"December 6" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Martin Cruz)

9

A TEA CART WITH scones and cream, strudel and napoleons rattled around the lobby of the Imperial Hotel. The Imperial had been the safe haven of well-heeled tourists, especially Americans who were amplified, on-the-road versions of themselves, busy with backslaps and laughs that had boomed up to the lobby’s timbers. The Imperial had been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, who piled brick and lava rock in a grandiose style suggestive of a Mayan temple. Harry thought the hotel, with its vaulting shadows and wintry drafts, was a proper set for Dracula. Still, it was sad to see the tea cart make its circuit around the lobby like a trolley car in an empty city.

Also, Harry owed the Imperial. He’d come back to Japan for a public relations job that fizzled and left him high and dry, with not even enough money for return passage, until the American All-Stars came to town. Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Lefty O’Doul led a tour by the world’s greatest ballplayers and their wives. Naturally, they stayed at the Imperial. Harry was stalking the lobby for a tourist who might need a knowledgeable guide when a receptionist came up all aflutter. Harry expected the heave-ho. Instead, the receptionist bowed and asked if he would please proceed to the pool garden. When Harry got there, he found an official welcome that was falling apart. On one side of the garden were the Japanese in formal cutaways and kimonos with stacks of boxes, on the other side was a straggling line of the All-Stars in baseball uniforms and their wives in furs. In the middle was a movie camera with an operator who spoke no English, which was just as well because every time his assistant tried to push Mrs. Ruth within camera range, she told him to keep his mitts off. The Babe had had a little brandy in his breakfast coffee and tried to nudge O’Doul into the water. When the Babe’s wife told him to stop acting like an ape, the Babe gave her a playful pop on the shoulder. Meanwhile, the Japanese hosts grew smaller, their eyes wider. The girls in kimonos inched back, ready to run. One of the wives, a marcelled blonde in a fox stole, yawned and spat a wad of gum into the pool, setting off a tussle among the goldfish.

Harry figured this was a classic case of nothing to lose. He stepped forward and announced in English, on behalf of the hotel, how honored the Imperial was by the presence of the All-Stars and their lovely wives, and responded in Japanese, on behalf of the players, how impressed they were by the warm hospitality of the famous Imperial Hotel. He spoke rapidly, no seam between English and Japanese, respectfully but with animation, easing each side toward the middle of the garden, directing the cameraman to start filming, interpreting speeches back and forth, signaling the Japanese girls it was safe to distribute gifts, a happi coat for each player and towels for their wives.

“Do I look wet?” Mrs. Ruth asked Mrs. Gehrig.

The Babe got in the mood, posed in his happi coat and pushed a dimple into his cheek. Before leaving the garden for the ballpark, he lit a huge Havana and asked Harry, “Kid, you want to make some change? My stepdaughter’s along. She’s cute and she likes to trip the light fantastic. Just keep your hand off her ass or I will feed you to the fucking goldfish.”

“Sounds good,” said Harry. He stuck with the All-Stars for the rest of their tour and, by the end, had been hired by the movie company to do promotion, which was the kind of work he had done in the States. From then on he felt a debt of gratitude to both the Babe and the Imperial.

Now he picked up a paper from the hotel newsstand for any word of Ishigami. Nothing. Found an article about the Giants’ midwinter practice and dedication to victory. Returned to the front page and read that the Germans had as good as taken Moscow, as they had for weeks. In America, Charles Lindbergh declared that there was “no danger to this country from without.” Tensions in Washington had eased, negotiations were back on track. Roosevelt was more conciliatory. According to Ripley’s Believe It or Not, most chimps were left-handed. All the stories sounded equally likely to Harry.

The bar was virtually empty. The only occupants Harry saw at first were German officers from the blockade-runner. It was a long run from Bordeaux, evading British cruisers or the torpedo of a submarine, twenty thousand miles not to fire a shot but to carry precious rubber to Germany, and there was something exhausted about the men and the way they sank into their schnapps. Of course, the Imperial was lucky to have them. Aside from troopships, international travel had come to a halt. Tokyo’s World Fair and Olympic Games had been canceled, luxury liners called home, embassy dependents ordered out. In the far corner Harry found Willie Staub with DeGeorge and Lady Beechum.

“Harry.” Alice Beechum offered her hand for a kiss. She was pink as a petit four offering a taste. Pink as a Gainsborough portrait, pinker than pink with an exuberant mass of ginger hair. On the Tokyo stage, actresses who played Europeans wore ginger wigs. Alice’s blue eyes and ginger hair were her very own, and Harry also remembered breasts with the tang of Chanel.

