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He was further annoyed at being called away from an intimate social affair to deal with some unexplained problem resulting, no doubt, from the incompetence of his compatriot and these CIA ruffians. Indeed, had the summons not borne the authority of the Chairman of the Mother Company, he would have ignored it, for at the moment of interruption he had been enjoying a most charming and titillating chat with a lovely young man whose father was an American senator.
Reacting to the OPEC man’s frigid disdain, the man stood well back in the elevator, attempting to appear occupied with more important worries than this little matter.
Darryl Starr, for his part, sought to maintain an image of cool indifference by jingling the coins in his pocket while he whistled between his teeth.
With palpable G-press, the elevator stopped, and Miss Swivven inserted a second magnetic card into the slot to open the doors. The goatherd took this opportunity to pat her ass. She flinched and drew away.
Ah, he thought. A woman of modesty. Probably a virgin. So much the better. Virginity is important to Arabs, who dread comparison, and with good reason.
Darryl Starr quite openly, and the Deputy more guardedly, examined their surroundings, for neither had ever before been admitted to the “Sixteenth Floor” of their building. But Mr. Able shook hands with Diamond curtly and demanded, “What is this all about? I am not pleased to be called here summarily, particularly on an evening when I had something else in hand.”
“You’ll be even less pleased when I explain,” Diamond said. He turned to Starr. “Sit down. I want you to learn the magnitude of your screw-up in Rome.”
Starr shrugged with pretended indifference and slid into a white plastic molded chair at the conference table with its etched glass surface for rear projection of computer data. The goatherd was lost in admiring the view beyond the picture window.
“Mr. Haman?” Diamond said.
The Arab’s nose touched the glass as he watched with delight the patterns of headlights making slow progress past the Washington Monument—the same cars that always crawled down that avenue at precisely this time of night.
“Mr. Haman?” Diamond repeated.
“What? Oh, yes! I always forget this code name I have been assigned. How humorous of me!”
“Sit,” Diamond said dully.
“Pardon me?”
“Sit!”
Grinning awkwardly, the Arab joined Starr at the table as Diamond gestured the OPEC representative to the head of the table, and he himself occupied his orthopedically designed swivel chair on its raised dais.
“Tell me, Mr. Able, what do you know about the spoiling raid at Rome International this morning?”
“Almost nothing. I do not burden myself with tactical details. Economic strategy is my concern.” He flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the sharp crease of his trousers.
Diamond nodded curtly. “Neither of us should have to deal with this sort of business, but the stupidity of your people and the incompetence of mine makes it necessary—”
“Now, just a minute—” the Deputy began.
“—makes it necessary that we take a hand in the affair. I want to sketch you in on the background, so you’ll know what we’ve got here. Miss Swivven, take notes please.” Diamond looked up sharply at the CIA Deputy. “Why are you hovering around like that?”
Lips tight and nostrils flared, the Deputy said, “Perhaps I was waiting for you to order me to sit, as you have the others.”
“Very well.” Diamond’s gaze was flat and fatigued. “Sit.”
With an air of having won a diplomatic victory, the Deputy took his place beside Starr.
At no time during the conference was Diamond’s snide and bullying tone applied to Mr. Able, for they had worked together on many projects and problems, and they had a certain mutual respect based, not upon friendship to be sure, but upon shared qualities of administrative skill, lucid problem analysis, and capacity to make decisions untrammeled by romantic notions of ethics. It was their role to represent the powers behind them in all paralegal and extradiplomatic relationships between the Arab oil-producing nations and the Mother Company, whose interests were intimately linked, although neither trusted the other farther than the limits of their mutual gain. The nations represented by Mr. Able were potent in the international arena beyond the limited gifts and capacities of their peoples. The industrialized world had recklessly permitted itself to become dependent on Arab oil for survival, although they knew the supply was finite and, indeed, sharply limited. It was the goal of primitive nations, who knew they were the darlings of the technological world only because the needed oil happened to be under their rock and sand, to convert that oil and concomitant political power into more enduring sources of wealth before the earth was drained of the noxious ooze, to which end they were energetically purchasing land all over the world, buying out companies, infiltrating banking systems, and exercising financial control over political figures throughout the industrialized West. They had certain advantages in effecting these designs. First, they could maneuver quickly because they were not burdened by the viscous political systems of democracy. Second, the politicians of the West are corrupt and available. Third, the mass of Westerners are greedy, lazy, and lacking any sense of history, having been conditioned by the atomic era to live on the rim of doomsday, and therefore only concerned with ease and prosperity in their own lifetimes.
The cluster of energy corporations that constitute the Mother Company could have broken the blackmail stranglehold of the Arab nations at any time. Raw oil is worthless until it is converted into a profitable pollutant, and they alone controlled the hoarding and distribution facilities. But the Mother Company’s long-range objective was to use the bludgeon of contrived oil shortages to bring into their control all sources of energy: coal, atomic, solar, geothermic. As one aspect of their symbiotic affair, OPEC served the Mother Company by creating shortages when She wanted to build pipelines over fragile tundra, or block major governmental investment in research into solar and wind energy, or create natural gas shortfalls when pressing for removal of price controls. In return, the Mother Company serviced the OPEC nations in many ways, not the least of which was applying political pressure during the oil embargo to prevent the Western nations from taking the obvious step of occupying the land and liberating the oil for the common good. Doing this required more rhetorical suppleness than the Arabs realized, because the Mother Company was, at the same time, mounting vast propaganda programs to make the masses believe She was working to make America independent from foreign oil imports, using major stockholders who were also beloved figures from the entertainment world to gain popular support for their exploration of fossil fuel, their endangering of mankind with atomic wastes, their contaminating of the seas with off-shore drilling and reckless mishandling of oil freighters.
Both the Mother Company and the OPEC powers were passing through a delicate period of transition; the one attempting to convert Her oil monopoly into a hegemony over all other energy sources, so Her power and profit would not wane with the depletion of the world’s oil supply; the other striving to transform its oil wealth into industrial and territorial possessions throughout the Western world. And it was to ease their way through this difficult and vulnerable period that they granted unlimited authority to Mr. Diamond and Mr. Able to deal with the three most dangerous obstacles to their success: the vicious efforts of the PLO to use their nuisance value to gain a share of the Arab spoils; the mindless and bungling interference of the CIA and its sensory organ the NSA; and Israel’s tenacious and selfish insistence upon survival.
In bold, it was Mr. Diamond’s role to control the CIA and, through the international power of the Mother Company, the actions of the Western states; while Mr. Able was assigned the task of keeping the individual Arab states in line. This last was particularly difficult as those powers are an uneasy blend of medieval dictatorships and chaotic military socialisms.
Keeping the PLO in line was their major problem. Both OPEC and the Mother Company agreed that the Palestinians were a pest out of all proportion to their significance, but the vagaries of history had made them and their petty cause a rallying point for the divergent Arab nations. Everyone would gladly have been rid of their stupidity and viciousness, but unfortunately these diseases, although communicable, are not fatal. Still, Mr. Able did what he could to keep them defused and impotent, and had recently drained much of the potency from them by creating the Lebanon disaster.
But he had not been able to prevent Palestinian terrorists from making the Munich Olympics blunder, which wasted years of anti-Jewish propaganda that had been thriving on the basis of latent anti-semitism throughout the West. Mr. Able had done what he could; he had alerted Mr. Diamond of the event beforehand. And Diamond sent the information on to the West German government, assuming they would handle the matter. Instead, they lay back and let it happen, not that protection of Jews has ever been a dominant theme in the German conscience.
Although there was a long history of cooperation between Diamond and Able, and a certain mutual admiration, there was no friendship. Diamond was uncomfortable with Mr. Able’s sexual ambiguity. Beyond that, he detested the Arab’s cultural advantages and social ease, for Diamond had been raised on the streets of New York’s West Side, and like many risen plebes was driven by that reverse snobbism that assumes breeding to be a personality flaw.
For his part, Mr. Able viewed Diamond with disdain he never bothered to disguise. He saw his own role as a patriotic and noble one, laboring to create a power base for his people when their oil was gone. But Diamond was a whore, willing to submerge the interests of his own people in return for wealth and an opportunity to play at the game of power. He dismissed Diamond as a prototypic American, one whose view of honor and dignity was circumscribed by lust for gain. He thought of Americans as a decadent people whose idea of refinement is fluffy toilet paper. Affluent children who race about their highways, playing with their CB radios, pretending to be World War II pilots. Where is the fiber in a people whose best-selling poet is Rod McKuen, the Howard Cosell of verse?
Mr. Able’s mind was running to thoughts like these, as he sat at the head of the conference table, his face impassive, a slight smile of polite distance on his lips. He never permitted his disgust to show, knowing that his people must continue to cooperate with the Americans—until they had finished the task of buying their nation out from under them.
