The Emperor was dying. Day by day, hour by hour, the hands of his Mickey Mouse watch were slowing to a stop. On the television and the radio, in the newspapers and the extras, the thrice-daily bulletins from the Court Physicians detailed his vital signs – temperature, pulse, blood pressure, and respiration – even his imperial stool, its temperament and consistency, all was revealed, shared, and retold. All told, all known, nothing private, nothing secret. Lying there, in the center of the city, the heart of Japan, behind his moats and his walls, his gates and courtyards, in his palace within a palace, in a second-floor bedroom, an eighty-seven-year-old man, frail yet stubborn still, reluctant to leave, fighting to stay, hour by hour, day by day, hanging on to dear life, the longest reign in history –
Frightened and scared of what is to come, came a voice in the dark, before the light, his voice in the night, before the dawn, woken by bells, fire-engine bells, kept awake by the rain, long, heavy rain, long before the light, before the dawn, already awake, still awake. He was always, already still awake, still awake. In these black hours, his eyes to the ceiling or the watch by his bed, its luminous hands, at first too slow and then too fast, the night-thieves and sleep-stealers, tripping alarms, then looting the golden kiss of slumber from his eyes. To the ceiling, to the watch, in these black, resentful hours, he tried to douse, to souse himself in half-remembered, almost-remembered quotes and lines: The loud notes swell and scatter abroad / sā, sā, like wind blowing the rain / the soft notes dying almost to nothing / rei, rei, like the voice of ghosts talking – sā, sā, rei, rei, the voices of ghosts in the rain –
See, they return, one, and by one, with fear, as half awakened; the curtain cracks, edges gray, whiten, then, at last, transparent light, scratched, stretched thin, then strained, he drifted then, now day, its light was here, dozed then, now dreamed, too late he dreamed: a shabby street, back street, half here, half there, a plaited fence, a shuttered house, the lady of this house, lost in exile and in thought, she writes a letter in the smoked, dimmed light, as the women weep around her, in the shadows weep around her, Rei, rei …
In fright, with a start, his body clawed and face wet, Donald Reichenbach woke, awoke, awake again. Grete had pushed open the door, jumped up on the bed, licking his face, asking to be fed. Yes, yes, I know, I’m sorry, he said. Your lazy Papa should be up and out of bed, I know, I know.
He gently turned to one side so the cat slipped from his chest onto the bed, one claw caught in his pajama top. He carefully unhooked her claw from the cloth. He reluctantly pulled back the covers from his legs and slowly got up and out of bed. He picked up his glasses from the table by his bed and put them on, then picked up his watch from the top of the book on the table, looked at its face and its hands, then fastened it to his wrist as he said again, Lazy Papa should be long out of bed, we know, hungry mouths waiting to be fed.
Grete danced and sang ahead of him as he padded in his slippers over the tatami mats of the bedroom onto the polished wood of the living-dining-kitchen room. He picked up her empty saucer and water bowl from the floor and walked over to the sink. He ran hot water over the saucer and bowl, then washed and dried them. He ran the water until it was cold, filled the bowl, then reached up to open the cupboard above the sink. The tins of cat food were ordered and stacked so he could rotate them through the only three flavors deemed acceptable by Grete. This morning he took down, opened, and then served tuna as la canette du jour, placing the saucer and water back down on the floor to only the very briefest meow-ci from the lady of the house. You’re angry, ne, he said, but lazy Papa said he’s sorry. What more can he say?
He shrugged, walked back over to the sink, washed out the empty tin, then put it in the plastic bag beside the plastic trash box, the plastic bag he kept just for tins and cans, tins of cat food and cans of beer. It was a big bag, always full. He walked back over to the small square worktop between the sink and the stove, opened the jar of already-ground coffee beans, and began to prepare the morning coffee. The coffee on, he looked at his watch, went back into the bedroom, pulled back the curtains, and opened the balcony window slightly. It was a dull, gray day, a light drizzle falling on the trees across the road. He went from the bedroom into his study next door and opened the balcony window slightly here, too. He cast a brief-but-disappointed glance at the unfinished work on his desk, the unread books in their piles, then turned and went back into the living-dining-kitchen room, over to the silver radio-cassette player on the dining table, and switched on the radio. The Morning Music Promenade on NHK for today was Mozart’s First String Quintet, and it had already reached the ending allegro. He looked at his watch again, then hurried to the refrigerator, took out a croissant, and placed it in the oven–toaster perched atop the refrigerator. He took out a plate from the cupboard under the worktop and a knife and spoon from the drawer. He turned back to the refrigerator, opened it again, and took out a jar of Staud’s Viennese apricot jam, two of which he bought from Meidi-ya in Kyōbashi every month without fail: jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, and jam to-day, he liked to say, though not today. The oven–toaster pinged. He put the jar of jam down on the worktop, picked up the plate, opened the oven–toaster, and quickly dropped the piping-hot croissant onto the plate. He set down the plate again, opened the jar, and spooned out a generous helping of jam to keep the croissant company. He returned the jam to the refrigerator, lamenting momentarily, as he always did at this point, that butter had become a forbidden-though-never-forgotten pleasure. He carried the knife and the plate to the dining table and set them down, then walked back over to the kitchen to switch off and serve the coffee. He walked back to the dining table with the first-but-not-last mug of coffee and sat down just as the String Quintet ended, and smiled and said, Perfect timing, even if I do say so myself.
He glanced round to look for Grete, but, her own breakfast eaten, she had gone back to the bedroom and bed.
You always complain when I go out, sulk when I come back, he said as the seven o’clock news began and he started to break the croissant into three pieces. But you can’t really blame me if I choose to eat out when you neglect me like this.
He took a tissue from the box beside the radio-cassette player and wiped his fingers. He picked up the knife and began to spread the jam on the pieces of croissant as he listened to the morning update from the Court Physicians: the Emperor had received a 200cc transfusion free of white cells, prompted by signs of further internal bleeding. However, the transfusion was carried out chiefly to treat the Emperor’s anemia, said the Chief of the Imperial Household Agency’s General Affairs Division, rather than to compensate for blood loss.
He swallowed the first piece of croissant and jam, took a first sip of coffee, then said, It’ll be me next, you know, and then what will you do? They don’t allow pets where Mister Kanehara lives, you know?
He picked up the second piece of croissant and jam, put it in his mouth, then reached for another tissue. The transfusion seemed to have been successful, as the Emperor’s temperature had dipped below thirty-seven degrees for the first time since Tuesday. The Emperor had also been well enough to watch the last thirty minutes of the Olympic marathon race on television and then the closing ceremony. Lucky him, he said, somewhat bitterly; he had planned to watch the closing ceremony with Kanehara, but they had had a silly, drunken argument about the conduct of US athletes and news organizations at the Seoul Olympics and had parted on bad terms on Saturday night. He sighed, took another sip of coffee, then ate the last piece of croissant. He took a third tissue from the box and finished his coffee as the NHK announcer moved on to the news that talks between North and South Korea would resume on October 31, the hopes for improved relations despite the Olympic boycott by the North.
Not a cat in hell’s chance, he said loudly, glancing at the bedroom door, then feeling his eyes begin to water. He took another tissue from the box, wiped his eyes, then put all the screwed-up pieces of tissue paper onto the plate, got up from the table, and carried the plate, the tissues, the knife, and the mug over to the sink. He tipped the tissues and flakes of croissant into the plastic trash box, then began to wash the plate, the knife, and mug, tears rolling down his cheeks. He wiped his wet cheeks with already-wet hands, then dried his hands, then the plate, the knife, and the mug. He sniffed, he sighed, then put the plate back under the sink, the knife back into the drawer, but left the mug on the worktop beside the coffee-maker.
I’m sorry, he said as he came into the bedroom, looking at Grete, oblivious, asleep on the unmade bed. Papa’s in a very bad mood and he doesn’t know why. He opened the closet, took a shirt and a pair of pants from their hangers, then underwear and socks from their drawers. Not that you seem to care, but I’ve a terrible feeling. I just wish I knew why.
Richard Strauss had replaced the news – thank God – as he carried his clothes through the living-dining-kitchen room into the bathroom, though it was his Cello Sonata Opus 6, of all things; nothing jolly, not these days. He took off his pajama top and began to wash, then put on his undershirt, took off his pajama bottoms, and put on his shorts, wishing that whenever he heard Richard Strauss, whose music he liked, and liked very much, he wasn’t always reminded of that damn quote by Toscanini: To Richard Strauss, the composer, I take off my hat; to Richard Strauss, the man, I put it on again …
He felt suddenly breathless, his heart riven by palpitations, his eyes watering again. He gripped the edge of the basin, tried to catch his breath, to wait for the palpitations to pass. He blinked, wiped his eyes with his fingers, then blinked again and saw himself in the mirror above the basin. He stared at the reflection of the seventy-four-year-old American man, alone in the bathroom mirror of a fourth-floor apartment in Yushima, Tokyo, and he watched his eyes meet his own, saw his lips move, and heard him say, But you do know why, don’t you, dear? You know damn well why –
Rei, rei, said the voices of ghosts, the ghosts talking again, the shadows around you again. Rei, rei …
Go away, he said and closed his eyes. Please.
But where would we go, what would we do? Wherever you have been, we have been; whatever you have done, we have done; wherever you will go, we will go …
Eyes closed, he said, Please, no.
Listen, they said, listen: the telephone is ringing.
You get the call, you heed the call: and you run, yes, you ran, to Frank in his palace, the Whiz in his Rat Palace, the black heart of our white sepulcher, in the middle of the American Century: between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, by the waters of the Reflecting Pool, just a collapsing, crumbling, tin-roofed shanty, in a row of temporary War Department buildings, this is the Rat Palace, the set-up back then: they lead you down its dank corridors, drip-drop, pipes leaking, water falling, drip-drop, lights flickering, vermin scuttling: clickety-click, the rattles in the dark, the scratches from the shadows, clickety-click: they leave you in the Waiting Room, drip-drop, clickety-click, leave you waiting with the women: at two tables, in two chairs, the two women, one fat, one thin, dressed in black, under umbrellas black, one handle taped to a hatstand, one handle taped to a lampstand, drip-drop, clickety-click, they are knitting with black wool, their eyes downcast and never raised: they guard the approach, they keep the gate, the gate to the Director, the door to Frank.
