’t have one.’

  ‘Come on, be sweet to an old man. Drink with a drunk.’

  I drink with him. When I look at my watch again it is almost midnight. A small man with a disproportionately large voice is singing karaoke and might have been doing so for hours. He doesn’t look as if he’s about to leave, nor does anyone else. It is as if they have no homes left to go to, these ageing merchants, only this place with its artificial warmth, mock-lacquer, imitation mothers, daughters, wives.

  I ask our hostess to order two taxis. She has a neat face, powdered white as rice. Nothing dominant, eyes, nose or mouth, passion or reticence. I envy her that balance. I nudge Hideki awake. He shades his eyes, as if I have become impossibly bright, incandescent with champagne. ‘I’m going now. Okay? You were great. Maybe you should be getting home yourself.’

  ‘Wait – wait…’ Mushanokoji fumbles money onto the counter. ‘I don’t Want to go home. I want to stay with you. You interest me.’ He sighs, drapes an arm around my shoulder. ‘Katharine. My stinking pot.’

  ‘Thanks for that.’

  Half-shut, his eyes gleam. ‘Enzo. I could tell you more about him. If you stayed with me.’

  ‘Liar.’

  He leers. ‘But I could find out more. My wife would remember. She loves my family. Knows us better than we know ourselves.’

  ‘Then the sooner you go home, the sooner you can phone me.’

  ‘No, no.’ His weight sags against my shoulder. ‘Not home now. Only at weekends, see. She makes me stay at my suite. The Okura.’ His mouth goes maudlin. ‘Oh, God. Stay with me, Katharine. Just to talk, I miss talking. You’re so good to me. Tomorrow. I’ll find out what you want. Promise.’

  Tomorrow morning.’ But he is past agreeing now, and the deal is as made as it is going to be. By the time I get outside the first taxi is waiting. I roll the old man onto the backseat and follow him in. The driver doesn’t turn, but in the rear-view mirror I see him observe us. His skin ghosted with moonlight, white as the face of the hostess.

  ‘Hotel Okura.’ The car starts up and I sit back into the acceleration. The old man is slumped against the far passenger door. I watch him, trying to imagine his life. The bars and hotel rooms and offices. The prostitutes, no doubt. A loneliness alleviated by paid encounters, although there are different needs to be paid for tonight, and different ways to pay. Outside the roads are almost empty. It begins to drizzle, a soft dense fall.

  The hotel is beautiful and empty, half-architecture, half-jewel. In the lobby Potoro marble plaques are laid symmetrically, like golden Rorschach tests. I walk with the old man leaning against my shoulder and watch the desk clerk assessing my place. It sobers me up only marginally. Hideki Mushanokoji he recognises. Together we carry him to the elevator. The suite is ten floors up. The clerk leaves us, bowing, not meeting my eyes.

  The lights are out. I don’t turn them on. In the lounge, the entire eastern wall is glass. Beyond it Tokyo shines, slippery with rain and neon. I take off Mushanokoji’s glasses and dump him in the bedroom, face down on the made linen sheets. He mutters a name, not mine. I feel no guilt about what I am doing. No one is taking advantage of anyone. There is only an exchange of insubstantial things, conversation, information. An attention to absences. I go through into the lounge, pushing the door to behind me.

  I close the blinds. The moon creeps through them and illuminates a piano, sofas, a lacquered desk. I think of lacquer. The image rises up in me with a drunken resentment. It is what I would grow to hate about this country, given time, though it is also what makes it beautiful. So much is smoothed over. Surfaces, faces, precious things.

  I lie down on the first sofa I come to. It feels impossibly soft. Up close, against my face, I can smell the sweetness of fine leather; the good scent of dead things. It is the last thing I think of. I sleep without dreams.

  Unforgettable. Mmm, that’s what you are.

  Unforgettable, though near or far.

  The voice reaches me first. I’m not aware of the hangover until I try to move. I go still, waiting for the pain to subside.

  Like a song of love that clings to me,

  Ooo, how the thought of you does things to me.

  My eyes feel delicate as eggs. I open them a crack at a time and discover it is morning. Blinds cast gills of light across the walls. There is the hiss of water, a voice distorted through it. It doesn’t sound like Frank Sinatra.

  Never before

  Has someone been more

  Mmm-mmm. Uh-um, uh-um.

  There is food in the room. I don’t see it yet but I can smell it, toast and croissants and coffee, the bitter-sweet aromas familiar and Western. I climb off the sofa and lurch towards them.

  ‘Hey, Katharine, have I woken you up yet? Rise and shine.’

  I don’t answer him. The back of my mind wonders how long he has been awake, and if he watched me as I slept. This morning I find the thought of him intrusive, although he has been nothing but kind to me. Breakfast is on the desk. I finish it all off in clumsy mouthfuls, standing to do so, hunger discovering itself as I eat. There is a carafe of orange juice, cladded with condensation, lidded with an Arcoroc glass. I drink as much as I can stomach.

  The cold of the juice opens my eyes and the daylight catches them. Shuttered, it has a hard concentrated glitter. It reminds me of the effect of facets in a brilliant; and already I am thinking of the jewel. This is all it takes for me. The Three Brethren is never much more than a thought away.

  I open the blinds again, narrowing my eyes, and wonder if I am also nearer the fact of it. Sometimes it seems like a delusion, the search, as if I am convincing myself of a progress that has no foundation. There are dreams like this, nightmares of going nowhere. Running without motion towards the Brethren’s vanishing point.

  But it feels closer. In the last fortnight there have been proofs, names and transactions and photographs. None of this is my imagination. I can prove myself to myself and there is no one else I need to believe in me. This morning I have all the evidence I want. Possibly more. I look out at Tokyo while the cousin
twice removed of Mr Three Diamonds sings Broadway music in the shower:

  Unforgettable, oo awoo awoo, in every way.

  And for evermore I intend to stay –

  ‘Hey, do I sound pretty good?’

  ‘You sing like a dog.’

  ‘Awoo. How’s your hangover?’

  ‘Fine, thank you. Yours?’

  ‘Healthy diet.’ He comes in grinning, ruddy, still scrubbing his hair. ‘Work hard, play hard.’ He looks proud of himself, as if he has bettered his youngers. Bulked out with a towel and dressing gown he looks younger himself. The smell of him – old skin clean-shaven – dominates the room. ‘I talked to Michiko already too, that’s my wife. I keep my promises, see? Here.’

  He takes a sheet of paper out of the gown pocket and hands it over the desk to me. It is scrawled with minute ballpoint characters. Even if I read Japanese I doubt that I could decipher it. He sees it in my face.

  ‘Oh Jesus, give it back here, look. This is the old guy’s name, Enzo. This is the company he worked for, Mankin-Mitsubishi. I was right about the firm. You should have listened to me, see? We don’t need my wife.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘It wasn’t his.’

  ‘Enzo’s name was on the papers.’

  ‘Because his name was good. The owner of the firm was foreign. It was better to have any Japanese name on the documents, especially one like mine. Anyway, here’s what you want. He lived in Takamatsu, which is on the island of Shikoku. South, like I said.’

  I take the paper from him, walk back to the sofa and sit. The old man comes up behind me. ‘He was a wanderer, a tanin, you know? An outsider. Made himself into one. The family disowned him because he wouldn’t settle down. That’s all anyone remembers of him.’

  ‘So he died poor.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ He moves closer. I can feel the warmth of him against the back of my neck, his retained heat. ‘He had nothing.’