Mr. Diamond was sitting back in his chair, examining the ceiling while he thought of a way to introduce this problem so that it would not seem to be entirely his fault. “All right,” he said, “a little background. After the Munich Olympics screw-up, we had your commitment that you would control the PLO and avoid that kind of bad press in the future.”
Mr. Able sighed. Well, at least Diamond had not begun his story with the escape of the Israelites across the Red Sea.
“As a sop to them,” Diamond continued, “we arranged that whatshisname would be permitted to appear on the UN floor and unleash his slobbering fulminations against the Jews. But despite your assurances, we recently discovered that a cell of Black Septembrists-including two who had participated in the Munich raid—had your permission to run a stupid skyjacking out of Heathrow.”
Mr. Able shrugged. “Circumstances alter intentions. I do not owe you an explanation for everything we do. Suffice it to say that this last exercise in blood lust was their price for biding their time until American pressure saps Israel’s ability to defend itself.”
“And we went along with you on that. As passive assistance, I ordered CIA to avoid any counteraction against the Septembrists. These orders were probably redundant, as the traditions of incompetence within the organization would have effectively neutralized them anyway.”
The Deputy cleared his throat to object, but Diamond hushed him with a lift of the hand and continued. “We went a step beyond passive assistance. When we learned that a small, informal group of Israelis was on the track of those responsible for the Munich massacre, we decided to interdict them with a spoiling raid. The leader of this group was one Asa Stern, an ex-political whose son was among the athletes killed in Munich. Because we knew that Stern was suffering from terminal cancer—he died two weeks ago—and his little group consisted only of a handful of idealistic young amateurs, we assumed the combined forces of your Arab intelligence organization and our CIA would be adequate to blow them away.”
“And it was not?”
“And it was not. These two men at the table were responsible for the operation, although the Arab was really no more than an agent-in-training. In a very wet and public action they managed to terminate two of the three members of Stern’s group… along with seven bystanders. But one member, a girl named Hannah Stern, niece of the late leader, slipped through them.”
Mr. Able sighed and closed his eyes. Did nothing ever work correctly in this country with its cumbersome form of government? When would they discover that the world is in a post-democratic era? “You say that one young woman escaped this spoiling raid? Surely this is not very serious. I cannot believe that one woman is going to London alone and manage singlehandedly to kill six highly trained and experienced Palestinian terrorists who have not only the protection of your organization and mine but, through your good offices, that of British MI-5 and MI-6! It is ridiculous.”
“It would be ridiculous. But Miss Stern is not going to London. We are quite sure she went to France. We are also sure that she is now, or soon will be, in contact with one Nicholai Hel—a mauve-card man who is perfectly capable of penetrating your people and mine and all the British, of terminating the Black Septembrists, and of being back in France in time for a luncheon engagement.”
Mr. Able looked at Diamond quizzically. “Is that admiration I detect in your voice?”
“No! I would not call it admiration. But Hel is a man we must not ignore. I am going to fill you in on his background so you can appreciate the special lengths to which we may have to go to remedy this screw-up.” Diamond turned to the First Assistant, who sat unobtrusively at his console. “Roll up the printout on Hel.”
As Fat Boy’s lean, prosaic data appeared, rear-projected on the tabletop before them. Diamond quickly sketched out biographic details leading to Nicholai Hel’s learning that General Kishikawa was a prisoner of the Russians and scheduled for trial before the War Crimes Commission.
Japan
Reacting to the OPEC man’s frigid disdain, the man stood well back in the elevator, attempting to appear occupied with more important worries than this little matter.
Darryl Starr, for his part, sought to maintain an image of cool indifference by jingling the coins in his pocket while he whistled between his teeth.
With palpable G-press, the elevator stopped, and Miss Swivven inserted a second magnetic card into the slot to open the doors. The goatherd took this opportunity to pat her ass. She flinched and drew away.
Ah, he thought. A woman of modesty. Probably a virgin. So much the better. Virginity is important to Arabs, who dread comparison, and with good reason.
Darryl Starr quite openly, and the Deputy more guardedly, examined their surroundings, for neither had ever before been admitted to the “Sixteenth Floor” of their building. But Mr. Able shook hands with Diamond curtly and demanded, “What is this all about? I am not pleased to be called here summarily, particularly on an evening when I had something else in hand.”
“You’ll be even less pleased when I explain,” Diamond said. He turned to Starr. “Sit down. I want you to learn the magnitude of your screw-up in Rome.”
Starr shrugged with pretended indifference and slid into a white plastic molded chair at the conference table with its etched glass surface for rear projection of computer data. The goatherd was lost in admiring the view beyond the picture window.
“Mr. Haman?” Diamond said.
The Arab’s nose touched the glass as he watched with delight the patterns of headlights making slow progress past the Washington Monument—the same cars that always crawled down that avenue at precisely this time of night.
“Mr. Haman?” Diamond repeated.
“What? Oh, yes! I always forget this code name I have been assigned. How humorous of me!”
“Sit,” Diamond said dully.
“Pardon me?”
“Sit!”
Grinning awkwardly, the Arab joined Starr at the table as Diamond gestured the OPEC representative to the head of the table, and he himself occupied his orthopedically designed swivel chair on its raised dais.
“Tell me, Mr. Able, what do you know about the spoiling raid at Rome International this morning?”
“Almost nothing. I do not burden myself with tactical details. Economic strategy is my concern.” He flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the sharp crease of his trousers.
Diamond nodded curtly. “Neither of us should have to deal with this sort of business, but the stupidity of your people and the incompetence of mine makes it necessary—”
“Now, just a minute—” the Deputy began.
“—makes it necessary that we take a hand in the affair. I want to sketch you in on the background, so you’ll know what we’ve got here. Miss Swivven, take notes please.” Diamond looked up sharply at the CIA Deputy. “Why are you hovering around like that?”
Lips tight and nostrils flared, the Deputy said, “Perhaps I was waiting for you to order me to sit, as you have the others.”
“Very well.” Diamond’s gaze was flat and fatigued. “Sit.”
With an air of having won a diplomatic victory, the Deputy took his place beside Starr.
At no time during the conference was Diamond’s snide and bullying tone applied to Mr. Able, for they had worked together on many projects and problems, and they had a certain mutual respect based, not upon friendship to be sure, but upon shared qualities of administrative skill, lucid problem analysis, and capacity to make decisions untrammeled by romantic notions of ethics. It was their role to represent the powers behind them in all paralegal and extradiplomatic relationships between the Arab oil-producing nations and the Mother Company, whose interests were intimately linked, although neither trusted the other farther than the limits of their mutual gain. The nations represented by Mr. Able were potent in the international arena beyond the limited gifts and capacities of their peoples. The industrialized world had recklessly permitted itself to become dependent on Arab oil for survival, although they knew the supply was finite and, indeed, sharply limited. It was the goal of primitive nations, who knew they were the darlings of the technological world only because the needed oil happened to be under their rock and sand, to convert that oil and concomitant political power into more enduring sources of wealth before the earth was drained of the noxious ooze, to which end they were energetically purchasing land all over the world, buying out companies, infiltrating banking systems, and exercising financial control over political figures throughout the industrialized West. They had certain advantages in effecting these designs. First, they could maneuver quickly because they were not burdened by the viscous political systems of democracy. Second, the politicians of the West are corrupt and available. Third, the mass of Westerners are greedy, lazy, and lacking any sense of history, having been conditioned by the atomic era to live on the rim of doomsday, and therefore only concerned with ease and prosperity in their own lifetimes.
The cluster of energy corporations that constitute the Mother Company could have broken the blackmail stranglehold of the Arab nations at any time. Raw oil is worthless until it is converted into a profitable pollutant, and they alone controlled the hoarding and distribution facilities. But the Mother Company’s long-range objective was to use the bludgeon of contrived oil shortages to bring into their control all sources of energy: coal, atomic, solar, geothermic. As one aspect of their symbiotic affair, OPEC served the Mother Company by creating shortages when She wanted to build pipelines over fragile tundra, or block major governmental investment in research into solar and wind energy, or create natural gas shortfalls when pressing for removal of price controls. In return, the Mother Company serviced the OPEC nations in many ways, not the least of which was applying political pressure during the oil embargo to prevent the Western nations from taking the obvious step of occupying the land and liberating the oil for the common good. Doing this required more rhetorical suppleness than the Arabs realized, because the Mother Company was, at the same time, mounting vast propaganda programs to make the masses believe She was working to make America independent from foreign oil imports, using major stockholders who were also beloved figures from the entertainment world to gain popular support for their exploration of fossil fuel, their endangering of mankind with atomic wastes, their contaminating of the seas with off-shore drilling and reckless mishandling of oil freighters.
Both the Mother Company and the OPEC powers were passing through a delicate period of transition; the one attempting to convert Her oil monopoly into a hegemony over all other energy sources, so Her power and profit would not wane with the depletion of the world’s oil supply; the other striving to transform its oil wealth into industrial and territorial possessions throughout the Western world. And it was to ease their way through this difficult and vulnerable period that they granted unlimited authority to Mr. Diamond and Mr. Able to deal with the three most dangerous obstacles to their success: the vicious efforts of the PLO to use their nuisance value to gain a share of the Arab spoils; the mindless and bungling interference of the CIA and its sensory organ the NSA; and Israel’s tenacious and selfish insistence upon survival.
