'Any more questions?'
I said no. I thanked him and left. And now he joined the others in the office. He stretched out his arms and reached to the right, two-three-four; then to the left, two-three-four. All over the country, instruments were commanding the Japanese to act. The Japanese had made these instruments, given them voices, and put them in charge. Now, obeying the lights and the sound, the Japanese aspired to them, flexing their little muscles, kicking their little feet, wagging their little heads, like flawed clockwork toys performing for a powerful unforgiving machine that would one day wear them out.
Chapter Thirty
I. THE MV KHABAROVSK
At its eastern limit the Trans-Siberian Express is a stale-smelling Russian ship that sails two or three times a month out of the dust-storm smog of Yokohama, through the windy Tsugaru Straits and the Sea of Japan – in whose bucking currents whole blizzards vanish – to Nakhodka, in freezing Primorsk, a stone's throw from Vladivostok. It is the only way west to Nakhodka, the pneumonia route through gales to the rail head. Like the train, the ship follows Soviet custom: it is riddled with class distinctions so subtle, it takes a trained Marxist to appreciate them. I was in a four-berth cabin at the waterline, one of the subclassifications of 'Hard Class' (a truer description than the other class Intourist advertises as 'Soft'). Bruce and Jeff, the Australians in the upper bunks, were nervous about going to Siberia. Anders, a young Swede, carbuncular, with one of those unthawed Scandinavian faces that speaks of sexual smugness and a famished imagination, was in the bunk opposite. He listened to the Australians, and when he said, 'Hey, I hear it's cold in Siberia,' I knew it would be a rough crossing.
By late afternoon on the first day the coastline of Honshu was snowy and we were entering the straits. Already the bow and foredeck of the Khabarovsk were sealed in blue ice. Apart from the occasional lighthouse and a few rusty trawlers pitching wildly in the strong current, there were no signs of life. The shore and the mountains behind it were bleak. 'That is Osorayama,' said one of the Japanese students, motioning to a mountain. 'There are demons who live on the top. So people never go near here.' The Japanese stood at the rail, snapping pictures of this bewitched place. They took turns photographing each other, holding a little slate with the date, time, and place chalked on it: the poses were always the same, but the information on the slate altered rapidly. They were mostly students; some were tourists. There were a score of them, and they were going everywhere, but only one spoke English. The sociologist on his way to the Sorbonne did not speak French, nor did the man on his way to the Max Planck Institute speak German. They had phrase books. These they thumbed continually. But the phrase books weren't much help in conversation. They had been compiled by fastidious Japanese and contained such Japanese sentences as 'The room does not suit me!' in German, English, Italian, French, and Russian.
I took New Grub Street to the bar, but there were interruptions: Japanese students drew up chairs and sat in a circle, holding their phrase books like choristers with hymnals, inquiring about the price of a room in London; an American couple wanted to know what I was reading; and there was Jeff, the older Australian, on his way to Germany. Jeff had three days' growth of beard and he habitually wore a beret to cover his baldness. He hated the ship, but he was hopeful.
'Ever been on a ship like this?' he asked.
I said no.
'Listen, I had a friend who was on a ship like this. He was going from Sydney to Hong Kong, I think. He said everyone was very nice when they got on board, but as soon as they were at sea they started going crazy. You know what I mean? Doing things they didn't normally do.' He leered. 'Kind of losing their marbles.'
That night there was a film about Minsk in the lounge. Jeff went and later described it to me. It depicted Minsk as a sunny city of fashion shows and football games, and closed with detailed shots of a steel mill. Afterwards the Russian stewards got their instruments and organized a dance, but it was poorly attended. Two Yugoslav shipping officials danced with the librarians from Adelaide; the American danced with his wife; the Japanese watched, clutching their phrase books.
'Anyone lose his marbles?' I asked.
'This is no voyage,' said Jeff. 'This is like a Sunday-school outing. If you ask me, I think it's because the Russians are in charge.'
The bartender, a muscular blonde lady in pink ankle socks, listened to Jeff's complaint. She said, 'You don't like?'
'I like,' said Jeff. 'It's just that I'm not used to it.'
Nikola, the Yugoslav, joined us. He said he'd had a wonderful time at the dance. He wanted to know the name of the shorter librarian. He said, 'I'm divorced -ha, ha!'
'Galina Petrovna,' I said to the bartender. 'Another beer, please.'
The blonde put down her knitting, and, mumbling to Nikola in Russian, filled my glass.
Nikola said, 'She wants you to call her Galya. It's more friendly.'
'I don't think I have anything to gain by calling her Galya.'
'You are right.' He winked. 'Nothing to gain.'
We talked about Yugoslavia. Nikola said, 'In Yugoslavia we have three things – freedom, women, and drinking!'
'But not all at the same time surely?' I said. The mention of freedom brought the conversation around to Djilas, the persecuted Yugoslav writer.
'This Djilas,' said Nikola. 'I tell you steury. I am in school. They make me rat Djilas. I have to rat all he has reet. About Staleen. He say, hum, Staleen same as Zayoosh. Zayoosh, the Greek gat. Not he theenk like Zayoosh, but look like Zayoosh – big face and great head. I call Djilas traitor of communeesh. This is why. He reet book – big book – call it, hum, Conversation with Staleen. But, hum! he says now Staleen is monstra. Monstra! First Zayoosh, then monstra. I ask you why. Why? Because Djilas is traitor – '
Nikola had been the captain of a Yugoslav ship. He was now an official with a shipping company, on his way to Nakhodka to inspect a damaged freighter. He wished he was still a captain, and he reminisced about the time his ship had nearly sunk in a storm in these Tsugaru Straits. We were passing through dangerous currents, he said. 'Sometimes you have to pray, but don't let the men see you!'
Late at night the bar of the Khabarovsk held only the American couple, Nikola, a gloomy Pole whose name I never learned, and me. The American couple said they were 'into the occult'. I asked them for proof. They told me ghost stories. One was about a Japanese doll they had been given; it had a chipped nose. 'Get rid of it! It's alive!' a Japanese man told them. It had a soul. They went to a temple, sprinkled salt in a circle, and performed a purification ceremony. 'Or else something might have happened to our faces.' I said this was pure speculation. They told me another story. This happened in New Orleans. They were given a strange book. Dinner guests remarked on how depressing their house had become; the book was giving off emanations. They burned the book in an ash can, and a week later their house burned to the ground – no one knew why.
'I know a dealer in old prints,' I said, and began to tell them the most frightening story I know, 'The Mezzotint', by M. R. James.
'Yike!' said the woman when I finished. Her husband said, 'Hey, are you into the occult, too?'
The next morning we were out of the straits; I thought the Sea of Japan would be calmer, but it was much worse. Nikola explained that there were two currents in the Sea of Japan, the warm Kyushu current from the south, and the cold current from the Sea of Okhotsk: they met and made great turbulence. All day the ship rolled in a snow storm into the deepness of the swelling sea, at the far trough of each swell thumping an enormous wave that shook the windows. The dropping ship gave me a sensation of weightlessness, which the shuddering screws a moment later turned into nausea. The seasickness was half fear – that the ship would founder in that icy sea, that we would have to cope with the snow and those waves in frail lifeboats.