by Morris West
‘I’m sorry. That wasn’t very polite. To tell you the truth I was thinking about Vannikov.’
‘Vannikov?’ Her eyes were mirrors of limpid innocence. ‘Who’s he?’
‘He’s the Soviet facilitator for the Bangkok meeting. We heard about his appointment only yesterday. I wonder Carl Leibig didn’t tell you?’
She gave a small embarrassed laugh. ‘He was probably too busy with his disciplinary lecture to me. But tell me more about Vannikov. And why, suddenly, is he having lunch with you and me?’
‘A trick of association, I guess. Vannikov collects paintings. He would have enjoyed this morning.’
‘You know him then?’ For the first time there was the faintest hint of uneasiness in her tone.
‘Quite well. His father was one of the important nuclear planners in the Soviet Union. He himself was an economist turned publisher, but he was always well placed within the establishment. He and I did some business together. As a matter of fact one of the last publications we did was a book on the Chernobyl disaster. You told me, I think, that you went in just afterwards with a team from the FAO.’
‘That’s right. We were trying to assess radiation damage to essential agricultural products. Tell me, is this Vannikov a pleasant man?’
‘Very. You’ll meet him anyway. He arrives in Tokyo on Monday. On Wednesday and Thursday we go out to Leibig’s place at Nara for a shakedown discussion before Bangkok.’
‘I hadn’t heard.’ Suddenly she was irritated. ‘Carl Leibig isn’t very good at communication.’
I tried to shrug off the complaint. ‘He’s frayed, like everyone else. This is a big event. There’s a lot of work behind it, and a lot of good to come if it succeeds. He told me himself he was feeling edgy.’
‘Did he say anything about me?’
‘No. Why should he?’
‘No reason, I suppose.’
The little white card was burning a hole in my pocket. I wanted to slap it on the table in front of her and challenge her to explain it; but that would buy me nothing but more deception. My father was a devoted reader of Browning and he had a whole anthology of quotations which he would trot out at a flip of a hat brim. One of them popped into my head at that moment. It was from ‘My Last Duchess’:
Oh Sir, she smiled no doubt, when e’er I passed her;
But who passed without much the same smile?
Hard on the heels of that one came a very sour thought. How could I face another night of lovemaking, of Judas kisses and couplings driven by anger instead of love? Then the chirping cricket-voice spoke again in my head, this time with an inspiration. The lady did not understand Japanese. I could say whatever I liked and it would sound like chatter from outer space. I made an instant little drama.
‘My God! I’d clean forgotten. My sales people had a big meeting last night with important clients. I promised to phone to see how it went off. Excuse me. I shan’t be more than five minutes.’
There was a phone near the cashier’s desk. I used it to call Yukio Tanizaki at his apartment in Tokyo. Fortunately he was at home, nursing a hangover from a night on the town with a group of booksellers from Kyushu. I told him what I wanted. He promised to attend to it immediately. He was rather amused by the notion. In the floating world which he frequented on the expense sheet, amorous intrigue is the spice of life. Good fellows have to stick together, because sooner or later everyone gets caught in the Venus flytrap.
We took our time walking back to the hotel. We turned into a narrow alley where, years before, I had discovered a fusty-looking bookshop, run by an ancient gnome-like scholar who dealt in antiquarian materials. We exchanged bows and courtesies. I explained that Professor Marta Boysen was a distinquished scholar from Germany. We browsed for twenty minutes and then he came up with a set of early illustrations of German officers training Japanese troops in cavalry and artillery manoeuvres. I pointed out to Marta the connection with Haushofer’s early history. I suggested it might make a diplomatic gift for Carl Leibig, or an interesting exhibit when she was called upon to speak in conference. She thanked me for the thought and then added an astringent little postscript.
‘You never stop, do you, Gil? You’re always one move ahead of the game.’ Again there was that faint tone of unease and challenge.
