Fishing for Stars (22 page)

As I watched, the rear window of the taxi was wound down and the kid shouted,
‘Kusatta gaijin!’
It was the second time in forty-eight hours I had been called a stinking foreigner. I laughed as I returned to the hotel entrance. The kid had been flexing his muscles, assuming authority that in this instance it turned out he didn’t have.

I handed the doorman a tip which he accepted without looking down. ‘Sir, you must be careful, the
yakuza,
they are not like us.’ Then, glancing at his hand and seeing the generous gratuity, he jerked his head in acknowledgement. ‘Even the young ones, they are dangerous,’ he warned.

‘Ah, just a cheeky kid,’ I replied.

My knowledge of the
yakuza
, like so much else about Japan, was from my father, which was why I had known the term to use for the youngster. I knew I was fortunate that he hadn’t been a senior member, though I had been so preoccupied by and frustrated with Anna that had he been an
oyabun
I would probably have done the same thing.

The
yakuza
, like the mafia, are formed into families, the
oyabun
[godfather] taking in or adopting youngsters, usually from poor and disadvantaged families, who begin as
kobun
, advance through
wakagashira
to
oyabun
if they are able and lucky
.

The
yakuza
pride themselves on being followers of
bushido
, the Samurai code of honour that involves the concepts of
giri,
honour, and
ninjo−
, compassion, though both characteristics appeared to be seldom present in
yakuza
in the seventies
.
Nonetheless, despite being little more than organised thugs for hire, in the eyes of Japanese society they still retained something of the aura of Robin Hood.

Like so much in Japanese society that is inexplicable to Western minds, the
yakuza
played a very real, public and even recognised role in society. For instance, they acted as
so−kaiya
to banks and organisations
.
This involved terrorising shareholder meetings where their presence encouraged shareholders to agree with the decisions of the board. They were often used by these same organisations to frighten small landholders into selling their property for large-scale developments. They also had and still have all the usual criminal involvements with standover and protection rackets, transport, gambling and labour unions, and they owned or controlled many of the thousands of
pachinko
and pinball parlours and hostess bars, as well as running most of the brothels and street prostitutes.

There was very little that was covert about the
yakuza
in the seventies, when they were at the height of their power. They maintained close and open ties with senior political entities, as well as the corporate giants, and were an integral part of the post-war power structure. Some went as far as maintaining offices with signs advertising their services to the public as openly as any legitimate organisation.

The personal appearance of individual
yakuza
was striking, too. Most were heavily tattooed with elaborate designs and mystical symbols, usually covering one shoulder and upper arm but sometimes the entire body. They wore only black suits and white shirts, cropped their hair short, wore dark sunglasses and walked with a calculated swagger and pronounced gait, arms slightly bent at the elbows, like a boxer patrolling the ring prior to a fight. Their peculiar code of honour required them to sever a finger at the joint each time they made a mistake that might lead to repercussions or harm their organisation. It was not unusual to see older
yakuza
with several fingers missing joints.

It was almost ten in the evening when I returned to our rooms. I turned on the television, preparing for a long and anxious wait for Anna. The program was about the crew of Apollo 13, who had miraculously managed to bring their craft back into the earth’s orbit and were about to plummet into the Pacific in their capsule. Despite my concern for Anna I watched fascinated as the greatest rescue in space history reached its climax, the three red and white striped parachutes seeming to allow them a soft landing at sea. Hooray! Elated by the rescue I told myself how much more difficult their mission had been than Anna’s. But the euphoria didn’t last long. The Apollo crew hadn’t had to deal with drug pushers and criminals, and in my mind I saw Anna being raped, robbed and left for dead in some dirty needle-strewn alley. It was going to be a long night.

I had arranged a morning meeting with
Fuchida-san
, the collector with whom I had been corresponding about butterflies for twenty-five years. He was to pick me up at the hotel at 11 a.m. to go to his home to view his butterfly collection but I told myself I ought to try to cancel the meeting. It was too late to call and I decided I’d have to ring first thing in the morning if Anna hadn’t returned and I was forced to go looking for her. Though how I would go about doing so I had no idea.

The fact that Anna was out there somewhere alone in Tokyo trying to make a connection with a heroin dealer while I cooled my heels in our hotel was getting to me and I wasn’t all that far from panicking. I’d never thought of myself as the nervous type. I’d been through one or two hairy experiences in my life and had managed to stay more or less calm. But the difference then was that I was proactive; this time I was twiddling my thumbs, unable to do anything except wait.

An hour later, when the crew of Apollo 13 was clearly safe and the world had breathed a collective sigh of relief, the program changed to a review of the upcoming Cherry Blossom Festival. We’d booked a bus trip to an outlying village to witness a ceremony at a Shinto shrine in two days’ time, but in my mind I now saw myself visiting Tokyo’s mortuaries instead, asking if they held the body of an unidentified woman.

It was ridiculous, I know, but I couldn’t help it. I kept reminding myself that this was the first time her habit had ever interfered in our life, that she must know what she was doing, must even have done this before when she’d been in a foreign country. But all the self-chatter didn’t make the waiting any easier.

I cursed her addiction a dozen times over, told myself I must try to do something to help her overcome her dependence on heroin. I felt guilty that I had long since come to the convenient as well as erroneous conclusion that it was pointless trying to help her kick the habit, accepting as gospel an adage on heroin from the famous American jazz saxophonist Charlie (Bird) Parker: ‘You can get it out of your body, but you can’t get it out of your brain.’

