'So you leave him all alone in the inn,' she said reproachfully.
De Gier grinned. 'He'll be fine, I think. He is probably soaking his skin in the bathhouse right now.' He looked at his watch. 'Time to eat, Yuiko-san, where are we going to do it?'
'I was told to take you to the island with the orange torii. It's north of the harbor. Maybe it is the island over there, can I see the chart please?'
She mumbled to herself as she read the names. 'Here, this must be the island; there is a note about it in the margin. Famous torii. Do you know what a torii is?'
'No.'
'It's a gate, set in the water. Many lakes have them. The island is a national treasure. I have read some poems which describe it. It's supposed to be like heaven.'
He bent over to look at the chart. 'Yes, that's the island we're heading for now. So the daimyo wants us to have lunch there, does he? Better loosen that jib sheet again. We are going out into the lake now and the wind will be strengthening. What else does the daimyo want us to do?'
'See the famous Buddha,' she said. 'He told me there is a statue sitting on a pedestal of stone and with a hill as a background. On the hill there is another manifestation of Buddha, another statue I suppose. We can climb the hill if you want to.'
'The daimyo,' de Gier said. 'I'm sure he is clever, but I don't understand his game today. Surely he must realize that I am not just walking into a trap. Doesn't he know that I got to know you quite well and that we get on very well and so on?'
'So on what?'
'Well, we are having a bit of an affair, aren't we?'
'We aren't having an affair,' she said quietly. 'The first time we were together I became ill, and the second time you didn't want to. The other meeting was in the hospital with nurses coming in every five minutes to see for themselves what you look like.'
'Did they?' he asked. 'But the daimyo surely knows by now that I am familiar with the fact that you are ya- kusa and that he is using you to manipulate me.'
She was trying to light another cigarette, but the spark wouldn't become a flame.'Chigau,' she said sharply. 'You are wrong. What do you know about the daimyo's mind? He probably knows you came into the bar deliberately, but he is following a line of reasoning of his own. He is a great Go player. Go is Japanese chess, much more difficult than your game, the chess of the West. He makes his moves and you make yours. I don't know what you will find on the island. You didn't have to take the cartridges out of my pistol. I always carry a gun but I am not a killer. And the daimyo doesn't like us to use guns, I've told you that already. Guns are too heavy, he thinks. He wants us to use lighter and more interesting arms.'
He was taken aback by her sudden violence and felt a spurt of anger, tickling around in his stomach, wanting to rise to his brain. He tried to control it, but some of it came up all the same. 'Let go of your sheet,' he shouted. 'You are supposed to watch the jib, it's much too tight. Look at the mainsail, it's standing right out, and the jib is glued to the mast.'
She bowed her head in submission and let the thin rope slip through her hands.
'Like this?'
'Yes,' he shouted, and she bowed again. He felt silly and dropped his voice. 'There is the fishing boat,' he said, pointing ahead. 'The boat we saw before when we left the harbor. It must have gone straight to the island while we were fiddling about near the shore. It's already been to the island and is coming back now, I think.'
'How good are your eyes?' she asked.
'All right, why?'
'I need glasses, but they are in my bag. I only wear them when I am alone. Can you see who is in the boat?'
'I can see a man at the tiller.'
'Can you see his eyebrows?'
'No,' de Gier said. 'Of course not. I am not an eagle. The boat is too far. Does the daimyo have special eyebrows?'
'Tufted,' she said, 'and very black. He has little hair on his head, just a gray fringe but his eyebrows are jet black. I think he dips them in ink.' She giggled.
De Gier screened his eyes and looked again. 'Can't see, and the boat has come about and is tacking away from us now. I would say that the man at the tiller is young. Did the daimyo say he was going to use a fishing boat?'
She shook her head.
'I see the torii now,' he said. 'Why is it there? Two big beams and a sloping roof. Why are the beams orange? I thought Japanese didn't like to use paint but preferred natural colors?'
'A decoration to please the water gods,' she said, and pulled at the sheet. The jib had begun to flap, for the cutter was sailing much closer to the wind as de Gier steered toward a small bay. They passed close to the torii, a solid structure; the beams were at least a foot thick.
It had been built half a mile from the island's shore and the waves were chopping against the gleaming orange paint, lapping the gate with their green tongues and rubbing it with white frothy heads. Two large wooden posts rose from the water; its roof was tiled, sloped like the temples in Kyoto. A capricious structure built in honor of the water gods, de Gier thought. Maybe I should try and sail straight through it. A small show of bravery. The lake isn't friendly, neither is the island. The daimyo knows the lake and is using it against me. He tried to recall his plan. He only had one goal, to meet the daimyo in order to identify him, and to provoke him if possible so that he could be arrested and taken to court. He also tried to recall his guesses that would explain the daimyo's plan. The daimyo, he thought, and he imagined the commissaris thinking along the same line, was no longer interested in frightening them out of Japan. He might still like to chase them off, but he was probably thinking that he wouldn't be able to. The daimyo didn't intend to have them killed. Two dead foreigners would embarrass the country and might lead to the daimyo's fall. But the daimyo wasn't giving in either. The game was still on or he wouldn't be here, sailing a cutter around a Watergate. The daimyo obviously thought them to be what they were pretending to be, two Dutchmen, representatives of an unlawful organization prepared to buy stolen art and drugs. The daimyo had no way to check their background in Holland, for his men in Amsterdam were in jail. The daimyo was now moving toward a union of the Dutch organization and his own, and this boating trip with the charming and seductive Yuiko was his attempt to make contact. The daimyo had surmised that de Gier wanted to make contact too, for why would he have visited the Golden Dragon otherwise? So all he, de Gier, had to do now, was to go ahead and see what the daimyo had planned for him to get into that day. He checked his thoughts again as he sailed the cutter around the torii once more. Yes, it all seemed quite logical. And Dorin was around in case he was wrong. It might be that the daimyo meant to kill him, after all, and would try to kill the commissaris in Kyoto at the same time. But the commissaris was protected. Two of Dorin's men would be with him now, sitting in the public bathhouse most probably, and others would be around the building. Dorin's commandos, the Snow Monkeys, out of uniform, eager young men, well trained. If something went wrong, he, de Gier, would be the victim. Dorin's boat wasn't visible; it would take time for Dorin to catch up with him. He had been given a small radio transmitter, small enough to fit in the pocket of his Windbreaker. If he pressed a button Dorin would appear. He thought he had seen Dorin's boat a little earlier, a dot on the far side of the lake. It would probably be a fast motorboat, but it would still need half an hour or an hour to catch up with him.
The fishing boat had become invisible again as it was swallowed by a line of rocks, jutting out from the island's beach, and he told Yuiko to throw out the anchor. The cutter was close to the island now and he could see the lake's sandy bottom. By paying out the anchor's rope and raising the centerboard they managed to get the cutter close enough to the shore so that they could walk through the shallow water and he took off his shoes and rolled up his jeans. Yuiko had helped him to lower the flapping sails and stood next to him on the small after-deck staring at the water and a shoal of small fish darting about nervously, occasionally turning over and flashing their minute silver bellies. He carried her to the beach, and she kissed him as he waded through the low waves chasing each other to the strip of sand where they broke. She was pressing her breasts against his chest and caressing the thick hair on his neck, and he kissed her cheek and lost his footing and nearly fell.
'Abunai yo,' she whispered. 'It's dangerous here.'
He smiled. There didn't seem to be much danger around. If he fell he would wet his clothes; they would dry
