Jon Grimwood - End of the World Blues

When Kit nodded, Mr. Oniji smiled.

“Only the last of those is true,” said Mr. Oniji. “We have no children.” He paused, choosing his words with care. “Have you ever done anything you really regret? No,” he said. “No need to reply. I can see the answer in your eyes.”

Mr. Oniji took a sip of water from a fresh glass on Kit’s bedside table.

“My regret,” he said, “is marrying my wife…” He must have decided he’d either said too much or too little, because after a slight hesitation, he added, “I knew from the beginning we were not suited.”

“So why marry?”

“You know how it is,” said Mr. Oniji. “She was young and pretty and I needed a wife.”

“But you didn’t love her?”

Whether Mr. Oniji looked sad for himself, his wife, or the world in general was hard to say. “This is difficult,” he said. “Women have never been of much interest to me. Unfortunately, a wife was necessary…I should have told her,” he added. “Explained things. That is my regret.”

“Why tell me?”

“The police will want to ask you questions,” said Mr. Oniji. “They will ask you, because they always ask, if you have any enemies…”

“I don’t,” said Kit.

Mr. Oniji’s smile was tight. “Everyone has enemies,” he said. “I would like to make clear that I am not one of them. Also, there is the possibility of arson. If that is true, I had nothing to do with it.”

Early next morning a Korean orderly carried a small book and a business card into Kit’s room and presented the card first, his fingertips barely touching its edges as he offered the object to Kit.

Hiroshi Sato, second assistant to Mr. Oniji, presented his compliments. Should Mr. Nouveau wish to send a message to Mr. Oniji, he could do so through the good offices of Mr. Sato. An e-mail and telephone number were both given on the card. Quite why Kit might need this went unsaid.

The book had been wrapped by a professional. A sheet of hand-laid paper, folded so every edge formed a perfect line, was wrapped into the covers and tied in place with a length of dried grass. The grass bisected the book twice, the angle between each length chosen with care.

On the front of the book was a wood-block illustration of a samurai in a wolf skin coat. In the Shadow of Leaves announced the title. The date was 1934, the language English. It had been printed by the Board of Tourist Industry, on behalf of Japanese Governmental Railways.

The essence of speaking is in not speaking at all. If you think you can accomplish a task without words then do so…When compelled to choose between death now or death later, choose now. It just is…

There were eighty-six pages of such aphorisms, with five more wood-block prints and a foldout map of feudal Japan. Mr. Oniji’s note was tucked between the cover and the title page. Read this, he said.

Some hours later, just as Kit was finishing In the Shadow of Leaves for the second time, a nurse arrived to change the staples in his face. Her name was Lucy, at least that was the name on her badge, and until she began tossing ant-like pincers of plastic into an enamel dish Kit hadn’t even known his face had staples.

When this was done, she fixed two metal splints to his right ankle, braced the splints with steel cross bars, and fed strips of foam over the braces and under the cross bars, hardening the padding with a UV light wand.

“Wednesday,” she said, when Kit asked what day it was. She shaved him very carefully, helped him to the lavatory, and waited, telling him to lean on her when he walked back to his room. “Now I’m going to give you a blanket bath,” Lucy announced when Kit was back in his bed.

“I can manage a shower.”

“No.” Lucy shook her head. “You’re much too weak. In fact, you can barely answer questions…”

“Questions?”

Unbuttoning his pajama top, Lucy extracted a sterile flannel from its foil wrapper and dunked the flannel into a basin that had appeared on the locker beside Kit’s bed. She wiped his face and neck, washed under his arms and across the top of his chest, taking care not to wet the bandages over his ribs.

“A cut,” she said, in answer to his question. “Metal shrapnel from the explosion. You were lucky…” Lucy must have caught the shock on Kit’s face, because she smiled. “It barely grazed your side,” she said. “And it was hot enough to sear the edges of the wound.”

After she’d washed his chest, she washed his back and undid his pajama bottoms. “You stink,” she said, when he tried to protest. She said this firmly, but with a smile. “A Major from the National Police is going to question you. His arrival is unexpected and he intends to catch you unaware. We will, as a hospital, make the strongest protest possible.”

“If it’s unexpected…”

“Then how do we know?”

Kit nodded.

“I believe the manager had a call from police HQ.”

When Kit looked puzzled, Lucy sighed. “Mr. Oniji owns this hospital,” she said. “He owns many things in Tokyo and his contacts are good.” Having washed Kit’s legs, genitals, and backside with casual competence, the nurse dried him with a different cloth and helped him into a fresh pair of pajama bottoms.

A few minutes later Kit was sat up in bed, new drips inserted into one wrist, and the window opened to let in the warm breeze. His leg, with the new ankle cast, had been attached to a system of pulleys.

“You are Christopher Alan Nouveau, known as Kit…?”

“Yes,” said Kit, with a wince. Maybe trying to pull himself up in bed was a mistake, what with the traction weights tugging on his ankle.

“Hurt?”

Kit nodded.

The officer wore fawn slacks and a tweed sports coat. His hair was dark and swept back, worn slightly longer than Kit expected, and he carried a small leather bag, half way between a wallet and a brief case. “I’m Major Yamota,” announced the young man, carefully handing Kit his card.

MAJOR TOM YAMOTA

Organised Crime Section/Tokyo Branch

Inside the leather carry case was a voice recorder, obviously far too hitech to bother with anything like buttons, since Major Yamota merely put the machine on the table beside Kit’s bed and began talking.

“So,” he said. “I gather you were badly injured in the explosion. Also, that you’ve only recently regained consciousness?”

At least two things were wrong with this suggestion. The most obvious being that Kit had been conscious almost from the time he was brought in for treatment. Well, more or less.

“The hospital told us you were unfit for questioning. The local police agreed. We have been waiting for four days.” Major Yamota did not seem happy about this.

“Unfit…?”

“You can speak Japanese? You understand what I’m saying?”

Kit nodded.

“Good.” The Major glanced down at a notebook. Since he was having trouble deciphering the characters, the notes had to be compiled by someone else. “You’ve lived in Japan for twelve years. Your wife owned Pirate Mary’s. You were happily married…This is what I’ve been told by the local force. Is that correct?”

“I owned the bar.”

The Major looked up. “Ms. Tanaka’s sister says Ms. Yoshi owned it. Also…” Major Yamota scowled at the notes. “My department can find no official record of your marriage.”

“We got hitched in San Francisco,” said Kit. “Yoshi was going to register the marriage with the Shimin-ka on our return.”

“Still,” the Major said. “No record exists. Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Yoshi never got round to it.”

Major Yamota chewed his lip. “And you’re certain,” he said. “About having no enemies?”