Chapter One

It's Sunday morning in the upstream suburbs of Hiroshima, exactly half a century, to the hour, after the bomb.

The Ohtagawa River is shallow and sluggish, almost lumpy, in the late summer heat. On the flood plain, native families are having picnics and ball games, attempting to enjoy the week's few moments of freedom. Young sons recreate politely with fathers who are strangers to them.

Everybody avoids coming into contact with the water, except for two small children, who know no better than to try to go wading. Their older siblings coax and drag them away, and dry their feet with handkerchiefs, which are promptly discarded into the river.

These and other festivities take place in the gauzy shadow of a hundred-foot-high, bright-green golf ball net that surrounds the nearby multi-tiered driving range. It bristles with coastal birds snared in mid-flight: cranes, hawks, seagulls, but no crows.

The rhythmic sounds of someone punting a small craft up the Ohtagawa are heard: the splash of the pole spearing into the water, followed by the suck of it withdrawing from the mud. A barely buoyant raft, improvised from bamboo slats tied together with rags, emerges from a bank of diesel exhaust. The pilot is a small, blackened and bent figure, dressed in frayed polyester golfing attire, several sizes too large and a few decades out of fashion. Mothers try to ignore him, and quietly scold their children for staring at his strange face. His name is whispered through the crowd like a questionable breeze: Kara-kun.

He drifts awhile among turquoise industrial suds. Then he scoops a half-dead fish off the surface and aims it at the sky. A pair of crows appears overhead, croaking loudly. They take turns swooping down to feed on the fish. Occasionally a talon or beak opens a gash in one of Kara-kun's fingers, but this only makes him laugh. The longer and louder he vocalizes, the more people abandon the flood plain in superstitious fear.

A breeze parts the smog briefly, and the renovated skyline becomes visible in the distance. Some kind of banner, non-liturgical and incongruous, is being unfurled from the steeple of Hiroshima Cathedral: a flapping square of white with a crimson splotch in the middle. It looks like a giant's freshly used head bandage; but it's just the Japanese national flag.

Kara-kun stops leering at the few remaining picnickers. He looks downriver and manages to catch a glimpse of this signal before the atmosphere closes back in and obscures his view. It seems to please him, and to beckon him.

He allows his craft to be dragged off by the slow current. Gutturally humming something that sounds like the wedding march from Lohengrin, Kara-kun vanishes back into the haze, heading toward downtown and Ground Zero.

* * * *

In Hiroshima's Peace Park, the American tour groups are identifiable by their loud voices, their extraordinary height and girth, and their characteristic costumes: Truman-style Hawaiian shirts and plaid Bermuda shorts. They wander among the mass graves, eternal flames and muted Buddhist bells, and try their best to look contemplative and soulful while posing for polaroids in front of the Atom Bomb Dome, a former prefectural government building reamed out by the blast, its skeletal remains shored up with masonry and kept standing as a symbol of the town's blighted past.

Preparations are being made for a special celebration later in the day. Collapsible aluminum grand stands are bolted together, PA systems tested, litter swept away, bums billy-clubbed from peaceful slumber on the benches.

A small distributary of the Ohtagawa dribbles along the border of Peace Park. On the levee, a Picassoesque statue depicts an anguished local mother holding her scorched baby out to the viewer in mute protest. Greenish tears as big as basketballs flop down her cheeks and breasts. Kara-kun's raft is impudently moored to this statue: his line is lassoed around the baby's private parts.

Kara-kun is nowhere to be seen, but he has left a trail of muddy footsteps up the opposite bank. He has beaten a path through the topiaried azalea bushes, and has apparently set off on foot, into the city.

* * * *

A wedding party is gathered in the Hiroshima Cathedral compound, the men in velvet tuxedos, the women in Belgian lace, coincidentally the same texture and turquoise color as the suds on the river. A professional video crew, also formally dressed, is taping the whole affair with all the latest equipment.

Calling most of the shots is Ishida-san, proud father-of-the-bride. He wears an anachronistic morning coat with tails and pin-striped pants, white-button spats clinging to his glossy shoes. He flips a half-smoked cigar into the parking lot. It lands, hissing, in a scarlet puddle of transmission fluid under an enormous black stretch-limo.

Beyond the limo is a poinsettia bush. Behind that, sunken into the wall just above ground level, is a kind of lazy Susan device with partitions. It was installed several decades ago for discreet deliveries, and still provides secret access into the fold for any creature small and flexible enough to fit inside.

It opens a crack and Kara-kun's face peeks out. He eyes Ishida-san's simmering cigar. His hand reaches out and swings the hatch all the way open on its squeaking axis, revealing his entire body. He has somehow wadded himself into the baby-sized chute, like a contortionist, using every square centimeter of space.

Silently and rapidly as a reptile, he unfolds his limbs one by one, smuggles himself into the compound, and heads for the cigar. A few of his crow associates descend from the grey sky, and a struggle for the moist prize ensues.

Kara-kun emerges, triumphant, from beneath the car, his hands gashed a few more times. He's brushing off black feathers and chewing on the cigar. Mumbling contentedly and scratching himself, he approaches the wedding party with the intention of mingling. Nobody notices him, just yet.

* * * *

Parked at the side of the cathedral are five or six flashy vans belonging to the Yakuza, or Japanese Mafia. White slaves from the Philippines hang out of the windows, chatting, joking, singing, and playing with sundry babies. The males are transvestites in full drag, their Sunday best. Desperately poor, they can only afford the most tawdry costumes and makeup. They look just a bit sexier than their sisters in forced prostitution.

These young people are happy to have some time off their back-breaking work and a chance to receive communion, even if they do have to remain in the vehicles. Exploited and abused as they are, they've managed to wring this weekly concession from their boss, but at a great price. Only those who've been "behaving themselves" are allowed to come near the house of God. Being from the Shinto tradition, the Yakuza slave master has no concept of communal worship, and assumes that points will be tallied in the heavenly score book if the faithful simply show up on the premises. So he sees no reason to allow the Filipinas and their cross-dressing brethren to enter the church.

The drivers, silent, granite-hard, eight-fingered types, fidget behind the steering wheels of the vans. These burly thugs have been dressed in ill-fitting rental tuxes, to their evident discomfort. Except for the tuxes, they look like 1950's B-movie caricatures of themselves: dark glasses, kinky punch-perms, and full-body tattoos showing under too-short cuffs.