Minutes click, they drip, pass into hours, then the thin one gets up from her chair, walks straight up to you, still with eyes downcast, still knitting with black wool, she whispers, You are expected. Knock once, then wait.
And you rise from your chair, and you walk to the door, and you knock once and you wait –
Come, shouts a voice, his voice, from behind the door, through the wood. Come, it said, and come you come.
Come in, Don, come in, says Frank, standing behind his desk, walking around his desk, shaking your hand and closing the door, gripping your elbow, sitting you down, in a single chair, before his desk: Frank back behind his desk, sat back on his throne, the piles of paper stacked up on his desk before him, a map of the world pinned up on the wall behind him: pinned and mounted, colored and defaced, mostly blue, partly red, with patches of black, a smudge of yellow.
Frank picks up a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red from his desk, unscrews the top, and says, Scotch, Don?
Thank you, you say. Thank you, sir.
Frank nods, Frank smiles as he pours out the Scotch, as he hands you your glass: Allen speaks very highly of you, Don. He says you’re the man for me, just the man for the job.
Thank you, sir, you say again.
Frank offers you a cigarette, lights one for you and one for him, then says, Allen and Jim, they both agree. Tells me you speak the language, and Chinese, studied in Cambridge, England. They say you did a good job in Europe, too.
That’s very kind of them, sir, you say.
Franks stubs out his cigarette, gets up from his chair, turns to the map, his palm over the East, the red and the yellow, and says, Kindness cost us half of Korea, going to lose us China. But I’ll be damned if we gonna lose Japan, Don. The blood we spilled, the lives we lost. No goddamned fucking way we gonna lose Japan, Don. Time for goddamn kindness is over – you hear me, Don? You fucking hear me, Don?
Yes, sir, you say. I hear you, sir.
Frank stares at you, Frank nods at you. He downs his drink, you down your drink. He pours you another, then one for himself, shakes his head, and says, Country is a goddamn tinderbox, Don. One spark, Don, one fucking spark and the place is gone, Don, the place is fucking lost.
You drink, you nod, then say, What about SCAP, sir?
SCAP’s the goddamn problem, Don, why I need you out there, Don. Mac’s too busy playing God with the natives, while his High Priests fight their own little wars, feathering their nests and fucking the locals. Fine with me, Don, all fine with me, ’cept Mac won’t let us anywhere near the goddamn place, hellbent on keeping us out, him and his little guard dog Willoughby. They’ve stood in our way since Day One, Don, slammed the door shut in our faces, Don, keeping us out and in the dark, sharing nothing, doing nothing, while the whole fucking place turns red under their goddamn noses, Don.
I see, sir, you say, then nod and drink again.
He fills your glass again, then his own again, stares at you again, and says, Do you, Don, do you really, Don? Because I see it, Don, I fucking see it, because I’ve seen it before, Don, I’ve fucking seen it all before – turning back to the map on the wall, slapping the map with his palm – France, Italy, and Greece, the whole of goddamn Eastern Europe, Don. I’ve had my hands full of this shit for the last three years, my hands full of shit and blood, Don. Argonauts betrayed, nightingales slaughtered –
From here to Shanghai and back again, we been robbed by gangsters, duped by Commies, but not anymore, Don, not in Japan, Don, not on my watch, Don, not in Japan.
Yes, sir, no, sir, you say. Of course, sir.
Frank sits down, downs his drink, then nods and says, We’re deaf, dumb, and blind out there, Don. Deaf, dumb, and blind. You’re going to be our eyes and ears, Don, the mouth that speaks the truth, Don, tells us what the fuck is going on.
Yes, sir, of course, sir, and so my cover, sir?
Frank moves the bottle, Frank opens a file, looks down, and reads, DipSec, a vacancy in the Economic Section.
I see, sir, you say, but then you say, But what about General Willoughby, sir? Won’t he know, sir?
Frank closes the file, opens his mouth, and laughs, then says, Your grandfather was Bavarian, am I right, Don? You went to school in Cambridge, England, yeah? Baron von Willoughby, he’ll be too busy trying to suck your damn cock, Don, to worry who the fuck sent you and why, right, Don?
Yes, sir, you say. I see, sir, thank you, sir.
Frank laughs again, Frank nods again, then Frank stands up again and says, Go down the corridor, go see the doc, then get yourself down to Arlington, on the first flight out to the coast, Don. Not a moment to lose, Don, yeah?
Yes, sir, you say again, standing up. Thank you, sir.
Good man, Don. Goodbye, Don.
You open the door, you close the door: clickety-click, back through the waiting room, down another dank corridor, drip-drop, to another door, to knock and to wait again for –
Come, sighs a voice, a tired voice, behind another door, through more wood. Come, and come again, you come.
Opened thirty-six new stations in the last six months, you know, says the old doctor, looking down at the forms on his desk. Anybody with warm blood and a pulse will do – so who are you and where we sending you, son?
Donald Reichenbach, doc, you say, to Tokyo, doc.
The doctor looks up from his forms, his face unshaven, sleeves stained with ink and with blood. He stares at you and says, Well, I hope you last longer than the last man we sent.
What happened to him, doc, you ask.
He smiles, he says, Hung himself, so I hear.
Oh, you say, and then, I see, doc.
He smiles again, stands up, and says, You’ve not been hearing voices, have you, seeing visions, I trust?
Not recently, doc, you laugh.
He does not laugh, does not even smile. He picks up a pair of calipers and a stethoscope, walks toward you in a pair of bedroom slippers, and nods, then says, Strip off down to your shorts and socks then, let me see and hear who you are then, see and hear what we’re shipping out there this time.
Breathe in, said Doctor Morgan. And now hold it, please …
His socks not touching the floor, Donald Reichenbach sat in his shorts on a towel on the edge of the bed in the small examination room in the International Medical Clinic, breathing in, holding the breath, looking down at the paunch of his belly, the blemishes and the spots, the old scars.
And now out again, please.
He sat up straight, shoulders back, pulling in his stomach as he breathed out, his eyes watering again.
Doctor Morgan removed the ear-tips of the stethoscope. He sat back down in the swivel chair at the narrow desk and said, You’re still not smoking, I hope?
For my sins, said Donald Reichenbach, sadly.
How much are you drinking?
Much less, said Donald Reichenbach.
Doctor Morgan shook his head, frowned, and said, And how much less is “much less” exactly …?
No more whisky, just the odd glass of shōchū on a Friday, if that’s still allowed, doc?
How about beer?
Don’t mind if I do, said Donald Reichenbach, smiling at his own joke. Hardly counts as drinking now, does it?
Doctor Morgan sighed: You’re putting on weight again and your blood pressure’s up again. The weight is straining your heart and your lungs.
I grow old, I grow old, said Donald Reichenbach, smiling at Doctor Morgan. The bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Doctor Morgan smiled back at the old man in his shorts and socks perched on the edge of the bed and said, Quite, but we can still slow the speed of our exits, if we so choose.
Both men were around the same age; both had been here around the same length of time.
But one wouldn’t want to outstay one’s welcome, said Donald Reichenbach. That would be most impolite.
Doctor Morgan laughed: Don’t be so dramatic, Donald. You’re not yet seventy-five, man. Just look at the Emperor – he’s got almost fifteen years on you. Why do you always have to be so goddamn dramatic about everything?
Whoever would have thought such a skinny little thing of a man would be such a stayer, said Donald Reichenbach, reaching for his clothes in the plastic basket beside the bed.
Doctor Morgan laughed again: Oh, come on. He didn’t slit his belly back then, so he’s hardly going to hurry off now, is he? Nothing if not a stayer, our Tennō.
Donald Reichenbach picked out his T-shirt from the basket and pulled it over his head as he said, How long has he got, do you think? In your expert, professional opinion?
As long as they need him, I suppose, to get things prepared, everything in order, in its proper place.
Donald Reichenbach stepped into, then pulled on his pants: They’ve had long enough.
Oh, come on, said Doctor Morgan again. They’re completely useless at planning ahead, you know that. Always hoping the worst won’t happen, and then, when it does, saying it can’t be helped. Nothing to be done etcetera, etcetera.
Donald Reichenbach zipped up his flies, buttoned his pants, and fastened his belt: Shikata ga nai.
It’s rather contagious, said Doctor Morgan, looking at Donald Reichenbach. Highly infectious.
Donald Reichenbach put on and then began to button up his shirt: You think he’ll see in the new year?
He’s a survivor, said Doctor Morgan. We all are, those of us who lived through all that. We had to be, didn’t we?
Not all of us did, doc.
No, Donald, but we did, and we do.
Donald Reichenbach turned up his collar, put his tie around his neck, and began to fasten it: I often wonder how on earth we did survive, then why on earth we bothered.
Did you, said Doctor Morgan. Do you?
Donald Reichenbach picked up his watch from the bottom of the basket and put it on: Don’t you?
Every day I sit in this surgery, Donald, I’m reminded of the greatest contradiction of our nature.
Which is …?
We are self-destructive creatures, yet hellbent on self-preservation, laughed Doctor Morgan. Eternally so.
The internal telephone on the narrow desk buzzed once and flashed red, as it always seemed to do after fifteen minutes.
Donald Reichenbach glanced at his watch, then looked back up at Doctor Morgan and lowered his voice as he said, I’ve been having very bad dreams again.
The price of sleep, I’m afraid.
I received a letter from America, from a woman.
How very disappointing for you, said Doctor Morgan, his turn now to smile at his own joke.
Now she’s here, she rang this morning, whispered Donald Reichenbach, his eyes watering again. She wants to meet, says she needs to talk.
About what?
But that’s it, she didn’t say.
Doctor Morgan stood up and said, Donald, dear, you’re an institution, a Tokyo landmark, a sight to be seen and be met. Of course she wants to meet the Great Translator.
Other people’s words, sniffed Donald Reichenbach. Ten, twenty years from now, it’ll all be done by computers.
Doctor Morgan glanced at his watch and said, And so not worth reading, nor, then, worrying about.
Like my own poetry and prose, sighed Donald Reichenbach. Rejected, and not even politely.
Doctor Morgan had opened the door: Donald, dear, you’re turning into your mother – didn’t you say her heart had only enough room for her own miseries and sorrows?
You don’t understand, said Donald Reichenbach, taking out his handkerchief, dabbing his eyes. I’ve got a very bad feeling, a terrible, terrible feeling …
Doctor Morgan patted Donald Reichenbach on his shoulder. He helped him to his feet, pushing him toward the doorway, the exit and out, laughing as he said again, Donald, dear, for as long as I’ve known you, since the day we first met, you’ve always had a very bad feeling, a terrible feeling.
