Tengu (43 page)

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their
clothes only slightly lifted or parted to vreveal the
huge gnarled penises that were penetrating their vaginas.

Without a word,
Nancy loosened Jerry’s necktie, and began deftly to unbutton his shirt. Jerry
stayed still, his hands by his sides, watching her with a feeling of unreality
but also, for the first time since he had heard that David had been kidnapped,
a
feeling of peace. As he had noticed the last time he had
visited her, Nancy had an extraordinary quality of inner tranquility, a calm
that reminded him of the still lake around the Gold Pavilion in Nara, of
walking along the little alley called the Path of Philosophy by the Old Canal
in Nanzenji, when the rows of cherry trees silently blizzarded their blossoms
into the water.

In a matter of
moments, with humility but also with dignity, Nancy had stripped him naked. His
penis rose higher with every heartbeat. She ran her hands down his bare chest,
making him shiver, and down his thighs. Then she loosened her own pale-pink
silk robe and let it slide on to the polished floor. She was slim and
small-breasted, naked except for an embroidered ribbon of white silk that was
fastened around her waist and between her legs, tied so tight that it
disappeared into the cleft of her sex.

She untied the
ribbon, and drew it off herself, to reveal that it had been keeping in place,
inside her, a miniature jade figure of a baldheaded deity carrying a peach, the
symbol of the female vulva. Without comment, she set the figurine aside, and
then took Jerry’s hand and led him into the bathroom.

Under a sharp,
needling shower, Nancy soaped his shoulders, his back, and his buttocks. She
cupped his balls in her hand for a moment, while she soaped up and down the
shaft of his erection; but not for too long. The true stimulation would come
later. Then she stood with her eyes closed, her long dark hair spreading wet
across her shoulders, as Jerry slowly and firmly lathered her back, her
breasts, and her slender thighs. The water dribbling between her legs turned
her dark heart-shaped pubic hair into a tail.

Afterward,
fresh and dried, they closed themselves in the bedroom, where a large soft
futon lay on the floor. Nancy insisted that Jerry close his eyes and lie on his
back. She massaged him with lightly scented oil, and spoke to him monotonously
and matter-of-factly about the mystical power of yin and yang, the sexual
union; and of the nutritive powers which wise men could gain from drinking “the
medicine of the three mountain peaks” from the women they couple with.

The first juice
was the juice of the Red Lotus Peak, saliva from the tongue; the second juice
was from the Double Lotus Peak, milk from the breasts; the third was the most
nourishing juice of all, and should be imbibed by men in the greatest
quantities possible, the precious juice of the Mysterious Geteway.

Jerry lay back
on the futon, feeling Nancy’s fingers working at his muscles, feeling her naked
skin against his, and although his anxiety for David never left him, it became
tempered with a new determination, more resolute and more balanced. He began to
feel that if he had gone to Nancy Shiranuka for help, instead of his shrink, he
might have forgotten Hiroshima years ago.

At last, with
exceptional elegance, as beautifully curved as a bamboo-brush painting, Nancy
lifted herself over him, and took his penis in her hand, so that she could
couch it in the slippery curves of her vulva, and, with a musical sigh, sink
down on him, so deeply that she trembled with a sensation that was part
pleasure and pan shock.

She was like no
other woman, Caucasian or Oriental, that Jerry had ever slept with. She seemed
to give herself to him totally, surrender her pride and her personality without
any reservation whatsoever. She rose up and down on him as if she were
conjuring the very soul out
ot
him, through his penis;
and at the instant of his first climax she withdrew herself, only by a fraction
of an inch, so that they could both witness the jets of semen anointing her
open lips.

They were
locked together in the bedroom for an hour and a half, and during that time she
brought him to three climaxes, opening her body up to him in every possible
way. Yet, when it was finished and she lay next to him on the futon smoking a
cigarette, he felt as if he had been through a mystical rather than a physical
experience. He understood now what she had meant about the bond between two
living people, the knot tied between their spirits, as if every movement had
twisted one silken cord around another, as if each act of intimacy had
tightened the ties.