In bold, it was Mr. Diamond’s role to control the CIA and, through the international power of the Mother Company, the actions of the Western states; while Mr. Able was assigned the task of keeping the individual Arab states in line. This last was particularly difficult as those powers are an uneasy blend of medieval dictatorships and chaotic military socialisms.
Keeping the PLO in line was their major problem. Both OPEC and the Mother Company agreed that the Palestinians were a pest out of all proportion to their significance, but the vagaries of history had made them and their petty cause a rallying point for the divergent Arab nations. Everyone would gladly have been rid of their stupidity and viciousness, but unfortunately these diseases, although communicable, are not fatal. Still, Mr. Able did what he could to keep them defused and impotent, and had recently drained much of the potency from them by creating the Lebanon disaster.
But he had not been able to prevent Palestinian terrorists from making the Munich Olympics blunder, which wasted years of anti-Jewish propaganda that had been thriving on the basis of latent anti-semitism throughout the West. Mr. Able had done what he could; he had alerted Mr. Diamond of the event beforehand. And Diamond sent the information on to the West German government, assuming they would handle the matter. Instead, they lay back and let it happen, not that protection of Jews has ever been a dominant theme in the German conscience.
Although there was a long history of cooperation between Diamond and Able, and a certain mutual admiration, there was no friendship. Diamond was uncomfortable with Mr. Able’s sexual ambiguity. Beyond that, he detested the Arab’s cultural advantages and social ease, for Diamond had been raised on the streets of New York’s West Side, and like many risen plebes was driven by that reverse snobbism that assumes breeding to be a personality flaw.
For his part, Mr. Able viewed Diamond with disdain he never bothered to disguise. He saw his own role as a patriotic and noble one, laboring to create a power base for his people when their oil was gone. But Diamond was a whore, willing to submerge the interests of his own people in return for wealth and an opportunity to play at the game of power. He dismissed Diamond as a prototypic American, one whose view of honor and dignity was circumscribed by lust for gain. He thought of Americans as a decadent people whose idea of refinement is fluffy toilet paper. Affluent children who race about their highways, playing with their CB radios, pretending to be World War II pilots. Where is the fiber in a people whose best-selling poet is Rod McKuen, the Howard Cosell of verse?
Mr. Able’s mind was running to thoughts like these, as he sat at the head of the conference table, his face impassive, a slight smile of polite distance on his lips. He never permitted his disgust to show, knowing that his people must continue to cooperate with the Americans—until they had finished the task of buying their nation out from under them.
Mr. Diamond was sitting back in his chair, examining the ceiling while he thought of a way to introduce this problem so that it would not seem to be entirely his fault. “All right,” he said, “a little background. After the Munich Olympics screw-up, we had your commitment that you would control the PLO and avoid that kind of bad press in the future.”
Mr. Able sighed. Well, at least Diamond had not begun his story with the escape of the Israelites across the Red Sea.
“As a sop to them,” Diamond continued, “we arranged that whatshisname would be permitted to appear on the UN floor and unleash his slobbering fulminations against the Jews. But despite your assurances, we recently discovered that a cell of Black Septembrists-including two who had participated in the Munich raid—had your permission to run a stupid skyjacking out of Heathrow.”
Mr. Able shrugged. “Circumstances alter intentions. I do not owe you an explanation for everything we do. Suffice it to say that this last exercise in blood lust was their price for biding their time until American pressure saps Israel’s ability to defend itself.”
“And we went along with you on that. As passive assistance, I ordered CIA to avoid any counteraction against the Septembrists. These orders were probably redundant, as the traditions of incompetence within the organization would have effectively neutralized them anyway.”
The Deputy cleared his throat to object, but Diamond hushed him with a lift of the hand and continued. “We went a step beyond passive assistance. When we learned that a small, informal group of Israelis was on the track of those responsible for the Munich massacre, we decided to interdict them with a spoiling raid. The leader of this group was one Asa Stern, an ex-political whose son was among the athletes killed in Munich. Because we knew that Stern was suffering from terminal cancer—he died two weeks ago—and his little group consisted only of a handful of idealistic young amateurs, we assumed the combined forces of your Arab intelligence organization and our CIA would be adequate to blow them away.”
“And it was not?”
“And it was not. These two men at the table were responsible for the operation, although the Arab was really no more than an agent-in-training. In a very wet and public action they managed to terminate two of the three members of Stern’s group… along with seven bystanders. But one member, a girl named Hannah Stern, niece of the late leader, slipped through them.”
Mr. Able sighed and closed his eyes. Did nothing ever work correctly in this country with its cumbersome form of government? When would they discover that the world is in a post-democratic era? “You say that one young woman escaped this spoiling raid? Surely this is not very serious. I cannot believe that one woman is going to London alone and manage singlehandedly to kill six highly trained and experienced Palestinian terrorists who have not only the protection of your organization and mine but, through your good offices, that of British MI-5 and MI-6! It is ridiculous.”
“It would be ridiculous. But Miss Stern is not going to London. We are quite sure she went to France. We are also sure that she is now, or soon will be, in contact with one Nicholai Hel—a mauve-card man who is perfectly capable of penetrating your people and mine and all the British, of terminating the Black Septembrists, and of being back in France in time for a luncheon engagement.”
Mr. Able looked at Diamond quizzically. “Is that admiration I detect in your voice?”
“No! I would not call it admiration. But Hel is a man we must not ignore. I am going to fill you in on his background so you can appreciate the special lengths to which we may have to go to remedy this screw-up.” Diamond turned to the First Assistant, who sat unobtrusively at his console. “Roll up the printout on Hel.”
As Fat Boy’s lean, prosaic data appeared, rear-projected on the tabletop before them. Diamond quickly sketched out biographic details leading to Nicholai Hel’s learning that General Kishikawa was a prisoner of the Russians and scheduled for trial before the War Crimes Commission.
Japan
Nicholai requested and received a leave of absence, to free his time and energy for the task of locating the General. The next week was nightmarish, a desperate struggle in slow motion against the spongy but impenetrable barricades of red tape, autonomic secrecy, international mistrust, bureaucratic inertia, and individual indifference. His efforts through the Japanese civil government were fruitless. Its systems were static and mired because grafted upon the Japanese propensity toward overorganization and shared authority designed to lessen the burden of individual responsibility for error were elements of alien democracy that brought with them the busy inaction characteristic of that wasteful form of government.
Nicholai then turned to the military governments and, through perseverance, managed to piece together a partial mosaic of events leading to the General’s arrest. But in doing so, he had to make himself dangerously visible, although he realized that for one living on forged identity papers and lacking the protection of formal nationality, it was perilous to irritate bureaucrats who thrive on the dysfunctional status quo.
The results of this week of probing and pestering were meager. Nicholai learned that Kishikawa-san had been delivered to the War Crimes Commission by the Soviets, who would be in charge of prosecuting his case, and that he was currently being held in Sugamo Prison. He discovered that an American legal officer was responsible for the defense, but it was not until he had deluged that man with letters and telephone calls that he was granted an interview, and the best he could get was a half hour squeezed into the early morning.
Nicholai rose before dawn and took a crowded train to the Yotsuya district. A damp, slate-gray morning was smudging the eastern sky as he walked across the Akebonobashi, Bridge of Dawn, beyond which crouched the forbidding bulk of the Ichigaya Barracks which had become symbolic of the inhuman machinery of Western justice.
For three-quarters of an hour, he sat on a wooden bench outside the counsel’s office in the basement. Eventually a short-tempered overworked secretary showed him into Captain Thomas’s cluttered work room. The Captain waved him to a chair without looking up from a deposition he was scanning. Only after finishing it and scribbling a marginal note did Captain Thomas raise his eyes.
“Yes?” There was more fatigue than curtness in his tone. He was personally responsible for the defense of six accused war criminals, and he had to work with limited personnel and resources, compared to the vast machinery of research and organization at the disposal of the prosecution in their offices above. Unfortunately for his peace of mind, Captain Thomas was idealistic about the fairness of Anglo-Saxon law, and he drove himself so hard that weariness, frustration, and bitter fatalism tainted his every word and gesture. He wanted nothing more than to see all this mess over and return to civilian life and to his small-town legal practice in Vermont.
Nicholai explained that he was seeking information about General Kishikawa.
“Why?”
“He is a friend.”
“A friend?” The Captain was dubious.
“Yes, sir. He… he helped me when I was in Shanghai.”
Captain Thomas tugged the Kishikawa brief from under a stack of similar folders. “But you were just a child then.”
“I am twenty-three, sir.”
