culture.
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I could not possibly pass for Japanese – red-haired Japanese are as common as for on
fish – but I could speak and write Japanese, not like a native but like a foreigner
who has studied it. So a reasonable decision was made: I would go as a tourist – an
exceptional tourist, one who had taken the trouble to learn something of the
Language, culture, and history of Nippon before going there.
A tourist who bothers to study these aspects of a country before visiting it will
always be welcome, if he is polite by their rules of politeness, It is easy to say,
glibly, that every tourist ought to do this, but in fact this is difficult,
expensive in time and money. I have a knack for languages and enjoy studying them.
So, by the age of seventy, I knew five modern languages including my own.
That left over a thousand languages I did not know and around three billion people
with whom I had no common language. The task is too big – a labour of Tantalus.
But I was well equipped to be an inoffensive tourist in Japan for the decade
preceding the great war of 1941-45. So I went, and was put down in Macao, a place
where bribery is the norm and money will accomplish almost anything. I was armed
with lavish amounts of money and three very sincere passports; one said that I was
Canadian, another that I was American, and the third that I was British.
I went by ferry to Hong Kong, a place much more nearly honest but where nevertheless
money is highly respected. By then I had learned that neither British nor Americans
were well thought of in the Far East at that time but that Canadians had not yet
inspired any special dislike, so I started using the passport that showed that I was
born in British Columbia and lived in Vancouver. A Dutch ship, the MV Ruys, took me
from Hong Kong to Yokohama.
I spent a lovely year, 1937-38, tramping around Japan, sleeping in native inns,
feeding the tiny deer at Nara, being breathless at the sight of Fuji-San at dawn,
cruising the Inland Sea in a dinky little steamer, relishing the beauties of one of
the most beautiful countries and cultures in all histories – all the while gathering
data that I recorded in an implanted, voice-operated recorder much like the one I am
now using.
I was also wearing, internally, a finder such as I am wearing now, and the fact that
I haven’t been found indicates to me that Time Corps HQ does not know what planet I
am on, as the equipment is supposed to be delicate enough to track down an agent who
has missed a rendezvous no matter where he is, as long as he is on the planet of
drop.
That’s the bad news. Here is the good news. During that year in Japan I heard
several times of another redheaded English (American Canadian) woman who was touring
the Empire, studying Japanese gardens. She speaks Japanese and is said to look like
me… although the latter means little; we round-eyes all look alike to them, except
that red hair would always be noticed, and speaking Japanese is decidedly noticed.
Have I been (will I be) sent back on another visit to pre-war Japan? Am I
time-looped on myself? The paradox does not bother me; Time agents are used to loops
– I’m already looped for the gear 1937-38. I spent that year in Kansas City for the
first time, except for two weeks in July following the birth of Priscilla and after
Brian’s bar exams; we celebrated both events with a trip to the Utah Canyons –
Bryce, Cedar Breaks, North Rim.
If I am also looped on myself (tripled) in Japan in the year 1937-38, then the
tripling will happen on my personal time line after my present now… which means
that Pixel will carry the message and I will be rescued. There are no paradoxes in
time; all apparent paradoxes can be untangled.
But it is a thin thread on which to hang my hope.