Dread-filled and fearful, the flight makes you anxious, makes you nervous, and this is just the beginning: the beginning of the journey, the process: the flight from Washington to Los Angeles is routine, and scheduled; the flight from Los Angeles to Tokyo is not routine, not on any schedule. It leaves in the middle of the night, the American night, in the middle of the century, the American Century, from an airstrip on the edge of the airport: twenty-three passengers walk out to the airstrip with their luggage, report to a hut surrounded by barbed wire, guarded by a sentry: the hut dark, the gate locked, you set down your suitcase, your briefcase in the dirt and you look at the watch on your wrist, you bite at the nails of your fingers.
Don’t worry, the sentry tells you. Them flying bastards only come along when they’re good and ready. You best just sit yourself down on your bags and wait.
You take off your hat, toss it down on the suitcase, take out a pack of cigarettes from your raincoat, then a cigarette from the pack, search your coat, then your jacket for a light: you find the light, light the cigarette, then look up into the night sky, blow smoke up toward the stars, watch it drift across the moon, the summer moon, and wait.
Ten cigarettes, one hour later, the captain, the sergeant, and two other crew arrive at the gate to the hut: the captain, the sergeant, they crack jokes with the sentry, jokes about the passengers sat on their bags by the gate, then they go inside the hut, switch on the light, and then later, ten, twenty minutes later, they tell the sentry to let you bastards in now, all in now.
You stub out your cigarette in the dirt, pick up your hat, put it on, then pick up your suitcase, your briefcase and walk through the gate, into the hut: you sit down on a narrow bench, listen to the mandatory safety briefing from the captain:
Now see here, you bastards, the C-54 is a mighty good aircraft. But even the best aircraft in the world sometimes have to ditch, and the journey you’re going on is mostly over water, over sea. Now I never heard of no C-54 ditching, but if she does go down, this is what you bastards do: you grab hold of anything yellow, because all of the life-saving gear is painted yellow, and everything yellow will float. That’s all you bastards need to know, all you bastards need to remember –
Everything yellow will float.
You pick up your suitcase, your briefcase, follow the captain, the crew, your fellow travelers out of the hut, through the gate, along the perimeter of the airport to the airstrip, where the Douglas C-54 Skymaster is crouched, waiting.
You leave your suitcase with the other cases on the airstrip beneath the plane, then walk up the steps to the door: at the top of the steps you stop, put your hand on the brim of your hat, grip the brim of your hat tight, turn around, and look for the land, but the land is dark, dark and lost in the pitch of the night, you look up for the stars, but the stars are gone, gone and hidden away in the night: you turn back to the doors of the aircraft, take off your hat, step inside the plane: this C-54 is a troop carrier, with only benches, not seats: you sit down on one of the canvas benches along one of the sides of the plane, two straps hanging down behind you: you turn to your left, nod to the man on your left, you pull the strap down over your left shoulder and fasten it tight, then you turn to your right, nod to the man on your right, pull the other strap down over your right shoulder and fasten it tight: you put your hat on your briefcase, your briefcase on your knees, then pull the strap from the left and the strap from the right together and fasten them tight, then, your back against the metal hull of the plane, you wait.
The sergeant comes out of the cockpit, walks down the center of the aircraft: he shouts things to the passengers as he passes them, raises his thumb to them as he passes them, and they raise their thumbs back as he passes them: he shouts something to you as he passes you, something you cannot hear as he passes you, raises his thumb to you as he passes you, and you raise your thumb back as he passes you.
Now the frame of the Douglas C-54 Skymaster begins to shudder, harder, now the C-54 Skymaster begins to rattle, louder, now the Skymaster begins to move, faster, faster, down the runway, faster and faster, now the Douglas C-54 Skymaster begins to lift, higher, higher, into the night, higher and higher, into the sky, up, up, up and away, away from the land, away from America, the land below, behind you now, America below and behind you now, back down on the ground, prostrate in the dark, a hole in the ground, an open grave.
You loosen your grip on your briefcase and hat, lean back further into the hull, rest your head against the metal, feel the vibrations, the pulse of the plane, hear the hum, the drone of her engines: head back and eyes closed, you let yourself be carried now, carried by the hum and the drone, over the water, over the sea, from Los Angeles to Honolulu, the hum, the drone, over dark water and silent sea, the hum, the drone that rises and falls, with the currents, the tides, the hum and the drone, over the water, across the sea, from Honolulu to Midway, the hum, the drone, over bloated water and swollen sea, its currents, its tides, that hum, that drone, from Midway to Wake Island, over the dead, the sunken dead, that hum, that drone, that rise, that fall, in the deep, in its swell, ripped and torn, their bones picked clean, they hum, they drone, with the current, the tide, in their ships, their planes, from coast to coast, in the wrecks of their ships, the wrecks of their planes, the American dead, the Japanese dead, under the water, under the sea, they hum and they drone –
Sā-sā, rei-rei …
Eyes open, head forward: the plane jolts: the smell of grease, the smell of oil: the plane shudders: your palms damp with sweat, chin wet with spittle: the plane dips: the taste of leather on your lips, salt in your mouth: the plane drops: you wipe your chin, your palms.
The sergeant comes out of the cockpit again, tilts from left to right and back again as he walks down the center of the aircraft again, says things to the passengers again, thumb raised to the passengers again: he picks up your hat from the floor and shouts in your ear, You might want to hold on tight to that now, buddy. Captain’s bringing us down into Guam.
You raise your thumb, he raises his: you tighten your grip on your case, your hat, sit up straight in your seat and close your eyes, keep them closed until you feel the wheels of the Douglas C-54 Skymaster hit the ground and bounce hard down the airstrip of the North Guam Air Force Base.
There’s still the odd crazy gook out there don’t know the war is over, don’t know they lost, says the captain. So you bastards best stick to the base, your billet, and not be wandering off into the jungle. Because we ain’t gonna come look for you, ain’t gonna wait for you, either. This bird, she leaves at midnight, with or without you bastards …
You and your fellow travelers trudge along a muddy path in the sticky rain to your billet: the roof and walls of the building still pitted with bullet holes, large chunks missing from the stone steps that lead to your room on a second-floor corridor: a sentry in full battle costume, a carbine over his shoulder, paces slowly up and down the corridor: each time he comes to the end of the corridor, he takes a puff on a lighted cigar, then places it back on the window ledge: he tells you, You try sneak into them women’s quarters, I’ll shoot you dead, so help me God I will.
You close the door to your billet, set your briefcase down on the floor beside the low camp bed, take off your jacket, hang your jacket on the peg on the back of the door, hang your hat on top of your jacket, then sit down on the side of the low, hard camp bed and open your briefcase, take out two files, then the copy of Waley’s Genji from the briefcase: you set the book to one side on the bed, then open the first file and you read: read through the file on the Hanged Man, his reports and his contacts, then you close the first file and open the second file: the file written in numbers, page numbers, line numbers, word numbers: you turn to the book on the bed, open the book on the bed, find the page, the lines, and the words, turning back to the file, then back to the book, from the file to Genji, then back to the file, decoding the file and translating the text until you’ve had enough, done enough for now, and you close the file, you close the book, put both files and the book back into your briefcase, close the case and lay it on the floor beside the camp bed: you take off your boots, stand them beside the briefcase and get up off the bed, unbutton your shirt and loosen your pants, then lie down on the low, hard camp bed and wait: you wait in the close, gray afternoon light, reciting your lines, rehearsing your part, learning your lines, learning those lies, your story, all lies: on the low, hard camp bed, not sleeping, just waiting, in the close, gray evening light, waiting for the flight to Tokyo, opening night and the show to begin –
The sentry knocks on all the doors of the second-floor corridor: Rise and shine, you lazy bastards …
You and your fellow travelers trudge back along the muddy path in the sticky night to a small and stuffy hut: you watch a short film of a Douglas C-54 Skymaster making a forced landing in the sea: the captain switches on the light, and says, Never gonna happen, but all you bastards need to know is everything yellow will float …
Strapped back inside the Skymaster, you stare at a spare yellow drum of aircraft motor oil strapped to the floor in front of the emergency exit: the sergeant taps you on your shoulder, shouts in your ear, You with us today, buddy?
You nod, thumb up, he nods, thumb up, in your face, then walks away: you tighten your hold on your briefcase, your hat, lean back in your seat on the bench and feel again the shudder, harder, hear again the rattle, louder, the vibrations and the pulse, faster and faster, the hum and the drone, higher and higher: you loosen your grip on your case, your hat, rest your head against the side of the small window to your left, and close your eyes, you close your eyes, the singing in your ears, hear them singing in your ears, they hum, they drone –
The dead, the dead –
Sā-sā, rei-rei …
Eyes open again: the inside of the aircraft is flooded bright with morning light: head forward again: the plane jolts: palms damp with sweat again, chin wet with spittle again: the plane shudders: you wipe your chin again, your palms again: the plane dips, the plane drops: you twist to look out of the small window by your left shoulder: the plane turns: you catch a glimpse of Mount Fuji: the plane circles: you lose sight of Mount Fuji: the sergeant taps you on your other shoulder, and you turn: the sergeant hands you your hat again and shouts, You want to get a leash for that, buddy!
You raise your thumb to him, he shakes his head at you, walks back down the plane to the cockpit again: the light inside the plane begins to dim: you tighten your grip on your case, your hat again, sit up straight in your seat again: the clouds outside begin to thicken, the plane begins to tremble, to shake, to shudder again: you close your eyes again, keep them closed again until you feel the wheels of the Douglas C-54 Skymaster hit the ground again, bounce hard down the airstrip of the Haneda Air Force Base, Tokyo –
Welcome to Japan, Mister Reichenbach, says the young American officer on the entry desk at Haneda Air Force Base as he hands you back your passport, your entry permit, inoculation records, and billeting slip.
Thank you, you say.
You’re welcome, says the officer. Now you need to take the Northwest Airlines bus into the center of Tokyo. The bus is just to your left when you exit this building. The bus is direct, straight to the Ginza. So you get off the bus in the center at the Ginza, then here’s what you do: you go straight across the street from the stop to the Provost Marshal’s Office. Because you need to report directly to the Provost Marshal’s Office. That’s the first thing you need to do. You’re not legal here until you’ve done that. So make sure you do it now, straight away, before you do anything else here, Mister Reichenbach. Are we clear about that? You got that, sir?