“Lady Alice. I saw your husband this morning.”

“Yes. He was so worked up when he got home, he was ready to strangle puppies. He told me he gave you quite the rocket. He was very proud. Then he went off to toss medicine balls or something with his pals.”

“You’re not a popular man at the British embassy, Harry,” DeGeorge said.

“I’ll slit my throat.”

“Get in line.”

Willie was sipping tea, but for everyone else at the table “tea” meant martinis or Mount Fujis, gin with a peak of frothed egg white. Harry wondered, would this be his social circle for the duration if he missed the plane? The expats of the Imperial bar? DeGeorge, who dripped acid like a wreck leaking oil?

Willie asked, “What would they do to you? You’d be enemy aliens, but there are conventions about this sort of thing. They wouldn’t put you in jail.”

“Or make us learn Japanese,” DeGeorge said. “I’d rather be behind bars.”

“This conversation is absolutely sparkling,” Alice Beechum told Harry. “But I was wondering, how is that little Michiko of yours?”

“Speaking of…” Willie said.

Harry’s heart sank when he followed Willie’s eyes to a young Chinese woman making her way toward the table. She wore a silk cheongsam with a pattern of peonies, her hair was twisted into a chignon set off by an ivory comb and her eyes were bright with hope. Harry had to say that she was a little chubby, a bad sign since it suggested that she was real and Willie truly loved her. She was, in short, a disastrous complication for a man who should be traveling light. The problem was that Germans were such romantics. Not as romantic as Japanese; the Japanese preferred sad endings and suicide. But what Willie needed after China was a Wanderjahr on a beach somewhere, or searching the desert for philosophy, anything but dragging some poor Chinese girl to Nazi Germany.

“Iris is a teacher,” Willie said after introductions. “We’re hoping she’ll be able to continue doing that in Germany.”

“I suppose that would be up to the local Gauleiter or Gruppenführer,” Harry said.

“Yes.”

“Have you tried the Mount Fuji?” DeGeorge asked Iris. “It was invented here.”

“Inventing alcoholic drinks is a major pastime of the expatriate community,” Harry said to her. “Where did you teach?”

“At a missionary school,” she said.

“Iris’s father is a Methodist minister,” Willie said. “Her mother went to Wesleyan College in the United States, and her oldest brother is a graduate of Yale.”

“Well, your English sounds better than mine,” Harry said. Even the cupped echoes of Iris’s Chinese intonation were charming.

“What university did you attend, Harry?” Willie asked.

“Bible college.”

“But you chose not to become a missionary?” Iris said.

“I did publicity for Paramount and Universal. Pretty much the same thing. Are you enjoying the hotel?”

“It doesn’t seem Japanese,” Iris said.

“Not at all. Like Valhalla with Oriental lamps. But the emperor is a major shareholder, and that makes it Japanese enough.”

“Earthquake-proof,” DeGeorge added. “That’s all this tourist needs to know.”

“How is Michiko?” Willie tried to steer the conversation.

“Yes,” Alice said, “we all want to know. Is Michiko doing a little flower arranging or is she whisking tea?”

“There’s a gal who could whisk the balls off a bulldog,” DeGeorge said.

“According to Willie, she has musical interests,” Iris said.

“Contemporary music,” Harry said.

“Iris plays the piano,” Willie said. “Mozart, Bach.”

“Michiko plays the record player. Basie, Beiderbecke.”

“That calls for another round.” DeGeorge summoned the waiter.

“Is there any news on the negotiations in Washington?” Willie asked.

“The U.S. wants Japan out of China. Japan wants to stay. It’s the old story of the monkey and the cookie jar. He can’t get his hand out without letting the cookie go, so he doesn’t get the cookie or his hand. Now, Harry may have a different version, he’s the number one defender of the Japanese.”

“I just think there were lots of hands already in that cookie jar. British, Russian and American.”

“You know what I hear, Harry? The Japs are selling the Chinese cigarettes laced with opium.”

“Well, the British once fought a war in China to sell opium. The Japanese are great admirers of the British.”

“He really is incorrigible,” Alice Beechum said.

“You never thought of being a missionary?” Iris asked.

“Maybe I should,” Harry said. “It’s a good racket. Missionaries stole Hawaii.”

“Not everybody sees it that way,” DeGeorge said.

“Because they read Time, published by the son of a China missionary. The American people are fed stories about Chiang Kai-shek as though he’s Washington at Valley Forge. The most sanctimonious lobby in the United States is China missionaries, and if we have a war, it will be due in good part to them.”

