Four literary recommendations are woven into the story of a lawyer who, without opening a gift, must decipher the hidden meaning of a ritual gesture, an impossible extradition, and an unexpected lesson in the power of literature.
By all appearances, I am facing a mortal danger. Yes, you heard that correctly: a mortal danger. Fatal, if you prefer—although this is hardly the moment for Byzantine quibbles about language.
My thoughts swirl chaotically as I feel the adrenaline surge. Then I recall a scene in the office of the Department of Public International Law at the Faculty of Law in Zaragoza. I was little more than a young ‘penene’—a junior academic of sorts, and the emeritus professor, Leandro Rubio, had paused to look at a novel I was holding —I even remember the title: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, by Raymond Carver.
Yes, he looks at it with a faint air of disdain. He cannot help himself:
“How can you still be reading that sort of thing at your age? It’s been centuries since one of those passed through my hands.”
My rebellious audacity replies: “A book?”
He bristles: “A novel! Things for children and adolescents—and I had taken you for someone rather more mature.”
Well then: it may be that thanks to everything one learns by reading novels, I will manage to extricate myself from the very predicament in which I now find myself.
Let us say that I am in my office and that, sitting opposite me, is what might pass for an elegant, impeccably correct, even rather endearing elderly Japanese gentleman, dressed in a flawless blue suit and wearing a Hermès tie—one of those I cannot afford.
But do not be deceived: the legal documents I keep in my file recount terrible things about his past. He is a yakuza boss, important enough for his country of origin to submit a direct request for extradition to the Kingdom of Spain. And the Interpol form lying before me contains accusations which—whether true or not—are extremely serious. Gravely so.
I have just finished explaining to him the order issued earlier this morning by the National High Court granting his extradition, the possibilities of a possible appeal, and the hearing scheduled for tomorrow before that tribunal. “And its purpose?” he asks me, in English.
“The Prosecutor will request your immediate remand in custody while the appeal is being examined, to prevent any risk of flight,” I confess. “Will they grant it?” he asks, weighing each word. “There is a strong likelihood.” “So you advise me to attend?”
I shrug, sigh, and continue: “If I were to advise you not to attend, I would be struck off the Bar. All I can tell you is that I will be there, and that I will wait for you for twenty minutes at the entrance before going in.”
Four literary recommendations are woven into the story of a lawyer who, without opening a gift, must decipher the hidden meaning of a ritual gesture
And this is where the drama truly begins: Mr Kaneda produces a small package wrapped in a silk cloth, folded with a double knot—elegant, symmetrical, not a crease out of place. A furoshiki. “In payment of your fees.”
There is no need for me to untie the delicate cloth to know that it protects a box made of paulownia wood—a kiribako—containing a small figurine of wood, ivory, or porcelain, originally used as a fastening for clothing and today collected as an object of devotion, known as a netsuke.
And how do I know this? Because behind Mr Kaneda, on the side table, beneath the Memoirs of Jacques Isorni—yes, the lawyer who undertook the defence of General Pétain—lies a novel recounting the saga of a very wealthy Jewish family from Odessa, which prospered in the final quarter of the nineteenth century in Paris and Vienna, developed a passion for Japanese culture, and managed to preserve, after the last war, nothing more than a collection of two hundred and sixty-four netsuke and a great love for Japan: The Hare with Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal.
Thus—contrary to my thesis supervisor’s opinion—reading novels can prove extremely useful: they allow one to understand people, to read events properly, and to grasp just how delicate my present situation is.
Why is Mr Kaneda settling his account by handing me a figurine, without my having presented him with an invoice? Because, according to the dictates of his culture, the figurine itself contains a message. Or several. Deciphering them correctly is the first task—and the most urgent.
He is taking his leave of me.
If that were the worst of it, I could live with it. What is truly troubling comes now: in the content of the gift, in what the netsuke will signify.
If the piece were ancient and valuable—some fetch well over three hundred thousand euros; imagine, say, a tiger by Tomotada—it would mean that the debt had indeed been settled, but that I would now be indebted to something far greater. I would have entered the orbit of his clan, and once inside, there is no way out.
If the netsuke were satirical or humiliating, modern and of no value—a ridiculed judge, a drunken samurai—it would mean that he considers my legal work useless and offers me, by way of payment, a toy. It would be an insult. A mafioso message: “I know where you belong.”
Worse still would be a shunga netsuke: an obscene piece, ancient and equally valuable—a nineteenth-century couple engaged in an exaggerated sexual act. That message would be threefold: humiliation, domination, and a coded warning.
