Angel Eyes (23 page)

In fact, they couldn't stop. It was an axiom of their personalities: obsessive, domineering, certain they were always right. And, oddly, their mounting losses did not disabuse them of their vanity. Quite the opposite. They could not believe their losses, would not recognize the danger as those losses mounted precipitously. They were focused on only one thing: their passion to win. Because winning was essential to their personalities; they could not survive without it.

Indeed, Noboru Yamato had not survived his obsession. But Giin had, just barely. Honno had heard that he was no longer in the public sector, but whether that had been his choice or his masters', she did not know. He had been a ronin-an ex-minister looking for work in the private sector-for some time before he had found a job that suited him.

He had become a professor of philosophy at a Tokyo university, which was either laughable or pathetic, depending on your point of view. He would have been the least flexible person Honno had ever known-except for her father. And, considering that philosophy was a continual bending of thought, tenet, and ideology-a living dialectic with the universe, as it were-Honno considered it odd that Giin should end up teaching philosophy.

She insisted on seeing him alone, although Big Ezoe wanted to come with her. Privately, she would have been appalled to face Giin for the first time in ten years with a Yakuza oyabun at her side.

She met him in his office, late in the day, after his last class had ended. As his secretary announced her, Honno felt a hollowness in the pit of her stomach, the fluttering, almost humiliating sense of being brought before a judge, as if the first thing Giin might say to her was, "Well, my dear, what have you done with your life since you left me?"

In fact, he said nothing. He was grading test papers when she was shown into his office. It was no more than a cubicle, really, windowless, almost airless. It was jammed with books, papers, bound galleys, gigantic reference works.

Giin sat behind an anonymous desk. He wore an anonymous dark suit, his gray hair neatly parted, his round wire spectacles shining in the glare of the overhead lights. He did not look up when she came in, and she thought that rude. Somehow, this increased her sense of humiliation. But by now Honno had concluded that she felt as humiliated for him as she did for herself. Until this moment she did not appreciate how difficult this interview might be for him.

She had left him abruptly, unforgivably, after agreeing to marry him, after he had made her an integral part of his life, introduced her to his family and his friends. And, worst of all, she had done so without so much as a word of explanation. But how could she have told him that she refused to marry an inveterate gambler? It would have been too shameful for herself and for him.

Now, looking at him in this tiny office, grading papers of students who, no doubt, would never fathom the depths of his genius, Honno felt her cheeks burning. She sat silently, to meekly wait out his silence so that he could regain a measure of the face she had robbed him of ten years ago.

When, at last, he judged the silence to be of appropriate duration, Giin said, "So, I understand that you have married. Are you happy?"

"Of course I am!" Honno exclaimed, and immediately regretted her response. "That is, Eikichi Kansei is a good husband."

For me first time Giin lifted his head. Honno could see his eyes behind the lenses of his spectacles. He stared directly at her, and she seemed to wither, so intimidating was his gaze. For an instant she even wished, crazily, that she had allowed Big Ezoe to come with her. But it was only anger, and a hurt she knew she had no right to feel, so she closed off both these emotions, sealing them behind the facade all Japanese learn to construct almost from the moment they are born.

"It is good to see you, Giin," she ventured.

"It has been a very long time," he said, and she tried not to wince. "A lifetime for some."

"How have you been?" Honno was now dreading his every response.

Giin raised his hands, indicating his jammed cubicle. "This is how I am."

"Have you married?"

''There was no need to after you left.''

"I-" Honno's nerve faltered. In the face of his pain and anger, what was there to say?

"I am pleased that you have found a life for yourself," Giin said in a lighter tone. "You seemed so lost, so confused when I knew you. I tried to help you with these things, but perhaps I did not know how to unlock the riddle of you." He smiled, and Honno was reminded of the man she had once known. "That's ironic, don't you think, considering my expertise in solving problems? But my work then involved cryptograms, codes, mathematical formulae. Complex matters, to be sure, but nevertheless, cut and dried. The truth is, I was never much good at handling people, or understanding them, for that matter. Perhaps that's where we went wrong."