Yes, you say. We’re clear, thank you.
You’re welcome, says the officer.
You put your passport, your entry permit, inoculation records, and billeting slip back into your briefcase, close the briefcase, put the briefcase under your arm, your raincoat over your arm, pick up your hat from the desk, put it on, then pick up your suitcase and walk out of the Haneda Air Force Base: you turn to your left, see the Northwest Airlines bus: you put down your suitcase, your briefcase again, take off your hat again and take out your handkerchief, wipe your face and then your neck, put away your handkerchief again, pick up your briefcase, your suitcase again and walk to the Northwest Airlines bus: you give the bus boy your suitcase, then take off your jacket, your hat and take out your handkerchief again: you climb on board the bus, walk down the aisle to the rear of the bus, put your briefcase on the rack above your head, fold and put the raincoat on top of the case, then sit down, lean your head against the window of the bus and close your eyes: you hear the engine of the bus start, feel the window of the bus quiver: you open your eyes again, stare out of the window, up at the nets of black cables overhead: you close your eyes, feel the bus go over a pothole: you open your eyes again, see a sea of rusted red roofs, and close your eyes again, then feel the bus swerve: you open your eyes again, out of the window again, see gangs of young boys on every corner, and close your eyes again: the bus stops, eyes open again: the bus boy shouts, Ginza!
You hand your passport, your entry permit, inoculation records, and billeting slip to the young American officer behind the main desk at the Provost Marshal’s Office: he flicks through the papers, the pages of the documents, stamps the passport, entry permit, inoculation records, and billeting slip, then says, Now please go to the next desk, sir.
You walk over to the next desk and the next young American officer: he takes your fingerprints, left hand, right hand: you wipe your black fingers clean, walk over to another desk, another young American officer: he measures you, he weighs you, then hands you a board on which is chalked Reichenbach, Donald / 276522: he tells you to stand in front of a white wall, and you stand in front of the white wall, he tells you to hold up the board, and you hold up the board: he takes his photograph, your photograph, then tells you, You’re done. Please report back to the first desk, sir.
You walk back over to the first desk: the young American officer hands you back your passport, entry permit, inoculation records, and billeting slip, then smiles and says, Welcome to Tokyo, Mister Reichenbach.
Thank you, you say.
You’re welcome, says the officer. Now I need you to take your billeting slip round the corner to the Billeting Office for me. They’ll confirm that this here address on this here slip is still the correct one. Most times it is, but sometimes it ain’t. So if there’s been a screw-up, then you’re going to need to come straight back round here so we can amend your paperwork. But let’s hope not. This place they’ve got you in, it’s one of the best in town. You could do a lot worse, I can tell you, sir.
Thank you, you say again.
You’re very welcome, sir, says the officer: now he watches you put your passport, your entry permit, inoculation records, and billeting slip back into your briefcase: watches you close your briefcase, put the case under your arm, your raincoat over your arm, then pick up your suitcase: he watches you walk out through the double doors of the Provost Marshal’s Office, then looks away, turns back to his desk: doesn’t see you turn, see you watch him pick up the telephone on his desk and dial four numbers, see you watch him wait, then see you hear him, hear him say, He’s here, sir. Yes, sir, the Dai-ichi Hotel, sir …
Yes, I’m here, you whisper in the summer, the summer of nineteen hundred and forty-eight, and I’ll still be here long after you’re gone, all gone, I’ll still be here.
At Kasumigaseki station, he got off the subway train and slowly climbed the steep stairs back into the drizzle of the day. He liked to walk through Hibiya Park, particularly when it was raining. But today he put up his umbrella, walked past the government buildings, the Tokyo high court, and police headquarters to Sakuradamon and joined the crowds as they crossed the moat, then passed through the gate into Kōkyo-gaien and the outer grounds of the Imperial Palace. Up ahead, he could see the long lines of people under their multicolored umbrellas, all queuing to enter the tent which had been erected beside the Sakashitamon Gate to house the books in which these well-wishers could register their well wishes for the recovery of the Emperor. But he did not join the queues; his black and foreign umbrella seemed somewhat in poor taste amid the sea of bright colors and local hopes. He turned and walked away, toward Nijūbashi, passing the kneeling and the standing, regardless of the puddles and the rain, their umbrellas down, unused and forgotten, their hands together and heads bowed, all faced toward the Imperial Palace, his dying majesty. He crossed back over the moat onto Hibiya-dōri, and then, for the first time since he could not remember when, he made a point – though what point, he was not sure – of walking past the Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance building, the former palace of the blue-eyed shōgun himself, the General Headquarters of SCAP. But he did not stop, did not dillydally on Memory Lane, not today. No, he turned sharply left and up a side road to Yūrakuchō and then into the Denki building.
He took one of the north elevators up to the Foreign Correspondents Club on the twentieth floor, paid a quick visit to the bathroom, then walked down the short corridor to reception. He smiled as he handed his umbrella and raincoat to the new girl, whose name he could not remember, then went into the main bar. He was early, the lunchtime crowd not yet in, and had the pick of the tables, so he took one in the window at the far end of the bar and sat with his back to the room.
Twenty floors up, he looked out of the window into cloud and mist, the clouds so low and thick they smudged the skyscrapers, erased modernity, brought the city low again, smudged and erased again, just like when –
He stood up, turned almost straight into Hanif, almost knocked the glass of water and menu from out of his hands. He said, I’m sorry, Hanif, so sorry, but I’d forgotten something.
No problem, sir, smiled Hanif. No problem. You coming back later, want me to save you this table?
I’m sorry, he said again. But I don’t think so, no, but thank you, Hanif, thank you.
No problem, sir, said Hanif again.
He walked quickly out of the bar, back over to the reception desk. He gave the plastic chit to the new girl. She brought him his raincoat and umbrella. Embarrassed, he mumbled apologies as he put on his raincoat and then said goodbye. He walked back down the short corridor to the elevators and pressed the button, then pressed it again –
Donald, old boy, boomed an all-too-familiar English public-school voice from over his shoulder. Where’s the fire?
Jerry, how are you, he sighed as he turned with a reluctant hand out.
How are you, dear boy, is the question, grinned Jerry Haydon-Jones, not letting go of his hand. Thought you must be dead and buried, old boy. Food for the worms.
He freed his hand: Not quite, Jerry, not yet.
Just joshing with you, old boy, laughed Jerry, punching him in the top of his arm. Don’t look so damn glum, man. Fact, only last week, when I dared to raise the mystery of your disappearance with the brothers at the bar, Bernie, I think it was, said, Don’t you worry about old Donald, Jerry, he said, he’ll be off somewhere lining his pockets with lovely lolly. Corporate jollies here, public speeches there, don’t you worry, Jerry, Uncle Sam knows how to take care of his own, not like you beggars from Blighty, he said. Come on, confess to Father Jerry, where’s it been: New York, Washington … Virginia?
The elevator had been and gone, mouth open then closed again, empty and hungry. He pressed the button again and said, Just here, Jerry, neither dead nor rich, sadly.
Now, now, no long faces, not on my watch, said Jerry Haydon-Jones, gripping his arm tightly, trying to turn and pull him away from the elevators. Come tell your Uncle Jerry all about it over a glass or three of firewater.
He freed his arm, his elbow knocking Jerry, and said, Nothing I’d like more, Jerry, but I really do have to go.
Like that, is it, said Jerry, feigning, perhaps, hurt and indignation, then gripping his arm again, pinching it tightly again. But only if you absolutely swear we will see you again, old boy, and see you very soon – you do promise?
Of course, Jerry.
You swear?
Believe me, Jerry, I will waste no time returning.
Then you are forgiven, said Jerry Haydon-Jones, letting go of his arm again. For now.
Thank you, he said, almost leaping into the mouth of the elevator, its doors closing –
But don’t make me come dig you up again …
Rubbing his arm as the elevator bore him down to safety, he was breathless again, his heart racing. You old fool, damned fool. You don’t like the place. Never have and never will. He stepped out of the elevator, turned right out of the building and back into the rain and Yūrakuchō. He put up his umbrella again, joined the hundreds of others, bustling and jostling their way, left and right, west and east along the sidewalk. So many umbrellas, so many people, almost banging into him, almost knocking him over, almost, but not quite. He made it to the curb, tried to catch his breath. A taxi splashed his trousers as he waited for the lights to change. A puddle filled his shoes as he stepped off the curb. A man almost walked straight into him as he crossed, an umbrella almost took his glasses from his nose, both cursed him as they passed. Don’t these people know the Emperor is dying just up the road, an era coming to its end? He felt his eyes water again as he passed under the railroad tracks, walked up toward the Ginza, the sidewalk wider here, thank God. But he wanted to walk under the leaves and branches of trees, not under umbrellas and curses, see flowers, their petals bejeweled and wet, not these crowds and their faces, this apparition be gone, dear God, please, God, be gone. Increasingly wet with rain and sweat, he reached the Sukiyabashi crossing and the escape routes to the subway. He took down his umbrella, folded, rolled, and tied it up, then went down the stairs, almost slipping as he did, reaching and catching hold of the handrail just in time, the nick of time. He stopped, waited to catch his breath again, for his heart to slow again, then carefully, paying attention, he walked down the rest of the stairs, and still carefully, still paying attention, he made his way to the Hibiya line, bought a ticket, passed through the gates, and went down the escalator, then stood on the platform, waiting under the ground, thinking of all the things he had wanted to do on the Ginza: browse the shelves in Kyōbunkwan and Jena Books; buy sakadane sakura and butter rolls at Kimuraya; treat himself to a bottle of French wine from Mitsukoshi or Matsuya; even lunch and a beer, Bockwurst and Weissbier, at the Lion Beer Hall. Oh well, he said out loud, as the train pulled in, trying not to ask, struggling not to plead. There’ll be other times, another time?