In short: opening the cloth would render me, in one way or another, indebted to Mr Kaneda.
Some of you might say, “Don’t open the package, or return the gift, and the matter is settled.”
Ah. That would be worse. Much worse. According to the conventions of Japanese culture, returning a gift constitutes a very serious offence—one that demands reparations… of a conspicuous kind.
I am in quite a predicament. Oh yes: in a very serious mess.
I hear, as if from afar, as though his words were being repeated by a spectral echo, what Mr Kaneda is saying:
“Please, I ask you to open it. In my country, it is customary to accept a gift in the presence of one’s host.”
His infernal gift has been resting for several minutes now on my desk, on the mahogany surface, in the only clear island not occupied by files. Did such an uncluttered space really exist ten minutes ago, or has that malevolent object carved out its own territory, thinning the jungle around it?
Perhaps I am beginning to hallucinate.
Better to stand up and behave as though the Japanese man did not exist. To go over to my bookcase, to search, to search again… until I find it. Yes—here it is. After all these years.
Where did I buy it? Oxford? A great deal of water has flowed under the bridge since then.
I go back to my desk carrying the grimoire. Mr Kaneda watches me in silence. Circling him to resume my place of authority in the office, I set down before him the book with which I intend to break his spell, the ritual debt he is weaving around me: The Book of Tea, by Okakura Kakuzō.
“I am fully aware of the contents of your gift,” I begin, with composure. “I am equally aware of the meaning of the gesture, and of the value that, in your country, is attached to the ritual of giving. But we are not in Japan; we are in Madrid, and you are in my office. And according to international law, where ritual norms are concerned, those of the country in which one finds oneself must always apply. Here, the rules of courtesy are very different. I do not accept gifts. I make few exceptions: twenty years ago I accepted a basket of eggs from a very poor person who had no other way of paying me; Christian charity moved me to do so. And five years ago I was obliged to make another exception when a saintly man, a Jesuit brother of scant means, presented me with his most valuable possession.”
Mr Kaneda’s face has changed. He is no longer smiling. He no longer feels master of the game. I sense, discreetly, the tension rising.
I continue:
“That saint, like yourself, left a box on this very desk”—I point to a simple white cardboard box speckled with black circles, some four fingers high—“and there he left it. I thanked him, given the stature of the man. But I did not open it. I knew then, just as I know today, what it contained, what it was worth, and what it meant to the person who had offered it to me.”
Mr Kaneda’s expression darkens. He has taken the box and is in the process of opening it. I behave as though his action were of no consequence and go on:
“The book I have given you, you have probably already read. It was written by a Japanese author, though in English, at the beginning of the twentieth century. And although its title may mislead, its purpose is not to explain how tea is prepared in your country, but to speak of the great values of your culture. Three, in particular, struck me: subtlety, restraint, and the ability to delay a gesture as a form of respect…”
The Japanese man gazes, astonished, at the cross he has taken from the speckled box. I halt my discourse. I hold his gaze as, slowly, he offers it to me.
I examine the polychrome crucifix and proceed to explain the piece: “It is a reliquary. The beautiful mother-of-pearl panels painted at the ends depict the most important churches in Rome. At the centre, in a small glass container, there is a bone of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits—the very order that evangelised your country.”
I linger a moment longer studying the cross; then I return it to him, adding with apparent casualness: “It is truly beautiful. When you have finished admiring it, you may place it back in its box. As I mentioned before, I had not yet opened it.”
It is now the yakuza boss who finds himself disarmed. I had not given him permission to open the box. The ritual of submission has come to a halt. The spell is broken.
I wait in silence until he decides to speak: “So, you will not accept my gift?”
“On the contrary, I shall accept it. Today I will make a further exception to my policy of refusing presents. But I wanted you to understand that I will not open it at this moment. I already know its contents, and I am already savouring them. I shall open it—and examine its details—when the time comes.”
“As you did today with the cross…” he adds.
“As I did today with the reliquary,” I reply, calmly.
Mr Kaneda stands. I accompany him along the corridor to the vestibule. There he puts on his overcoat with meticulous calm. At the door, before leaving, he pauses.
“I did not know whether your defence had been good or bad, whether losing the case was inevitable or your fault. Now I know.”
He makes a slight ritual bow and adds, before disappearing into the street:
“You will not see me again, and I know this will cause you difficulties in court.
In a few weeks you will receive a cheque from my people. You would honour me if you chose to cash it.”
José Vicente Rubio Eire
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