“You really have no sense of morality at all, do you, Harry?” DeGeorge said.

Iris bowed like a flower in the wind and changed the subject. “Michiko sounds very interesting. I so look forward to meeting her.”

“That depends on how long you’re going to be here, I suppose. Willie?”

“Perhaps for a while. The embassy is slow about giving us our papers.”

“Willie has his papers, but the embassy is holding back mine,” Iris said. “They say he should go, and I would follow.”

Willie said, “They’ll never give her papers once I go.”

“What’s their reason for stalling?”

“They claim that the background of any foreign applicant must be investigated for unhealthy political involvement. That’s natural, I understand. But there are no investigative German agencies in China, and it seems any such investigation would have to be carried out by Japanese authorities. Although Germany and Japan are allies, there seems to be a lack of cooperation.”

“Imagine that.”

“That’s why we’re turning to you, Harry. You have influence with the Japanese. I saw this morning at the Chrysanthemum Club how you swayed them. They might approve Iris for you. Then, if they sent an approval to the German embassy, something would happen. Otherwise, they may force me to go alone.”

“Why does Harry have influence with the Japanese, that’s what I want to know,” DeGeorge said.

Harry took the deep breath of a surgeon reluctant to cut. “Willie, your embassy gave you good advice. Get Iris someplace like Macao, then you go home to Germany and wait. According to the führer, the war will be over in a week or two.”

“What if it’s not?”

“Yes,” Alice Beechum said. “What if, for some unlikely reason, it’s not?”

“A year or two. True love can wait.”

Willie’s cheeks turned red. “Anything can happen. Harry, you have to help.”

“I didn’t get her into this. You could have had the honeymoon without the preacher. You could have had your fun and said good-bye. You could have left Iris in China with enough money to buy her safety.”

“I am not a prostitute.” Tears sprang down Iris’s face.

“Money is not just for prostitutes,” Harry said. “The Bible says, ‘For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ The Portuguese are a kind and worldly people, and they’re neutral. Portuguese Macao is probably the safest place on earth.”

“Harry Niles, marital adviser. Willie, let me explain,” Alice said. “If we were in England, Harry would help my marriage by being my corespondent, the ‘other man.’ We’d arrange compromising photos in bed. He’d be perfect because his reputation can’t get any blacker. He is the bar other villains measure themselves by.”

Harry said, “Aren’t you supposed to be at a meeting of ‘British Housewives Against the Huns’?”

“I’m kind of curious,” DeGeorge said and hunched closer to Willie. “Why would you even ask Harry Niles to help? When did Harry Niles lift a finger for his fellow man?”

Willie looked away.

“Seriously,” DeGeorge said, “how could you ask Harry?”

“In China…” Iris began.

“I don’t know,” Willie said.

“Hey, I’m a reporter,” DeGeorge said. “I smell something here, Willie. You knew Harry in China. ’Fess up.”

“Willie,” Harry said. They’d agreed not to talk about this.

“I heard Harry got in a tight spot in China,” DeGeorge said. “Was it stealing cars, or a scam like his pine-tree gasoline?”

“Don’t do it,” Harry told Willie.

“No, they think I’m a fool for asking you to help. I’ll tell them why.”

DeGeorge sat forward to share the joke. The martinis arrived, and Harry sank with one into his chair. Sometime or other he had to get some food.

Willie said, “I was manager of Deutsche-Fon in Nanking. We handled the telephone exchange and electrical power. By December it was clear that the Japanese army would attack because Nanking was the capital, and once it surrendered, everyone assumed that the war would be over. But the Chinese resisted more than was expected, and even when the city fell, the army wouldn’t surrender, which infuriated the Japanese, and they began executing people. They shot men in the back of the head or bayoneted them or beheaded them or drowned them individually and in groups. I have heard estimates of ten thousand to a hundred thousand dead. I personally would say many more. I had hundreds of Chinese employees I was responsible for, them and their families. I was not alone. There were twenty other Westerners left in Nanking, mainly German businessmen and American missionaries, and we created an international safety zone to protect Chinese whose homes had burned. I was elected head of the committee, a position I accepted because I was also head of the Nazi Party in Nanking and had to set a moral tone.

“The zone was only a few square kilometers, but soon we had three hundred thousand Chinese under our protection. Though, as I said, there were only twenty of us, so the protection was not very good. Every day the Japanese would come to take away women to rape. Some we saved, some we did not. The Japanese came for men to kill. They roped them together a hundred at a time. Some we saved, most we did not. Or they robbed them. The Japanese took jade, gold, rugs, watches, wooden spoons. Attacked safes with guns, grenades, acetylene torches. If they took a woman away to search, we knew we would never see her again. We saved who we could.

