Gai-Jin

  Seratard took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow, praying that he would be spared, thinking about the frequent times he visited the Yoshiwara, about his own musume that now he kept for himself alone but could never guarantee had no other lover. How can you prove or disprove that if there’s collusion with the mama-san when they’re only interested in fleecing you? “You had the right to kill her,” he said grimly. “And the mama-san.”

  “Raiko wasn’t responsible. I’d told her none of the girls here, anywhere in the Yoshiwara, were ones I wanted. I wanted someone young, special, a virgin or almost one. I begged her to find me a flower, explaining exactly what I wanted, and she did and Hana-chan was everything I wanted, perfection—she came from one of the best Houses in Yedo. You can’t imagine how beautiful she is, was …”

  He remembered how his heart had leapt the first time Raiko had shown her to him, chattering with other girls in another room. “That one, Raiko, in the pale blue kimono.”

  “I advise stay with Fujiko or Akiko or one of my other ladies,” Raiko had said. When she wanted, her English was good. “In time I will find you another. There little Saiko. In a year or two …”

  “That one, Raiko. She perfect. Who is she?”

  “Her name is Hana, the Flower. Her mama-san say the pretty little thing was born near Kyōto, bought by her House when three or four for training as geisha.” Raiko smiled. “Luckily, she’s not geisha—if geisha, she would be not on offer, so sorry.”

  “Because I gai-jin?”

  “Because geisha is for entertainment, not pillowing, and, Furansu-san, so sorry, truly difficult to appreciate if not Japanese. Hana’s teachers were patient, but she could not develop the skills so she was trained for the pillow.”

  “I want her, Raiko.”

  “A year ago she was old enough to begin. Her mama-san arranged the best pillow prices, of course only after Hana had approved the client. Three clients only have enjoyed her, her mama-san says she is fine pupil, and only allowed to pillow twice weekly. Only mark against her, she was born in the Year of the Fire Horse.”

  “What that mean?”

  “You know we count time in cycles of twelve years, like the Chinese, each year with an animal name, Dragon, Snake, Cockerel, Bull, Horse and so on. But each also has one of the five elements: fire, water, earth, iron, wood that vary, cycle by cycle. Ladies born in Year of Horse, with the fire sign, are thought to be … unlucky.”

  “Not believe superstitions. Please say price.”

  “She is a pillow Flower beyond price.”

  “The price, Raiko.”

  “To the other House, ten koku, Furansu-san. To this House, two koku a year, and price of house of her own within my fence, two maids, all the clothes she wants, and parting gift of five koku when you no longer require her services—this sum to be deposited with our Gyokoyama rice merchant-banker, at interest which, until time of parting, is yours—all to be in writing, signed and registered with Bakufu.”

  The sum was huge by Japanese standards, extravagant by European counting even with the rate of exchange heavily weighted in the European’s favor. For a week he had bartered and had managed to reduce the price only a few sous. Every night his dreams drove him onwards. So he had agreed. With due ritual seven months ago she had been presented to him formally. She agreed to accept him formally. They both signed formally. The next night he had pillowed and she was everything he had dreamed. Laughing, happy, enthusiastic, tender, loving. “She was a gift of God, Henri.”

  “Of the devil. The mama-san too.”

  “No, it wasn’t her fault. The day before I received Hana, Raiko told me, formally—it was also on the deed of payment—that the past was the past, she promised only to cherish Hana as one of her own girls, to make sure Hana was never seen by other men and remained mine alone, from that day onwards.”

  “Then she killed her?”

  André poured another drink. “I … I asked Hana to name the three men, one of them is my murderer, but she said she couldn’t—or wouldn’t. I—I smashed her around the face to force it out of her and she just whimpered and didn’t cry out. I would have killed her, yes, but I loved her and … then I left. I was like a mad dog, it was three or four o’clock by then and I just walked into the sea. Maybe I wanted to drown myself, I don’t know, don’t remember exactly, but the cold water gave me back my head. When I got back to the House, Raiko and the others were in shock, incoherent. Hana was crumpled where I left her. Now in a mess of blood, my knife in her throat.”

