Dragon Dance Read online

  Of course not, thought Mark. Much better to let Jenny and her stooges in the supervisory committee do what the hell they liked without anyone being the wiser.

  “You can be sure of one thing—your father’s in the best possible hands. We have everything under control.”

  “I’m sure you do, Roger,” said Mark evenly. He put down the phone and walked back upstairs. Liam was still curled up under the blankets. Natasha was lying on her side, her lips slightly open. Everything looked the same as before, but that was an illusion. In the few minutes Mark had been downstairs, the world had become a different place. He slid under the sheets, taking care not to disturb Natasha, and lay gazing at the shadows on the ceiling.

  He recalled an incident that had happened when he was eight or nine. He’d been out in the bay with his father when suddenly someone shouted “Shark!” and they both started swimming for the beach. His father was a few yards ahead. Suddenly he spun around in the water, gave a bellow of pain, and disappeared beneath the surface. Seconds went by. Young Mark stared in horror at the place where his father had been. Not only had his father gone, but now the shark would be coming for him. Suddenly there was a splashing sound right behind him. Mark wheeled round to see his father surging to the surface like a human submarine. “Fooled you!” he roared. Mark had been fooled a few times after that too—the two heart attacks, the polyps operation. He was used to being fooled, to his father always coming splashing to the surface in the end. This time, though, it was different. There really was a shark, and he was going to have to face it alone.

  ELEVEN

  Martine arrived at Shinjuku Park at seven, half an hour before Nozawa was due to come on stage, and was confronted by a dizzying sight. Thousands of people were sitting in rows, hardly any space between them, a vast human carpet stretching from the edge of the park to the matchbox-sized stage in the distance.

  Martine had been to a pop music festival only once before in her life. At the age of seventeen she had been dragged along by a boyfriend who was writing agitprop plays for an anarchist theater group. It had been a muddy, smelly, thoroughly unpleasant experience, made worse by the ear-splitting cacophony generated by the “musicians.” She had exited at the earliest opportunity and refused any further contact with the boyfriend, now a partner of one of the big accountancy firms.

  This was a different class of event entirely. It was more like a gigantic, highly organized picnic, fun for all the family. People were sitting on newspapers and plastic sheets eating lunchboxes, slurping cup noodles, sipping green tea from plastic bottles, reading comic books, doing all the normal things that you would do in a park anyway. Hawkers with trays around their necks were selling rice-cakes, yakitori, baked yams, steamed buns, and alcoholic drinks. Martine even noticed a woman pouring beer from a familiar wire-capped bottle. That was a sight that would have pleased Makoto. He was always talking about the importance of the fashionable female consumer.

  As Martine picked her way through the crowd, she saw Nozawa’s face everywhere—on T-shirts, baseball caps, paper fans, kites, helium balloons, lunch-box lids, even winking at her from the electroluminescent wrist tattoos that had recently become fashionable. The Nozawa logo—a lightning-streak “Z” bracketed by a smaller “n” and “w”—was visible on digicams, disc players, cellphones, palmtop computers, and other electronic gadgets. The power of [112] the Nozawa merchandising operation was legendary. In return for long-term multimedia product endorsement, he demanded a fixed percentage of the retail price. Only Nozawa had the clout to cut that kind of deal. No manufacturer could afford to have him on the other side of its marketing strategy.

  Music was booming from the loudspeaker towers that dotted the park, loud enough to drown out any conversation. The warm-up act was a glam-rock group that swaggered around in kabuki gear and sang power ballads about loyalty and filial piety. Unknown a year ago, they were now one of the most popular groups in Japan. You could be sure that in a year’s time they would be unknown again. Seen from the edge of the park, they were microscopic figures prancing about on a tiny stage. Some people had binoculars pressed to their eyes, others were watching through holo-spex. Most of the audience showed little interest, however. They had come for Nozawa, who had been a star for longer than many of them had been alive.