The Captain’s eyebrows went up. Like everyone else, he was fooled by Nicholai’s genetic disposition toward youthful appearance. “I’m sorry. I assumed you were much younger. What do you mean when you say that Kishikawa helped you?”
“He cared for me when my mother died.”
“I see. You’re British, are you?”
“No.”
“Irish?” Again the accent that was always identified as being from “someplace else.”
“No, Captain. I work for SCAP as a translator.” It was best to sidestep the irrelevant tangle of his nationality—or rather, his lack thereof.
“And you’re offering yourself as a character witness, is that it?”
“I want to help in any way I can.”
Captain Thomas nodded and fumbled about for a cigarette. “To be perfectly frank, I don’t believe you can help all that much. We’re understaffed here, and overworked. I’ve had to decide to concentrate my energy on cases where there is some chance of success. And I wouldn’t put Kishikawa’s in that category. That probably sounds cold-blooded to you, but I might as well be honest.”
“But… I can’t believe General Kishikawa was guilty of anything! What is he being accused of?”
“He’s in the Class A grab bag: crimes against humanity—whatever the hell that means.”
“But who’s testifying against him? What do they say he did?”
“I don’t know. The Russians are handling the prosecution, and they’re not permitting me to examine their documents and sources until the day before the trial. I assume the charges will center around his actions as military governor of Shanghai. Their propaganda people have several times used the label: ‘The Tiger of Shanghai.’”
“‘The Tiger of—!’ That is insane! He was an administrator. He got the water supply working again—the hospitals. How can they…?”
“During his governorship, four men were sentenced and executed. Did you know that?”
“No, but—”
“For all I know, those four men might have been murderers or looters or rapists. I do know that the average number of executions for capital crimes during the ten years of British control was fourteen point six. You would think that comparison would be in your general’s favor. But the men executed under him are being described as ‘heroes of the people.’ And you can’t go around executing heroes of the people and get away with it. Particularly if you are known as “The Tiger of Shanghai.’”
“He was never called that!”
“That’s what they’re calling him now.” Captain Thomas sat back and pressed his forefingers into his sunken eye sockets. Then he tugged at his sandy hair in an effort to revive himself. “And you can bet your Aunt Tilly’s twat that that title will be used a hundred times during the trial. I’m sorry if I sound defeatist, but I happen to know that winning this one is very important to the Soviets. They’re making a big propaganda number out of it. As you probably know, they’ve picked up a lot of flack for failing to repatriate their war prisoners. They’ve been keeping them in ‘reeducation camps’ in Siberia until they can be returned fully indoctrinated. And they have not delivered a single war criminal, other than Kishikawa. So this is a set piece for them, a chance to let the people of the world know they’re doing their job, vigorously purging Japanese Capitalist Imperialists, making the world safe for socialism. Now, you seem to think this Kishikawa is innocent. Okay, maybe so. But I assure you that he qualifies as a war criminal. You see, the primary qualification for that honor is to be on the losing side—and that he was.” Captain Thomas lighted one cigarette from another and stubbed out the punk in an overflowing ashtray. He puffed out a breath in a mirthless chuckle. “Can you imagine what would have happened to FDR or General Patton if the other side had won? Assuming they had been so self-righteous as to set up war-crimes trials. Shit, the only people who would have escaped being labeled ‘warmongers’ would have been those isolationist hicks who kept us out of the League of Nations. And chances are they would have been set up as puppet rulers, just as we have set up their opposite numbers in the Diet. That’s the way it is, son. Now, I’ve got to get back to work. I go to trial tomorrow representing an old man who’s dying of cancer and who claims he never did anything but obey the commands of his Emperor. But he’ll probably be called the ‘Leopard of Luzon’ or the ‘Puma of Pago-Pago.’ And you know what, kid? For all I know, he might really have been the Leopard of Luzon. It won’t matter much one way or the other.”
“Can I at least see him? Visit him?”
Captain Thomas’s head was down; he was already scanning the folder on the forthcoming trial. “What?”
“I want to visit General Kishikawa. May I?”
“I can’t do anything about that. He’s a Russian prisoner. You’ll have to get permission from them.”
“Well, how do you get to see him?”
“I haven’t yet.”
“You haven’t even talked to him?”
Captain Thomas looked up blearily. “I’ve got six weeks before he goes to trial. The Leopard of Luzon, goes up tomorrow. Go see the Russians. Maybe they can help you.”
“Whom do I see?”
“Shit, boy, I don’t know!”
Nicholai rose. “I see. Thank you.”
He had reached the door when Captain Thomas said, “I’m sorry, son. Really.”
Nicholai nodded and left.
In months to come, Nicholai was to reflect on the differences between Captain Thomas and his Russian opposite number, Colonel Gorbatov. They were symbolic variances in the superpowers’ ways of thinking and dealing with men and problems. The American had been genuinely concerned, compassionate, harried, illorganized… ultimately useless. The Russian was mistrustful, indifferent, well prepared and informed, and ultimately of some value to Nicholai, who sat in a large, overstuffed chair as the Colonel stirred his glass of tea thoughtfully until two large lumps of sugar disintegrated and swirled at the bottom, but never completely dissolved.
“You are sure you will not take tea?” the Colonel asked.
“Thank you, no.” Nicholai preferred to avoid wasting time on social niceties.
“For myself, I am addicted to tea. When I die, the fellow who does my autopsy will find my insides tanned like boot leather.” Gorbatov smiled automatically at the old joke, then set down the glass in its metal holder. He unthreaded his round metal-rimmed glasses from his ears and cleaned them, or rather distributed the smudge evenly, using his thumb and finger. As he did so, he settled his hooded eyes on the young man sitting across from him. Gorbatov was farsighted and could see Nicholai’s boyish face and startling green eyes better with his glasses off. “So you are a friend of General Kishikawa? A friend concerned with his welfare. Is that it?”
“Yes, Colonel. And I want to help him, if I can.”
“That’s understandable. After all, what are friends for?”
“At very least, I would like permission to visit him in prison.”
“Yes, of course you would. That’s understandable.” The Colonel replaced his glasses and sipped his tea. “You speak Russian very well, Mr. Hel. With quite a refined accent. You have been trained very carefully.”
“It’s not a matter of being trained. My mother was Russian.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I never learned Russian formally. It was a cradle language.”
“I see. I see.” It was Gorbatov’s style to place the burden of communication on the other person, to draw him out by contributing little beyond constant indications that he was unconvinced. Nicholai allowed the transparent lactic to work because he was tired of fencing, frustrated with short leads and blind alleys, and eager to learn about Kishikawa-san. He offered more information than necessary, but even as he spoke, he realized that his story did not have the sound of truth. That realization made him explain even more carefully, and the meticulous explanations made it sound more and more as though he were lying.
“In my home, Colonel, Russian, French, German, and Chinese were all cradle languages.”
“It must have been uncomfortable, sleeping in so crowded a cradle.”
Nicholai tried to laugh, but the sound was thin and unconvincing.
“But of course,” Gorbatov went on, “you speak English as well?” The question was posed in English with a slight British accent.
“Yes,” Nicholai answered in Russian. “And Japanese. But these were learned languages.”
“Meaning: not cradle?”
“Meaning just that.” Nicholai instantly regretted the brittle sound his voice had assumed.
“I see.” The Colonel leaned back in his desk chair and regarded Nicholai with a squint of humor in his Mongol-shaped eyes. “Yes,” he said at last, “very well trained. And disarmingly young. But for all your cradle and post-cradle languages, Mr. Hel, you are an American, are you not?”
“I work for the Americans. As a translator.”
“But you showed an American identification card to the men downstairs.”
“I was issued the card because of my work.”
“Oh, of course. I see. But as I recall, my question was not whom you worked for—we already knew that—but what your nationality is. You are an American, are you not?”
“No, Colonel, I am not.”
“What then?”
“Well… I suppose I am more Japanese than anything.”
“Oh? You will excuse me if I mention that you do not look particularly Japanese?”
“My mother was Russian, as I told you. My father was German.”
“Ah! That clarifies everything. A typical Japanese ancestry.”
“I cannot see what difference it makes what my nationality is!”
“It’s not important that you be able to see it. Please answer my question.”
The sudden frigidity of tone caused Nicholai to calm his growing anger and frustration. He drew a long breath. “I was born in Shanghai. I came here during the war—under the protection of General Kishikawa—a family friend.”
“Then of what nation are you a citizen?”
“None.”
“How awkward that must be for you.”
“It is, yes. It made it very difficult to find work to support myself.”
“Oh, I am sure it did, Mr. Hel. And in your difficulties, I understand how you might be willing to do almost anything to secure employment and money.”
“Colonel Gorbatov, I am not an agent of the Americans. I am in their employ, but I am not their agent.”
“You make distinctions in shading which, I confess, are lost upon me.”
“But why would the Americans want to interview General Kishikawa? What reason would they have to go through an elaborate charade just to contact an officer with a largely administrative career?”
