Gruber muttered something in German and followed Kei into a small, low-ceilinged anteroom that was simple and elegant. The muted lighting came from a globe lantern that hung over either end of a priceless antique desk, its facade covered with hand-carved scroll work. An Oriental rug lay before the desk, and in the tokonama, the small alcove behind it, was a magnificent floral arrangement. The geisha who sat behind the desk was just as elegant, a diminutive woman, no more than twenty, a single jade ring on the small finger of her left hand, her mouth a splash of red in her chalk-white painted face, her night-black hair braided to one side and held in place by a splinter-thin pin with a delicate jade handle. She wore a kimono of pure white silk with a startling, blood-red obi that matched, perfectly, the colour of her lips. And when she spoke, her voice was as delicate as wind chimes.
‘Konbanwa.’
Kei nodded and returned her ‘Good evening.’
She smiled and nodded back. ‘Tegami o onegai itashimasu.’
‘Hai.’ Kei produced a letter and handed it to her.
‘Domo arigato gozaimasu.’
‘Do itashimashite.’
She read it slowly.
Somewhere in the vastness of the club, behind walls and doors, Gruber could hear the slow, solitary beat of a taiko drum, and there was a delicate scent of incense in the air. And while Gruber tried to keep his mind n business, he found himself uncontrollably stirred by the place, by a sensual promise he could not ignore.
This is business, he said to himself. The pleasure can wait. And yet the odour, the slow rhythmic thump of the drum, the beauty of the young geisha, kept chipping away at his concentration.
When she finished the letter, she looked at Gruber for a moment and then asked Kei, ‘Kochira wa Gruber-san desuka?
‘Hai.’
She folded the letter and slipped it into one of the desk drawers, looked briefly at Gruber, and with the vaguest of smiles, nodded toward another door, pressing a button under her foot as she did. The door clicked very quietly. Kei opened it and ushered Gruber into Takan Shu.
The only light in the enormous space seemed to come from near the ceiling, but it was so subtle, so subdued that it took Gruber a few moments to adjust before he could study the interior of the club. It was an arena, a. plush arena in a large circular room towering sixty feet to its flat ceiling. The core of the main floor was a small stage and, stretching out from it, like ripples in the water, were tiers, circular rows, like giant steps rising one above the other, to a point perhaps halfway to the dome. There were no windows. Each step accommodated several bays separated only by small tables. There were no lamps and no lights on the walls, and in each of the bays were deeply piled futon, thick down quilts normally used for sleeping. Most of the alcoves were occupied, some by a single couple, some by as many as six people. Their faces were hazy apparitions in the dim light.
The music, a Japanese love song, was being played by three geishas who sat on the stage in the centre of the room. When Kei and Gruber entered, the only sound had been the slow rhythm of the taiko, and a murmur of anticipation from the crowded room. But then the drum had been joined by the samisen, the three-stringed Japanese guitar that always sounds slightly out of tune, and then, a beat or two later, by a flute.
Gruber, despite his profession, had managed through the years to acquire an element of taste and had once played the role of interior decorator as a cover. He thought, the place is a marvel of naked elegance; everything in the room is essential. And: Those goddamn Japs, you must give it to them, they have impeccable taste.
It was a few moments before Gruber was aware that everyone in the room was staring up at the ceiling, sixty feet above, at a large plexiglass disk, at least twelve feet across, that was being lowered slowly. It was perfectly balanced by four velvet ropes attached, ten feet above the disk, to a single strand that rose to a winch hidden somewhere in the false ceiling.
Coloured lights faded up slowly as the clear disk was lowered. He was looking up through the disk. It was occupied by two men and a woman. The men were both Japanese but quite disparate in age. One of them was no more than twenty or twenty-one; the other in his forties. Both looked like athletes, their muscular bodies enhanced by oil. They wore loincloths. The woman was Caucasian with perhaps a strain of Polynesian, young, not yet twenty, and small, although her body was almost perfect, her breasts not too big, 1er legs not too short. She wore a loose, sheer tunic that draped to mid-thigh. Both men were blindfolded with black silk. She was not.
And he thought, Ah, even the show will be a study in elegance of style.
Pornographic? Of course. But never obscene.
As the disk came down, very slowly, it began to revolve just as slowly. And the two men began to caress the woman, each in his own way. The younger man was more impetuous, his touch was more urgent, his moves more direct. The older man began to stroke her with his fingertips, starting at the tip of her fingers and moving slowly up her arm, fondling the hollow where her arm and body joined, moving down her side to her knee, then as he started back up, he slipped one hand along the inside of her thigh. Her head fell back and her long black hair draped across the back of her legs. She began to move her head back and forth with the beat of the music.
Must go now,’ Kei said.
The German had begun to sweat, very lightly, just under his nose. ‘In a moment,’ he snapped under his breath without taking his eyes off the revolving disk.
The tempo of the music began to pick up, and with it, the emotions of the trio. The younger man began to slow his pace as the older one increased his. The woman was being touched by four hands that seemed to explore every inch of her body, caressing her ear lobes, her eyelids, her lips, her throat.
She was swaying back and forth and the men moved closer and began weaving with her, their hands overlapped, the tempo of the music increased and she moved with it. The faster the music, the more frenzied she became.
Gruber appeared to be transfixed. He stared up at the disk. His lips were dry and now drops of sweat appeared along the edge of his hairline.
Everything is possible here, he thought. It is hard to tell where reality stops and fantasy begins.
The older man’s hand slid up under her tunic and began rubbing her stomach while the younger man’s hands