“We had to feed all these poor people. We transported bags of rice in my car, the roof of which I covered with a white sheet with a red cross, so that we wouldn’t be fired on, because cars were always being commandeered and the drivers killed. Every time we went for rice, someone would run from a house to tell us his wife or his daughter was being raped inside, would we help? I had a Nazi armband. With that as my authority, I stopped some incidents, but I was not always successful. One time when I was failing, our driver, one of the Americans, a new face, got out with me. Since he had a stethoscope, I assumed he was a doctor. He brushed a line of soldiers aside, pushed up the girl’s skirt, proceeded to examine her and spoke to the soldiers in Japanese. Apparently he convinced them the girl had a venereal disease. That was Harry. I don’t know where he got the stethoscope, I think he stole it. From then on, Harry was my driver.”

Harry studied the ceiling’s Gothic gloom, the crosspieces of concrete and lava rock. All they lacked were bats.

Willie went on, “Sometimes Harry and I would patrol in the car and load it with girls. Harry altered documents from the Japanese command so they seemed to give him the authority to prevent the spread of infection among the troops, which meant removing the women from their rapists. For added authority, he wore one of my armbands to pretend he was German, too.

“It wasn’t only women. We had a truck. Harry and I would load it with men taken from hiding and put on a top layer of the dead bodies in case we were stopped, which we often were. Harry would produce papers ordering us to remove bodies around the zone to prevent cholera or typhoid. He was excellent at creating official papers. The killing went on for weeks. When new Japanese recruits arrived, they were drilled in the use of the bayonet with live Chinese, to accustom them to blood. One officer, a Lieutenant Ishigami, became a kind of legend for beheading a hundred Chinese.”

“End of the story,” Harry said. “Willie, you’ve said enough.”

“Except that Ishigami came to the Happy Paris last night after you left.”

“Enough.”

Willie slid back in his chair. “Very well. Anyway, that’s part of what happened in Nanking and why I am perhaps not such a fool to think that Harry, the Harry Niles I knew in China, might possibly help us here.”

The table was quiet. Finally DeGeorge said, “Harry with a swastika on his arm? I can picture that.”

“No. Harry was heroic.”

“Maybe. You don’t speak any Japanese, you don’t really know what actually transpired, you know only what Harry told you. But Harry in a Nazi armband, that I can believe.”

“I’ll call some people about Iris,” Harry said.

“I would be forever grateful.” Willie jumped up to shake Harry’s hand. “At the War Ministry? Someone from the military police would be best. High up?”

“Well, people with influence.”

“Thank you,” Iris said. “You are just as Willie described.”

“Willie has a hell of an imagination.” Harry stood to leave. “Nice to meet you. Only, no more fairy tales.”

“You can’t stay?” Willie said.

“I’m off, too, to Matsuya’s for the necessities, soap, Scotch, cigarettes,” Alice said.

“Lady Beechum thinks there may be a war in a day or two,” said DeGeorge.

Harry said, “Your husband says, ‘The little yellow Johnnies don’t have the nerve.’”

“There you are.” She lifted a smile to Harry. “It’s men like Arnold who have put the British Empire where it is today.”

AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT Hajime was at Tokyo Station. Gone was last night’s maudlin drunk and in his place was a sober Hajime in khaki, field cap and cape. The railroad platform was crowded with recruits, parents, friends, little brothers waving flags, sisters delivering thousand-stitch belts with all their protective powers. Some men were shipping out for the second time, but most were boys clumsy in their helmets and field packs with bedrolls and entrenching tools. Banners hung vertically from lamp poles announced, ONE HUNDRED MILLION ADVANCING LIKE A WALL OF FLAME!, the sort of wish some travelers could do without, Harry thought. A brass band produced a rendition of “My Old Kentucky Home” that shook dust from the station’s spidery skylights.

Hajime regarded the confusion with a veteran’s detachment. “Thanks for coming, Harry,” he said. “All you need is one friend to see you off, right?”

“I guess so.” Harry probably would not have come at all if it hadn’t been for Hajime’s gun. Harry gave it to him still boxed and wrapped as if handing over a farewell gift. Since its loss was punishable by death, Harry expected a little gratitude. Instead, Hajime demanded a smoke. Harry gave him a pack, and Hajime lit up with ostentatious ease.

“Thanks. Remember the days when we used to run around Asakusa? We ruled the roost, Harry. You and me and Gen, we ruled the roost.”

