Jon Cleary - The Phoenix Tree

Madame Tolstoy had also been discreet, though she had not been prepared to take discretion too far for fear of being disbelieved: she wore what could only be described as a missionary version of a cheong-sam . It was not too tight, the slit in the leg was not too high: even a priest would only have been aroused to venial sin.

Madame Tolstoy introduced her to the two women, one of whom was the wife of the general who had beaten a glorious retreat in the Pacific. She had the look of a woman who knew what a retreat, glorious or otherwise, was. The other woman, plump and pale as a thick rice ball in her kimono, was the wife of yet another general. Natasha felt like a novice camp follower.

‘Mrs Cairns lives out at Nayora,’ said Madame Tolstoy. ‘She is so fortunate to be away from Tokyo. She is interned there.’

‘How nice,’ said the first general’s wife and looked as if she wished she might beat a retreat to Nayora.

‘I’d be just as happy here,’ said the plump wife and looked around the large room where they sat. General Imamaru’s mansion had been built for the general’s father by a Japanese apostle of Frank Lloyd Wright’s who had lost his nerve. Cohesiveness seemed to dribble away in corners; solidity and fragility confronted each other like figures in a Hall of Crazy Mirrors. The general had not improved the interior by furnishing it with what appeared to be a furniture album of his travels; some day it might be preserved as a museum of bad taste. The plump wife loved it. ‘I don’t know why you don’t move in here, Madame Tolstoy.’

‘One has to be discreet,’ said Madame Tolstoy, and looked as coy as only a madame could. ‘General Imamaru prefers me to live in the house across the garden.’

‘Did you furnish the other house yourself?’ said Natasha. ‘I have heard you have beautiful taste.’

‘People are so complimentary,’ said Madame Tolstoy, and looked at her with benign suspicion.

‘I should love to see it.’ Natasha saw the other two women look at her with sudden cool disapproval. She knew she was being forward and disrespectful, but she was speaking to another outsider, not to them. Still, she backtracked, if only for Madame Tolstoy’s sake: ‘That is, if I should not be rudely intruding.’

She had spent the last half hour studying her alleged mother and had decided that she had to know more about her, even at the risk of – what? She had not even begun to contemplate her future with a newly-found mother. But she sensed now that Madame Tolstoy was puzzled and intrigued by her. Could it be that the mother in her had already recognized the daughter?

‘Come to my house later,’ said Madame Tolstoy. ‘General Imamaru wants the ladies to retire early. He and the other gentlemen have matters to discuss.’

Natasha smiled her thanks, bowed to the three older women, though not as low as their position deserved, and moved away. She had never been able to bring herself to descend through the various bows of respect; a slight inclination of the head, more European than Oriental, was as far as she ever went. Though, if ever she met the Emperor, which was as unlikely as meeting God, she knew she would go right to the ground, even if only to save her neck. Having turned her back on the God the nuns had given her, she was still amazed at the reverence the Japanese gave to the Emperor.

She found a seat, a monstrous Victorian chair looted from a house in Hong Kong, and took note of the gathering; after all, she was supposed to be a spy, working for two bosses. She had never been to a reception as top-level as this, not even with Keith. Here were men who ran the country and the war. She recognized, from photos she had studied, Admiral Yonai, who was bigger than she had supposed and who seemed to be the life of the small group surrounding him; he was the Navy minister and had just been appointed assistant prime minister, but he looked as if he had no more worries than running a home for pensioned sailors. She saw others: Admiral Tajiri; the War minister General Sugiyama; Prince Mikasa, a brother of the Emperor: a bomb on this house tonight would be an exploding fuse that would blow out most of the power of Japan. She caught snatches of conversation from the various groups of men and was shocked at the frankness; defeats and retreats were being discussed here as they were never told to the public. She thrilled at the prospect of what she might hear and then pass on to the wireless operators in the Aleutians. But for this evening she had the more immediate, personal problem that had brought her here.

The groups of men began to break up and Professor Kambe came across to her. ‘You have been a success, Natasha. All the men were most complimentary.’

‘I did nothing but stand around.’

‘It was enough. Military men, unless they are using them otherwise, like their women to stand around like regimental runners.’

Natasha glanced around nervously. ‘One of these days, professor, the military men will stand you up against a wall and shoot you.’

‘Possibly. Unless they are too busy avoiding being shot themselves by the Americans.’

‘Are they all as pessimistic as that?’

But Professor Kambe wasn’t going to stand himself up against the wall; he knew when enough was enough, especially in a general’s own house. ‘Don’t worry your pretty head about it. Shall we go?’

‘May I be excused, professor? Madame Tolstoy has asked me over to see her house.’

He gave her a quizzical look. ‘Is that wise? You don’t want the gossips painting you with the same brush they’ve used on her.’

‘I shall be careful, Kambe-san.’ She was grateful for his concern for her. With other men in other lands, she would have put a hand on his arm; but not here, not with so many in the room watching them. Such an intimacy would offend, though not Kambe himself. ‘Thank you for bringing me.’

‘Report to me tomorrow.’ He was not a gossip, but he enjoyed hearing it. Like sex, it is one of the pleasures of all classes. ‘And do be careful.’

How else could one be with a probable mother who was an almost total stranger? ‘I shall be.’

A servant took her across the garden to Madame Tolstoy’s house. The garden was large, one of the largest in the Koji-Machi district. Close to the Imperial Palace, which the Americans had evidently decided should not be bombed, General Imamaru’s mansion and the smaller villa of his mistress were as intact as they had been since first built. Water trickled into pools, suggesting tranquillity; the white stones of the paths were raked each day so as not to offend the general’s eye; a gardener worked here all day every day, as if flowers were an essential crop. But even as she walked through the garden, Natasha wondered if the general, from tonight’s conversation, really believed it could all last.

Madame Tolstoy was waiting for her in the villa. The gossip about her taste was true: the rooms were an ideal marriage of comfort and formalism. Madame Tolstoy had learned from her travels, had done her own looting of ideas.

There was a man with her, Colonel Hayashi. Natasha had seen him at the reception, standing in the background, never intruding on any of the groups; she had assumed that he had been an aide to one of the generals. He was tall and muscular, a man who looked as if he would enjoy the physical side of life. But it would not be an extrovert enjoyment: his face would show nothing, even his eyes had a bony look.

‘Colonel Hayashi has been admiring you all evening. He wanted to meet you.’

Dammit, surely she’s not a procuress, too ?

But if Colonel Hayashi had designs on her, he did not show them. In a soft yet harsh voice he said, ‘Why haven’t we seen you before, Mrs Cairns?’