The Last Mandarin (14 page)

Kanamori traveled. Sometimes in a car and sometimes with a platoon in trucks, he visited towns and cities. Often he wore a gown instead of his uniform, and purchased cigarettes unannounced. He never found the prices unreasonable; if Wang was skimming, he was enriching himself on volume and not on piracy. Kanamori did not like Wang, who was dry, bloodless and always correct, though occasionally his voice or his cat's face betrayed enthusiasm—at a good month's take, a rich consignment from Indochina, praise relayed by Kanamori. Wang wheedled, too, mainly licenses—a ferryboat license, a monopoly of turnips in some neighborhood, a travel pass for some anonymous and doubtless corrupt Chinese trader—in return for which he surely banked handsome bribes. He made Kanamori exquisite gifts: a jade figurine, a painting of a showy peacock, a small pheasant in bronze, streaked with patina-like feathers. Kanamori tolerated him, even admired him. The man's manners were courtly, his suggestions gentle; he was not ostentatious; he never complained about money.

Three years passed. By 1941 Kanamori realized with only mild chagrin that he preferred his trader's life. He was by now all but Chinese. He preferred Chinese women and Chinese food. Among the Chinese reconciled to the Japanese he had many friends. He attended the theater, cock fights. At one cock fight he encountered a fellow officer, one Okuhara, who took him drinking afterward and then to a whorehouse. A fashionable place of good repute. It was called the Snow Goose Pavilion because its madam was a White Russian named Olga, and the local word for goose was a pun on the word for Russian. Olga was a woman of understanding. What there was to see she had seen; always Kanamori sensed an air of weary contempt in her, of cynical resignation, but he assumed that the contempt and cynicism were directed at men and not at Asians. One of the girls—her name was Cropped Hair, and she entered his dreams—rebuked him one evening for his drowsy lack of interest, and he enjoyed the rebuke and found his interest reviving. He instructed her to slap him, and then laughed and took her joyfully, almost savagely, as if in revenge.

Kanamori was pleased, even lulled, by the spaciousness of China: the plains, mountain ranges, river valleys, even the endless sky and the dry air of autumn. He began to think of himself whimsically as the last mandarin. One day he would perhaps wear a hat with a red button. It was not merely that he was a conqueror; he now felt like a superior man by virtue of accomplishment, residence, participation. So when the Japanese attacked America he thought, they have taken a great step—“they,” not “we.” Yet he wondered, and breathed quicker: would they need him now? Many nights he vowed to apply for transfer. Again his sleep was troubled. A lieutenant was assassinated. The authorities executed several Chinese, and Kanamori felt sorrow. He also felt disquiet, and kept an eye on Ping-ping, who was by now nineteen or twenty. He distrusted the parade of women: there were poisons. He distinctly preferred the girls at Olga's: the purchase money seemed to guarantee not merely satisfaction, not merely the occasional exhilaration of a light whipping and his subsequent revenge, but also his personal safety. Olga herself was a comfort. She understood his desire to experience pain as a contrast and prelude to exaltation. At first playfully and then more casually, as if they could both take it for granted, he made it clear to her that she would be held responsible for excessive pain or, as he added in jocular tones, misguided patriotism. He liked having her watch, and she raised no objection. It was odd, he knew, this foreign woman witnessing his pseudo-humiliation, but it was a source of banter between them, and augmented his pleasure. In time he ignored the women offered by Wang or Ping-ping, and when he spent an evening at home he was happier cataloguing his little collection of statues and scrolls.

In November of 1942 Kanamori inspected his retail outlets in the city of Yang-chou, a city heavily garrisoned because it was the confluence of a railroad line, a great canal, and Kao-yu Lake. As usual he wore the Chinese gown; as equally usual, his guard platoon, in field uniform and heavily armed, accompanied him on the truck. For Kanamori an opium den was now no more evil or notable than a wineshop. One entered, one greeted the pallid, unsmiling proprietor, one noted a few, or many, customers on pallets or wooden bunks. The sweetish, sickish odor was no more than an industrial effluvium. He scarcely ever saw faces, only the supine smokers or drowsers, so many rag dolls. In one den—a clean place, an air about it of reliability and domesticity—he had discussed price and volume with the proprietor and was warmed by the satisfaction of the honest businessman who feels that he has supplied a superior product at a reasonable price, thus buttressing the pillars of earth and the arches of heaven. Now he strolled the aisles, as if to ask, “Is all well? The service leaves nothing to be desired?” He stooped to retrieve a dead pipe lying at his feet, and pushed it toward the pallet, looking into the smoker's face with the instinct of the gentleman about to say, “Your pardon, sir; you dropped this.”

