Gai-Jin

  “So sorry, Furansu-san, I said before: her mama-san is dead, people of house scattered, Inn of Forty-seven Ronin dead.”

  “There must be some way to find th—”

  “None. So sorry.”

  “Then tell me the truth … the truth, of how she died.”

  “With your knife in her throat, so sorry.”

  “She did it? Hara-kiri?”

  Raiko had answered with the same patient voice, the same voice that had told the same story and given the same answer to the same questions a dozen times before: “Hara-kiri is the ancient way, honorable way, the only way atone a wrong. Hana betrayed you and us, owners, patrons and herself—that was her karma in this life. There is nothing more say. So sorry, let her rest. Her fortieth day after her death day, her kami day when a person is reborn or becomes a kami has passed now. Let her kami, her spirit, rest. So sorry, not speak of her again. Now, what other thing can I do for you?”

  Angelique was sitting straight in her chair as she had been taught from childhood, disquieted, watching him, one hand in her lap, the other fanned against the flies. Twice she had said, “What do you mean, yes and no?” but he had not heard her, seemingly in a trance. Just before she had left Paris, her uncle had been the same and her aunt had said, “Leave him be, who knows what devils inhabit a man’s mind when troubled.”

  “What trouble is he in, Aunt-mama?”

  “Ah, chérie, all life is a trouble when what you earn won’t pay for what is needed. Taxes crush us, Paris is a cesspit of greed and without morals, France is rumbling again, the franc buys less every month, bread has doubled in half a year. Leave him be, poor man, he does his best.”

  Angelique sighed. Yes, poor man. Tomorrow I will do my best and talk to Malcolm, he will arrange to pay his debts. Such a good man should not be in Debtors’ Prison. What can his debts amount to? A few louis …

  She saw André come back into himself and look at her. “Yes and no, André? What does that mean?”

  “Yes, they have such a medicine, but no, you cannot have it yet because y—”

  “But why, why ha—”

  “Mon Dieu, be patient, then I can tell you what the mama-san told me. You cannot have it yet because it cannot be taken until the thirtieth day, then again on the thirty-fifth day, and also because the drink—an infusion of herbs—must be prepared freshly each time.”

  His words had ripped the simplicity of her plan apart: André was to have given her now the drink or powder that he had obtained last night, she would take it at once and go to bed, saying she had the vapors. Voilà! A small stomachache and in a few hours, a day at the most, and everything perfect.

  For a moment she felt her whole world twisting but again managed to put on the brakes: Stop it! You’re alone. You are the heroine whom the forces of evil have ensnared. You must be strong, you have to fight alone and you-can-beat-them! “Thirty days?” She sounded strangled.

  “Yes, and you repeat it on the thirty-fifth. You must be accurate and th—”

  “And what happens then, André? Is it fast, what?”

  “For God’s sake, let me finish. She said it’s—it usually works at once. The second draft isn’t always necessary.”

  “There’s nothing I can take immediately?”

  “No. There isn’t anything like that.”

  “But this other, she said it’s successful every time?”

  “Yes.” Raiko’s answer to his same question had been, “Nine times in ten. If the medicine does not work, there are other ways.”

  “‘You mean a doctor?’”

  “‘Yes. The medicine usually works but is expensive. I must pay medicine maker before he will give it to me. He must buy herbs, do you understand …’”

  André concentrated on Angelique again. “The mama-san said it was effective—but expensive.”

  “Effective? Every time? And not dangerous?”

  “Every time and not dangerous. But expensive. She has to pay the apothecary in advance, he has to obtain fresh herbs.”

  “Oh,” she said airily, “then please pay her for me, and shortly I will repay you three times.”

  His lips went into a thin line. “I’ve already advanced twenty louis. I’m not a rich man.”

  “But what can a little medicine cost, André, such an ordinary medicine? It can’t be expensive surely?”

  “She said, for such a girl wanting such help, secret help, what does the cost matter?”

