by Morris West
Afterwards, what is left to say about the afterwards? We folded ourselves together on the futon and played again, slowly and tenderly, until we slept from sheer exhaustion.
Somewhere in the small hours I woke. The room was full of moonlight and the sound of the night wind searching through the woodland. Marta was lying on her side, her face turned towards me, her hair streaming back across the low pillow. She was deep in sleep, every muscle relaxed, her breathing slow and regular. I wanted to kiss her, but it would have been a cruelty to wake her. Instead I watched her, studying the contours of her face, her shoulders, her breasts, noting the first faint tracemarks of time and experience. I was grateful for those. They assured me I was not some ageing fool, breathlessly chasing his youth among the yearling fillies. I remembered something she had said to me as we floated in the bathtub.
‘Isn’t it wonderful to do happy, silly things and not feel foolish?’
For her it was a heartcry against the frustrations of her marriage. For me it was like the rising of a new moon, a promise, a hope at least of change and renewal. For a travelling bachelor like myself, the world is full of opportunities for sexual folly. They are provided in infinite variety, by professionals. If you have the money, and a certain monomanic dedication to erotic practice, you can access them all by telephone and credit card. Even if you discount the risks, which get higher every year, you are still faced with the age-old questions: what the hell do you say to them afterwards, and how many times can you bear to say it? I remembered the old Chinese proverb which my father used to quote: ‘When one talks to the girls in the tea-houses, one should leave one’s heart at home!’
This time, it seemed I had brought my heart with me and the girl in the tea-house was not a girl, but a passionate, companionable woman who could give or withhold the key to her own private domain. The question now was reversed. What would she say to me afterwards, in the first grey light of morning?
She stirred, opened her eyes and smiled drowsily when she saw me bending over her. She took my face in her hands and drew me down to kiss her. Then I cradled her in the crook of my arm, her head against my heart. After a while she spoke, so softly that the rising wind almost carried the words away.
‘I can’t tell you how afraid I was. You made it all so simple. I hope we can keep it like this.’
‘No reason why we shouldn’t.’
‘Here and now, no.’
‘Here and now is all we’ve got. We were damn near killed tonight. Remember?’
‘I know.’ She began to giggle. ‘And if that wasn’t enough, we nearly killed each other. It was nice though, wasn’t it? Like the first romp in the meadow after the snows have gone and the spring flowers are out. We make good playmates, don’t we, Gil?’
‘We do, schatzi. We do.’
‘And what are we going to do in the morning?’
‘It’s morning now.’
‘I know; but when it’s daytime.’
‘Let’s see. We make love, we get up, we have breakfast – they’ll make us coffee and toast if we ask for it. After that we’ll stroll in the garden. I’ll give you the botanical tour. Then we’ll walk into the village to meet two old friends of mine, one is a sumi painter who is rated one of the great masters of the art. The other is a very old man, a famous maker of wood-block prints. He has a large studio where he trains young men to the art. There is fierce competition for admission, but he gives preference to those from poorer families. I arranged his first exhibition outside Japan and published two volumes of his prints in the United States and Europe. We’ll spend a little time with him, then we’ll visit a family pottery where the craft has been handed down for generations. The whole tribe is involved: grandparents, uncles, aunts, even the children. When they come home from school, they …’
She had not heard the half of it. She was already asleep again and smiling at some pleasant dream.
The day dawned cold and clear. The wind had dropped and there was a thin rime of frost on the moss banks in the garden. As we walked, each wrapped in the heavy yukata with which the hotel had supplied us, our breaths mingled in little plumes of mist. Marta had undergone a small psychic shock when, sated with early morning loving, we stepped out of the warm room into the autumn chill of an alien landscape. She shivered and drew close to me, thrusting her hand into my pocket, twining her fingers in mine for reassurance.
I knew what she felt: a human presence imposing itself on the most primitive natural elements, rocks and plants and water, a kind of meticulous tyranny which transformed a wasteland into a subtle but quite unique formality. Even though I had complete verbal and visual communication in Japan, I very often found the impression of imposed order strong and disturbing. We walked for a while in silence then, just as she had done on the drive down, Marta began a monologue, as if she were picking up a conversation that had lapsed only a moment before.
‘You said we have only today. That’s not quite true. We also have yesterday, all the inescapable memories of yesterdays. Until last night I wore mine like a prisoner’s shackles. You struck them off. You made love to me and set me free. For that I love you, Gil. Here and now in this garden, I love you.’
‘Here and now in this garden, I love you too, Marta Boysen.’
Even as I uttered the words I could hear a ghostly cricket-voice chirping in my ear: ‘On ne badine pas avec l’amour: You don’t play games with love. It was too late. The words were already floating in front of us, little puffs of white vapour. They could be recalled and quoted again at any time. They could also be extended into a pact, a treaty, a contract of companionship or marriage. ‘Here and now in this garden, I love you. I want to have you and hold you and love you for always.’ Was that what she wanted? Was that what I wanted? There was only one way to find out. When we stopped on the little bridge to watch the carp circling lazily in the sunlight, I asked her.
