Commodore Perry's Minstrel Show (19 page)

“There is a runner!” she cried. “A message! My sister is coming with news! We can expect her tonight!”

News? thought Lord Okubo.

His right fist was shaking, the tip of his knife making little nicks in his flesh, nibbling at it like the sharp tooth of a hungry dog, but instead of speaking the number and ending his life, Lord Okubo willed his fist to ease away again, to open up and release the knife so that he could use that hand to cup his ear and better hear what Fumiko said. News of any kind must mean news of Manjiro.

Lord Okubo got up and hurried over to the door to close it, lest the castle's biggest secret be relinquished without the central prize of his golden corpse inside. He returned the knife to its box, next to its unhoned sister, and adjusted the whetting stone so that the box's lid would close. He blew out the lamp and crossed the room to put away the knives and before he reopened the door he blew out the candle.

Oh, his heart was lighter than it had been.

“What news? What news?” he said.

21
.
“Kambei”

MASAKO HEARD
the crier, too, but stayed in the forest until the activity of her aunt's arrival let her slip out of hiding, joining the others unnoticed. Tsune's entourage was small, just the one palanquin with her inside of it, a couple of attending samurai and six exhausted bearers, the last of those who had relayed her down from Edo. When they came under the castle gate Lord Okubo received the samurai greeting, in the name of Lord Tokugawa, while Fumiko and Keiko rushed over to the palanquin to help Tsune get out.

“Are you well my sister?” asked Fumiko. “Was the trip not overly tiring?

To Masako her aunt looked both well and rested, while her mother and Keiko looked awful, as if they were the ones who'd endured the horrible ride.

“I'm fine but am I welcome?” Tsune answered. “I would have come straight down yesterday had I been sure.”

Fumiko opened her mouth and closed it again, while Einosuke looked away, back toward the thin perimeter of the new garden he had started. Lord Okubo waited until a servant took Tsune's samurai off to feed them before their return journey, but once they were alone he asked the question that was on everyone's mind. “What word have you of Manjiro?”

It was so direct, so much without the usual delays, that it made Tsune pause. The lord, however, had not put his suicide on hold merely to pay attention to form. Already such vacillation had done irreparable harm.

“I have some news, my lord,” said Tsune. “I wish I knew everything but Edo is in confusion now. So many opinions to listen to. People are taking sides.”

“Let's have some tea,” he said, “or if it's late enough for dinner let's have that. Tell me everything slowly if you must, but you must tell me everything.”

Inside the castle O-bata was waiting to lead the bearer of Tsune's trunk up to the family quarters, but Lord Okubo impatiently ordered tea brought to a main room on the first floor. None of them liked this room, which was typically reserved for audiences with petitioners and representatives from Edo, but at the lord's insistence they arranged themselves on cushions on the floor.

“Now,” he said, “speak clearly. Don't worry about Edo's confusion, so long as it is not your own.”

Tsune understood she would not be allowed a respite, but rested her lips against the rim of her teacup, taking a short one anyway, while deciding how to proceed with the story she had to tell.

“First, there has been a surprise of sorts, a groundswell of support for Manjiro among merchants, and, to some degree, among the peasant class,” she said. “There is a division of opinion among court ladies and lower-ranking bureaucrats, and even among some members of the Great Council. The gist of their talk is that Lord Abe went too far, that he should not have brought the foreigners ashore without a consensus. They are charging him with arrogance, calling for his censure once again, and, as the story of what Manjiro did leaks out, some people are beginning to see his motives as selfless, based upon the old ideas of moral integrity and right action. They are casting him as a hero, and Keiki, always the clever one, has ordered some very inventive posters made depicting Manjiro as someone like the Kambei of old. The posters are everywhere in Edo, the absolute talk of the town.”

She turned to her sister. “You remember the Kambei stories, don't you? We used to hear of his daring exploits when we were children.”

Lord Okubo stared at her uncomprehendingly, and Fumiko leaned her weight against Keiko, unable to grasp what she had been told. Only Einosuke answered, and he barked out a terrible laugh.