  Nozawa’s media handlers had talked about an audience of twenty thousand. Martine, applying a normal PR discount, had assumed it would be closer to ten thousand. Now she wasn’t so sure. It was even possible that the media handlers had made an underestimate. The average age seemed to be around twenty-five—young adults, both male and female. Twenty years ago they would have been contented servants of the Japanese economic miracle, facing a comfortable future of lifetime employment and ever-rising living standards. Now they were listening to Nozawa, letting him express their frustration and emptiness. There were older people too, couples in their forties and fifties. That made Martine think of Makoto and poor Sachiko-san. What if she had lived? Was there any chance that they might be here today, somewhere in the crowd holding hands on the grass? Martine winced at the thought. Hearing that Makoto had once been a fan of Nozawa had come as a shock. It had made her realize how little she understood him. But then whoever really understood any other person? The surprises were what kept you on your toes.

  It took Martine almost fifteen minutes to reach the VIP enclosure in front of the stage. A huddle of security people stood around the gate, amongst them Kawamoto. Martine smiled at her, but got no response. Shimizu was standing inside, holding a fray of wine glasses. He was wearing mauve-tinted glasses and a white linen suit that made him look like a middle-aged executive trying desperately to be hip, which is exactly what he was.

  Martine flashed her security tag at the optical reader and went in. Inside there were a couple of hundred VIPs lolling in airline-style chairs with side tables for drinks and snacks. Martine took her place near the end of one of the rows and watched the glam-rockers finishing their act. The vocalist, who was dressed in a gaudy kimono, thick white makeup, and a shaggy wig, was belting out the chorus of their latest hit. The guitarist suddenly jumped off [113] the stage and came sailing through the air toward where Martine was seated, all the while grimacing madly and flailing at his guitar. She could just make out the wire attached to the harness on his back, but even so ducked instinctively out of the way. The guitarist swung a couple of yards over her head, looped around in a huge arc, and landed adroitly on his feet in time for the next chorus.

  The song ended with the vocalist and the bass player, who was made up as a female onnagata, kneeling together in the center of the stage. Amidst a blizzard of cherry blossoms, the vocalist produced a dagger and cut his lover’s throat. He watched mournfully as the red stain spread over the front of her kimono, then stabbed himself in the chest and slumped to the ground. The guitar whined feedback, the keyboards sobbed, and the drums thrashed. Then the lights went off to thunderous cheers from the crowd. Seconds later all five members of the group were at the front of the stage, linking hands and grinning and bowing.

  Martine clapped politely and glanced around her, instantly spotting several dozen celebrities—actors and actresses, sports people, a top-rated chat show host, a TV comedian who had bluffed the world into taking him seriously as a movie director. Closer to the stage were the politicians—younger members of all the major parties, from the Buddhists to the reformists. Prominent among them was the governor of Tokyo without whose approval the whole event could never have happened.

  “Good evening, Meyer-san. We’re so happy you could spare the time to come.”

  It was Shimizu, tapping her on the shoulder, and grinning like a cat in a sushi shop.

  “Not at all. It was kind of you to invite me to such a remarkable event.”

  “Remarkable? I suppose it is. But there’ll be many more to come, even bigger than this. Incidentally, we all very much appreciated the profile in yesterday’s paper. You have such an excellent way with words.”

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p; Martine gave a modest shrug. Actually she had been pleased with the article. It had run next to the editorial column with a cartoon of Nozawa standing over the Diet building, poised to bash it with his guitar. Amazingly the copy editors had left the text more or less as she had sent it—plain and factual, with no attempt to load the dice. Anyone with a brain would see where Nozawa was coming from straightaway.

  “But it’s unfortunate that your partner couldn’t make it. I hope his overseas trip turns out to be successful.”

  Martine flinched but kept smiling. “How did you find out about that?”

  “It’s my job to make sure relations with the media run as smoothly as possible.”

  “You must be a very hard worker.”

  [114] Shimizu shrugged. “I do my best. But running a small business must be a terrible strain, what with interest rates so high now. You never know—there may be some synergies we can find. Nozawa-sensei has always been keen on good-tasting beer.”

