"Never mind," he said gruffly. "You are not responsible for the way chopsticks are packed. Maybe that dead bird did upset me after all. Maybe your daimyo is getting on my nerves finally. I am sure he is wandering about here somewhere. Maybe he's behind that rock over there, or up in that tree. Do you see a daimyo in a tree?"
She looked at the trees obediently and shook her head. "No," she said. "I don't see a daimyo in a tree." She was crying and laughing simultaneously and he caught her in his arm as she fell over. "You are crazy," she sobbed. "I hope nothing will happen to you. They shouldn't have picked me to get you here. There are other girls in the Golden Dragon who speak English. I am too sentimental and you make me laugh sometimes. Do you see a daimyo in a tree! He is old, he can't climb trees and he has high blood pressure. He had a stroke last year, not very serious, but he was in the hospital for awhile."
They ate and he liked the food and asked her about the way she had prepared it. The thermos was filled with good coffee, and gradually they began to forget what had brought them to the island. De Gier rolled over on his back and she lit a cigarette for him and snuggled up in his arm. Her leg pressed against his and he felt a tremor go through her body and he pulled her a little closer. He kissed her and undid the buttons of her blouse and played with her breasts, overlooking the fact that their firmness and size were partly due to compressed air. She struggled out of his arm, got up and pulled him to his feet and took him by the hand and together they found a nearby cave. She undressed and helped him out of his clothes. The cave's floor was covered with fir needles and mosses, and as he made love to her, he could see the lake's surface through a transparent wall of waving ferns. He had been careful to keep his pistol within reach and there was a brief thought of the daimyo's presence and the possibility of death. The thought was very quick but it trailed another thought: If he were to get killed now it might just happen that the bullet would strike his neck at the very moment of having an orgasm.
He had studied the cave as they entered it. There was really no way for an attacker to make his move, except perhaps through a slit in its roof, but the slit was overgrown with bushes and the lower branches of cedar trees. Perhaps the daimyo could find a way of pushing himself through the branches and he might be able to fire a bullet or drop a hand grenade. He grinned as he imagined an old man with a red face and tufted pitch-black eyebrows sitting uncomfortably on his haunches on a branch, peering down and pulling the pin out of a grenade. He would be waiting for the right moment, for the daimyo would also think of combining death and orgasm. It would be another clever practical joke. He felt Yuiko's arms around his back. The arms would be torn off. Various images of horror flitted through his mind, but he could watch them calmly as his body went through the movements set off by their love play. Yet the pleasure wasn't altogether automatic. The green haze of the fern leaves sitting high on their thin stalks, and gracefully bending their fanlike forms, the fragrance of moss and fir needles, the deep gray streaked with the glistening blue of the stone walls of the cave and the white-capped waves of the enormous lake, visible in between the naked fern stalks, all fused with Yuiko's body and he felt as if everything, with nothing excepted, not even the corpses of the bird and the cat on the hands of the Buddha statue and the tufted eyebrows of the old man who seemed so bent on intimidating and manipulating him, had met when Yuiko sobbed and he groaned and the moment was reached.
\\\\\ 24 /////
She noticed the slight bulge in the right pocket of his jacket as they dressed again. "Another gun?" she asked. "You have one under your armpit, isn't one enough?"
"A radio transmitter," he said, and showed the small gadget to her. "It has a button, see? If I press it Dorin should come, but he'll need time, I'll be on my own for a while. The daimyo has picked a good location."
She shrugged. "Not so good," she said. "If the daimyo is on that fishing boat or on the island here, he is either protected by one other man or not at all. You should be able to kill him, and if he calls Kono's boat you will see it approach and Dorin can come and help you out."
He nodded. "Yes. So?"
"So I don't know what the daimyo is planning either," she said, "and I don't care so much now. I think it will be all right, maybe he wants to make friends."
"By showing me a dead bird with a large yellow eye, turning on a plastic string? Watched by a dead cat?"
She shrugged again. "They were on the Buddha's hands. The Buddha is not an evil figure. I think the daimyo wants to make friends. He is a very strange man, his behavior often seems erratic, but when his plans come to some sort of fulfillment you can see that there has been a firm line of thought all along. The manager of the Golden Dragon said that once, and he had been with the daimyo for many years. They were in the air force together during the war. The daimyo was a kamikaze pilot."
They had left the cave and were wandering about on the small island, following a narrow path made out of flattopped rocks, set at intervals of about a yard. He stopped and she walked into him. "Sorry," he said, "but I didn't understand you. Kamikaze pilots died as they made their attack, didn't they? They just flew their airplanes straight into their target and blew themselves to little pieces. Isn't that right? But the daimyo is still around."
She laughed and sat down on a low bench. They had a perfect view of the lake again and de Gier sighed with pleasure and sat down next to her. "Beautiful," he said. "Very peaceful. We are even protected from the wind here."
She held his hand as she explained that the island had once been an imperial possession and that the state still looked after it, paying the gardeners who cleaned it at least once a week, pulling out the small weeds, watering the mosses and lichens, cutting dead treebranches and leaves and even washing down some of the rocks. There had never been building on the island and the emperors had used the beaches and the hill as they were using them now; they had strolled about and made love perhaps and had eaten their meals from hampers. The two Buddha statues had been placed to enhance the island's quietness and detachment.
"Two?" de Gier asked. "You'll see the other one soon," she said. "According to the note on the map it sits on the top of this hill. You still want to know about the daimyo?"
"Please."
She giggled. "It's a funny story really. You see, the kamikaze pilots died for the emperor, it was considered to be an honor to be selected to kill the enemy and commit suicide simultaneously, so they would receive a letter signed by the emperor himself and there was a big ceremony before they went to their planes. The daimyo was a young man then, not yet thirty I think, and he marched up to the platform where his commanding officer was waiting for him. He was dressed in his best uniform and he had a white strip around his forehead, white cotton with some special design, maybe the character for death, glorious death. The commanding officer said a few words and bowed and he bowed back and then he marched back to his colleagues, all standing to attention. The commanding officer poured sake, special holy sake, sent by the emperor from Tokyo, and the label was stamped by his seal, a red seal. Each pilot was given a big cup but most of them wouldn't drink for they considered themselves to be unworthy to swallow the sacred alcohol. They left their glasses untouched and the daimyo drank them all. He likes to drink; even now he sometimes gets very drunk although the doctor doesn't want him to drink. He goes to the best heart specialist in Kobe and every time the doctor asks if he has been drinking but the daimyo says no, never. To us he says that sake saved his life once and he hasn't forgotten it. Now it can kill him, if it wants, but it doesn't want to apparently for he is very alive."