Gai-Jin

  With a generous patron for a year or two I could quickly pay off my debts, and life would be much better than having to take whatever client was available, she thought, then contentedly abandoned the present as she always tried to do when with a client, projecting herself into the future where she lived happily with her rich farmer husband and four or five sons. She could see their farmhouse amid their many rice fields, abundant with green shoots of winter or spring plantings, promising another rich harvest, her mother-in-law kind and pleased with her, a bullock or two tethered to a plow, flowers in the little garden and …

  “Ah, Fujiko. Thank you, you are wonderful!”

  She nestled closer and said how strong and manly he was.

  “What?” he asked sleepily. One of her hands answered intimately and he twisted. “No, Fujiko, please, first sleep. No … please, later …”

  “Ah, but a strong man like you …” she murmured, hid her boredom, and continued dutifully.

  * * *

  Ori yawned and took his eye away from the spy hole. “I’ve seen enough,” he whispered. “Shocking.”

  “I agree.” Hiraga kept his voice down too. “Terrible. Fujiko’s performance was the worst I’ve ever seen. Baka!”

  “If I was Taira I would demand my money back.”

  “I agree. Baka! She won’t have him ready for hours and as for him … only First Position once and talk about urgency! Ten thrusts and poof, Over the Moon like a duck.”

  Ori had to hold his hand over his mouth to stop the laughter, then carefully he stuck little pieces of paper to cover the holes they had made in the far corner of the shoji screen. Together they slipped away into the bushes, through the secret gate in the fence, and thence to Ori’s dwelling.

  “Saké!”

  Half asleep the maid set the tray in front of them, poured and shuffled away, still finding it difficult not to stare at their heads. They toasted each other and refilled the cups, the room small and pleasant, candle-lit, with bed futons already made up in the adjoining room. Swords were on low lacquer racks—Raiko had bent the Yoshiwara rule forbidding weapons within the walls because they were shishi, because of Hiraga’s portrait and because both had sworn by sonno-joi not to use the weapons against anyone in the House, or any guest, and only in defense.

  “I cannot believe Taira was taken in by her faked Moment with the Gods, Hiraga, one after another like that! Her acting was terrible. Is he that stupid?”

  “Obviously.” Hiraga laughed and rubbed the back and sides of his head vigorously. “Eeee, with that sized weapon he should have really made her squeal—are all gai-jin built like that?”

  “Who cares—in his case it is wasted.”

  “No finesse, Ori! Perhaps I should get him a pillow book like a virgin bride, eh?”

  “Better we kill him and them and fire the Settlement.”

  “Be patient, we will, there is plenty of time.”

  “He is a perfect target, it is another perfect opportunity,” Ori said, an edge creeping into his voice.

  Hiraga watched him, all warmth gone of a sudden. “Yes, but not now, he’s too important.”

  “You said yourself if we could infuriate them enough they’d bombard Yedo and that would be wonderful for our cause.”

  “Yes, you are right, but we have time.” Hiraga showed none of his concern, appeasing him, wanting him controlled. “Taira is answering all my questions. For instance, no one told us gai-jin fight each other like wild dogs, worse than daimyos before Toranaga—the Dutch hid that from us, eh?”

  “They are all liars and barbarians.”

  “Yes, but there must be hundreds of bits of information like that, that will unlock the way to play them, and dominate them. We must learn everything, Ori, and then, when we’re part of the new Bakufu, we will set German against Russian against Frenchman against Ing’erish against American …”

  Hiraga shivered, remembering the little Tyrer had told him about that civil war, the battles and casualties, all the modern weapons and hundreds of thousands of armed men involved, and the unbelievable vastness of the gai-jin lands. “This evening he said the Inger’ish Navy rules the world oceans, that by their law is twice as big as the next two navies combined, with hundreds of men-o’-war, thousands of cannon.”

  “Lies. Exaggeration to frighten you. He and all of them want us cowed, you as much as any. He wants our secrets too!”