Expatriates from almost every part of the world are descending the side steps to celebrate mass in the crypt chapel. Among them is Hank, an American. He is dressed in a stone-washed brushed-denim suit, a chic auburn pony tail sprouting meticulously from the back of his coiffed head. His position in the R&D department of a major automotive company requires this appearance of unconventionality and creativity kept under tight wraps.

With him, or at least next to him, is a tall, strong-looking woman named Polly Edwine, also an American, to whom Hank comments, "It's nice to see the Filipinas get a little air. But why are the thugs dressed up so fancy today?"

"In case they're needed to quell disturbances at the wedding. Their boss is marrying off his oldest daughter."

"No, really?" says Hank, squinting at the wedding party. "Is that him?"

"That's the great Ishida-san."

"He does look more angular than most fathers-of-the-bride, now that you mention it."

"It comes from sampling his own shipments of methedrine."

"Does he sample his own shipments of Filipinas? Jesus Mahogany Christ. They'll rent this place to anybody."

"Sure," says Polly, going down the steps with the other foreigners. "Parish revenues and so on."

* * * *

Inside the crypt chapel, the Nigerian acolyte has propped an imitation silk screen in front of the blessed sacrament. The customary pre-mass social hour is underway. A single language, English, is spoken, but it's been enriched with an astounding array of accents. Exiles of all colors, nationalities and classes mill cheerfully about, engaging one another in a once-a-week gossip-swapping session

Hank shoves a slightly emaciated, extremely pregnant Fujianese boat person from a folding chair in the back of the crypt. He confiscates the few thin cushions upon which the unfortunate girl has seated herself, and obsequiously hustles them up to the front pew, for the benefit of a bevy of oldish females who have staked out that conspicuous place. They are the American automotive executives' wives; and their husbands, Hank's bosses, are in Hiroshima pursuing gargantuan deals.

Out of breath, Hank joins Polly in a pew a humbler distance from the altar, as befits their social position. Polly is looking at him through narrowed eyes, so he tries to recoup a little face by saying something significant.

"Ishida-san fouls the place with his presence, and they banish us faithful to the crypt."

Polly replies, "You're not one of the faithful. The ladies drag you here by the hair."

Hank smiles in the direction of the automotive wives. Hoping they can't hear this conversation, he murmurs, "The poor dears need a man to protect them from the underworld figures."

"What about their husbands?"

"They have to spend Sunday on the golf course with various Japanese counterparts. Automotive joint venture is a delicate affair."

"I can imagine."

Hank lowers his voice even further, hoping Polly will follow suit. "Luckily for me, I'm in the creative end of things. Nobody expects me to know my chipper from my putter. I'm allowed to be eccentric and spend my only free day worshiping God with you other weirdos."

Polly says, loudly, "In other words, your masters' wives drag you here. By the pony tail."

"Well, you drag your hubby along, too. At least as far as the parking lot." Now that he's taking the offensive, Hank's voice has become every bit as loud as hers. "Isn't that where you left the old pope-hater? Sleeping off Saturday night in the family death-trap?"

"Who says he's sleeping? Sammy could be praying."

"Sure. Or magically levitating that poor Mazda Cosmo three feet in the air to give the shocks a rest. With him inside, they need it."

Giggling is heard, and a clatter of spike heels, as a trio of Filipina white slaves comes scurrying down the stairs to join the party. They are welcomed heartily by everyone, except the automotive wives, who scowl and murmur. They consider themselves too grand to pray with mere prostitutes.

The Nigerian acolyte grins over a dewy armload of white altar flowers, and says, "So, the mobsters let you lovelies come pray with us?"

"No, we sneaked away in the madness. Something wonderful is happening up there! Everybody must come see! Our mascot is on duty again!"

Everyone, except the automotive wives, scampers out to witness chaos in the churchyard.

* * * *

The wedding has been disrupted. Thugs in formal dress, armed with lead pipes and jack handles, are chasing Kara-kun around, at the near-hysterical instigation of Ishida-san. They are clearly terrified at the idea of coming into contact with such an unlucky creature; but they fear the wrath of their boss just as much. When the old man isn't here to goad them on, they cower behind the blackened windows of their vehicles and peek around the slim shoulders of the lower-ranked members of their stables. They rub, puff, lick, and otherwise ritually manipulate their myriad Shinto fetishes, and beg the girls to pray to Mary-sama to keep the "raft goblin" from brushing their bumpers with a thread from his inauspicious rags.

With almost supernatural agility and speed, Kara-kun scales the sheer wall of the cathedral compound. He perches on top, hooting and jeering inarticulately. Ishida-san's cigar stub is still clenched between his lips, and it oozes transmission fluid down his chin. He bumps and grinds like a Filipina stripper in a Yakuza nightclub, while the foreigners, especially the three escapees, cheer him on from the crypt steps.

He prances jauntily along the top of the wall, unconscious of the shards of glass that have been embedded in the concrete as a security measure. A trickle of something reddish, resembling blood, but more watery, flows from the soles of his bare feet and stains the masonry. The gangsters recoil from it.

"Sanctuarium!" yowls Kara-kun. "Sanctuariu-u-u-um!"

He leaps an extraordinary distance over their cowering heads, and grabs onto a large elevated brass bust of Pope John Paul II that adorns the churchyard.

"The goon squad's got him treed!" yells Hank. Out of his mistresses' earshot, the R&D man feels free to get a bit frisky.

Having gotten toeholds on the pope's collarbones and a handhold on each of his earlobes, Kara-kun proceeds slowly to dry-hump the Holy Father's left eye socket. An expression of mock-sensuality distorts his features even more than usual, but he can't keep it up long. He sends hoarse peals of laughter up to the crows flapping and croaking in jubilation around the Japanese flag that still flies, oddly, from the tip of the steeple.

A few of the older Catholics--the Latin-Americans, Poles, Italians and Irishmen in particular--are dismayed. They retreat back into the crypt, to spare themselves the sight of Pope John Paul II's face being taken advantage of. The escaped Filipinas, too, are stunned into silence by Kara-kun's sheer impiety. But, when it resumes, their cheering is twice as loud.

