Hold your tongue.
Big Gobi closed his eyes. Those were the last words that would ever cause him pain for when they sank into him a gate clanged shut behind them, a palace gate that would never open again. He tried to live in a world that was strange and frightening, tried to call it silly, tried to pretend he could live the way other people lived. But the gestures had always been clumsy, the acting artless, a jester with a serious face, a buffoon without a smile. Although he was as kind and lonely as a clown, in the end no one laughed.
Thereafter he might walk after Quin, the brother, down this street or that from the past, through the mythical lost cities of Shanghai and Tokyo and there find his mother or father without knowing it, answering questions that went unheard because the dream was gone, because the child within him had fled to the safety of that changeless inner kingdom where neither pain nor insult could be found, nothing in fact but the silent palace where the prince who might have been sat alone in his cell, beyond hope or sadness, patiently waiting for death.
Each morning they had the same conversation when Big Gobi came into the living room and sat down with his hands in his lap, there to remain for the rest of the day.
How’s the ear, Gobes?
The ear’s fine.
Bandage too tight?
The bandage’s fine.
Look, I’m sorry I spoke to you that way, I didn’t mean it. I just got angry that something like that had to happen in Mama’s place.
Anger’s fine. That Mama’s fine. What happened’s fine.
Quin nodded to himself and went into the kitchen, or outside to walk, or back into the bedroom to stare at the floor. Somehow he knew he had to get through to Big Gobi, he had to break his trance. In the end, not knowing how it might help, he decided to take him along to the meeting with the gangster Kikuchi-Lotmann.
Later that evening on the houseboat with Kikuchi-Lotmann would remind him of another meeting on a houseboat, the one Mama had failed to mention in her first conversation with him, the episode that had taken place in Shanghai eight years before she arrived there, the evening when Baron Kikuchi had embraced his convictions and agreed to supply the plans of the General Staff of the Imperial Army to the engaging husband of his former mistress, a man named Quin.
One recollection, a small one.
Soon there would be many more since Quin was unknowingly nearing the center of the espionage ring that had received its code name from an event in the life of the mysterious Adzhar, a clandestine network that had connected his father and the General and Father Lamereaux, and Maeve and Miya and Mama, and through them others as well, in a performance of love and desperation so powerful it could reach out thirty years later to claim both murders and suicides, create a new Kannon Buddha, and bring on the most magnificent funeral in Asia since the death of Kublai Khan.
And all because Quin wanted to help Big Gobi, and in so doing introduced him to his murderer.
Just before midnight they were walking down the canal behind the sushi restaurant when a young Japanese stepped out of the shadows with a submachine gun. He was wearing a dark business suit and his hair was cut short, but Quin wouldn’t have recognized him anyway without his false moustache and false sideburns. The young Japanese pointed the submachine gun at an alley and moved behind them. There was nothing to do but march ahead.
They came to a blank wall at the end of the alley. A buzzer sounded. The wall rolled away to reveal an enormous hall, a brightly lit area where hundreds of young women in white overalls and white surgical masks sat at benches studying banks of miniature television sets. Behind the sets were computers. The television screens showed scenes from all over the world, shipyards and oil refineries, camera factories, massage parlors, motorcycle assembly lines, bars and restaurants, transistor radio plants, every manner of enterprise and industry.
The guard waved them through a door into another large hall, less well lit, where young men in white overalls and white surgical masks supervised machines that stacked and packaged currencies.
The next door led into darkness. They were outside again facing the canal. A narrow gangplank ran down to a small houseboat.
When they stepped on the gangplank a light went on. A speaker began to play circus music. They passed through a tiny room with a bare canvas cot and one empty coat hanger on the wall beside a whip and megaphone. They walked through another door onto the deck.
The water was black and still. On the far side of the canal the windowless wall of a warehouse stretched for hundreds of yards. A charcoal brazier burned near the edge of the deck, which was covered with sawdust. Folding canvas chairs were scattered here and there. From one of them rose a short, rotund man who wore steel-rimmed glasses and a lavender frock coat. He smiled as he put out his hand.
Just in time, he said. I’m serving Mongolian mixed grill tonight. Your name please?
Quin.
The short, rotund man shook his hand warmly.
Kikuchi-Lotmann, Mr. Quin, a pleasure. I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you. I expected to see you soon after you made your inquiries. Were you delayed?
Quin pointed at the bandage over Big Gobi’s ear. Kikuchi-Lotmann shook his head with concern.
An accident? How unfortunate. But in any case you’re here and now we can have our chat. Who was it that sent you to me?
Father Lamereaux.
Ah, such a good man, so gentle and so kind. I haven’t seen him since I was a child. Excuse me, please.
The young man with the submachine gun clicked his heels and handed a report to Kikuchi-Lotmann, who glanced through it with no expression on his face. The guard stood at order arms. Kikuchi-Lotmann lit a long cigar and puffed briefly.
That settles it, he said. Sell our Korean textiles, our Kuwait crude, and our Kabul goats. Buy Surabaja brothels and bring down the government in Syria. I’ll see the delegation from Bolivia next week. Tell the families in Belgium and Bali to stop feuding or I’ll put out contracts. Corner the unrefined sugar market in Burma, via Beirut. Put a hold on South African diamonds until the Venezuelans agree to our pineapple terms. Bring gin, ice, and bitters.
The guard clicked his heels and left. Kikuchi-Lotmann removed a necktie from his pocket and tied it in the place of the one he was wearing.
Not since I was a child, he repeated, in Kamakura before the war. He often used to visit the man who took me in when I was a nameless orphan, Rabbi Lotmann, the former Baron Kikuchi. Lotmann always admired Lamer-eaux’s knowledge of the No theater. Are you also interested in No?
Quin shook his head.
Nor am I. Performances yes, but of a different kind.
He paused, smiling, as if Quin were supposed to understand something by that. But when Quin said nothing he nodded quickly.
I see, he told you nothing about me. Well what might the name of your friend be?
Gobi.
Gobi? The desert in China? A curious name. In Chinese he would be called Shamo. That’s their word for it, it means sandy wastes. Men known as dune-dwellers lived there in prehistoric times. Artifacts have been found along with dinosaur eggs. Would you like a drink before dinner?
They sat down at a folding camp table and Kikuchi-Lotmann mixed pink gins. A servant, a short man with gray hair, appeared with a platter of kidneys and liver, heart, spleen, a section of the large intestine, tongue and hocks and throat. Something about the man reminded Quin of Mama, perhaps his height or the resignation in his eyes. But the servant was thickset whereas Mama was frail, and the compassion in her face was replaced by hardness in his.