  “Then she committed suicide?”

  “That’s what Raiko said.”

  “You don’t believe it?”

  “I don’t know what to believe,” André said in anguish. “I only know I went back to tell her I loved her, that the pox was karma, not her fault, not her fault, that I was sorry I said what I said and did what I did, that everything would be as before except, except when it became … became obvious we would suicide together …”

  Henri was trying to think, his own brain addled. He had never even heard of the House of the Three Carp before rumors of the girl’s death had rushed through the Settlement. André’s always been so secretive, he thought, correctly so, and he’s right, it was none of my business—until the Bakufu made it official. “The three men, did this Raiko know who they were?”

  Numbed, André shook his head. “No, and the other mama-san would not tell her.”

  “Who is she? What’s her name? Where is she? We’ll report her to the Bakufu, they could force it out of her.”

  “They wouldn’t care, why should they? The other House—it was a meeting place for revolutionaries, Inn of the Forty-seven Ronin, a week or so ago it was burned to the ground and her head stuck on a spike. Holy Mother of God, Henri, what am I going to do? Hana’s dead and I’m alive ….”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Early that afternoon Dr. Hoag was in the cutter heading for the Legation wharf at Kanagawa. Babcott had sent word that he could not leave Kanagawa, as he was operating in his clinic there but would return as soon as possible:.. sorry, it can’t be until late tonight, probably not until tomorrow morning. You’re more than welcome to join me here if you wish but be prepared to stay the night, as the weather is changeable …

  Waiting on the wharf was a Grenadier and Lim, who wore a white coat, loose black trousers, slippers and small skullcap. As Hoag came ashore Lim yawned a token bow. “Heya, Mass’er, Lim-ah, Numb’r One Boy.”

  “We can stop pidgin coolie talk, Lim,” Hoag said in passable Cantonese, and Lim’s eyes widened. “I am Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened.” This was Hoag’s Chinese name—the meaning of the two characters nearest to the Cantonese sound of “hoh” and “geh”—selected out of dozens of possibilities for him by Gordon Chen, the Struan compradore, one of his patients.

  Lim stared at him, pretending not to understand, the usual and quickest way to make a foreign devil lose face who had the impertinence to dare to learn a few words of the civilized tongue. Ayeeyah, he thought, who’s this gamy fornicator, this putrid red devil mother-eater with the neck of a bull, this toadlike monkey who has the gall to speak in our tongue with such a foul superior manner …

  “Ayeeyah,” Hoag said sweetly, “also I have many, very many dirty words to describe a fornicator’s mother and her putrefying parts if a man from a dog-piss, dung-heap village gives me an eyelid of cause—like pretending not to understand me.”

  “Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened? Ayeeyah, that’s a good name!” Lim guffawed. “And never have I heard such good man-talk from a foreign devil in many a year.”

  “Good. You will soon hear more if I am again called foreign devil. Noble House Chen selected my name.”

  “Noble House Chen?” Lim gawked at him. “Illustrious Chen who has more bags of gold than an oxen has hairs? Ayeeyah, what a fornicating privilege!”

  “Yes,” Hoag agreed, adding not quite the truth, “and he told me if I have any dung-mixed troubles from any person of the Middle Kingdom??
?be he high or low—or not the at-once service a friend of his must expect, to mention the vile fornicator’s name on my return.”

  “Oh ko, Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened, it is indeed an honor to have you in our humble dung-heap house.”

  Dr. Hoag felt he had achieved greatness, blessing his teachers, mostly grateful patients, who had taught him the really important words and how to deal with certain persons and situations in the Middle Kingdom. The day was pleasant and warm and the look of the small town pleased him, the temples he could see over the rooftops, fishermen trawling the inland waters, peasants everywhere in the paddy, people coming and going and the inevitable stream of travellers on the Tokaidō beyond. By the time they reached the Legation with Lim’s overtly attentive support, Hoag had a fairly good picture of what the situation was in Kanagawa, today’s number of Babcott’s patients, and what to expect.