After one especially passionate thrust of his scrawny hips, Kara-kun briefly loses his grip on the metal, and almost falls into the hands of his enemies.

"Whoa," says Hank. "The Supreme Pontiff is slippery, isn't he? I hope the little devil doesn't fall. He'll be cornered."

Polly says, "No problem. See that poinsettia bush?"

"You mean your hubby's place of choice to ease nature?"

Polly is offended, slightly. "Sammy doesn't do that outside. Especially not on the only living flowers in this end of the city."

"Are you sure? Does he check with you every time?"

She doesn't dignify that with a response; but, of course, Hank is undaunted by her silence.

"I've seen your hubby lurking in that bush with his back turned, on the few occasions when he wasn't resting his eyes in your car. Maybe, after all these years of exile, his personal hygiene habits have finally become Japanized. It's no fun using the indoor plumbing around here, that's for sure. This cathedral has the only urinal on the archipelago that doesn't afford a full view of the user and his equipment." Hank scans the building and winces at its late-modernistic drabness.

Polly says, "Sammy's bladder doesn't draw him to that bush. He's fascinated by something in the wall, an old coal chute or something. If Kara-kun comes down, watch him scramble for it."

Several Yakuza cross to the rectory and use their weapons on the door. It opens, slowly, and an old barrel-chested Catalonian Jesuit appears. It's Father Gaudi, carrying the gospels in one hand and a silver ciborium filled with consecrated bread in the other. Over a full-length black cassock he wears a white chasubule and a white silken surplice, in commemoration of this day on the church calendar, when Christ's three best friends watched him chat with Moses and Elijah on the mountaintop. Father Gaudi views the rough visitors with utmost gentleness and condescension. Perhaps he's even a little bored.

Ishida-san approaches in a rage. "That river-vermin is slithering all over my guests! Look at what he did to my precious, beautiful baby!"

Across the churchyard, through the yellowish air, the bride can be seen and heard sobbing in the arms of her bridesmaids. Grey drool shines on her pearl-encrusted slippers, and her turquoise train is smeared with muddy footprints. Kara-kun has evidently attempted a few pirouettes on it.

"She'll weep in my ear about this day for the rest of my life!" Ishida-san shifts his voice to a daughter-mocking whine. "Oh, why didn't mean old skinflint Daddy pay a shamaness to chase the evil spirits away from the outlanders' shrine?"

"I'm truly sorry," says Father Gaudi. "But, at the moment, I'm more concerned with your other babies, who are also precious and beautiful. Or should I call them your slaves?"

"What are you insinuating, Priest?" Ishida-san gets huffy. He is able proudly to declare that all the "entertainers" are in Japan on perfectly legitimate work-visas. He owns them only in the same sense that any businessman owns his employees.

Father Gaudi says nothing, but only gives a sad and skeptical shake of the head. Gently but firmly, he elbows Ishida-san aside and begins working his way through the parking lot. He is performing a drive-in ministry, slipping the holy eucharist through rolled-down windows and into the painted mouths of indentured whores who've come to be near the Son of Man.

Ishida-san follows along, still raving. "How can you charge one-point-five million yen to rent this hall, when it's infested?"

"It's not a hall. It's the house of God. And you'll have to discuss parish finances with the bishop. My job is to minister to the foreign community." Father Gaudi inserts a wafer into a Filipina's mouth and says, "The body of Christ."

Crossing herself and munching, the Filipina replies, "Amen."

"And I suppose that river-vermin is a member of the foreign community," snarls Ishida-san.

"Your cronies in the government seem to think so. And they should know. They're the ones who impregnated his mother after kidnapping her from Korea to harvest their night soil."

Moving on to the next van, Father Gaudi stops talking just long enough to discreetly shush a back-seatful of beautiful B-girls, fresh from the jungles of Luzon, who so far haven't learned better than to giggle at their master's reddened face.

"If Kara-kun behaves a little unpleasantly sometimes, it's only because he happened to be in his mother's womb when the Americans pulled their hideous prank on this town. His brain was irradiated." The priest pauses to softly thumb the sign of the cross on a racially mixed baby's forehead. "Now, it's true that the bomb was intended solely for the benefit of you pure-blooded Japanese; but Kara-kun had no way of knowing that. So I think he's entitled to a full share of your self-pity--though you wouldn't know it to look at him now."

Gaudi directs Ishida-san's attention to the top of the pope's head. Kara-kun is sitting up there cross-legged. He hoots and blows a kiss at a goon, who goes into a panic, scrambles on all fours to the ornamental carp pond, and submerges his head to wash away the evil spirits.

"Admittedly," says Gaudi, "the gamma rays do seem to have affected his sense of decorum."

Ishida-san grabs a club from one of his men. "That's not all that's going to be affected!" he screams, and stomps a few menacing meters in Kara-kun's direction.

A small Filipino transvestite takes advantage of Ishida-san's absence to roll a window all the way down and stick his fragrant head out. The priest and the entertainer take a moment to watch their naughty mascot hold the beefy gangsters at bay.

"The Philippines may not be a world economic power," observes the small transvestite, "but even the pygmies on Mount Pinatoba aren't half so superstitious."

"As you can see, my friend," says Father Gaudi, "it doesn't take much of a culture to bloat a nation up with wealth."

"Oooh!" moans a rich baritone voice, belonging to a larger female impersonator who's decided to join the discussion from another window. "I just love it when you talk like that, Father."

The priest is embarrassed, and he tries to turn attention away from himself. "Look at the manly Yakuza," he says. "They're the picked troops of the richest, most powerful man in the prefecture."

From his superior position, Kara-kun flips the cigar into their midst, and they all dive for cover. Scornful laughter rises from the crypt steps, along with cries of, "August sixth, 1945, all over again!"

"May God bless Kay-kay's happy soul," says the small transvestite. He pauses, then starts to wail. "And also the soul of my baby brother!"

The priest murmurs, "Mother of Christ. What's happened now?"

"They forced my baby brother to do the flame dance!"

"There was no time for rehearsal," says the large transvestite, "because the gay salary-men were getting impatient. The boy did his best, but his arms weren't strong enough for the benzine goblets."

"My baby brother has horrible burns, and nobody's nursing him!"

