Читать книгу The Game in the Past - John Zeugner - Страница 7

When Moran left he carried a large manila envelope, which Guade explained would reveal the other half of it he had promised. By exiting from the rear of the Hilton, using a floor below the lobby, it was possible to walk directly into a subway entrance of the Chiyoda line. Then by taking two enormous down escalators and walking the full length of the platform and then three escalators up you could get to the Marunouchi line without ever surfacing. The Chiyoda line platform was sparklingly new—greenish polished cement and tiles, and, surprisingly, without many passengers waiting for the next train. Walking the platform Moran decided was like stepping into a long horizontal urinal. You waited for the rushing water that came as the train arrived and in the meanwhile only your steps echoed in the gleaming porcelain tube.

He decided to stick the manila envelope inside his coat jacket. He clamped his arm against it. Safe. Unsnatchable. All of which, he knew, was absurd. Scotch-topped paranoia was contagious. For a while Moran imagined he was followed. On the first up escalator he slowly turned around and was disappointed to see only two school girls at the bottom.

Moran remembered a Guade-like fellow in graduate school who insisted one night in reciting for him all the outrageous accusations of the 1884 Presidential election, as if Moran would be equally mesmerized, indeed enchanted by Cleveland’s and Blaine’s taunts. Moran knew well enough the obsessional turn of mind such students had, but he was surprised that Guade, the polished scholar shared the disposition. Only the tiniest, jesting nudge had sent him charging into the documents, had tossed him against bureaucracy’s doors. Might it have been possible Guade was the first U.S. historian ever to demand to see accession lists at State? Who else would have thought of it? Only, Moran decided, the most diligent of conspiracy hunters, that is, those without choices beyond the ferreting life. And what did the ferreting life yield as benefit? Only its own obsession and commitment—it’s terrific determination to discover something in the void of the past at the expense of the present? Only its ferocity of determination to find something out that ultimately became an interpretive mirage anyway? Still there was Guade’s enviable energy, focus, stellar unconsciousness. Who knew what those implements might yield?

Moran took the local to Shinjuku san-chome. He exited through the basement of Isetan Department Store, and then, in a sudden lurch of sentiment turned right rather than left and started walking toward the main Shinjuku Station, the entertainment district. His business hotel was quite the other direction, a choice, he decided a thousand, more likely several thousand, Japanese business men made every evening. Japanese movies and television shows were filled with the adventures of peasants from Kyushu or Hokkaido who couldn’t keep away from the attractions surrounding Shinjuku Station.

This main entertainment district, the kabukicho, was a grid of narrow streets, closed to most cars, and suddenly on all sides by bars, night clubs, game parlors, pachinko parlors, strip shows, discos, tiny eating places (with six or eight stools at the counter), basement coffee houses and on top floor, lounges. Before every building tuxedoed barkers poured out beckonings in the scarlet and orange-filled sky. Neon pulsated; the clouds overhead contained apparently, fluorescent lights. Reams of wandering Japanese, men with arms around each other, propping each other up in order to vomit, chic couples in the latest gear—army fatigues, string dresses, wide lapel suits, elegant frost white blouses, white patent leather shoes. And spreading charcoal fumes. Wine stink. Sake scents. Boiling water humidity bathing the area. Lurid posters and mechanical neon signs, and withal, a constant babble in another language. Moran could only pick out phrases. He was better used to the slurring of the dialect in Osaka. There appeared to be a greater precision of pronunciation in Tokyo, less emotive signaling in the phrases, yet more hostility in the muted tones.

Moran stopped first at a ramen stand and ordered another bottle of beer. Then, bolstered, he headed back out into the throngs. He oriented himself by keeping an eye on the enormous billboard atop a building that ran the full length of the block, advertising a sado-masochist show. When the rant of the barkers became more insistent and the neon grew more brilliantly orange, Moran knew he had entered the roadway of so called “love hotels” and “Turko baths”. And then a young, apparently Japanese fellow, in a slightly stained double breasted tuxedo was standing in front of him speaking insistently into Moran’s face—about ten inches, it seemed, from his nose. Was it English?