"Yes," Honno said, lowering her head. "Perhaps."

"That's why I decided to come here to the university," Giin said sometime later. "Here I am not only surrounded by people, I am forced to interact with them. I suppose it was my way of admitting my faults, of trying to remake myself."

When Honno said nothing, he continued, "I'm glad you agreed to have dinner with me. I know I was rude to you earlier, but it was only my shock, and my shame at remembering."

Honno forced herself to look at him.

"I've stopped gambling, you see," Giin said. "Eventually, I came to understand how pernicious it was, how utterly it had ruined my life. It cost me my job, some of my friends. When I saw what I had been reduced to, my first thought was of you, and how grateful I was that you had left, so that I could not drag you down with me. I never would have forgiven myself if that had happened."

"I don't know what to say," Honno said, which was the truth. Giin's abrupt-and unexpected-confession had caught her quite by surprise. Her thoughts were in chaos. And her emotions . . . My God, she thought, the attraction is still there, deeply buried but unmistakable. She was utterly horrified by this thought, but no matter what inner contortions she went through, she was unsuccessful in suppressing it. I am happily married now, she reminded herself. It did not seem to matter. This was not what she had expected. She could see the love in his eyes, which he had never let die. Something unknown inside her was melting.

"You're not required to say anything," Giin said gently. "You are only required to sit here so that I can look at you once more for as long as the night will last."

"You did what!" Big Ezoe said.

"I gave him the ledgers," Honno said.

"I can't believe it!"

It was the next evening. Honno had come to Big Ezoe's warehouse.

"But that was the plan," Honno said. "It was what I was supposed to do."

"You were supposed to tell him about the existence of the ledgers! See if he'd agree to crack the code for us!"

' 'But he did agree,'' Honno said. ''And stop shouting at me."

"I'll stop shouting," Big Ezoe shouted, "when we get those ledgers back from him!''

"You should have seen Giin. He was so eager to get back to what he had been doing years ago. That's why I gave him the ledgers right away.''

"Your eyes are shining," Big Ezoe said. "It's disgusting."

Honno laughed. ''You have no right to speak to me that way. And why should you care? Are you envious?"

"Of what? A beaten-down old gambler?"

"He doesn't gamble anymore," Honno said, somewhat stiffly.

Big Ezoe's eyes narrowed. "Where did you hear that?"

"Giin told me himself. He confessed-"

Big Ezoe groaned. "And you, you little lovestruck girl, believed him."

"Of course, I-"

"Fool!"

"Don't-"

"But you are a fool, Mrs. Kansei."

Angry and confused now, Honno said, "Would you kindly tell me what's going on?"

"It's simple," Big Ezoe said. "He's conned you."

"No, you're wrong," Honno said. "I know Giin."

"And I know gamblers. They don't change. Ever. They only say they do. I'm afraid, Mrs. Kansei, when it comes to human nature, you've got a lot to learn."

"If you'd stop making generalizations," Honno said, "you'd be far better off."

Big Ezoe shook his head. "I see you need to be convinced," he said. "Do you know where he lives?" And when Honno nodded, he ordered, "Take me there."

"Now?"

"Right now!" Big Ezoe said, taking her arm and guiding her out of his office.

"There's no answer," Honno said, ringing the bell to Giin's apartment for the third time. ''He must be out to dinner.''

Big Ezoe grunted. "Sure he is." He extracted a length of metal from his pocket, slid it deftly into the lock. As he began to manipulate it, Honno said, "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" Big Ezoe said, turning the knob and opening the door inward.

As they stepped across the threshold, Honno said, "Isn't there a law against this sort of thing?''

"If there is," Big Ezoe said, "I'm not aware of it."

He closed the door behind them, turned on the light. Honno gasped. Big Ezoe said, "Shit!"

Giin's apartment was in chaos. Furniture was upended, drawers were thrown here and there, their contents strewn around the floor. Cushions were ripped, as were sections of the carpet. The mess extended throughout the three rooms of the small apartment.

"In the name of heaven, what happened here?'' Honno said.

