Gai-Jin (113 page)

“I could meet at Sir William’s. What time?”

“Noon?”

“Good. What’s it about?”

“Don’t know,” Marlowe said. “I’ll bet it’s not to pass the time of day.”
Ever since Admiral Ketterer had returned from the engagement at Mirs Bay and Hong Kong he had been seething about adverse and critical reports in the papers, and was still furious that British-made cannon had fired on his ships. “I don’t think he took kindly to some of the more rude remarks at the meeting today.”

“Tough,” Malcolm had said, and laughed, still intoxicated with Gornt’s information.

Marlowe had laughed too. “For God’s sake, don’t say that on his quarterdeck, the whole ship would blow up! By the way, my trials are approved, Monday or Tuesday, weather permitting. Which would be best for you both?”

“How long would we be out?”

“Leave at dawn, or thereabouts, back latest by sunset.”

“Tuesday.”

A coal fell out of the fire onto the hearth but safely. He nudged it under the basket with the poker and stirred the embers. The blue-greened orange flames rose a little and died down again, making pictures for him. Positive pictures. About him and about her. He looked at their adjoining door. No sound ever came through it.

Gornt’s the key to Tess.

Ironic that he needs me as I need him and we are enemies. I’ve a feeling we always will be. What’s his price? It will be something I can deliver. He’s wise enough to do that. Why are you so sure? Revenge is too strong a motive, I know.

In the Inn of the Lily, Phillip Tyrer was being massaged by a muscular Japanese woman with massive arms, her fingers of steel finding the pressure points, and she played them like a keyboard to his groans of pleasure. This House was not as delicate, or as expensive, as the Three Carp but the massage was the best he had ever had and took his mind off Fujiko and Nakama and André Poncin, and Sir William, who had been furious all morning, culminating at noon when the raging venom from the Club almost blew the roofs off Yokohama.

“As if it’s my fault Parliament’s gone mad,” Sir William had shouted at the lunch table, the Admiral equally furious. “Is it, Phillip?”

“Of course not, Sir William,” he had said, co-opted to the lunch against his wishes, the General the third guest.

“Parliament’s always been arbitrary and stupid! Why the devil don’t they let the Foreign Office run the colonies and have done with all the heartache? As for the shower called traders here, enough to make you spit blood.”

The Admiral had growled, “Fifty lashes with a cat-o’-nine-tails would
make them toe the line, by God! Every man jack of them, especially journalists. Rotters, all of them.”

The General had said smugly, still smarting from the dressing-down Sir William had given him over the riot, “What can you do, my dear Sir William, except take it like a man? And Admiral, old chap, you were really asking for it by making public political statements. First rule for Flag Rank or general’s stars I always thought was to keep the old head down, be circumspect with public orations and suffer in silence.”

Admiral Ketterer’s neck went purple. Sir William managed to interrupt the next broadside with: “Phillip, I’m sure you have an abundance of work to do, for God’s sake get the correspondence copied and the complaint to the Bakufu must go off today!”

He had escaped thankfully. Nakama had greeted him affably, “Ah, Taira-sama, I hope you better feeling. Mama-san Raiko ask me ask how hea’rth is, as you not keep appointment with Fujiko who is tears … who was in tears and—”

“My health is fine. Last night I—I had a very pleasant time in the Inn of the Lily,” he had said, astounded André’s predictions had been so accurate. “Fujiko? I’m having second thoughts about her contract, yes, by God, second thoughts!” He had been delighted to see Nakama blink and was even more pleased that he could use his fright over Sir William’s spleen during the morning and at lunch to act out André’s plan.

“But Taira-sama, I th—”

“And we’re not speaking English anymore today and no more questions about business. You can talk to Noble House McFay-sama and that’s the end of that …”

He groaned aloud as the masseuse probed deeply. Her fingers stopped at once.
“Iyé, dozo …”
No, please don’t stop, he said in Japanese and the woman laughed, and replied,
“Don’t worry, Lord, by the time I have dealt with this pallid, out-of-strength fishlike body of yours, you’ll be ready for three of the best Lilies in the House.”

