Heathern (16 page)

"Sit, please," said Otsuka, fingering a chromium nipple
built into his desktop. "Our meeting must be honored." A
door that hadn't been there moments before slid open, and
a young woman emerged, proving her existence by the
silver tray she bore. From the tray she took a crystal
decanter and thimble-sized cups. "A sixty-year-old single
malt," Otsuka said. "Hard to come by."

"I'm not much of a drinker," said Thatcher, tossing his
drink down as he might Kool-Aid. "From the Emperor's
collection?"

Otsuka shook his head so vigorously that I feared his
withered face might crumble away from his skull. "He
abstains. A gift from the late premier," he explained.
"Where is your wife?" Thatcher shrugged, holding his
thimble up for a refill, behaving as he'd promised and not grabbing the bottle by its neck. "Mister Leibson tells me she
is an active proponent of our renewed alliance. In the past I
believe she has dealt with several political appointees, I
should say, from my country. This belief in equal rights for
those within equal classes is so peculiarly American, don't
you believe? Even now in Japan the wife too often remains
simply the pipeline between husband and children."

"That's what we got plumbers for, over here," said
Thatcher. "She's good at what she does."

"Perhaps my lessers are correct, I fear, and women
should be kept from participating in business. They are too
good at outsmarting us. The lovely woman who attends you
today." His young boy's eyes studied me as he exuded his
opinions. "She is more than your secretary, but is not your
tayu."

"We don't do those things here," Thatcher insisted.
"Diseases, you know. Got to keep business risk-free, within
reason."

"She would be your miko, then?"

"What is it?"

"Difficult to translate," said Otsuka, tapping his cheek
with a thin finger, a bone sheathed in skin. "A shamaness of
statistical productivity, in the sense I use it. One who
blesses the shrine of capital."

"We got that covered, too," said Thatcher. "Joanna's too
down to earth for that feminist mystic stuff. She oversees
new projects."

"And I am a new project, true," he said. "Still, Mister
Dryden, remember that defending the spiritual quality of
your business is as important as having faithful nihirisuto to
protect your personal well-being. Forgive me, please. When
I am with Mister Leibson we speak my language as if we
were friends. Nihirisuto. Laughing samurai, you might say.
Dancers at the lip of the volcano." He examined our guards
as if wondering how much they might bring. "In my youth I kept with me always the long sword from Kyoto that Hiro
now carries for me." The larger man, on his right, bowed
lower; the scabbard's tip protruded from his jacket, obscene
in its bluntness. "But these are the words of one who
prepares to leave this world. There is no need to expend the
declining energy I have when my associates may do it for
me. In this setting, certainly, it seems so unnecessary."

"Seems so," said Thatcher. "Trust makes the world go
round."

"And our countries have had so little trust in one another
for so long."

"We'd've preferred to settle our differences sooner, certainly. But there's no sense running into anything till you've
looked to see what you're running on."

"I wouldn't have expected you to put it any other way."

"Past few years, your country's had it hard," Thatcher
said, failing to express in his countenance the semblance of
sympathy he sought to give. "Your people, too. It's a
shame."

"It has not been so difficult as some might have hoped,"
said Otsuka. "Persistence in the face of hardship is often
rewarded."

"Often," Thatcher repeated.

"Still, through my foresight our industrial hollowing-out
was nearly complete when this so-called Readjustment
began. While we expected certain emergency measures on
the part of your government, we did not foresee that the
opinions of individuals would cause us to be treated as
enemies. It seemed so much more unwise for you than to
us, in a sense. The freeze on our assets hurt so many of your
own countrymen, you know. America has been in such a
perilous state since that time."

"The sensible man who's starving can always convince
himself somebody else's hungrier," said Thatcher.
"America's never been stronger than it is today. A little adversity builds a lot of character. Think I'm broken up
about it? Aren't I smiling?"

"Mister Dryden, the adversity of others has built your
character. Your strength-through-joy approach is something I put little stock in."