“Good time, eh? Very good time in here. And not so expensive. Good time, eh? Eh?”

Moran instinctively drew back, but the fellow pressed in. His breath, like that of lots of Japanese, smelled foul. “Good time?” Moran queried attempting to slow the pressure.

“Yes. So. So. Very good time. I fix it for you. I fix it for you. Come on in. Come in now!”

“How much?” Moran asked, back stepping further.

“Very inexpensive. Come on, I’ll show you. He grabbed Moran’s left arm. Moran felt the envelope shifting. He clamped it harder to his side and went along with the fellow.

At first Moran thought they were going upstairs, but instead they passed beyond the stairway and with shoes still on came into a thickly carpeted lobby. There appeared to be a hotel registration desk.

“What is this?” Moran said, suddenly steadying fighting down the beer and scotch.”

“Turko. You know Turko? Don’t you want a bath? I think you do. I fix it for you. I find you a nice one speaking English. You’ll like this one. Don’t you want to?”

“Why not?”

“Yes! Yes!”

“How much?”

“You pay me two thousand yen. I set it up. Then you pay what she says. Okay?”

“Okay,” Moran said. He set the envelope on the counter top, got out his wallet and took two one thousand yen notes out, self-consciously keeping the extent of his holdings from general view. Moran felt strangely in control, as if he were designing the sequence of events. He had heard about Turkish baths, but the direct action possible in Shinjuku seemed liberating. And the scotch/beer empowering. If he were in charge, what could go wrong? Japan always left him always in charge if totally dependent. Japan was the safest spot on earth. And if he perished here, who would be upset anyway? Only this fellow whose unlined face and features like those Moran imagined American Indians must have possessed for the Pilgrims, bespoke only eagerness to please. No simply taking the money and running. He brought back a slender, short woman who was, Moran estimated, about thirty years old. She carried a red plastic shopping basket and a large sponge. She smiled and her one-piece jump suit with the sleeves and pants cut off at the highest joints reminded Moran suddenly of car hops in Florida. Was she on roller skates?

No, indeed, although she fairly glided upstairs, Moran following, the tuxedoed fellow smiling and bowing with each of Moran’s backward glances. About half way up the stairs Moran saw the envelope still on the Registry counter. He stopped, abruptly wheeled and bounded back down. He jumped the last five steps, vaulted to the desk and snatched the envelope up. Suddenly he felt absurdly foolish. The woman on the stairs smiled at him and waved him to come back up. Moran looked at the tuxedoed fellow, then held the envelope up. “Life insurance policies,” Moran shouted.

He went quickly back up the stairs. She led him to one of about fifteen doors opening off a long corridor. They came into a small six by ten foot room with a narrow massage table against one wall. There was a second room opening off the first. This contained a tiny, rather shallow bath tub. She motioned for him to take off his clothes. As he took off each garment she folded each with exaggerated carefulness, fitting each into the basket. When he was naked she handed him a traditional Japanese towel about nine by twenty inches of thin almost transparent white cotton. Then she indicated he should sit on the massage table. He put the towel across his loins. She stroked the hair on his chest, treating it with wonder and, he sensed, a rehearsed satisfaction. After she had tucked the basket on the floor under the table, she turned back to him and in rapid-fire Japanese said something that sounded like, “Sucki nee mahn en.”

“Eh?” Moran answered, trying to ferret out the meaning from the sounds.

“Sucki nee mahn en,” she repeated quickly, business-like, implacable.

Moran knew his numbers, “nee mahn en,” meant 20,000 yen, more than he had. “Ni mahn yen, desuka?” Moran asked to confirm the amount and to get more time to figure out what “sucki” might mean. He considered whether she meant it in Japanese or English, or did it mean the same in both languages?

“Hai, so desu,” she quickly confirmed the amount.

“Takai,” Moran answered, drawing out the last syllable, a device in Osaka that indicated the price was too expensive.

She appeared not to follow that evaluation.