Glancing around to make sure no Japanese are watching, the large transvestite slips Gaudi a piece of paper. "Boys are dying at this address, Father. Four or five to a tatami mat. They need the extreme unction."

"I'll be there as soon as I can. I promise you. The body of Christ."

"Amen."

When Ishida-san returns from blustering around the base of the pope's bust, Father Gaudi distracts him from the distraught entertainer by taking his elbow, proceeding to the next vehicle, and returning to the previous topic of discussion.

"Yes, I'm afraid Kara-kun is part of the nuptial package deal. We can't very well throw out the baptized to make room for the heathen. Mere Korean he might be, mere bomb-baby at that, but he has learned to genuflect and make the sign of the cross. And he is in a very good position to understand what Jesus meant when he said, ‘Suffer the little ones to come unto me.'"

As if he has heard and understood those last few remarks, the bomb-baby in question rises to his feet on the pope's skullcap and balances there as lightly and effortlessly as an angel. He rolls his minuscule eyes heavenward and wordlessly warbles a few pious bars of the Regina Coeli, accompanying himself with an amazing array of rhythmic animal noises from between his boneless gums. Like many retarded persons, Kara-kun is quite talented musically.

"So, Mr. Ishida, you had better get used to a permanent Quasimodo-in-residence at your oversized, overpriced wedding hall. See our steeple? It's just a solid concrete dummy, with tin loudspeakers on top instead of brass bells. But maybe I'll teach Kara-kun to work the buttons on the tape machine, and he can be the one to beckon you well-heeled pagans to your doubtful alliances."

Through his anger, the Yakuza chieftain is starting to feel a certain grudging admiration of the priest's utter gall. He gazes up at his country's flag and says, "You don't talk like somebody who just got handed one point-five million yen in cash. But at least you're right-minded enough to fly the hinomaru during these ceremonies."

When the entertainers in the nearby vehicles hear that comment, they sit quickly back in their seats and cover their mouths to muffle smirks of glee.

Someone passes a charming, gurgling infant through a window. Delighted, Father Gaudi takes it into his arms and retires to a small concrete bench situated just off the parking lot, under a bower of puckered cucumber vines.

Ishida-san follows and seats himself next to the priest. He squints critically at the baby's curly hair, round eyes and darkish skin; but, in spite of his best efforts, this mobster is unable to remain unaffected by the child's beauty. Losing himself in thought for a few moments, he looks out across the compound and observes the foreign parishioners as they climb all the way out of the crypt with a couple of cheap folk guitars for the entertainers in the vans.

With the opening chord of "Michael Row the Boat Ashore," Ishida-san snaps out of his reverie. He looks at Gaudi and growls, "Is your boss aware of how rudely you speak to us renters?"

Gently bouncing the baby on his knee, Gaudi points out that the bishop is old and infirm, and shies away from conflict. In any case, he has tacitly consented to Gaudi's treating the customers in this flip manner, for he's confident that parish finances won't suffer inordinately. Gaudi has explained to the bishop that Japanese are willing to tolerate the most fantastic extremes of rudeness in a poor, ignorant gaijin preacher.

"Besides, Mr. Ishida, you know as well as I that this building, hideous as it is, happens to be the most photogenic venue in a town which, after all, was a pile of glowing cinders not that long ago."

Ishida-san is amused without wanting to be. "Oh, I don't know," he says, scanning the cathedral. "The Mercedes Benz dealership is much more imposing. It's loftier, and has a real brick façade."

"Fine. Go marry your offspring in their show room."

Trying not to chuckle, Ishida-san says, "You've got me exactly where you want me, Priest. But, as for this Korean animal--" He becomes instantaneously dead-serious. "--do I need to remind you that I have another daughter reaching marriageable age? She's my youngest, my favorite."

He looks at today's puffy-faced bride, who has stopped weeping, and is now having a temper tantrum. As she screeches and kicks viciously at the shins and scrota of the video crew, Ishida-san rubs his temples and mutters, "My favorite, by far."

"A second daughter. Congratulations. Please urge her to attend my Saturday Bible class for non-believers. It's conducted entirely in Nihongo."

"What if my associates on the city council start regulating river traffic? Your precious bomb-baby's raft will be impounded and burned by the Ministry of Health. No more mud minnows for supper. He'll be chased into the hills like a three-legged dog, to prowl the hilltop shrines. Your pet Korean will have to live off the offerings of rural ancestor-worshipers, if he can stand the stench of the incense."

"Kara-kun doesn't fear mountain heights. That isn't what compels him to shun society and haunt the watery part of the world on his miniature trash barge."

"Then what does he fear?" Ishida-san looks deeply into Father Gaudi's eyes. After a moment's thought, the old criminal pulls out a solid-gold cigar lighter. He adjusts it to full flame and waves it in front of the priest's face like a blow torch.

In complete control up to this moment, Father Gaudi can't help but cast a protective glance in Kara-kun's direction.

"Ah," says Ishida-san. "I should've guessed. Like all monsters, the Korean fears open flames."

"I wouldn't blame him if he did, considering his pre-natal history."

"Priest, I took time from my busy schedule today in order to get my least attractive daughter finally off my back. I'm willing to write off the one-point-five million yen as a learning experience. But I must use any means at my disposal to rid these procedures of the vermin, so they can be completed once and for all. Please excuse me a moment."

Ishida-san rises to his feet and crosses the parking lot, summoning his soldiers in rough-voiced Japanese.

On the way, he happens to pass by a tiny, rusty, bashed-up Mazda Cosmo, a used-bedsheet shade of yellowish-grey, virginal of wax or even soap and water. It's been ineptly parked at a crooked angle among the gorgeous Yakuza vans. Between greasy cracks in the windshield, a huge figure can be vaguely discerned, which seems to be sleeping. At any rate, it is snoring so loudly that the car vibrates sympathetically on its overloaded, worn-out shocks.

Ishida-san forgets what he's doing and stares at this odd sight. But he is distracted by his thugs, who reluctantly gather about him, awaiting his orders. He draws them aside to form a huddle in front of Pope John Paul II, just out of Kara-kun's spitting range.

From the way Ishida-san brandishes his cigar lighter in their faces, it is apparent that fire is the topic of discussion. He sends a couple of his men to confiscate bouquets from the bewildered bridesmaids.