"Are you calling me a Nazi?" Thatcher asked; I prepared
to do as Bernard demanded, and squirt in conversational
lubricant, but had no chance.

"A witticism, Mister Dryden," said Otsuka. "In some
ways Americans would be ideal Nazis, but in the long run it
could never work. Every man would insist upon being his
own Fi ehrer." Thatcher gripped the arms of his chair as if
readying to leap up and strangle his proposed ally. "I mean
no disrespect. Not everyone appreciates my humor, sir.
That your Mister Leibson does counts for much in my eyes.
He and I see things as they are. My countrymen neither
appreciate my belief in the individual nor my telling them
what they prefer not to hear about what they choose not to
see. In America the concept of individualism is at least
honored in theory. All I earlier intended to say was that our
stasis was brought about by your decline, and neither of us
need to have suffered so much. Nothing more."

"What I'm trying to say is we've finally got our house in
order, and now we're ready to start helping the rest of the
neighborhood-"

"The arsonist always returns to the scene of the fire."
Otsuka held his hands before him, as if in prayer. "A new
approach must be made by you first, Mister Dryden."

"What approach? What are you talking about?"

"Leaving aside nearsighted economic retributions,"
Otsuka said, "I have heard stories of how you refer to my
country, and my people."

"What'd Bernard tell you?"

"Mister Leibson has been a model of circumspection in
these matters, Mister Dryden. His view of all members of humanity is consistent. But a bad word shouted from a
cliffside echoes off the rocks, and I have heard these echoes
in several places."

"I'm not sure what you're getting at ..."

"Have you not at times called us yellow perils? Whale
eaters? Monkey boys?"

"People get upset and say things-"

"laps?" Otsuka said. "Gooks?"

"My brother was in Vietnam," Thatcher said, as if that
explained.

"I have never been in Vietnam, Mister Dryden. Only
Americans go to Vietnam. Perhaps it would be similar, and
more accurate, were I to call you a Nazi in such circumstance-"

"You all don't have any room to talk," Thatcher said.
"Way you treat Koreans. The Chinese. Things you've said
about American people-"

"I treat all equally, Mister Dryden. I have said no such
things. The Japanese are a homogenous people, sir, but to
remain that way we shot no Ainu from trains. We imported
no Koreans to sell in our cities' markets. We never beat
American students to death in our universities simply for
being intelligent."

"You're still bad as we are."

"Ours are both racist nations, Mister Dryden. But we'll
have none of it between us if you want my business. This is
not in the agreement but must be agreed to. You will never
call me or my people anything other than Japanese again, to
my face or behind my back. Is that agreed?"

"You have to understand it wasn't deliberate," Thatcher
said. "My dad was in the war."

"In the European theater," Otsuka said. "I was in the
war, Mister Dryden. When I was taken prisoner it was by
Americans considerate enough not to send my skull back to
a girlfriend as a token of love."

"He could have been in the Pacific--

"Then we might have killed each other, and where would
we be today? Ours are different countries now than what
they were. We must both remember that, and not view each
other through our fathers' eyes."

When Thatcher at last replied I barely heard him. "That's
true."

"To fruitfully share our hegemony," said Otsuka, "we
must trust each other as partners, if not as equals."

"I can drink to that," Thatcher sighed. Otsuka smiled.
"Let's do it, shall we?"

Otsuka pulled at the sleeve of his righthand associate.
"Please hand the papers to Mister Dryden. Mister Leibson
has gone over the working copy with you, of course."

"Of course." As Thatcher speedily read through the
clauses, I relaxed, and allowed my glance to drift across the
prints on the wall, assuming them at first to be Hiroshige's;
noted in the corner of one landscape a pair of golden arches.

"Your hard bargaining may cause us difficulties in the
future, Mister Dryden," Otsuka said.

"We'll be dead by then," Thatcher mumbled.

"The only way to offset the thirty percent share of our
profits that you require will necessitate an end to the
present deflation, true, but perhaps to too great a degree.
Some of my advisers believe me foolish to make such a
settlement."

