One Morning Like a Bird (24 page)

    ‘It was kind of you to think of me.’

    ‘I can’t really talk to the women in there. But I can’t escape from them either. Not with this.’ He tilts his head to indicate the crutch, the cut limb. Yuji nods. Despite what he sees in the other’s eyes, he pities him. ‘I’m going to have a special boot made. The front half will be filled with wood. There’s a place in Sendagi. A workshop that makes wooden parts for soldiers.’

    ‘A special boot would be good, I suppose.’

    ‘Lucky I got married before, eh? What kind of a wife do you think I’d get like this? Women don’t want a man with a piece missing. Not unless he’s rich.’

    ‘Is that cat one of the litter?’

    ‘The only one to survive. I had to give Kyoko a bit of a dressing-down, army style, when I found that out.’

    ‘It might have been difficult to have helped the others.’

    ‘You’re sticking up for her?’

    ‘The cat could have gone somewhere secret to have the kittens.’

    ‘What do you know about cats?’

    ‘I’m not an expert.’

    ‘That’s right. You’re not an expert.’

    ‘It’s good that one survived.’

    ‘It needs a name though, don’t you think?’

    ‘Doesn’t it have one already?’

    ‘It’s my cat. I’m the only one who can give it a name.’

    ‘Have you chosen one?’

    ‘Mmm, I’m not sure. I thought’ – he furrows his brow in a clumsy mime of consideration – ‘I thought “Foreign Girl” might be good.’

    ‘A strange name for a cat.’

    ‘I told you Granny had been telling me interesting things.’

    ‘Some of them might not be quite accurate.’

    ‘Then why are you blushing?’

    ‘I’m not.’

    ‘You’re red as a cherry.’

    ‘Let’s forget about it.’

    ‘And what if I don’t want to forget about it?’

    ‘I’m only saying we could talk about something else.’

    ‘Then let’s talk about how grateful you are for my sacrifice. About how you’re going to show your gratitude.’

    ‘We’re all grateful.’

    ‘Look at you with your stupid magazine! You talk like you’re somebody and I’m nobody.’

    ‘No,’ says Yuji, quietly. ‘I’m nobody. You’re a war hero.’

    ‘That’s right. A returning hero.’

    ‘Yes. A returning hero.’

    ‘A veteran.’

    ‘Yes.’

    ‘Tried and tested.’

    ‘Yes.’

    ‘Think you can tell me what to do?’

    ‘No.’

    ‘So who gives the orders?’

    ‘You. Of course.’

    ‘I’m just pleased to see you again, Takano.’

    ‘I’m pleased to see you.’

    ‘You were my right-hand man when we were kids. You could be that again if you wanted.’

    ‘I remember it,’ says Yuji.

    ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be kids again? Even for a day?’

    ‘Yes. I suppose.’

    ‘We were free then. Not a care in the world. And now  . . .’ He lifts the cat, nuzzling its head with the point of his chin. The animal mews, drowsily. ‘Time for Foreign Girl to have some milk,’ he says. ‘Though not any cream. Cream’s bad for their livers. You can kill a cat with cream.’

    ‘Yes?’

    They look at each other, intimate as criminals, as lovers.

    ‘It’s you and me against the rest,’ says Saburo, starting, with little precarious movements, little grunts of effort, to turn himself round. ‘You and me against the
women  . . .
’

11

On Father’s birthday, Yuji presents him with an envelope containing a dozen steel needles for the gramophone.

    ‘If you were concerned about disturbing anyone, you could listen in the garden study.’

    ‘Listen to jazz?’

    ‘Wouldn’t you like to hear King Oliver again?’

    ‘Hmm. The New Orleans sound. You played it for the child, didn’t you?’

    ‘Yes. She was quite a good dancer.’

    ‘A child’s spirit is light. Jazz needs a light spirit. Dancing too, of course.’

    ‘You told me once that Mother was a good dancer.’

    ‘It’s true. We used to go to clubs in the Low City, even after Ryuichi was born. Dancing was one thing that did not seem to fatigue her.’ He smiles. ‘And we too had light spirits then.’

    In the evening, Kushida comes for supper. He is wearing a field cap and a civil defence jacket, though the jacket, unlike most of the others Yuji has seen, has a neat and tailored appearance, more staff officer than front-line soldier. He apologises for it, feigns embarrassment, and explains that he had to attend a meeting of his local neighbourhood association – new directives on fire-fighting. As one of the senior people, he was, unfortunately, required to stay until the end. It had gone on so long he had not had time to return home and change.

    Miyo brings in the sake flasks from the brass heater in the kitchen. They are sitting at the table in the Western room. The doors are part open to the muggy air. On a corner of the dresser, a coil of acrid-smelling mosquito repellent burns in a saucer. The birthday menu has been chosen by Mother (another of those household traditions that feel, somehow, spectral). This year it is a dish of chicken and garlic that she must, in the remote past, have instructed Haruyo how to make to an acceptable standard.

    ‘I suppose we should be drinking wine with it,’ says Father, ‘but I thought you’d prefer sake.’

    ‘You are quite right,’ says Kushida. ‘I imagine Yuji has more experience in drinking wine than either of us old men.’

    ‘Not really,’ says Yuji.

    ‘No?’

    ‘Not really.’