A few first- and second-worlders separate from the crowd and approach the cucumber bower. Among them is Polly, who says, "I don't believe this. They're not going to--"

"Of course not," says Father Gaudi. "Too many witnesses. And if Kara-kun comes down, that's no cause for concern, either. Our little friend has a top-secret escape route."

Hank has brought up the rear of the alien contingent. Eager to display his esoteric knowledge, he chimes in. "Behind the Christmas flowers, right? What's the chute for, Gaudi? Midnight pizza-drops after the bishop has bolted the gates?"

"Midnight baby-drops."

Everybody glances at each other, wondering whether the priest is putting them on.

Failing to notice their skepticism, or choosing not to, Father Gaudi reveals one of the bomb-baby's many small secrets. On occasions somewhat less hectic than this, Kara-kun enjoys standing among the blood-colored blossoms and twirling the baby-hatch in and out of the wall with his foot. He mesmerizes himself with its squeak, and seems to half-expect a tiny face, perhaps his own, to appear from the other side.

"So there," says Polly. "Sammy isn't peeing. He's just checking out a little-known aspect of Japanese culture. Kara-kun must have shown it to him."

"How cozy," sniffs Hank. "When the rest of us are downstairs on our knees before Jehovah's judgement seat, the two village idiots loiter out here, discussing this cultural asset in their private language."

In the Yakuza huddle, the expensive bouquets have been dismantled, the blooms stripped away, and the stems twisted to make two fat torches, which Ishida-san has set on fire. He arms himself with one, and hands the other to the tallest of his men.

Pinstripes, tails, spats and all, wielding a bouquet-torch, Ishida-san has himself boosted up onto the pope's brazen pectorals. He waves the fire in Kara-kun's face. Smoke from the second torch billows up from behind.

Far from being afraid, Kara-kun coos like a dove in fascination. He reaches down and puts his hand into the fire, the acetate fibers in his frayed sleeve melting into sizzling balls and emitting tiny toxic clouds. He is somehow impervious to the pain, and is able to palpate the flame like a fine sheet of orange silk. Without warning, he grabs the torch out of Ishida-san's hand by the burning end.

Ishida-san is not a man accustomed to being disarmed, under any circumstances. Indeed, the only people in town toting lethal weapons, besides the police, are his underlings. He reaches into his vest pocket and produces his golden lighter, which he flicks ablaze and holds under Kara-kun's wrist.

Unable to resist this delightful combination of glistening metal and combustion, the Korean tosses the torch like a bridal bouquet into the arms of a howling thug, and snatches the lighter. Shrieking in triumph, he conceals the prize in his rags, leaps down among the men, scrambles between their cringing legs, and vanishes behind the poinsettia bush. The baby-hatch's characteristic squeak is heard.

A blackish blur zips down the traffic-jammed street, leaving a trail of watery-bloody footprints. A few short-legged criminals follow, without enthusiasm, hopelessly outpaced. The crows, which have meanwhile been harassing the video crew and dive-bombing the bride with their black excrement, take to the air and fly over the wall, following Kara-kun through the smog, in the direction of Peace Park.

"Back to the raft," laughs Hank.

Polly says, "What a pity. He didn't even get a chance to come down and pray with us."

Father Gaudi rises to his feet and hands the baby to Polly. With broad arm gestures, he summons his heterogeneous flock down into the crypt. Several more of the white slaves, male and female, take advantage of the confusion to escape from the vans and join them. Hank sees these extra prostitutes preparing to invade the chapel, and he rushes ahead of everyone to get downstairs first.

They leave Ishida-san stomping about the compound, screaming in Hiroshima gutter-dialect. He curses his useless men and the river vermin. He curses himself and the universe in general, and makes solemn, gore-drenched oaths pertaining to the upcoming wedding of his second daughter.

* * * *

In the crypt, Hank fusses over his mistresses. He murmurs consoling words in their ears, as more despised Filipinas come into their presence.

"It's just for a few minutes, I promise. Father has called a kind of powwow. Immediately afterwards, these, um, ladies--" He rolls his eyes almost out of their sockets, to underscore his irony, so even the slowest automotive wife won't miss it. "--these ladies will be on their way back to the parking lot. Okay?"

When he joins Polly in their customary position further back, she asks, "Do you know what was done to harem attendants in ages past?"

"I'm sure you'd volunteer to perform the alteration on me."

Father Gaudi mounts the pulpit. He clears his throat in a certain emphatic manner which the assembled congregation seems conditioned to recognize. Comparative silence and a sense of mild emergency permeate the crypt. Even the babies are fairly attentive.

"My friends," he says, "we have a problem. A legalistic one, yet."

This Catalonian Jesuit can't pass up the opportunity to provide his listeners with a smattering of background on days gone by, a time when there were few laws around here. He paints a word-picture of an infinitely more livable Nippon, a slower-paced nation, where it was possible to develop a self, more or less, if one tried very hard. But, during the occupation, Douglas MacArthur came swooping down and surrounded himself with local people who didn't like living that way: the fascists and gangsters and professional Marxiphobes who later coalesced into the Liberal Democratic Party. The good general schooled his toadies well in the profitability of occidental-style regulation.

"And now, all of a sudden, after four centuries of wholesome anarchy, I'm afraid that Kara-kun's beloved Ohtagawa is about to come to the attention of the city council."

This is cause for speculation among those expatriates who are truly paying attention.

"Why?"

"What's in it for the dirty politicians?"

"Whose white-button spats did the little dickens stomp on this time?"

"Just ask that miniaturized Al Capone making all the racket outside," blurts Hank, who's eager to take over the proceedings and make a good show for his bosses' better halves. "Today Kara-kun finally spoiled the wrong wedding."

"He's done it this time," says a Peruvian journalist, disguised as a construction worker, here on an exquisitely forged, perpetually renewable nine-month work visa. "That old goat's only a regional warlord, but he has every assemblyman in his watch pocket."

A bronzed New Zealander says, "Mr. Ishida must be pained by his profession's steady loss of social status since samurai days. It must nag at him like an unfulfilled spouse."