Moran felt acutely vulnerable. The door to the corridor had been left open and it seemed the room was designedly cold. Chilled down. Moran shift his thin towel protection. He remembered clearly enough that in Japan you didn’t haggle. You didn’t bargain. Crude counter-offers were considered insulting. The door had been left open he decided to settle such insults definitively.

“Ni mahn yen?” he asked again.

“So desu,” she answered automatically with, he figured, a tinge of impatience.

“I don’t have it,” Moran said in slow, hyper-articulated English.

She smiled at him.

“I’m sorry,” Moran went on.

“Sucki nee mahn en?” she said again, sighing.

“Iiya,” Moran answered, “gomen . . . gomen,” apologizing in his pidgeon Japanese.

“Okay,” she said, “okay. Take bath.”

She does speak some English, Moran thought. She drew a tub, scrubbed his back, insisted he wash his own genitals. Then after wiping him dry with the thin towel, she indicated he should lie down on his stomach on the table.

He eased onto the chilly vinyl and she leaned in over his right ear and whispered, “Skoshi mo?”

Moran did not have even an inkling what she was saying. “Eh?” he answered

In a breathy, exciting way she leaned in again, hot scallops of minted breath coming over his neck and ear, “Skoshi mo?”

When he didn’t answer she abruptly flipped the wet towel lengthwise down his back, over his buttocks, and started pounding the backs of his legs, then his shoulders. After a few minutes of this she leaped up on the table and began walking on his back in a way that signaled, it seemed, disgust with him. The door was still open. There could be no defense in this situation, Moran thought. He remembered that it was mostly Koreans who ran the Turkos. Koreans hardly succumbed to Japanese civility and pacifism. He imagined he had been set up. In another moment the enforcers would be in the room and with truncheons extract full payment.

She jumped down and said again, “Skoshi mo?”

“Wakarimasen,” Moran answered. “I don’t understand.”

“Okay. Time up,” she said. She put the basket up on the table and indicated he should get down and dressed. She stood quietly by as he got into his clothes and then when he slipped his coat back on she held out her crossed palms.

“How much?”

“Two thousand yen,” she answered in apparently perfect English. “Downstairs you may have tea or beer. Which would you like?”

“Beer.”

She preceded down the steps, guided him to a western style couch and then brought him a mug of draft beer.

“Thanks,” Moran said.

“Arigatoh,” she answered and went swiftly back through the doors from which thirty minutes before she had appeared.

A disaster Moran thought but at least his worst fears had been avoided. He was still intact. Perhaps she felt the same way. An absurdity of miscommunication. He would have to find out what “Skoshi mo” meant, or would he? He might savor the suggestiveness of it. Suppose he found it only meant “a hot night,” or “tomorrow is a holiday, thank God.” He quickly finished the beer, sensitive that a foreigner in the main lounge might inhibit business. When Moran got to the double glass doors and saw the tuxedoed barker on the street rushing up to new recruits, he suddenly remembered, “Jesus! The envelope!”

He glanced around. No one was in the lounge. He quickly went upstairs. He heard laughter from behind closed doors. But his door, as always, was open. He checked the basket, but the envelope wasn’t there. Nor was it on the massage table, or beneath the mattress, or in the bathroom. Not behind the rattan stool in the bath. Moran slumped against the frame doorway, he remembered carrying the envelope upstairs, remembered setting down some place, but where? He systematically examined the room again, knelt and examined the bath floor. Two absurdities, he thought, a double unfulfilment.

He went back downstairs, waited by the desk but no one came out. “Hello” Moran said strongly. “Onegai,” he said requesting help. “Onegai!”

No response. As he started to look over the top of the registry, he heard the door open behind him. She came back out.

“My envelope,” Moran said, pantomiming its shape. “Kaban, kind of—” he said recalling the word for briefcase. “Envelope. Where is it? Doko desuka?”

She smiled, went upstairs. Moran moved to the foot of the stairs. Soon enough she brought the envelope back down to him.

“Where did you find it?”

She smiled and walked quickly back through the door.

The tuxedoed barker let Moran out. “Good time, eh?” he said, his eyes dancing in phony delight.

“Terrific time,” Moran answered, “the best ever.” He clamped the envelope against his side under his left arm.