  He gave a wink and went back to his seat. Martine pondered his last words. “Synergies”—what was that supposed to mean? A product placement in Nozawa’s next video? One of those fixed-margin endorsement deals? Whatever he meant, Martine didn’t like it. Some kind of encroachment had just taken place, a breaching of a border that she had been carefully protecting.

  Suddenly the lights went off all over the park and a siren started wailing. The banks of loudspeakers erupted with the thunder of aircraft engines, then the crump of explosions, women’s voices screaming, the rattle of anti-aircraft guns. Powerful searchlights strobed the night sky, as if scanning for the phantom bombers.

  “Everyone please stay seated,” boomed a familiar male voice. “There is no need to panic. If we work together, we can overcome any disaster. Japan is the land of the gods. I am a god, you are all gods. We Japanese are a hundred million gods. Now I have a question for you. Are you ready for national regeneration?”

  At that, the words “National Regeneration” lit up the sky in blazing silver characters three hundred feet high. The roar of approval was twice as loud as for the glam-rockers. But Nozawa evidently wasn’t satisfied.

  “I can’t hear you—what’s the matter? You all sound ashamed of being Japanese! Let me ask you again. ARE—YOU—READY—FOR—NATIONAL—REGENERATION?”

  This time the response was loud enough to be heard halfway to Yokohama.

  “One more time please!”

  Around thirty thousand voices blurred into a single roar of approval. Even the VIPs joined in, cupping their mouths and howling at the stage. Martine wondered if she was the only person in the audience with her lips shut.

  “All right, then. Come on—LET’S DO IT!”

  A single spotlight lit up Nozawa sitting on a wooden stool in the center of the stage. He was dressed in a variation on the traditional construction-worker’s outfit—headband, bellyband, baggy trousers, and split-toed sandals. Around his neck hung a shamisen.

  “This song is for my father,” he muttered. “And for your father too.”

  He plucked at the strings, and a simple five-note riff twanged from the bank of loudspeakers. Nozawa paused as if to listen, then played the riff again. This time a whomping drumbeat came in behind him, followed by bass and electric piano. There was a slow roar of recognition from the crowd. Nozawa played the riff a third time, and the stage lights came on, revealing the full band with brass section, taiko drums, Hawaiian guitar, and four female backing singers in [115] miniskirts and halter tops, jigging to the beat and waving rising sun flags.

  Nozawa jumped off the stool and walked to the front of the stage where he struck a pose, legs planted wide apart, the shamisen thrusting from his hip. Even before he started singing, he had the audience in his pocket.

  Two hours every morning on a jam-packed train

  Working all my life for the same company

  Living in a shack that costs fifty million yen

  When the earthquake comes it’ll crash to the ground

  Crash! Crash! Crash!

  The backing singers gave little yelps of panic and staggered from side to side, covering their heads with their hands. Nozawa punched a fist in the air, and the whole park joined in on the chorus.

  Born in Japan, born in Japan,

  I’m a throwaway samurai

  Born in Japan

  The governor of Tokyo was singing. The world judo champion was singing. The woman who read the news on DaiNippon TV was singing. The park was a sea of rising sun flags.

  A gigantic hologram of Mount Fuji appeared above the stage. Martine watched Nozawa pirouetting at the front, clapping his hands above his head, directing the crowd to sing louder. It was hard to believe he was the same person she had met in the Shinjuku hotel. He looked taller, more handsome. Makoto’s mother had claimed he was some kind of genius. That was ridiculous of course, but the man definitely had talent. He was a natural actor, playing with absolute conviction a role that he had created for himself.

  Nozawa whooped and crooned and whispered. He sang slow, tear-jerking ballads and thumping rockers. He danced a festival jig with the backup singers and blew a funky solo on a conch shell. He pulled off his bellyband and threw it to the crowd, where it was caught by the female newscaster. The taiko drums pounded, the saxes honked, the backing singers oohed and aahed and jiggled their fronts and wiggled their rears.

