Fishing for Stars (57 page)

‘If my life depended on it, yes, I suppose,’ I said, knowing that no amount of logic was going to make any difference, and that I’d needlessly upset Anna.

‘Nicholas, I wouldn’t jump in the river,’ Anna said firmly, recovering her poise, and I knew that she meant it. She had convinced herself beyond any logic that the chance of drowning was too great, that dying as she was, intact and yet damaged, would be preferable.

‘Oh, I see,’ I said ruefully.

‘It has nothing to do with money or success,’ she said.

‘What then?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he will tell me.’

‘He? Konoe Akira?’ Anna didn’t reply and in a sudden fit of pique I said, ‘Go on, say his name. Say it out loud! Shout it! Shout out, scream, KONOE AKIRA!’

‘No.’

What was the use? Like her heroin addiction, she’d long since given up seeking psychiatric help, so we had hoped, perhaps forlornly, that coming to Japan and confronting her nemesis might be the solution. But it hadn’t worked. Sexually, nothing had changed, although I sensed that something was different. What was it that had changed? I felt I needed to know before we left Japan. I knew I loved Anna and I didn’t want to lose her. Now I tried to put all the pieces together, if only to explain things to myself.

Anna had offered no explanation, and yet, despite her kidnapping and the obvious trauma she’d suffered, she seemed curiously happy, even contented. Can one seriously suffer a major trauma and at the same time find contentment? Wasn’t this a contradiction in terms? Yet it seemed to be the pattern for Anna’s whole life. Trauma = Success = Contentment. I asked myself, was this possible? It was pointless trying to analyse her, or use logic to solve the riddle, which in effect meant that further discussion between us was a waste of time.

Konoe Akira had cruelly kidnapped Anna. She’d brilliantly avenged herself. More than this, she’d shown him how easily she could have been his nemesis if she’d wished. She’d effectively turned the tables, and now it was she who possessed power over him. Why then wasn’t she on the way to being cured? If it wasn’t about money or success, then what the hell was happening? She’d become involved with him again in quite a different way, and now they were partners in a new adventure.

That was it! I’d cracked it! What’s more, she’d tied me into it as if we were an essential threesome, Joe and Kevin included simply because they were inextricably connected to me. And why? There could only be one reason. My inclusion made this new adventure with Konoe Akira both permissible and respectable in Anna’s mind. She could maintain her psychological status quo; the threesome she depended on for her life hadn’t been destroyed but had simply been reconfigured. Anna needed Konoe Akira’s presence in her life as much as she needed mine. I decided to put this theory to her, expecting a denial, if only because I suspected it was a subconscious need which she could not have articulated or even acknowledged. Therefore I suggested we have our final night in Japan alone, so we could talk.

I had booked a secluded table at
La Brasserie
, the newly opened French restaurant on the mezzanine floor of the hotel, and now I was waiting in the living room to go to dinner. Anna emerged from the bedroom dressed in a magnificent formal kimono with her hair done in the correct manner, and while she hadn’t attempted to look like a geisha by whitening her face, she wore kohl to darken the area around her always astonishingly beautiful eyes and bright scarlet lipstick. On her feet were formal
tabi
and wooden toe-sandals.

‘You look beautiful, very beautiful,’ I said, delighted, beautiful being an understatement in this case. Anna seemed to have the knack of taking on the character of the clothes she wore – a pretty evening dress and all you could think to do was laugh and dance, feeling uninhibitedly joyous in her presence; a business suit and you wanted to sit down and listen respectfully; shorts and a T-shirt and you could smell the ocean and feel the slap of the waves. Now she looked serenely poised and perfectly Japanese.

‘I thought just for tonight, our last in Japan, it would be appropriate, don’t you think?’

