Gai-Jin (195 page)

“Understand, Anjin-sama,” Hiraga said, understanding only partially, his head aching.

“Any trouble, come to me. No fighting unless you’re attacked. Your weapons please.” Reluctantly Hiraga gave over their bundled swords. And the derringer. “Mister!”

The cabin door opened. “Yessir?”

“These two’ll have the Third Mate’s berth, I’ll show ’em.”

Jamie got up and offered his hand to Hiraga. “Safe journey, you can write anytime you like, and to Phillip … to Taira-sama. As I told you I’ll write you care of my bank, the Hong Kong Bank in the Mall. It’s all in the papers I’ve given you along with how to receive or collect mail. Don’t expect a reply for four months. Good luck and safe return.” They shook hands, Jamie did the same with Akimoto.

“You two come with me,” Twomast said. He led the way down the corridor and opened a door. “You bunk here and stay out of sight, Mr. McFay doesn’t want you recognized. After Hong Kong it’ll be easier.” He closed the door.

* * *

In silence Hiraga and Akimoto looked around. It was more of a cupboard than living quarters. Barely enough room to stand together. A gimballed oil lamp spluttered dully. Two dirty bunks, one above the other against a bulkhead, drawers below. Soiled straw mattresses and wool blankets. Stench. Gum boots, unwashed clothes scattered. Storm mackintoshes hanging on pegs.

“What are those for?” Akimoto asked, numbed.

“Some sort of clothing but so stiff, how would you fight in those? I feel naked without swords.”

“I feel like death, not just naked.” The deck rolled under their feet and they heard men shouting orders on deck and others chantying, preparing the ship for sea, the engine loudly vibrating the deck and bulkheads, increasing their discomfort. The smallness of the space, and unpleasant smell of coal smoke and oil, stale air and staler bedding bore down on them. Again the deck pitched as she swung on an anchor and Hiraga lurched against the bunks, and sat on the lower one. “Do you suppose we sleep on these?”

“Where else?” Akimoto muttered. Sharp-eyed, he moved the crumpled blanket aside. All corners of the mattress were splotched with colonies of bedbugs, alive and dead, the rough canvas streaked with old blood where generations had been squashed. He managed not to be sick. “Let’s go ashore,” he croaked. “I’ve had enough.”

“No,” Hiraga said through his own dread. “We have achieved a miracle, we have escaped the Bakufu and Yoshi, and we’re launched into the enemy’s heartland as guests, we can spy out their secrets and learn how to destroy them.”

“Learn what? How to flog a man to death, how to live in this cesspit for months? Did you see how the Captain rudely walked off without returning our bow. Come on … even if I have to swim ashore!” Akimoto grabbed the door handle but Hiraga caught him by the shirt and dragged him back. “No!”

Akimoto snarled at him and broke free, to crash against the door, with no room even to struggle, then shouted, “You’re not one of us, you’re gai-jin infected! Let me go, better to die civilized than to live like this!”

Suddenly Hiraga was petrified. Time stood still. For the first time he completely understood the enormity of what he had launched them into: the outside, the barbarian world, away from everything civilized, leaving everything worthwhile behind,
sonno-joi
and Choshu and shishi and family, leaving no wife and sons—ah, my brave and so wonderful Sumomo, how you are missed, you would have made my leaving easier, but now …

His limbs began to tremble, heart hammering, breath choking, every part of him screaming at him to flee this hell that represented everything he detested. If London was like this, anything was better, anything.

He shoved Akimoto out of the way and lunged for the door. But stopped. “No,” he gasped. “
I will bear this!
I will! I’ll bear it for
sonno-joi
. We must for
sonno-joi
, Cousin, we must bear it but whatever happens we will die like samurai, we will make our death poems, that’s what we’ll do, we’ll make them now,
now
, then nothing else matters in this life…. ”

Ashore at the jetty the Bosun called out, “Last call for
Belle
, all aboard!”

“So, good luck, Edward, and a safe return,” Angelique said, still consumed with melancholy, but with a little smile that lit up his being. “Take care!”

After leaving Sir William earlier, she had finished her tears in the privacy of her suite—so much to cry over these days, she thought, where do all the tears come from, and yet, when the heartache had passed, she was clear thinking and clearheaded again. Once more in control she had gone downstairs and, again in privacy, had met Gornt. They had said everything that needed to be said. The strength and confidence and love he radiated had pushed away the bad.