"And there's nothing more dangerous than a social-climbing gangster," says a Ukrainian cellist-in-exile. "Watch the Slavic republics over the next five years, and you'll see just how dangerous."

"I think you've hit the nail on the head, my friend," says Father Gaudi. "This unhappy godfather sent his elder daughter to Tokyo's best junior college in the latest stone-washed denim, and then to our cathedral in genuine turquoise Belgian lace--"

"--where she got a small surprise at the end of the reception line!" cries an unidentified voice from the back. Several people throughout the chapel cackle in frankly wicked delight.

Trying to keep the discussion serious, Father Gaudi says, "At any rate, I think we can soon expect law and order to be introduced on the Ohtagawa, for the first time in recorded history."

At the moment, nobody finds it excessively paranoid to assume that the authorities will try to corner their mascot on the streets some night. Any number of city ordinances could be cited in institutionalizing him. An Argentinean restaurateur says, "And everybody knows that, in Japan, the verb to institutionalize means the same as to disappear in my country."

With a shudder, Polly murmurs, mostly to herself, "I think I know which institution would probably gobble up the public funds to take him."

Wearing an oddly sinister smile, Hank whispers, "Your hubby's very own place of employment, right? Hiroshima University's clinic has a delightful private dungeon with plenty of room for one more. They're generous with the thorazine, I'm told."

A Polish music teacher, southwestern Japan's only extraordinary minister of the eucharist, asks, "Is it too much to hope that Kara-kun would be willing or even able to moor in one specified place night after night?"

"Even if he could," says a backpacker from Barbados, "do you really think he'd be welcomed by his new neighbors at the marina? Getting his craft up to code would take a major miracle."

"Coming right up," snickers Hank, casting a rakish eye at his mistresses. "After Kara-kun does that, we'll get John Paul-John Paul to beatify him."

The automotive wives titter at this near-blasphemous remark. Despite their superior air, they are among the crassest and least devout people in the whole place.

Some of the more orthodox parishioners, in particular the little whores from Manila, look askance at Hank and murmur among themselves in dismay. But, as usual, nobody is brave enough to chide this mouthy American for his impiety. As the only adult male from the mightiest country on earth, Hank has an unspoken claim to behave precisely as he wishes. Unfortunately, he has decided to play the part of the parish wiseacre.

A widowed English teacher from Edinburgh, a tough old dame with a rolling burr, is affected by neither Hank nor his wise crack. She's interested only in getting back to the point. "On the other hand," she says, "if the boat regulations are enforced anything like the automobile regulations, being up to code will matter far less than being able to pay the incredible inspection fee."

"Judging from the condition of the Edwine family Mazda," says Hank, "I think we should consult Polly's hubby about that. He seems to have found a secret way to avoid paying inspection fees of any sort."

Her face devoid of emotion, Polly stares at him and says nothing.

The unidentified voice from the back sings out, "Get off the poor guy's back. Like Sammy always says: if the good Lord wanted that car fixed, he'd have given it nerve endings and a voice box to whimper through."

"That's true," says Father Gaudi--then hastens to clarify himself. "Not the bit about the good Lord, but the bit before that. The Japanese may not have much of an indigenous legal system, but they do have a thousand-year history of licensing swindles, and a population trained to sit back and cooperate. Do you know why their music is so, shall we say, underdeveloped?"

"You mean like how it sounds all nasal and plunky, sort of like rubber bands that kids stretch across their dads' shoe boxes?" asks somebody's adolescent daughter. She's a girl so small and dark, and so Americanized, like many of the world's children, that it's impossible even to speculate as to her nationality or ethnicity.

"Exactly," says the priest. "It's because they've always licensed their koto and biwa players. It has never mattered whether one could actually play, or even tune the instrument properly, but only if one could locate a hoary old sensei whose endorsement one could afford. So, perhaps, if we open our hearts and our pocketbooks. . ."

A collection is taken. The pledges and donations pour from every corner of the crypt, except for the front pew. The automotive wives, though made of money, are hesitant to contribute anything to such an inelegant cause. But then, without warning, the large Filipino transvestite swishes to the front of the chapel and presumes to go among them in their exclusive domain.

Polly tells her compatriot to snap to attention: an underworld figure is approaching the seraglio.

"Drag queens don't count," says Hank. "They simply adore the drag queens. Especially this moose. Watch how he handles them."

The large transvestite has perched himself comfortably among the wives and is engaging them in a murmured conference. The wives have evidently shared an amicable relationship with him for some time, and are flattered by his attention. They think he enjoys their company for its own sake, but he's just doing research. He's a professional entertainer, after all, and is trying to learn to ape their mannerisms to a tee. He's probably planning to add a would-be society matron to his repertoire of grotesque female impersonations.

He moistens his glossy lips with the tip of an enormous sandpapery tongue, and says, "Listen, Lovie-Dovies, if we allow the municipal meanies to ‘disappear' Kara-kun, who can say what will happen? With no unlucky goblin to scare them away, my handlers might just get brave and start coming down to share this bench with you luscious honey-dearies."

"See?" Hank whispers to Polly. "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and nobody loves flattery more than bourgeois matriarchs. Tell me, is he marvelous?"

Polly says, "I don't know. His audience doesn't look particularly convinced. From where I sit, it looks as though they're going to draw the line any minute now."

"Who can tell anything from expressions on faces that have been winched up so many times? You have to watch their body language. Especially the way they squirm on those extra pads of cellulite that ooze over the edge of the pew."

"Don't be vulgar. I hope your friend is just kidding about his ‘handlers.' If the Yakuza really do start showing their faces, it'll be quite a trick keeping the peace."

"Gaudi will have to preach to the intolerant heifers about the thief on the cross: ‘Today you will be with me in paradise.' And I'll bet he manages to open their eyes, with a little help from the gay community."

"What a wonderful homilist Father is," says Polly. "It does me good to meet an occasional European priest."

"Yes, they're a welcome contrast to the exhibitionists and pederasts and rum guzzlers and sniveling hormone cases we've got running the church in America."

"I wish I could get Sammy down here, just one time, to hear Father Gaudi preach."

In the front pew, a particularly stupid automotive wife is asking the large transvestite to clarify himself a bit. "But your, um, handlers are Japanese. Japanese don't have any religion. Why would they want to invade our chapel?"