"People'll have to pay what we charge, won't they?"
Thatcher said. "Long as they got something to trade we can
always work something out."

"Our retrofitted world cannot long exist on this barter
system your country introduced-"

"It was my wife's idea, actually," said Thatcher, reading
the pact as he might the lease for an apartment. "You all
don't like it cause your money'll be going like everyone
else's, once you get rid of what we turn loose, and you don't have nothing left to trade but brains and VCRs. Nobody
else complains."

"What choice do they have?" Thatcher grinned. "We are
not so bad off as all that, Mister Dryden, and you know
that."

"I got one question. This bit about programs employing
viable personnel components of-what the hell? South-
hemi states?" Thatcher reread what he'd quoted. "People
of Latin America, I suppose. I'm curious as to what your intentions are for that part of the world."

"What is the context for your inquiry?" asked Otsuka.

"What're you going to do down there?" asked Thatcher.
"Clear enough?"

"The agreement allows only for the discussion of proposed projects. Your approval is necessary for any actions
taken after the date of signing. Otherwise, certainly, we
would lose our favored status-"

"Actions already underway are unaffected?"

"Of course. Mister Dryden, you look upon Latin America
as you might look upon your mother."

"I was reborn there," said Thatcher. "What sort of things
you got underway down south?"

"Nothing unexpected. We possess a certain amount of
liquidable property there as we do in many places. Money
we once had that we were unable to invest in the United
States had to go somewhere."

"I see."

"Mister Dryden, your doubts are still evident. For a
moment examine your other partnerships and see the
benefits of realigning with Japan. Who else is out there with
whom you deal? Europe? Because of their own so-called
alliance they believe they will shortly be able to dispose of
us both. So they've believed for six years, and someday they
may convince one other to believe. China? You don't nurse
vipers without knowing they'll strike when they choose. Russia." He paused; sighed, and rubbed his eyes. "Mister
Dryden, your countries have an incomprehensible relationship. Each of your nations seems a dream of the other. This
war without war the two of you have ongoing seems likely
to bankrupt you in time, no matter the business you believe
it creates-"

"We tried not fighting," said Thatcher. "Just didn't seem
natural. It's not as if there're dangers involved. The Pax is
signed, and in long-distance conflicts we both use local
advisers-"

"So that your Army may be saved, to use in battling
against your own countrymen. That is the most puzzling
thing of all."

"This incountry stuff is penny-ante insurrection, that's
all," said Thatcher. "Long Island wouldn't go along with
the FEMA plan. Too many posses quartered out there
weren't used to working inside any law." Most had worked
for Thatcher; he never forgave. "You don't see martial law
still in effect anywhere but here, do you? It's unavoidable.
We're just mopping up now. I'll be on the winning side of
the civil war this time, that's for sure."

"Your soldiers have been mopping for two years," said
Otsuka. "Your Army cannot settle a disturbance among
your own people not a kilometer from where we sit."

"There's just more of 'em out there than originally
estimated," Thatcher said.

"I would say America should invest its capital and its
young men in areas where they might have more purposeful effect."

"Well, it's our problem in any event," said Thatcher.
"New York's got to be secure. We don't need Japanese help
on that."

"But you do in other areas, Mister Dryden," said Otsuka.
"You need a dependable friend."

Thatcher nodded to Avi, who handed him a fountain pen with a golden nib. Upon signing the agreement he passed it
over to Otsuka, who inked in his own ideograms.

"That our age may again know reason," Otsuka said. "As
Adam Smith wrote, economic self-interest guided by the
unseen hand of God enriches the marketplace."

"You got to watch out for that hand."

"Our new world," said Otsuka, reading over the signatures. "So much clay awaits its sculptors."

For several long moments Thatcher was unnaturally
pensive, as if he already regretted having signed. "Sometimes it takes a while to see everything in the big picture,"
he said, wistfully, as if admitting to a character flaw. He
folded his copy of the agreement into a neat square and
stuffed it into his jacket pocket.