  George Babcott was in his surgery, assisted in the operation by a Japanese acolyte, a trainee appointed by the Bakufu to learn Western medicine, the anteroom outside crowded with villagers, men and women and children. The operation was messy, a foot amputation: “Poor fellow’s a fisherman, got his leg trapped between the boat and the wharf, should never have happened, too much saké, I’m afraid. When I’m through we can discuss Malcolm. Did you see him?”

  “Yes, no hurry. It’s good to see you, George, can I help in any way?”

  “Thanks, I’d appreciate that. I’m all right here but if you could sift through the mob outside? Those who are urgent, those who can wait. Treat any you want. There’s another ‘surgery’ next door though it’s little more than a sickroom. Mura, give me the saw,” he said in studied English to his assistant, and accepted the tool and began to use it. “Whenever I have a surgery here it gets hectic. In the cabinet there are the usual placebos, iodine, etc., usual medicines, painkillers, bitter cough mixtures for the sweet old ladies and sweet ones for the angry.”

  Hoag left him and looked over the waiting men, women and children, astonished with their orderliness, patience, the bows and lack of noise. Quickly he established none had smallpox, leprosy, measles, typhoid or cholera or any of the other infectious diseases or plagues that were endemic in most of Asia. More than a little relieved he began to question them individually and met with grave suspicion. Fortunately, one was an elderly intinerant Cantonese letter writer and soothsayer, Cheng-sin, who could also speak some Japanese. With his help—after being introduced as the Giant Healer’s Teacher—and a promise of an especially good, new modern medicine to ease his hacking cough, Dr. Hoag began a second surgery.

  Some had minor ailments. A few were serious. Fevers, illnesses, dysentery and the like, some he could diagnose, some he could not. Broken limbs, sword and knife cuts, ulcers. One, a young woman, in great pain, heavily pregnant.

  His practiced eye told him the birth, her fourth, would be bad and that most of her trouble was caused by marrying too young, working the fields too long and carrying too much. He gave her a small bottle of opium extract. “Tell her when her time is come and the pain is bad to drink a spoonful.”

  “Spoonful? How big, Honorable Wise Enlightened?”

  “A normal-size spoon, Cheng-sin.”

  The woman bowed. “Domo arigato gozaimashita,” she muttered as she left, pathetic in her thanks, both hands trying to carry the weight of her belly.

  Children with fevers and colds and hookworm, sores but not nearly as bad as he had expected, no malaria. Teeth generally good and strong, eyes clear, no lice—all patients astonishingly clean and healthy compared with similar villagers in China. No opium addicts. After an hour he was happily in his stride. He had just finished setting a broken arm when the door opened and a well-dressed, attractive young girl came in hesitantly and bowed. Her kimono was blue patterned silk, the obi green, hair dressed with combs. Blue sunshade.

  Hoag noticed Cheng-sin’s eyes narrow. She answered his questions and spoke even more persuasively though clearly quite nervous, her voice soft.

  “Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened,” Cheng-sin said, his speech punctuated with the permanent, dry cough that Hoag had diagnosed instantly as terminal consumption. “This Lady say her brother need important help, near death. She beg you to accompany her—house is nearby.”

  “Tell her to have him brought here.”

  “Unfortunately afraid to move him.”

  “What’s the matter with him?”

  After more questions and answers, which to Hoag sounded more like bargaining than anything else, Cheng-sin said, “Her house only one or two street outside. Her brother is …” he coughed as he searched for the word, “sleep like dead man, but alive with mad talk and fever.” His voice became more honeyed. “She afraid move him, Honorable Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened. Her brother samurai, she say many important persons very happy if you help brother. I think she say truth.”

  From Hong Kong newspapers Hoag was acquainted with the importance of samurai as the absolute ruling class in Japan, and that anything that would gain their confidence, and thus their cooperation, would assist British influence. He studied her. At once she dropped her eyes. Her nervousness increased. She appeared to be fifteen or sixteen and her features quite unlike the villagers, lovely skin. If her brother’s samurai so is she, he thought, intrigued. “What’s her name?”

  “Uki Ichikawa. Please to hurry.”

  “Her brother’s an important samurai?”

  “Yes,” Cheng-sin said. “I accompany you, not be fear.”

