Yuji is given a seat beside Dick Amazawa who, paying no attention to the major’s lecture, is leaning heavily on his elbows in a crumpled suit of yellow and white striped linen. There is a woman with him in a short gingham dress who chain-smokes throughout the meal, the food on her plate untouched. To Yuji, Amazawa confides that he has not slept in two weeks. His doctor gives him pills to help him stay awake. He has been awake so long he’s afraid to sleep now. ‘Aren’t you some sort of writer?’ he asks.
‘Well,’ says Yuji, ‘I suppose.’
‘You’re going to work in the Unit?’
‘The unit?’
‘He hasn’t told you about the Unit?’
‘No.’
‘But you want to work in cinema?’
‘Yes, perhaps.’
‘Who do you like?’
‘Renoir, Ford. Ozu . .’
‘Hitchcock?’
‘The Man who Knew Too Much.’
‘Murder!’
‘The Lady Vanishes.’
‘Imagine a film that’s just a woman screaming. The whole film. Just that.’
‘It’s difficult to imagine.’
‘That’s because you sleep too much. Have some of these. I’ve got more than I can use. More even than she can use.’
The woman blinks, a lizard on a stone. Amazawa takes a handful of brownish-pinkish tablets from his pocket, eats one, and drops the rest in the pocket of Yuji’s jacket. From across the table Ishihara is smiling at Yuji as though they alone understand that the afternoon is a kind of game, an elegant charade, something to divert themselves with until the serious business of welcoming the future becomes possible.
The houseboy serves the coffee. The major, face to the ceiling, is snoring in his seat, a piece of tomato from the cuttlefish ‘à la française’ dangling from a corner of his moustache. Yuji excuses himself and stands.
‘Ota will drive you,’ says Ishihara.
‘Really, there is no need,’ says Yuji.
‘What is the point in keeping a car,’ smiles Ishihara, ‘or even a personal secretary, if one doesn’t use them?’
Bowing, Yuji begins to thank him. Ishihara cuts him off with a movement of his hand. ‘Until next time,’ he says. ‘Until our next little meeting.’
Outside, the sun is dancing off the curves of the big car. Ota holds open the rear door, every gesture of servility carefully deranged to express its opposite. They drive in silence, the car rocks expensively on its springs. As they pass the Yasukuni shrine, Yuji, who certainly does not wish to arrive outside his house in such a car, to be seen by Father (to be seen by someone), asks to be dropped. He has, he says, some business in the area. Would it be convenient . .? Ota says nothing. The car rolls to a halt. Yuji gets out. The instant he has closed the heavy door, the car moves off. Yuji watches it, waits until it is out of sight, then unbuttons his collar and begins to walk. He wonders where the nearest tram-stop is. He wonders, too, whether, when he comes to write the article, he should mention the fact that all the men at the lunch had in their lapels the same ruby-headed pin he saw Makiyama wearing in the Don Juan.
2
Wisteria, azaleas, peonies. The first mosquitoes, the first bites . .
On 10 May the radio announces that all stores will henceforth be prohibited from carrying non-essential merchandise. Zen monks, in recognition of the rice shortages, vow to live on nothing but fruit and vegetables. Citizens are ordered to sell their gold to the government. Soon there are stories of people hiding their gold watches and buying chrome ones to wear instead.
In China, the army suffers heavy casualties in its advance on the Nationalist capital at Chunking. The brush-maker puts up his shutters. His son is among the missing. In Europe, German tanks sweep into France. After four days the battle already looks lost, soldiers and civilians fleeing along clogged roads. (And what is Feneon doing? What is he thinking? Does this disaster not justify a visit? Does it not require it?)
The nineteenth is Yuji’s birthday. He goes with Taro and Junzo to the Ginza. They visit the Black Pearl, but not the Don Juan, the billiard parlour, but not, of course, the Snow Goose. By midnight the question is what to do with Junzo. Yuji has never seen him like this, not even on his twenty-first, when he was babbling about ‘spineless intellectuals’ until he tripped down the steps to the toilet and had to be carried home by his brother. When he hears about Yuji’s lunch with Ishihara, he immediately wants to take a taxi to the Azabu Hills. ‘At least we can break a few windows, eh? At least we can do that.’
He pulls at Taro’s arm. Taro shakes him off. ‘What,’ says Taro, ‘do you suppose would happen if we were caught? You would be thrown out of Imperial, I would be finished at the ministry, and Yuji would lose any hope of finding a respectable job.’
‘Perfect!’ cries Junzo. ‘Don’t you see that’s the best that could happen to us?’
A group their own age come into the hall, and though out of uniform it’s obvious — the shaved skulls, the sediment of fatigue in their faces — they’re all off-duty soldiers. Junzo leaps to attention, salutes them. They come over. Taro tries to calm things down while Yuji hustles Junzo through the back door into the yard. The door swings shut. Side by side they urinate against the bins, blue neon above, then stars.
‘Let me congratulate you,’ says Junzo.
‘On becoming an old man?’
‘I just hope you’re not going to be an idiot.’
‘Idiot? What about you? Those soldiers would have—’
‘Just don’t be an idiot,’ says Junzo. ‘And please take care of yourself. Please take care of—’
‘Are you getting sentimental?’
‘You’re right,’ says Junzo, buttoning his trousers. ‘I should probably despise you, but somehow I can’t. So instead, let me congratulate you. Toutes mes félicitations! Au vainqueur, le gloire!’
‘La gloire.’
‘La gloire. .’
Taro comes out. ‘Their friends have arrived. Now they want to show us how things are done across the water. Let’s go.’
The door out of the yard is locked. They clamber over the wall, drop into the alley behind, then run past the shack-like backs of restaurants, past dog-fences and silent birdcages hanging from the eaves of unlit houses. They come to a railway line. Before they can cross it a bell starts clanking. They crouch, wait. The train lays down a bitter scent of coal, but when they run into the streets the other side, the air is fragrant with night flowers blooming on countless rooftop gardens. Are the soldiers after them still? There are no cries of pursuit, no hurrying feet. They hear water and walk onto a bridge over a canal. Below them, tethered boats shift in the current. They lean on the parapet. Taro lights a cigarette. Junzo seems to have sobered up, though Yuji doubts he was ever quite as drunk as he pretended to be (and what did he mean, ‘au vainqueur?’ Did he know what he was saying?). They start to laugh about the soldiers, go on laughing even when the joke’s exhausted. None of it matters now. They have had an adventure. They are unscathed. It is like old times. And suddenly it feels immensely pleasurable to be standing together on the warm stones of a bridge in the heart of the Low City, this Year of the Dragon, immensely pleasurable, immensely precious. Then Taro blows out a last lungful of smoke, flicks away his cigarette. The ember arcs over the water, an early firefly.