  Martine recognized about half the songs. There were early hits like “Hey Ryu,” “Shinjuku Sunset,” and “Year of the Snake.” From the heavy Zen phase came “Every Grain of Rice” and “Dharma on Fire,” and from the latest CD came “Stolen Islands,” “Black Ships in the Bay,” and “Japanese Skin.” Each had a rapturous reception. Martine seemed to be the only person in the park who didn’t know the words to every song.

  [116] Finally the last song finished, the lights went down, and the whole audience was on its feet, yelling for an encore. Martine watched the governor of Tokyo put his fingers in his mouth and produce a whistle as piercing as a factory siren. A couple of minutes passed, then Nozawa appeared at the front of the stage. He had traded in his construction-worker gear for jeans and a white T-shirt. On the front of the T-shirt was a girl’s face. Martine didn’t recognize her until the same image appeared as a gigantic hologram stretching up into the sky.

  Nozawa raised his hands in the air and the crowd fell silent.

  “One new song,” he said. “One song for a girl I never met. One song for a death that must not be in vain. It’s called ‘The Lonely Death of Mari-chan.’ ”

  The song was performed in Nozawa’s early singer-songwriter style, with a bare accompaniment of acoustic guitar and harmonica. It was a powerful work, Martine had to admit. Each verse described Mari-chan’s death from the viewpoint of a different person—her father, Jackson, an American politician, a Japanese politician, a salaryman reading about it in the newspaper, then Nozawa himself.

  Nobody can say who’s to blame

  Nobody’s bad and nobody’s good

  MacArthur’s army defends democracy

  MacArthur’s army defends capitalism

  MacArthur’s army brings us movies and burgers

  MacArthur’s army is here forever

  The song ended with a long, mournful harmonica solo and then a flourish on the guitar. There was a moment of silence, as if the audience couldn’t make up its mind whether to cheer or weep. But that was a decision that didn’t have to be made because the rest of the band ran on stage and launched into “Hopeful Morning,” a karaoke favorite of millions of salarymen. Like a true professional, Nozawa was going to leave them on an emotional high, baying for more.

  Everybody sing together

  Everybody dream together

  The sun will rise again

  The storm may be strong, the rain may be cold

  But tomorrow is coming, a hopeful morning

  Nozawa leaned forward, cupping his hand around his ear. The crowd roared out the next line of the song.

  And the sun will rise again! />
  [117] Even the VIPs were on their feet now, swaying from side to side, punching their fists in the air. Nozawa gazed down from the edge of the stage. For an instant Martine had the impression he was staring right at her. He wagged a finger in the air, as if scolding her for not singing.

  In this world only one thing is certain

  Nozawa stopped again to let the crowd bellow the chorus. This time Martine joined in, adding her voice to the tsunami of sound.

  THE SUN WILL RISE AGAIN!

  The words floated into the night sky, echoed amongst the skyscrapers, slipped through the tunnels and neon-splattered alleys of Shinjuku, and faded into the roar of the traffic and the thunder of the trains.

  The event was brought to an efficient, orderly close. The crowd filed out of the park one row at a time, following the instructions that boomed from the loudspeakers.

  “Please be careful not to leave anything behind.”

  “Please remain seated until your section is called.”

  “Thank you very much for your attendance. Please put any litter in the bags provided.”

  It was the same soothing Big Sister voice you heard everywhere in Japan, in subway stations, in government offices, in museums and shrines and sports stadiums. People sat patiently, waiting their turn. And when it came there was no shoving, no shouting, and not a trace of litter left behind.

  The VIPs were led to a marquee behind the stage, where a buffet had been prepared. There were long sushi bars, handmade noodles, haunches of finely marbled Kobe beef, salvers bearing huge crayfish still wriggling their antennae long after their flesh had been carved into slices. The members of the band were already there, flushed with the energy of performing. Nozawa had yet to appear. Martine made polite conversation with a software entrepreneur, a Japanese astronaut, and a Buddhist priest who appeared on TV quiz shows. Finally she was buttonholed by a junior politician, a man who had just succeeded to his father’s constituency in the north of Japan, his father having succeeded his grandfather, and his grandfather having succeeded his great-grandfather. That Nozawa had managed to attract a man with such a secure franchise was a testament to his political momentum.