The Phoenix Tree

‘That increases the risk.’ She didn’t feel comfortable with the thought. Then, remembering Yuri’s comment, she said, ‘I’m not being paid for this.’

He caught the mercenary note in her voice. ‘They didn’t say anything about that. Was your husband paid?’

‘I don’t know. But with him it was different – he was a patriot.’ She had never been sure that he was; he had seemed to have more love for Japan than for Scotland. ‘It’s very difficult trying to live without money.’

‘You came home by car. Who paid for that?’ The whisky, served without ice, hadn’t broken any.

‘It was a friend’s.’ She decided she wouldn’t tell him about her mother, not yet.

‘You’re well dressed, too. A fur coat.’ He had forgotten how cold an unheated house could be.

She put her glass down and said sharply, ‘I don’t have to answer to you like some servant.’

He had been studying her carefully. The male in him appreciated her looks; but he was unaccustomed to women of mixed blood. The Japanese he had known in California had been a tightly knit community; even amongst the whites he had known at school and university he could not remember any who had had any Negro or Oriental blood in them. He had grown up in a society that believed that any relationship between races had to be promiscuous and any child, especially a girl, born of that relationship would also be promiscuous. And being promiscuous, in that way of thinking, meant having less regard for other values. He would have to adapt to her and, tired as he was, that made him angry.

‘You can raise the point with them in your next broadcast. I’ve got only enough to keep myself, till I get a job.’

‘What are you going to do? Maybe I can help,’ she said grudgingly. ‘I have contacts at the university.’

He shook his head. ‘No. If you were picked up and questioned, you would know where I could be found. It’s better for both of us if you can’t get in touch with me. I’ll contact you each week.’

‘You’re not going to trust me, are you? What if I have something important to tell you in a hurry?’

He considered that, going over all the instructions Irvine, the experienced control, had given him. ‘We’ll settle on a mail drop, somewhere where you can leave a message for me. Or I can leave one for you, if I need you in a hurry. But we can’t do that till I know my way around.’

‘Will you stay around here?’

‘No. It’ll be easier to lose myself in Tokyo.’ He could risk telling her that. He looked at his watch. ‘I’m supposed to ask you a lot of questions, but I’m too tired. What time does the first train leave Nayora in the morning?’

‘There’s one comes through from Shizuoka at 7.15, if it’s on time. They’re not always on time these days, because of the bombings.’

‘I’ll get out of your house before daylight and go up to the station. I’ll be in touch with you, where to meet me. Do you have a phone?’

‘It was disconnected when we were interned.’ She began to envy him. ‘You seem to have had an easy war in America. Expecting the trains to run on time, telephones to work …’

He smiled, a tiny crack in the ice between them; she was quick to notice that with the smile his face changed, his eyes became livelier. ‘Score one to you. Now may I get some sleep?’

She led him upstairs to one of the bedrooms, made up a bed for him and left him. ‘I’ll set an alarm to wake me at five,’ she said. ‘It’s still dark then.’

‘There’s no need for that—’

‘Yes, there is. You look worn out – if you’re not wakened, you’ll sleep right through to midday. Yuri will get up with me. She’ll see that you have something to eat before you leave. It won’t be an American breakfast, but it may be a long time before you have another one of those.’ Then she said in English, ‘Goodnight, Mr Joshua.’

‘Goodnight,’ he said in the same tongue. He took a risk, chipping away further at the ice: ‘My name is Okada. Tamezo Okada.’

She smiled at him from the doorway. ‘That could be a trap, speaking in English so carelessly. I think you are like me, Mr Okada. Not a very experienced spy.’

She closed the door, leaving him to sleep on that. He fell asleep wondering how long he would survive. He did not wonder about her: she looked a survivor, if ever he’d seen one.

4

Natasha lay in her own bed, wrapped in some wondering of her own. She had no doubt that Tamezo Okada was who he claimed to be; his arrival, however, had put sudden pressure on her, and, just as suddenly, she wondered if she could cope with it. Up till now she had been doing little more than playing at being a spy; keeping the transmitter oiled, as it were. From here on, if there was to be a transmission a week, it was obvious that the game was to be played seriously. She tried to think how Keith would have reacted; then knew he would have welcomed the pressure. But then he had been so much more experienced at the game than herself – or Tamezo Okada. She suddenly longed for the comfort of Keith’s arms; but it was too late. She fell asleep, making love in her memory, which, like the real thing, is often disappointing.

In the morning she decided to tell Okada about Major Nagata but not about her mother: some relationships were, well, not sacred but suspicious. ‘Major Nagata is working for himself more than for the kempei.’

‘Jesus!’ said Okada, thinking English so early in the morning. ‘Does he suspect you’re an agent for us?’

‘I don’t think so. But I have to report to him what I learned last night at General Imamaru’s.’

Okada looked up from his plate of rice and cold fish. ‘You were at a general’s place? You move in high circles.’

‘A friend of my husband’s from the university took me. Professor Kambe.’ She shook her head before he could ask the question: ‘No, we are not lovers or anything like that. He’s an old man.’ Anyone over fifty was an old man to her; Keith had just escaped the description, dotage had been only four years away when he had died. ‘He knows everyone in high circles, as you call it.’

‘Have you been using him to get information?’

‘The professor? No. Last night was the first time he’d taken me to a reception like that.’

He felt some excitement for the job now: with she and Minato both giving him information, the weekly transmission should raise some excitement back in San Diego, too. At the same time he realized that he would probably be transmitting no information of his own, that while Mrs Cairns and Minato moved in high circles, he’d be no more than the anonymous coach calling the signals. One hidden away in very low circles.

‘Is Nagata having you watched?’

‘I don’t know. If he’s working for himself, I shouldn’t think so.’

‘What makes you think he’s working for himself?’

‘Intuition.’ She had done it for herself for so long.

He hadn’t expected complications so soon. ‘Well, we’ll have to take a risk. We’ve got to meet at least once again, so that we can arrange the mail drop. The trouble is, you’re conspicuous. Your looks, I mean.’

She was so accustomed to compliments that she took his remark as another one; and was surprised. ‘Thank you.’

He looked at her blankly for a moment, then shook his head. ‘I meant you’re different. I’d pass in a crowd more easily than you would.’

She was rebuffed; but she saw his point. ‘We’d better meet at night then. It will have to be an obvious place, till you get to know Tokyo better. Come to the university. There’s a small garden next to the Art Department. There’s no one in the Department now except some elderly gentlemen, like Professor Kambe, and they won’t be there at night.’

They settled on a meeting at nine o’clock three nights hence. Then it was time for him to leave for the station. He held out his hand and she took it.

‘Don’t do that again,’ she said, ‘not in Japan. Good luck.’

He smiled, embarrassed at the small mistakes he was continuing to make. ‘I hope we can work well together.’

This morning she liked him, despite his wariness of her. Though she didn’t recognize it, she had the talent all good women spies should have: an ability to suffer men. ‘I hope so, too.’

She let him out the side door of the house and he disappeared into the morning darkness.

Three hours later Major Nagata called on her again. His visit was prompted more by the desire to see her again as a woman than as one of his operatives. But she gave him a report on last night’s reception at General Imamaru’s and he was so pleased with it he was tempted to give her a bonus. But habit held him back: charity is not part of a secret policeman’s make-up.

‘And how was your mother?’