Gai-Jin (129 page)

Come on, you old fool, get to the point. I cannot waste all evening and I am not going to lose face by asking. I have more studies tonight and another book to try to read. “I can perhaps guard your interests,” he said pointedly.

Again the shoya thanked him. “The message I received concerned the girl you asked about. Four days ago Lord Yoshi left Kyōto secretly, just before dawn, with a small escort of soldiers and disguised as one of them. She went too. Also in the party … are you all right, Otami-sama?”

“Yes, please go on,” Hiraga said, “go on, shoya.”

“Certainly. Also in the party, mounted, was the courtesan Koiko, and the girl who is her new
maiko
an—”

“Her what?” Hiraga gasped, “Koiko,” with everything that her name implied, pealing in all the corners of his mind.

“Please, may I give you some tea, or saké?” the shoya asked, seeing the impact the news was making. “Or a hot towel or may I order some—”

“No, go on,” Hiraga said, his voice throaty.

“There is not much more. As you know, the Lady Koiko is the most famous of Yedo’s courtesans and now Lord Yoshi’s companion. The girl was sent to her ten days ago.”

“By whom?”

“We do not yet know, Otami-sama,” the shoya said, retaining that information for another time. “It seems the Lady Koiko accepted the girl as
maiko
after the girl was personally interviewed and approved by Lord Yoshi. She is the only other woman in the party. Her name is Sumomo Fujahito.”

No mistake, Hiraga wanted to shout, that’s the code name Katsumata gave her—so he sent her into that hornet’s nest, but why? “Which way did he go? Lord Yoshi?”

“There are forty samurai accompanying him, all mounted but carrying no banners, and Lord Yoshi himself, as I said, was disguised. They slipped out of Kyōto just before dawn, three days ago, heading along the Tokaidō, a forced march, my masters presume for Yedo.” The shoya hid his astonishment at the vehemence in the young man’s face.

“Forced march, you say? They could reach Kanagawa when?” The last way station before Yedo. “In ten or twelve more days?”

“Ah, yes, you are probably right though with two women travelling … my message said both were riding—oh, I already mentioned that—and, oh yes, I forgot, Lord Yoshi was disguised as a common ashigaru, yes, I suppose it is possible to reach Kanagawa then.”

Dazed, Hiraga swallowed more saké, hardly tasting it, accepted another cup, thanked him for the information, saying they would meet tomorrow and left to go to the village hovel he shared with Akimoto.

Outside the village streets were quiet. Shops closed at nightfall. Lights behind shoji screens made the huts and hovels inviting. Wearily, and in turmoil over the news, he took off his top hat and ruffled his hair, scratching his scalp, still not completely accustomed to wearing his hair European style, though lately hardly noticed the discomfort of trousers and waistcoat, glad for them against the season’s cold. Even scratching vigorously did not help the confusion and ache in his head so he sat on a nearby bench—squatting difficult in tight trousers—and stared at the sky.

Koiko! He remembered the two times he had been with her, once for an evening and once for the night. Eeee, both had been expensive, so expensive, but worth it. Katsumata had told him that never again would he perceive such texture of skin or silky hair or such fragrance, or such kind, gentle laughter in a woman’s eyes, or experience the ultimate, exploding warmth that made you want to die, you had so much joy.

“Ah, Hiraga, to die then,” Katsumata had said, “at such a high point, to carry that with you beyond—if there is a beyond—would be perfection. Or if
there is no beyond, to be certain at the leap into nothingness you have experienced the best, to die at the zenith would surely be a totality of life.”

“True, but such waste. Why train her for Yoshi?”

“Because he is a major key to
sonno-joi
, for or against, because she is the only one I have ever known who might possibly enthrall him and so move him to our side, or be positioned to send him onwards. He may be the
key
to
sonno-joi
, for or against—that’s our secret, yours and mine—of course, he dies at a time of our choosing anyway.”

Then has Katsumata sent Sumomo to be the dagger of the deed? Or is it to keep Koiko safe from betrayers, or even to guard Yoshi from a traitor within?

So many questions, so much unanswered.