  Hoag snorted. “Afraid? Me? The pox on fear! Wait here.” He went to the surgery, opened the door quietly. Babcott was heavily involved extracting an abscessed tooth, his knee on the youth’s chest, the distraught mother wringing her hands and chattering. He decided not to disturb him.

  At the gates the Sergeant of the Guard politely stopped them and asked where he was going. “I’ll send a couple of my lads with you. Better safe than sorry.”

  The girl tried to dissuade them from bringing soldiers but the Sergeant was adamant. At length she agreed and, more nervously, led the way down one street, into an alley, into another and then another. The villagers they passed averted their eyes and scuttled away. Hoag carried his doctor’s bag. Over the rooftops he could still see the temple, and was reassured, and glad for the soldiers, knowing it would have been foolhardy to go without them. Cheng-sin plodded along, a tall staff in his hand.

  This young lady’s not all she pretends to be, Hoag thought, not a little excited by the adventure.

  Into another alley. Then she stopped at a door set in a tall fence and knocked. A grille opened, then the door. When the burly servant saw the soldiers he started to close it but the girl imperiously ordered him to desist.

  The garden was small, well kept but not extravagant. At the steps to the veranda of a small shoji house, she slipped out of clog shoes and asked them to do the same. It was awkward for Hoag, as he wore high boots. At once she ordered the servant to help him and was obeyed instantly.

  “You two best guard here,” Hoag said to the soldiers, embarrassed by the holes in his socks.

  “Yes, sir.” One of the soldiers checked his rifle. “I’ll just look around the back. Any trouble just shout.”

  The girl slid back the shoji. Ori Ryoma, the shishi of the Tokaidō attack, lay on the futons, the sheet soaking, a maidservant fanning him. Her eyes widened seeing Hoag and not Honorable Medicine Giant Healer, as she had expected, and she backed away as he came in ponderously.

  Ori was unconscious, in a coma—his swords on a low rack nearby, a flower arrangement in the tokonoma. Hoag squatted on his haunches beside him. The youth’s forehead was very hot, face flushed, dangerously high fever. The cause was quickly apparent as Hoag pulled away the bandage on his shoulder and upper arm. “Christ,” he muttered, seeing the extent of the puffy, poisonous inflammation, the telltale smell and black of dead tissue—gangrene—around the bullet wound.

  “When was he shot?”

  “She not know exactly. Two or t
hree weeks.”

  Once more he looked at the wound. Then, oblivious of all the eyes focused on him, he went out and sat on the edge of the veranda and stared into space.

  All I need now is my fine Hong Kong hospital and fine operating equipment, my wonderful Nightingale nurses, together with a barrel of luck, to save this poor youth. Fucking guns, fucking wars, fucking politicians …

  For God’s sake, I’ve been trying to patch up gun mutilations all my working life, failing most of the time—six years with the East India Company in bloody Bengal, fifteen years in the Colony and Opium War years, a volunteered year in the Crimea, the bloodiest of all, with the Hong Kong Hospital Detachment. Fucking guns! Christ, what a waste!

  After he had sworn his rage away he lit a cheroot, puffed, then discarded the match. At once the shocked servant rushed forward and picked up the offending object.

  “Oh, sorry,” Hoag said, not having noticed the pristine cleanliness of the path and surrounds. He inhaled deeply, then dismissed everything from his mind except the youth. At length he decided, began to throw his butt away, stopped and gave it to the servant who bowed and went to bury it.

  “Cheng-sin, tell her I’m sorry but if I operate or not I think her brother will die. Sorry.”

  “She says, ‘If die, is karma. If no help, he dies today, tomorrow. Please to try. If he dies, karma. She ask help.’” Cheng-sin added softly: “Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened, this youth important. Important try, heya?”

  Hoag looked at the girl. Her eyes gazed back at him.

  “Dozo, Hoh Geh-sama,” she said. Please.

  “Very well, Uki. Cheng-sin, tell her again I can’t promise anything but I’ll try. I will need soap, lots of hot water in bowls, lots of clean sheets, lots of sheets torn into swabs and bandages, lots of quiet and someone with a strong stomach to help me.”