He stood smiling, eating.
She realised she was smiling too, even more broadly; and wondered how long she'd looked like that. She nodded, bit down on her lips a little to help control herself. 'I'm sure we can arrange something, she said.
They talked. Eventually he was dragged away to meet the Sony top brass who were sponsoring some of the concerts. 'Don't try to escape without saying goodbye! he called back to her. She nodded, throat dry; face hot, eyes wide, and looked for a cooling, calming drink.
He begged her to stay an extra half-hour, to the end, when she tried to leave. There was a party in his suite in the New Otani; he insisted, pleaded.
More talk at the party; then the last half-dozen of them went to a gaijin club in Roppongi in the small hours. San played lightning-fast backgammon with a one-armed Australian (yes, he had fished for shark; no, a car accident), exchanged jokes with a mountainous Yakuza gangster with tattooed eyelids, and then played piano in the bar; he borrowed a waitress's little leather bag and stuck it on his head to do an impression of Chico Marx, plinking the keyboard with one flicked, pistol-like finger.
At dawn, he took the hired Mercedes down to the docks at Yokohama; in the back seat, the other two survivors — an early-balding television producer and a glamorous, long-legged advertising exec — had fallen asleep during the drive, and sat slumped on the brown leather, his shining head on her padded, sequined shoulder.
San looked vaguely disappointed they'd given up the fight for fun. He shrugged. They got out. San breathed in the dawn, then stood looking at the sleeping couple in the back of the Merc with a great grin on his face. It was the smile people normally wore when gazing at tiny babies. 'Don't they look sweet? he said, then turned and walked down to the edge of the dock, and stood looking out over the misty lengths of ships and warehouses to where the dim red sun rose above the masts, cranes and derricks of the port. Horns sounded, the air was cool, and the breeze smelled of the ocean.
He put his jacket over a bollard for her, and sat at her feet, legs dangling over the edge of the empty dock, looking down at the sluggish water, where half-waterlogged planks and wind-skittery grey lumps of polystyrene foam bobbed together on a film of oil.
He took out a silver cigarette case. She hadn't seen him smoke. Then she smelled the hash. 'Do you? he asked, offering her the joint after a couple of tokes. She took it.
He said, 'I've kept you up.
'That's OK.
'Had fun?
'Uh-huh. She passed the joint back.
'Think we can get on?
'I think we are.
'Didn't want to like me at first, did you? He looked up at her.
'No, she agreed, surprised. 'But I didn't hold out for long. Does everybody give in so quickly?
'Oh no, he said. 'Some people never get to like me. There was silence for a moment; she heard the water lap, watched steam plume from the funnel of a freighter — half a mile away, and heading for the sea — and then heard its horn, echoing off the warehouses and hulls around them, announcing its farewell. He handed her back the spliff. 'Did you sleep with all those film stars? she asked him.
He laughed. 'One or two. He looked up at her. 'I'm a man of easy virtue, Hisako.
'Easily led astray. She nodded through the smoke, feeling dizzy.
'I'm afraid so, he said, stretching his arms up behind his back, as though in a gesture of surrender, then reaching in and scratching the back of his neck vigorously.
'Yeah, she said, studying the end of the joint, 'same here.
He gave a sort of coughing laugh, looked at her. 'Really?
'Really. Dangerous these days, but… She gave him the joint back.
'Yes, of course, but… He nodded, looked out to the departing ship in the distance. He took a deep breath. 'Umm…
'Yes?
'Do you think…
'Yes?
'I might be able to tempt…
'Yes.
'… you back to… His voice slowed as he looked round at her.
'Yes.
'… my hotel? He grinned.
'Yes.
She rounded the stern of the Nadia, struck out for Le Cercle. The water stayed warm, and the waves small. She swam steadily, trying to find a rhythm that suited her body and the water, and felt half-hypnotised. She thought she heard thunder a few times. The wind did stiffen eventually, and the water became more choppy. The Nadia fell slowly behind her. The ship leaving for the open sea that misty dawn at Yokohama, years ago, an ocean away, had been a general cargo freighter.
She wondered vaguely what the chances were it had been the Nadia.
Le Cercle's pontoon was brightly lit; the rest of the ship looked dark in comparison. There was a man on the pontoon, scanning the waters with a nightscope. She angled away, towards the tanker's bows. Lightning flashed beyond the hills to the north-west, and thunder rolled across the dark lake, vague and long after. Rain was starting to patter down around her as she swam under the dark-on-dark cliff of the ship's port bow.
Fairy tale, she told her reflection in the dark train window. Too good to be true. Brilliant and handsome and now only a few months later he wanted them to be true only to each other, and to be married, and to live together (he'd stay in Japan, never fly again, if she wanted; she told him not to be crazy, and worried that he might have been even half-serious), and have children if she wanted. He loved her, wanted her, was made whole by her.
Sometimes he made her feel half her age, sometimes twice it. He could make her feel like a teenager, impressed by another's antics one second, struck dumb by his devotion; ardour, indeed, the next. Other times he seemed so energetically enthusiastic and excited — and even innocent, even naive — she felt like a grandmother, shaking her head over the wild excesses of youth, knowing it would come to no good, grumbling it would end in tears.
She'd said she'd go to see her mother, think it over, talk it over. He wanted to come too, but she wouldn't let him. He'd been subdued and sad at the station, and only brightened when he saw a flower seller and bought so many roses she could hardly carry them. She'd left all but one with the guard, too embarrassed to cart them through the train. The one she'd kept lay on the table in front of her, its dark image on the table reflected in the rock-backed window glass.
She rolled the rose around on the table, holding its stem and watching the velvet — soft petals flatten and spring back as they took the flower's weight on the table surface, then released it again. She wondered what to tell her mother. She'd kept the whole affair secret from her, as she always did. She didn't know if her mother had heard anything through the gossip pages or not; she didn't normally read them, and Hisako didn't think any of her mother's friends did either, but… Well, it would either come as a surprise or not; there wasn't anything she could do about it now. What would her mother say? She felt a heaviness in her at the thought her mother would probably be delighted, and encourage her. She wondered what that heaviness meant.
She kept on rolling the rose to and fro, to and fro. How happy she might become, she thought. How happy and fulfilled and content. She put her thumb on a thorn and pressed, felt the pain and watched a tiny bright bead of red form on the pale surface. She had spent, she thought, so much time playing music with the feeling that this was to compensate, that she did it to add to life, to make restitution. She had lived quietly if not virtuously, and if she took time off she always knew she'd play better at the end of it. She'd kept her head down; never tried too hard to enjoy herself beyond her own pleasure in the music, the occasional lover and a small group of friends. She wasn't supposed to make too much of life, wasn't supposed to glory in her own existence too fully, too vivaciously.