“Kambei!” he said. “Oh, that's just wonderful! I don't know much anymore, but I don't think what we need just now is another titillation, another such as Kambei with irresponsible Manjiro at its center! Keiki started such a thing, you say?”

No one was entirely sure whether he had ever truly lived or not, but Kambei was indeed a famous folk hero, a
ronin
or masterless samurai from the sixteenth century, a man of great character and forbearance, who gave up everything in order to fight for the peasantry of a particular village, against a gang of bandits. There were drawings of Kambei in children's books, occasional references to him in Great Council speeches, and he was the hero of several Kabuki plays.

“Not so fast,” Lord Okubo told Einosuke. He could feel the scratches that the knife blade had made on his belly and adjusted himself on his cushion, to make himself more comfortable. Tsune was sitting in that direction, so he appeared to be focusing entirely on her, and scolding his elder son for his outburst.

“Tell us what else you know, my dear,” he said.

“At first I was incredulous, too,” said Tsune. “You will perhaps remember that on the evening that the American musicians came ashore, on the night Lord Abe and Lord Tokugawa had their now infamous meeting at that geisha house, I was not at home with you, but had gone to spend the evening with Keiki, who had said he might leave Edo early. When I got to the hunting lodge, however, Keiki wasn't there for he had accompanied his father.”

Tsune looked at Lord Okubo steadily, but felt her own duplicity. It was true enough that Keiki had mentioned leaving Edo early, but she had not expected to find him at the hunting lodge that night. Rather, she had gone there expressly to see her former lover, Kyuzo, and to discover what he had thought of Manjiro.

“Because it was too late to travel back across Edo I stayed at the hunting lodge that night,” she continued. “I was tired from all the recent intrigue and slept soundly in one of the inner rooms, completely unaware of what might be happening outside. I didn't hear Lord Tokugawa and Keiki return from the geisha house, nor, several hours after that, did I know of the arrival of Manjiro and the two Americans musicians, out in the bamboo grove, at Lord Tokugawa's Pavilion of Timelessness.”

“So that's what happened!” said Lord Okubo, slapping his knee. “Instead of following Lord Abe's orders, Manjiro took the Americans to Lord Tokugawa. Not to his actual hunting lodge, which would put Lord Tokugawa in an awkward position, but to the pavilion in its garden.”

“Yes,” said Tsune. “It is I who introduced Manjiro to the Pavilion of Timelessness, I'm afraid. I remember telling him that I felt it to be detached from Lord Tokugawa's aura of power, that I liked it because it had a kind of separate integrity. I'm sure he thought that if he remained only there, then welcome or not, Lord Tokugawa's name would not be sullied.”

When Einosuke heard that he scoffed even more emphatically than he had the first time. “Are you saying that Manjiro took the Americans on a whim, on the spur of the moment, all on his own, and not because Lord Tokugawa instructed him to do so earlier that evening? Are you saying that upon leaving the geisha house my brother knew only that he would disobey Lord Abe, but otherwise had no idea what he would do with the two musicians?”

The truth was that Manjiro had not known even that much, Einosuke understood it even as he spoke. It was quite like Manjiro and it made him angry all over again.

“They arrived late but got up early,” Tsune said. “I was finally awakened by the extreme commotion.”

As Lord Okubo listened he was glad he hadn't killed himself but doubly sure he would have to do it all again later on. Kambei indeed! Einosuke was right about that, how ridiculous! Kambei was a military strategist of the first order and in each of the stories about him one thing was always certain; however great the odds against him, however impossible his task, long before he made his move, Kambei had a plan.

Lord Okubo looked at Einosuke and then at Tsune. “It isn't every day that a man wakes up to find foreigners in his teahouse,” he said. “Lord Tokugawa must have been surprised.”

Tsune bowed in acknowledgment of that surprise, though it was she who'd had the most of it. It had been her intention to get up early that day and ask Lord Tokugawa to proceed with the marriage arrangements concerning herself and Manjiro. She had prepared for it the night before, talking the whole thing over with Kyuzo. Imagine her amazement, then, when she found the four of them—Keiki, Lord Tokugawa, Kyuzo and Manjiro himself—all sitting together in the courtyard in the morning.

