Quin’s glass was empty. Even the ice was gone. A legend beside the buttons on the counter noted that all the films were changed every third day. It also invited the guest to indulge himself in combinations by pressing several or all of the buttons at once, thereby creating unique themes previously unwitnessed. Quin was about to order another drink when the waiter reappeared, apologizing as before, and invited him to pay a visit to Madame Mama.
Once more they walked down a spiral staircase, but this one was narrow and plain and neither carpeted nor lit by chandeliers. It wound down between weathered boards that formed a square shaft, reinforced at every level by what appeared to be a roof. In fact, Quin wondered if they were descending through a pagoda that had been built under the ground instead of above, narrowing into the earth instead of the sky.
She sat at the bottom of the well in a bare wooden room, a tiny white-haired woman in black kimono, her only decoration an oval emerald resting on her forehead. She inclined her head as she greeted him, a kindly, aristocratic woman who spoke precise English with a slightly archaic accent.
The sages like to remind us, she said, that the only life we know here is as one underground, that we must pass through many incarnations before we finally see the sun. A pagoda can also have three or five stories, but mine has seven. Is Father Lamereaux still alive?
Yes he is, answered Quin.
How strange. I always thought he died during the war.
No, but it seems he’s been pretty much of a recluse since then.
I see. Well he was very kind to me once and we must never forget a kindness. What may I do for you, Mr. Quin?
Father Lamereaux thought you might have known my father in Shanghai. He thought you might have been there when he died.
And when was that?
About 1937 I think.
Mama’s face showed no expression.
I was there about then, she said, and I did know many foreigners, many of whom died, most of them in the end. But they were all nameless to me. We didn’t use names then. Ever,
And you’ve never heard of someone called Quin?
Mama frowned. She unfolded her hands, paused, refolded them in a different way.
Yes, I believe I have. But it wasn’t in Shanghai, it was in Tokyo. It was in connection with something that had happened in Shanghai eight years before I lived there.
Mama spoke slowly. She talked of Japan before the war, of Shanghai and the desperation she had known there. She said that to recall the events of that lurid era would be to play an uneasy, painful game with the past. She talked for over an hour and asked him to come to see her again. Meanwhile she offered him the use of an interpreter to help him find the other person Father Lamereaux had mentioned.
Quin left feeling oddly close to the ancient little woman even though she had not discussed the circumstances in which she had heard his father’s name. Instead she had talked at length about herself. Why had she avoided his questions?
Quin thought he knew the answer. Geraty had said the espionage ring operated for eight years. If his father had died in Shanghai when Mama was there, then the event she had alluded to, the episode that occurred eight years before that time, might be connected with the beginning of the ring. Mama had said it would be an uneasy, painful game of memory to recall that era and Quin believed her, for the uneasy, painful game could have only one name.
Shanghai.
The interpreter, a meek elderly man, suggested they begin their search at once in Tsukiji, the area of Tokyo where Quin had been told to look for the gangster Kikuchi-Lotmann. Since it was the fish market district, Tsukiji had the best sushi restaurants in the city. The interpreter led Quin to one on a main street and indicated a table by the window.
If we sit there, he said, we should be able to get our bearings. Shall we?
The interpreter spoke to the waiter and plates of sushi began to appear, those for Quin heavy on the cheaper cuts of octopus and squid, those for the interpreter tending toward expensive sea urchin and expensive salmon roe and an extremely expensive northern whitefish that was so rare it was seldom available at any price.
Quin drank beer. The interpreter drank a premium iced sake from a brewery in Hiroshima that bottled the special brand only once a year on the Emperor’s birthday.
Quin finished his beer waiting to hear the interpreter’s plan for finding Kikuchi-Lotmann. The man said nothing, instead he ordered a second plate of sushi and a third. Quin found himself paying the bill, which was exorbitantly high, while the interpreter exchanged pleasantries with the man at the cash register. Once outside, the interpreter walked a few steps to a doorway and stopped.
Careful, he whispered. We must act naturally.
They stood on the sidewalk facing the door. The interpreter rolled his eyes to heaven meaningfully, hiccuped, unzipped his trousers. Quin went over to wait by the curb as a stream of urine splashed between the interpreter’s legs and slithered across the crowded sidewalk. The elderly man wiped his hands with a newspaper before joining Quin at the curb.
First piece of information, he whispered. There appears to be a houseboat in the neighborhood that everyone is afraid to talk about.
How do you know? said Quin.
The man at the cash register. We had a short discussion about the stores and shops and houses and inns and shacks and restaurants and hotels in Tsukiji, about the storerooms and warehouses and garages and so forth, and he never hesitated. He chatted right along with me. So that leaves only a houseboat, don’t you think? I’m quite sure that’s what we’re looking for. Shall we?
Quin followed the interpreter into a coffee shop, dark and restful after the hot sun in the street. The interpreter asked for the score to the music, a Mozart symphony, and read the score while they were waiting for their coffee to be brought. The beer and the summer heat had made Quin sleepy. Soon he dozed off. His untouched cup of coffee was sitting in front of him when the interpreter tugged his sleeve and woke him up.
The sun’s just going down, he whispered, always a good time to gather information. Besides, that’s Haydn and they don’t have the score. Shall we?
Shall we what? growled Quin.
The interpreter laughed lightly.
Very good, we shall. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for.
Quin expected the taxi to take them along a canal where a houseboat would be moored, but instead they drove across a wide stretch of reclaimed land to a breakwater. The interpreter strolled leisurely out toward the end of the breakwater while the taxi waited. Quin ran after him. The man stood at the end gazing across Tokyo Bay.
What the hell, said Quin.
I know, mused the interpreter, there’s nothing like it at sunset. The bay and the outline of the city and above it all in the distance our noble Fuji-san. I’ve always been able to think more clearly here. In fact, I have a feeling the next piece of information is almost within our grasp.
The interpreter rolled his eyes toward Mt. Fuji, toward heaven. The wind was behind him so the stream of urine arched a full thirty feet out over the bay.
Lovely, mused the elderly man.
What is?
All of it. Just lovely and here we are.
Where?
Just here, repeated the interpreter, his gaze fixed on either the sacred mountain or some cloud in the sky. But we mustn’t tarry now, the moment has come. Shall we?
The taxi returned them to Tsukiji, to another sushi restaurant, this one large and noisy. The interpreter elbowed his way through the drunken, shouting men to the counter and used some of Quin’s money to bribe a waiter into giving them seats.
Act naturally, whispered the interpreter as they sat down. This is the place, all right. Pretend we just dropped in to have a bite. No one must think we’re really looking for information.