When they were
quiet again, when their breathing was gentle and even, Jerry said, “There’s
something else I have to ask you.”

Nancy lay
beside him, her face so close that he could scarcely focus on it. He’d been
growing increasingly far-sighted with age, and he found that he was reading
newspapers at arm’s length these days.
Eyeglasses,
bridgework, baldness–how the human body decayed.
Nancy didn’t know how
much of a gift of youthfulness she had given him by making love to him this
afternoon.

‘‘The police
say they found two bowls and two samurai swords out at Rancho Encino Hospital.

Blue porcelain
bowls, containing incense or ash. And the swords were crossed. They’ve drawn
the obvious inference that they were part of some sort of Japanese ritual, but
they don’t know what, and neither do I.”

Nancy was
silent, stroking Jerry’s shoulder. Then she said, “The police shot and mortally
wounded the Tengu who was sent to kill Admiral Thorson the night before last.
It would have required a magical ceremony close to the Tengu’s body to draw
back the demon and revive the Tengu. The ceremony with the bowls and swords is
called the Hour of Fire. It directs the Tengu back toward the dead meat of his
previous host, and encourages him to bring it back to life again. A Tengu can
be revived even if he has been burned to ashes. The Hour of Fire is
specifically forbidden, not only by the priests of Shrine Shinto themselves,
but, by secret agreement, by the Japanese police. Anyone who is thought to be
trying to perform the ritual of the Hour of Fire is arrested and imprisoned,
and usually meets with a fatal accident while in police custody.”

“They take it
that seriously?”

“They take the
Tengu seriously,” Nancy corrected him. “The Tengu is the darkest of all
Japanese demons because he thrives on the weakness and corruption of the human
soul. The purer the soul that the Tengu can corrupt, the greater the social and
ethical damage to Japanese society, and the greater the Tengu’s increasing
strength. The
company boss
who takes a bribe after twenty
years with a spotless record; the hardworking man who decides to steal; the
woman who murders her husband–they are all victims of the Tengu. Has it never
occurred to you why Japanese society is structured like it is? Why large
companies act so paternally and protectively to their workers? They are
shielding the people for whom they are responsible from the madness and
violence that the Tengu always brings with him; the madness of war, the madness
of murder, the madness of cruelty. The Tengu has affected Japanese thinking for
hundreds of years. I believe it, no matter how much you smile at me. Some
Japanese learned to control his influence: the samurai warriors, for instance
were always balancing between strict morality and utter violent insanity. They
courted possession by the Tengu, and hoped that they could control him. But the
Tengu eventually brought Japan to war with the United States, which was the
ultimate madness, politically and historically and socially. Japan recovered,
but the Tengu lives
on,
and always will, to haunt and
taint the Japanese spirit. You must forgive us for many things, Jerry. We are a
people possessed.” It was nearly a quarter to two when Jerry dressed again, and
called a cab to take him back to Orchid Place. Nancy had warmed him a little
deluxe sake, the sak€ with the gold leaf floating in it, and they sat facing
each other in the living room, drinking and enjoying each other’s satisfaction
and warmth.

At last, she
opened her sleeve, and gave him a small porcelain box, decorated with erotic
paintings and perforated with elaborate holes.

“What’s this?”
he asked her, turning it over and over.

“That is your
keepsake for what we did today. That is your talisman. It will help to protect
you.

All you have to
do is
have
faith in it, and have faith in the
joining-together we achieved this afternoon.”

He said, “If I
thought that it was possible,for a man to fall in love with a woman after
meeting her only twice, I’d say that it has just happened to me.’’

Nancy smiled.
“I have loved too many men, and been used by too many men. I have become
because of my many experiences the symbol of a woman, rather than an individual
woman whom you could love as a mistress or a wife. Would you really like to
kiss every morning as you leave for work the lips of a woman who has fellated a
whole forest of penises, white, black, and yellow? Would you really like to
make love to a body that has been used and abused so many thousands of times?
Sex to me has become something spiritual, something close to the very heart of
the meaning of my existence. It is no longer a way of forming an attachment
with one man. I don’t care if I have one man or many men. All that I care about
now is
understanding
my life, and reaching the peaks
of sensory excitement that help me to do so.’’

