"The shiko," murmured the woman from the doorway. "To frighten evil spirits and the opponent."
"Tell him the opponent isn't here," Diamond muttered.
The shiko was repeated with the left leg. The great domes of flesh completed their movement, quivered, and were still. If anything, the reek of camellias had intensified. The wrestler, as well as his Jeeves, must have been pomaded with the stuff.
"I rather think someone has made a mistake inviting us here," Diamond insisted.
Shocked that anyone should speak while the workout was in progress, the man in the tracksuit held up a restraining hand.
The wrestler treated them to the panorama of his backside again, bending so low that his head must have been between his knees. He was wearing the silk loincloth used in combat by the highest-ranking sumotori. The enforced intimacy with this mountainous rump was unsettling Diamond, and he didn't care to think what effect it could be having on the child. Actually, the room wasn't small. Indeed it must have been the star dressing room. But when shared with a sumo wrestler and two heads coated in essence of camellia, it seemed minute. He turned to see if the woman was still present. She was standing just inside the door trying to be unobtrusive.
Diamond asked her, "Are you sure this is right?"
She nodded and signaled to him to be silent by pressing her fingers against her lips.
The wrestler grunted, raised himself from the jackknife position and suddenly turned about to face them. He was vast all over. His thighs looked as if they could have supported an overpass and in a sense they did, because his huge belly jutted so far over the belt of his loincloth that he appeared naked. A thick band of pectoral muscles lay over his torso, forming a deep, undulating crease. Above all that, almost extrinsic to the show, was his small, moon-shaped head. Its only real distinction was the hair tied at the back and folded forward in the traditional fan shape worn by the highest ranked sumotori. He exchanged the briefest of glances with the man in the tracksuit, who picked up a black jacket not unlike an undergraduate gown and wrapped it around the colossal shoulders.
Then the great man bowed in greeting and Diamond did the same. For once in his life, he was feeling physically diminished, skimpy, if not slender. A hand was extended for him to shake. Having seen the agility of Japanese wrestiers, he wouldn't have been surprised to have found himself on his back in the far corner. Instead he received nothing worse than a firm handshake. Something was said in Japanese, the voice high-pitched and husky.
The woman spoke up from behind Diamond. "The Ozeki Yamagata wishes to introduce himself and welcome you to the Albert Hall, his temporary quarters."
Diamond identified himself and Naomi. Chairs were produced for them. Yamagata squatted on a wooden bench and said something to his dresser, who spoke in turn to the woman interpreter.
She told Diamond, "I have the honor to translate for Mr. Yamagata. He instructs me to explain that Ozeki is the second highest rank in sumo. Mr. Yamagata is a very important wrestler in Japan, and the most senior in this tournament. You are welcome to be his honored guests in the arena tonight if you wish."
"We are honored indeed," said Diamond, fitting smoothly into the formal style of address, "but I think the child is too young."
When this was translated for Mr. Yamagata he appeared to take it well, nodding sagely.
Naomi still had a tight grip on Diamond's fingertips. With some justification, she regarded these proceedings with the deepest suspicion.
Yamagata spoke again and the interpreter explained that by chance the Very Important Wrestler had watched the transmission of "What About the Kids?" A portable set had been brought in for him to see a Channel 4 program about sumo, but it had concentrated too much on a rival sumo stable and he had switched channels. "Mr. Yamagata was deeply moved by the unhappy situation of this Japanese child who appears on British television and says nothing. He asked me to make inquiries, so I phoned the BBC," she explained.
Diamond's hopes of a breakthrough were dashed. "You mean he didn't recognize Naomi?"
She shook her head.
"He doesn't know who she is?"
"It was only a TV show."
"For crying out loud!" Diamond jerked up from the chair, accidentally hoisting Naomi to her feet as well, because she still had hold of his fingertips. "You brought us here for nothing, because this… this lump of lard happened to see the kid on the box? That's ludicrous. Who else have you dragged in-Arthur Daley?"
"Please! I cannot possibly say these things to Mr. Yamagata."
"Don't trouble. We're off. We've been conned by this heap of flab." He turned to leave and found the way barred by the henchman in the tracksuit, hunched forward combatively, looking as if he wasn't messing. Naomi gave a whimper, dropped her precious drawing pad, and flung both arms around Diamond's waist, or as far around as she was able.
Not the ideal conditions for a first encounter with a sumo wrestler.
"Do you mind?" Diamond articulated in a straining-to-be-civil, British fashion. "We would like to leave now."
A volley of Japanese came from Yamagata, and the interpreter pushed herself between Diamond and the henchman. "Mr. Diamond, I implore you! Mr. Yamagata has not finished speaking. You cannot leave yet."
"There's nothing else to say," Diamond told her. "The only reason we came was to find out who Naomi is. He doesn't know. He hasn't the faintest idea."
"He wishes to help."
"By questioning her in Japanese? The Embassy people tried. She doesn't respond. Now will you do me a favor and ask this buffoon to let us pass?"
"You should not turn your back on Mr. Yamagata."
She spoke this dictum like a universal truth. Probably it was well known and wisely heeded among the wrestling fraternity. Diamond heeded it and looked over his shoulder.
Thankfully, Yamagata hadn't moved from the bench. He was beckoning to Diamond to return to the chair.
Maybe, after all, Diamond rationalized, the guy has something constructive to suggest. I won't gain anything from an angry exit. I shouldn't let the frustration get to me. If I'd been questioning a witness in the nick, any old witness, I'd have heard him out in hope of eliciting something useful, wouldn't I?
"Okay," he said, resting his hand on Naomi's shoulder. "Two minutes."
They sat down again.
"Mr. Yamagata would like to hear from your own lips the story of this little girl."
"I thought he had something to tell me."
"Please, Mr. Diamond."
"As you wish." Striving to be tolerant, he picked his way through the few known facts, starting with the bomb scare in Harrods and ending with Naomi's drawings, which she was willing to hand over for Yamagata's inspection.
The wrestler methodically turned the pages of the drawing pad, studying the diamond shapes and coming finally to the lattice window.
"That's my own work," Diamond said, thinking how ridiculous he sounded, like some amateur artist looking for compliments. "This drawing above is Naomi's. I wondered at one stage if she was writing in Japanese characters, but I was told not."
When this was explained to Yamagata, he shook his head. He seemed as mystified about the significance of the drawings as everyone else. He closed the pad and handed it back to Naomi, graciously, with both hands, as if it were some precious item in the sumo ritual. He said something in Japanese to her, but she made no response. He then turned to Diamond and actually managed some halting words of English.
"Yamagata love little girl."
Diamond had dreaded something like this. "No. That's out. Definitely not possible," he said, reinforcing it with a sweeping motion with his hand.