‘Brilliant!’ I replied, almost lost for words. It was just like Anna. The formal kimono would have cost her thousands but she’d wanted to surprise me, and while most people might think it an atrocious waste of money for an occasion of no significance, I was overjoyed that she had dressed to please me. Had she worn this kimono to Konoe Akira’s lunch, he would have been deeply gratified at the compliment, but she hadn’t attempted to please him; it had been a formal business lunch and she’d dressed in a beautifully tailored business suit, entirely appropriate and signifying nothing personal.

We emerged from the hotel lift into the lobby and proceeded up the grand stairs leading to the mezzanine floor. It was packed with guests arriving for a wedding reception in the major conference room next door to the restaurant. There was a palpable gasp when the women, and I guess the men also, saw Anna, then there was a discernable hush as every eye followed our progress up the stairs and into the restaurant.

There have been few moments in my life when I know I have witnessed perfection, of time, place and appearance, but this was one such moment. Here was an object of desire, of such stunning beauty that a hundred and fifty people were likely to carry an image in their minds forever of that rarest of all types of beauty in a mature woman, one that transcends race, colour or conventional perceptions. I couldn’t help but wonder what they might have thought had they known the circumstances of Anna’s life.

We ordered a good bottle of her favourite champagne and I broached the subject slowly. ‘Anna, this is not only our last night in Japan but probably the last time I shall ever bring up the subject of your vaginismus. While you may wish to do so and I will always be happy to listen, after this I will never mention it again.’

‘Oh, Nicholas, must it be tonight, on our last evening in Japan?’ she asked, her expression alarmed.

‘Darling, I’ve always loved you, but in the time we’ve been here I’ve learned to love you even more than I ever thought possible. I want to put this thing between us to rest forever.’

‘I’m so glad!’ she exclaimed. ‘I couldn’t bear it if you didn’t love me, Nicholas. You do know, from the very beginning, from the age of sixteen, I’ve never wanted another man – the butterfly collector is the only one.’

‘In a roundabout way, that’s what I want to talk about. I have given our problem a great deal of thought.’

Anna reached out and took my hand. ‘No, Nicholas, it is my problem, it is only our problem because you have suffered as a result of it.’

‘Nevertheless, after coming here and meeting Konoe Akira, I now know that things are not going to change, that there will never be an instant cure, an epiphany, and I think I know why it may never be cured.’

‘Nicholas, I want more than anything —’

‘No, stop there, Anna. Let me speak. You don’t need to explain. When I’m finished you may comment, although I expect you won’t agree with me.’

‘I will try, darling.’

I laughed. ‘Shush! It will be quite understandable if you don’t. Besides, you never try to agree with me; you either do or you don’t, you never prevaricate. So, just hear me out, darling.’

I topped up her champagne and then, hesitating an instant, said, ‘Anna, I’ve been thinking about myself and Konoe Akira. How both of us have been present in your life since you were sixteen.’

‘Well yes, I suppose that’s true,’ Anna replied. ‘I’ve never thought about it in that way.’

‘But I think you have, if only subconsciously.’

‘And what might you mean by that?’ Anna said in a slightly defensive voice.

‘Well, to fully complement your personality you need us both, that is, the influences both of us exert or have in the past exerted on you, to make you what you have become.’

‘What are you trying to say, that I don’t have a mind of my own?’

‘Good lord, no! You’re about the most original person I’ve ever known, darling.’ I grinned. ‘For the most part I don’t even pretend to understand what’s going on in your mind. But one of us is about loving you and the other is about discipline and success, one is emotion and the other is intellect. You crave both and you’re terrified that if you obey the instinct to love completely you will lose the ability to think in an original and disciplined way. Moreover, if you choose not to have love in your life then that will be equally disastrous. We are creatures of both emotion and intellect; take either away and we’re totally unbalanced. Perhaps refraining from physical love, yet loving in every other way, is the compromise that allows you to balance both of us in your life. You need Konoe Akira’s psychological presence as much as you need my actual presence. We are both a necessary part of your life, and rather than resolve your problem with Konoe Akira, you have, in the last two weeks, gone to extraordinary lengths to keep the trinity intact. Konoe Akira and I are the two parts that make a whole in your life and you have no intention of losing either.’

