Fishing for Stars (19 page)

‘See you at breakfast, Nick.’ She turned and left, then halted at the verandah screen door. Holding it open she turned again to face me. ‘When I might even show you the photograph. Goodnight, Nick, darling.’

‘Ask the stupid
gaijin
who insults us by bringing his whore and robbing us of a night out eating and drinking what type of vessel he wants to buy.’

Fukuoka-san
,
Mitsubishi executive

A CHILD DOES NOT
judge the people surrounding him unless they affect him personally. I had spent the first seven years of my life in Japan, but I had forgotten the experience of day-to-day living, and besides, a great deal had changed since I had left with my father to travel to New Britain in 1935.

Paradoxically, although Anna and I spoke the Japanese language with commendable fluency, we knew very little about the people. My knowledge was almost entirely based on my father’s reminiscences and his academic interest in Japanese culture. Putting it crudely, as an adult the closest I had come to the Japanese in any numbers was when they’d charged me in battle with fixed bayonets and, in turn, I had mowed them down with an Owen submachine-gun.

Anna’s exposure to Japanese culture was, to say the least, problematic. Her mentor, Konoe Akira, had instructed her only in the things that interested him. These were mostly to do with how she deported herself, the niceties of language, her manners and appearance and the appreciation of art. The remainder of her experience had been deeply traumatic.

Ours was therefore a mishmash of theory, practice and trauma and we may well have been better off starting from scratch with no knowledge whatsoever. Very little of what we thought we knew manifested itself in the Japan in which we landed in the northern spring on the 13th of April 1970, the same day that Apollo 13, on its way to the moon, developed a problem that seemed certain to result in the lonely death of its crew in space. The entire world was glued to their televisions as the crew prepared for the end. It seemed an inauspicious omen, for in a small way, Anna and I had launched ourselves into an alien environment where we too could very well come unstuck.

At Anna’s insistence we’d ordered a limousine to take us from Haneda Airport to the new Imperial Hotel, one of the grandest hostelries in Tokyo and yet another Anna request. ‘Nicholas, for the sake of my self-confidence I must arrive in style. I will observe the courtesies they expect, I will not seem brash or demanding, but I will not bow to any man as a subservient being.’

This was Anna-speak for a fearful inner disquiet. Outwardly there was almost no sign of the frightened little creature who still lingered within, the teenager who had faced the Japanese invaders alone and somehow survived but had never fully recovered from the experience and was again going to face her demons. Japan was to be a test for her, and my hope, of course, was that the ghosts that still haunted her from the past would finally be laid to rest.

The Anna arriving in Japan seemed to exude natural confidence and poise. At forty-four she looked ten years younger and remained an astonishingly beautiful woman who, upon entering a noisy boardroom, would often bring it to sudden silence. Everything about her was understated, yet redolent of class. Her dress, jewellery, make-up and deportment all accentuated her natural beauty. She had perfected Konoe Akira’s concept of less is more, that one exquisite detail is more powerful than flashy ostentatious show. While she made no demands to be noticed, she simply couldn’t be ignored.

However, I sensed that, while she had agreed with alacrity to accompany me, she felt deeply apprehensive about visiting Japan; it had been a decision requiring a great deal of courage. By insisting on all the trappings of wealth, she was, in effect, maintaining her distance. She had learned that an elegant and beautiful woman stepping from the rear seat of a Mercedes-Benz is not as accessible as one, equally elegant and gorgeous, stepping from a taxi, train or bus.

We had entered a country where women had no presence or power. Japan had practised the diminution of the female for centuries and few heroic female figures had ever featured in its history. Despite the changing times, there had been little improvement in the status of the female sex, except perhaps in their appearance, where the deliberate constraints of the kimono had often been replaced by Western dress, including the miniskirt and platform-soled shoes, popular with bar girls and secretaries.

Later I came to realise that by maintaining a quiet aloofness Anna was signalling that she was not subservient to businessmen. She even grew to enjoy the attempts of the Japanese businessmen to hide the acute discomfort and even anger they felt when she trapped them with a question on finance or framed an answer indicating an astute insight that clearly surprised them.