"Who can say? Who can say, my little buggy-yummers? You never know. But I can tell you, Sweet-Licks, once the Yakuza infest a place, they can be such brutes, such cruel savages, oo-ooh!"

He flutters his hand on the wives' knees, and they react with a combination of unconscious sexual arousal and conscious dread of being seen praying elbow-to-elbow with low-class hoods.

Hank is in raptures, almost. He says to Polly, "If I wasn't aware of the implications, I'd say I love that big queerbait. And I haven't even told you the most wonderful thing about it: the ladies think they're talking to a certifiable female. My bosses' wives are unconscious fag hags."

At first Polly looks doubtful; but, after a couple of seconds' observation, she decides to believe it. Her skepticism switches to mild amazement.

"Yeah," says Hank. "They assume he's just another girl from the jungle, who likes to gossip with old white women, and wisely compensates for her big bones by dressing a tad nicer than her sisters. I could never bring myself to reveal his secret. There's not exactly an overabundance of cross-dressers back home in Michigan, and I wouldn't know where to begin. It would be like giving your grandma a sex education course."

He shudders at that distasteful thought.

Averting her eyes, Polly says, quietly, "Sometimes it's difficult not to be ashamed of one's countrywomen."

The large transvestite is in the middle of a regular lecture. He's saying things like, "It helps to look at things from poor little Kay-kay's point of view, doesn't it? Imagine what it must've been like to bounce around in your mommy's tummy on that morning."

Hank's mistresses are now regaled with what is apparently fresh news to them, but is common knowledge among the lesser members of the foreign community: that Kara-kun was in utero on the notorious morning of August the sixth, his mother doing demeaning work downtown with other Korean slave laborers. The general assumption is that his mother, along with the rest of the multitude, scrambled down the embankment to bathe her burns, only to find that the blast had parted the Ohtagawa from its bed and left nothing behind but a vast mud-poultice. Many of the slave women were overwhelmed when the boiling liquid flushed back. To this day, the old fishermen's wives cite this as an explanation for Kara-kun's affinity for the waters of the Ohtagawa.

"They say that something in him yearns to be washed away with his aunties, and--"

Hank whispers, "Do you remember how hard Gaudi tried to get the kindly old sweethearts to stop turning up their noses at the few Filipinas who manage to sneak down here? He plied them with eloquent sermons on Christ's love of Magdalen for an entire lenten season, without making any headway. And Gaudi's a trained professional, an acknowledged master of guilt management. It took our large, lipsticky friend to turn their heads."

"To the very slight extent they've been turned," says Polly. "I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the sound of automotive money hitting the plate today."

"You just watch. Go ahead and hold your breath, Madame Edwine, and before you pass out, the Incredible Hulk will have their purses cracked open."

"Now, ladies," the large transvestite is saying, "I know that our little Kay-kay smells bad and makes unappetizing noises from time to time. And he's not exactly the spiffiest dresser in all of East Asia. But he's no butch nipple-tweaking organized crime figure, is he? It's a question of the lesser of two evils, don't you agree, Kissy-poops?"

The wives agree, and come up with a little money.

Hank actually cries out at this point: "What did I tell you? Such suavity! Such consummate finesse! Such, such--I don't know what to call it!"

"Interpersonal dynamics."

"That's it! If only we could straighten him up. Square him away, just a tad. Get him into a reasonable shade of mascara and some un-laddered nylons. Maybe a cleaner pair of panties. I'm positive there'd be a middle-management position for him in our personnel department."

The Nigerian acolyte brings the collection plate to Hank and Polly's pew. Hank looks in and pretends to marvel at his mistresses' generosity. He casts a moved, adoring grin in their direction, actual tears starting to accumulate in his ducts. Between his grinning teeth, he hisses quietly to Polly, "I'm sure they coughed up slightly less than the hookers they so love to despise."

The plate is passed to another group of Filipinas. These impoverished girls have no paper money, but only coins to sprinkle onto the burnished brass. But they do so without sheepishness or hesitation. They indicate their eagerness to give, each according to her meager means, if only to make sure Kara-kun stays a free man and keeps irritating the natives--in particular the rich, hypocritical fathers-of-the-brides, in their morning coats and Hirohito/Hitler mustaches, their moist hands cupped over pin-striped groins in a grotesque parody of Christian piety.

"Especially," says a huge-eyed torch singer, pausing to grimace beautifully, "Ishida-san."

The small transvestite, his face still puffy from weeping about his burnt baby brother, adds, in a tiny, bitter voice, "I hope he has a whole closet full of fat-faced daughters for Kara-kun to make icky poot-cakes on."

Another Filipina speaks up. "Today the old man stood at God's table upstairs and gave his eldest away. Can you just imagine how ridiculous he looked? He's one of our best customers. Right, girls?"

At the mention of the word customers, the automotive wives have begun shifting on their audibly squishy buttocks. The large transvestite decides to take advantage of their receptive mood. Demurely smoothing his rayon skirt over his sinewy footballer's knees, he snickers into their ears, "Oh, Bertha. One of our best, indeed. Ishida-san tends toward passive bondage or--tee-hee!--wet humiliation."

The wives obviously have no idea what either alternative entails. Nevertheless, they squirm, flush and gasp in full-throated delight, while the conference continues.

The other parishioners aren't quite as outspoken as the white slaves about the motives for their generosity today, and certainly few of them have such concrete and specific reasons for their glee at the bomb-baby's misbehavior upstairs. The first-worlders even indulge themselves in the whipped-cream luxury of Christly sentiment.

Accepting the collection plate from the Nigerian acolyte, a well-bankrolled German aikido student offers the following suggestion: "Let's be charitable. Let's remind ourselves of what Father always says regarding the pimps in our midst: ‘They are not free, either.'"

The large transvestite says, "Oh, is that so? Who holds Ishida-san in bondage? I don't see any of his fingers missing."

Tears puddle up again in the small transvestite's eyes as he whimpers, "And I don't see big chunks of his skin scorched away."

But the Catalonian Jesuit holds firm to his position at the pulpit. "Ignorance holds Ishida-san in bondage," he replies. "And, compounding that ignorance sevenfold, pride. But our old friend is not completely chained yet. Occasionally I see something else shine through his eyes."

