How do you know? said Quin.
The man at the cash register. We had a short discussion about the stores and shops and houses and inns and shacks and restaurants and hotels in Tsukiji, about the storerooms and warehouses and garages and so forth, and he never hesitated. He chatted right along with me. So that leaves only a houseboat, don’t you think? I’m quite sure that’s what we’re looking for. Shall we?
Quin followed the interpreter into a coffee shop, dark and restful after the hot sun in the street. The interpreter asked for the score to the music, a Mozart symphony, and read the score while they were waiting for their coffee to be brought. The beer and the summer heat had made Quin sleepy. Soon he dozed off. His untouched cup of coffee was sitting in front of him when the interpreter tugged his sleeve and woke him up.
The sun’s just going down, he whispered, always a good time to gather information. Besides, that’s Haydn and they don’t have the score. Shall we?
Shall we what? growled Quin.
The interpreter laughed lightly.
Very good, we shall. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for.
Quin expected the taxi to take them along a canal where a houseboat would be moored, but instead they drove across a wide stretch of reclaimed land to a breakwater. The interpreter strolled leisurely out toward the end of the breakwater while the taxi waited. Quin ran after him. The man stood at the end gazing across Tokyo Bay.
What the hell, said Quin.
I know, mused the interpreter, there’s nothing like it at sunset. The bay and the outline of the city and above it all in the distance our noble Fuji-san. I’ve always been able to think more clearly here. In fact, I have a feeling the next piece of information is almost within our grasp.
The interpreter rolled his eyes toward Mt. Fuji, toward heaven. The wind was behind him so the stream of urine arched a full thirty feet out over the bay.
Lovely, mused the elderly man.
What is?
All of it. Just lovely and here we are.
Where?
Just here, repeated the interpreter, his gaze fixed on either the sacred mountain or some cloud in the sky. But we mustn’t tarry now, the moment has come. Shall we?
The taxi returned them to Tsukiji, to another sushi restaurant, this one large and noisy. The interpreter elbowed his way through the drunken, shouting men to the counter and used some of Quin’s money to bribe a waiter into giving them seats.
Act naturally, whispered the interpreter as they sat down. This is the place, all right. Pretend we just dropped in to have a bite. No one must think we’re really looking for information.
Mounds of raw fish piled up in front of them, the interpreter eating ravenously as if he had not seen food in weeks. He drank heavily and hummed his way through the entire Mozart symphony that had been played in the coffee shop earlier in the afternoon. He laughed, he picked his teeth noisily, he shouted, he sang war songs, ordered more and more sushi and more and more sake to go with it.
Hours went by. Quin was furious, drunk, dazed from the heat. Some time after midnight he was presented with an enormous bill. He intended to pay it and leave and never see the interpreter again, but as he got up from the counter the elderly man tugged his sleeve and whispered urgently.
That’s right, just act naturally. But give me your money roll to pay the bill with, now is absolutely the moment.
Beside the cash register was a set of scales used for weighing fish. The interpreter dropped some money into one side of the scales, the bill into the other. He belched loudly.
A feast, he shouted.
Miserable fare, shouted the elderly man who served as cashier.
The finest restaurant in Japan, shouted the interpreter.
Impossible, shouted the cashier.
I insist upon it, yelled the interpreter.
The grace of Buddha descends upon me, yelled the cashier.
The houseboat, whispered the interpreter.
There is none, whispered the cashier.
The interpreter eased a handful of coins into the scales. He stroked a fistful of notes and let them flutter down one by one on top of the coins.
Snow, he whispered. Gently falling snow that covers the path to the castle.
Much snow must fall, whispered the cashier, to obscure the footprints of the stranger who attempts to sneak up on the castle under cover of darkness.
The interpreter pulled more notes from Quin’s money roll and let them fall into the scales.
Might it be, he whispered, that one must be careful because the lord of this castle is so powerful?
He has power beyond power. No one equals him in power.
