They passed a bus that had slowed so riders could remove their hats and bow in the direction of the emperor.
Willie said, “In spite of China, this seems quite wonderful to me. Serene, as you said.”
“Serene?” DeGeorge had a laugh like the scrape of a shovel. “Hey, they assassinated three prime ministers in sixteen years. Murder, incorporated, doesn’t have a record like the Japs, so ‘serene’ may not be the right word. Things are going to pop, the only question is when. The man who names the day just walks in and picks up that Pulitzer, right, Harry?”
“Could be.”
“They’re holding last-ditch negotiations in Washington that are going nowhere.” DeGeorge leaned forward to Willie’s ear. “Napoleon’s army ran on its stomach, armies today run on their gas tanks. April a year ago, the Japs bought three times their usual amount of oil from the States. Roosevelt made a big show of cutting the Japs off of East Coast oil and sending it to England. Didn’t matter, the Japs just bought all the oil on the West Coast. And aviation fuel? As much as we could sell. Not to mention steel and scrap iron. The Jap navy is built out of old Fords and Frigidaires. All the time, of course, FDR was starting to build three times as many tanks and battleships. Then, this July, we cut them off, no oil, no rubber, no steel, no nothing. There comes a certain point when the Japs are as strong as they’re going to get, and every day from then on they’re weaker. That’s when the shooting starts. I figure we’re there just about now.”
Harry stopped the car at the stone pillars and wrought-iron gates of what looked like a pocket version of Buckingham Palace, right down to a lion and unicorn in the center of the pediment. The Embassy of His Britannic Majesty had hedges and potted froufrou around the courtyard, where some staff had changed to cricket whites to toss a ball back and forth. Now, there was a stiff upper lip, playing fields of Eton and all that stuff, Harry thought.
DeGeorge swung out of the car and leaned in the window on Harry’s side. “I’d ask you in, Harry, but I don’t think you’d get past the door. I mean, the Japs have a point, everyone has a point. But I’m like you, I have newspapers to sell.”
“So you’re going to write that Beechum says I’m the lowest form of life on earth?”
“Nothing personal. I know you understand. What I’m worried about is Michiko. She reads something like this and she’ll cut my balls off.”
“Michiko is not a faithful reader of the Monitor.” Harry put the Datsun in gear. “She doesn’t even know you’re a reporter, she just thinks you’d paint your ass and screw apes for free sherry.”
“Well, fuck you, Harry,” DeGeorge shouted as the car drove off. “Just fuck you.”
“The Brits love it when you scream obscenities on their driveway,” Harry said to Willie. “They’ll ask DeGeorge back again and again.” He noticed that Willie still seemed unsettled, although they had just visited such a lovely embassy, and on the opposite side of the boulevard, the imperial moat continued along a landscape of maples russet and orange. “Sorry. I told you last night it probably wasn’t such a good idea for you to be seen with me.”
“I understand.”
“It’s not that I don’t enjoy seeing you, and I’m grateful for the warning about Ishigami, but I’m on kind of a schedule. Anyway, all good Germans should be getting out as fast as they can.”
“It’s not as simple as that.”
“What’s the problem? Short of money? Something personal?” Harry waited while Willie cleared his throat, then again: once too often. “Don’t tell me it’s a woman.”
“It is a woman.”
“Don’t tell me it’s a Chinese woman, you’re not that stupid. You know better. Willie, I will take silence as confession.” Harry glanced over. “Oh, boy.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“So far, I’m guessing pretty good. I thought you had a haus and hausfrau back in Berlin.”
“Dresden.”
“Good old Dresden, where they serve that beer and salted herring you’ve pined for for so long. Don’t complicate things, Willie. If you’re out of China and you’re alive, you’re ahead of the game.”
“She’s a teacher.”
“She could be Madame Curie for all the good that’s going to do either of you. She’s waiting for word from you? She’s safe in Shanghai? Hong Kong? I can get money to her if that’s the problem. You just get yourself back to Germany while you can.”
“I brought her with me.”
“That’s not the answer I hoped for. She has a transit visa?”
“No.”
“Then how did you bring her? She would have to be family. Willie, Willie, tell me you didn’t do it.”
“We’re married.”
Harry found his flask. “And the little dirndl back in Dresden?”
“She remarried a year ago. She got tired of waiting.”
“Apparently so did you.” Good Scotch was wasted on the headache Harry was developing. He had to get something to eat. “Willie, if you wanted a woman, you could have bought one in Shanghai for five dollars, ten dollars for a Russian. Want to be a saint about it? When you leave the country, you throw in a bonus hundred and you’ve earned your clean good-bye.”
“It’s not like that. She is a teacher. Harry, there are times I could kill you myself.”
“Ishigami’s got the corner on that. You’re going to take the new Mrs. Staub to Germany? I know you’re a fervent Nazi, but have you ever actually read Mein Kampf?”
“Of course I have. I have read all the führer’s works.”
“Did you happen to read the part about Asians being subhuman, or were you stuck with the special Asian edition of the book?”
“I don’t remember any derogatory reference to Asians.” Willie accepted the flask. He had that disappointed look again, Harry thought, the wounded Lohengrin.
“I’m just saying it’s possible that your bride may be a little uncomfortable residing among the master race.”
Willie said, “I came to you for advice because you also have such a relationship and it seems successful.”
“What relationship?”
“You and Michiko.”
“Michiko?”
“You seem to be together.”
Like two people with drawn knives, Harry thought. “In a sense. But our relationship is based on something more solid than love. It’s based on business, on the Happy Paris. She draws a crowd, I make money, I pay her.”
“It looks like much more than that.”
“That’s because you’re a romantic. You see things through rose-colored glasses. You think I live with Madame Butterfly and that the führer is a Boy Scout leader.”
“You seem to have a high opinion of the Japanese. I heard your speech. Today you said many good things about the Japanese people.”
“They’re not people,” Harry said, “they’re customers. Big difference.”
The palace grounds finally passed behind them, succeeded by an avenue of restaurants and souvenir shops that sold the military flag of a rising sun with sixteen rays. Over the trees to the left stood the cross-beams of an enormous torii gate.