“How was Manjiro's demeanor?” Fumiko asked. “Was he excited or calm, glum or cheerful? Did he seem beside himself or was he resolute and thoughtful? What was the demeanor of the American who made me cry that day? Was he worried for his life, or calm?”

Fumiko believed that in the end the answer to the first of her questions would be important to both her husband and father-in-law, so she persisted though both men clearly disliked the interruption now. She was chagrined to understand that she had asked the last of her questions for herself.

“Manjiro was quite calm,” said her sister, “and he answered Lord Tokugawa's inquiries with the utmost seriousness. I have always admired Manjiro, as you know, but he was at his best that morning. I don't mean to belabor the point, but he was gallant and Kambei truly did come to mind.”

Tsune let her voice drop, feeling something move inside her when she listened to the words she herself was uttering. She had resolved to marry Manjiro for reasons that still seemed sound—because she might as well have him if she couldn't have Kyuzo—but now, as she described his conduct, another reason came to her, unbidden yet fully realized. She could be happy with Manjiro. She could love him with the largeness of her heart, not merely with her mind and her sense of practicality. She looked at the others and began to cry.

“We know you are tired,” said Lord Okubo, “but you can't stop now. We have waited, knowing nothing, for four long days. Skip to the end if you must, but tell us how things sit with my youngest son now? What's going to happen next and how is he going to survive the scandal?”

“What he intends to do is simple,” Tsune said. “Perry knows nothing of what has happened to his musicians and, indeed, has just set sail for Shimoda. Manjiro intends to do a similar sailing, only overland, with his own unfortunate cargo. And once in Shimoda he will return the Americans to the fleet from which they came. That's all, but to that end he is intractable.”

“Oh, who taught him to act like this?” Einosuke moaned.

Tsune glanced at him and then looked down. “There is more, my brother-in-law,” she said. “It's difficult to tell, but I think you should hear it all.”

“We know Lord Abe's opinion only too well,” said Einosuke.

“Yes,” she asked, “but do you know his henchman, the shadowy character who always seems to stand by his side?”

Einosuke and his father both nodded as the specter of Ueno appeared in their minds. Lord Okubo, who resided above Ueno in the circle of power, thought him humorless and dull, while Einosuke remembered the violent verbal attack on him recently in the castle garden.

“Well it is he,” said Tsune, “with a group of masterless hirelings, who is going after Manjiro. He has pretended to resign his post with Lord Abe because the Great Council, unlikely as it may seem, really has censured the lord at least insofar as to not let him use the Shoguns troops. So while Lord Abe fights his political battles, Ueno has formed a small private army, with revenge and punishment as his primary goals. They are currently scouring Edo, tearing down Keiki's Kambei posters as they find them. There is little doubt that they will soon come down here, however, toward Odawara and Shimoda.”

They were quiet again. It hadn't occurred to any of them that Lord Abe might actually send soldiers after Manjiro, and it hadn't occurred to them, either, that Manjiro would try to return the Americans to Perry in Shimoda. Nor, of course, had they thought that the Great Council would find the courage to take Lord Abe to task. It did occur to more than one of them that if Manjiro had only waited, if caprice had not once more alighted on his shoulder, Lord Abe's demotion might have made it possible to return the Americans to their ships right there in Edo Bay, with no harm done to anyone.

“We have to do something to help him,” said Keiko. It was the first time she had spoken since her aunt arrived.

“We do, indeed, my dear,” said Tsune, “and luckily there is already someone with him who can help greatly. His name is Kyuzo. He was in Lord Tokugawa's employ until yesterday but resigned his post in earnest, so that his actions would not cast a bad light on Lord Tokugawa. He has made it his business to act as Manjiro's protector, to see that he succeeds in his endeavors, and that he stays safe.”

It made her heart ache to say such things but she kept her voice even, unencumbered by the tumult of her emotions. She had promised Kyuzo she would say less than she had already said. His face came to her mind's eye, but she sent it away.

The dirt of the long trip insisted itself upon her then, riding up out of her pores to streak across her body. She squeezed her nieces' hands and leaned against her sister until they got the message and stood up.