  “I only give him what I think he should know.” Hiraga belched irritably. “Ori, we’ve got to learn about them! These dogs have conquered most of the world—humbled China and burned Peking, and this year the French became overlords of Cochin-China and are set to colonize Cambodia.”

  “Yes, but the French played native prince against native prince like the British in India. This is Japan. We’re different—this is the Land of the Gods. With all the cannon in the world they will never conquer us.” Ori’s face twisted strangely. “Even if they seduce some daimyos to their side, even then, the rest of us will slaughter them.”

  “Not without cannon and knowledge.”

  “Without cannon, yes, Hiraga-san.”

  Hiraga shrugged and poured for both of them. There were many shishi who shared Ori’s zeal—and had forgotten Sun-tzu: Know your enemy as you know yourself and you will win a hundred battles. “I hope you are right, meanwhile I will find out as much as I can. Tomorrow he promised to let me look at a map of the world—he called it an ‘at’ras.’”

  “How do you know it will not be false, made up?”

  “That is not likely, not falsifying one. Perhaps I could even get a copy, we could have it translated—and some of their schoolbooks.” Hiraga’s excitement picked up. “Taira said they have new skills in counting, taught in ordinary schools, and astronomy measurers called ’rong-tit-tude, ’ra-tit-ude,” Hiraga pronounced the English words with difficulty, “that somehow guide them with fantastic accuracy on the oceans, a thousand ri from land. Baka that I know so little! Baka that I cannot read English!”

  “You will,” Ori said. “I never will. You will be part of our new government—I never will.”

  “Why say that?”

  “I worship sonno-joi, I have already thought of my death poem, and spoken it. I told it to Shorin, the night of the attack. Baka that he got himself killed too soon.” Ori drained his cup and poured the last drops and ordered a new flask. He looked at Hiraga narrowly. “I heard your Lord Ogama will pardon any Choshu shishi who publicly forswears sonno-joi.”

  Hiraga nodded. “My father wrote to me about that. It means nothing to us—to Choshu shishi.”

  “There is a rumor that Ogama controls the Gates, excluding everyone else—even that there’s new fighting between his troops and Satsumas.”

  “Many daimyos are misguided, from time to time,” Hiraga said levelly, not liking the way the conversation was going, noticing that, in his cups, Ori was ever more quarrelsome. Tonight Raiko had again warned him that Ori was a smoking volcano. “We all agreed long ago not to be bound by the deeds or misdeeds of our hereditary leaders.”

  “If Ogama holds the Gates he could give back power to the Emperor and make sonno-joi a fact.”

  “Perhaps he will, perhaps he has already.”

  Ori drained the cup. “I will be glad to leave Yokohama. Poison is in the air. Better you come to Kyōto with me. This nest of liars may infect you.”

  “You will be safer on the road to Kyōto without me. Even without my hair I could be recognized.”

  A sudden gust tugged at the roof thatch and rattled a half-opened shutter. They glanced at it momentarily, then went back to drinking. The saké had loosened them but had not dispelled the undercurrents, thoughts of death and the net tightening around them, or of the planned ambush of Shōgun Nobusada, of Shorin and Sumomo, and most of all, what about the gai-jin girl? Hiraga had not yet mentioned her nor had Ori yet asked about her but both were waiting, both circling this central issue, both impatient and still undecided.

  Ori broke the silence. “When
Akimoto arrives tomorrow how much are you going to tell him?”

  “Everything we know. He will travel to Kyōto with you.”

  “No, better he stays, you will need a fighter here.”

  “Why?”

  Again Ori shrugged. “Two are better than one. Now,” he said flatly, “tell me where she is.”

  Hiraga described the place. Exactly. “There were no bars on the windows or side door I could see.” All day he had been wondering what to do about Ori—if Ori broke into the house and killed her, whether he lived or died, the whole Settlement would be in an uproar and their venom would first turn on every Japanese within reach. “I agree she is a correct target for sonno-joi but not yet, not while I am accepted by them and learning so many of their secrets.”

