Shibumi

“No. I never saw the people firing from the mezzanine.”

Hel nodded and bowed his head, his palms pressed together and the forefingers lightly touching his lips. “Give me a moment to put this together.” He fixed his eyes on the weave pattern of the tatami, then defocused as he reviewed the information in hand.

Ha

He lifted his hand to silence her without looking up.

Four minutes later he raised his head. “What?”

“Pardon me?”

“Something about flowers.”

“Oh, nothing important. I just wondered why you didn’t have any flowers in your garden.”

“There are three flowers.”

“Three varieties?”

“No. Three flowers. One to signal each of the seasons of bloom. We are between seasons now. All right, let’s see what we know or can assume. It’s pretty obvious that the raid in Rome was organized either by PLO or by the Septembrists, and that they had learned of your intentions—probably through your London-based IRA comrades, who would sell their mothers into Turkish seraglios if the price was right (and if any self-respecting Turk would use them). The appearance of Japanese Red Army fanatics would seem to point to Septembrists, who often use others to do their dangerous work, having little appetite for personal risk. But things get a little complicated at this point. The stunt men were disposed of within seconds, and by men stationed in the mezzanine. Probably not Italian police, because the thing was done efficiently. The best bet is that the tip-off was tipped off. Why? The only reason that comes quickly to mind is that no one wanted the Japanese stunt men taken alive. And why? Possibly because they were not Red Army dum-dums at all. And that, of course, would bring us to CIA. Or to the Mother Company, which controls CIA, and everything else in American government, for that matter.”

“What is the Mother Company? I’ve never heard of them.”

“Few Americans have. It is a control organization of the principal international oil and energy companies. They’ve been in bed with the Arabs forever, using those poor benighted bastards as pawns in their schemes of induced shortages and profiteering. The Mother Company is a wiry opponent; they can’t be got at through nationalistic pressures. Although they put up a huge media front of being loyal American (or British or German or Dutch) companies, they are in fact international infragovernments whose only patriotism is profit. Chances are that your father owns stock in them, as do half the dear gray-haired ladies of your country.”

Ha

“You underestimate the elastic nature of your country’s conscience. They have made a palpable shift since the oil embargo. American devotion to honor varies inversely with its concern for central heating. It is a property of the American that he can be brave and selfsacrificing only in short bursts. That is why they are better at war than at responsible peace. They can face danger, but not inconvenience. They toxify their air to kill mosquitoes. They drain their energy sources to provide themselves with electric carving knives. We must never forget that there was always Coca-Cola for the soldiers in Viet Nam—”

Ha

“Yes. Generalization is flawed thinking only when applied to individuals. It is the most accurate way to describe the mass, the Wad. And yours is a democracy, a dictatorship of the Wad.”

“I refuse to believe that Americans were involved in the blood and horror of what went on in that airport. I

“Does the sixth of August mean anything to you?”

“Sixth of August? No. Why?” She gripped her legs closer to her chest.

“Never mind.” Hel rose. “I have to think this out a bit. We’ll talk again this afternoon.”

“Do you intend to help me?”

“Probably. But probably not in any style you have in mind. By the way, can you stand a bit of avuncular advice?”

“What would that be?”

“It is a sartorial indiscretion for a young lady so lavishly endowed with pubic hair as you to wear shorts that brief, and to sit in so revealing a posture. Unless, of course, it is your intention to prove that your red hair is natural. Shall we take lunch?”

Lunch was set at a small round table in the west reception room giving out onto the rolling green and allée that descended to the principal gates. The porte fenêtres were open, and the long curtains billowed lazily with cedar-scented breezes. Hana had changed to a long dress of plum-colored silk, and when Hel and Ha

As Ha

Hana smiled and explained. “Our age and past indiscretions require that we eat a little cautiously, my dear. But we do not inflict our Spartan regimen on our guests. In fact, when I am away from home, in Paris for instance, I go on a spree of depraved eating. Eating for me is what you might call a managed vice. A vice particularly difficult to control when one is living in France where, depending on your point of view, the food is either the world’s second best or the world’s very worst.”

“What do you mean?” Ha

“From a sybaritic point of view, French food is second only to classic Chinese cuisine. But it is so handled, and sauced, and prodded, and chopped, and stuffed, and seasoned as to be a nutritive disaster. That is why no people in the West have so much delight with eating as the French, or so much trouble with their livers.”

“And what do you think about American food?” Ha

“I couldn’t really say; I have never been in America. But Nicholai lived there for a time, and he tells me that there are certain areas in which American cooking excels.”

“Oh?” Ha

“It’s not Americans I find a