On the walk back to his hotel, once away from the heaviest crowds near the kabukicho, Moran opened the envelope. It contained three smaller white envelopes. In two of them he found wads of lined blank school notebook paper. In the third envelope there was only a pair of brown nylon socks with nifty little clocks stitched in the sides.

2.

C. Livingston Wells embodied his name, Moran decided. Immaculately suited in material that seemed softer than his jowls, more neatly trimmed than the spare silver hair tucked behind his ears, Wells sat stiffly behind a long white Formica table. To his right were Guade and two Japanese professors. Wells wore cufflinks, apparently translucent white discs joined by silver chains. He had a rather beefy face, but narrow shoulders suggesting a kind of elegant thinness. The face wasn’t quite right, perhaps a tinge too red. Either too much adulation has brought a permanent blush, Moran felt, or else the old fellow is a tippler. But his eyes contained none of the tell-tale, yellow-clay tone Moran found in alcoholics.

Evidently there were more enthusiasts for the Cold War in Tokyo than in Kyoto. The circular lecture hall was crowded. Media types lined the walls. Who would have thought the collapse of the perimeter defense theory in June, 1950 would have stirred so many? Was Wells something of a hero in Japan? Did they think he was still connected with the government?

Guade led off the panel with six minutes of sharp comments demonstration how each federal bureaucracy viewed the Asia defense line differently in the spring of 1950. Internal contradiction, then, seemed to account for the speedy collapse of the doctrine, Guade asserted. The two Japanese colleagues also spoke about six minutes and Moran studied Wells rather than absorbing the headphone translation. Finally both the Japanese and then Guade asked Wells for his comments.

“A lot of this is ancient history splendidly resurrected by Professor Guade. I certainly have no substantive revision of his remarks. But I suppose I should say that in a bureaucracy, and especially at that time, lots of posturing, lots of position papers get generated—especially during slack times—that were never very seriously considered, even by their authors. Oh, they were assented to, duly stamped, logged, but always considered a kind of window dressing. Speculative exercises. Since crucial committees with authority to act seldom committed themselves in writing. They didn’t have time or they found it, rightfully enough, binding in a way they wished to avoid. So I suppose admirable as Professor Guade’s account is, it may be miss-focused, or concerned with policy declarations, rather than policy itself.”

Guade said jocularly, ‘I’d like to see your substantive revision, if that is your non-substantive reaction.”

“Perhaps I’ve wandered out over my head. I don’t mean to suggest people didn’t believe their papers, but rather their belief was a double nature, what you Japanese so skillfully identify as tatemae, the official explanation, the public sentiment, versus honne, the real, private, accurate assessment. It is tatemae that these places, USIS or rather ICA (must keep up to date with our acronyms, mustn’t we!) these libraries are interested only in public information exchange. The honne is, of course, the desire to present America as favorably as possible, to win allegiances to American life and concepts of government, and so on, and so on. Some honne is part of tatemae, of course, but I suppose a great deal of tatemae is not ever honne. I must say, too, that at the time of the invasion I was off the Allied Control Council in Japan. In point of fact I was on leave, since my wife was recovering from her first operation.”

Wells stopped talking, waited for comments or questions. But there was a typical silence in the lecture room. To cover Wells said, “Beyond all this laudable historical analysis I feel it incumbent to say something about the real world we live in today in 1979. For the present the U.S. is still terribly committed to the defense of South Korea and should the attack come in the form it took in June, 1950 surely the U.S. would intervene to defend its ally. Somebody ought to say that publicly and unequivocally.”

This pledge of support by a retired official seemed, Moran noted, to inspire the audience. There followed a series of elaborate statements in Japanese from the floor. Invariably each ended with the justifying question: “Would you comment on that?” Clearly there was no sentiment for question and answer, only the mutual airing of variant positions in the endless quest for further information.

Wells smiled through all these briefings avuncularly. Apparently he followed the Japanese discussion directly for he had conspicuously left his ear phone on the table top. The responses he made were soothing and appropriate, agreeing with several points, omitting controversial ones and after each juncture of evaluation introducing an appealing anecdote.