  “Such a perfect target should be dealt with at once. Katsumata said to hesitate is to lose. We can get those secrets out of books.”

  “I have already said: I do not agree.”

  “At the same time I kill her we fire the Yoshiwara and thus the Settlement, the three of us, and retreat in the confusion. We do it two days from now.”

  “No.”

  “I say yes! Two or three days, no more!”

  Hiraga thought about that, and Ori, very carefully. Icily. Then again he decided: “It-is-forbidden.”

  The finality of the words washed over Ori. For the second time in as few days. Both times over her.

  No sound in the room now. Both impassive. Outside they could hear the wind. It had dropped a little. From time to time it crackled the shoji’s oiled paper. Ori sipped, seething, implacably committed but showing none of it, knowing that if both his arms were as strong as before and he was as agile as before, he would be readying to dive for his sword to fend off the attack that, unless he surrendered, was inevitable.

  Never mind. In a direct fight, even if I were totally fit, Hiraga would always beat me to the first cut. Therefore he must be removed from my path in another way.

  With a will to match the new enemy who was determined to thwart him, Ori vowed he would not be the first to break the silence and so lose face. Pressure between them soared. In seconds it became unbearable, now cresting …

  Running footsteps. The shoji slid back. Raiko was chalky. “Bakufu Enforcer patrols are on the bridge and at the Gate. You must leave. Hurry!”

  Both were aghast, all else forgotten. They went for their swords. “Will they come into the Yoshiwara?” Ori asked.

  “Yes, in twos and threes, they have before, avoiding gai-jin but not us.” Her voice trembled like her hands.

  “Is there a safe way out through the paddy?”

  “Everywhere and nowhere, Ori,” Hiraga said for her, having examined that as a possible escape route yesterday. “The land’s flat with no cover for a ri. If they’re blocking the Gate and the bridge they’ll be there too.”

  “What about the gai-jin area, Raiko?”

  “The Settlement? They’ve never gone there. You mus—” She whirled, even more frightened. Both men jerked their swords half out, while a white-faced maid rushed up. “They are in the lane, making a house-to-house search,” she whimpered.

  “Warn the others.”

  The girl fled. Hiraga tried to get his brain working. “Raiko, where is your safe place, your secret cellar?”

  “We have none,” she said, wringing her hands.

  “There must be one somewhere.”

  Abruptly Ori snaked over to her and she backed off, terrified. “Where’s the secret way into the Settlement? Quick!”

  Raiko almost fainted as he shifted his grip on his sword hilt and though not actually menaced, she knew she was near death. “I … into the Settlement? I—I’m not sure but—but years ago I was—was told … I’d forgotten,” she said, trembling. “I’m not sure, but—but please follow quietly.”

  They stayed close to her, going deep in the bushes, careless of the branches that fought to prevent their passage, the moon still good and high between scudding clouds, the wind tugging at them. When she reached a hidden part of the fence between her Inn and the next, she pressed a knot in the wood. A section creaked open, the wooden hinges grimed and unused.

  Without disturbing the carousers, she crossed this garden to the far side, through a gate into another garden and around the back, past the low, bricked, fireproof structure that served as a safe for valuables, to where the large water tanks, or wells were—the tanks part filled by rainwater, part by daily lines of water coolies.

  Panting, she motioned at the wooden cover over a well. “I think … I think it is there.”

  Hiraga eased the cover aside. Crude, rusty iron bars as footholds and handholds were hammered into the mud brick walls, no sign of water below. Still frightened she whispered, “I was told it leads to a tunnel…. I am not sure but I was told it goes under the canal but where it comes out I do not know. I had forgotten about it…. I must get back…. ”

  “Wait!” Ori stepped in her way, picked up a stone and dropped it into the well. A loud plop as it hit water far below. “Who made this?”

  “Bakufu, I was told, when they built the Settlement.”

  “Who told you about it?”

  “One of the manservants—I forget who, but he had seen them …” They all looked over towards the main street. Angry voices there. “I have to get back …” She vanished the way she had come.

