Gai-Jin (43 page)

He was seeing her again, looking up at him in the little house within the walls of the House of the Three Carp, a little frown on the perfect oval of her face. She was just seventeen and five feet tall.

“Hai, gomen nasai
, Furansu-san, spot, like yours, but year ’go, mine
sukoshi
, rittle,
hai
, rittle, Furansu-san,
sukoshi
, no bad, go ’way,” she said gently with her sweet smile in her usual mixture of Japanese and bits of English, her l’s always like r’s. “Hana tell mama-san. Mama-san say see doctor, he say no bad. No bad spot but because just begin pillow and I small. Doctor say pray at shrine and drink medicine, ugh! But few week all gon’way.” She added happily. “All gon’way year ago.”

“It hasn’t ‘gone away’!”

“Why anger? No worry. I pray at Shinto shrine like doctor say, pay priest many taels, I eat”—her face crinkled with her laugh—“eat nasty medicine. Few week all gone.”

“It hasn’t gone. It won’t. There’s no cure!”

She had looked at him strangely. “All gon’, you see me, my body, all, how many time,
neh,?
Of course all gon ’way.”

“For Christ sake, it hasn’t!”

Another frown, then she shrugged. “Karma,
neh?”

He had exploded. Her shock was vast and she put her head to the tatami and pitifully began to beg his pardon, “No bad, Furansu-san, gon’way, doctor say, gon’way. You see same doctor soon, all go’way…. ”

Outside their shoji walls he could hear footsteps and whispers. “You have to see the English doctor!” His heart was thundering in his ears and he was trying to speak coherently, knowing that going to a doctor, any doctor, was useless and that though sometimes the ravages could be arrested, perhaps, as sure as the sun would dawn tomorrow, the ravages would one day arrive in force. “Don’t you understand?” he had shrieked.
“There’s no cure!”

She just stayed bowed, shaking like a brutalized puppy, saying monotonously, “No bad, Furansu-san, no bad, all go’way …”

He dragged himself back and looked again at Seratard. “When I questioned her about it she said she had been cured, a year ago. She believed it, of course she believed she was cured. Me, oh yes, I was screaming and asked her why she hadn’t told Raiko-san and she mumbled something about, What was there to tell, the doctor said it was nothing and her mama-san would have told Raiko-san if it had been important.”

“But this is terrible, André. Did Babcott see her?”

“No.” Another swallow of brandy but he felt none of its customary bite, then said in a rush, desperate to tell someone at last, “Babcott told me the pox … he told me an early poxed woman can appear to be without blemish in every way, that she won’t always pass it on, not every time you bed, God knows why, but it’s inevitable she will sometime if you continue with her and once a sore appears you’re lost, though after a month or so the sore or sores go away and you think you’re safe but you’re not!” Now the vein in the center of André’s forehead was knotted and pulsating. “Weeks or months later there’s a rash, this’s the second stage. It’s strong or weak depending on only God knows what and sometimes brings hepatitis or meningitis and stays or goes away, the rash, depending on Christ knows what. The last stage, the horror stage, appears anytime—anytime—months up to … up to thirty years later.”

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 ….”

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.