Gai-Jin (58 page)

“Yes, sir. Excuse me, sir, can I sit down?” Tyrer asked shakily, desperate to blurt out the real truth about the man and afraid to do so.

“Of course, of course, Tyrer, so sorry, but first get another sherry and bring me a tot of gin.” Sir William watched him, delighted with him yet somehow perturbed. Years of dealing with diplomats, spies, half-truths, lies and blatant disinformation were calling up warning signals that something was being hidden from him. He accepted the drink. “Thanks. Take that chair, it’s the most comfortable. Cheers! You must be speaking very good Japanese to get all this in such a short time,” he said easily.

“No, sir, sorry, I don’t, but I spend all my time at it. With Nakama, it’s, well, mostly patience, gestures, a few English words and Japanese words and phrases André Poncin has given me, he’s been tremendously helpful, sir.”

“Does André know what this man has told you?”

“No, sir.”

“Tell him nothing. Nothing at all. Anyone else?”

“No, sir, except Jamie McFay.” Tyrer gulped his sherry. “He knew a little already and, well, he’s very persuasive and he, well, pried it out about the Shōgun.”

Sir William sighed. “Yes, Jamie’s persuasive, to say the least, and always knows far more than he tells.”

He sat back in the comfortable old leather swivel chair and sipped his drink, his mind roving over all this priceless new knowledge, already redesigning his reply to tonight’s rude missive, wondering how far he dare gamble and how far he could trust Tyrer’s information. As always in these circumstances, queasily he remembered the Permanent Under Secretary’s parting salvos about failure.

“About Nakama,” he said. “I’ll agree to your plan, Phillip … may I call you Phillip?”

Tyrer flushed with pleasure at the sudden and unexpected compliment. “Of course, sir, thank you, sir.”

“Good, thank you. For the moment I’ll agree to your plan, but for God’s sake, be careful of him, don’t forget ronin have committed all the murders, except poor Canterbury.”

“I’ll be careful, Sir William. Don’t worry.”

“Get all you can out of him but tell no one else and give me the information at once. For God’s sake, be careful, always have a revolver on hand and if he shows the slightest indication of violence, scream bloody murder, shoot him or clap him in irons.”

Next door to the British Legation was the American, then the Dutch, Russian, German and last, the French, and there, in her suite that evening, Angelique was dressing for dinner, helped by Ah Soh. In an hour, the dinner Seratard was giving her and Malcolm to celebrate their engagement was due to begin. Then later there would be music. “But don’t play too long, André, say you’re tired,” she had cautioned him earlier. “Leave plenty of time for your mission, no? Men are so lucky.”

She was glad and sad that she had moved. It’s wiser, better, she thought. In three days I can move back. A new life, a new …

“Wat wrong, Miss’ee?”

“Nothing, Ah Soh.” Angelique forced her mind away from what must soon be endured, and buried her fear deeper.

Just down the street in the best location on the waterfront, the Struan Building was well lit, as was Brock and Sons, next door, both with many clerks and shroffs still at their work. Today Malcolm Struan had moved into the tai-pan suite that was much bigger and more comfortable than the one
he had been using and now he was fighting his way into his dinner clothes. “What’s your advice, Jamie? Damned if I know what to do about Mother and her letters, but that’s my damned problem not yours—she’s giving you stick too, isn’t she?”

Jamie McFay shrugged. “It’s awfully difficult for her. From her point of view she’s right, she only wants the best for you. I think she’s worried to death over your health, you being so far away, she unable to come here. And nothing about Struan’s can be solved from Yokohama, everything in Hong Kong.
China Cloud
docks in a few days from Shanghai, then a quick turn around for Hong Kong. You’ll be returning with her?”

“No, and please don’t bring it up again,” Struan said sharply. “I’ll tell you when we, Angelique and I, are leaving. I just hope to God Mother isn’t on
China Cloud—
that’d be the last straw.” Struan bent to pull on his boots, failed, the pain too much. “Sorry, could you? Thanks.” Then he burst out, “This being like a fucking cripple is driving me over the brink.”

“I can imagine.” McFay covered his surprise. This was the first time he had ever heard Struan use that expletive. “I’d be the same, no, not the same, a bloody sight worse,” he added kindly, liking him, admiring his courage.

