Drunk together after more bottles of sake than I can remember, Ishy finally undid his shirt, then took it off. The donburi was like a silk T-shirt of quite fantastic quality, with a subtle symphony of colors composed on a precise pyramidal structure that, if I am not mistaken, was a clear reference to Cézanne. Thai waitresses all came to admire. “You can take off the rest of your clothes,” one of them told him. “No way you’re going to look naked.”
So he did, and there it was, though I refrained from studying it too closely for fear of being misunderstood. The girls were less inhibited, however, and one of them worked his member, the better-she explained-to appreciate his art. Fully tumescent, his penis provided a unique and very Japanese perspective on the Battle of Midway.
Apparently most comfortable in his designer skin, Ishy poured more sake and shared his inner life.
“I was one of those, you know?”
I had learned by now that much of his conversation assumed clairvoyance on the part of the listener. “High tech from the start?”
“I never really learned to talk to people. It still feels weird to me, which is why I stutter so much. I played games on a pocket calculator from the age of four onward. When the first personal computers arrived, I knew why I had incarnated at this time. After a while I couldn’t leave my bedroom. My mother used to leave food at the door, and my dad left books. Once they had a doctor come to examine me. He said I was nuts. There was no cure, half my generation had the same problem. One day my dad left a book of horimono illustrations along with some Hokusai prints-he was at the end of his rope with me.” Ishy paused to swallow sake. “It was like a religious experience. Actually, it was a religious experience. I asked my father for more art books and, above all, more horimono. He obliged with a virtual library. Above all others the great Hokusai stood before me clothed in his gigantic talent. Even today I could sketch a perfect copy of each and every one of the ukiyo-e woodblocks, and I know every stroke of ‘The Breaking Wave’ as another man might remember the words of a favorite song.”
Ishy paused to swallow more sake and spared a moment to stare curiously at one of the serving girls who had brought a friend from the kitchen and, crouching in front of him, was stimulating his member once again.
“It was as though I was remembering a previous lifetime. I directly experienced the excitement of the first woodblocks: to be able to make unlimited prints: what a breakthrough! And Moronobu’s genius in seeing that ukiyo-e was the perfect subject! I followed ukiyo-e from these beginnings, through Masanobu, Harunobu, Utamaro, Hiroshige, and ultimately the incomparable Hokusai. But like any good apprentice, I perceived my master’s weakness. No, that’s too strong a word-let us say every generation must reinterpret reality in a form most suitable for them. This is the age of immediacy, is it not? How many kids have the attention span to even visit a museum or an art gallery, much less meditate on the wonders therein? But a Hokusai indelibly etched into the fabric of your own skin, now that speaks to the twenty-first century, that-I knew-even the dullest Japanese, even a mobster, would be able to appreciate. As soon as I could, I moved into a microscopic apartment in Shinbashi, the old red-light district of Tokyo. It was exactly like coming home.” To the serving girclass="underline" “You only have to make it hard, darling, you don’t have to make me come.”
“It’s amazing.”
“Thank you. Another bottle, please.”
I confess I could not resist watching while, suddenly bereft of care and attention, the great battleships sank into flaccidity. But it was four-fifteen in the morning-the Japanese manager of the bar, apparently in awe of Ishy and his tattoos, had allowed us to stay long after he locked the front door-but now the serving girls were in jeans and T-shirts. Having exhausted the power and wonder of Ishy’s donburi, they were ready to go home to bed. I myself could not think straight, otherwise I would never have made the blunder that still haunts me as I write.
“Mitch Turner,” I mumbled, hardly able to remain on my stool. The name slowly penetrated Ishy’s drunken skull, light dawned, and he stared at me in horror, then slid off his stool onto the floor. I wanted to assist but fell down myself. The manager helped me into a taxi. I gave orders that Ishy was to be taken care of, his address obtained if necessary by going through his pockets. It had taken a week of hard footwork to find him-I didn’t want to lose him. But I fear my instructions lost much of their original clarity to the alcohol that twisted my tongue. It had been an extraordinary night. I needed to pass out.
At about ten in the morning I woke up in a panic from an alcoholic coma. In my dream Pichai had come to me again: Why didn’t you arrest the donburi?
Staring wide-eyed into cosmic darkness: He got me drunk. I think it was the tattoos. Who in hell is he?
Pichai’s voice cracked up as with a defective satellite connection: Renegade… naga in human form… Nalanda… way back… tattoos… powerful magic… try decoy-stakeout…
From my bed, head splitting with the worst hangover I can remember, I called the Japanese restaurant. Only the cleaning staff were on duty. Using Intimidating Voice, I persuaded the woman who answered the phone to get me the boss’s home number. When I rang him, he denied knowing anyone called Ishy. No, he had never met a Japanese of that bizarre description-was I sure I had the right restaurant?
36
Now you find me in familiar mode, farang, sitting in front of a computer monitor in my favorite Internet café, scrolling through various entries in the online version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. You need not feel inferior, I don’t know what the hell ukiyo-e is either. Here we are: These depicted aspects of the entertainment quarters (euphemistically called the “floating world”) of Edo (modern Tokyo) and other urban centers. Common subjects included famous courtesans and prostitutes, kabuki actors and well-known scenes from kabuki plays, and erotica. Ukiyo-e artists were the first to exploit the medium of woodblocks.
The coincidence strikes me as almost grotesquely literary. Now Vikorn calls me on my mobile. I am summoned to the police station, where I am ushered into Vikorn’s office. Hudson is there, somewhat wild-eyed, pacing up and down. The impression of a mind unraveling is quite strong. Or to be more accurate, the Alien Within is clearly taking over. I suspect an Andromedan, although I’m not an expert.
“Progress?” Hudson asks.
I tell a tall tale of tattoos and whores, a drunken night with Hokusai’s posthumous apprentice, the effect that the two words Mitch Turner seemed to have, although in the circumstances it was hard to be sure.