No one? That is a difficult claim to make. We have our Emperor, after all.
The Emperor has been powerless since the thirteenth century.
True enough. He has been only a figurehead, a god. Real power has long been in the hands of the warlords. Is it not so?
The cashier shrugged. Of remote eras, he whispered, I know nothing.
But do you mean to say then, whispered the interpreter, that the power of this lord in the castle compares to that of the warlords of more recent eras? That it compares to those warriors who a few short decades ago were our leaders in the conquest of China and the Pacific? Could his empire really compare to their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere?
Greater Asia what? whispered the cashier. China, you say? The Pacific? East Asia? Spheres of spheres and prosperity? No, this empire does not compare to that one because it is much larger. And it is real, unlike that other one that was only a dream, so flimsy it collapsed in a day or two under the weight of one bomb. No, this empire exists, I tell you.
Then the man who rules it must be a mighty emperor indeed. When does he hold court in his castle, this emperor of emperors?
The cashier scooped up the money in the scales and rang up a small sum on the cash register. He stopped whispering and spoke in a normal voice.
Fifty grams, he said. That would be a very good white-fish, short and round, but also too powerful a swimmer for any fisherman to catch. I’m afraid we don’t have what you’re looking for.
The interpreter hiccuped. The cashier sucked air through his teeth. They staggered out of the restaurant and down the street through crowds of men lurching back and forth, spraying each other. At last the interpreter found an unoccupied telephone pole, where he unzipped his trousers in the glare of a streetlight.
That’s it, he whispered, we have it all now. First, he said fifty grams and that’s half a hundred or half the night. Midnight. That’s when this emperor among gangsters shows up at his houseboat. Second, he’s a short rotund man. Third, the rackets he controls make up an empire larger than the Japanese empire during the Second World War. Fourth, the rackets aren’t confined to the Orient but operate all over the world. Fifth, he is more powerful than General Tojo was twenty years ago. Sixth, I don’t know what the cashier meant by calling him white. The Japanese language is very imprecise. Is it possible this gangster is a Westerner? Partly Western?
I suppose so, said Quin. But anyway, where is this houseboat?
Right behind the restaurant we were just in, that’s why we went there of course. Most of the canals in Tokyo are sewers today, one of the few that isn’t is behind that restaurant. Clean water. Just what you’d want if you lived on a houseboat. I thought of sewers while we were in the coffee shop, which is why we went there of course, then I thought of clean water while we were looking at the clean lines of Fuji-san at sunset, which is why we went down to the bay of course. But it has been a long day and now I think we must be going. Shall we?
Quin took out his money.
Impossible, said the interpreter. I wouldn’t think of it. After all, I’ve done practically nothing for you. And let me thank you for the sushi and the sake and the Mozart. It was a very relaxing day.
He waved through the back window of the taxi as he drove away, leaving Quin astonished at the ease with which he had uncovered the
information. But of course Quin had no way of knowing that he had just spent the day with a former corporal who had once been the chauffeur of a man who was a great master spy and double agent at the time of that other empire, who had observed ten thousand clandestine techniques as he drove the most feared man in the Kempeitai, the little Baron with the glass eye that never closed, through the dangerous streets of Mukden and the intricate alleys of Shanghai, the bewildering plots and deceptions of a Tokyo that had disappeared with the war.
• • •
Generally Big Gobi moved around and around the apartment while he was watching television. If he saw a clogged sink on the screen he went out to the kitchen to examine their sink. If he saw a clogged stomach he went into the bathroom to see if he could move his bowels.
Late one afternoon Quin went over to the set and turned it off. A minute or two later Big Gobi moaned.
Hey Quin. Hey what’s that all about? I was right in the middle of something.
What?
I don’t know. Something.
You haven’t moved in days.
Haven’t I?
Now listen, Gobes, the tube’s been out of focus since yesterday. You lost the picture and you didn’t even know it. There’s been nothing but a hum coming out.