He got up and walked off again, his head aching worse than ever. Tomorrow Akimoto was going with Taira aboard a warship. Hiraga had asked to go but had been refused: “So sorry,” Tyrer had told him. “Sir William said this friend of yours, Mr. Saito, may go, but only him. Of course no weapons. I understand his family is the biggest shipbuilder in Shimonoseki, eh?”

“Yes, Taira-sama. His father fami’ry.”

“But samurai are not allowed to be in business.”

“That is correct, Taira-sama,” he had said quickly, the man too apt a pupil, making the lie sound truthful. “But many samurai fami’ries make arrangement with money’renders and boat makers to do work,
neh?
This man important sea fami’ry.”

A week ago he had introduced the subject of Akimoto, with that fiction, during one of his endless meetings with Sir William where he stood and answered questions, learning little in exchange. “His name is Saito, Sir W’ram, fami’ry rich, he visit here want to see great British Navy ships, hear great stories about great British Navy. Perhaps you and he can make together, great ship-making factory.”

It was not altogether a lie. For generations Akimoto’s forebears had lived in a fishing village, one of the three ashigaru families there who acted as a kind of policeman for Hiraga’s father, head of the nearby hirazamurai-ranked family, also for generations. Akimoto, personally, had always been interested in the sea and warships. Hiraga’s father had arranged for Akimoto to join the Choshu samurai school, ordering him to learn all he could from the Dutch seaman who was the sensei, because, soon, daimyo Ogama would need officers to captain Choshu ships, and to lead their navy.

“Eeee, Cousin,” Akimoto had said the day before yesterday, “I cannot believe you persuaded them to let me learn their war secrets.”

Hiraga sighed. He had noticed that anything to do with “business” got
immediate gai-jin attention. Poetry, not at all, calligraphy nothing, sword-forging a little, politics, yes, but only as it affected trade, but an opportunity to make something to sell for profit—anything, a ship or cannon or cup or knife or length of silk—brought instant results. They’re worse than rice dealers! Their food is money.

Last night Akimoto had been in his cups, rare for him, and started to ramble about money and gai-jin and being near them, “You are right, Hiraga, that’s one of their secrets: money worship. Money! How clever you are to smell that out so soon! Look at that dog of a shoya! Look how he is all ears when you start to tell him what Taira or that other gai-jin dog gleefully say about their dirty business methods, and how they extort money from others any way they can, calling it profit, as though profit is a clean word, feeding off each other like lice. When you talk about money does not that old fish head shoya bring out his best saké to encourage you to tell more and more? Of course he does. He is just like them, worshipping money, gathering it from us samurai, putting us deeper into debt every year when he creates nothing, nothing! We should kill him and do what Ori said, burn this stinking cesspool—”

“Calm yourself! What’s wrong?”

“I do not want to calm down, I want action, a fight, attack! I am tired of sitting and waiting.” Akimoto was flushed, breathing heavily, eyes bloodshot and not just from the liquor. His huge fist pounded the tatami. “And I am tired of you studying all night, your head in a book—if you’re not careful you will ruin your eyes and ruin your sword arm and then you will be dead. Attack, that is what we are here for—I want
sonno-joi
now, not later!”

“Without knowledge and patience … how many times do I have to tell you? You become like Ori, or that fool Shorin, why be so anxious to put your head in the Enforcer’s garrote?”

“I’m not and … Eeee, Hiraga, you’re right, please excuse me, but …” The words had trailed off and he saw him swallow more saké.

“What is really troubling you? The truth.”

Akimoto hesitated. “I heard from my father.” He began haltingly but soon the words were pouring out. “A letter came through the mama-san at Kanagawa … there’s famine in the village, in the whole area, your family is hurting too, so sorry to tell you. Two of my little cousins have died. Three of my uncles gave up samurai class and their swords—they sold them as part payment for debts to the moneylender, swords that were used in Sekigahara—to become fishermen, at least they are working the nets for boat owners, dawn to dusk, to get a little cash! Tomiko, she’s an aunt’s widowed daughter who was living with us, she had to sell her little girl to a child broker. She was given enough to feed the rest of her family for half a year—her two sons and her invalid father. A week later she left the money in a teapot for my mother to find and threw herself off the cliff. Her note
said her heart was broken having to sell her own child, but the money could help the family and not be wasted on another useless mouth …”