I tried to placate her with a shrug and a grin. ‘It only looks like that. Take yourself as an example. In your own profession, in your own country, you control the situation, because you’re at home in the idiom. Here, you’re disadvantaged. It’s like playing unfamiliar music with a new conductor, whose tempi you don’t know, whose language you don’t understand. I look clever only because I’ve read the score, and I’ve worked with the conductor. I can anticipate his beat and understand what he’s asking me to do. That, of course, has its own problems. It’s very easy to become over confident and careless.’
‘I can’t imagine your ever getting careless. Even when you seem most relaxed, I can hear the little gears clicking inside your head.’
The tension was rising in her. She was spoiling for a quarrel. I was old enough and versed enough in women’s ways to sidle away from it. ‘Japanese girls say: man who think too much, no good in bed.’
She gave a small, strained laugh. There was nothing wrong with your performance last night; but I’m not so sure of you today. Or am I missing something?’
The little gnome finished wrapping the package and presented it to Marta. I paid. We thanked him and left. As we were turning into the grounds of the hotel Marta repeated the question.
‘Am I missing something, Gil? Is anything wrong?’
‘Nothing that I know of, but you sound a bit edgy yourself. Why don’t you take a nap or sit in the garden and watch the carp? We’ve had a big morning. No one can absorb too many impressions at once. You have to give yourself space and time to let them sink in.’
Instantly she was on the attack. There you go again! I know you mean to be kind, but you are not responsible for me. I can arrange my own life, thank you.’
I accepted the snub in silence. For my purposes it could not have been more timely or useful. As we entered the hotel, I was presented with a faxed message from Tanizaki. It was in English. I scanned it in silence, and handed it to Marta.
Good news and bad news. The president of the Kyushu group has made a substantial offer for full and exclusive distribution rights to our list in their province. The offer is well within parameters agreed in the Board memorandum signed by you and Mr Tanaka. I have accepted, subject to contract details. Bad news is that said president is spending the weekend in Tokyo and desires social contacts with you to establish personal relations. Of course you can still decline, but I advise against it. I have committed you to a nine o’clock rendezvous at Fuji Club tonight and to Sunday golf at your club where I have booked eleven o’clock tee-off time. Deeply regret this intrusion, but it has taken us two years to develop this Kyushu contract. Your readiness to interrupt private weekend would be gracious compliment to new and important client.
Marta handed the paper back to me. She was obviously put out, but she made no fuss. ‘You have to go, of course.’
‘I’m afraid so. There’s no such thing as a sacred weekend in Japanese business. Also, my people have big commissions riding on the deal. I can’t let them down.’
When do you want to leave?’
‘As soon as we can, before the afternoon traffic gets too heavy.’
‘Give me ten minutes and I’ll be ready for the road.’
‘I’m truly sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ She kissed me lightly and headed for the bathroom. ‘What we had was wonderful. I can’t thank you enough.’
As soon as I heard the water running I opened her handbag and slipped the white card back into her notebook. It was the last act of a sordid little drama. It absolved me, for the moment at least, from any compulsion to judge or intervene. I could not accuse Marta to our colleagues, because I had nothing to depose against her. I could not confront h
er without revealing myself as a sad Paul Pry fumbling through a woman’s handbag. Whatever the secret, small or large, behind the handwritten message, I was not the only one who knew that it existed. The truth might be trivial. It might be highly sinister. In that case, whatever inquiries had to be made, I would have to make them. Whatever action had to be taken, I would have to devise it. For whatever followed, farce, intrigue or tragedy, I would be responsible. All I could think of for the moment, however, was getting the hell out of that bedroom and on the road to Tokyo.
Marta was very tense when we left the hotel but, as the highway opened up before us, she relaxed and lapsed into sleep, her head pillowed on my shoulder. She woke as we were crawling the last half-mile to the Okura. She gave a long, relaxed yawn and said: ‘That was a nice sleep. A happy dream, too.’
‘I hope I was in it.’
‘Yes. You were the ogre who was chasing me. The prince who rescued me was someone else.’
‘That’s a hell of a note to end our weekend.’
‘It’s ended for me. For you, it’s only beginning. The Fuji Club, golf tomorrow …’
‘Have you been to the Fuji Club?’
‘Nobody’s invited me yet.’