At first sight the Tokyo we entered seemed to be a Western paradigm, but we were to discover that this was not the case, despite the contemporary architecture. Tokyo remained unmistakably a Japanese city. Nestled seemingly in the cracks and crevices of the myriad high-rise towers would be a Shinto temple, a restaurant, home, traditional market or even a lamppost that was uniquely Japanese. These were the familiar touchstones of the city, its creature comforts and quiet assurances, lacking in Western cities, where the people appeared undaunted by the bland anonymity of the structures surrounding them. Tokyo was not only quintessentially Japanese, more than anything it was a city of and for people.

We’d arrived after sunset and the Ginza district seemed to be pumping out sound and light. Facing one side of the Imperial Hotel was the world’s most dazzling light show, an explosion of neon colours that twinkled, spat, arched, zigzagged, spiralled, leapt and blinked, the colours singeing the edges of the towering buildings and tinting the clouds. The roar of the Ginza traffic, added to the visual shock, made me think that all colour and all sound coalesced in one place. Yet, somehow the major feature of the place remained the people. Looking down from our hotel window onto their dark heads, I thought they resembled an army of ants, teeming over the lighted pavement until it appeared to be an endlessly moving platform.

We were to learn that in Japan nothing is what it seems to be. Even though we understood many of the subtle nuances of language, we simply never knew quite where we stood, and even the most formal conversations seemed to contain dark shadows we couldn’t penetrate.

It might have been simpler if Anna hadn’t accompanied me to Mitsubishi, but we’d decided to do everything together for the added experience it would bring us, and although I said nothing, I felt it might prove that we were quintessentially a couple and diminish the ever-present spectre of Konoe Akira.

We’d also agreed to speak English until such time as we both believed the people we were talking to could be trusted not to be duplicitous, which, I suppose, indicates duplicity on our part. We were instinctively arming ourselves in anticipation of the two deadly conversational
m’s
: mistrust and misunderstanding.

By the standards of the giant shipbuilder, my purchase was small beer. They didn’t as a rule sell second-hand ships, but they possessed a small fleet of inter-island freighters they’d accepted as part of a deal to build four larger ships for a client in the Philippines. Anna had been informed of the existence of these freighters by a Japanese client who had been transferred from the Mitsubishi shipbuilding division to Sydney to drum up business in Australia and who had visited her on his frequent business trips to Melbourne. He had given us a letter of introduction to his head office, sending a copy on to them. It was normal procedure to deal with a broker who was usually retained by the larger shipbuilders to act on their behalf, but we hoped to use the introduction to avoid the middleman’s percentage and so secure a better deal with the shipbuilding giant. I was hoping to obtain one or even two freighters at a bargain price.

It was the first time that I had stood to benefit from business conducted privately in a house of bondage, a world Anna never spoke about in detail and one I had never entered even to meet her. I must admit I initially felt a little uncomfortable briefing Anna on our requirements when she’d mentioned a client who seemed anxious to help. As the son of an Anglican missionary I was clearly still something of a prude, but somehow that letter of introduction felt dodgy, or even illegitimate. I could hardly say we had conducted our island business with the utmost propriety when it had begun with the money Kevin had made skimming his illicit commissions off the top of navy supply contracts. Still it felt strange and so I had spoken to both Kevin and Joe Popkin about the matter.

Kevin didn’t blink an eye. ‘Nick, whatcha saying? Der sumthin’ wrong? You crazy! Business don’t need no office, don’t matter if it happen in da shithouse or da White House. Be grateful, grab it wid both fuckin’ hands. Then thank God or da devil for tappin’ you on da shoulder. Opportunity it like free pussy – you ain’t gonna ask too many questions when it come yer way.’

Joe as usual thought for a while. ‘Nick, my man, it ain’t no problem of ours dat dis Japanese he like himself tied wid a rope so he all truss up and den he want to have himself some sweet conversation wid Miss Anna. We don’t pay him no bribe and all he wanna do is show his appre-ci-ation, be helpful. Ain’t no crime I can see in dat. You all go to the club, get pissed wid somebody, make a deal, and everthin’ gonna be all right, only contrak you got is a bottle Scotch whisky you done drink together.’ He spread his hands. ‘So what da difference?’