He thanked her dully, not understanding but not caring. After three hours with Nakama in Japanese, and fielding more of the man’s remarks about Raiko and her Inn—just as André had forecast—his head was spinning.

In time the woman began the soothing touches with knowing hands, fragrant with oil and she finished, wrapped him in a warm towel and left. He drifted off but woke as the shoji slid open and a girl came in and knelt beside him. She smiled and he smiled back and told her he was tired and please would she just sit there until he woke up, again following André’s instructions. The girl nodded and smiled and was quite content. She would get her fee anyway.

André’s a genius, he thought, equally contented, and went happily to sleep.

Tonight was the second time that André went to visit Hinodeh. It was exactly ten days and twenty-two hours and seven minutes ago that he had beheld her in all her glory, the night imprinted on him forever.

“Good evening, Furansu-san,” she had said shyly, her Japanese melodious. Their anteroom was off their small veranda and their house set in the gardens of the Three Carp, fragrant as she was fragrant. Her kimono’s golds and browns of winter moved gracefully as she bowed and motioned to the cushion opposite. Behind her the shoji to their bedroom was ajar, just enough to see the edges of the futons and coverings that would be their first bed. “The saké is as I was told you would like it. Cool. Do you always drink saké cool?”

“Yes, yes, I—I like taste more g-good.” He found himself stuttering, his Japanese harsh-sounding, his hands seemed to be in the way, and his palms were sweating.

She smiled. “Strange to drink cold drinks in winter. Is your heart cold in winter and summer?”

“Eeee, Hinodeh,” he said, the pulse pounding in his ears and throat. “I think my heart like stone for so long now, think about you, not know if hot or cold or what. You beautiful.”

“It is only for your pleasure.”

“Raiko-san told you about me, yes?”

Her eyes were slanting and calm in the white of her face, brows plucked with half-moons painted in their place, high forehead, widow’s peak, raven hair piled high and pinned with tortoiseshell combs that he longed to loosen. “What Raiko-san has told me I have forgotten. What you told me before the signing is accepted and forgotten. Tonight we begin. We meet for the first time. You must tell me about you, everything you want me to know.” Her eyes picked up a light and crinkled with amusement. “There will be time enough, yes?”

“Yes, please. Forever, I hope.”

After all the contract terms had been agreed over days and had been set down and read and reread and put in simple terms that he could understand, he was ready to sign in front of her and Raiko. He had summoned all his courage: “Hinodeh, please excuse, but must say, must tell truth. The bad.”

“Please, there is no need, Raiko-san has told me.”

“Yes, but, but please excuse me …” The words came haltingly, even though he had rehearsed them a dozen times, new waves of nausea washing
through him. “Must tell one time: I caught bad disease from my mistress, Hana. No cure possible, so sorry. None. You will, must catch if … if, must catch if become consort, so sorry.” The unseen sky had seemed to fly apart for him as he waited.

“Yes, I understand and accept that and I have had written in my contract that I absolve you of any blame, concerning us, any blame, you understand?”

“Ah, blame, yes, understand blame. Thank you an—”

He had had to excuse himself and rushed out and was violently sick, sicker than he had even been in his life, sicker than when he discovered that he had caught it, or after he found Hana dead. When he came back he did not apologize, nor would an apology be expected. The women understood.

“Before I sign, Furansu-san,” she had said, “as you had importances, it is important to me to ask if you promise to give me the knife or poison as agreed in the contract?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Both important things need not be mentioned, or talked about again. You agree, please?”

“Yes,” he had said, blessing her.

“Then it is done. There, I have signed, please to sign, Furansu-san, and Raiko-san is our witness. Raiko-san says our house will be ready in three days. On the fourth day from now I will be honored to receive you.”

On the fourth day, sitting in front of her in their private sanctuary, he was consumed with her beauty, the oil lamps bright but not overly so. “This house please you, Hinodeh?” he asked, trying to sound interested but only obsessed to have her unadorned.

“It is more important if it please you, Furansu-san.”

He knew she was only doing what she had been trained to do and her responses and actions would be automatic, trying her best to put him at his ease, whatever she felt within. With most Japanese men he could usually tell what they were thinking, with Japanese women almost never—but then it’s usually the same with most Frenchwomen, he thought. Women are so much more secretive than we are, so much more practical.

