But it still wasn't over. The most crucial part of all, totally missed by the Western news force, was yet to come. After His Majesty was bowed away from the microphone, another official stepped forward to elaborate on the Emperor's remarks (probably because His Majesty would not deign to mention anything so crass as money). As reward for restoring the sword to His Majesty, he said, Dai Nippon would be allowed to serve as trustee of an official, honorary investment instrument, to be known as the Eight-Hundred-Year Fund. Acting for His Majesty, DNI would direct those monies into endeavors "commensurate with the nobility and ancient lineage of the Japanese people, as symbolized by the sword." Then a telephone number flashed across the bottom of the screen. The current subscription would be closed after eight hundred billion yen were pledged. The president of Dai Nippon had asked His Majesty for the honor of contributing the first billion yen personally. Finally, in a quick aside, he added that interest paid by the fund would of course be tax-free, as was normally the case for savings accounts in Japan.
After a few closing formalities, interspersed with a photo session of the Emperor and the president of Dai Nippon, the historic occasion ended with a reverential shot of His Majesty being escorted to his limo.
Who was that silver-haired executive, Tarn wondered. The man was audacious, and a genius. He'd just turned the Imperial Household into an accomplice in some kind of nationwide collection, using the Emperor for his own ends much the way shoguns of old had done.
But she sensed he'd touched a nerve that went very deep. A fund in honor of the Emperor (that's already how everybody around her in the shop was describing it), something in which to take pride, not just a numbered savings account at the post office. Suddenly the girls and their Japanese customers were all talking money. Here was something they could do to show their regard for His Majesty.
A line was already forming at the phone. The way she heard sums being pledged, she calculated Dai Nippon would garner five million yen, more than thirty thousand dollars, right there among the shampoos and curlers. The typical Japanese, she recalled, banked over a quarter of his or her disposable income. Little wonder most of them had at least a year's salary in savings. At this rate Dai Nippon's "Imperial Fund" would be over the top by nightfall.
That evening NHK newscasts claimed it had been fully subscribed in the first fifty-six minutes. After all, eight hundred billion yen was only about six billion dollars, scarcely more than loose change to a people saving tens of millions every day. It was, in fact, merely the beginning. The next day more "Eight-Hundred-Year" funds were opened, by popular demand. Soon the pension funds started to feel the heat, and a lot of institutions began calling up. Yen flowed in a great river. All those homeless Japanese billions knocking around the world had at last found a guiding ideal. Some rumors even claimed the Emperor himself was actually going to manage the money.
Tam couldn't wait to get outside and see firsthand what was going on. This was something Allan could never in his wildest dreams have predicted. As soon as she could get her hair dry she headed out; the girls didn't even bother to charge.
Tokyo, twelve million strong, was in the streets. Even in normal times the city could be overwhelming, but now . . . It was in pandemonium, an advanced state of shock. As she struggled through the crowds a lot of men were waving sake flasks, already gleefully smashed. The sidewalks had become one vast matsuri, festival.
Something else, too. She found herself feeling a little uncomfortable. There were glares, and then as she passed a withered old man running a noodle stand, she heard him mutter "Gaijin." What did it mean?
What it "meant," she reflected with alarm, was obvious. The world had just become a brand-new ball game. Japan's long-silent Emperor had once more spoken to his people, just as he had at the end of the War. Back then he had broken two thousand years of silence to inform his battered, starving subjects "the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage." This time around he had confirmed Japan's long Imperial heritage. The "meaning" was clear as day.