Hajime had done well by the army, however. Here he was in a crisply ironed uniform with a sergeant major’s tabs, a waxed and bristling mustache and thick spectacles that magnified his self-importance, no sign of the falling down drunk who had pissed on the street outside the Happy Paris the night before. He was still loathsome, but he had no family or friends, and Harry supposed that, after all, someone ought to see the son of a bitch off. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone on the platform that Harry wasn’t Japanese. In this crowd, with its blur of emotion, he seemed to blend in well enough.

“These kids think they’ve been through boot camp,” Hajime said. “Wait until I get my hands on them. Do you know why a soldier will charge a machine gun across an open field?”

“Why?”

“Because he’s more afraid of me.”

Which was true enough. Harry had heard plenty of stories about recruits considered too short or tall or slow or quick who had been beaten until their noses were split, teeth lost, eardrums burst. Supposedly it was a psychological approach, to create a rage that could be turned on the enemy. Rage and fear plus devotion to the emperor. Harry was always amazed how the army could take so many young scholars, gentle poets, honest farm boys and fishermen’s sons and turn them into killers. It took the hard work of men like Hajime.

“Well, I can see why you’re so eager to get back to China. Ever afraid of a bullet from your own men?”

“I never turn my back on them.”

The train was late. The crowd shifted to fill the platform without falling onto the tracks. Fathers sucked in their chins with pride while women seemed more ambivalent about sending off sons who looked young enough to be trading baseball cards. A man in a bowler asked Harry, “Would you be so kind?” and handed him a camera, a little spring-bellows Pearlette. Harry took a picture of the man with a young recruit who had a bright red face from ceremonial farewell cups of sake and a thousand-stitch belt tied like a scarf around his neck, a son who was obviously the measure of his father’s love.

“Remember ‘Forty-seven Ronin’?” Hajime said. “Remember how we let you in even though you weren’t Japanese?”

“I think you needed someone to chase.”

“We had a great gang. Then you and Gen started hanging around the theater and dumped the rest of us.”

“We grew up.”

“What was the name of that dancer you were so crazy about? Oharu? That was terrible about her.”

“What’s the point, Hajime?”

“The point is, I know how much you wanted to be Japanese, and now you see you’re not.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This. This army is only for real Japanese, that is why it is unstoppable. This is a pure army. No pretend Japanese here. You think you know everything, you always thought you were so clever. Soon enough there won’t be a white man left in Asia, and that includes you.”

Hajime’s voice rose with the approach of a locomotive drawing a train decked in red and white bunting. Flags flew on the engine’s steam domes and boiler front. Recruits who had already been gathered from other stations leaned out coach windows to shout over the explosion of air brakes, squeal of rails and renewed fervor of the band, which welcomed them with a popular song.

Bullets, tanks and bayonets

Bivouac with grass for a pillow.

My father, appearing in a dream,

Encourages me to die and come home.

“Hold this.” Hajime handed back the gun while he cleaned the lenses of his glasses. There was a rush to board because the train was running late. This was a city where people were physically packed into subways and onto buses. Harry let families shoulder by to the steps for leave-taking, mothers and fathers bowing to their soldier-sons with much trembling but no crying. Hajime set the glasses on his face and took a step backward up to the railroad car.

“Don’t forget this.” Harry stretched out an arm with the package.

“From me to you,” Hajime said. A smirk crept across his face as if this was a moment he had waited years for, a payback for ancient debts. The locomotive let off a snort of steam, aching to roll; Japanese engines were thoroughbreds, black and slim. At once, the press of bodies, enthusiasm and noise carried Hajime all the way up the steps of a coach that was rocking from the motion of soldiers finding seats.

“It’s yours,” Harry shouted.

The tide of embarkation, boys aching to leave good-byes behind, pushed Hajime into the car. “Too late,” he said, or something like that, his words overwhelmed by the noise of the band. The press grew greater, and the next time Harry saw Hajime was at an open window where families passed up last-second remembrances and boxes of food. Hajime pulled aside his cape to open his holster flap and show Harry another pistol, a full-size Nambu, already nestled there.

“Good luck, Harry,” Hajime mouthed through the window.

The train shuddered and began to slide along the platform. Harry tried to push forward to Hajime, but the wall of bodies and banners and flags was too dense to breach. The fervent waving of hands prevented Harry from even following Hajime’s coach by sight. The boys were going, hurtling toward destiny with lives that weighed less than a feather, with the bulletproof prayers of their loved ones, to open a whole new dawn for Asia. With such purity of spirit, how could they fail?