Edward is good for me, she thought, looking up at him—not that he will ever replace my Malcolm, that’s different.

“You all right now?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you, my dear. Hurry back.”

He kissed her proffered hand. “Take care, Ma’am.” His glow made him even more boyish.

“Don’t forget.” She had asked him to tell Tess that she hoped one day they could meet as friends. “It’s important.”

“Yes, it is, and I won’t forget and I’ll be back before you know it.” For those nearby he added louder, “I’ll see that your shopping list is taken care of, never fear.” A final little pressure on her hand and he leapt onto the slippery deck without a care, hung on with one hand, last aboard. The Bosun tooted, shoved the throttles Full Astern and backed into the chop. Gornt waved and then, not wanting to be indiscreet, went into the cabin.

“Pretty girl,” Hoag said, thoughtfully.

“Yes, suh, a Belle to end Belles.”

Both men watched the jetty recede. “Have you ever been to India, Edward?”

“No, never have. You been to Paris?”

“No, never. But India’s the best place in the world, best life in the world for Englishmen, you’re mostly that, aren’t you?” In his mind Hoag could see himself arriving at her family house that was behind high walls, brown and dusty outside but inside cool and green, the sound of the water fountain mingling with laughter that permeated the main house and the servants’
quarters, together with friendliness and the peace possessed by everyone because of their utter belief in birth and death and rebirth, in never-ending succession, until through the mercy of the Infinite they would reach Nirvana, the Place of Heavenly Peace. Arjumand will be there, he thought—oh, how I hope I can find my way there too.

His eyes focused on the jetty, on Angelique and others, all people he would probably never see again. Now Angelique waved a last time then strolled over to Maureen Ross who was waiting by the lamp. I hope they become friends, he thought, wondering about them. In a moment, they and the jetty became part of the night. Angelique’s correct to bend to Tess, he thought, not that she had any option. Absently his fingers made sure her affidavit was safe in his pocket.

Sad about Malcolm, tragic. Poor Malcolm, diligently working all his life for something he would never have, would never be. Malcolm Struan,
the tai-pan who never truly was—
all his life like a snow-blind man in a blizzard searching for a white tent that was never there.

“Sad about Malcolm, don’t you think?” But Gornt was no longer beside him. He looked around and saw he had gone on deck and, his back to Yokohama, was watching the
Belle
ahead, hatless, the wind ruffling his hair.

Why the smile, and what’s behind it? he asked himself. So hard and yet … Something strange about that young man. Is he a king in the making or a man bent on regicide?

Most people on the jetty had wandered off. Angelique was beside Maureen near the lamp, watching the
Belle
and disappearing cutter. Soon they were alone but for Chen and Vargas who were talking quietly with one another, waiting to unload the cutter, should it be necessary and, unasked, to chaperone the two women.

“Maureen …” Angelique glanced at her. Her lovely smile faded, noticing how unhappy her newfound friend looked. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Well, no, it’s … really, dinna concern yoursel’. It’s … it’s just that I haven’t seen Jamie all day, he’s been busy and, and I had something important …” The words trailed off.

“I’ll wait with you if you like. Even better, Maureen, why not come with me? Let’s wait in my suite and watch from my window. We’ll see the cutter in plenty of time to meet her.”

“I think I’d … well, I think I’d rather wait here.”

Angelique firmly took her arm. “What is it? What’s the matter, can I help?”

“No, I din’na think so, dear Angelique. It’s … it’s just that … it’s just that …” Maureen hesitated again, then stammered, “Oh, God, I din’na
want to burden you but his, Jamie’s, his—his mistress, came to see me this afternoon.”

“From the Yoshiwara?”

“Yes. She came to kowtow, to bow, she said, and tell me not to worry because she’s looked after him perfectly and she wanted to ask in future should she present her bill to me monthly or yearly.”

Angelique’s mouth dropped open. “She did?”

“Yes.” Maureen looked green under the oil light and stuttered, “She also said that if there was anything I wanted to know about … about … about ‘Jami’ as she called him, ugh!, about his bed habits, positions and so on, as I was a virgin and wouldn’t know these things, she’d be happy to oblige in detail because she was a professional of Second Rank and promised to give me a picture book called a ‘pillow book’ and she would mark his—his specialties but not to worry because Jami was well practiced and his … his, she called it his One-eyed Monk was in perfect order. There, now you know it all!”