Jerry looked at
her without speaking for almost a minute. Then he looked down at the porcelain
box she had given him and asked, “Can you tell me what this is?”

“It’s a cricket
cage,” she said. “Chinese ladies used to catch singing crickets and put them
inside, and then store the cages inside their sleeves, so that wherever they
went walking in their gardens, they were accompanied by the singing of
crickets.”

“There’s no
cricket in it now,” said Jerry.

“No,” said
Nancy. “But instead I have put inside it something even more attractive, and
protective.
A koban-sized shunga print, a kachi-e, a victory
picture for you to carry into your conflict.
It shows a highborn lady
having intercourse with her lover in front of a mirror. It is by Shuncho, and
it was printed in the
mid-1780’s
, as one of a series
called Koshuku-zue juni-ko. It represents the acts which you and I have
performed this afternoon, and it will guard your life against the Tengu.”

Jerry held up
the cricket cage in his hand. “I wish I could believe that.’’

“You must
believe it. If you doubt it, think to yourself: Why did this woman who is
almost a total stranger make love to me today, if it were not to form a bond of
strength against the demon?”

Jerry looked at
his wristwatch, the same gold wristwatch they had given him when he left the
Navy.
His prize for bombing Hiroshima.
He said, “I
have to go now.”

Nancy held his
wrist and placed his hand inside her silken robe, against her breast, so that
he could feel her nipple rising against the palm of her hand. “I come from the
ukiyo-machi,” she said. “You must never think of me as a lover, but only as a
bond.
Someone with whom you formed a sexual and a mystical
union.”

Jerry leaned
forward to kiss her, but she turned her head to one side. “When you have
defeated the Tengu,” she said, “come back here at once and drink your fill of
the joke of the Mysterious Gateway, to restore your strength. Until then, you
should thirst.”

Jerry went to
the door and opened it. “You’re a very strange and beautiful person,” he told
her.

He felt moved
by what had happened to him in the past two hours. Nancy remained where she
was, striped by the brilliant sunshine through her Venetian blinds, her black
hair shining,
one
breast still bare.

The cab was
waiting for him. Jerry said, ‘‘Eleven Orchid Place, please.”

G
erard was shrugging on his coat, and reaching for his keys and his
pen, when Francesca came back into the office from lunch. “Gerard,” she said,
“you didn’t tell me you were going out.”

Gerard gave her
an evasive grin. “Listen, I won’t be long, okay? I have to see Chatfield about
those Dutch cigars.”

“Henry
Chatfield called yesterday. It’s all cleared up. He’s probably back in New York
by now.”

Gerard stared
at her coldly. “Listen,’’ he said, “
if
I have to see
Chatfield about those cigars, then I have to see Chatfield about those cigars.
You understand me? Jesus Christ, you’re not my wife.”

Francesca
raised her head a little and looked at Gerard through long, mascaraed lashes.

“Gerard,” she
said, “I have to know where you’re going.”

“I’m going out,
okay?
Out of the door and along the corridor and down to the
parking lot, and out.”

Francesca said,
as gently as she could manage, “That’s not enough.”

“What do you
mean, “
That’s
not enough?’ What are you talking
about?”

Francesca sat
down, crossing her long artificially suntanned legs. She looked Gerard directly
in the eye, with a look he hadn’t seen before.
Almost
official.
She said, “This morning you went to the Avis desk at the
airport and rented a white Pontiac Grand Prix in the name of Hudson Foss.

Afterward, you
drove to a lock-up garage in Westwood, which is rented from Westwood Star
Properties by someone who calls himself P. B. Sexton. That garage contains a
number of contraband items, including video equipment, pornographic viedeotapes
and magazines, cocaine, whiskey, vodka, men’s apparel, and weapons, one of
which was an M-60E1 machinegun complete with ammunition and spare barrels.”