Well hey, maybe I was in the middle of that.
No good, Gobes. Tell me what’s bothering you.
Nothing.
Come on.
Do I have to?
Yes.
Big Gobi twisted his hands. He wrung them, pretended to wash them, pretended to dry them.
It’s just this. I can’t think straight anymore.
What’s the matter?
Everything’s upside down, that’s what’s the matter.
Why?
Because everything’s changed. I mean all my life there’s always been one thing I could trust. I didn’t have much else and it was terribly important, but now it’s just gone, I mean just like that. How can you lose something that used to be the whole world to you?
Maybe you don’t, Gobes, maybe you don’t really lose it. What was it?
Big Gobi went through the ritual of washing his hands again. He rubbed the dent in his shoulder.
What do you want to know for?
Because I care about you.
I know, I know you do, I know that’s why you want to know, but what difference does it make when nothing can be done about it anyway? I mean some things are hard to talk about.
What, Gobes?
Well you know what I mean, don’t you, I mean you know me, I don’t have to come right out and say it.
All right. It’s television, isn’t it?
Sure.
It doesn’t mean as much to you as it used to.
As much? Doesn’t mean as much? It means nothing at all, that’s what it means. After all these years it’s just gone, just as if it had never been there. And it was my family, Quin, it was my home and my friends and you know, everything. It was just plain me and now it’s nothing at all.
Maybe not.
But it is, I mean I know it is. I look at the set now and I don’t feel a thing. I mean I remember how I used to feel, but that’s all. I used to feel I couldn’t live without it and now I don’t even care. It frightens me. How can things just be gone? How can you just lose them?
I don’t know that you can. New things happen though. Something else comes along. What’s the new thing, Gobes?
You know. You must know.
Tell me.
All right I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you tomorrow.
No, now.
Right now?
Yes.
Like that?
Like that.
All right, Quin, I will. I’ll tell you just like that.
Well?
Jigglies.
What?
Jigglies. I can’t think about anything but Jigglies. I look at the set and I see Jigglies. The picture goes off and I still see Jigglies. When I try to go to sleep I’m thinking of Jigglies and that keeps me awake. I think about Jigglies when I’m trying to eat and the silly food won’t go down. I mean I know that night wasn’t anything special to you, I know that, but it was to me and I feel just awful now. It’s driving me crazy.
Big Gobi washed and dried his hands. He buried himself in his chair. Quin was thinking of the bar in Yokohama, of Big Gobi marching away from the colored lights of the jukebox behind an aging, shapeless whore, a scarred admiral of a whore who had commanded fleets of Japanese battleships during the war, who had captained half the freighters in the world since then.
Listen, said Quin. I know a place that’s supposed to be the best in Asia for girls. How about it?
Where?
Right here.
Tokyo?
Right.
A kind of palace?
Exactly.
With a princess?
She’ll be a princess. We’ll make sure of it.
When?
Tonight. Right now.
Really?
Sure. You change and we’ll be on our way.
Change?
Big Gobi looked down at himself. He was wearing bathing trunks.
Why was he wearing bathing trunks? He tried to remember. It was because he had had them on that night. He had been in a hurry to leave the beach, the dull one for swimming, to get to the other beach where there were tattoo parlors and jukeboxes and jigglies. He had been in such a hurry he hadn’t changed, so that was the way he walked into the bar in Yokohama.
Bare feet. No shirt. Bathing trunks.
A life preserver over his shoulder.
But the aging, shapeless admiral standing in the colored lights of the jukebox hadn’t laughed at him. In her long career she had scuttled too many battleships and seen too many shipwrecked sailors to be surprised when a man staggered through the door stripped nearly naked, grinning, gripping his life preserver.
Big Gobi smiled shyly.
Sorry, Quin, I’ll change right now. As I told you, I’ve had this one thing on my mind.
• • •
They passed a sandlot where barefoot boys in white pajamas were beating their hands against trees.