  “I agree, dear André.” Angelique brushed this problem aside with warmth and friendliness, her heart hardening against him for being so mercenary. “In thirty days I can pay whatever it is out of the allowance Malcolm has promised, and anyway I’m sure, I know you’ll be able to arrange it, a good, wise man like you. Thank you, my dear friend. Please tell her it is exactly eight days from when I should have had my period. When do you get the medicine?”

  “I already told you, the day before the thirtieth day. We can collect it or send someone for it the day before.”

  “And the—the discomfort? How long will that be?”

  André was feeling very tired, uncomfortable and now furious that he had allowed himself to become embroiled, however many the potential, permanent advantages. “She told me it depends on the girl, her age, if this has been done before. If it hasn’t it should be easy.”

  “But how many days of sickness will there be?”

  “Mon Dieu, she didn’t say and I didn’t ask her. If you have specific questions write them down and I’ll try to get you the answers. Now if you’ll excuse me …” He got up. Instantly she allowed her eyes to fill with tears. “Oh, André, thank you, I’m so sorry, you’re so kind to help me and I’m sorry to upset you,” she sobbed, and was pleased to see him melt at once.

  “Don’t cry, Angelique, I’m not upset with you, it’s not your fault, it’s … I apologize, it must be terrible for you but please don’t worry, I’ll fetch the medicine on time and help all I can, just write down the questions and in the next few days I’ll have the answers for you. Sorry, it’s … I’ve not been feeling well recently …”

  She had pretended to comfort him and, after he had left, she weighed what he had told her, looking out through the flyspecked curtains to High Street, seeing nothing.

  Thirty days? Never mind. I can live with the delay, nothing will show, she was thinking over and over, wanting to convince herself. Twenty-two more days won’t matter.

  To make sure she took out her diary, unlocked it and began counting. Then she re-counted and reached the same day. November 7th. Friday. The saint day of Saint Theodore. Who is he? I’ll light candles to him every Sunday. No need to mark the day, she thought with a shiver. Nonetheless, she put a small cross in the corner. What about Confession?

  God understands. he understands everything.

  I can wait—but what if.

  What if it doesn’t work or André gets sick or lost or killed, or the mama-san fails me, or any one of a thousand reasons?

  This gnawed at her. It obliterated her resolve. Real tears wet her cheeks. Then, suddenly, she remembered what her father had once said, years upon years ago, just before he had deserted her and her little brother, in Paris …

  “Yes, he deserted us,” she said out loud, the first time she had ever articulated that truth. “He did. Mon Dieu, from what I know now, probably that’s just as well. He would have sold us, certainly sold me long since.”

  Her father had quoted his idol, Napoleon Bonaparte: “A wise general always has a line of retreat planned, from which to launch the hammer blow of victory.”

  What is my line of retreat?

  Then something André Poncin had said weeks ago slid into her mind. She smiled, all her care vanishing.

  Phillip Tyrer was putting the final touches to the draft of Sir William’s reply to the roju in his best copperplate writing. Unlike all previous communications, Sir William was sending the original in English and a copy in Dutch, which Johann had been told to prepare.

  “
There, Johann, I’m done.” He finished the tail of the “B” of Sir William Aylesbury, K.C.B. with an intricate twirl.

  “Scheiss in meinem. Hut!” Johann beamed. “That’s the best writing I’ve ever seen. No wonder Wee Willie wants you to copy all his London dispatches.”

  “Shigata ga nai!” Tyrer said without thinking. It doesn’t matter.

  “You’re really working at it, the Japanese, eh?”

  “Yes, yes, I am, and between us, for God’s sake, don’t tell Willie, I enjoy it immensely. What do you think of his ploy?”

  Johann sighed. “With Jappos I don’t think. Me, I think Jappo mealy-mouthing has scrambled his head.”

  The message read:

  To His Excellency, Nori Anjo, Esq., Chief roju. I have your dispatch of yesterday and inform you it is rejected entirely. If you do not pay the agreed installment of the indemnity for the murder of two British soldiers on time, the amount owing will be quadrupled for every day of delay.

