James Bond got at any rate part of the message. As Mariko’s busy fingers proceeded to remove his trousers and then his shirt, he lifted her chin and kissed her full on the soft, yielding, bud-like mouth.
Later, sitting sweating and reflecting in the comfortable wooden box, very tired, slightly, but cheerfully, drunk, he remembered his dismal thoughts in Queen Mary’s Rose Garden. He also remembered his interview with M., and M. saying that he could leave the hardware behind on this purely diplomatic assignment; and the lines of irony round Bond’s mouth deepened.
Mariko was looking into the wall mirror and fiddling with her hair and eyebrows. Bond said, ‘Mariko. Out!’
Mariko smiled and bowed. She unhurriedly removed her brassière and came towards the wooden box.
Bond reflected: What was it that Tiger had said about becoming a new man? and he reached for Mariko’s helping hands and watched her breasts tauten as she pulled him out and towards her.It was indeed a new man who followed Tiger through the thronged halls of Tokyo main station. Bond’s face and hands were of a light brown tint, his black hair, brightly oiled, was cut and neatly combed in a short fringe that reached halfway down his forehead, and the outer corners of his eyebrows had been carefully shaved so that they now slanted upwards. He was dressed, like so many of the other travellers, in a white cotton shirt buttoned at the wrists and a cheap, knitted silk, black tie exactly centred with a rolled gold pin. His ready-made black trousers, held up by a cheap black plastic belt, were rather loose in the fork, because Japanese behinds are inclined to hang low, but the black plastic sandals and dark blue nylon socks were exactly the right size. A much-used overnight bag of Japan Air Lines was slung over his shoulder, and this contained a change of shirt, singlet, pants and socks, Shinsei cigarettes, and some cheap Japanese toilet articles. In his pockets were a comb, a cheap, used wallet containing some five thousand yen in small denomination notes, and a stout pocket knife which, by Japanese law, had a blade not more than two inches long. There was no handkerchief, only a packet of tissues. (Later, Tiger explained. ‘Bondo-san, this Western habit of blowing the nose and carefully wrapping up the result in silk or fine linen and harbouring it in your pocket as if it were something precious! Would you do the same thing with the other excretions of your body? Exactly! So, if in Japan you wish to blow your nose, perform the act decorously and dispose at once, tidily, of the result.’)
Despite his height, Bond merged quite adequately into the bustling, shoving crowd of passengers. His ‘disguise’ had mysteriously appeared in his room at the bathhouse and Mariko had greatly enjoyed dressing him up. ‘Now Japanese gentleman,’ she had said approvingly as, with a last lingering kiss, she had gone to answer Tiger’s rap on the partition. Bond’s own clothes and possessions had already been taken away.
‘They and your things from the hotel will be transferred to Dikko’s apartment,’ Tiger had said. ‘Later today, Dikko will inform your Chief that you have left Tokyo with me for a visit to the MAGIC establishment, which is, in fact, a day’s journey from Tokyo, and that you will be away for several days. Dikko believes that this is so. My own department merely know that I shall be absent on a mission to Fukuoka. They do not know that you are accompanying me. And now we will take the express to Gamagori on the south coast and the evening hydrofoil across Ise Bay to the fishing port of Toba. There we will spend the night. This is to be a slow journey to Fukuoka for the purpose of training and educating you. It is necessary that I make you familiar with Japanese customs and folkways so that you make as few mistakes as possible – when the time comes.’
The gleaming orange and silver express slid to a stop beside them. Tiger barged his way on board. Bond waited politely for two or three women to precede him. When he sat down beside Tiger, Tiger hissed angrily, ‘First lesson, Bondo-san! Do not make way for women. Push them, trample them down. Women have no priority in this country. You may be polite to very old men, but to no one else. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, master,’ said Bond sarcastically.
‘And do not make Western-style jokes while you are my pupil. We are engaged on a serious mission.’
‘Oh, all right, Tiger,’ said Bond resignedly. ‘But damn it all ...’
Tiger held up a hand. ‘And that is another thing. No swearing, please. There are no swear-words in the Japanese language and the usage of bad language does not exist.’
‘But good heavens, Tiger! No self-respecting man could get through the day without his battery of four-letter words to cope with the roughage of life and let off steam. If you’re late for a vital appointment with your superiors, and you find that you’ve left all your papers at home, surely you say, well, Freddie Uncle Charlie Katie, if I may put it so as not to offend.’
‘No,’ said Tiger. ‘I would say “Shimata”, which means “I have made a mistake”. ’
‘Nothing worse?’
‘There is nothing worse to say.’
‘Well, supposing it was your driver’s fault that the papers had been forgotten. Wouldn’t you curse him backwards and sideways?’
‘If I wanted to get myself a new driver, I might conceivably call him “bakyaro” which means a “bloody fool”, or even “konchikisho” which means “you animal”. But these are deadly insults and he would be within his rights to strike me. He would certainly get out of the car and walk away.’
‘And those are the worst words in the Japanese language! What about your taboos? The Emperor, your ancestors, all these gods? Don’t you ever wish them in hell, or worse?’
‘No. That would have no meaning.’
‘Well then, dirty words. Sex words?’
‘There are two–“chimbo” which is masculine and “monko” which is feminine. These are nothing but coarse anatomical descriptions. They have no meaning as swearing words. There are no such things in our language.’
‘Well I’m ... I mean, well I’m astonished. A violent people without a violent language! I must write a learned paper on this. No wonder you have nothing left but to commit suicide when you fail an exam, or cut your girl friend’s head off when she annoys you.’
Tiger laughed. ‘We generally push them under trams or trains.’
‘Well, for my money, you’d do much better to say “You —”,’ Bond fired off the hackneyed string, ‘and get it off your chest that way.’
‘That is enough, Bondo-san,’ said Tiger patiently. ‘The subject is now closed. But you will kindly refrain both from using these words or looking them. Be calm, stoical, impassive. Do not show anger. Smile at misfortune. If you sprain your ankle, laugh.’