Why, Quin?
Karate. Smash your hand against a tree for three or four years and you have calluses an inch thick. Smash it into a keg of sand for another three or four years and all the fingers are the same length.
Why?
So your hand’s shaped like a hoe.
Big Gobi looked at his hands. He saw a woman carrying pieces of chicken wrapped in broad wood shavings. Why didn’t they use paper? Girls in short skirts were going to work, and men with towels around their necks were coming from work after stopping at the public bath. Why didn’t they bathe at home? Why didn’t the girls go to work in the morning?
It was silly. The whole country was silly. He didn’t want his hand to look like a hoe.
He felt for the eye in his pocket, the eye he had bought after the accident with the tuna fish in Boston, the weekend the foreman slipped in the freezer locker and was crushed under a load of thawing fish. The whole episode had started with an eye, Big Gobi knew that and he didn’t want it to happen again. So a few days later when he had chanced to pass a store that sold surgical supplies and had seen a glass eye in the window he had gone in and bought it. Now he kept it with him always, never playing with it or taking it out except when he had to, saving it for emergencies. Even Quin didn’t know about the glass eye. No one knew about it because it had to do with the tuna fish and the foreman’s accident.
They went down a long spiral staircase, passed a huge man with a mallet, kept on descending.
Hey, said Big Gobi. Hey what’s the name of this palace?
The Living Room.
It was silly. Nothing made any sense anymore. Palaces didn’t have living rooms. Palaces were supposed to be up in the sky.
He was even more disappointed when they went into a small, dark room, smaller than the one in Yokohama, lacking a jukebox
. They sat down in an alcove hidden behind palm trees. A bucket of ice was brought with a bottle in it. Big Gobi tasted the bubbly ginger ale and found it bitter. The tall, flat glasses held only a mouthful.
He was lonely. An old woman with a silly green jewel in the middle of her forehead came and sat down beside Quin. Was that Quin’s idea of a princess? While they talked he peeked between the palm trees. It was dark out there. Where was everyone?
The old woman left and Quin went with her, saying he would be back in a few minutes. Big Gobi shrugged. He didn’t care.
He finished the bottle of ginger ale thinking about the girl in Yokohama who had jewels on her slippers, not on her forehead. He tried washing and drying his hands, but that didn’t help either. Another bottle came. He drank some more.
All at once a beautiful girl was sitting down beside him, a young girl with black hair to her waist, a princess. She was wearing an evening dress and stroking his arm. The only girl who had ever done that before was the nurse in the army when she gave him water injections. Instinctively he jerked his arm away.
Her hand fell on his knee. She giggled and went on stroking him.
Whatever you want, said her lovely eyes. I love your knee. I love all of you.
Big Gobi suddenly laughed. He was happy. This princess was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen and she was smiling at him, admiring him, loving him.
He began to talk, he couldn’t help it. He told her about the orphanage and oysters and the army and the bus trip and the seagull soup on the freighter and running away from the seagulls through a blizzard. He confessed his secrets, all but one of them, and still she smiled at him, loved him, urged him to go on.
Her hand slipped up to his thigh.
Big Gobi was smiling too, giggling, pouring himself more ginger ale. The princess was beautiful, life in the palace was beautiful. She loved him, why not tell her everything? She would understand about the accident in the freezer locker.
She blew in his ear. Her hand moved over and touched him right there, stroked him right there. Big Gobi took the eye out of his pocket so that he wouldn’t lose control.
It all happened quickly. She pulled her hand away, her smile was gone, her face a mixture of wonder and doubt. She was staring at his hand on the table, at the eye buried in his palm. The eye was staring back at her, reflecting the dim light in the alcove. Big Gobi didn’t want her to take her hand away and he didn’t want to stop talking. He wanted to tell her about the tuna fish and the accident with the foreman before it was too late.
Quin’s Shanghai Circus Page 16