In the foyer of the executive building at the Mitsubishi shipyard we were met by a young bloke wearing a merchant navy uniform with the Mitsubishi logo on his cap holding up a sign with our names printed on it in English. After making ourselves known, we were escorted to a small boardroom where we were met by two executives and a translator. ‘You are most welcome to Mitsubishi, sir,’ the translator said, bowing.

‘Thank you. My name is Nick Duncan and may I present Miss Anna Til,’ I said, indicating Anna.

The translator looked unsmilingly at Anna, then turned and removed one of the chairs from the small boardroom table and placed it against the wall. Standing at rigid attention he gave a sharp nod of the head. ‘Please . . . you sit here,’ he instructed.

I immediately realised that he thought Anna was my secretary, but explaining to him that she was my business partner would cause him to lose face. So I stepped forward and took a second chair and placed it beside the one intended for Anna. ‘Thank you,’ Anna said politely to the translator, and then, smiling at the two young executives, sat down. I joined her in the vacant chair making it appear that we thought this was correct Japanese business procedure. Whereupon the yet to be introduced executives, both of whom now wore decidedly bemused expressions, each removed a chair from the table and placed it beside me and sat down. Moments later the translator followed suit.

The five of us were now seated in a line against the wall with the unoccupied boardroom table some two metres away. It wasn’t a propitious beginning.

‘You have not introduced us, you fool,’ one of the executives said to the translator in Japanese.

Whereupon the seated translator, looking thoroughly confused, jumped to his feet. ‘This Mr
Nakamura-san
,’ he said, indicating the Japanese executive seated beside me. With a stiff nod of the head he then turned and repeated the gesture. ‘This Mr
Fukuoka-san
.’

Both men jumped to their feet and snapped their heads forward in a simulated bow and grunted, ‘
Hai!
’

‘Also I . . . Mr Bando,’ the translator said, bowing a little more formally. All three had studiously avoided eye contact with Anna or any other form of recognition for that matter. Now they returned to their seats against the wall.

‘Ask the stupid
gaijin
who insults us by bringing his whore and robbing us of a night out eating and drinking what type of vessel he wants to buy,’
Fukuoka-san
instructed Mr Bando.

‘Whatever it is, sir, we should make him pay dearly for our disappointment,’
Bando-san
said, meanwhile leaning forward and smiling at me.

‘
Duncan-san
, Mitsubishi have many ship, what kind you want? Mr Fukuoka he ask you.’

‘A small freighter suitable for inter-island work, about fifty metres long, in good condition, no more than fifteen years old. It is all in my letter of introduction,’ I answered.

The translator passed this on and the two Japanese conferred. Then one of them,
Nakamura-san
, stood up and went to the boardroom table and retrieved a manila folder and handed it to the second executive, obviously his senior.
Fukuoka-san
opened the folder and after riffling through several pieces of paper and what appeared to be a contract, the government purchase permit we’d obtained, survey certificates and a brochure, he finally extracted our letter, written by Anna’s client in Japanese. He looked at the document carefully to give the appearance of seeing it for the first time and when finally he’d completed reading it he placed it back in the folder and handed it to
Bando-san
who returned it to the table and then sat down again. Ignoring our presence
Fukuoka-san
spoke directly to
Bando-san
.

‘As you know the letter says they want a freighter, or if the price is right they may take another. Of the twenty-eight such inter-islanders we have laid up, eight of them are rust buckets equipped with short-range fuel tanks. Let’s make the
gaijin
settle for one of these. We’ll tell him we can’t keep up with the demand and have only two vessels for sale at present. If he’s prepared to offer us a good price he may take them off our hands. By the way, you’ll have to cancel the restaurant tonight. We can’t have him bringing the Chinese whore. Pity, there is a bar girl just around the corner who promised me a nice surprise – only ten thousand yen for fifteen minutes of her valuable time . . . You’d think they were queuing up outside for her favours!’ He smiled and then collected himself.