After forty minutes of such one-way colloquy, Moran decided it was time to shatter the immense saturninity. He was the first foreigner with a question. When his arm went up, Guade instantly designated him the next speaker, and the ICA attendant rushed to give him the hand microphone. Moran watched as Guade leaned in on the table to study Wells’ answer.

“Mr. Undersecretary,” Moran started, “can you tell us why the Air Force requested all of George Atcheson’s personal and diplomatic correspondence when it investigated his plane accident?”

“A very specific question,” Wells said, smiling, “unlike some of the more cosmic efforts heretofore. Atcheson? Atcheson? Do you mean Dean Acheson, whose plane so far as I knew never had an accident?”

“No sir, I mean George Atcheson, with a ‘T’ who was a senior member of the Control Commission here in Tokyo, as well as a former China hand, and Ambassador to Japan, I’m sure you remember. He was lost in a plane accident in August, 1947.”

“1947,” Wells said, “A long time ago, and your question is?”

“Why did the Air Force want to see all his files, just to investigate the plane crash, the ditching of the B-17 he was taking back to the states?”

“I’m not sure I could answer that. Have you asked the Air Force?”

“No, sir. Is it routine to send out the total file of a Foreign Service officer lost in the field.”

“Are you sure it happened?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, it surprises me. There must have been good reason. Perhaps you should contact the Air Force. George Atcheson? George, did you say?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, there was nothing special about that flight that I can remember.”

“Except, of course, it was special for Atcheson,” Moran said.

“Indeed. Indeed. I’m at a loss, I’m sorry. Someone at State should be able to help you.

“Thank you,” Moran sat down. Guade had been jotting notes the whole time.

Very skillful, Moran thought. It was impossible to tell whether Wells was only feigning or was truly bewildered. Moran did notice that Wells could not stop glancing at him even while fielding other Japanese comments. Bewildered then, or upset, or both—Moran couldn’t decide.

In fifteen more minutes, however, something of a decision formed, for Wells, having dutifully commented on a rambling speech about the impact economically of the Korean War, suddenly returned to Atcheson. “It occurs to me concerning a previous question from the gentleman over there, that I do remember George Atcheson and his tragedy, now that you remind me of it. And he was highly respected in Japan, and it was a stupid accident. And I believe he was—I mean his body was never found, isn’t that correct?”

“Yes,” Moran said, “but I was asking about the transfer of his files to Norton Air Force base in California.”

“Yes, yes, I quite remember your question,” Wells said, evidently warming to the task. “And about such a transfer, it did occur, didn’t it? You might ask in the State Department, Garret Weaver, if he’s still there. I remember he handled the files at about that time. When was it again?”

“August, 1947.”

“Yes, in the summer of 1947, in the late summer. And you say all the files were shipped to where?”

“Norton Air Force base in California.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“Well, well, you should try Weaver on that one. Yes, I would try Weaver. I’m sorry I can’t be more help.”

In five more minutes Guade ended the discussion and as the hall emptied, joined Moran near the simultaneous translation booth in the back. At first Moran thought he should immediately apologize for losing whatever had been in the envelope, but as Guade approached him a certain wariness took hold. To his own amazement, either out of guilt or perhaps fear, he held back and let Guade direct the conversation.

Guade merely motioned him away from the booth toward the metal stacks of the library proper adjacent to the lecture room.

“Thanks,” Guade said. “He wasn’t exactly forthcoming, was he?”

“Well, you have Weaver’s name to pursue.”

“Hmmn,” Guade said, “Didn’t it strike you a bit odd he pretended not to remember Atcheson. But Atcheson reported to him.”

“He recovered on that.”

“Precisely. Deliberate recovery. You go through that stuff I gave you?”

“No. Not yet. To tell the truth I nearly passed out on the subway. When I got back to the hotel I simply folded up.”

“Okay. Okay. No rush, I suppose. He signed the transfer order, Weaver didn’t.”

“Who is Weaver?”