“Precisely what I hoped you would clarify for me, Mr. Hel.” The Colonel smiled.
Nicholai rose. “It is evident to me, Colonel, that you are enjoying our conversation more than I. I must not squander your valuable time. Surely there are flies waiting to have their wings pulled off.”
Gorbatov laughed aloud. “I haven’t heard that tone for years! Not only the cultivated sound of court Russian, but even the snide disdain! That’s wonderful! Sit down, young man. Sit down. And tell me why you must see General Kishikawa.”
Nicholai dropped into the overstuffed chair, voided, weary. “It is more simple than you are willing to believe. Kishikawa-san is a friend. Almost a father. Now he is alone, without family, and in prison. I must help him, if I can. At very least, I must see him… talk to him.”
“A simple gesture of filial piety. Perfectly understandable. Are you sure you won’t have a glass of tea?”
“Quite sure, thank you.”
As he refilled his glass, the Colonel opened a manila folder and glanced at the contents. Nicholai assumed that the preparation of this file was the cause of his three-hour wait in the outer offices of the headquarters of Soviet Occupation Forces. “I see that you also carry papers identifying you as a citizen of the USSR. Surely that is sufficiently uncommon as to merit an explanation?”
“Your sources of information within SCAP are good.”
The Colonel shrugged. “They are adequate.”
“I had a friend—a woman—who helped me get employment with the Americans. It was she who got my American identification card for me—”
“Excuse me, Mr. Hel. I seem to be expressing myself poorly this afternoon. I did not ask you about your American papers. It was your Russian identity card that interested me. Will you forgive my vagueness?”
“I was trying to explain that.”
“Oh, do excuse me.”
“I was going to tell you that this woman realized I might get into some trouble if the Americans discovered I was not a citizen. To avoid this, she also had papers made up indicating a Russian nationality, so I could show them to curious American MP’s and avoid questioning.”
“And how often have you been driven to this baroque expedient?”
“Never.”
“Hardly a frequency that justifies the effort. And why Russian? Why was not some other nationality selected from that crowded cradle of yours?”
“As you have pointed out, I do not look convincingly Oriental. And the attitude of the Americans toward German nationals is hardly friendly.”
“While their attitude toward Russians, on the other hand, is fraternal and compassionate? Is that it?”
“Of course not. But they mistrust and fear you, and for that reason, they do not treat Soviet citizens highhandedly.”
“This woman friend of yours was very astute. Tell me why she went to such efforts on your behalf. Why did she take such risks?”
Nicholai did not answer, which was sufficient answer.
“Ah, I see,” Colonel Gorbatov said. “Of course. Then too, Miss Goodbody was a woman no longer burdened with her first youth.”
Nicholai flushed with anger. “You know all about this!”
Gorbatov tugged off his glasses and redistributed the sneer. “I know certain things. About Miss Goodbody, for instance. And about your household in the Asakusa district. My, my, my. Two young ladies to share your bed? Profligate youth! And I know that your mother was the Countess Alexandra Ivanovna. Yes, I know certain things about you.”
“And you have believed me all the while, haven’t you.”
Gorbatov shrugged, “It would be more accurate to say that I have believed the details with which your story is garnished. I know that you visited Captain Thomas of the War Crimes Tribunal Staff last…” He glanced at the folder. “…last Tuesday morning at seven-thirty. I presume he told you there was nothing he could do for you in the matter of General Kishikawa who, apart from being a major war criminal guilty of sins against humanity, is also the only high-ranking officer of the Japanese Imperial Army to survive the rigors of reeducation camp, and is therefore a figure of value to us from the point of view of prestige and propaganda.” The Colonel threaded his glasses from ear to ear. “I am afraid there is nothing you can do for the General, young man. And if you pursue this, you will expose yourself to investigation by American Intelligence—a title more indicative of what they seek than of what they possess. And if there was nothing my ally and brother-in-arms, Captain Thomas, could do for you, then certainly there is nothing I can do. He, after all, represents the defense. I represent the prosecution. You are quite sure you will not take a glass of tea?”
Nicholai grasped for whatever he could get. “Captain Thomas told me I would need your permission to visit the General.”
“That is true.”
“Well?”
The Colonel turned in his desk chair toward the window and tapped his front teeth with his forefinger as he looked out on the blustery day. “Are you sure he would want a visit from you, Mr. Hel? I have talked to the General. He is a man of pride. It might not be pleasant for him to appear before you in his present state. He has twice attempted to commit suicide, and now he is watched over very strictly. His present condition is degrading.”
“I must try to see him. I owe him… very much.”
The Colonel nodded without looking back from the window. He seemed lost in thoughts of his own.
“Well?” Nicholai asked after a time.
Gorbatov did not answer.
“May I visit the General?”
His voice distant and atonic, the Colonel said, “Yes, of course.” He turned to Nicholai and smiled. “I shall arrange it immediately.”
Although so crowded into the swaying elevated car of the Yamate loop line that he could feel the warmth of pressing bodies seep through the damp of their clothing and his, Nicholai was isolated within his confusion and doubts. Through gaps between people, he watched the city passing beneath, dreary in the chill wet day, sucked empty of color by the leaden skies.
There had been subtle threat in Colonel Gorbatov’s atonic permission to visit Kishikawa-san, and all morning Nicholai had felt diminished and impotent against the foreboding he felt. Perhaps Gorbatov had been right when he suggested that this visit might not, after all, be an act of kindness. But how could he allow the General to face his forthcoming trial and disgrace alone? It would be an act of indifference for which he could never forgive himself. Was it for his own peace of mind, then, that he was going to Sugamo Prison? Were his motives at base selfish?
At the Komagome Station, one stop before Sugamo Prison, Nicholai had a sudden impulse to get off the train—to return home, or at least wander about for a while and consider what he was doing. But this survival warning came too late. Before he could push his way to the doors, they clattered shut, and the train jerked away. He was certain he should have gotten off. He was equally certain that now he would go through with it.
Colonel Gorbatov had been generous; he had arranged that Nicholai would have an hour with Kishikawa-san. But now as Nicholai sat in the chilly visiting room, staring at the flaking green paint on the walls, he wondered if there would be anything to say that could fill a whole hour. A Japanese guard and an American MP stood by the door, ignoring one another, the Japanese staring at the floor before him, while the American devoted his attention to the task of snatching hairs from his nostrils. Nicholai had been searched with embarrassing thoroughness in an anteroom before being admitted to the visiting area. The rice cakes he had brought along wrapped in paper had been taken from him by the American MP, who took Nicholai for an American on the strength of his identification card and explained, “Sorry, pal. But you can’t bring chow with you. This—ah—whatshisname, the gook general—he’s tried to bump himself off. We can’t run the risk of poison or whatever. You dig?”
Nicholai said that he dug. And he joked with the MP, realizing that he must put himself on the good side of the authorities, if he was to help Kishikawa-san in any way. “Yeah, I know what you mean, sergeant. I sometimes wonder how any Japanese officers survived the war, what with their inclination toward suicide.”
“Right. And if anything happened to this guy, my ass would be in a sling. Hey. What in hell’s this?” The sergeant held up a small magnetic Gô board Nicholai had thought to bring along at the last minute, in case there was nothing to say and the embarrassment should hang too heavily.
Nicholai shrugged. “Oh, a game. Sort of a Japanese chess.”
“Oh yeah?”
The Japanese guard, who stood about awkwardly in the knowledge of his redundancy in this situation, was glad to be able to tell his American opposite number in broken English that it was indeed a Japanese game.
“Well, I don’t know, pal. I don’t know if you can bring this in with you.”
Nicholai shrugged again. “It’s up to you, sergeant. I thought it might be something to pass the time if the General didn’t feel like talking.”
“Oh? You talk gook?”
Nicholai had often wondered how that word, a corruption of the Korean name for its people, had become the standard term of derogation in the American military vocabulary for all Orientals.
“Yes, I speak Japanese.” Nicholai recognized the need for duplicity where sensibility meets stony ignorance. “You probably noticed from my ID card that I work for Sphinx?” He looked steadily at the sergeant and tipped his head slightly toward the Japanese guard, indicating that he didn’t want to go into this too deeply with alien ears around.
The MP frowned in his effort to think, then he nodded conspiratorily. “I see. Yeah, I sort of wondered how come an American was visiting this guy.”
“A job’s a job.”
“Right. Well, I guess it’s okay. What harm can a game do?” He returned the miniature Gô board and conducted Nicholai to the visiting room.
Five minutes later the door opened, and General Kishikawa entered, followed by two more guards, another Japanese, and a thick-set Russian with the immobile, meaty face of the Slavic peasant. Nicholai rose in greeting, as the two new protectors took up their positions against the wall.
As Kishikawa-san approached, Nicholai automatically made a slight head bow of filial obeisance. The gesture was not lost upon the Japanese guards, who exchanged brief glances, but remained silent.