The face was familiar. Before he recognized it he felt shock, shame, a wrench and a stab; he set his teeth together in a hissing grimace, and then his mind relayed the message: this is Kurusu.

When he could stir, he turned and left, with only an abrupt nod to the proprietor.

Once each year Kanamori traveled home, by train to Shanghai and by ship to Nagasaki and then by train again, an interminable journey with stopovers and switchings, and if it was summer he baked in the metal cars, the humming of paper fans like a chorus of winged insects, to Akita finally, and then by wheezing bus to the village of Saito on the River Omono near Akita.

In the village of Saito his father, white-haired but strong as an oak and stem, was the police force. When Kanamori entered the house, exhausted and dripping sweat, after his boots had been snatched almost from his feet by the servant girl, his father rose and stood like an emperor reviewing troops, eyes aglitter and the flare of his deep nostrils betraying grand emotion. Kanamori saluted; his father did the same. Kanamori then knelt at his father's feet, and received his blessing. The old man spoke gruffly; it was the voice of affection, but even more the voice of instruction, of command, of manliness, the voice of the samurai. The father praised the son. From the family altar the household gods approved. This old man who had risen to major over thirty years recited the son's successive promotions, and then spoke with rising satisfaction of their country's triumphs, first in China and then, after the glorious winter of 1942, in Hawaii, Indonesia, Hong Kong and the Philippines. The old man's voice was enriched by these victories; he spoke like a herald, or a narrator in an opera. He ordered the servant girl to bring wine, and to prepare a bath. Then he called to Kanamori's mother, who was at last permitted to behold her son.

Kanamori's mother did not age, except for the graying of the hair. Each year she showed him the same face, unwrinkled, placid, impassive, only an occasional flash of joy or submission. The father would ask for details of Kanamori's work in “military government,” and Kanamori would invent whole administrations, elaborating on “the transport problem” or “flood control” or “public health,” to his father's obvious pride and satisfaction. Then his mother would ask if he caught many colds, or if he was planning to marry. At this his father would laugh and scoff. The two men would stroll, and in the street the father would say gravely, “Military government,” to Sugita the tinker, or “Political education,” to Kotani the restaurateur, and once, when a subprefect traveling through stopped to say hello, “A captain now, you see, and on the General Staff in Nanking!”

All was serene in the village of Saito on the River Omono near Akita, but Kanamori's dreams were more frequent and intense there, as if in contrast to the cool dawn and the eternal peace, and after ten days he was restless, and yearned within for Nanking, as if he were firmly bound to the scene of his conquests and his sins. The village of Saito was a painting from an old scroll; Nanking was the world. He studied his mother. Perhaps he was in essence Chinese. Always in these years this notion teased him: he was at heart Chinese.

He said nothing ever of opium, of Olga's, of murder and corpse-lined streets, of rape, or of the man-child leaping from the womb in his nightmares: feint left, feint right,
Ima!

12

Burnham sauntered into the Willow Wine Shop late at night with a hundred pellets of Grade A Laotian opium in his right hand and a severe infatuation on his left arm. Sea Hammer scurried and hissed, but too late. Burnham walked in on a Chinese cop in a gray sharkskin double-breasted and an obvious gangster in purple rayon.

He reacted like a trouper. He slew Sea Hammer with a dirty look: some protection! He shoved his door shut with the small package, bowed and smiled at the two men, warned Hao-lan of incipient snakes and scorpions by tightening the ring of his fingers on her wrist, and said, “Do not be a guest.”

Yen saw the joke. “The landlord objected, but in the end admitted us. Official business. I hope I may be forgiven.”

“There is nothing to forgive. The police are always welcome here.”