“Never heard of him,” Guade suddenly looked around. There was a youngish Japanese fellow in a lightly billowy suit nearby. He seemed to be examining some of the oversize books. “Look, I’ve got to go to lunch. Why don’t you call me tonight, or we could get together later, after you’ve gone through the stuff. You will get to it, won’t you?”

“I’m not sure it’s worth my time. I started you out on this, and it’s turned out to be a little more than the lark, the joke, I intended.”

“It’s no joke, not yet anyway,” Guade said. He rocked back, adjusted something in his hearing aid. “Where’s the stuff now?”

“In my hotel room.”

“In the open?”

“In my bag.”

“Hmmn, and you haven’t looked at it?”

“No. I didn’t get the chance,” Moran could truthfully say.

“Well, call me later, will you?”

“Okay. I’ll try to get to it this afternoon.” The hotel story would cover, Moran realized. If when he got back only socks and torn school paper were in the envelope, the transfer could have occurred any time during his absence. “But there is a bit of a problem.”

“What?” Guade said, all attention.

“You can’t get into business hotels till after 4:00 p.m. You have to leave by 10:00 a.m. and you can’t come back before 4:00.”

“Well, why don’t you check on Weaver, using whatever they have here?”

“No. I’m going to Asakusa to sight see, or maybe to Meiji Shrine, or maybe both. But I’ll call you tonight. I’ll get to it as soon as I get back to the hotel.”

“Okay, okay. Call any time after 9:30 or so.”

“Well, it may be later than that.”

“Any time. Just call.”

“Were you pleased with his answer to your question?”

“Not pleased. Confused. I’ll pursue it at lunch. Call me tonight.”

“Yes. Yes,” Moran answered, a bit irritated at Guade’s constant directives.

Outside the building he caught a cab to Shimbashi station. He decided Asakusa was too far away, on the other edge of the city, and so settled for Meiji Shrine, even though that meant riding the JNR loop line which was always crowded and somewhat confusing. At the station Moran ate a bowl of noodles, a far cry from Guade’s doubtless elegant luncheon with Wells. On the other hand, Wells might not enjoy it. A consummate fencing match, Guade anxiously dropping bits of information and Wells easing past them, foisting them off on the mysterious Weaver. Even the name seemed right—Weaver. Moran made his way upstairs to the JNR line. For some reason there were fewer English signs on that line but Moran managed to get to Harajuku, the stop for Meiji. He followed the crowds through the extraordinarily wide gravel walkways. He was careful to step over the timber in the doorway to the shrine. It was either irreligious or unlucky to step on the sill, he remembered, and Moran felt neither and both. When he got to the inner court of the shrine, he was approached by an elderly Japanese gentleman who was, remarkably, unkempt and not recently shaven.

“I must beg your acquaintance and indulgence,” the old man said, “for my English is all inadequate, but I need to practice.”

Moran stiffened for the inevitable questions. The afternoon suddenly seemed sultry. The breeze died away and the open spaces seemed occupied by heavy, humid air that would have to be penetrated for exit.

“You perhaps have looked into these cuts and nicks on these august timbers.”

Moran noticed them only because the old man pointed them out.

“They were made by hurled coins. At new Years, our most celebration time thousands of we Japanese come here to make an offering to the shrine. The ones in the back have to throw their offerings. Hence these marks. Isn’t it interesting to you?”

Moran knew the old man had memorized the speech and he wondered if the fellow knew what he was saying, or had only gotten a native speaker to coach him on the sounds. “Yes, very interesting,” Moran said, moving away from the interior court.

The old man followed. “How long have you been in Japan?”

“Not very long,” Moran answered.

“Why did you come?”

“I teach here, or rather in Kansai.”

“When will you leave Japan?” The old man went on. So the questions as well as the speech were memorized.

“Not for a while,” Moran said, consciously speeding up his pace on the gravel.

The old man hastened to keep up. “What did you expect Japan to be like. Do you like we Japanese?”

“Ah yes. Yes.” Moran said, “Very much. You are very civilized.”

“Thank you. I must leave now. I have enjoyed our English conversation. But my English is so poor. I must harder and harder at it. Thank you, again.”

