Two men. Foreigners.
What do they look like?
Who knows? They all look alike.
But what do they want? Why are they here?
The housekeeper held out a letter. It was written by himself, signed with his name. The letter was addressed to someone named Quin and suggested an hour and a day when this Quin could come to call. The date, in his own hand, showed that he had written the letter several weeks ago.
Father Lamereaux frowned. He had not had a visitor since the war. Who was this man? Why had he come to call? Why had he agreed to let him come to call in the first place?
Father Lamereaux reached out for the sheaf of papers he always kept beside him no matter where he was in the house, whether in his study or his bedroom or the dining room. He never carried them into the parlor, but that was only because he never went into the parlor, because he never had any visitors anymore.
The sheaf of papers was the index to his memoirs, a manuscript on which he had been working for nearly a quarter of a century. The memoirs were not yet finished but the index was complete and up to date. He thumbed through it and found no one by the name of Quin listed there.
I’ll tell them you’re resting, whispered the housekeeper.
No, don’t do that, of course I’ll see them. It’s just that I can’t recall the man’s name at the moment.
Welcome. It’s raining. This house has not seen a caller since the war.
Quin found himself facing a tall, cadaverous priest in his middle seventies. The old man smiled gently. He sat down in a chair with horsehair arms and poured tea from a tray brought by the dwarf who had met them at the door. Quin introduced himself and Big Gobi.
It’s raining, repeated Father Lamereaux. Exactly half a century ago I came to Japan on a day much like this. At one time the Emperors of Japan were men of great stature, but all that changed when military dictators seized power and moved the capital to Kamakura. The young Emperor was left behind in Kyoto to barter his autograph for pickles and rice. That was in the thirteenth century. Then in the 1920s I went to Kamakura to study in certain Buddhist temples.
Father Lamereaux unbuttoned his coat. There was something wrong with the movement. Quin looked more closely and saw that the buttons were reversed, buttoning right side over left as with a woman. The priest turned his attention to Big Gobi, who had nervously taken out his small gold cross to polish it on the side of his nose.
Four decades ago, whispered Father Lamereaux, I heard the tale of a cross very much like that one. This other cross was a rare Nestorian Christian relic that had been in the hands of a Malabar trading family for hundreds of years, during which time the family made a fortune in peppercorns. A man named Adzhar married into the family and traveled east with his wife and the cross. Of course Adzhar wasn’t his real name, only the name we knew him by. He was a Russian from Georgia and I believe he adopted the name of the province where he had been born. He also died before the war.
Father Lamereaux paused. He looked thoughtful.
I hope we’re not disturbing you, said Quin.
Not at all. I was just working on my memoirs as I have been every day for the last quarter of a century. Did you know cannons were placed around the Shinto shrines during the thirties? Decrepit artillery pieces captured from the Russians in 1905?
Father Lamereaux rubbed the horsehair arm of his chair.
An ugly mistake. For me the best years in Japan were the 1920s. I was young and I had just arrived, so everything here appealed to me. My studies were in Kamakura but I came to Tokyo on the weekends, to this very house, which was filled with cats then. In those days Tokyo was constructed entirely of wood and every night there would be a fire within walking distance, the flowers of Tokyo they were called. There’s nothing more stimulating than watching a fire when you’re young. On Friday nights we had our meetings here, and if we had been to see a fire the discussions we had on No drama were always more spirited. Since the war I’ve been a strict vegetarian, honey and eggs excepted. Rice has a particular effect on the Japanese an hour or two after they’ve eaten it, which is undoubtedly the principal reason they prefer the out-of-doors.
Quin nodded. He was looking at the legs of Father Lamereaux’s chair. They ended in carvings of claws crushing the heads of rodents.
How is your work progressing, Father?
Slowly, a little bit at a time. I want my memoirs to be as nearly perfect as possible. To me it seems unworthy of a human soul to resign itself to imperfection. I think the early fathers made a mistake there, I’ve always felt it was the Virgin we should be imitating. Christ doubted himself in the end but not the Virgin. We’re not enough like her, yet those years in Kamakura were charming all the same. The temples in the hills were beautiful and the views of the sea, the pine groves, the gongs and the rituals and the hours set aside for contemplation. And there was a spring afternoon when I nodded with the flowers while they played the music that had once tempted the sun goddess from her cave, played and also sang the epic of the dragon in a still small voice, a song so strange and soaring it surely was descended from the distant Lapps. A sad tale and yet not so. The shoemaker’s son sang it, sang it from his shoemaker’s bench. Incredibly, his code name when he was still in the business himself was The Holy Ghost. Did you know him? Did you know Elijah or the sun goddess? Did you know Henry Pu Yi?
No, said Quin.
Father Lamereaux leaned forward and rested his long, thin fingers on the stack of papers he had brought with him into the room. The papers were wrinkled and soiled as if often consulted. Slowly, pondering, he ruffled through the stack with his thumb and forefinger. Nothing was written on the papers. They were empty save for the prints of his fingers.
Henry was the last survivor of the Manchu dynasty, whispered the old priest, the last survivor and a very naughty man. We had a chat once, that was when visitors still came to call at this house. For a time he was Emperor of Manchukuo, as the Japanese called the mythical kingdom they pretended they had set up in Manchuria. It didn’t last very long, but all the same, Henry was the last Emperor I talked to.
Father, said Quin, it was Geraty who recommended me to you.
The old priest smiled gently.
I see. Well just let me think for a moment, I’m quite certain I can remember him. Names come back to me slowly, but they always come back. Perhaps you could just refresh my memory. What was he doing before the war?
He sold patent drugs. Eventually he left Tokyo and went to Mukden and then to Shanghai.
Mukden and Shanghai? A man who carried a valise for his samples? Yes, I believe I remember him. He came to my Friday night meetings.
Which meetings were those, Father?
The Legion meetings, the Legion of Mary. After the meetings ended there would be a discussion on No drama, and if we had happened to have seen a fire earlier in the evening the discussions were exceptionally spirited. I can recall him quite clearly now. He was a spare, large-boned man, very tall and very lanky, quiet, rather pale. Introspective and solemn, sometimes too solemn, I had to warn him not to be morose in his attitude toward religion. After all, it should be a happy part of our lives. Of course he wore stylish suits and flamboyant ties to make himself appear vain and worldly, but that was just to hide the truth about himself. How he suffered, that man. Did you know, by the way, that they placed cannons around the Shinto shrines in the thirties? Decrepit artillery pieces captured from the Russians in 1905?
When did you last see him, Father?
Henry?
No, Geraty.
Oh yes, I see. Well the last time would have been the morning he came here with his valise and was afraid to open it. The day he broke down and cried.
And when was that, Father?
Before the war, naturally. A good thirty years ago. And then before that I had my studies in Kamakura, where the temples in the hills were so beautiful, and the pine groves and the views of the sea, and the gongs and rituals and the hours set aside for contemplation. And then before that in the thirteenth century military dictators seized power and threw the Emperor out in the streets where he had to bugger his autograph and barter his pickle for rice. Since then I’ve been a strict vegetarian, honey and eggs ex-cepted.