These hours, first hours, in cellophane, they pass, pass into days, in cellophane, these days, first days into weeks, wrapped in cellophane, these weeks, first weeks, had you wrapped in cellophane: in Shimbashi, the Dai-ichi Hotel, in your tiny, cramped room; in Nihonbashi, the Mitsui building, in your cramped, tiny office, they had you wrapped in cellophane: part of the process, the cellophane, the waiting, all part of the process, the waiting in cellophane: the hotel bugged, the office bugged, you know, you know: just do your job, your day job: Diplomatic Section, Economic Liaison Section, where you compile and file reports, charts, and graphs, all then sent on to Washington and the State Department, but all first routed through Mac’s military staff: Mac and his men, they are distrustful, disdainful of you soft-sell boys who spent your war in Foggy Bottom: but by the time you arrive, in the summer of nineteen hundred and forty-eight, DipSec is largely staffed by Foreign Service careerists, with even a sprinkling of rabid anti-Communists, and the hostility and suspicion, the violent prejudice of GHQ and SCAP is beginning to wane: everybody singing from the same hymn sheet, Red Purge and Reverse Course, at least in public, if you want to keep your job, your day job: so you read the newspapers, the financial pages, you study balance sheets, reams and reams of corporate balance sheets, and write reports on de-concentration, the dismantling of Japanese conglomerates and cartels: hour after hour, long day after long day, for damp week after damp week, hot month after hot month: in cellophane, that summer in cellophane, waiting and patient, all part of the process –
Sā-sā, rei-rei …
At twilight, most evenings, you go back to your tiny, cramped room at the Dai-ichi Hotel in Shimbashi: at first you take the bus, the bus provided for Occupation staff, but then, every now and again, you choose to walk: the city was still a battered city then, a city of black markets, prostitution, and poverty, and there are evenings, many evenings when you return to your room and you sit down on the edge of your bed and you weep: you weep for the men and boys who beg for cigarettes and chocolate outside the PX stores, for the women and girls who sell their bodies and their hearts beneath the railroad arches, in the shadows of the parks, weep for the destruction of this city, the ruin of its people: yes, you weep, but you study, too: in your room, which no longer seems so tiny and cramped, you study the language and the culture, the people and their history, in the secondhand books you find in Kanda and Jimbōchō, in the ventures you begin to make on your days off: to Tsukiji and Ikebukuro, but, more often than not, to Ueno and her park, the mortuary temples and graveyards close: all weeds and neglect, their fences broken down, you spend hours among the graves and their ghosts, their stones and their moss, gently trying to uncover their veiled engravings, to understand their melancholy testimonials, again in and through tears, your tears and theirs, their occupied tears –
Sā-sā, rei-rei …
They are weeping and you are weeping, weeping but waiting, waiting and watching, watching and testing: on these ventures you make, you are testing the waters, watching for watchers: in the stations, on the platforms, you often let the first train leave without boarding, bending down to tighten your shoelace, then you wait until every other passenger has boarded the next train, then slip on board just as the doors are closing: two stops later, you alight and catch a train in the opposite direction, the long way round the Yamanote line to Ueno, the advantage, the beauty of the circle that is the Yamanote line, round and round you go, getting on and getting off, testing these waters, watching for watchers –
Sā-sā, rei-rei …
Until you are sure, as sure as you can ever be, that you are not being watched, or watched no more if you ever were: and so as late summer passes into early fall, lying on your hotel bed, you decide you’ve waited long enough, been patient long enough, patient and cautious enough: you get up from your bed, take your briefcase from under the desk, open the case, carefully take out the two files from the case, then sit down at the desk: you switch on the lamp, light a cigarette, then warily open up the first file, vigilantly looking for the hair you had plucked from your head, had then placed in the file: the hair is there, still there, fair between the pages of the file: you stare down at the hair as you smoke, read again the words under the hair, then put out the cigarette, close the first file, and open the second file, find the second hair you plucked and placed there, still there, still there: you take Waley’s Genji from the line of books propped up on your desk, open the book, turn to the chapter called Yūgao, find the page and the paragraph, its description of a shabby street, a secluded house, its lines and its words: you turn back to the file, then back to the book, from the file to Genji, then back to the file, decoding the file and translating the text until you’re sure you’ve checked enough: you close the file, you close the book, put both files with their hairs back in the briefcase, the case back under the desk, then return Waley’s Genji to its place in the line of books propped up on your desk: you get back up from the desk, go back over to the bed, then lie back down on the bed and wait: in the smoked, dimmed light, reciting your lines, rehearsing your part, learning your lines, learning those lies, your story, all lies: on the short, narrow hotel bed, not sleeping, just waiting, waiting for when the curtains will crack, their edges gray, then whiten, opening day, tomorrow: tomorrow the day the show will truly begin, the day you will visit the House of the Dead.
Yesterday, the Emperor’s morning temperature had gone above thirty-eight degrees for the first time since September 19 and he had received another transfusion of 200cc of blood without white cells after further signs of internal bleeding had been noticed. By the time of the evening news conference, the Emperor’s condition was stable and he seemed to have improved; his temperature had fallen to 37.4 degrees, pulse rate was eighty-four beats a minute, blood pressure was 134 over 56, and respiration rate eighteen breaths a minute. Kenji Maeda, head of the Imperial Household Agency’s General Affairs Division, said the Emperor’s high temperature could be attributed both to inflammation of the upper part of the digestive system and to the reaction of the Emperor’s blood to donor blood. Since September 19, the total amount of blood given to the Emperor was 5,715cc.
You hear that, said Donald Reichenbach, glancing at the bedroom door as he wiped his fingers on a piece of tissue paper. 5,715cc of blood – that means they must have replaced every drop of his imperial blood!
An oxygen cylinder had also exploded outside the room where the Emperor lay gravely ill, but the eighty-seven-year-old monarch was undisturbed by the noise. Palace officials said a plumber working on renovations in the Imperial Palace Hospital was seriously injured when the cylinder exploded as he was inspecting the grounds. However, a palace official said, His Majesty apparently never even heard the explosion.
Oblivious to the end, said Donald Reichenbach as he carried the plate, the tissues, the knife, and the mug over to the sink. He washed and dried then put away the plate, the knife, and the mug as he listened to the rest of the morning news: news about the defeat of the Pinochet government, then the vice-presidential debate between Senators Bentsen and Quayle.
Defending his qualifications, Quayle had said he had as much experience as John F. Kennedy had when he sought the presidency. Bentsen had shot back, Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy –
He turned off the radio as he went into the bedroom, thinking of Stanford, a morning in Stanford, for it was morning on the Pacific Coast when Kennedy was assassinated. He had been invited over to give a series of lectures on classical Japanese prose, had gone ahead with the morning lecture as planned; it would have been impolite not to have done so, he had thought then, thought now. But the students hadn’t agreed, all those healthy, good-looking sons and daughters of California, sullen in their blue-eyed grief, pouting at his poor taste. He smiled and took down a cardinal necktie from the rack in the closet, then giggled as he turned to Grete sleeping on the bed and said, Now, now, don’t be jealous, Gre-chan dear, but Papa’s got a luncheon date, must look his very luncheon best.
But he stopped smiling and giggling when he carried his clothes back into the living-dining-kitchen room, stopped before the radio-cassette player on the dining table. Richard Strauss had again replaced the morning news, but it was the Vier letzte Lieder, his Four Last Songs, of all things, of all things. Breathless again, heart riven again, in tears again, he sat down again, at the table again, clutching, cradling his clothes in his arms as Schwarzkopf, Szell, and the Berlin RSO carried him through “Spring,” “September,” “When Falling Asleep” to, finally, “At Sunset”: Through sorrow and joy, we have gone hand in hand; we are both at rest from our wanderings now above the quiet land. / Around us, the valleys bow, the air already darkens. Only two larks soar musingly into the haze. / Come close, and let them flutter, soon it will be time to sleep – so that we don’t get lost in this solitude. / O vast, tranquil peace, so deep in the afterglow! How weary we are of wandering –
He let go of the clothes in his arms, wiped his face, his cheeks and his eyes with the fingers of both hands, then reached to turn off the radio, but the radio was already off …
is this perhaps death?