“Thank you for the information,” Moran said to the old man who was already in a deep bow. The old man stood up, reached into his pocket and held out his card for Moran to take.

“My meishi,” the old man said, “you may call on me any time.”

Moran was familiar with this custom. He should now proffer his own meishi but that would lead, he was certain to more, endless English conversations. “Thank you, I’m sorry I don’t have a card to give you.”

“That is correct and satisfactory to me.” The old man bowed again and back stepped, bowing. Involuntarily Moran returned the effort. In the still air he and the old man continued this back stepping and bowing until Moran felt his shoe bang into the top edge of the sill to the shrine.

3.

At 9:30 p.m. Moran called Guade’s room, but there was no answer. He called again at 10:00, and at 10:20. Still no answer. At 10:40 he called the front desk to ask if there were message for him from Guade.

“Professor Guade has checked out from the hotel,” the clerk said in slow, hyper-articulated English.

“Checked out? You mean left?”

“So. So, so,” the clerk answered.

“He is no longer at the hotel, is that it?”

“Yes. He has gone.”

“Where did he go?”

“Pardon?”

“Where did he leave for?”

“For?”

“Never mind. Did he leave a message for me, Professor David Moran. Perhaps an envelope?”

“Just a minute, please.”

Moran watched the blinking neon of the station area through his window. The business hotel room was barely five by ten feet.

“Did you say, Molan?”

“Yes, Molan. Molan,” Moran answered emphasizing the Japanese miss-pronunciation.

“There is a phone number on the paper marked for Professor Molan. Would you like it?”

“Yes, please.”

When the clerk gave it to him Moran thought he recognized the exchange—an area near Shinjuku station. Guade must have found cheaper accommodations. But a European woman answered with a simple “Hello.”

“Is Professor Guade there?” Moran asked. Could Guade have somebody in Tokyo, a liaison? The idea seemed incongruent to Moran. What would they do together? Crank microfilm readers?

“Is this Moran sensei?” the woman’s voice gave a strange mockery to the Japanese addition of teacher or learned one to Moran’s name.

“Yes.”

“Well, Graham isn’t here, but I’m supposed to tell you that he’s gone off to Shikoku with Liv Wells for four or five days. They’re taking a ship on the Inland Sea and going to some famous park in Shikoku.”

“Ritsurin?” Moran said.

“Yes, I believe that’s it.”

“Did Professor Guade leave any instructions for me?”

“Instructions?”

“Directives, assignments, things he wanted done?” Moran slowed down his speech; it seemed the woman was not a native speaker.

“No. Graham said he was having trouble communicating with the hotel clerk. He was in a rush. I think they took the 7:00 p.m. shinkansen. So he called me.”

“I see,” Moran said.

“I do translation for him, for his research—every time he comes to Tokyo.”

Every time, Moran thought.

“But he didn’t leave any instructions. Maybe he’ll call you from Kobe, although he’s on a tight schedule. They wanted to catch the last ferry tonight.”

“I see. Well, okay, then. I guess I’ll talk to him when I talk to him. I go back to Osaka tomorrow.”

“I’m sure he’ll get in touch. Is there anything else, in case I talk to him before you do?”

Moran debated a while, then decided it was providential she turned up as a shield as well as deliverer of bad news. “You might mention to him, if you do talk to him, that there’s been an accident with the envelope he gave me. It doesn’t seem to have anything but blank sheets in it. So I really can’t evaluate blank sheets.”

“An accident?”

“Well, my poor choice of word. Maybe not an accident, maybe a theft or just a mistake or something. He might have given me the wrong envelope. He’ll know what I’m talking about.”

“And I should not tell him there’s been an accident?”

“Yes. Just tell him I can’t evaluate the information because I don’t have it. The envelope had only blank pages torn out from a notebook. Nothing was written on the pages. Nothing.”

“Okay, I’ll tell him, if that’s what you want.”

“Yes, thank you. I’m sorry to bother you so late.”

“No bother. I never go to bed before two or three in the morning.”

“Well, goodbye. Thanks again.”

“Don’t mention it. I’m glad to be Graham’s messenger, especially to such a distinguished sounding voice.”