The General shuffled forward and took the chair opposite Nicholai, across the rough wooden table. When at last he lifted his eyes, the young man was struck by the General’s appearance. He had expected an alteration in Kishikawa-san’s features, an erosion of his gentle virile manner, but not this much.
The man sitting opposite him was old, frail, diminished. There was an oddly priestly look to his transparent skin and slow, uncertain movements. When finally he spoke, his voice was soft and monotonic, as if communication was a pointless burden.
“Why have you come, Nikko?”
“To be with you, sir.”
“I see.”
There followed a silence during which Nicholai could think of nothing to say, and the General had nothing to say. Finally, with a long, fluttering sigh, Kishikawa-san assumed the responsibility for the conversation because he did not want Nicholai to feel uncomfortable with the silence. “You look well, Nikko. Are you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Good. You grow more like your mother each day. I can see her eyes in yours.” He smiled faintly. “Someone should have advised your family that this particular color of green was meant for jade or ancient glass, not for human eyes. It is disconcerting.”
Nicholai forced a smile. “I shall speak to an ophthalmologist, sir, to see if there is a remedy for our blunder.”
“Yes. Do that.”
“I shall.”
“Do.” The General gazed away and seemed for a second to forget Nicholai’s presence. Then: “So? How are you getting on?”
“Well enough. I work for the Americans. A translator.”
“So? And do they accept you?”
“They ignore me, which is just as well.”
“Better, really.”
There was another brief silence, which Nicholai was going to break with small talk when Kishikawa-san raised his hand.
“Of course you have questions. I will tell you things quickly and simply, then we shall discuss them no further.”
Nicholai bowed his head in compliance.
“I was in Manchuria, as you know. I became sick—pneumonia. I was in fever and coma when the Russians attacked the hospital unit where I was. When I became myself again, I was in a reeducation camp, under constant surveillance and unable to use the portal through which so many of my brother officers had escaped the indignity of surrender and the humiliations of… reeducation. Only a few other officers were captured. They were taken away somewhere and not heard of again. Our captors assumed that officers were either incapable or unworthy of… reeducation. I assumed this would be my fate also, and I awaited it with such calm as I could manage. But no. Evidently, the Russians thought that one thoroughly reeducated officer of general rank would be a useful thing to introduce into Japan, to aid them with their plans for the future of our country. Many… many… many methods of reeducation were employed. The physical ones were easiest to bear—hunger, sleeplessness, beatings. But I am a stubborn old man, and I do not reeducate easily. As I had no family left alive in Japan as hostages, they were denied the emotional whip with which they had reeducated others. A long time passed. A year and a half, I think. It is difficult to tell the seasons when you never see the light of day, and when endurance is measured in five more minutes… five more minutes… I can stand this for five more minutes.” The General was lost for a time in memories of specific torments. Then, with a faint start, he returned to his story. “Sometimes they lost patience with me and made the error of giving me periods of rest in unconsciousness. A long time passed in this way. Months measured in minutes. Then suddenly they stopped all efforts toward my reeducation. I assumed, of course, that I would be killed. But they had something more degrading in mind for me. I was cleaned and deloused. A plane trip. A long ride on a railroad. Another plane trip. And I was here. For a month, I was kept here with no idea of their intentions. Then, two weeks ago, a Colonel Gorbatov visited me. He was quite frank with me. Each occupying nation has offered up its share of war criminals. The Soviets have had none to offer, no direct participation in the machinery of international justice. Before me, that is.”
Nicholai then turned to the military governments and, through perseverance, managed to piece together a partial mosaic of events leading to the General’s arrest. But in doing so, he had to make himself dangerously visible, although he realized that for one living on forged identity papers and lacking the protection of formal nationality, it was perilous to irritate bureaucrats who thrive on the dysfunctional status quo.
The results of this week of probing and pestering were meager. Nicholai learned that Kishikawa-san had been delivered to the War Crimes Commission by the Soviets, who would be in charge of prosecuting his case, and that he was currently being held in Sugamo Prison. He discovered that an American legal officer was responsible for the defense, but it was not until he had deluged that man with letters and telephone calls that he was granted an interview, and the best he could get was a half hour squeezed into the early morning.
Nicholai rose before dawn and took a crowded train to the Yotsuya district. A damp, slate-gray morning was smudging the eastern sky as he walked across the Akebonobashi, Bridge of Dawn, beyond which crouched the forbidding bulk of the Ichigaya Barracks which had become symbolic of the inhuman machinery of Western justice.
For three-quarters of an hour, he sat on a wooden bench outside the counsel’s office in the basement. Eventually a short-tempered overworked secretary showed him into Captain Thomas’s cluttered work room. The Captain waved him to a chair without looking up from a deposition he was scanning. Only after finishing it and scribbling a marginal note did Captain Thomas raise his eyes.
“Yes?” There was more fatigue than curtness in his tone. He was personally responsible for the defense of six accused war criminals, and he had to work with limited personnel and resources, compared to the vast machinery of research and organization at the disposal of the prosecution in their offices above. Unfortunately for his peace of mind, Captain Thomas was idealistic about the fairness of Anglo-Saxon law, and he drove himself so hard that weariness, frustration, and bitter fatalism tainted his every word and gesture. He wanted nothing more than to see all this mess over and return to civilian life and to his small-town legal practice in Vermont.
Nicholai explained that he was seeking information about General Kishikawa.
“Why?”
“He is a friend.”
“A friend?” The Captain was dubious.
“Yes, sir. He… he helped me when I was in Shanghai.”
Captain Thomas tugged the Kishikawa brief from under a stack of similar folders. “But you were just a child then.”
“I am twenty-three, sir.”
The Captain’s eyebrows went up. Like everyone else, he was fooled by Nicholai’s genetic disposition toward youthful appearance. “I’m sorry. I assumed you were much younger. What do you mean when you say that Kishikawa helped you?”
“He cared for me when my mother died.”
“I see. You’re British, are you?”
“No.”
“Irish?” Again the accent that was always identified as being from “someplace else.”
“No, Captain. I work for SCAP as a translator.” It was best to sidestep the irrelevant tangle of his nationality—or rather, his lack thereof.
“And you’re offering yourself as a character witness, is that it?”
“I want to help in any way I can.”
Captain Thomas nodded and fumbled about for a cigarette. “To be perfectly frank, I don’t believe you can help all that much. We’re understaffed here, and overworked. I’ve had to decide to concentrate my energy on cases where there is some chance of success. And I wouldn’t put Kishikawa’s in that category. That probably sounds cold-blooded to you, but I might as well be honest.”
“But… I can’t believe General Kishikawa was guilty of anything! What is he being accused of?”
“He’s in the Class A grab bag: crimes against humanity—whatever the hell that means.”
“But who’s testifying against him? What do they say he did?”
“I don’t know. The Russians are handling the prosecution, and they’re not permitting me to examine their documents and sources until the day before the trial. I assume the charges will center around his actions as military governor of Shanghai. Their propaganda people have several times used the label: ‘The Tiger of Shanghai.’”
“‘The Tiger of—!’ That is insane! He was an administrator. He got the water supply working again—the hospitals. How can they…?”
“During his governorship, four men were sentenced and executed. Did you know that?”
“No, but—”
“For all I know, those four men might have been murderers or looters or rapists. I do know that the average number of executions for capital crimes during the ten years of British control was fourteen point six. You would think that comparison would be in your general’s favor. But the men executed under him are being described as ‘heroes of the people.’ And you can’t go around executing heroes of the people and get away with it. Particularly if you are known as “The Tiger of Shanghai.’”
“He was never called that!”
“That’s what they’re calling him now.” Captain Thomas sat back and pressed his forefingers into his sunken eye sockets. Then he tugged at his sandy hair in an effort to revive himself. “And you can bet your Aunt Tilly’s twat that that title will be used a hundred times during the trial. I’m sorry if I sound defeatist, but I happen to know that winning this one is very important to the Soviets. They’re making a big propaganda number out of it. As you probably know, they’ve picked up a lot of flack for failing to repatriate their war prisoners. They’ve been keeping them in ‘reeducation camps’ in Siberia until they can be returned fully indoctrinated. And they have not delivered a single war criminal, other than Kishikawa. So this is a set piece for them, a chance to let the people of the world know they’re doing their job, vigorously purging Japanese Capitalist Imperialists, making the world safe for socialism. Now, you seem to think this Kishikawa is innocent. Okay, maybe so. But I assure you that he qualifies as a war criminal. You see, the primary qualification for that honor is to be on the losing side—and that he was.” Captain Thomas lighted one cigarette from another and stubbed out the punk in an overflowing ashtray. He puffed out a breath in a mirthless chuckle. “Can you imagine what would have happened to FDR or General Patton if the other side had won? Assuming they had been so self-righteous as to set up war-crimes trials. Shit, the only people who would have escaped being labeled ‘warmongers’ would have been those isolationist hicks who kept us out of the League of Nations. And chances are they would have been set up as puppet rulers, just as we have set up their opposite numbers in the Diet. That’s the way it is, son. Now, I’ve got to get back to work. I go to trial tomorrow representing an old man who’s dying of cancer and who claims he never did anything but obey the commands of his Emperor. But he’ll probably be called the ‘Leopard of Luzon’ or the ‘Puma of Pago-Pago.’ And you know what, kid? For all I know, he might really have been the Leopard of Luzon. It won’t matter much one way or the other.”