    Though it is Haruyo who has prepared the food, Yuji manages to persuade himself that what is on his plate comes directly from Mother’s hands, and he eats it, the slightly stringy chicken, with good appetite. He wishes he was alone with Father, or that Grandfather was there, Grandfather and Uncle Kensuke. He wishes they were talking about jazz, that they were drinking wine. (Red or white with chicken? Sweet? Dry?) When he remembers the wine he drank at the Snow Goose, the bottle divided between two languages, he is surprised – startled, even – to discover that the memory now provokes only pleasure, and has, through some unobserved activity of time, completely lost its residue of high anxiety.

    At the end of the table, Kushida and Father are at their usual game, sifting names out of the ashes of the past, out of the class of 1911, and holding them up to desultory inspection. Nakiyama has published his study of Clausewitz. Tamura is on Prince Konoe’s new political order committee. Kuroda’s son is making his fortune in Tientsin, the construction business, army contracts mostly. Ayukawa, for reasons that remain obscure, is divorcing his wife.

    Listening to them, watching them as he finishes his food, Yuji tries (again) to guess at Father’s true feelings for the doctor. If they did not have Imperial, what would they talk about? There is nothing in their manner together to suggest any deep regard, any affinity beyond the historical coincidence of going up to the university together thirty years ago. Are they really such good friends? Or is possible that Father has kept up the alliance for the sake of Mother, for the foreign medicines in the clinic dispensary and, later, for those headed letters to the War Ministry, one of which found its way into Captain Mori’s folder? If there was no
need
for Dr Kushida, would he be here at all?

    A rumble of thunder. A gust of wind blows the doors wide. Yuji gets up and pushes them shut. A minute later it starts to rain, heavily.

    ‘There was a mudslide at a village in Shikoku,’ says Kushida. ‘A whole family buried alive. Did you read about it?’

    ‘You’ll need a car to get home,’ says Father. He sends Miyo to call the garage. She hurries off. The phone excites her. (She would, she has confided to Yuji, like to work at the Central Telephone Exchange – she is already old enough – and demonstrated for him, in a voice she had found who knows where, how she would ask the caller, ‘What number do you wish to be connected to?’)

    ‘Is it true your neighbour is back?’ asks Kushida.

    ‘Yes,’ says Father. ‘He was unfortunate enough to suffer an injury. A blister that became infected. They had to remove part of his foot.’

    ‘An amputation?’

    ‘Yes.’

    ‘One can never really be safe as a soldier. Not out there, certainly.’

    When the taxi sounds its horn, Kushida extinguishes his cigarette and pulls on the khaki jacket. ‘Could Yuji take an umbrella out for me? If I use my own, it will drip in the car and the driver will grumble. They don’t need much encouragement.’

    Yuji selects an umbrella from among the dozen in the square pot in the vestibule, then waits under the porch roof for the doctor to finish his goodbyes to Father. When he comes out, they hurry across the garden, through the gate. The taxi’s headlights are two converging cones of rain. At the door of the car, Kushida turns and says, ‘A pity about your Frenchman.’

    ‘My Frenchman?’

    ‘Yes. What’s his name? Fabien?’

    ‘Feneon?’

    ‘Feneon, of course.’

    ‘Has something happened?’

    ‘A little visit from the authorities.’

    ‘What sort of visit?’

    ‘Oh, I don’t have the details. It was the Higher Police, I think, the
Tokko
. A colleague at the hospital in Kanda mentioned it. I thought you might be interested.’ He opens the door, lowers himself onto the seat. ‘I noticed tonight how much healthier you are looking. The way you ate your food was hardly like an invalid, was it?’

    He shuts the door. His shadow leans towards the driver, then the car moves off, cautiously, into the dark.

12

When Feneon opens the door, he looks, thinks Yuji, like a man who has sat up all night reading some weighty, some impenetrable volume, something that exhausts both eyes and brain. He scans the street, then reaches out, takes Yuji’s arm, and draws him inside, shutting the door behind them.

    ‘You should not be here,’ he says. ‘It is perfectly likely they have someone watching the house.’

    ‘If so,’ says Yuji, ‘it must already be too late.’

    ‘Who did you hear from?’

    ‘An acquaintance of Father’s. A man called Kushida.’

    ‘Kushida? I don’t think I know him. Though I am remembering now what I was perhaps foolish to forget. I mean how visible I am. Any foreigner.’ He is speaking French to Yuji but uses the Japanese word for foreigner –
gaijin
– filling both its syllables with a still-raw anger. Then he shuts his eyes, breathes, opens his eyes, and leads Yuji to the doorway of the salon, pausing there for him to take in the room’s chaos.

    ‘It’s the same all over the house. Thank God Alissa was away.’

    ‘She’s away?’

    ‘Yes. Somewhere safe.’

    ‘But she knows?’

    He shakes his head. ‘It was only two days ago. And with things as they are it might be better if she remains in ignorance.’

    He goes through to the study. Yuji follows, unable for the moment to tell if he is relieved to find Alissa absent again or disappointed.

    ‘I made a start in here. Put the desk drawers back, began to collect the papers they scattered, but after a few minutes I felt like poor Sisyphus with his rock. They took the projector. They seemed delighted to have found it. And the films too, of course. I hope they watch them. Who knows what effect a dose of Chaplin might have on those horribly rigid minds.’