Shibumi

it, at first as a joke and later by habit. Soon they and the young men they traveled with began to bash any Volvo they passed. And in the illogical way of fads, Volvo-bashing began to spread, here taking on an anti-Establishment tone, there a quality of youthful exuberance; here as an expression of antimaterialism, there as a manifestation of in-cult with-itness.

Even owners of Volvos began to accept the bashing craze, for it proved that they traveled in circles of the internationally aware. And there were cases of owners secretly bashing their own Volvos, to gain unearned reputations as cosmopolites. There were persistent, though probably apocryphal, rumors that Volvo was planning to introduce a prebashed model in its efforts to attract the smart set to an automobile that had sacrificed everything to passenger safety (despite their use of Firestone 500 tires on many models) and primarily appealed to affluent egotists who assumed that the continuance of their lives was important to the destiny of Man.

* * *

After his shower, Hel found laid out in the dressing room his black broadcloth Edwardian suit, which had been designed to protect either guests in simple business suits or those in evening wear from feeling under- or overdressed. When he met Hana at the top of the principal staircase, she was in a long dress of Cantonese style that had the same social ambiguity as his suit.

'Where's Le Cagot?' he asked as they went down to a small salon to await their guests. 'I've felt his presence several times today, but I haven't heard or seen him.'

'I assume he is dressing in his room.' Hana laughed lightly. 'He told me that I would be so taken by his new clothes that I would swoon amorously into his arms.'

'Oh, God.' Le Cagot's taste in clothes, as in most things, ran to operatic overstatement. 'And Miss Stern?'

'She has been in her room most of the afternoon. You evidently gave her rather a bad time during your chat.'

'Hm-m-m.'

'She'll be down shortly after Pierre returns with clothes for her. Do you want to hear the menu?'

'No, I'm sure it's perfect.'

'Not that, but adequate. These guests give us a chance to be rid of the roebuck old M. Ibar gave us. It's been hanging just over a week, so it should be ready. Is there something special I should know about our guests?'

'They are strangers to me. Enemies, I believe.'

'How should I treat them?'

'Like any guest in our house. With that particular charm of yours that makes all men feel interesting and important. I want these people to be off balance and unsure of themselves. They are Americans. Just as you or I would be uncomfortable at a barbecue, they suffer from social vertigo at a proper dinner. Even their gratin, the jetset, are culturally as bogus as airlines cuisine.'

'What on earth is a 'barbecue'?'

'A primitive tribal ritual featuring paper plates, elbows, flying insects, encrusted meat, hush puppies, and beer.'

'I daren't ask what a 'hush puppy' is.'

'Don't.'

They sat together in the darkening salon, their fingers touching. The sun was down behind the mountains, and through the open porte fenetres they could see a silver gloaming that seemed to rise from the ground of the park, its dim light filling the space beneath the black-green pines, the effect rendered mutable and dear by the threat of an incoming storm.

'How long did you live in America, Nikko?'

'About three years, just after I left Japan. In fact, I still have an apartment in New York.'

'I've always wanted to visit New York.'

'You'd be disappointed. It's a frightened city in which everyone is in hot and narrow pursuit of money: the bankers, the muggers, the businessmen, the whores. If you walk the streets and watch their eyes, you see two things: fear and fury. They are diminished people hovering behind triple-locked doors. They fight with men they don't hate, and make love to women they don't like. Asea in a mongrel society, they borrow orts and leavings from the world's cultures. Kir is a popular drink among those desperate to be 'with it,' and they affect Perrier, although they have one of the world's great waters in the local village of Saratoga. Their best French restaurants offer what we would think of as thirty-franc meals for ten times that much, and the service is characterized by insufferable snottiness on the part of the waiter, usually an incompetent peasant who happens to be able to read the menu. But then, Americans enjoy being abused by waiters. It's their only way of judging the quality of the food. On the other hand, if one must live in urban America—a cruel and unusual punishment at best—one might as well live in the real New York, rather than in the artificial ones farther inland. And there are some good things. Harlem has real tone. The municipal library is adequate. There is a man named Jimmy Fox who is the best barman in North America. And twice I even found myself in conversation about the nature of shibui—not shibumi, of course. It's more within the range of the mercantile mind to talk of the characteristics of the beautiful than to discuss the nature of Beauty.'

She struck a long match and lighted a lamp on the table before them. 'But I remember you mentioning once that you enjoyed your home in America.'

'Oh, that was not New York. I own a couple of thousand hectares in the state of Wyoming, in the mountains.'

'Wy-om-ing. Romantic-sounding name. Is it beautiful?'

'More sublime, I would say. It's too ragged and harsh to be beautiful. It is to this Pyrenees country what an ink sketch is to a finished painting. Much of the open land of America is attractive. Sadly, it is populated by Americans. But then, one could say a similar thing of Greece or Ireland.'

'Yes, I know what you mean. I've been to Greece. I worked mere for a year, employed by a shipping magnate.'

'Oh? You never mentioned that.'

'There was nothing really to mention. He was very rich and very vulgar, and he sought to purchase class and status, usually in the form of spectacular wives. While in his employ, I surrounded him with quiet comfort. He made no other demands of me. By that time, there were no other demands he could make.'

'I see. Ah—here comes Le Cagot.'

Hana had heard nothing, because Le Cagot was sneaking down the stairs to surprise them with his sartorial splendor. Hel smiled to himself because Le Cagot's preceding aura carried qualities of boyish mischief and ultra-sly delight.

He appeared at the door, his bulk half-filling the frame, his arms in cruciform to display his fine new clothes. 'Regard! Regard, Niko, and burn with envy!'

Obviously, the evening clothes had come from a theatrical costumer. They were an eclectic congregation, although the fin-de-siecle impulse dominated, with a throat wrapping of white silk in place of a cravat, and a richly brocaded waistcoat with double rows of rhinestone buttons. The black swallowtail coat was long, and its lapels were turned in gray silk. With his still-wet hair parted in the middle and his bushy beard covering most of the cravat, he had something the appearance of a middle-aged Tolstoi dressed up as a Mississippi riverboat gambler. The large yellow rose he bad pinned to his lapel was oddly correct, consonant with this amalgam of robust bad taste. He strode back and forth, brandishing his long makila like a walking stick. The makila had been in his family for generations, and there were nicks and dents on the polished ash shaft and a small bit missing from the marble knob, evidences of use as a defensive weapon by grandfathers and greatgrandfathers. The handle of a makila unscrews, revealing a twenty-centimeter blade, designed for foining, while the butt in the left hand is used for crossed parries, and its heavy marble knob is an effective clubbing weapon. Although now largely decorative and ceremonial, the makila once figured importantly in the personal safety of the Basque man alone on the road at night or roving in the high mountains.

'That is a wonderful suit,' Hana said with excessive sincerity.

'Is it not? Is it not?'

'How did you come by this... suit?' Hel asked.

'It was given to me.'