‘Just suppose, Frau Professor, pure hypothesis this, just suppose we both of us are offered a tomorrow, a succession of tomorrows perhaps, what will we say then?’
She gave me a small, enigmatic smile and shook her head. ‘No, Gil. Let’s take each day, each night as they present themselves. Perhaps they will lie always like separate pearls on a jeweller’s black velvet mat. Perhaps they will be so perfectly matched that we will want to make them into a necklace that has no end. For you and me I think it would be an arrogance to plan too far ahead. It would be like saying we have a right to what is, in fact, a wonderful gift. Today in this garden we love each other. Das ist genug und über. That is more than enough.’
So, I had my answer, and an unsought absolution from any uneasy thought that I might be playing games with love – or the lady. I felt a new lightness in our step as we walked arm-in-arm out of the garden, to pay our respects to the master craftsmen in the village.
Taisei, the master of brush-painting, was already at his table, with the simple materials of his craft laid out before him: the grinding stone, the inkstick, the brushes, the white porcelain dishes, the cotton wads, the water jars, the scroll of paper held firm with a metal bar. Having determined first that Marta spoke no Japanese, he asked me to translate a compliment and a welcome, and then proceeded in mime to give her a first lesson on the classic procedures: the grinding and dilution of the ink, the holding of the brush vertically to the paper, the grip high or low according to the strokes. He showed her how to achieve line and tone and an economy of form. He drew a bamboo, a bird on a twig, a horse, a crab. Then he asked her to sit for him; and while he was studying her, he explained that the aim of ink brush portraiture was not the likeness of the subject, but the expression of life itself as exemplified in that person.
It was a metaphysical point of view which appealed to her German spirit and she asked me to translate a series of questions to the master and interpret his answers to her. Taisei was delighted. Already the three-cornered conversation was a segment of life in action. Finally he held up his hand for silence, picked up his brush and in a couple of m
inutes had produced a beautiful line and tone sketch of Marta. She was delighted. I was surprised at how much of her he had caught with so few strokes.
While the sketch was drying we drank tea and talked. I told him we were going to visit Mikami, the print-maker. He advised me against it. The old man was failing rapidly. His daughter was caring for him and her husband, who had been one of his pupils, was running the studio. If he knew I was in the house the old man would insist on entertaining me and he had all too little strength. If I wanted to write him a note, Taisei would see that it was delivered. He brought me paper and a brush and a seal and nodded a qualified approval of my calligraphy. Then he rolled up Marta’s picture, put it in a cardboard tube and presented it to her with his compliments.
As we made our farewells, he grinned at me and said: ‘You always had a good eye, my friend. It seems to get better every time we meet.’ It was not quite the compliment it sounds in English. Had Marta been my wife, he would never have made so frivolous a comment. But a mistress, a girlfriend? These belonged to the floating world. They were a possession, a badge of male honour, a matter of envy if you were lucky, of contempt if your woman made a fool of you.
The pottery was some distance away so we walked briskly, watching the village life unfold before us. It was a tiny, rural enclave in a huge industrialised area but, like so many such places in modern Japan, it seemed to preserve a resolute attachment to a more rustic way of life. Behind the line of stores there were still rice fields and vegetable plots, hand farmed by family groups. There were crafts people, weavers of straw and workers in wood and metal, repair shops for automobiles and machinery. The big city was here, too, an inescapable octopus whose tentacles encircled the banks, the local insurers, the wholesale suppliers; and even the bond sellers, men and women who peddled the big mutual funds and the stocks in new enterprises that the bankers wanted to get off the ground with the minimum of risk.
The pottery was a long, low building set back from the street with finished wares displayed in front and, behind, the ovens and the claypits which the family had owned for more than two hundred years. As we came near I explained to Marta that this was a place where I always bought something. The business was old, respected, but still marginal for so large a family group. They would press a token gift upon us, but we should buy first. Their goods were of fine quality. I sent them as Christmas presents to family and friends. They would pack and insure and send all over the world.
Marta pressed my hand and said with gentle mockery: ‘Why do you have to appoint yourself a custodian of everyone’s interests?’
‘Do I do that?’
Yes, you do. Even mine. When we came together last night I wasn’t just a consenting party. I wanted you. I was stumbling around trying to get to you, tripping over all my past on the way, but I wanted you at all costs. You think because you’ve broken through the language barriers you’ve breached all the others too. Let go, Gil! Let me be responsible for me. Let them be responsible for themselves. Enjoy for a change. Your father did. That was what my mother loved about him, she told me so over and over. “This man,” she said, “has joy in him. If he comes, if he goes, if he stays, I don’t care. He carries joy!”’
‘And what do I carry?’
‘Other people’s burdens, I think.’
‘Obviously a very bad habit. I’ll have to change my ways. Let’s go meet my friends.’
It was a happy, hugger-mugger kind of reunion, with much bowing and smiling and inquiries about everyone’s health and well-being. Then, for Marta’s benefit, we took the full tour: the claypits, the ovens, the workshops, the drying racks, the paint rooms where the glazes were applied and, finally, into the store itself, where the wares were displayed for sale.