“Can I at least see him? Visit him?”
Captain Thomas’s head was down; he was already scanning the folder on the forthcoming trial. “What?”
“I want to visit General Kishikawa. May I?”
“I can’t do anything about that. He’s a Russian prisoner. You’ll have to get permission from them.”
“Well, how do you get to see him?”
“I haven’t yet.”
“You haven’t even talked to him?”
Captain Thomas looked up blearily. “I’ve got six weeks before he goes to trial. The Leopard of Luzon, goes up tomorrow. Go see the Russians. Maybe they can help you.”
“Whom do I see?”
“Shit, boy, I don’t know!”
Nicholai rose. “I see. Thank you.”
He had reached the door when Captain Thomas said, “I’m sorry, son. Really.”
Nicholai nodded and left.
In months to come, Nicholai was to reflect on the differences between Captain Thomas and his Russian opposite number, Colonel Gorbatov. They were symbolic variances in the superpowers’ ways of thinking and dealing with men and problems. The American had been genuinely concerned, compassionate, harried, illorganized… ultimately useless. The Russian was mistrustful, indifferent, well prepared and informed, and ultimately of some value to Nicholai, who sat in a large, overstuffed chair as the Colonel stirred his glass of tea thoughtfully until two large lumps of sugar disintegrated and swirled at the bottom, but never completely dissolved.
“You are sure you will not take tea?” the Colonel asked.
“Thank you, no.” Nicholai preferred to avoid wasting time on social niceties.
“For myself, I am addicted to tea. When I die, the fellow who does my autopsy will find my insides tanned like boot leather.” Gorbatov smiled automatically at the old joke, then set down the glass in its metal holder. He unthreaded his round metal-rimmed glasses from his ears and cleaned them, or rather distributed the smudge evenly, using his thumb and finger. As he did so, he settled his hooded eyes on the young man sitting across from him. Gorbatov was farsighted and could see Nicholai’s boyish face and startling green eyes better with his glasses off. “So you are a friend of General Kishikawa? A friend concerned with his welfare. Is that it?”
“Yes, Colonel. And I want to help him, if I can.”
“That’s understandable. After all, what are friends for?”
“At very least, I would like permission to visit him in prison.”
“Yes, of course you would. That’s understandable.” The Colonel replaced his glasses and sipped his tea. “You speak Russian very well, Mr. Hel. With quite a refined accent. You have been trained very carefully.”
“It’s not a matter of being trained. My mother was Russian.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I never learned Russian formally. It was a cradle language.”
“I see. I see.” It was Gorbatov’s style to place the burden of communication on the other person, to draw him out by contributing little beyond constant indications that he was unconvinced. Nicholai allowed the transparent lactic to work because he was tired of fencing, frustrated with short leads and blind alleys, and eager to learn about Kishikawa-san. He offered more information than necessary, but even as he spoke, he realized that his story did not have the sound of truth. That realization made him explain even more carefully, and the meticulous explanations made it sound more and more as though he were lying.
“In my home, Colonel, Russian, French, German, and Chinese were all cradle languages.”
“It must have been uncomfortable, sleeping in so crowded a cradle.”
Nicholai tried to laugh, but the sound was thin and unconvincing.
“But of course,” Gorbatov went on, “you speak English as well?” The question was posed in English with a slight British accent.
“Yes,” Nicholai answered in Russian. “And Japanese. But these were learned languages.”
“Meaning: not cradle?”
“Meaning just that.” Nicholai instantly regretted the brittle sound his voice had assumed.
“I see.” The Colonel leaned back in his desk chair and regarded Nicholai with a squint of humor in his Mongol-shaped eyes. “Yes,” he said at last, “very well trained. And disarmingly young. But for all your cradle and post-cradle languages, Mr. Hel, you are an American, are you not?”
“I work for the Americans. As a translator.”
“But you showed an American identification card to the men downstairs.”
“I was issued the card because of my work.”
“Oh, of course. I see. But as I recall, my question was not whom you worked for—we already knew that—but what your nationality is. You are an American, are you not?”
“No, Colonel, I am not.”
“What then?”
“Well… I suppose I am more Japanese than anything.”
“Oh? You will excuse me if I mention that you do not look particularly Japanese?”
“My mother was Russian, as I told you. My father was German.”
“Ah! That clarifies everything. A typical Japanese ancestry.”
“I cannot see what difference it makes what my nationality is!”
“It’s not important that you be able to see it. Please answer my question.”
The sudden frigidity of tone caused Nicholai to calm his growing anger and frustration. He drew a long breath. “I was born in Shanghai. I came here during the war—under the protection of General Kishikawa—a family friend.”
“Then of what nation are you a citizen?”
“None.”
“How awkward that must be for you.”
“It is, yes. It made it very difficult to find work to support myself.”
“Oh, I am sure it did, Mr. Hel. And in your difficulties, I understand how you might be willing to do almost anything to secure employment and money.”
“Colonel Gorbatov, I am not an agent of the Americans. I am in their employ, but I am not their agent.”
“You make distinctions in shading which, I confess, are lost upon me.”
“But why would the Americans want to interview General Kishikawa? What reason would they have to go through an elaborate charade just to contact an officer with a largely administrative career?”
“Precisely what I hoped you would clarify for me, Mr. Hel.” The Colonel smiled.
Nicholai rose. “It is evident to me, Colonel, that you are enjoying our conversation more than I. I must not squander your valuable time. Surely there are flies waiting to have their wings pulled off.”
Gorbatov laughed aloud. “I haven’t heard that tone for years! Not only the cultivated sound of court Russian, but even the snide disdain! That’s wonderful! Sit down, young man. Sit down. And tell me why you must see General Kishikawa.”
Nicholai dropped into the overstuffed chair, voided, weary. “It is more simple than you are willing to believe. Kishikawa-san is a friend. Almost a father. Now he is alone, without family, and in prison. I must help him, if I can. At very least, I must see him… talk to him.”
“A simple gesture of filial piety. Perfectly understandable. Are you sure you won’t have a glass of tea?”
“Quite sure, thank you.”
As he refilled his glass, the Colonel opened a manila folder and glanced at the contents. Nicholai assumed that the preparation of this file was the cause of his three-hour wait in the outer offices of the headquarters of Soviet Occupation Forces. “I see that you also carry papers identifying you as a citizen of the USSR. Surely that is sufficiently uncommon as to merit an explanation?”
“Your sources of information within SCAP are good.”
The Colonel shrugged. “They are adequate.”
“I had a friend—a woman—who helped me get employment with the Americans. It was she who got my American identification card for me—”
“Excuse me, Mr. Hel. I seem to be expressing myself poorly this afternoon. I did not ask you about your American papers. It was your Russian identity card that interested me. Will you forgive my vagueness?”
“I was trying to explain that.”
“Oh, do excuse me.”
“I was going to tell you that this woman realized I might get into some trouble if the Americans discovered I was not a citizen. To avoid this, she also had papers made up indicating a Russian nationality, so I could show them to curious American MP’s and avoid questioning.”
“And how often have you been driven to this baroque expedient?”
“Never.”
“Hardly a frequency that justifies the effort. And why Russian? Why was not some other nationality selected from that crowded cradle of yours?”
“As you have pointed out, I do not look convincingly Oriental. And the attitude of the Americans toward German nationals is hardly friendly.”
“While their attitude toward Russians, on the other hand, is fraternal and compassionate? Is that it?”
“Of course not. But they mistrust and fear you, and for that reason, they do not treat Soviet citizens highhandedly.”
“This woman friend of yours was very astute. Tell me why she went to such efforts on your behalf. Why did she take such risks?”
Nicholai did not answer, which was sufficient answer.
“Ah, I see,” Colonel Gorbatov said. “Of course. Then too, Miss Goodbody was a woman no longer burdened with her first youth.”
Nicholai flushed with anger. “You know all about this!”
Gorbatov tugged off his glasses and redistributed the sneer. “I know certain things. About Miss Goodbody, for instance. And about your household in the Asakusa district. My, my, my. Two young ladies to share your bed? Profligate youth! And I know that your mother was the Countess Alexandra Ivanovna. Yes, I know certain things about you.”
“And you have believed me all the while, haven’t you.”