In the small mirror above the small basin in the corner of the hotel room you shave, your eyes on the reflection of your neck, your cheeks, your chin, and top lip in the mirror: you wash your face, dry your face, then pick up your comb, straighten your hair, your eyes on the reflection of the teeth of the comb, the hairs on your head: you change your clothes, then straighten your necktie back in the mirror, your eyes on the reflection of the knot in the cloth, the tie around your neck: you know you are avoiding your own eyes, your own eyes in the mirror, not wanting to look into your own eyes, to see the anxiety in your own eyes, the fear in the mirror: you turn away from the mirror, pick up and put on your jacket, take your hat from the hook on the wall, the briefcase from under the desk, then you leave your hotel room, turning once to lock the door: you go down the corridor to the stairs at its end, take the stairs down to the lobby, then walk through the lobby, out of the Dai-ichi into Shimbashi: a late September morning, still sultry and warm: the light already different, the day already different, but the routine remains, must always remain, part of the process: the process is the routine, the routine is the process: you go into Shimbashi station, up to the Yamanote platform, let the first train leave without boarding, bent down to tighten your shoelace, then wait until every other passenger has boarded the next train and slip on board just as the doors are closing: two stops later, at Tokyo station, you alight and catch a train in the opposite direction, back the way you came, back through Yūrakuchō to Shimbashi, on through Hamamatsuchō and Tamachi to Shinagawa: at Shinagawa, you get off again, cross to the other side of the platform, let the first train leave again without boarding, bent down again to tighten your shoelace, then wait until every other passenger has boarded the next train again and slip on board just as the doors are closing again: two stops later, at Hamamatsuchō, you get off again and leave the station, sure as can be you are not being watched, not being followed: you walk through Daimon to the grounds of Zōjō-ji temple and the Taitōku-in, another of the city’s mausoleums for the Tokugawa shōguns, six buried here: but here, unlike in Ueno, the mausoleum and the temple were all burned, destroyed in the air raids of May, 1945: three years later, the grounds of Zōjō-ji, its National Treasures are still all ash and ruin, huge scorched trees lying still where they fell, their roots to the sky, branches charred, leaves lost: in the sullen, silent air, under the gray, overcast sky, you walk through this field of ash and ruin, round the remains of the temple and mausoleum, through other graves, overgrown with bamboo grass, weeds, and neglect: but you do not linger here today, not among these graves, not with their ghosts, their stones, and their moss, not today: today you must push on, through and in tears, your tears and theirs –
Sā-sā, rei-rei …
You emerge on the other side, the other side of these dead and their graves, out onto Avenue B: you stop by the side of the road, and you wipe your eyes, and you wait, and you watch, checking again you are not being watched, not being followed: an Occupation bus passes down the street, you turn away, then look back: bicycles and pedicabs pass in front of you, a cart filled with night-soil led by two oxen passes the other way, but no one emerges from the shadows behind you, the ground of the dead: you weave across the road, between the bicycles, the odd truck, then wait again, on the other side, you watch again: again no one emerges from the shadows across the road, the place of the dead: you turn away, turn off the main road, down a side road, into Morimoto-chō: a cluster of alleyways and houses, some large, some small, some burned, some not, some rebuilt and some not: a patch of waste ground here and there, where a house or a shop had once stood: through this patchwork of destruction and reconstruction you walk: the occasional smell of a household fire, a breakfast being cooked, the sudden sound of bedding being beaten and aired, monpe-clad ladies sweeping the mats of their houses, turning away when they see you coming, retreating back into their houses until you’ve passed: round the corners, at each corner, you stop, you turn and you wait, you watch: checking again and again you are not being watched, you are not being followed, until you come to the place, you come to the house: but you do not stop, you keep on walking: past the house, that secluded house, to the end of its street, its shabby street, round the corner you go: then you stop, and you wait, and you watch, then you walk on: back round the block, to double-check, then once again, to triple-check: no one is watching you, no one is following you: back down the shabby street, back to the secluded house, behind a stone wall, damp and tall, a wooden gate, plaited and warped: now you open the gate, and you step through the gate, into the garden, untended, unweeded, onto its path, half hidden, half lost, then you close the gate, turn back to the garden, and look up at the house: a two-story house, once painted yellow, now faded with weather and war, scorched black in part with soot from a fire, its shutters hanging broken and open, no glass in its second-floor windows, dark sockets in a pale skull: it is watching you, waiting for you: the yellow house,
the House of the Dead –
Sā-sā, rei-rei …
You walk up the path, half hidden, half lost, approach the house, its front window, watching you, waiting for you: you shield your eyes, peer in through the glass, see a thick mattress on the floor, a table, three chairs, and a cabinet: you turn from the window, scan the garden, untended, unweeded: see the stacks of flowerpots, big ones and small ones, all chipped or broken: you walk over to the pots, bend down, and begin to search: under one stack of upturned, damaged pots you find a small mound of loose soil and ash: in this pile of dirt you find the key: you pick up the key, stand up, and walk to the door of the house: you put the key in the lock, turn the key in the lock, then the handle: you open the door and step inside, you step inside: inside the yellow house, the House of the Dead, you swallow but do not speak, do not call out: you stand in the doorway and listen: you hear the house breathing, hear the house murmuring, whispering –
Sā-sā, rei-rei …
You step into the hallway, close the door behind you: before you is a broken staircase and the hall: down the hall, to the right, a small, empty room, a kitchen and a toilet that both still function, still work: to the left, the large front room: you go into the front room, flick the light switch on and then off again, the electricity connected: you see the telephone, the radio on the wide table: you pick up the handset of the telephone, the telephone connected: you turn the radio on and then off again, the radio working: everything still working, everything still functioning, still connected –
Sā-sā, rei-rei …
You pull a chair from under the table, turn the chair to face the window, then sit down: in the yellow house, this House of the Dead, you sit and you wait, wait for them to come, come back again, return –
Sā-sā, rei-rei …
Return to you again: waiting in the chair, the chair at the table, watching the door, the door to the house, looking now and then, every now and every then at your watch, the hands of your watch, luminous in the shadows of the yellow house, this House of the Dead: waiting and watching, the door to the house, the hands of your watch: maybe you’ve got the wrong time: too early, too late, the wrong time again.
He was early, as was his wont, even when he didn’t want. Early ripe, early rotten, that will be you, his mother had used to say. But she was early, too, this Julia Reeve he had never met before, sat at an angle to the window with its view of the pond, turned toward the entrance, shade across her face, a pale hand raised in a wave. You can never say no, that’s your trouble, his mother and many others had also said, occasionally with kindness, more often with anger, frustrated by his moaning and regrets. But, then, when was he ever not filled with regret?
You’re a friend of Anthony then, he said, after the handshake, the pleasantries, the easy bits had passed.
She smiled, she said, He suggested I should write when I told him I was coming. It was very kind of you to agree to meet, to spare the time. Thank you.
Spare the time, he repeated, then smiled. Well, one always tries to be welcoming.
She nodded, she said, You must have welcomed hundreds of people. After all these years.
And then waved them goodbye again, he said, then smiled again. Yes, I suppose I must have. After all these years.
She smiled, she said, Perhaps it suits you, saying hello, but then waving goodbye, always able to bid them adieu.
One just gets used to it, I suppose, he said, then smiled. But I don’t know, you may be right. Perhaps I have acquired something of a sweet tooth after all these years.
She smiled again and said, I’m sorry, a sweet tooth?
Partings being such sweet sorrows, he said triumphantly, and then pointedly, Or so one always hopes.
She nodded, she said, You know, if I didn’t know it, I’d never have guessed you were from Pennsylvania. You’ve not a trace of an accent; more English if anything.
More English than the English, he said, trying and failing not to smile, creases at the corners of his lips. That’s what my friends, my chums at Cambridge used to say.
She smiled, she said, And Cambridge has stayed with you, then, even after all these years.
Just another of my many affectations, I fear. Born from – what’s that word people use nowadays? – overcompensation, yes, that’s it: overcompensation.
She nodded, she said, For what?
A Bavarian grandfather and a German name, he said. People were suspicious, you know, could be very unkind.
She smiled, she said, But you still kept your name, your family never changed it. Many families did.
I think my grandfather, and then my father, he said, I think they would have seen that as being rather dishonest.
She nodded, she said, A betrayal.
No, he said, rather too emphatically – for you doth protest too much – so he smiled and said, Much too dramatic.
She smiled, she said, You never felt the need?
My, my, you like to pry, he wanted to say, but smiled instead and said, The need to do what?
To change your name?
No, he said, then smiled again. Just to overcompensate, even “after all these years.”
She smiled again and said, I’m sorry. I can tell I’ve offended you. But you look very well and, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, much younger than your years.
Flattery is always forgiven, he laughed, giggled even. Though you wouldn’t say that if you saw me plodding with my shopping up Muen-zaka – it means the Slope of the Dead, and I am sure I must look like one of them, one of the Dead.
She nodded, she said, The slope from Wild Geese? And you live at the top – how wonderful.
And how wonderful you know Ōgai, he said, smiling. I do often fear he’s rather neglected, compared to others.
She smiled, she said, The Unremembered Dead.
Well, he said, if one wishes to be exact, to be precise, Muenzaka most probably derives from Muen-ji, a temple which used to stand on the slope and which, it is said, was a repository for the souls of those travelers who had died anonymously in old Edo, unbeknownst to their relatives back home, thus unclaimed and unmourned.
She nodded, she said again, How wonderful.
Well, yes, he said, nodding. I suppose I am rather lucky, despite the climb. The Iwasaki Mansion is across the street, even visible from my windows, at least come wintertime, when the leaves don’t interfere. Not many people can look from their windows at an Important Cultural Property.
She smiled, she said, Hongō House.
The devil are you, he wanted to ask as he looked at her, for the first time, properly looked, to see her, see who she was: her mouth and lips a little wide and full for her face, her nose and eyes, too, her eyes looking at him, watching him: the devil do you want with me, he didn’t ask, but instead, just blushed, picked up the menu, and then said, Shall we order?
She smiled, she said, What’s good?
What’s good, what’s good, he repeated, turning through the laminated pages of the Seiyōken menu as he had done so many times before, as he still did every single time he came, yet wondering if this would be the last time, why this felt like it would be the last time, blinking as he said, had said so many times before, The hashed beef rarely disappoints.
She nodded, she said, Sounds good.
The house specialty, he said, smiling as he closed the menu and then signaled to the waitress. And I usually have a beer. I shouldn’t really, but I think will. And you?
She smiled, she said, Why not.
Hayashi rice futatsu, he told the waitress, smiling, to biiru-o nihai, onegai shimasu.
Julia Reeve turned to the waitress, smiled, and said, Sumimasen, yaapari watashi-wa tai no wine mushi-o kudasai.
Nomimono wa, asked the waitress.
She smiled again and said, Daijōbu, arigatō.
Shōshō omachi kudasai, said the waitress, collecting up their menus with a sympathetic smile at Donald Reichenbach.
Julia Reeve leaned forward, her hands on the table, then smiled and said, Don’t look so hurt. It’s Friday.
At least you’re not a vegetarian, he said.
She nodded, she said, God, no. I used to live in Texas.
Did you now, he said. But you’re not from Texas?
She nodded again and said, No.
And so where are you from, he said, his turn now.
She smiled, she said, Here and there.
And where might I find your here and there on a map, he said, smiling, with the bit between his teeth.
She nodded, she said, My father was in the military.
Was he now, he said. Ever in Japan?
She smiled, she said, Briefly, on R & R.
He served in Vietnam, he said.
She smiled again and said, MIA.
I’m sorry, he said, then again, I’m very sorry.
She nodded, she said, You served, of course.
Yes, he said. But in a very different war.
The waitress reappeared with their plates and two small bowls of salad, the glass of beer for him.
Julia Reeve picked up her knife and fork, then smiled at Donald Reichenbach and said, Itadakimasu.
Cheers, he said, holding up his glass of beer.
She put down her knife and fork, picked up her water, touched it to his glass, nodded, and said, Cheers.
That’s bad luck, you know, he said.
She smiled, she said, I know.
You don’t believe in luck then, he said.
She nodded, she said, No. Do you?
Not these days, no, he said, then took a sip of his beer, then put down the glass and picked up his spoon.
They ate in silence and occasional smiles, until she had almost finished, and he already had, so he could ask, before she could, And so what brings you to Japan?
She finished the last of her fish in its wine sauce, put down her knife and fork, then dabbed her lips with the napkin. She took a sip of water, then nodded, then said, My mother.
Oh, he said, and tried not to sigh in relief, even jump for joy. You should have said. She might have joined us?
She smiled, she said, I’m afraid she wouldn’t be much company. She’s got cancer, she’s dying.
Oh, he said again, and then again, I’m sorry.
She nodded, she said, She hasn’t long.
Here, he asked. But she’s here?
She nodded again, then said, No. Indiana.
But you’re here, he wanted to ask, as the waitress came to take away their plates, to ask if they’d like to order dessert, as he shook his head and said, I’d better not, no.