“Hsü, now you are fooling.” Amused, he was inspecting this woman. Burnham took a moment to catalogue the gangster. Perhaps twenty-five; the suit tailored; sunglasses; a gold ring, intertwined snakes; a white shirt and a pale gold necktie with a pattern of small red crowns. A ready smile, a hairline mustache, flat eyes. “May I introduce Ming Chang-wei,” Yen said. “He is the trusted friend and confidant of Sung Yun.”

“How do you do,” Burnham said.

“Hello, Joe, whaddya know?” Ming said. “Sung Yun sent me because I speak English.”

“An exquisite courtesy on his part,” Burnham said. “This is Anna May Wong. She has manifold talents but speaks no English, aside from a few coarse expressions. I suggest we confine ourselves to that language.” To her he said in Chinese, “Take off your coat and have a chair. Ashtray and cups on the chest. Whiskey in a drawer. A few moments only.” He asked the others, “You have news? It's an odd hour for a social call.”

“We came earlier, of course,” Yen said, “and so waited. We had wonder if your news. Also, Sung Yun would urge you to call by.”

“I've been working,” Burnham said. “Renewing old ties.”

“Ah, contacts!” Yen approved.

“At least one old tie,” Ming said, “is worth renewing. A slick chick. Built for speed and not for comfort.”

Burnham blinked, recovered, forced a smile.

“You heard guns?” Yen asked.

“Several times.”

“Your safety. I am responsible.”

“You must not think so. I must go here and there alone. There is no help for it.”

“Still,” Yen said, “one feels such bad host.”

God damn these fools anyway. “Nobody wants me to find Kanamori,” Burnham said. “Everybody tells me to go home.”

“Sung Yun wants you to find him,” Ming said, “and that's the straight goods.”

“And I too.” Yen paused, groping for words. “He is remind them of war, you see. Most people rather forget. Also, your danger embarrass others, who lose face and feel guilt.”

“Watch your step,” Ming said. “Kanamori is one tough baby. If he ain't croaked by now.”

A stylist. Burnham grunted. “I think I'm being used to draw fire. Or at least to stir up the snakes.”

“Not by me,” Yen said. “I want only the man Kanamori.”

Hao-lan complained in Chinese: “Is this to last all night? Time is money.”

“My sweet singer.” Burnham's voice oozed. “A moment more only.”

She mouthed a noisy kiss.

“Oh you kid,” Ming said, and to Burnham: “If we don't pull him in now, he's gone for good. You're the last hope. A fresh bloodhound.”

Yen slipped into Chinese: “There is so little time, and you work alone. Suppose you disappeared? What then?”

“It must be done my way,” Burnham insisted. “I seek a paw print here, a bent blade of grass there; I sniff the wind, and listen to birdsong.”

“You will hear more than birdsong,” Yen said gloomily. “You have already heard gunfire. The city is aboil. The students march. Your grass will be trampled, your paw prints obliterated. By tomorrow, perhaps.”

“Then I must fail,” Burnham said.

Yen drew smoke and calmed himself. “Forgive me. Perhpas it is as well. You have done this before, and with success. I hope I have not been unpleasant.”

“You have been indispensable. Without your report I would wander in darkness.”

“You have my number. You will call me each day?”

“At least once.”

“My prices are going up by the minute,” Hao-lan said. “Russian princes do not keep me waiting. Or American bristle merchants.”

“My wild pigeon,” Burnham said.

“I will stay for breakfast,” she said decisively. “For breakfast I like cold salt fish and hot rice.”

Ming cleared his throat. “Sung Yun says to drop in tomorrow. Okay?”

“You said it. What time, kiddo?”

Ming beamed. “Around eleven in the morning? Can you dump hot stuff here?”

“Where'd you learn English?” Burnham asked reverently.

“In college.”

“In the States?”

Ming melted, suffused with joy. “No, no, right here. That is, in Chengtu, during the war. I majored in the American vernacular or mei kuo pai hua, and I hung around with GI's. Have I the gift of gab?”

“A richer gift than mine, old buddy. You're hip.”

Ming frowned. “I am not hep?”

“No, no, my dear Ming.” Burnham was firm. “It is very unhip to be hep.”

Ming sparkled. “Oh, that is swell. ‘It is very unhip to be hep.' I am hip, pops, I am hip.”

Hao-lan stood up, threw her fanny out of joint, slapped it and said, “Doss ah hip.”

“Not now,” Burnham said. “Please remain seated.”