‘And they’re not likely to. It’s all house girls and outsiders are definitely unwelcome. For me, it’s going to be a late and expensive night, and my golf is going to be shot to hell in the morning. How is Monday for you? We could have dinner perhaps?’
‘Monday? No, that’s out. I’m sorry, I have a date.’
‘What sort of date?’
‘The usual, a man.’
‘Do you mind telling me his name?’
‘Not at all. He’s a friend from my Roman days, Max Wylie. He used to work at the US Embassy. Now he’s attached here in Tokyo. I cabled to tell him I was coming. He invited me to dinner.’
‘Well, at least he’s respectable competition.’
‘Very respectable. Just about your age, good-looking, well-dressed. Sings baritone like my father.’
‘And he’s an Olympic athlete in bed.’
‘I wouldn’t know. We’ve never slept together. He has a young wife and he dotes on her.’
‘What does he do in the Embassy?’
‘I think he’s in the Consular section. Anything else you’d like to know?’
‘No, that about covers it. I’m sorry for the foul-up. I’ll make it up to you, if not here, then in Bangkok. The rest of this week is going to be hectic for all of us.’
‘It was hectic in the country, too, but much more fun. I’m sorry if I was snappish. We did have a big night. And I still love you, schatzi.’
‘I love you, too, Marta Boysen.’
We sealed the declaration with a long Judas kiss. I left her in the care of the doorman at the Okura and drove back to my own place with the taste of ashes in my mouth. I rang Tanizaki to thank him for his comradely service and found he had done more than duty demanded.
‘About tonight, Gil-san. I wasn’t sure. I signed you in to the Fuji Club. They’ve booked Naomi and she will take calls for you. If you don’t show by eleven, it costs you two hours of her time. Tomorrow’s golf booking is real, just in case anyone’s checking up on you. You’re listed for a foursome with Mr Taoka of Merrill Lynch, Mr Takemato of Daikyo and Mr Philip Fromkess of the American Embassy. If you want to cancel, of course, it can be done; but you pay for the round.’
‘No. I’ll play. Thank you, Yukio. You’ve done me a big service.’
‘Small service for a good friend. I hope the problem is not serious.’
‘Not too serious, Yukio. Nice woman, but I’m getting lazy. I don’t like hard work.’
‘Women are always hard work, Gil-san, even when you’re paying them to do the work for you. But there is also good news. We did get the Kyushu contract.’
‘Congratulations!’
Thank you. I get the hangover. You just pay the bill. Now, please, I am going to take a bath and a massage and sleep ten hours.’
It sounded like a wise prescription for me, too. There was no way in the world I was going to face a raucous evening under the strobe lights of the Fuji Club. Nobody would miss me, least of all Naomi, to whose tender if costly care we recommended all our out-of-town playboys. She amused them, kept them out of trouble, did not pad the cheques too much, and put them in a taxi afterwards to make sure they were not rolled on the way back to their lodgings. The next day, by some labyrinthine Yakuza network, the bill was delivered to our office. Tanizaki checked it. Oshima passed the payment, and a safe and necessary social facility was kept open for the use of Polyglot Press and its valued clients.
The golf date was a different matter. We paid a mint of money for corporate membership and my senior executives had most of the fun. The thought of a few hours in the open air was very seductive. I felt as though I had spent the last days trapped in a timewarp of salon politics and boudoir intrigue – a state of mind which in Japan can grow quickly into an obsession unless you jerk yourself out of it. Again, it is the old problem: nothing is quite what it seems, the words never mean what they say. Before very long you find yourself hedging your own life with the same evasions.
Marta had lied to me by disclaiming any knowledge of Vannikov. I had lied, just as blatantly, by my subterfuge with Tanizaki. Whether she was lying about her embassy friend, Max Wylie, was still subject to proof. The name, Max, certainly matched the initial with which the card had been signed, but the text itself seemed to indicate an existing connection between the writer and Vannikov. If not, how did he know of Vannikov’s arrival, and what was his interest anyway?