Nearly ten minutes had passed and Anna hadn’t touched her champagne; now she was weeping quietly. I reached for her hand and kissed it. ‘Darling, I will always love you, and whether you agree or disagree with what I’ve said, it’s not going to make me feel any differently about you.’

‘Oh, Nicholas, I don’t know if what you think is right. I just don’t know!’ she sobbed. ‘Perhaps you are right.’ She dabbed her tears with her table napkin then, looking at me directly, said, ‘There is something I haven’t told you about Konoe Akira.’

‘Oh?’

‘About meeting him again, you know, confronting him, hoping it might solve the problem. Nicholas, your conclusion is right, at least the first part. I had every reason to hate him – my kidnapping, my revenge . . . When I knew and he knew that I held his life in my hands, just as he had done mine in Java, in Tjilatjap, all the ingredients were there to resolve the psychological hold he’d had on me all this time. As you put it, I’d turned the tables. It should have worked, but it didn’t.’

‘You mean he still holds the same power over you?’ I asked, deeply shocked.

‘Oh, God no! That’s the whole point. That part worked perfectly! I’m not in the least in his thrall or power.’

‘What then?’

‘The vaginismus, it’s not of his making. He’s not the cause.’

‘Oh, bullshit!’ I burst out. ‘Every psychiatrist you’ve ever seen has strongly suggested . . .’

‘I know!’ Anna said urgently. ‘But it isn’t, I just know it isn’t.’

‘But can you say what it is, what’s caused it?’

‘No!’

‘Great. You know it isn’t Konoe Akira, but you don’t know who or what caused it?’ I thought for a moment. ‘Okay, what about the
kempeitai
colonel you . . . ’ I recovered just in time and changed direction. ‘What was his name?’

‘Takahashi. No, I had it before him. Definitely.’

‘How could you know that? After all, you were a virgin.’

‘Because every time I thought of you and tried to use my finger it happened.’

‘Anna, why didn’t you tell me this before? When did it first happen? Try to think. The very first time . . . ’

‘It was in Tjilatjap.’

‘Before Konoe Akira or after?’

‘That’s the problem, I can’t remember. Can you remember the first time you masturbated?’ she asked.

‘Yes. I was six, my Japanese nanny did it to me. I can still remember her cackle.’

Anna didn’t even smile. ‘It was a difficult time, my stepmother had committed suicide, my father was drinking himself to death, the boat was stuck in Tjilatjap. I was effectively a Japanese prisoner of war and Konoe Akira had possibly already taken possession of my life.’

‘Anna, it’s terribly important, can’t you think? Before or after?’

‘Nicholas, I knew nothing about sex. I thought the spasm was natural, a sort of protection before you married. I’d heard girls at school say your virginity had to be broken, something to do with the hymen. The cramping when I tried was, I thought, just something like that. You know, natural, it hadn’t been broken so my finger couldn’t get in and if I rubbed my clitoris it started to cramp. I can even remember that some of the girls had said it was a sin and I thought perhaps it was God punishing me.’

‘But it happened round Konoe Akira’s time?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you can’t swear?’

‘No. But I still feel certain he had nothing to do with it.’

‘How long have you thought this?’

‘Since the morning I visited him in hospital.’

‘So we’re no nearer the truth than before,’ I said.

‘Yes we are, Nicholas. All that clever stuff about the three of us being intimately bound together in a psychological knot can be dismissed.’

‘I’m not at all sure about that, but you know more about knots than me, Anna.’

‘That crack was entirely unnecessary, Nicholas!’

I grinned. ‘Couldn’t resist it.’

‘Bastard!’ she laughed.

‘More champagne?’

‘Maybe later. I too have something to say to you.’

‘Well at least our Japanese sojourn ends with a bang not a whimper.’

‘Is that another snide crack?’