Ian Fleming - YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (James Bond Classic)

Ian Fleming

(James Bond Classic)

A Great Personal Loss, A Ruthless Villain and A Bloodthirsty Revenge

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musaicumbooks@okpublishing.info2017 OK Publishing ISBN 978-80-7583-165-1

PART ONE. ‘IT IS BETTER TO TRAVEL HOPEFULLY … PART ONE. ‘IT IS BETTER TO TRAVEL HOPEFULLY … Table of Content

1. SCISSORS CUT PAPER

2. CURTAINS FOR BOND?

3. THE IMPOSSIBLE MISSION

4. DIKKO ON THE GINZA

5. MAGIC 44

6. TIGER, TIGER!

7. THE DEATH COLLECTOR

8. SLAY IT WITH FLOWERS

9. INSTANT JAPAN

10. ADVANCED STUDIES

11. ANATOMY CLASS

PART TWO. … THAN TO ARRIVE’

12. APPOINTMENT IN SAMARA

13. KISSY SUZUKI

14. ONE GOLDEN DAY

15. THE SIX GUARDIANS

16. THE LOVESOME SPOT

17. SOMETHING EVIL COMES THIS WAY

18. OUBLIETTE

19. THE QUESTION ROOM

20. BLOOD AND THUNDER

21. OBIT:

22. SPARROWS’ TEARS

Table of Content

Table of Content

THE GEISHA called ‘Trembling Leaf’, on her knees beside James Bond, leant forward from the waist and kissed him chastely on the right cheek.

‘That’s a cheat,’ said Bond severely. ‘You agreed that if I won it would be a real kiss on the mouth. At the very least,’ he added.

‘Grey Pearl’, the Madame, who had black lacquered teeth, a bizarre affectation, and was so thickly made up that she looked like a character out of a No play, translated. There was much giggling and cries of encouragement. Trembling Leaf covered her face with her pretty hands as if she were being required to perform some ultimate obscenity. But then the fingers divided and the pert brown eyes examined Bond’s mouth, as if taking aim, and her body lanced forward. This time the kiss was full on the lips and it lingered fractionally. In invitation? In promise? Bond remembered that he had been promised a ‘pillow geisha’. Technically, this would be a geisha of low caste. She would not be proficient in the traditional arts of her calling – she would not be able to tell humorous stories, sing, paint or compose verses about her patron. But, unlike her cultured sisters, she might agree to perform more robust services – discreetly, of course, in conditions of the utmost privacy and at a high price. But, to the boorish, brutalized tastes of a gaijin , a foreigner, this made more sense than having a tanka of thirty-one syllables, which in any case he couldn’t understand, equate, in exquisite ideograms, his charms with budding chrysanthemums on the slopes of Mount Fuji.

The applause which greeted this unbridled exhibition of lasciviousness died quickly and respectfully. The powerful, chunky man in the black yukata , sitting directly across the low red lacquer table from Bond, had taken the Dunhill filter holder from between his golden teeth and had laid it beside his ashtray. ‘Bondo-san,’ said Tiger Tanaka, Head of the Japanese Secret Service, ‘I will now challenge you to this ridiculous game, and I promise you in advance that you will not win.’ The big, creased brown face that Bond had come to know so well in the past month split expansively. The wide smile closed the almond eyes to slits – slits that glittered. Bond knew that smile. It wasn’t a smile. It was a mask with a golden hole in it.

Bond laughed. ‘All right, Tiger. But first, more saké ! And not in these ridiculous thimbles. I’ve drunk five flasks of the stuff and its effect is about the same as one double Martini. I shall need another double Martini if I am to go on demonstrating the superiority of Western instinct over the wiles of the Orient. Is there such a thing as a lowly glass tumbler discarded in some corner behind the cabinets of Ming?’

‘Bondo-san. Ming is Chinese. Your knowledge of porcelain is as meagre as your drinking habits are gross. Moreover, it is unwise to underestimate saké . We have a saying, “It is the man who drinks the first flask of saké ; then the second flask drinks the first; then it is the saké that drinks the man.” ’ Tiger Tanaka turned to Grey Pearl and there followed a laughing conversation which Bond interpreted as jokes at the expense of this uncouth Westerner and his monstrous appetites. At a word from the Madame, Trembling Leaf bowed low and scurried out of the room. Tiger turned to Bond. ‘You have gained much face, Bondo-san. It is only the sumo wrestlers who drink saké in these quantities without showing it. She says you are undoubtedly an eight-flask man.’ Tiger’s face became sly. ‘But she also suggests that you will not make much of a companion for Trembling Leaf at the end of the evening.’

‘Tell her that I am more interested in her own more mature charms. She will certainly possess talents in the art of love-making which will overcome any temporary lassitude on my part.’

This leaden gallantry got what it deserved. There came a spirited crackle of Japanese from Grey Pearl. Tiger translated. ‘Bondo-san, this is a woman of some wit. She has made a joke. She says she is already respectably married to one bonsan and there is no room on her futon for another. Bonsan means a priest, a greybeard. Futon , as you know, is a bed. She has made a joke on your name.’

The geisha party had been going on for two hours, and Bond’s jaws were aching with the unending smiles and polite repartee. Far from being entertained by the geisha, or bewitched by the inscrutable discords issuing from the catskin-covered box of the three-stringed samisen , Bond had found himself having to try desperately to make the party go. He also knew that Tiger Tanaka had been observing his effort with a sadistic pleasure. Dikko Henderson had warned him that geisha parties were more or less the equivalent, for a foreigner, of trying to entertain a lot of unknown children in a nursery with a strict governess, the Madame, looking on. But Dikko had also warned him that he was being done a great honour by Tiger Tanaka, that the party would cost Tiger a small fortune, whether from secret funds or from his own pocket, and that Bond had better put a good face on the whole thing since this looked like being a breakthrough in Bond’s mission. But it could equally well be disaster.

So now Bond smiled and clapped his hands in admiration. He said to Tiger, ‘Tell the old bitch she’s a clever old bitch,’ accepted the brimming tumbler of hot saké from the apparently adoring hands of Trembling Leaf, and downed it in two tremendous gulps. He repeated the performance so that more saké had to be fetched from the kitchen, then he placed his fist decisively on the red lacquer table and said with mock belligerence, ‘All right, Tiger! Go to it!’

It was the old game of Scissors cut Paper, Paper wraps Stone, Stone blunts Scissors, that is played by children all over the world. The fist is the Stone, two outstretched fingers are the Scissors, and a flat hand is the Paper. The closed fist is hammered twice in the air simultaneously by the two opponents and, at the third downward stroke, the chosen emblem is revealed. The game consists of guessing which emblem the opponent will choose, and of you yourself choosing one that will defeat him. Best of three goes or more. It is a game of bluff.