The Phoenix Tree. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ if we have to go through the ceremony,’ Natasha replied in the same language. She was amused that her mother should have reverted to her native language, as if it was the tongue she had taught Natasha at her knee. Since Lily had deserted her when she was only three months old, it was hardly likely they had exchanged any intelligible words. ‘Let’s have it English style. As a gesture to Father.’

      Lily’s face had been almost masklike; but now she smiled. She liked ironic humour: she wore it as armour, to protect herself against some of the knights who had pursued her. She rang a bell for a servant. ‘English tea it shall be. I believe I have a tin of Earl Grey somewhere.’

      She led Natasha into a side room furnished with the proper austerity of a tasteful looter: some French elegance from a banker’s home in Saigon. Only the walls were Japanese: Natasha, who had learned a little from Keith, recognized the two Sanraku prints. It was not a room for a warm reunion, and Natasha was glad.

      ‘General Imamaru treats you well,’ she said, looking about her.

      ‘He is charming.’ Never so much as when he was absent. Lily had early recognized the general’s drawbacks, but he was a general and he had wealth. One, not even a high-class mistress, could not ask for everything. ‘Mrs Cairns? That means you were married?’

      ‘My husband is dead. He worked with Professor Kambe. Father died too, you know. He was killed in 1938. A warlord up in Sikang shot him.’

      ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ For a moment Lily was indeed sorry; not that she would miss Henry but that he should have died violently. He had never been a violent man. ‘I liked Henry. I just should not have married him. If your husband is dead, what do you live on?’

      ‘A small pension.’ And, as of this week, an informer’s pay from Major Nagata.

      ‘You’re very beautiful,’ said Lily, and for a moment felt slightly queasy with a mother’s pride. ‘You could do better than that.’

      Natasha had never thought of herself as a whore; consequently, she did not think of herself as a reformed whore. So she did not feel sanctimonious, a consequence of reform. ‘Possibly – do you mind if I call you Mother?’

      ‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ said Lily. ‘I’d never get used to it. Call me Lily.’

      Natasha didn’t mind the rejection. She was still trying to sort out her feelings. She assumed she would have felt differently had her mother proved to be something like the romantic figure she had dreamed of; she might even have settled for one of the dull, motherly exiles from the Home Counties she had seen in Hong Kong. She could not, however, come to terms with the acceptance of Lily Tolstoy as her mother, though she knew now that it was a fact.

      A servant, who must have had water boiling on call, brought in a silver tea service and exquisite bone-china cups and saucers: more loot. The tea was poured, without ceremony, and Lily offered a silver salver of Peek Frean’s biscuits. Henry Greenway would have felt right at home in the family circle.

      ‘I think I’d rather wait till the end of the war before I start accepting any favours,’ said Natasha. ‘My late husband taught me to take the long view.’

      ‘You think Japan will lose the war?’ Lily sipped her tea, little finger raised: she was a good secondrate actress.

      Natasha took a risk: after all, Lily was her mother. Besides, tomorrow Major Nagata would ask her what she had learned and she would have to give him something for his money. ‘I listened to the men’s conversation this evening. None of them sounded optimistic.’

      ‘Natasha—’ It was the first time she had called her by name; it suggested she was prepared to be a little more intimate. ‘You probably have guessed what my life has been. Mistresses can never afford to take the long view. It is myopic for one to think one can.’

      Natasha munched on a cream wafer; it was stale, but it tasted fresh and sweet to her after the years of wartime rations. ‘So what will you do when the war ends? If Japan loses?’

      ‘I still have my looks and my talents.’ She had those, but no modesty. ‘American generals, presumably, have mistresses.’

      ‘Does General Imamaru know how you feel?’ She sipped her tea, one pan of her mind thinking of Keith. He had admired the Japanese style of living, but he had had a Scotsman’s love of strong, sweet tea.

      ‘Of course not.’ Lily put down her cup and saucer and looked sternly at her daughter. ‘I can understand that curiosity brought you to see me. But what had you in mind to follow? Blackmail?’

      ‘Mother!’ said Natasha mockingly. She felt suddenly at ease, deciding that she felt no love, not even repressed, for her mother. ‘Of course not. As you say, it was curiosity …’

      ‘Are you disappointed in me or not?’

      ‘Ye-es,’ Natasha said slowly; she had had her dreams for so long, if only intermittently. ‘I used to picture you as a Mongolian princess who had run off with a Rumanian oil tycoon. Some day I was going to meet up with you on the French Riviera.’

      Lily smiled. ‘How flattering. I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you.’

      Natasha put down her cup and saucer. ‘I’d better be going. I have a long way to go, out to Nayora.’

      For the first time Lily felt the situation was slippery. ‘If we go on seeing each other …’

      Natasha wasn’t sure that that was what she wanted; but she had another role to play besides that of spurned daughter. She would never get another opportunity like this to move in the higher circles in Tokyo. She thought not of Major Nagata, but of Keith, who would have jumped at this same opportunity.

      ‘Perhaps I could be your niece. Would General Imamaru believe that?’

      ‘General Imamaru makes a pretence of believing anything I tell him.’ She knew her men: she never believed anything they told her. ‘I think he finds it easier, it leaves his mind free for problems of the war. The question is, will the women believe it?’

      ‘The generals’ wives I met this evening won’t. They’d wonder why you didn’t introduce me as your niece at once.’

      ‘True. But if General Imamaru accepts you as my niece, then they will have to.’ She had never bothered herself with respectable women’s acceptance of her. ‘Who is there to contradict us?’

      No one but Major Nagata and the commandeered Hong Kong police files. ‘As you say – who? Goodnight – Lily.’

      ‘How are you getting back to Nayora?’

      ‘By train. The last one goes at 10.30.’

      ‘I can’t have a niece of mine going all that way at night by train. A moment—’

      Five minutes later Natasha was being driven back to Nayora in one of General Imamaru’s two staff cars. The car had to go up a long curving driveway past General Imamaru’s mansion to reach the gates. As it went past the wide steps leading up to the mansion she saw Colonel Hayashi coming down the steps with General Imamaru. Their heads were close together and Hayashi seemed to be doing the talking. She wondered if he was telling the general about her.

      The driver, fortunately, СКАЧАТЬ