  I am sorry to learn you are clearly not masters of your own calendar. I will correct this for you at once. I will leave for Kyōto on my flagship with an escorting squadron, twelve days from today, docking at Osaka. Then, with a mounted escort and obligatory sixty-pound cannon of our mounted Royal Artillery for royal salutes, I and the other Ministers will proceed at once to Kyōto to seek redress for you from His young Majesty, Shogun Nobusada personally or, if he is not available, from His Imperial Highness, Emperor Komei personally, promising full royal honors with a twenty-one-cannon salute. Please inform them of our impending arrival. (signed) Her Britannic Majesty’s Minister and Ambassador, Sir William Aylesbury, K.C.B….

  “Emperor? What Emperor?” Johann said disgustedly. “There’s only the Midako, Mikado, some name like that, and he’s only a kind of minor pope without power, not like Pius the Ninth, who meddles and connives and plays politics and, like all Gottverdammt Catholics, wants us back on the stake!”

  “Come now, Johann, they’re not all bad. Now English Catholics can vote and even stand for Parliament like anyone who’s eligible.”

  “The pox on Catholics. I’m Swiss and we don’t forget.”

  “Then why are the Pope’s personal guards all Swiss?”

  “They’re Catholic mercenaries.” Johann shrugged. “Give me the rough copy of the dispatch and I’ll get to work.”

  “Sir Willie says you’re not renewing your contract.”

  “It’s time to move on and leave the field to younger and wiser.” Johann beamed suddenly. “You.”

  “That’s not funny. Please send Nakama in, I think he’s in the garden.”

  “Don’t trust that bastard. Best watch him, Phillip.”

  Tyrer wondered what Johann would say if he knew the real truth about him.

  Hiraga opened the door. “Hai, Taira-san?”

  “Ikimasho, Nakama-sensei, old chap, hai?” Let’s go, all right? Tyrer said, beaming, still marvelling at the change.

  When Hiraga had arrived at dawn this morning, gone were the dirt and rags and most of all the samurai haircut—his short hair now similar to that of almost any commoner. In his neat, starched but ordinary kimono, new sun hat hanging by its thong on his back, new tabi and thongs, he was like the son of a prosperous merchant.

  “My God, you look terrific, Nakama,” he had burst out. “That haircut suits you.”

  “Ah, Taira-san,” Hiraga had said hesitantly, with pretended humility, following the ploy he and Ori had formulated. “I think what you say me, he’rp me give up samurai, stop be samurai. Soon go back Choshu, become farmer ’rike grandfather, or in beer or saké factory.”

  “Give up samurai? Is that possible?”

  “Hai. Possib’re. P’rease not want say more, yes?”

  “All right. But it’s a wise decision, congratulations.”

  Involuntarily Hiraga ran his hand over his head, the close shorn sides and newness itching. “Soon hair grows, Taira-san, same yours.”

  “Why not?” Tyrer wore his hair, naturally wavy, almost to his shoulders. Unlike most he was fastidious about its cleanliness: a petit point had hung over his bed forever, stitched by his mother, Cleanliness is next to Godliness. “How are your bruises?”

  “I forgotten them.”

  “I have forgotten them.”

  “Ah, thank you, I have forgotten them. Some good newses, Taira-san.” Elaborately, Hiraga had told him about going to the Yoshiwara and arranging Fujiko for tonight. “She yours, o’rr night. Good, neh?”

  For a moment Tyrer had been speechless. Impulsively he wrung Hiraga’s hand. “Thank you. My dear friend, thank you.” He had sat back and pulled out his pipe and offered tobacco to Hiraga who refused, hard put not to laugh. “That’s marvelous.” Tyrer’s mind had jumped him ahead to their tryst, his heart throbbing and manhood conscious. “My God, marvelous!”

  With an effort he had put all those immediate, erotic thoughts aside to concentrate on the day’s schedule. “Have you arranged somewhere to stay in the village?”

  “Yes. P’rease we go now, yes?”

  During their walk to the Japanese quarter, always careful to keep their voices down and not speak English near any passerby, Tyrer had continued to probe Hiraga, mining diamonds, amongst them the names of the Shōgun and Emperor. At the dwelling of the shoya, he had inspected the shop and tiny drab room off it where Hiraga was supposed to be staying. Then he had brought him back to the Legation, completely pleased and reassured. “Did you notice on the street how you were hardly noticed, even by the soldiers, now that you don’t look like a samurai?”