The logic of the situation was, to say the least, highly suggestive. In political terms, a German-Japanese plan to bail out the Soviets was a high-priority US Intelligence matter. In financial and commercial terms it was a critical one. With the Gulf situation deteriorating more and more quickly towards war, the strategic considerations were of enormous importance. In any conflict in the Gulf, America had to rely on Soviet co-operation and at least a limited military involvement. The price was already offered: massive funding for reconstruction and access to high technology. But after the mess in Afghanistan, it would be hard to sell the people another foreign war; so if there were other funds on offer, without the price tag of armed intervention, then the American position would be drastically weakened.
And where did Professor Marta Boysen fit into that very threatening scenario? In a strange fashion, her role was similar to that of old Haushofer himself. She was the repository, the codifier, the interpreter in modern terms, of his geopolitical ideas. Those ideas could be used by either side. The Americans could use them as a powerful piece of propaganda against the formation of a new Berlin/Tokyo axis. The Germans and the Japanese could use them in exactly the opposite sense. Geography made history; Germany, Russia and Japan made a natural continuum with the landmass of Eurasia.
And if you ask why Gilbert Anselm Langton, publisher, professional polyglot and paid negotiator, should concern himself with these high matters, then you should know that in my own country I have been used sometimes as a point of reference in Intelligence affairs. That, precisely, was the nub of my position, the danger about which Tanaka had warned me.
In fact, and in conscience, too, I was exactly what I was paid to be: an honest broker, an even-handed interpreter of conflicting views, a mediator of compromise settlements. In fact, also, I could quickly be painted in different colours: a venal servant, a false advocate, a double agent of commercial interests or of foreign powers. My company functioned around the world in a series of partnerships with local investors. Even my talents as a polyglot made me suspect, because I dealt directly with principals without having to invoke the aid of government agencies or professional fixers. So, in the very nature of things, I was vulnerable. My brief bedding with Marta Boysen had made me more vulnerable yet.
It was still early to go to sleep. I took myself out for a stroll and finished the evening in a small bar off the Ginza, where
I drank beer and ate sushi and exchanged gossip with a pair of transvestites who dropped in for a snack. They were very pretty boys and their clothes were expensive. Business was slow, they said; but it always was at this hour. So many salary-men went home to their families at the weekend. If I were interested there was a pleasant love-hotel just round the next corner. I thanked them for the offer. I told them I was just filling in time before a late date. They understood perfectly. They paid me a compliment on my Japanese. They gave me a card, in case I needed their services at any time. I thanked them and left. Half way home I tore up the card and threw the scraps in a trash bin. Things like that can be a trap for the unwary. You never know who may find them. And long after the event, how do you explain them: There’s this little sushi place. I just dropped in for a beer and a snack …’ And so to bed, as Sam Pepys used to say. I hoped I would not have nightmares.
Sunday dawned cool and clear. My driver took me out to the golf course so that, if I had drinks after the game, I would not be arrested on the way home. The fairways and the greens were beautifully manicured. The little caddy-girls were amiable if not beautiful. The long procession of players was managed like a military operation.
Let me tell you the truth and shame the devil. I am not a good golfer. In Japan I play for business; elsewhere I play for pleasure. I have a hard won handicap of sixteen; but my performance is patchy and, if you are looking to win money in a foursome match, you should never depend on Gilbert Anselm Langton.
My only merit, which all my friends acknowledge, is that I am a good-tempered loser and modest about my occasional runs of good luck. The cynics, of course, point out that I have much to be modest about and that there is no profit in anger for a man with a poor short game and an incurable tendency to shank with a long iron.
However, this was one of my better days. We drew straws for partners. Fromkess and I were matched against the two Japanese, who were handicapped at ten and twelve. They spoke good English and played in that do-it-by-the-numbers, head-down, steady-the-stance style created by local professionals. We were taller, rangier and much less controlled. Nevertheless we hit form, squared the outward nine and finished two holes up in the home stretch. In the bar afterwards we bought the drinks and then, while our partners drifted off to talk business with their peers, Fromkess and I sat quietly in a corner and talked about the situation in the Gulf. He was pessimistic. He thought there was a better than even chance of war.