Julia Reeve nodded, then said, But you’ll have another beer, won’t you? Keep me and my coffee company?
Well, if you insist, he said, smiling.
She smiled back, then said, I do insist.
He ordered the beer and the coffee, this time without any contradiction, then turned back to Julia Reeve and smiled, then said again, I really am sorry about your mother.
She nodded, she said, She was here.
In Japan, he said pointlessly, his voice rising pointedly.
She smiled, she said, With the Occupation.
I see, he said – and you do, you do now – as the waitress brought over her coffee and his beer, as he almost took the glass from her hand, before it had hardly touched the table.
She nodded, she said, She knew you.
Your mother, he said, not putting down his beer.
She smiled, she said, Gloria Wilson.
I’m afraid, he said, bells tolling in his ears, in his heart, I’m afraid it’s such a long time ago. I’m sorry.
She nodded, she said, She knew your wife, too.
My wife, he said, his voice rising again.
She smiled, she said, Yes.
Mary, he said.
She smiled again, then said, Yes, Mary.
My wife, he said again, then put the glass to his lips again, the beer already gone.
She nodded, she said, Would you like another?
Another what, he said, putting down the glass.
She smiled, she said, Another beer?
No, thank you, he said, glancing at his watch, his watch hidden up his sleeve. I shouldn’t. Doctor’s orders.
She nodded, she said, Go on, I insist, be a devil.
Well, then, if you insist, he whispered, blinking, then taking out his handkerchief, taking off his spectacles, dabbing his eyes as she ordered him another beer. Thank you.
She watched him put away his handkerchief, his glasses back upon his nose, waited for the beer to arrive, to let him take a sip, then she smiled and said, They kept in touch.
You know her then, he said. My wife?
She nodded, she said, No.
I see, he said again, and then again, I’m sorry. It’s all so long ago. I’m old and I’m afraid I’m rather lost.
She smiled, she said, Don’t be.
But I am, he whispered, holding his beer in both hands. I’m afraid I’m very lost. You’ll have to help me.
She smiled again and said, That’s why I’m here.
Then please do, he said. Please help me.
She nodded, she said, My mother said you’d know.
Know what, he said – but you know, you already know – as she reached across the table, took his hands from the glass, held his damp hands in her own, tight in her own.
She smiled, she said, What happened to Harry.
Harry who, he mumbled.
Don’t be silly, dear. Harry Sweeney.
He pulled back his hands from hers, but she’d already let them go, and his hands, his arms flew back, knocking the beer from the table, the glass breaking on the floor.
She needs to know, I need to tell her.
Heads turned, people stared. The waitress came running over as he got to his feet, apologizing to the room and to the waitress, taking out and opening his wallet –
She knows you know …
Throwing a ten-thousand-yen note down onto the table, pushing back his chair, waving away the waitress as he stumbled toward the door, the exit, and out –
You were the goddamn Chief of Station.
We’re all mad here, she says. I’m mad. You’re mad.
In the yellow house, the House of the Dead, in the shadows of its front room, the chair at the table, you heard the gate to the garden open, the footsteps up the path, then the key turn in the door, the door open and then close again: you saw her step into the front room: tall, taller than you; fair, fairer than you: her left hand in the pocket of her coat, you watched her walk through the shadows, take her chair at the table, then you heard the words, those words pass from her lips: now you smile at her, you say to her, How do you know I’m mad?
You must be, or you wouldn’t have come here.
And how do you know that you’re mad?
Because I’ve been waiting for you to come, she says: her left hand under the table still in her pocket, she holds out her right hand across the table: her pale hand in the dark light, now she smiles at you, she says to you, Because I’m Mary.
In the shadows, across the table, you take, you hold, you shake her hand, and say, And I am Donald.
She does not let go of your hand, holds it tighter and says, Frank thinks we should get married.
But we’ve only just met, you say. We’re such a long way from home. What will Mother say?
Tighter still, she holds, she grips your hand: her other hand, still under the table, still in her pocket: she looks into your eyes and says, I already asked her, Donald.
And what did she say, you whisper.
What do you hope she said?
In the yellow house, the House of the Dead, at your chair at the table, your own left hand on the table, flat on the table, you swallow, then say, I hope she agreed.
She did, Donald, she did, and so do I, she says, squeezes your hand once and lets it go, then takes her left hand, the pistol from the pocket of her coat, lays the pistol down upon the table and smiles again, and says, For the job, dear.
Yes, you say, your heart still pounding, the sweat running down your back, not looking at the gun, just smiling at your future wife, For the job, Mary.
She gets up from the table and the pistol, goes over to the cabinet, opens its doors, takes out a bottle and two glasses, walks back over to the table, puts down the bottle, the glasses beside the pistol: she uncorks the bottle, fills both glasses, then hands one to you and raises her own: To a happy marriage!
You stand up from the table and the gun, raise and touch your glass to hers, and say, To a happy marriage!
She puts the glass to her lips, you put the glass to yours, but you do not drink, she does not drink: you wait, you watch: she waits, she watches: now she smiles, a sad smile, then takes a sip, a big sip, then smiles again, a happy smile, and says, Happy marriages are built on trust, dear Donald.
So here’s to trust then, my dear, you say, and down your drink in one, then watch her down her own in one: you reach for the bottle, she puts her hand on your arm –
We need to work, she says, her hand to your head, in your hair now: she pulls your face, your lips to her own: your mouths, your tongues entwined now: in the yellow house, the House of the Dead, now you go to work, you go to work.
Im Abendrot, im Abendrot, he was sat on a bench, his bench at the Shinobazu Pond, meiner Heimat, meiner Heimat, drinking cans of beer from a plastic bag: wir trinken dich morgens und mittags, wir trinken dich abends: hand back in the bag, can back to his lips, can after can: wir trinken und trinken: he sipped and he stared at the lotuses in their pond, shriveled and withered, dead where they stood, crumpled and brown and frail in their fall, he stared and he sipped: wir trinken und trinken: the last can drained, back in the bag, empty and crushed, he tied the handles of the bag, tied them in a plastic knot: im Abendrot, im Abendrot, he stood up from the bench, walked anticlockwise, back the way he’d come, back around the pond to the bins, dropped the bag in the trash, then left the pond and the park to stand at the crossing where Shinobazu-dōri meets Route 452, to wait for the lights to change, the light to change.
He crossed the road and turned left into concrete and neon, weaved down the backstreets of restaurants and bars, the smells of grilled meat and fried fish, through the maze of alleyways, the offers to press or suck flesh, then out onto Kasuga-dōri, across Kasuga-dōri and along another side street, into an izakaya, his izakaya, in hope, a last hope.
He greeted the Master, nodded to the regulars, then took a seat at the long L-shaped counter, not too close to the television, but close enough. He ordered the usual appetizers and a plate of deep-fried horse mackerel. The Master put his kept bottle of shōchū down in front of him, then a glass with two cubes of ice. He thanked the Master as he poured himself a measure, a generous measure, then he turned to sip the drink, to stare at the television: the Emperor’s health was slipping, his blood pressure plunging. Because of the high number of transfusions the Emperor had received, his doctors were having difficulty finding suitable veins through which to administer transfusions. But despite the deterioration of his condition, the Emperor had not lost consciousness. Poor him, poor him, he thought but did not say, not here, of course, not here. But he did allow himself a slight smile as he picked at the dishes, as he sipped as he watched and he listened to the rest of the news, the other news: Bush had coasted to victory, and Takeshita had cabled the heartfelt congratulations of the Japanese people, who “felt extremely lucky and encouraged” by the election of the Vice President. And former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, he muttered to himself as he looked at his watch again, and wondered again if he would come, and then if he didn’t, then what would he do, what on earth would he do?
You’re smoking again, tutted Kanehara as he sat down in the empty seat at the counter next to Donald Reichenbach. You said you’d given up. You swore you had.
Donald Reichenbach sighed, stubbed out the cigarette, and said, I’m sorry. I’d forgotten I’d given up.
I don’t care, said Kanehara. He ordered a beer, then lit a cigarette of his own, exhaled, and said, Do what you want.
Donald Reichenbach turned slightly to Kanehara, gently touched his arm, and said, Please don’t be like this.
Like what, laughed Kanehara, leaning away.
You know what, said Donald Reichenbach, blinking, reaching into his pocket for his handkerchief. So cold.
Look, hissed Kanehara in a whisper, turning to Donald Reichenbach, his cigarette hand over his mouth. If you’re going to make a scene again, then I’m going to get up and go.
Donald Reichenbach swallowed, took off his glasses, wiped his eyes, then his glasses, then put them back on. He looked up, down the counter, raised his empty glass of shōchū to the Master, and asked for a little more ice, please.
And if you’re going to get blind drunk again, then I’m going, said Kanehara under his breath. I can’t stand it.
I’ve no intention of getting drunk, blind or otherwise, said Donald Reichenbach, trying to smile, reaching for the bottle. I’m just very pleased, very grateful you’re here. Honestly, I wasn’t sure you’d come. Thank you.
You’re already drunk, Donald, by the look and the smell of you, said Kanehara as he took the bottle of shōchū from Donald Reichenbach, poured just a splash over the glass of fresh ice, and then said, Honestly, after last time, I wasn’t going to come. I really didn’t want to, Donald, and I wouldn’t have done – except you said it was urgent?
Yes, said Donald Reichenbach, holding the glass in both hands, but not raising it. And thank you, thank you again for coming, and I’m sorry, so sorry about last time, really.
Kanehara drained his draft beer, glanced at his watch, then ordered another beer and said, What’s so urgent then?
It’s about Grete, said Donald Reichenbach.
Kanehara lit another cigarette, blew its smoke up toward the ceiling, shook his head, and said, No.
No, what?
No, I’m not going to pick up your mail, water your plants, feed your fucking cat, and change her fucking tray again while you swan off to the sun again, Donald.
Donald Reichenbach blinked again, tried to hold his eyes open, the tears in their ducts, then swallowed again, tried to catch, to hold the sob in his throat, then said, tried to say, Please, it’s just Gre-chan, just if something happened to me, I’m just worried what would happen to her –
If you’re that fucking worried, said Kanehara, the hiss in his voice again, then stop fucking drinking and smoking so much. Because I’m not going to look after her. Or you.
Donald Reichenbach knew he was shivering, trembling. He gripped the edge of the counter, stared down at his hands, and whispered, Please, Yoshi, please.