"No Giin, no ledgers," Big Ezoe said. He looked at her. "They're both gone."

Honno was horrified. "Now do you see how wrong you were to suspect him? Someone's taken him, along with the ledgers. Dear God, what have I gotten him into? Giin could be hurt-or worse!" Her heart constricted. There were tears in her eyes as the past, for so long held in check, echoed through her like a crack of thunder.

"Did you enjoy meeting my family?" Mars Volkov asked Irina. "I hope you weren't bored."

"Not in the least," she said. "I adored every minute of it."

They were standing in the smoke-filled lobby of the old Moscow Arts Theater during intermission of Chekhov's Three Sisters. Irina had recognized Natasha Mayakova, the actress Valeri had had the assignation with, the moment she came on stage. There was something about her makeup that made her seem somehow sinister, like the Marquise de Merteuil, the older woman in Dangerous Liaisons, the film Irina had smuggled back from America on videocassette.

Irina wanted to burn this Natasha Mayakova with her eyes, although she could not quite understand why she should be so enraged. What could Valeri Bondasenko mean to her now? Nothing, she told herself firmly. Nevertheless, she had been tense all through the first act, and when intermission came, she embraced it with a profound sense of relief.

"Well, my parents can be trying at times," Mars said, "although I suppose I would be the only one aware of it."

"You look very much like your mother," Irina said. "There is a strength about her, a sense of her family and of herself that I admire tremendously. I'm afraid I'll never get around to the one, and I'm not very good at the other."

''Perhaps you're not one to settle down,'' Mars said. ''I sense in you a restlessness of spirit.''

They spoke for a time about mundane things: the play, the production, the acting. Irina mentioned that Natasha Mayakova had played her namesake in the play, wanting perhaps to discover if Mars found her attractive, but all she got was a noncom-mittal answer. Mars made a joke and Irina laughed, but she was suddenly very uncomfortable. In a moment of sheer panic she realized that she had been contemplating blurting out her secret: her involvement with Valeri, seeing him on the street with the

actress, Natasha Mayakova, her feelings of betrayal. What would Mars think if he knew she was betraying him in much the same way?

But, of course, that was different. She had not made any promises to Mars nor had she claimed purity. She had never lied to him, although she had no illusions that, sooner or later, she would be compelled to do so.

What she was doing was for herself, for Irina Viktorovna Ponomareva. Or was it? Had she been doing nothing but rationalizing to herself about her betrayal of Mars to Valeri? Because betrayal it was. It hadn't bothered her three days ago, but that had been before Mars had taken her home to his family, before she had seen how little Valeri thought of his relationship with her. Before it became clear how thoroughly Valeri was using her.

Now, she thought, everything's changed.

She looked at Mars Volkov as if for the first time, drawing aside the scrims of her own anger, selfishness, and power lust. What she saw was a very down-to-earth man, handsome, desirable, who, despite his immense charm, had to struggle in the Politburo and the People's Congress against the immense power of Valeri Bondasenko. A man who, unlike Valeri, was not obsessed with power, with imprinting his conception of the world on everyone around him, with power as the only consideration or form of currency.

One day, she thought, Mars would even be the head of his own family, and that would be enough to make him content. That idea made her feel warm and comfortable.

And, with that truth, came another one: it wasn't her own freedom that Valeri had offered her when he had enrolled her in his scheme to get inside Mars's mind, but a chance to take on a measure of his, Valeri's, own sins.

"Chekhov always sets me to thinking," Irina said, not only because it was the truth, but because she was determined to cover her unease. "I suppose that's because his plays are like modern paintings, they seem somehow unfinished or, at any rate, about such familiar themes they require your own participation to flesh them out.''

"But it wasn't really Chekhov that seemed to interest you," Mars said. "It was the actress, Natasha something, isn't it?"

"I don't know her name," Irina lied. "I was just curious. She's a type; men often find actresses appealing, and I wanted a man's point of view."

"Too much makeup," Mars said as they were called in for the start of the second act. "I wouldn't know what she really looked like beneath all that paint."