Just as the scoffing of the entertainers threatens to get out of hand, the traditional wedding march from Lohengrin starts to rumble down on everybody's heads. Apparently the sham nuptials have resumed.

* * * *

Upstairs, it's an excellent imitation of a western-style ceremony, though nary a Caucasoid face can be seen inside the huge place.

The guests are important civic leaders, Liberal Democratic Party diet men, and pillars of the business community, along with their lovely spouses and/or mistresses. Everyone is arrayed in the correct, if slightly dated, occidental fashion. The correct sounds rebound off the high concrete walls. In fact, the only aspect of the scene that looks even slightly off is the wedding party itself, which is gathered at the altar.

The bridesmaids have made a valiant effort to blot Kara-kun's footprints away from the soon-to-be-former Miss Ishida's splendid train; but definite evidence remains, discoloring the turquoise lace. Her face is similarly discolored with splotches of tear-dislodged mascara, her cheeks unattractively puffed with petulant weeping and a hateful expression.

Ishida-san is giving his eldest away, finally, and knows no better than to indulge in a celebrational cigar, right here in the presence of the Lamb of God. Absent-mindedly, he digs around in his morning coat for the means with which to light up, but comes up empty-handed. His number-one lieutenant, a comparatively intelligent-looking thug in a tuxedo still a bit disheveled from the chase, quickly reaches over and obliges the boss with a paper match.

In the flare of the flame, Ishida-san's face seems to have turned the color of freshly-spilled blood. His whole head, from the collarbones up, has swollen entire centimeters in circumference with borderline-psychotic rage. He ponders an image in his mind of the bomb-baby, squatting idly on the deck of the raft in some slime-glistening backwater, contentedly barbecuing his own fingertips with an elegant and very expensive cigar lighter, solid gold.

* * * *

The collection plate is passed up to Father Gaudi, who winces at the noise of the pipe organ overhead, but is still able expertly to tally up the proceeds.

"So, let me see. . . Ah. My friends, I am pleased to announce that the inspection fee on Kara-kun's raft will be covered."

Self-congratulatory cheers are heard from the congregation. There's even twelve thousand yen to spare, just in case a bureaucrat needs to be bribed with a shrunk-wrapped bunch of inedible, golf ball-sized grapes.

Polly stands now, and speaks reluctantly. She doesn't want to spoil the party, but finds it necessary to point out that grabbing minnows by hand, which is Kara-kun's habit, isn't a method of fishing the union officials will be likely to endorse with their myriad scarlet seals. There will be a problem if he's required to demonstrate that he fishes for a living in order to persuade them to let him keep his raft.

"Somebody should at least show him how to pretend that he can use a line and sinker."

"Mrs. Edwine's observation is, as usual, perfectly astute," says Father Gaudi. "Who will volunteer to teach Kara-kun to pretend to fish?"

The priest scans his flock, but all eyes are averted. Nobody wants to do it.

"I know someone who's perfect for the job," says Hank, pausing to leer maliciously at Polly. "This person's got a Ph.D., so he's an expert at pretending to do things."

Polly sits back down, muttering, "Oh, hell. Sorry I mentioned it."

Hank says, "Since he has a plush university sinecure with unlimited free time, and since, in any case, he isn't present in the crypt this afternoon to defend his interests, but is snoozing as usual in the parking lot among the pimps, I nominate this certain person."

Assuming that everyone knows exactly who Hank is talking about, Father Gaudi seconds the nomination and asks for a show of hands. The mystery person is unanimously elected, with one abstention: his wife tries to demur on his behalf.

Polly protests that the mystery person has been fishing a total of one time in his life. As a little boy, with his father, he went after rainbow trout in a baby-sized trickle of distilled water, so high in the Rocky Mountains that the rocks didn't even have moss on them. What he found floating around in those hermetic conditions were virtually fleshless creatures, not really fish at all, but flaccid totems of domesticated Anglo-Saxon boyhood, bred to gum away at the mildest suburban garden worms and to relinquish their breath with only a token struggle. They'd obviously been hand-planted by the well-flossed, honey-blond Mormon forest rangers who came around later to see if the mystery person and his father were comfy and safe in their tent. What if some fanged leviathan were to barge its way up the Ohtagawa estuary and fasten itself onto Kara-kun's line?

"This, um, person is the father of a small child, and--"

But nobody listens to her. They've already formed the Angler's Education Committee and are busy drafting a charter.

Hank crows in triumph, "So, we've got ourselves an emissary. It will be his official responsibility to preserve Kara-kun's liberty. I volunteer to be the chairman of our little committee. That means, Polly dear, that I'll be on his lard ass like a cocklebur from now on."

On the front pew, the particularly stupid automotive wife asks the large transvestite, "Who are they talking about?"

Shrugging his broad shoulders as if in total bewilderment, he replies, "Your guess is as good as mine, Snuggle-bumps."

* * * *

Meanwhile, in the parking lot, some of the younger Yakuza chauffeurs are idly gathered around the miserable Mazda Cosmo that earlier appalled their boss. In an effort to entertain the few Filipinas who didn't manage to escape, these punks are opening packets of chewing gum and trying to toss the wadded foil wrappers through the car's open window. Their target is a gaping mouth, whose soft palate produces the same elephantine snores that almost deafened Ishida-san a few minutes ago.

The mouth belongs to an enormously tall, heavy-set man, with a flame-orange beard and shaggy hair thinning on top. Improbably wadded in the death seat, he is dressed in worn-out professorial tweeds, several sizes too small, the leather elbow patches scuffed and hanging by individual threads.

The few spaces inside the car that are not stuffed with his body are littered with Kirin Super Dry beer bottles and back issues of the Modern Language Association Job List. Open face-down on his belly is a dog-eared Hiroshima University Library copy of Agenbite of Inwit, several horseradish-smeared bits of onigiri serving as bookmarks.

So far, three gum wrappers have found their mark. They adhere to this giant's semi-parched tongue.

He suddenly awakens. He cocks his eyebrows with bashful seductiveness at his tattooed tormentors, but doesn't bother to spit out the wads of foil. He chews on them awhile, then swallows, neither breaking eye contact with the Yakuza, nor relaxing his sweet smile.

This, of course, is Sam Edwine.