“I’ll be fine when we’re married and all the waiting’s over, everything tidy.” Struan with difficulty used the chamber pot, painful always, and saw a few flecks of blood in the stream. He had told Hoag about it yesterday when it had begun anew and Hoag had said not to worry. “Then why do you look so worried?”

“I’m not, Malcolm, just concerned. With these kinds of vicious internal wounds, any indication during the healing process should be noted …”

Struan finished and hobbled over to the chair by the window and sat gratefully. “Jamie, I need a favor.”

“Of course, anything, what can I do?”

“Can you, well, I must have a woman. Could you arrange it from the Yoshiwara?”

Jamie was startled. “I, yes, I imagine so.” Then he added, “Is that wise?”

A gust rattled the shutters and tugged at trees and gardens, clattering a few loose roof tiles to the ground, sending the rats scurrying from the piles of garbage thrown carelessly into the High Street and from the encircling turgid and fetid canal that also served as a sewer.

“No,” Malcolm said.

Half a mile away from the Struan Building, near Drunk Town, in a nondescript dwelling in the Japanese village, Hiraga was lying on his stomach, naked, being massaged. The house was ordinary, the facade facing the
street decrepit, a pattern of the others that lined both sides of the narrow dirt roadway, each serving as home, warehouse, and shop during the day. Inside, like many that belonged to the more substantial merchants, everything was sparkling clean, polished, cherished and expensive. It was the house of the shoya, the village elder.

The masseuse was blind. She was in her early twenties, firmly built with a gentle face and sweet smile. By ancient custom throughout most of Asia, blind people had a monopoly on the art, though there were also practitioners with normal sight. Again, by ancient custom, the blind were always quite safe and never to be touched.

“You are very strong, samurai-sama,” she said, breaking a silence. “Those you fought must be dead or suffering.”

For a moment Hiraga did not reply, enjoying the deep probing and wise fingers that sought out his knotted muscles and relaxed them. “Perhaps.”

“Please, may I suggest, I have some special oil from China that will help heal your cuts and bruises quickly?”

He smiled. This was an often-used ploy to gain extra money. “Good, use it.”

“Oh, but you smile, honored samurai! It is not a trick to get more money,” she said at once, her fingers kneading his back. “My grandmother who was also blind gave me the secret.”

“How did you know I smiled?”

She laughed and the sound reminded him of a lark sailing the dawn air currents. “A smile begins in many parts of the body. My fingers listen to you—to your muscles and even sometimes to your thoughts.”

“And what am I thinking now?”

“About
sonno-joi
. Ah, I was right!” Again the laugh that disconcerted him. “But don’t be afraid, you have said nothing, the patrons here have said nothing, I will say nothing but my fingers tell me you are a special swordsman, the best I have ever served. Clearly you’re not Bakufu, therefore you must be ronin, ronin by choice because you are a guest in this house, therefore shishi, the first we have ever had here.” She bowed. “We are honored. If I were a man I would support
sonno-joi.”

Deliberately her steel-hard fingertip pressed a nerve center and she felt the tremor of pain go through him and it pleased her that she could help him more than he knew. “So sorry, but this point is very important to rejuvenate you and keep your juices flowing.”

He grunted, the pain grinding him to the futons yet strangely pleasing. “Your grandmother was also a masseuse?”

“Yes. In my family at least one girl in every second generation is born blind. It was my turn in this lifetime.”

“Karma.”

“Yes. It is said that in China today, fathers or mothers will blind one of
their daughters so that when she grows up she will find employment for all her life.”

Hiraga had never heard this but he believed it and was incensed. “This is not China and never will be and one day we will take China and civilize her.”

“Eeee, so sorry to disturb your harmony, Lord, please excuse me, oh so sorry. Ah, that’s better, again so sorry, please excuse me. You were saying, Lord … civilize China? As Dictator Nakamura wanted to do? Is it possible?”

“Yes, one day. It is our destiny to gain the Dragon Throne, as it is your destiny to massage and not to talk.”

Again her laugh was gentle. “Yes, Lord.”

Hiraga sighed as her finger released the pressure point and left a pervading, soothing glow in place of pain. So everyone knows I’m shishi, he thought. How long before I’m betrayed? Why not? Two koku is a fortune.

Getting into this haven had not been easy. When he had strode into the quarter there was an aghast silence, for here was a samurai, a samurai without swords, looking like a wild man. The street cleared except those nearby who knelt and awaited their fate.

“You, old man, where is your nearest
ryokan—
Inn.”

