“Three months.”
“Will you drink heavily and beat me?”
“Like a gong.”
“Like a church bell, an American would say.”
“Backing out?”
“No. I would like you to do me a favor, however, and help your friend Willie before you go.”
“Willie and Iris? I already said I would. What do you care?”
“I like Willie’s stories. If you’re going to help him, do it fast.”
The gondola descended over the ice-cream stand and pedal-car track and a volley of exuberant cheers from the schoolboys watching the battle in the tank. If the naval engagement was ever in doubt, its outcome now was clear. The Japanese fleet plowed at full speed through the water, guns glowing from the fire of their shells, while the American fleet waddled in disorder, stacks pouring charcoal smoke that signified hits in the engine room. Some American warships were so enveloped by smoke that they seemed to be sinking. The scene suggested wholesale horror and confusion, men diving from the decks and trying to outswim burning oil or the suction of a great ship going under and overcrowded lifeboats circled by sharks. As Harry and Alice emerged from the gondola, he didn’t notice anyone in the crowd watching them. Everyone was too captivated by the battle in the tank. The excitement was so overwhelming that some boys couldn’t stand still. They ran with their arms out like torpedo planes or raised imaginary periscopes. The loudspeaker sang, “Across the sea, water-soaked corpses, we shall die by the side of our lord.” The children chanted, “Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!”
ALTHOUGH HARRY WANTED to ditch the gun, he assumed he was being followed. Just to see, he detoured through an arcade specializing in pets. The passageway rang with a mixed chorus of canaries, lovebirds, cockatoos and a nightingale that trilled from a shrouded cage. Kittens, their tails bobbed to prevent them from turning into goblins, mewed in a fruit box. A weasel slunk round and round in a basket. There was only one beetle dealer, with a lean wintertime stock.
“What you want is a stag beetle.” The dealer kept his hands in steady motion so that the beetle, a two-inch monster with antlers, walked from the back of one hand to the other. “There is no better investment in insects. A rhinoceros beetle like yours will drop dead after a single mating. What kind of champion is that? A stag beetle fattens off passion. No? Wait, I have more.” He indicated a cage with a six-inch mantis, a green stiletto. “Do you enjoy the educational sight of a wife eating her husband’s head? No?”
Harry didn’t enjoy that or the sight of two plainclothes police squatting by the fruit box to tease the kittens. Two cops on foot and probably two waiting in a car near his. Forget subtlety.
“Do you have trouble sleeping? Maybe you like the bucolic sound of crickets? I have crickets that are genuine songsters. No, you’re not a country boy. You’re Tokyo-bred, like me.” The beetle dealer kept the treadmill of his hands going while he looked Harry up and down. “Then it comes to this. If sports are your interest and you want your money back tenfold, a stag is your best bet.”
Harry bet on horses, not beetles, not since he was a kid. However, he bought a bamboo beetle cage with a bed of wood flakes. He was trying to leave town, and what did he have now, Harry thought. First a gun. Now a beetle. Terrific.
WHEN WESTERN DANCING was declared unpatriotic, a storage company run by yakuza took over the Asakusa Ballroom and covered its parquet floor with stacks of scenery and flats from the surrounding music halls and theaters. The yakuza specialized in the business of theatrical storage because it was a good excuse for men to hang around doing nothing. The ballroom had also become a refuge for the ne’er-do-wells of wartime society, out-of-work dance instructors practicing to the raspy tango of a gramophone, horseplayers with time on their hands since the racetracks were closed. A midday card game was going when Harry arrived. Taro sat holding a box of his brother’s ashes, and although the sumo filled a pair of chairs and was dressed in yards of rich kimono, he looked undone and deflated.
“All I can think of is my brother,” he told Harry.
“Have you eaten?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Jiro would like you to eat. I think Jiro would like me to eat, too.”
A boy was attending the cardplayers. Harry sent him for noodles from the kitchen next door. The cardplayers kept an eye on Taro and the box. Gamblers were superstitious. Not reverent but easily spooked. They didn’t like anything written in red, because red was the color of call-up notices from the army. They hated the color white because it suggested death, and here Taro had brought a white box with THE REMAINS OF KAGA JIRO written in brushstrokes down the side. A short man in a wasp-waisted suit arrived in a rush as if he’d been summoned. The cardplayers called him over, and seconds later he moved with bouncy strides toward Harry and Taro.
“Tetsu.” Harry gave his old friend a bow.
Tetsu had done well. Providentially too short for the five-foot requirement of the army, he had fulfilled his youthful aspiration to become a yakuza and ran the ballroom game. Not that it was so difficult. The games were raided by police in the same desultory spirit that licensed prostitutes were supposed to study ethics once a week.
“Harry, Taro, good to see you both. Let’s go get something to eat. You like Chinese?”
“The food’s coming,” Harry said.
“Jiro.” Taro indicated the wooden box.
Tetsu said, “I’m sorry. I mean, you must be so proud. Jiro’s ashes? Oh.” He bowed to the box. “All the same, we should go somewhere else. Harry, you understand. It’s Agawa, the old guy. He says the box is disturbing. He says he can’t even count his cards.”
Harry looked over at a player with a gristly neck.
Taro sighed. “Let’s go.”
“Wait. Agawa can play with a tango at his back, but he can’t play when the ashes of a hero are carried in?” Harry did not like to see the deceased slighted or a grieving brother, a sumo no less, diminished. “Hey, Agawa, do you know what tomorrow is?”
“I’m playing a hand, as you can see.”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“Sunday, as any fool knows.” Agawa shared a grin with his friends.
“The date?”
“December seventh.”
“A big day,” Harry said. “Maybe the biggest day in history.”
Agawa went on arranging the cards in his hand. “How is that?”
“Awhile back, a bishop figured out through a careful examination of the Bible that Noah’s flood began on December seventh, 2347 B.C. That’s two thousand three hundred and forty-seven years before the birth of Christ. Tomorrow is the anniversary. In fact, it’s the uh…”
When Harry started counting on his fingers, Agawa said, “The four thousand two hundred and eighty-eighth anniversary.”
“That’s right. Agawa-san, you have the quickest mind here. It sounds like you count just fine.”
Agawa put his cards down. “The entire thing is ridiculous. There was no Noah’s flood, not in Japan. The whole thing is a fairy tale.”
“Isn’t it amazing what people believe?” Harry said. “Fairy tales and superstitions, demons and ghosts. You’re a rational man, Agawa-san, and you wouldn’t mind that our friend Taro brought the ashes of his brother, do you? Thanks.”
Agawa grunted, which Harry took as not necessarily yes or no but at least not violent objection. Harry suspected that two Japanese didn’t need words at all, they could communicate perfectly well with grunts, grimaces, winces, frowns, inhales, exhales, eyes cast down and to the side, brows furrowed with concern or gathered in anger, not to even mention bows.
Tetsu was pleased. Like a traditional yakuza, he hated confrontation. He played with a cigarette lighter, which drew respectful attention to the fact that he missed the little finger of his left hand, had cut it off, actually, to atone for some shame he had brought on his boss. People didn’t know or care what the shame was. Sincere atonement was all. He said, “That was smooth, Harry.”