The tears were pouring down his cheeks but no sound of weeping was in his voice, only anger. “Such a nice girl, such a good wife to my friend, Murai—remember him, one of our Choshu ronin who died in the attack on
Tairō
Ii? I tell you, Cousin, it is awful to be samurai when you have no face, no stipend, nowhere to go and to be ronin is worse. Even so, me … you’re right again … I think we will have to imitate stinking gai-jin if we want warships, even I know they do not grow in a rice paddy, and must find ways to make stinking money and be like stinking rice-dealing moneylenders. Stinking money, stinking gai-jin, st—”

“Stop it,” Hiraga had said sharply, and handed him another flask. “You are alive, you are working for
sonno-joi
, tomorrow you go on a warship to learn, that is enough, Cousin.”

Numb, Akimoto shook his head, wiping the tears away.

“Was there any other news? Of my father, my family?”

“Well … read for yourself.”

He read:
If Hiraga is with you tell him his family are in sad straits, his mother is sick, they have no money and no more credit. If he has any means to send any, or arrange any credit, it will save lives—of course his father will never ask. Tell him also his wife-to-be has not yet arrived and his father fears for her safety
.

Nothing I can do for them, Hiraga thought, nearing their village hideaway, again in misery. The night wind picked up, rustling the thatched roofs, and colder than before. Nothing I can do. Stinking money! Akimoto is right. We should put Ori’s plan into effect. A night like this would be ideal. Two or three huts torched and the wind would jump the flames from house to house and whip it into a conflagration. Why not tonight? Then the stinking gai-jin would have to go back aboard their ships and sail away. Would they? Or am I deluding myself and it is our karma to be eaten up by them.

What to do?

Katsumata always said, When in doubt act!

Sumomo? On the way to Yedo? His pulse quickened but even the thought of her did not remove the remorse for his family. We should marry now, marry here, while there is time, impossible to go home, the journey would take months and it is vital to be here. Father will understand.

Will he? Is it vital, or am I just deluding myself? And why did Katsumata put Sumomo with Yoshi? He would not risk her for nothing.

Nothing! I am nothing. From nothing into nothing, famine again and no money and no credit and no way to help. Without
sonno-joi
there’s nothing we can do—

All at once it was as if a skin covering part of his mind had shed and he remembered Jamie explaining some aspects of gai-jin business that had
shocked him. In moments he was again tapping on the shoya’s door and sitting opposite him.

“Shoya, I thought I should mention, so you can prepare, I believe I have persuaded the gai-jin business expert to meet you in his great mansion, the day after tomorrow in the morning, to answer questions. I will interpret for you.” The shoya thanked him and had bowed to cover his sudden beam.

Hiraga continued blandly, “Jami Mukfey told me it was gai-jin custom that there would be a fee, for this and all the other information he has already given you. The equivalent of ten koku.” He uttered the staggering sum as though it were a pittance and saw the shoya blanch but not explode as he had expected, telling such a lie.

“Impossible,” the shoya said, his voice strangled.

“I told him so but he said as a businessman and banker you would understand how valuable his information was, and that he would even consider …” Again Hiraga controlled himself. “Would even help the shoya to begin a business, first of its kind, in the gai-jin fashion to deal with other countries.”

Again this was not altogether a lie. McFay had told him that he would be interested in meeting and talking to a Japanese banker—Hiraga had inflated the shoya’s importance and position in the Gyokoyama—that more or less any day at a day’s notice would suit him, and that there were all kinds of opportunities for cooperation.

He watched the shoya, exhilarated at his transparency, clearly besieged by potential opportunities to use Mukfey’s knowledge for profit, and being the first to do such a business: “Very important to be first,” Mukfey had explained, “your Japanese friend will understand that, if he’s any sort of businessman. Easy for me to supply our business skills, easy for your Japanese friend to do the same with Japanese skills and knowledge.” It had taken Hiraga a blinding effort to understand what the man had been talking about.

He allowed the shoya to dream and to worry. “Though I do not understand business matters, shoya, I might be able to reduce that price.”

“Oh, if you could do that, Otami-sama, you would please a poor old man, just a modest servant to the Gyokoyama, for I would have to beg their permission to pay anything.”