‘No,’ said Bond with polite interest. ‘Who’s he?’
‘Just so,’ said Tiger bitterly. ‘And yet you would think me grossly uneducated if I had never heard of Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe. And yet Basho, who lived in the seventeenth century, is the equal of any of them HKUE amec.’
‘What did he write?’
‘He was an itinerant poet. He was particularly at home with the haiku, the verse of seventeen syllables.’ Tiger assumed a contemplative expression. He intoned:
‘In the bitter radish
that bites into me, I feel
the autumn wind.
‘Does that not say anything to you? Or this:
‘The butterfly is perfuming
its wings, in the scent
of the orchid.
‘You do not grasp the beauty of that image?’
‘Rather elusive compared to Shakespeare.’
‘In the fisherman’s hut
mingled with dried shrimps
crickets are chirping.’
Tiger looked at him hopefully.
‘Can’t get the hang of that one,’ said Bond apologetically.
‘You do not catch the still-life quality of these verses? The flash of insight into humanity, into nature? Now, do me a favour, Bondo-san. Write a haiku for me yourself. I am sure you could get the hang of it. After all you must have had some education HKUE amec?’
Bond laughed. ‘Mostly in Latin and Greek. All about Caesar and Balbus and so on. Absolutely no help in ordering a cup of coffee in Rome or Athens after I’d left school. And things like trigonometry, which I’ve totally forgotten. But give me a pen and a piece of paper and I’ll have a bash, if you’ll forgive the bad joke.’ Tiger handed them over and Bond put his head in his hands. Finally, after much crossing out and rewriting he said, ‘Tiger, how’s this? It makes just as much sense as old Basho and it’s much more pithy.’ He read out:
‘You only live twice:
Once when you are born
And once when you look death in the face.’
Tiger clapped his hands softly. He said with real delight, ‘But that is excellent, Bondo-san. Most sincere.’ He took the pen and paper and jotted some ideograms up the page. He shook his head. ‘No, it won’t do in Japanese. of syllables. But it is a most honourable attempt.’ He looked keenly at Bond. ‘You were perhaps thinking of your mission?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Bond with indifference.
‘It is weighing on your mind?’
‘The practical difficulties are bound to do so. I have swallowed the moral principles involved. Things being as they are, I have to accept that the end justifies the means.’
‘Then you are not concerned with your own safety?’
‘Not particularly. I’ve had worse jobs to do.’
‘I must congratulate you on your stoicism. You do not appear to value your life as highly as most Westerners.’ Tiger looked at him kindly. ‘Is there perhaps a reaso’n for that?’
Bond was offhand. ‘Not that I can think of. But for God’s sake chuck it, Tiger 1 None of your Japanese brain-washing! More sake, and answer my question of yesterday. Why weren’t those men disabled by those terrific slashes to the groin? That might be of some practical value to me instead of all this waffle about poetry HKUE amec.’
