Congratulations, you stupid fuck. Harry thought. He tried to catch Michiko’s eye and wondered, What are you doing?
Ishigami went on. “Five years in China and the only dishonorable moment was Nanking.”
As Harry remembered, a hundred thousand or more Chinese had been slaughtered in Nanking. He was curious-which dishonorable moment was the colonel thinking about? “War is war. Things happen.”
“This was not war, this was a demonstration.”
“Oh, that? At the city wall? That looked like an execution to me. I remember ten Chinese: a clerk, a pair of chubby businessmen, a man in pajamas, a coolie, a kid.”
“You remember it well.”
“It made an impression.”
Ishigami never took his eyes off Harry. “It was meant to. There was resistance, an attack on Japanese soldiers. We lost one. I was demonstrating to our men that for every one we lost, the other side would lose ten. It didn’t matter whether the ones we executed were exactly the guilty parties, it was a matter of morale.”
“Of course.” Harry knew how important it was for the Japanese soldier to nourish his fighting spirit.
“That is why your interference was so unforgivable. One moment you and your German friend arrived at the demonstration, and the next you were wagering with the imperial army, offering ten yen to each man, muddying their pride with greed.”
“As I recall, the troops seemed pretty interested.”
“They were just soldiers, ten yen was a lot to them. Then the sly part: to offer money not only to me, a lieutenant, but the same amount to my aide, a mere corporal, just for washing the blade. Insult upon insult.”
“Just feeling things out. It’s like any game. You find the chump.”
Michiko said in breathless geisha fashion, “Harry treats everything like a game of cards. Nothing is serious.”
“You succeeded,” Ishigami told Harry. “My aide was too shy to say no, but he felt so much shame over your wager that he could not carry out his function.” Ishigami seemed to look directly through Harry. His eyes sparkled, and tears fell down his cheeks. It was as unlikely as seeing a stone weep. “Such a simple boy. I lost my temper.” His voice became husky. “I would like to hear you apologize. I have waited years to hear you apologize.”
Harry remembered that a soft answer turned away wrath. He knelt and placed his hands on the floor in a deep kowtow. “I am very sorry about your aide-de-camp and sincerely regret if he suffered as a consequence.”
“I have waited four years to hear that.” Ishigami lifted the sword from a sitting position like a man on horseback, and Harry wondered just how high his head would jump. If ever there was a man meant for an instrument, it was Ishigami and a sword; together they divided the living and the dead. Harry touched his forehead to the mat and stole a look at Michiko. Her expression was so cold and distant that she gave Harry the sweats. But Harry had the colonel down as a scrupulous scorekeeper. He had said Harry owed him five heads, and Harry figured the only way to achieve proper payback was if Ishigami saved him for last. Cut off Harry’s first and the debt was as good as canceled at the start. Ishigami relaxed. His rage faded into something like a smile. He set his sword down by his side and said, “I like games, too.” He added in an expansive tone to Michiko, “Sake!”
Michiko came out from behind the screen with a tray of ceramic sake jars and cups and fan-shaped bowls of ginkgo nuts. “All that arguing must make you thirsty, no?”
“Starved,” Ishigami said.
“That’s better.” Michiko knelt to pour.
“Kampai!” The three raised their cups and drank. The sake was hot and aromatic. At once Michiko refilled the men’s cups. Ishigami refilled hers. He seemed relaxed, even pleased, as if Harry had passed a test for cowardice and depravity.
“Your name again?” the colonel asked Michiko.
“Michiko,” she got out between titters.
“Nice.” Ishigami leaned across the table. “Do you mind if I call you Harry?”
“Go ahead.”
“Thank you, Harry. You can call me Ryu. I must say, between you and me, I am happy to find such an attractive geisha as Michiko.”
“She’s very dynamic.”
“Just one geisha for the two of us. Michiko must be very popular.”
“She has many sides,” Harry said.
“Drink up!” Michiko said.
“Banzai!” Ishigami led the charge and personally reloaded Harry’s cup. “You understand, Harry, I admire the fact that you do not flinch at the sight of a sword. That will come in handy.”
“Thank you.” Harry refilled Ishigami’s cup in turn.
Ishigami became more confidential. “Isn’t it curious how one person can make an impression in such a short time? One insult can change a life. In Nanking, from the time you drove up with your German friend to the time you drove away with my Chinese, how long do you think that took, five minutes? No more than ten. But I have thought about you every day since. I assumed for years you must have returned to America. Imagine my surprise to hear you hadn’t left at all. People in propaganda want me to tour the islands and sell war bonds. No, I came back for you.”
“I’m flattered.”
The room had become warm. Harry felt the sake insinuate itself through his veins. He became aware how Ishigami’s hands rested, fingers curved and clawlike. If Harry were to send some beast out to terrorize the countryside, Ishigami would be it. Samurais had evolved into soft men in Western suits, but Ishigami was a throwback, the real thing. Harry didn’t need a gun, he needed a machine gun.
Michiko filled their cups again and went around the screen for a portable record player with a crank that she churned. The notes of a shamisen plinked out of the machine while Michiko posed with a closed fan pressed against her cheek. Harry couldn’t believe it. It was her Record Girl routine gone Oriental. She was still as ceramic in her pink tones and white, demure in winter-blue silk, producing her own faint music from the chains of bells and chimes that hung from her hair and stirred with every breath. There was no more artificial creation than a geisha, yet as art, a geisha did possess enormous appeal, half human, half loose-sleeved butterfly. As Michiko shifted, her collar revealed the nape of her neck, painted in a white W to suggest the outline of a woman’s sex. It was a geisha’s badge.
The gramophone generated a scratchy song about a courtesan who had to buy a present for a lover on a rainy day. Michiko flinched from a threatening sky, tucked her fan into the loose sleeve of her kimono, opened an imaginary umbrella and not so much danced as enacted a series of movements and poses that mimicked a lovesick girl skipping around puddles, gracefully one moment and comically the next, and very different from the Record Girl who vamped in the Happy Paris to Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. Harry’s life was on the line, but he was agape at Michiko when she finished.
“Isn’t she good?” Ishigami beamed like an impresario.
“She is unbelievable.”
“We agree, excellent.”
Michiko took the record player behind the screen and returned with bowls of crisply fried fishlings and flowers of red ginger. The food didn’t signify the saving presence of someone else in the willow house; fare for geisha parties generally came from restaurants. Was this a geisha party? Harry wondered. A murderer snacks with his victim, what sort of social event was that? Say it was a card game, Harry reminded himself. What did he know about the other player? A bastard son of a royal prince, right-wing fanatic, graduate of the military academy, Berlin attaché and a commander who had survived five years on the China front. In other words, intelligent, sophisticated and as brave as he was mad. He saw Ishigami sizing him up the same way, perhaps coming to a different conclusion. Harry had caught him off guard in Nanking. That wasn’t going to happen again.
Ishigami spoke while he ate. “Five heads, Harry. You choose the first four.”
“I choose?”
“Why not? It’s been so long since I’ve been in Tokyo, I hardly know anyone anymore.”