“We don’t have one, Lord, there’s no need, Honored Lord,” the old shopkeeper muttered, his fear making him gabble on. “There’s no need as our Yoshiwara is nearby, bigger than most cities with dozens of places you can stay in and over a hundred girls not counting maids, three real geisha and seven trainees. It’s that way …”

“Enough! Where’s the house of the shoya?”

“There, Lord.”

“Where, fool? Get up, show me the way.”

Still enraged, he followed him down the street, wanting to smash the eyes that watched from every opening and crush the whispers in his wake.

“There, Lord.”

Hiraga waved him away. The sign outside the open shop that was filled with goods of all description but empty of people announced that this was the residence and place of business of Ichi Ryoshi, shoya, rice merchant and banker, the Yokohama agent for the Gyokoyama. The Gyokoyama was a
zaïbatsu—
meaning a closely knit family complex of businesses—immensely powerful in Yedo and Osaka as rice traders, saké and beer distillers, and all-important, bankers.

He took hold of himself. With great care and politeness he knocked, squatted on his heels and began to wait, trying to dominate the pain from the beating he had taken from the ten-man patrol. At length a strong-faced, middle-aged man came out into the open shop, knelt and bowed. Hiraga bowed back equally, introduced himself as Nakama Otami and mentioned that his grandfather was also shoya, not saying where but giving enough
information for him to know it was the truth and that, perhaps, as there was no ryokan to stay at, the shoya might have a room for paying guests that was not being used. “My grandfather also is honored to have dealings with the Gyokoyama
zaïbatsu—
his villages sell all their crops through it,” he had said politely. “In fact I would like you, please, to send my pledge to them in Osaka, and would be grateful if you would advance me some cash against it.”

“Yedo is nearer than Osaka, Otami-san.”

“Yes, but Osaka is better for me than Yedo,” Hiraga said, not wanting to risk Yedo where there could be leaks to the Bakufu. He noted the cool, unafraid appraisal and hid his hatred, but even daimyos had to be careful when dealing with the Gyokoyama or their agents, even Lord Ogama of Choshu. It was common knowledge that Ogama was heavily in debt to them, with years of future revenue already pledged as security.

“My company is honored to serve old customers. Please, how long would you wish to stay in my house?”

“A few days, if it would not inconvenience you.” Hiraga told him about Tyrer and the problem of the soldiers, only because he was sure the news had preceded him.

“You may stay at least three days, Otami-san. So sorry, but you must be prepared to leave quickly in case of a sudden raid, by day or night.”

“I understand. Thank you.”

“Please excuse me but I would like an order signed by this Taira, or better the chief of the gai-jin, ordering me to open my house to you, in case or when the Bakufu arrive here.”

“I will arrange it.” Hiraga bowed his thanks and hid his irritation at the restraints. “Thank you.”

The shoya ordered a maid to bring tea and writing materials and watched while Hiraga wrote the pledge that asked the amount be deducted from the account of Shinsaku Otami, the secret code name of his father. He signed it and sealed it with his chop, signed and sealed the receipt for Ryoshi, who agreed to advance half the amount at the usual interest of two percent per month, for the three months that would be needed to send the paper to Osaka and complete the transaction. “Do you want the money in cash?”

“No, thank you, I still have a few oban,” he said, exaggerating, down to his last two. “Please open an account for me, deduct the charges for my room and food. I need some clothes, swords, and could you please arrange a masseuse?”

“Of course, Otami-san. About clothes, the servant will show you our stock. Choose what you want. As to swords for sale”—Ryoshi shrugged—“the only ones I have are trinkets for gai-jin and hardly worth your trouble but you may see what I have. Perhaps I could obtain proper ones for you. Now I
will show you your room and your private entrance and exit—there is a guard here, by day and by night.”

Hiraga had followed him. Never once had Ryoshi commented on his nakedness or bruises or asked any questions. “You are welcome and honor my poor house,” he had said, and left him.

Remembering the way it was said suddenly made Hiraga’s skin crawl-so polite and grave but underneath so deadly. Disgusting, he thought, disgusting that we samurai are kept in poverty by corrupt daimyos and Shoguns and Bakufu and forced to borrow from these low-class
zaibatsu
who are nothing but filthy, money-grubbing merchants who act as though their money gives them power over us. By all gods, when the Emperor has regained power there’ll be a reckoning, merchants and
zaibatsu
will begin to pay ….