Kikuchi-Lotmann inspected the platter and gave instructions for cooking the meat. At the same time he chopped up leeks and watercress and made a salad dressing.
I wonder if I haven’t seen him before, said Quin, nodding in the direction of the servant who was now bent over the charcoal brazier.
Unlikely, answered Kikuchi-Lotmann. He’s one of my two personal bodyguards and is always with me. The other is the young man who escorted you in. The young one I call the student and the old one the policeman, because that’s what they were when I hired them. The student is good at remembering things and the policeman is good at grilling meat. And now, Mr. Quin, let’s have our chat. Why are you here?
To try to find out about my father, although I don’t see how you could have known him. He died before the war.
I was a child before the war, Mr. Quin, and the only foreigners I knew as a child were two friends of Rabbi Lotmann. One was Father Lamereaux, the other was an elderly Russian linguist by the name of Adzhar who also lived in Kamakura. Adzhar was in his late seventies then, about the time you were being born. Is it possible you later changed your name to something more American?
Kikuchi-Lotmann grinned. Quin smiled and shook his head.
I’m afraid not. It would make a good story, but Adzhar’s not the man I’m looking for.
Looking for? You said he was dead. What do you mean?
I mean I know very little about my father or mother, other than that they lived out here. I came to Japan to find out what I could.
But how am I to help if I never knew a Quin and never heard of one?
I don’t know. All I know is that Father Lamereaux told me to come to see you and here I am.
Quin smiled. Kikuchi-Lotmann laughed.
I have a feeling, said Kikuchi-Lotmann, that the old Jesuit’s up to something. Well he’s clever, we know that. I assume he knew your father?
Not well, only in one special way. He saw him occasionally but never for more than a minute or two at a time. He can’t tell me much really.
But he did know him, just as he knew Rabbi Lotmann. He knew your father and he knew my guardian, and obviously there’s some reason why he wanted us to meet. Do you know what that might be?
No.
Kikuchi-Lotmann removed his glasses to polish them, his eyes shrinking to two solemn dots. The glasses went on again and Quin was faced with two large smiling eyes.
I think I might, said Kikuchi-Lotmann. I think it might have to do with No plays. They’re stylizations, aren’t they? The actors wear masks so there can be no doubt of that, then too the number of roles is quite limited no matter what the play. Only a handful really. The witch, the princess, the old man, the brother, and so forth. Now it happens there’s only one thing I know about my parents, and Rabbi Lotmann might have told Father Lamereaux about it just as he told me.
What is it?
Their last circus performance. How they died. Do you know the story of Emperor Taisho opening parliament?
No.
I’ll tell it to you, but just excuse me a minute, please.
The bodyguard with the submachine gun came to order arms, clicked his heels, and handed Kikuchi-Lotmann a second report. He lit a new long cigar and glanced over the single sheet of paper.
Just as I expected, he said. Say no to the automobile franchise in Thailand, offer Icelandic fishing grounds instead. Acquire a controlling interest in Ceylonese tea and let it be known that no ships will be unloaded in Malaysia and no opium allowed out of Turkey unless we get all of Bombay’s male brothels. Send a letter of condolence to the head of the Burundi family. Also agree to finance the airport in the Sulawesi but not the steel mill in Sikkim. Fix the horse races in Buenos Aires and send the proceeds to our London insurance firm. Switch our arms shipments from the sultans in Sabah to the terrorists. In Somalia do the opposite, withdraw support from the terrorists and send tanks to the sheiks. Buy Austrian skiing, sell Libyan electronics. Take control of the trans-Siberian pipeline.
Oil or natural gas? asked the bodyguard.
Natural gas, said Kikuchi-Lotmann. Use our Geneva and Zurich banks. Liquidate our off-shore rights in Africa, take an option on the Brazilian jungle. Levy an eight percent surcharge on all vessels anchored in the Mediterranean. Build a tourist industry on the Caspian in Iran, emphasis on speed boats and snack bars and fast service. Schedule a coal miners’ strike in Finland the day after tomorrow. End the Honduran boycott of Nicaraguan bananas. Put out the order that I want everyone in the organization to get a haircut before the weekend. Don’t bring me any more reports tonight.
The bodyguard backed away. Kikuchi-Lotmann took a new necktie from his pocket.
The Emperor Taisho, he said, was on the throne in the 1920s when Father Lamereaux first came to Japan. There was an event then that made a great sensation although nothing was ever printed about it, naturally. Being god in those days, the Emperor didn’t have much to do. One of his few duties was to open parliament. The chamberlains were always worried how Taisho would handle himself at the opening because he had never been quite right in the head. Well this time he stood at the podium and didn’t seem to be doing anything at all, not even reading his document. He just stood there looking down at the bowed heads, rather a blank expression on his face. After about ten minutes of this had gone by, he smiled suddenly as if an idea had just come to him. All at once he rolled up the document he was supposed to be reading, rolled it up in the shape of a spy glass. He put it to his eye and swept the chamber with it, peeking at one man after another. The chamberlains were rushing to get ahold of him when he yelled out in a high squeaky voice: Hello down there. I am the Emperor. Who are you?
Kikuchi-Lotmann laughed.
He wouldn’t give up his spy glass, so they had to lead him away and open parliament without the document being read. Well the point is, perhaps that’s what Father Lamereaux is doing. Perhaps he’s saying, I am the Emperor and it’s up to you to answer for yourself. He knew my guardian, he knew your father, he knew the way my parents died. There’s a connection somewhere, and it must have to do with that last circus. With that vast unreal warehouse on the outskirts of Shanghai.
Shanghai?
Of course. Where else in Asia could such a circus have been performed?
After they finished the meal Kikuchi-Lotmann poured brandy. Big Gobi stared at the fire and dozed. A full moon had risen above the canal. It was well after midnight and the city was quiet. Facing the still water from the houseboat, they seemed far from Tokyo.
Kikuchi-Lotmann removed his necktie and tied in its place one of deep crimson.
The circus, he announced, taking off his glasses. His eyes shrank to dots as he recited the poem.
To know its sawdust,
Its smells and rings and highbars,
Is to remember.
A haiku, he said. Not a very good one, but at least of my own making. Now let us recall that other circus, the circus we knew as children. The sweep of the trapeze acts, the grace of the dangerous cats, the ridiculous clowns, the lumbering elephants, the confusing jugglers, the flying bareback riders. A magical show without end because of the magic in a child’s heart.
Yet when we go back years later we see a different performance. The costumes are shoddy, the smells cheap, the clowns not quite so funny, the aerialists not quite so daring. The dream is gone and what we see is crude, even grotesque. Sadness? Yes. Because we know the circus hasn’t changed.