Hmmn, Moran smiled, wondered, then thought better of it. “Well, goodbye,” he said.

With any luck she would break the news to Guade, who might then be so angered as never to contact Moran again—a prospect entirely appealing to him. The neatest way out.

Moran watched the show “11 p.m.” sometimes referred to as “The Men’s Hour.” On good nights the pornography was vivid and startling, but now he had to make do watching a leggy young woman who stripped to a G string and writhed on a black Naugahyde couch. The couch was covered with some kind of oil—Moran hoped it was Baby oil—and soon enough the model was oiled and glistening in the splendid definition of Japanese television. A panel of overweight Japanese men drank glasses of Suntory whisky and made low comments and guffaws concerning her performance. Even though he had put two 100 yen coins into the T.V. Moran turned it off at 11:45. He chained the door shut and lay back on the soft bed. He conjured pairs in his mind before dropping off to sleep: Guade and Wells, Atcheson and the Pacific Ocean; Moran and the expensive masseuse. He wondered if he should try the socks on. The thought pleased him. Without turning on the light he fumbled around for the envelope in his bag, pulled out the interior envelope and removed the socks. They were way too small—doubtless her own?

In the morning he managed to catch the 9:12 hikari shinkansen, the fastest bullet train back to Osaka. He sat on the right and watched for Mt. Fuji. In the five trips to Tokyo he had always seen the peak and that was considered good luck, but although he strained all the way to Nagoya, this time the heavy, grey atmosphere was too thick

He took the Midosuji line from Shin Osaka station to Senri Chuo, then caught a cab to his apartment in Yamada. Violating his own rules, he actually looked through his lectures on the Cold War to be given Monday and Tuesday at the university. He was more than prepared since most of his students did not understand what he was saying. He stood before them speaking sounds, and after a while he joined them in wondering what he was saying, wondering if they understood even a preposition he muttered. He decided the best historians merely babble and you listen only as they did when foraging the past, for what you already knew. He would have to try that sentiment on the historical methods seminar, if he ever returned to the U.S. He had been long enough in Japan for everywhere else to stop existing. He stopped his subscription to the English language newspaper. He self-sealed the envelope of Japan. The green mountains perpetually available through train and bus windows were more than enough to look at, or on the other side glimpses of the dark green sea. For diversion there was the endless array of faces framed in equal mounds of black hair. The people cascade never stopped—so profuse that after a while you didn’t need, didn’t want, anyone to share it with.

4.

On Monday and Tuesday mornings he walked to Senri Chuo, caught the 8:40 bus to the university and delivered as slowly as he possibly could his treasured perceptions of the U.S. and the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1954. There never were any questions. The classroom was narrow, but long, easily housing his sixty-five students from the Faculties of Technology and Pharmacology. He stood up front by a laboratory demonstration table and occasionally held up a printed summary of his remarks, pointing to key portions, crucial phrases. Before, and afterwards, Moran sat in the smelly, dank common room, drank luke-warm green tea and tried to make linguistic jokes with some of his Japanese colleagues. He wondered if their English was any better than his students’. It was certainly better than his own Japanese.

Moran did not teach on Wednesdays. Usually he slept late on the tatami mats of his eight by ten foot living/dining/sleeping room. Then he walked down to the nearest market to purchase fresh pastries, wondrous imitation French and Danish varieties. The shopkeeper set aside three for him. He read a bit till noon, or answered mail, or sketched out alternative outlines for his book on the Cold War and by 1:00 p.m. was on the Hankyu line to downtown Osaka, most probably to see a double feature at the Dai Mai Chika, a cheap theater that specialized in older American films. Translations in Japanese appear along the right edge of the screen—side titles. Clint Eastwood was a favorite of Osaka audiences, as well as all films with cartoon-like violence. The side titles were disconcerting. It was peculiar to hear the audience laugh before the joke was spoken in English on the screen. They have an advantage even watching our films, Moran thought. The theater was near the American Center Library. On particularly disorienting or lonely days Moran ended up in the library reading its collection of magazines and newspapers until closing time at 9:30 p.m.