Hinodeh looks so peaceful sitting there motionlessly, he thought. Is she volcanic or sad or terrified—or filled with so much fear and loathing that she’s numb.

Blessed Mother, forgive me, but I don’t care, not at the moment, later, perhaps later I will, not now.

Why would she agree? Why?

But that must not be asked, never. Hard to obey that clause, and yet it’s an added spice, or the one issue that will destroy me, us. I don’t care, hurry up!

“Would you like to eat?” she asked.

“At moment, I—I not hungry.” André could not take his eyes off her, nor hide his desire. The sweat trickled.

Her little smile did not change. A sigh. Then, with every movement leisured, long fingers untied her obi and she stood and let the outer kimono fall, all the time watching him, tranquil as a statue. Then the under-kimono, then the first slip and the second, and then the loincloth. She turned without haste, showing herself to him, and then again and stood before him. Perfect in every way.

Hardly breathing, he watched her kneel, pick up her cup and sip, then sip again, the pulse in his head and neck and loins pushing him to the limit of control.

He had planned over the days to be gallant with words and gestures and movements, so Gallic
and Japanese
and worldly and practiced, to be the best lover she had ever had, would ever have without regrets, to make their first joining a memorable and wonderful experience. It was memorable but not wonderful. His will snapped. He reached out for her and hurried her to the futons and there he was subhuman.

Since that night he had not seen her, or Raiko, avoiding them and the Yoshiwara. The next day he had sent a message to Hinodeh, saying that he would inform her when he next intended to visit her. In the interim he had had delivered another payment of gold to Raiko, his salary pledged for two years to pay the contract price—and then much more.

Yesterday he had said he would visit her tonight.

He hesitated on their veranda threshold. Shoji screens shut out the night. An inner golden light beckoned him. His pulse was pounding as before, throat choked. Inner voices overflowed with vile language directed at himself, shouting at him to leave, to kill himself—anything to avoid her eyes and the disgusting mirror image of himself that had been therein. Leave her in peace!

All of him wanted to run and all of him wanted to possess her again, in any way, every way, worse than before, whatever the cost, hating himself, better to die and end it, but first her. I must.

He forced his feet out of his shoes and slid the door aside. She was kneeling exactly as before, same costume, same smile, same beauty, same delicate hand motioning him to sit near her, same gentle voice: “The saké is as I was told you would like it. Cool. Do you always drink saké cool?”

He gaped at her. The eyes that had been filled with so much hate when he had stumbled away from her, now were smiling at him with the shy sweetness as in the first moment. “What?”

Again, as though she had never said it, she repeated in the same tone, “The saké is as I was told you would like it. Cool. Do you always drink saké cool?”

“I—I, yes, yes, I do,” he said, hardly hearing himself over the roar in his ears.

She smiled. “Strange to drink cold drinks in winter. Is your heart cold in winter and summer?”

Parrotlike he muttered the correct responses, no difficulty in remembering every word and happening, indelibly recorded, and though his voice was erratic, she did not seem to hear it, just continued as before, her eyes slanting and calm.

Nothing changed. “Would you like to eat?” she asked.

“At moment, I—I am not hungry.”

Her smile did not change. Nor the sigh. She got up. But now she turned down the oil lamps and went into the bedroom that he had defiled and doused those lights completely.

When his eyes had adjusted to the dark, he saw that the tiniest glimmer came through the shoji panels from the veranda lamp, barely enough to see her shape. She was disrobing. In moments he heard the sound of the coverlet being pulled back.

When he could stand he groped to his feet and went into the room and knelt beside the bed, long since realizing she had been trying to save face, his, to blot out that which could never be blotted out.

“From my mind, never,” he muttered in misery, wet with tears. “I don’t know about you, Hinodeh, but it never will. I’m so sorry, so sorry.
Mon Dieu
, I wish, oh, how I wish—”

“Nan desu ka, Furansu-sama?”

It took him a little time to adjust to using Japanese words, and he said, breaking, “Hinodeh, I say … just thank Hinodeh. Please excuse me, I so sorry …”

“But there is nothing to be sorry for. Tonight we begin. This is our beginning.”