“Is the sensei here?”
“The teacher is at the shop. But I’m not supposed to let you past the desk unless a member invites you.”
“Since when?”
The receptionist shrugged apologetically.
“That’s too bad, because the fact is, I have a deal on golf balls.”
“That’s different. You’ll find the teacher at the shop.”
“I know the way.”
Harry walked through to the mournful shadows of the bar. The members present were mainly in import-export, and since the embargo, they had all day to drink. Harry worked his way out to a flagstone patio that overlooked the course. In a shop that stood separate from the clubhouse, the pro was demonstrating a putter. Customers were rare, and the pro was thoroughly occupied.
The course might be virtually abandoned, but it was beautiful, famous for fast greens of Korai grass and water hazards that were ponds paved in lily pads. The holes were framed by dark pine and autumn maples, all the colors of a blaze, as if a man with a torch had run around and lit the grounds. On the first tee, facing a relatively short dogleg right, were players Harry didn’t recognize, all four in knickers, the uniform of golf, and taking some very bad swings. In Japan, golf was performed with almost religious intensity of effort, never mind that the breeze from off the course carried a rice-paddy tang of rotting cuttlefish and human waste. No one else was even waiting to tee off.
The question was how far out on the course the ambassador was. Past the first pin, Harry could just see a foursome approaching the tee of the second hole.
Harry stepped back inside the bar to borrow a pair of binoculars hanging by the door. He focused on the second tee and a commanding figure with the look of an American eagle-dark brows and mustache and silvery hair-who towered over the other players. Unmistakably the ambassador. He was at the second hole with sixteen to go and would be out on the course at least four more hours. Harry couldn’t wait four hours. Michiko wouldn’t wait four more hours at the ballroom, safe or not. He’d wasted enough time getting this far.
He replaced the binoculars. Maybe a dozen members sat by the window in the bar but couldn’t look out without blinking into the sun. The party on the first tee hit the last of four brutal hacks and started down the fairway with their caddies. Harry waited until they were a hundred yards along and strolled after them with his bag as if he had every right, no questions asked.
He stayed out of their line of vision until he reached the trees and a groundskeeper’s path that wound through them. Fallen leaves released a scent like cinnamon with every step. The second hole was a straightaway pinched by sand traps, a test of the player’s ability to hit low and use the roll rather than loft the ball into the vagaries of the wind. Behind the pin was a service road that ran outside the wind-break of pines back to the clubhouse driveway. If he could just get the ambassador alone and talk to him, he could walk the road back to his car and no one would be the wiser.
The ambassador’s foursome was moving up on the fairway of the second hole when Harry caught sight of them. The ambassador puffed on a pipe, a Gulliver in tow, while his hosts spoke loudly in English to make up for his deafness and lack of Japanese. Harry always described the American ambassador as hopeless. The truth was, Harry didn’t think the ambassador was a stupid man so much as stultified by good manners and the absence of curiosity, happier to swim in a swimming pool than in the sea, the sort who, in fact, wouldn’t have lasted one year as a missionary. His information was secondhand from other diplomats. His Japanese contacts were financiers and industrialists known for their moderate views and fading influence. None of the players had yet noticed Harry, but he recognized one who was bareheaded and as dark as a caddy, the old pirate Yoshitaki of Yoshitaki Lines.
Harry ducked through the trees. He wasn’t sure what he could say in a few minutes that would persuade the ambassador to cable Washington or Hawaii. He couldn’t explain about an oil-tank scam or the nuances of the word “confusion” or of Tojo riding in the park. Probably lie, keep it simple, just claim that sources in the navy said the war was on.
Because the ambassador had boomed his drive, he hit his second shot last. Harry hoped it would land on the right side of the fairway. The ambassador did better than that: he sliced a ball that flew viciously into the maples and kicked out to the rough not more than fifty yards from Harry. While the others lined up approaches to the green, the ambassador searched the grass. He wore a maroon sweater, plus fours and the trance of a man lost in a game. He found the ball, set his pipe down on the grass and considered his clubs with his back to Harry, who was close enough, with a quick dash, to pick his pocket.
“Mr. Ambassador!” Harry said. He wanted to get this over with fast.
The ambassador selected a six iron and took a practice swing. The caddy was a skinny boy in a huge cloth cap. He noticed Harry, but gaijin were known to act in bizarre ways. Popping out of the woods could be one of them.
Harry stepped within ten yards. “Mr. Ambassador, we have to talk about Hawaii. There’s about to be an attack, Mr. Ambassador, are you aware of that?”
The ambassador got comfortable over the ball. A lot of big men stiffened over the ball, but the ambassador seemed smooth and poised, discounting the slice into the trees. He stepped back for a practice swing and set up over the ball again.
“Mr. Ambassador!” Harry edged closer yet.
“It’s my theory,” Yoshitaki said, “that a deaf man’s concentration is a great advantage on the golf range.” He had returned so quietly along the trees that Harry hadn’t heard him. Harry felt a little trumped.
The ambassador unleashed a smooth swing and a sharp “click” as the club struck the ball, which sailed low and true toward the pin.
“About Hawaii,” Harry tried again.
The ambassador focused on the bounce and roll of his shot as it split the bunkers. Yoshitaki looked in the opposite direction. Harry turned to see the following players and caddies transform to bodyguards and hustle toward him as they ditched their bags. Now Harry understood why they were such atrocious golfers.
“Mr. Ambassador.” The man was close enough to touch.
The ambassador’s shot had reached the green, from the excited reaction of the players ahead. He retrieved his pipe, produced a contented puff and, without a backward glance, strode toward the flag.
“How is that beetle of yours?” Yoshitaki asked Harry. “Still letting him out for walks?”
“When he needs the air.”
“Today is the day. This will be the last Sunday like this we will see for a good while, don’t you think?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Harry watched the ambassador cross the undulations of the fairway. “He heard me.”
Yoshitaki said, “No, not if it was the wrong thing to hear or the wrong messenger, he didn’t hear a word. He’s a friend. I’ll make sure he gets home safely. Was it important, what you wanted to tell him?”
“I can’t even remember what it was.”
“Good. Don’t become complicated now. It’s not everyone who can lead a life of total selfishness. You should stick with that.”
Well, a man that deaf was a wonder, Harry thought. He could have shouted at the top of his lungs, but the moment had passed. Maybe the moment had never existed, Harry thought, any more than he existed to the embassy. It also occurred to him that he could be wrong, that he had failed only in sending the ambassador on a wild goose chase. Who the hell was Harry Niles to announce when war would start?
The bodyguards arrived and surrounded Harry. They didn’t seize him, threaten him or even show exasperation, only circled Harry and separated him from his golf bag.
“Don’t worry about the plane,” Yoshitaki said. “It won’t leave without you. Good-bye, Harry Niles.”