Edward Whittemore - Quin’s Shanghai Circus

One recollection, a small one.

Soon there would be many more since Quin was unknowingly nearing the center of the espionage ring that had received its code name from an event in the life of the mysterious Adzhar, a clandestine network that had connected his father and the General and Father Lamereaux, and Maeve and Miya and Mama, and through them others as well, in a performance of love and desperation so powerful it could reach out thirty years later to claim both murders and suicides, create a new Kannon Buddha, and bring on the most magnificent funeral in Asia since the death of Kublai Khan.

And all because Quin wanted to help Big Gobi, and in so doing introduced him to his murderer.

Just before midnight they were walking down the canal behind the sushi restaurant when a young Japanese stepped out of the shadows with a submachine gun. He was wearing a dark business suit and his hair was cut short, but Quin wouldn’t have recognized him anyway without his false moustache and false sideburns. The young Japanese pointed the submachine gun at an alley and moved behind them. There was nothing to do but march ahead.

They came to a blank wall at the end of the alley. A buzzer sounded. The wall rolled away to reveal an enormous hall, a brightly lit area where hundreds of young women in white overalls and white surgical masks sat at benches studying banks of miniature television sets. Behind the sets were computers. The television screens showed scenes from all over the world, shipyards and oil refineries, camera factories, massage parlors, motorcycle assembly lines, bars and restaurants, transistor radio plants, every manner of enterprise and industry.

The guard waved them through a door into another large hall, less well lit, where young men in white overalls and white surgical masks supervised machines that stacked and packaged currencies.

The next door led into darkness. They were outside again facing the canal. A narrow gangplank ran down to a small houseboat.

When they stepped on the gangplank a light went on. A speaker began to play circus music. They passed through a tiny room with a bare canvas cot and one empty coat hanger on the wall beside a whip and megaphone. They walked through another door onto the deck.

The water was black and still. On the far side of the canal the windowless wall of a warehouse stretched for hundreds of yards. A charcoal brazier burned near the edge of the deck, which was covered with sawdust. Folding canvas chairs were scattered here and there. From one of them rose a short, rotund man who wore steel-rimmed glasses and a lavender frock coat. He smiled as he put out his hand.

Just in time, he said. I’m serving Mongolian mixed grill tonight. Your name please?

Quin.

The short, rotund man shook his hand warmly.

Kikuchi-Lotmann, Mr. Quin, a pleasure. I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you. I expected to see you soon after you made your inquiries. Were you delayed?

Quin pointed at the bandage over Big Gobi’s ear. Kikuchi-Lotmann shook his head with concern.

An accident? How unfortunate. But in any case you’re here and now we can have our chat. Who was it that sent you to me?

Father Lamereaux.

Ah, such a good man, so gentle and so kind. I haven’t seen him since I was a child. Excuse me, please.

The young man with the submachine gun clicked his heels and handed a report to Kikuchi-Lotmann, who glanced through it with no expression on his face. The guard stood at order arms. Kikuchi-Lotmann lit a long cigar and puffed briefly.

That settles it, he said. Sell our Korean textiles, our Kuwait crude, and our Kabul goats. Buy Surabaja brothels and bring down the government in Syria. I’ll see the delegation from Bolivia next week. Tell the families in Belgium and Bali to stop feuding or I’ll put out contracts. Corner the unrefined sugar market in Burma, via Beirut. Put a hold on South African diamonds until the Venezuelans agree to our pineapple terms. Bring gin, ice, and bitters.

The guard clicked his heels and left. Kikuchi-Lotmann removed a necktie from his pocket and tied it in the place of the one he was wearing.

Not since I was a child, he repeated, in Kamakura before the war. He often used to visit the man who took me in when I was a nameless orphan, Rabbi Lotmann, the former Baron Kikuchi. Lotmann always admired Lamer-eaux’s knowledge of the No theater. Are you also interested in No ?

Quin shook his head.

Nor am I. Performances yes, but of a different kind.

He paused, smiling, as if Quin were supposed to understand something by that. But when Quin said nothing he nodded quickly.

I see, he told you nothing about me. Well what might the name of your friend be?

Gobi.

Gobi? The desert in China? A curious name. In Chinese he would be called Shamo. That’s their word for it, it means sandy wastes. Men known as dune-dwellers lived there in prehistoric times. Artifacts have been found along with dinosaur eggs. Would you like a drink before dinner?

They sat down at a folding camp table and Kikuchi-Lotmann mixed pink gins. A servant, a short man with gray hair, appeared with a platter of kidneys and liver, heart, spleen, a section of the large intestine, tongue and hocks and throat. Something about the man reminded Quin of Mama, perhaps his height or the resignation in his eyes. But the servant was thickset whereas Mama was frail, and the compassion in her face was replaced by hardness in his.

Kikuchi-Lotmann inspected the platter and gave instructions for cooking the meat. At the same time he chopped up leeks and watercress and made a salad dressing.

I wonder if I haven’t seen him before, said Quin, nodding in the direction of the servant who was now bent over the charcoal brazier.

Unlikely, answered Kikuchi-Lotmann. He’s one of my two personal bodyguards and is always with me. The other is the young man who escorted you in. The young one I call the student and the old one the policeman, because that’s what they were when I hired them. The student is good at remembering things and the policeman is good at grilling meat. And now, Mr. Quin, let’s have our chat. Why are you here?

To try to find out about my father, although I don’t see how you could have known him. He died before the war.

I was a child before the war, Mr. Quin, and the only foreigners I knew as a child were two friends of Rabbi Lotmann. One was Father Lamereaux, the other was an elderly Russian linguist by the name of Adzhar who also lived in Kamakura. Adzhar was in his late seventies then, about the time you were being born. Is it possible you later changed your name to something more American?

Kikuchi-Lotmann grinned. Quin smiled and shook his head.

I’m afraid not. It would make a good story, but Adzhar’s not the man I’m looking for.

Looking for? You said he was dead. What do you mean?

I mean I know very little about my father or mother, other than that they lived out here. I came to Japan to find out what I could.

But how am I to help if I never knew a Quin and never heard of one?

I don’t know. All I know is that Father Lamereaux told me to come to see you and here I am.

Quin smiled. Kikuchi-Lotmann laughed.

I have a feeling, said Kikuchi-Lotmann, that the old Jesuit’s up to something. Well he’s clever, we know that. I assume he knew your father?

Not well, only in one special way. He saw him occasionally but never for more than a minute or two at a time. He can’t tell me much really.

But he did know him, just as he knew Rabbi Lotmann. He knew your father and he knew my guardian, and obviously there’s some reason why he wanted us to meet. Do you know what that might be?

No.

Kikuchi-Lotmann removed his glasses to polish them, his eyes shrinking to two solemn dots. The glasses went on again and Quin was faced with two large smiling eyes.