  “Yes, Taira-san. You can he’rp me, p’rease?”

  “Anything, what?”

  “I ’rike try to wear your clothes, become more ’rike gai-jin, yes?”

  “Great idea!”

  When they got back to the Legation, Tyrer hurried to see Sir William, excitedly gave him the names of the Shōgun and Emperor. “I thought you would want to know at once, sir. Also another piece of info: I think I’ve understood correctly but he says all Japanese, even daimyos, have to get permission to visit Kyōto, where the Emperor lives.”

  “What are daimyos?”

  “That’s what they call their kings, sir. But everyone, even them, they must get permission to visit Kyōto—he says the Bakufu, which is another name for the Shōgunate, like their Civil Service, are afraid to allow free access there, to anyone.” He had tried to keep calm but the words rushed out of him. “If that’s true, and if the Shōgun’s there at present and the Emperor’s there permanently and if all power’s there—if you were to go there, sir, wouldn’t that bypass the Bakufu?”

  “An inspired leap of logic,” Sir William said kindly with a sigh of pleasure, already there, long before Tyrer had explained. “Phillip, I think I will redraft the dispatch. Come back in an hour—you’ve done very well.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Then he had told him about the “new” Nakama and new haircut. “My thought is that if we could persuade him into European clothes he would become more and more malleable—of course as he teaches me Japanese while I’m teaching him English.”

  “Very good idea, Phillip.”

  “Thank you, sir, I’ll arrange it instantly. I can have the bill sent to our shroff for payment?”

  Some of Sir William’s good humor vanished. “We have no excess funds, Phillip, and the Exchequer…Very well. But one outfit only. You’re responsible the bill’s modest.”

  Tyrer had left hastily and now that he had finished his work on the dispatch, he was going to take Hiraga to the Chinese tailor down the road.

  High Street was not crowded at this time of the day, midafternoon, most men in their countinghouses, or at siesta, or at the Club. A few drunks huddled in the lee of the wharfs, the wind still gusting. Later a football match had been arranged, Navy versus Army on their parade ground, and Tyrer was looking forward to it, but not to the meeting with Jamie McFay he had had to agree to, after the tailor’s. “He’s head of Struan’s here, Nakama-san, somehow he’d fou
nd out about you, and that you can speak some English. He’s to be trusted.”

  “So ka? Struan? The man who is to marry?”

  “Oh, the servants told you about the engagement party? No, McFay’s just their head merchant. Mr. Struan, the tai-pan, is the one who’s going to be married. That’s his building, warehouse, offices and living quarters.”

  “So ka?” Hiraga studied it. Difficult to attack or get into, he thought. Barred lower windows. “This Struan, also his woman, they stay there?”

  Tyrer’s mind leapt to Fujiko and he said absently, “Struan does, I’m not sure about her. In London, this building would be nothing compared to ordinary houses, thousands upon thousands. London’s the richest city in the world.”

  “Richer than Yedo?”

  Tyrer laughed. “Richer than twenty, fifty Yedos, how do I say that in Japanese?”

  Hiraga told him, his sharp eyes taking in everything—disbelieving about London and most of what Tyrer was telling him as lies to confuse him.

  Now they were passing the various bungalows that served as Legations, picking their way through the rubbish that was strewn everywhere. “Why different frags, p’rease?”

  Tyrer wanted to practice speaking Japanese, but every time he started, Hiraga would answer in English and at once ask another question. Even so he explained, pointing them out: “They’re Legations: that’s the Russian, the American, over there’s the French—that one’s Prussian. Prussia’s an important nation on the Continent. If I wanted to say th—”

  “Ah, so sorry, you have map of your wor’rd, p’rease?”

  “Oh, yes, I’d be glad to show it to you.”

  A detachment of soldiers approached and marched past, paying them no attention. “These men of Prush’ah,” Hiraga pronounced the word carefully, “they also war against French?”