No, said Kanehara, banging his beer down on the counter, standing up, then walking out –
Heads turned again, people stared again. The Master was shaking his head, telling Donald Reichenbach this was the last time, enough was enough, don’t come again here, not with him again here, as Donald Reichenbach got to his feet, his face wet with tears, red with shame as he apologized again, again and again, paid the bill, then walked down the long counter, the long, silent counter, through the bead curtain, the sliding door, out of the izakaya, into the alley –
I won’t let you blackmail me anymore, said Kanehara, waiting for him, turning on him. I’ve had enough, that’s it.
It’s not blackmail!
Then what the fuck is it, Donald?
I love you.
No, you don’t. You never have, never will – never loved anyone, except for that fucking cat.
Please, don’t say that …
What the fuck should I say, Donald –
I don’t know, but …
Thank you? Is that what you want me to say?
No. Never. I just want, wanted …
What? What was this?
In the alleyway, off the main road, Donald Reichenbach reached out, held out his arms, his hands, and their palms toward Yoshitaka Kanehara, and said, I just wanted, want you to love me, like I love you.
Shut up, shouted Kanehara. Shut up! It’s not love and it never was – he pointed down the alley, across the road – in that park, in the dark, you pulled me into the shadows, unzipped my flies, pulled down my pants, and sucked my cock, never looked at my face, just my cock – I could’ve been anyone. Anyone.
Is that how you remember it? Really …
How else should I remember it? That is how it was.
It wasn’t like that …
Yes, it was. I was just another suck in the dark, a fuck in the park – I could’ve been anyone, Donald.
At the start, but …
But what? Then what? Your whore, then your nurse, your cook, your cleaner, your cat-fucking-sitter? Just because I was dumb enough, stupid enough to meet you again, then again, to fall for your tears, always with the tears –
No, whispered Donald Reichenbach, shivering, trembling as he pushed past Yoshitaka Kanehara, staggered past him down the alley to the road –
Yeah, go on, walk away, shouted Kanehara after him. Go on, like you always do, off to Zaza to drown your sorrows, dry your eyes in some young fucking crotch – don’t think I don’t know, Donald, just don’t ever fucking call me again.
He waited at the crossing, not for the lights but for the hand, the hand on his arm, but the hand never came: the lights changed and he crossed, still shivering, still trembling; barely able to see, to think, he crossed the road: bustled and jostled, banged into and bumped, by the bubbles of the Bubble, the last of the bubbles, no respect for the dying, the nearly dead, the almost dead: he nearly fell, he almost fell, almost but not quite, he made it to the curb, steadied himself, then staggered on: off the main street, back along a side street, back through the puddles and the neon, the smoke and the lanterns, back out onto and then across Shinobazu-dōri, back to the pond –
The pond dark, the park dark, his pond, his park, dark and silent, silent, so silent, he took the long way, the long way around, walked anticlockwise, against the wisdom of clocks, against time, these times: the pond on his left, the city to his right, past the steps to the porno theaters, the backs of cheap hotels, under the trees, in their shadows, the swings, the slides, still in the shadows, still under the trees, the homeless in their boxes, on their plastic sheets, more and more, day by day, night after night, they return again, returned: before the zoo, the exit to the zoo, he turned, turned left again, crossed onto Benten Island, walked through the precincts of the Benten shrine, lit golden and red, warm in the night, still the scent of incense on the air, the rustle, the creak of stems, the dead lotus stems, on the air, in the night: in der Nacht, der Nacht, round the shrine, behind the shrine he turned, turned left again: von Dunkel zu Dunkel, round past the Boat Pond, back along the promenade, Hydrangea Promenade, back to the bench, his bench: again the rustles, the creaks of stems, the dead lotus stems, again their temptations, the temptations to drink: wir trinken dich morgens und mittags, wir trinken dich abends, to drink and not think, in der Nacht, der Nacht, but no, not tonight: tonight he walked on, pushed on, past the bench, its temptations: von Dunkel zu Dunkel, away from the pond, out of the park, his pond and his park, out onto the road, to wait and then cross, back across Shinobazu-dōri, back to the slope, his slope –
Up the Slope of the Dead he walked, unremembered, unmourned, and unclaimed, he walked, slowly, slowly, up through the shadows again, under the trees again, the trees of the Kyū-Iwasaki-tei Gardens, the wind through their branches, rising again, in the shadows again, up beside its walls again, walls of brick and stone, slowly, slowly, up he walked, through the shadows, past their walls, trying not to think, to listen to his thoughts, walls of brick and stone, to keep the darkness in: von Dunkel zu Dunkel, she smiled, she –
No, he spluttered aloud, at the top of the slope, and then again, No, as he stopped to find, to catch his breath again, slow and still his heart again: No, he said, No, then turned left, left again, then right and crossed the narrow street, right and straight to his apartment building, white in the night, the wind and now rain: through the doors, into the lobby, soft yellow and warm, warm and safe, past the mailboxes, his mailbox unchecked, he went, quickly, now quickly: to the elevator, up to his floor, along the corridor to his door: the key already in his hand, in the lock, he turned the key, the handle, the door open, he went inside, closed and locked the door: his back against the door, in the darkness of the hall, he caught his breath again, then switched on the light, blinked, and called out in tears again, Tadaima, Gre-chan. Tadaima, Papa’s home, tadaima …
Okaerinasai, she purred, against his shins, his calves, between his legs, his trouser legs. He picked her up, up into his arms, stepped out of his shoes, up into the hall. He held her, stroked her as he carried her down the short hall, over the polished wood of the unlit living-dining-kitchen room, into the bedroom, onto the mats and the bed as he stroked her again and again, as he said, I know you’re hungry, sweetheart, but we need to talk, to think, you and me, Gre-chan and Papa …
The wind, the rain against the window, its pane, the slight light of night, the night across the room, he slumped back on the bed, the cat in his arms, on his chest, still tight in his arms, she purred as he stroked her head, her back, felt her warmth through her fur, flesh and bones, quivering as he sighed and said, Don’t worry, dear, don’t worry. Papa will think of something, dear, some way out of all this …
Harder and stronger, the wind, the rain against the window pane, Grete had stopped purring, was staring into his eyes: her cat’s eyes in the dark, looking into his eyes, into him, deep into him, they questioned him …
Eine Gretchenfrage, they asked of him in the dark, the night, the wind and the rain: a question by Gretchen, a difficult question, in the wind, the rain, in his heart, his soul: a question of belief, of belief in God, in his heart and his soul, the wind and the rain, now a storm: wieder ein Sturm, a storm again.
In a whirlwind, Don and Mary, a whirlwind romance, Mary and Don, married within a month. Mary wants you to leave the Daiichi Hotel, move into the house, the yellow house, the House of the Dead: Mary works for the Far East Network, and they agree, agree to the move to the house: the Diplomatic Section agree, too, agree to your move to the house: GHQ drag their feet, but then they agree, agree to and approve your move to the house: the yellow house with its fresh coat of paint, its stairs fixed, rooms cleaned and aired: not the House of the Dead now, now the House of the Newly Wed: Mary finds and hires a cook, hires a housekeeper, even a gardener: Mary has money, old or new, clean or dirty, she does not say, you do not ask: lots of money and connections, lots of connections: Mary knows everyone, everyone knows Mary: she throws open the doors of the house, the yellow house, an open house, most evenings and weekends: a whirlwind, a social whirlwind: All part of the job, dear, she says, all part of the job, Don: the drinks and the dinners, the receptions and the parties: Don and Mary, mainly Mary, first disarming the Occupation and the Occupied, then charming the Occupation and the Occupied: smiling and listening through the chitchat and the small talk, laughing and encouraging secrets to be slurred, let slip, and be shared: This is the job, dear, the job, Don: late nights, then long nights, remembering and recording, filing and reporting: this is the job, the routine and the process: the way of life, your life together, together with Mary, in a whirlwind together: by night and by day, day after day, night after night, blowing through the fall into winter, the winter into spring: the world turning, the wind blowing, the wind of change across a world of change: Whittaker Chambers appears before the House Un-American Activities Committee, accuses Harry Dexter White, Alger Hiss, and others of being Communists: the Republic of Korea is established, then the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is declared: the Foley Square trial of ten leaders of the Communist Party of the USA begins in New York: incumbent President Harry S. Truman defies all polls to defeat Thomas E. Dewey, Strom Thurmond, and Henry A. Wallace: the International Military Tribunal for the Far East sentences seven Japanese military and government officials to death: on December 23, 1948, all seven are hung at Sugamo Prison in Tokyo: Give ’Em Hell Harry wanted photographs of the dead, hanging by their necks, published in the press: Dugout Doug, the American Caesar, defied Rome: Mac did not wish to further antagonize or embarrass the Japanese people, had never agreed with the trials, agreed instead with the last words of Hideki Tōjō: the leaders of the United States and Great Britain have made irreversible mistakes. Firstly, they destroyed a Japan that was the barrier against Communism; secondly, they turned Manchuria into a base for Communism; thirdly, they divided Korea into two and have created a dispute in East Asia. Therefore, the leaders of the United States and Great Britain have a responsibility to resolve these issues; thus, I am very pleased to hear President Truman was re-elected since these mistakes need to be addressed and resolved. By order of the United States military, Japan has abandoned all her armed forces; this would be a wise decision, if the rest of the world will do the same. If not, it will create a paradise for criminals in which the police have quit their jobs and criminals can run amok. I believe it is necessary for humans to rid themselves of greed if we are to eliminate wars from the world. Unfortunately, in our present world, no other countries have abandoned greed or war; this might be the proof that it is impossible for humans and nations to abandon greed and war. In this sense then, World War III is inevitable and the main parties will be the United States and the Soviet Union. These two powers have completely different philosophies and values, so it will be impossible for them to avoid conflict. In World War III, the battlefields will be in the Far East, in China, Korea, and Japan. Taking this into consideration, I ask the United States to plan to protect an unarmed Japan; without doubt, this is the responsibility of the United States. Please create a path for the eighty million Japanese people to survive: the wind of change across a world of change, a cold wind, a cold world, white and red, a whirlwind of red and of white: by night and by day, day after day, night after night, until one night, one night she knocks on your door, comes into your room, sits down on your bed, hands you a file, an open file, a photograph, and says, Mary says, This is the man, Don, this is the man –