Lord of All Things by Andreas Eschbach Read Free Book Online Page A

and she lived off those memories to this day.
    “It all depends on when Bernard gets better,” her husband said, anxious not to feed any false hopes. “Or at least when he’ll be able to work again. I dare say he’s never going to get better.”
    Bernard Beaucour was the actual ambassador for France here in Japan, and Jean-Arnaud Malroux was simply his senior diplomat, representing Bernard in his absence. Beaucour had cancer, but before returning to Paris for treatment he had let it be known he fully intended to serve out his time in Japan even if he died there.
    “The sooner the better,” Madame Malroux said, taking another cotton pad and soaking it in that chemical goop whose secrets no man could ever fathom even if he spent a lifetime trying. “I don’t know immediately…It must have something to do with the climate here. Or the city. Or the thought that there may be an earthquake at any moment. An earthquake! It hardly bears thinking about.”

3

    The next day Hiroshi was standing in front of the embassy gates at three o’clock, but the guard refused to let him through.
    “But I have an appointment!” Hiroshi protested.
    “Canceled.” The guard tapped at a few characters scribbled on his messy notepad. “Says so here.”
    “But why?”
    “I don’t know. They don’t tell the likes of us such things.” He looked regretfully at Hiroshi. “I’m sorry, too, but the best thing for you to do is just go back home.”
    Hiroshi looked at the man, the iron gate, the flag hanging limp and motionless on its pole. It was a hot, windless day. He wasn’t going to get anywhere standing there, that much was certain. He said his thank-yous in a flat voice and walked away.
    People like us aren’t important to them. They don’t have to care how we feel, so they don’t.
    It had to be a misunderstanding. That was the only possibility. Charlotte had invited him for three o’clock, and no matter what the man at the gate said, that was the plan.
    You’ll see soon enough what that can lead to.
    He had an appointment. And he wasn’t going to let anything stop him from keeping it. Hiroshi went around the compound wall and slipped behind the tree with the gap in the spikes. He fetched the rope from its hiding place in the knotted hole where a branch had died, wriggled though the gap, and let himself down as quietly as he could. Then he went the same way he had gone on Tuesday. He didn’t run into anyone, and there wasn’t a single car parked on the stretch of tarmac he had to cross. That was probably because it was Sunday.
    The door into the house next to the trash cans wasn’t locked. Hiroshi slipped inside. The room behind the door was bare and ugly, but another door led into the hallway where he had been with Charlotte the day before—the opulent hallway with all the framed oil paintings and thick carpets. He scurried up the stairs and knocked on her door.
    She flung it open. “Finally,” she said. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
    “They didn’t let me in,” Hiroshi replied. “Down at the gate.”
    “Why not? I specifically told them to.”
    “The man claimed my appointment was canceled and tried to send me home.”
    She blinked in astonishment. “How did you get in?”
    Hiroshi paused. “I have a secret entrance. Otherwise, I would never have been able to get your doll from the trash.”
    “Ah.” Her eyes lit up with curiosity, fascination. “You’ll have to show me!”
    They went down to the garden together, and Hiroshi showed her the spot. She pulled herself up the rope to the top of the wall. All you could see from up there was the tree and a little bit of the pavement behind it, but Charlotte was delighted. “We could just climb down here and go and see the city, couldn’t we?”
    “Of course,” said Hiroshi and wondered where they could go. There wasn’t anything very interesting to see nearby. He could show her his school if she wanted to do that.
    Then she hesitated. “Oh well,”