Marta, I discovered, had an eye for quality and some knowledge of the craft itself. She asked me to explain that in her student days she had worked as an apprentice decorator at the Nymphenberg porcelain works near Munich. Immediately a bond was established and she embarked on a spending spree that made my eyes pop. My own purchases were more modest, a couple of sets of sake cups for my sons, a fine bowl for my daughter.
Since credit cards are not common currency in rural Japan, I paid in cash, while Marta offered Deutschmark travellers’ cheques. This involved much frantic figuring and a telephone call to the local bank to establish a rate.
Then came the long business of writing address labels and Customs declarations to be fixed to each separate package.
Marta was perched awkwardly on a stool in front of a bench. Her handbag was open beside her. Spread in front of her were a book of travellers’ cheques, an address book, a holder for visiting cards and a small notebook with perforated pages. I offered to help with the paperwork but, no, it would be quicker and easier if she did it herself. She waved me away and the gesture sent the notebook flying to the floor. As I bent to retrieve it, I noticed that a card had slipped out from between the pages and was lying half a pace away from the book itself. It was a rectangle of plain white pasteboard, the size of a business card. One side was blank. The other carried a two-line message written in English: ‘Leave Vannikov arrangements to me. Will pick you up 1500 hours. You will be back in time for dinner date. M.’
On pure impulse I slipped the card into my pocket and laid the notebook on the bench in front of Marta. She thanked me absently and went on transcribing addresses on to despatch labels. I wandered round the room fingering the merchandise. I thought it strange that nothing was broken – because the roof had just fallen in on top of me.
Five
Once upon a time, for my own amusement, I wrote a pompous little parody on the talents essential to a good negotiator. Among them I listed a smiling countenance and an unshakeable composure. Then I went on to qualify the terms. The composure must not be the white-knuckled restraint that betrays fear or anger: the fear denotes a victim, the anger an enemy. It must not be the hard-eyed wariness of the professional gambler, counting the odds in his head, wondering always if the cards are marked. That immediately makes him an adversary. The composure that is needed is an attitude of total relaxation which says, more eloquently than words: ‘My friends, we seek truth, not contention. We seek justice, not partisan advantage. We understand your difficulties. We are prepared to be patient.’ That is why the smile is important, even critical. It must be open and agreeable. It cannot be condescending, evasive, contemptuous, vacant, servile, or twisted as if you have just sucked on a very sour lemon.
On the other hand the smile is not only what you put on your face, but what the viewer reads into it. And that is where the skill comes in. You cannot work out the right smile by numbers, or by time and motion studies. You have to reason yourself into it; and the simplest reason is generally the best one: you look better if your mouth turns up at the corners than if it is dragged down into a permanent scowl.
As I walked with Marta from the pottery to the rustic restaurant where we were to have lunch, I needed all my composure and all my muscular control to keep the smile on my face. Marta was delighted with her morning. Her portrait would frame beautifully. The glazes on the stoneware she had bought were almost miraculous. And the intimacy of it all! She could not understand a word of Japanese, but because of me – only because of me – she seemed to absorb the meaning by osmosis.
At the restaurant she was still riding high on a rush of adrenalin. I had to explain every dish on the menu – fortunately there were not very many – describe the ingredients, how they were cooked, thus and thus, until I almost gagged at the thought of eating. To this day I cannot remember one dish from that meal. The whole day had a curse on it now. As for the night, I could not bear to think about it. I had no idea how I was going to get through it without shame or disaster.
I was suddenly reminded of Tanaka’s drunken warning about the fox-woman, who looked like a beautiful maiden, but who brought death and disaster to any man who bedded with her. I recalled his sober report that Carl Leibig regarded Marta Boysen as the weakest li
nk in his security chain, and Tanaka’s own refusal to let me employ her on his team. I remembered also that news of Vannikov’s arrival had reached Tanaka and myself just before midday and that his faxed dossier had reached Leibig’s desk just before my lunchtime call at twelve thirty. I needed a whole series of answers to questions which I did not yet know how to frame or dare to ask.
Of all the dangers which threatened the project the two greatest were premature disclosure and straight out sabotage. Premature disclosure would make headlines round the world and set the ghosts of the wartime atrocities in Europe and Asia wailing and walking abroad. Every one of us would be tagged with a political label and a whole plan of economic rescue could collapse into confusion and disaster. Sabotage was a constant possibility. Huge money was involved and intense commercial rivalries, right across the board. One could never discount the possibility of treachery or mere venality among any of the parties. That, obviously, had been the burden of Tanaka’s warning to me and it was perfectly feasible that Leibig had retained Marta Boysen in order to insulate her within the group, instead of risking her as hostile witness outside it. All this was pure speculation, but there was no speculation about my own position. If Marta Boysen was tainted, I was tainted too, my reputation damaged beyond repair. No one would dare accuse me. No one would say a word of blame, but the small ship that carried the Langton house flag round the world – and carried it proudly, by God! – would be blown clean out of the water.
At that moment I must have been in a state of acute schizophrenia, because I was still smiling and making some kind of conversation about haniwa clay figures. Then Marta stopped me in mid sentence.
‘Gil, what’s the matter with you? Your mind’s a million miles away.’