  Uneasily they peered below. “If the Bakufu built it, Ori, it could be a trap, for people like us.”

  From one of the nearby houses the sound of voices cursing in English: “What the hell d’you want … push off!”

  Ori stuck his long sword in his belt. Awkwardly because of his shoulder, he slid over the lip and began to descend. Hiraga followed, replacing the cover.

  The blackness seemed ever more black, then Ori’s feet hit earth again. “Careful, I think it is a ledge.” His voice was strangled and echoed eerily.

  Hiraga groped down beside him. In his sleeve pocket were some safety matches and he scraped one alight.

  “Eeee,” Ori said excitedly, “where did you get that?”

  “They have them everywhere in the Legation—those dogs are so rich they just leave them around. Taira said to help myself. Look there!” In the last of the match they saw the mouth of the tunnel. It was dry and the height of a man. Water filled the well ten feet below them. In a niche was an old candle. It took Hiraga three matches to light it. “Come on.”

  The tunnel sloped downwards. After fifty paces or so it became wet, the floor puddled and awash in parts. Fetid water seeped down from the roughly shored roof and sides, the wood rotting and unsafe. As they went onwards the air became more rancid, breathing difficult. “We can wait here, Ori.”

  “No, go on.”

  They were sweating, in part from fear, in part from the closeness. The flame guttered and went out. Cursing, Hiraga lit it and cupped the flame, not much of the wick left or of the candle. He waded onwards, the water level rising. Still the roof sloped downwards, now the water to their hips. Ori slipped but regained his footing. Another twenty or thirty paces. Water still rising. Now to their waists, the roof not far above their heads. On wards. Candle weakening. On again.

  Hiraga was watching the candle, cursing. “Better we go back and wait in the dry part.”

  “No, go on until the candle goes out.”

  Ahead the tunnel curled into the blackness, the roof lowering to not far above the water. Nauseated, Hiraga waded forward again, the bottom slippery. More paces. The roof pressed against his head. More, and now the roof rose slightly. “Water level is going down,” he said, sick with relief, wading faster, the murk stinking. Around the bend, roof higher now. Onwards. Just before the candle spluttered and died they saw dry earth and the tunnel end, a shaft leading up, another down.

  Hiraga groped forward, unable to see anything. “Ori, now I am at the edge. Listen, I will toss a stone down into it.” The stone took seconds and seconds ricocheting before it plopped dully. “Eeee, it must go down a hundred
feet or more,” he said, his stomach heaving.

  “Light another match.”

  “I have only three left.” Hiraga lit one. They could see rusty, precarious footholds leading upwards, nothing more. “How did you know Raiko knew about this?”

  “It was a sudden thought. There had to be a tunnel—I would have built one if I had been them.” Ori’s voice was hoarse, heavy breathing. “They could be up there, in ambush. They will shove us back, or we will have to jump.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hurry up, I hate it here. Climb!”

  Equally uncomfortable, Hiraga eased his long sword in his belt. Ori backed nervously, gripping his sword hilt. Abruptly the two men faced each other, near safety perhaps, but nothing solved between them.

  The match guttered and went out.

  In the blackness they could no longer see each other. Without thinking each had at once retreated against the tunnel wall away from the lip. Hiraga, more battle cunning, dropping to one knee, his hand on his hilt ready to slash the legs from under Ori if he attacked, listening intently for a sword sliding from its sheath.

  “Hiraga!” Ori’s voice rasped out of the black, well out of range, further away down the tunnel. “I want her dead. I will go after her—for sonno-joi and me. You want to stay. Solve the problem.”

  Silently Hiraga stood. “You solve it,” he hissed, and at once, soundlessly, changed positions.

  “I cannot. I cannot solve it, I have tried.”

  Hiraga hesitated, expecting a trick. “First put your swords down.”

  “And then?”

  “Next: because she obsesses you above sonno-joi, you will not be armed near me in Yokohama, you will leave for Kyōto tomorrow and tell Katsumata, he is your Satsuma leader. When you return we will do it, everything as you said.”