Gorbatov shrugged, “It would be more accurate to say that I have believed the details with which your story is garnished. I know that you visited Captain Thomas of the War Crimes Tribunal Staff last…” He glanced at the folder. “…last Tuesday morning at seven-thirty. I presume he told you there was nothing he could do for you in the matter of General Kishikawa who, apart from being a major war criminal guilty of sins against humanity, is also the only high-ranking officer of the Japanese Imperial Army to survive the rigors of reeducation camp, and is therefore a figure of value to us from the point of view of prestige and propaganda.” The Colonel threaded his glasses from ear to ear. “I am afraid there is nothing you can do for the General, young man. And if you pursue this, you will expose yourself to investigation by American Intelligence—a title more indicative of what they seek than of what they possess. And if there was nothing my ally and brother-in-arms, Captain Thomas, could do for you, then certainly there is nothing I can do. He, after all, represents the defense. I represent the prosecution. You are quite sure you will not take a glass of tea?”
Nicholai grasped for whatever he could get. “Captain Thomas told me I would need your permission to visit the General.”
“That is true.”
“Well?”
The Colonel turned in his desk chair toward the window and tapped his front teeth with his forefinger as he looked out on the blustery day. “Are you sure he would want a visit from you, Mr. Hel? I have talked to the General. He is a man of pride. It might not be pleasant for him to appear before you in his present state. He has twice attempted to commit suicide, and now he is watched over very strictly. His present condition is degrading.”
“I must try to see him. I owe him… very much.”
The Colonel nodded without looking back from the window. He seemed lost in thoughts of his own.
“Well?” Nicholai asked after a time.
Gorbatov did not answer.
“May I visit the General?”
His voice distant and atonic, the Colonel said, “Yes, of course.” He turned to Nicholai and smiled. “I shall arrange it immediately.”
* * *
Although so crowded into the swaying elevated car of the Yamate loop line that he could feel the warmth of pressing bodies seep through the damp of their clothing and his, Nicholai was isolated within his confusion and doubts. Through gaps between people, he watched the city passing beneath, dreary in the chill wet day, sucked empty of color by the leaden skies.
There had been subtle threat in Colonel Gorbatov’s atonic permission to visit Kishikawa-san, and all morning Nicholai had felt diminished and impotent against the foreboding he felt. Perhaps Gorbatov had been right when he suggested that this visit might not, after all, be an act of kindness. But how could he allow the General to face his forthcoming trial and disgrace alone? It would be an act of indifference for which he could never forgive himself. Was it for his own peace of mind, then, that he was going to Sugamo Prison? Were his motives at base selfish?
At the Komagome Station, one stop before Sugamo Prison, Nicholai had a sudden impulse to get off the train—to return home, or at least wander about for a while and consider what he was doing. But this survival warning came too late. Before he could push his way to the doors, they clattered shut, and the train jerked away. He was certain he should have gotten off. He was equally certain that now he would go through with it.
* * *
Colonel Gorbatov had been generous; he had arranged that Nicholai would have an hour with Kishikawa-san. But now as Nicholai sat in the chilly visiting room, staring at the flaking green paint on the walls, he wondered if there would be anything to say that could fill a whole hour. A Japanese guard and an American MP stood by the door, ignoring one another, the Japanese staring at the floor before him, while the American devoted his attention to the task of snatching hairs from his nostrils. Nicholai had been searched with embarrassing thoroughness in an anteroom before being admitted to the visiting area. The rice cakes he had brought along wrapped in paper had been taken from him by the American MP, who took Nicholai for an American on the strength of his identification card and explained, “Sorry, pal. But you can’t bring chow with you. This—ah—whatshisname, the gook general—he’s tried to bump himself off. We can’t run the risk of poison or whatever. You dig?”
Nicholai said that he dug. And he joked with the MP, realizing that he must put himself on the good side of the authorities, if he was to help Kishikawa-san in any way. “Yeah, I know what you mean, sergeant. I sometimes wonder how any Japanese officers survived the war, what with their inclination toward suicide.”
“Right. And if anything happened to this guy, my ass would be in a sling. Hey. What in hell’s this?” The sergeant held up a small magnetic Gô board Nicholai had thought to bring along at the last minute, in case there was nothing to say and the embarrassment should hang too heavily.
Nicholai shrugged. “Oh, a game. Sort of a Japanese chess.”
“Oh yeah?”
The Japanese guard, who stood about awkwardly in the knowledge of his redundancy in this situation, was glad to be able to tell his American opposite number in broken English that it was indeed a Japanese game.
“Well, I don’t know, pal. I don’t know if you can bring this in with you.”
Nicholai shrugged again. “It’s up to you, sergeant. I thought it might be something to pass the time if the General didn’t feel like talking.”
“Oh? You talk gook?”
Nicholai had often wondered how that word, a corruption of the Korean name for its people, had become the standard term of derogation in the American military vocabulary for all Orientals.
“Yes, I speak Japanese.” Nicholai recognized the need for duplicity where sensibility meets stony ignorance. “You probably noticed from my ID card that I work for Sphinx?” He looked steadily at the sergeant and tipped his head slightly toward the Japanese guard, indicating that he didn’t want to go into this too deeply with alien ears around.
The MP frowned in his effort to think, then he nodded conspiratorily. “I see. Yeah, I sort of wondered how come an American was visiting this guy.”
“A job’s a job.”
“Right. Well, I guess it’s okay. What harm can a game do?” He returned the miniature Gô board and conducted Nicholai to the visiting room.
Five minutes later the door opened, and General Kishikawa entered, followed by two more guards, another Japanese, and a thick-set Russian with the immobile, meaty face of the Slavic peasant. Nicholai rose in greeting, as the two new protectors took up their positions against the wall.
As Kishikawa-san approached, Nicholai automatically made a slight head bow of filial obeisance. The gesture was not lost upon the Japanese guards, who exchanged brief glances, but remained silent.
The General shuffled forward and took the chair opposite Nicholai, across the rough wooden table. When at last he lifted his eyes, the young man was struck by the General’s appearance. He had expected an alteration in Kishikawa-san’s features, an erosion of his gentle virile manner, but not this much.
The man sitting opposite him was old, frail, diminished. There was an oddly priestly look to his transparent skin and slow, uncertain movements. When finally he spoke, his voice was soft and monotonic, as if communication was a pointless burden.
“Why have you come, Nikko?”
“To be with you, sir.”
“I see.”
There followed a silence during which Nicholai could think of nothing to say, and the General had nothing to say. Finally, with a long, fluttering sigh, Kishikawa-san assumed the responsibility for the conversation because he did not want Nicholai to feel uncomfortable with the silence. “You look well, Nikko. Are you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Good. You grow more like your mother each day. I can see her eyes in yours.” He smiled faintly. “Someone should have advised your family that this particular color of green was meant for jade or ancient glass, not for human eyes. It is disconcerting.”
Nicholai forced a smile. “I shall speak to an ophthalmologist, sir, to see if there is a remedy for our blunder.”
“Yes. Do that.”
“I shall.”
“Do.” The General gazed away and seemed for a second to forget Nicholai’s presence. Then: “So? How are you getting on?”
“Well enough. I work for the Americans. A translator.”
“So? And do they accept you?”
“They ignore me, which is just as well.”
“Better, really.”
There was another brief silence, which Nicholai was going to break with small talk when Kishikawa-san raised his hand.
“Of course you have questions. I will tell you things quickly and simply, then we shall discuss them no further.”
Nicholai bowed his head in compliance.
“I was in Manchuria, as you know. I became sick—pneumonia. I was in fever and coma when the Russians attacked the hospital unit where I was. When I became myself again, I was in a reeducation camp, under constant surveillance and unable to use the portal through which so many of my brother officers had escaped the indignity of surrender and the humiliations of… reeducation. Only a few other officers were captured. They were taken away somewhere and not heard of again. Our captors assumed that officers were either incapable or unworthy of… reeducation. I assumed this would be my fate also, and I awaited it with such calm as I could manage. But no. Evidently, the Russians thought that one thoroughly reeducated officer of general rank would be a useful thing to introduce into Japan, to aid them with their plans for the future of our country. Many… many… many methods of reeducation were employed. The physical ones were easiest to bear—hunger, sleeplessness, beatings. But I am a stubborn old man, and I do not reeducate easily. As I had no family left alive in Japan as hostages, they were denied the emotional whip with which they had reeducated others. A long time passed. A year and a half, I think. It is difficult to tell the seasons when you never see the light of day, and when endurance is measured in five more minutes… five more minutes… I can stand this for five more minutes.” The General was lost for a time in memories of specific torments. Then, with a faint start, he returned to his story. “Sometimes they lost patience with me and made the error of giving me periods of rest in unconsciousness. A long time passed in this way. Months measured in minutes. Then suddenly they stopped all efforts toward my reeducation. I assumed, of course, that I would be killed. But they had something more degrading in mind for me. I was cleaned and deloused. A plane trip. A long ride on a railroad. Another plane trip. And I was here. For a month, I was kept here with no idea of their intentions. Then, two weeks ago, a Colonel Gorbatov visited me. He was quite frank with me. Each occupying nation has offered up its share of war criminals. The Soviets have had none to offer, no direct participation in the machinery of international justice. Before me, that is.”