Angelique was flabbergasted.
“Mon Dieu
, you poor dear, how awful! But … but she speaks English too?”

“No, an almost incoherent mixture of gibberish and pidgin and some of Jamie’s words but I understood her key points perfectly well indeed. It—it seems she’s—she’s been his doxy for a year or more. She was tiny, no’ at all pretty, no’ five foot and I said, I didna’ know what to say so I remarked on her size, how small she was and the hussy—the hussy guffawed and said, ‘P’renti big ’nuff, Jami, tai-tai, on back fit awe’ same, heya? You ’rucky womans.’”

“Oh, mon Dieu!”

“Quite. What do I do?”

Angelique found her own head buzzing. “You could … no, that wouldn’t do …”

“Perhaps I could … no, I canna’. It’s too much …”

“What if you …” Angelique shook her head. Impotently she stared at her and at that moment Maureen looked at her, each seeing herself in the other, the same shock, revulsion, repugnance, contempt, fury written clearly on both faces. For a moment they were frozen, then Angelique snickered, in a second Maureen did the same and then they were choked with laughter.

Chen and Vargas peered across at them, the peals of laughter mixing with the waves on the shore and those that battered the pilings. Angelique wiped away these, the first, good laughter tears she had had in such a long time. “His One-eyed …” Again they were convulsed, shrieking with laughter until their stomachs hurt and they hung on to one another.

As suddenly as the laughing fit arrived it went away. An ache remained. “It’s funny, Maureen, but not funny at all.”

“Yes. Not funny,” Maureen said heavily. “I feel … I want to go home now. I thought I could deal with the Yoshiwara—Jamie’s no different from other men—but I canna’, I know that now. I canna’ face this life where … where the Yoshiwara is and will ever be and like it or no’, Angelique, in a year or two the bairns, the children, arrive and a few years after he’ll think us old, whoever he is—and we will be old, our hair will be grey and teeth fall out and whoever he is he will turn away. A woman’s lot is no’ a happy one. I wish I was aboard
Atlanta Belle
now, going home, no’ here, no’ here. I’m going home anyway, soon as I can. I’ve decided.”

“Think about it, don’t tell him tonight.”

“It’s better to say it tonight. That’s … it’s better.”

Angelique hesitated. “I’ll wait till we see the cutter, then I’ll leave.”

“Thank you. I’ll be sorry to leave you, now that we’ve met. I’ve never had a real friend.” Maureen put her arm in hers, and looked back at
Atlanta Belle
.

“Ayeeyah,” Chen was whispering disgustedly in Four Village dialect that he and Vargas spoke fluently. “Why can’t those two whores be sensible and wait indoors until the cutter arrives, then we don’t have to wait in the cold either.”

“Jami won’t be pleased to hear you call her that!”

“Fortunately he doesn’t speak this dialect, or even Cantonese, and anyway I wouldn’t call her whore in front of him or any foreign devil—though that’s what we call all their women, as you know—nor would I use such blunt words around them. I’d use ‘Morning Flower’ or one of a thousand other names which we both know means ‘whore’ but foreign devils think means ‘Morning Flower.’” Chen chortled, warm in his long padded jacket. He looked up at the sky as the moon came briefly through the overcast. “That Morning Flower thinks she’ll be Jami tai-tai.” Again he chortled. “She never will be.”

“No, not after today,” Vargas said gloomily. “She’s the right size for him, time he was married and it would have been good to have children here.” Vargas missed his own, six of them, that he had left with his two wives in Macao until he could afford a house of his own here. “What about Missee-tai-tai and this Shanghai Gornt? Will he increase her money?”

“If he does it will be for his benefit not hers. What I want to know is what’s in those papers?”

“What papers?”

“The ones Lun saw when William tai-pan was dozing by his fire. The ones from Long Pointed Nose.
Dew neh loh moh
that Lun can’t read French. Willum tai-pan was in plenty shock, so Lun said.”

“What would Pointed Nose send Willum from the grave?”

Chen shrugged. “Trouble for Missee-tai-tai. Perhaps it was about Dark of the Moon, eh?”

“That’s only a rumor.”

Chen said nothing, keeping that secret as Noble House Chen had ordered after Malcolm’s death. “Whatever happens, Tess tai-tai will grind Missee-tai-tai and the Shanghai foreign devil into dust.”