I had accepted that heroin was a part of Anna’s life. She obviously had a regular supplier in Melbourne and finding the money to finance her addiction wasn’t ever going to be a problem, but she kept these details intensely private. Anna had always realised that her addiction would have enormous consequences in her business life if it were discovered. She was in this matter, as in all others, completely organised, and it wasn’t for me to interfere.

Her years as a madam and dominatrix in a house of bondage were equally private; it was a clandestine world I never entered. We discussed it rarely, and then only if a client mentioned a business opportunity that might concern me. I was simply locked out of her world of drugs and bondage, which in many ways made her a stranger to the person who loved her the most.

Even Anna’s almost annual visits to some famous American or Swiss drug rehabilitation clinic were always referred to by both of us as business trips. It was cautionary shorthand in case the true purpose inadvertently slipped out and was discovered by the media, who, as the feminist movement gathered momentum, were becoming more and more interested in the beautiful, though unapproachable, lone-wolf entrepreneur said to be amassing a private fortune. I also formed the impression over the years that Anna’s client base consisted solely of the rich and powerful, the kind of people who were as fanatical as she was about avoiding publicity and who could quickly put a stop to an overzealous reporter.

But now, away from home, I told myself all the discretion and careful attention to detail meant nothing. This wasn’t a Western country where the pusher and the user were familiar with street procurement procedures. Anna, like any other addict, was out there in the middle of the night in a city she didn’t know in a country that seemed to do everything differently. Earlier in the evening I had thrown a
yakuza
lad to the pavement and right now she might be begging another such low-life for a deal in some dark alley smelling of piss and excrement. Or so I imagined.

I had no idea whether she was telling the truth about the house of bondage in Roppongi or if this had simply been a lie to reassure me that she understood the world she was entering. Anna never lied to me; if she didn’t want to answer a question she simply ignored it. But now, facing the pain of withdrawal, she was probably as capable of barefaced lying as any other heroin addict needing a fix.

As the night wore on I grew more and more apprehensive. Earlier I’d attempted to calm myself with a logical analysis of the situation. Anna, I told myself, wouldn’t leave such an important aspect of her daily life to chance. She
must
have faced this predicament before on her various overseas trips. But now, in the early hours of the morning, when my emotions had taken over and I kept telling myself that this was Japan where nothing is ever as it appears to be, these assurances carried little or no weight.

At 4 a.m. Anna arrived back bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. After promising myself not to say a word I immediately began to shout, more from relief than anger. ‘Where the fuck have you been?’ I yelled, throwing up my hands and pacing around her.

‘Nicholas,
shush!
’ she said, calm as you like. ‘I went to Topaz. It is the oldest and most respected BDSM house in Tokyo. You could not come;
gaijin
are not normally admitted. Now remove your pants at once and allow me to apologise.’ She grinned wickedly. ‘You may spank me if you wish.’

‘You’ve got Buckley’s,’ I answered, attempting to calm down. ‘I’m completely buggered and
bloody
angry.’

‘You can sleep in tomorrow, when you can also apologise for shouting at me,’ she replied mischievously. ‘Now, Nicholas, kindly unzip, unbuckle and unwind!’

Of course I was wrong. Maybe intense anxiety heightens one’s sex drive, because Anna was extremely successful at channelling my anger elsewhere. Afterwards I fell asleep almost immediately and woke a few minutes before 10 a.m. the next day with Anna asleep beside me looking positively angelic. She’d obviously chased the dragon and finally caught it, rewarding herself with a long and blissful slumber (maidens who associate with dragons never sleep, they only slumber).

My appointment with my butterfly-collecting Japanese swap mate, Iko Fuchida, was at eleven. I decided to have a Japanese bath. This is a process in two stages and in our suite there were two small bathrooms adjoining each other. In the first stage I thoroughly soaped and rinsed myself using a handheld shower, although water can also be scooped from the bath with a dipper. The second stage involved a deep bathtub filled with steaming water, where I immersed myself, relaxing, ridding myself of the effects of my all-night vigil, an altogether reinvigorating experience. My only problem was the size of the towel. I’m not a small bloke and the towel was no bigger than what we would refer to as a hand towel. The idea is to put on a
yukata
while the skin is still damp to further relax and unwind.

But there wasn’t time to do this so, still damp in parts, I dressed in grey flannels, sports jacket, shirt and tie, my shoes polished to a military brilliance. It was about as formal as I ever got, with the exception of funerals, where I wore a blue serge suit the government had issued when I’d left the navy to resume life as a civilian, the buttons, alas, no longer partnering the buttonholes. My fellow collector I was almost certain would be wearing the ubiquitous blue serge suit, the national uniform for all Japanese office workers from messenger boy to chief executive.

I was ready and waiting, seated in the foyer with ten minutes to spare, the rosewood and glass tray of rare Pacific butterflies I had brought as a gift perched on my lap. I’d had it wrapped at Mitsukoshi when I’d previously shopped with Anna, and the shop girls had gathered around
ooh-ing
and
aah-ing
and exclaiming at the beauty of the specimens. The elderly lady wrapping it took positively ages, but I must say when she’d completed the task it looked rather swish. She’d wrapped it in handmade paper of milk chocolate brown flecked with genuine gold leaf, every fold precise, the whole a brilliant example of the ancient Japanese art of making and folding paper.

In fact, I became a little concerned that the wrapping might be a bit ostentatious, and that I might look like a show-off, that it might embarrass my fellow collector if he should prove to be a man of modest means. I’d made the original phone call mid-afternoon, and the person on the other end had said she’d have to contact my friend and could I leave my name and number, that he would return my call in three hours. I’d thought then that he might live in a lodging house or some such place and get the message when he returned from work.