Gai-Jin (70 page)

“I’m sure you’re right,” André said, over his scare now, dreading that someone had been outside, watching—he had seen the crack but no other signs. “Don’t you agree, Angelique?”

“I—I, perhaps yes,” she said, very unsettled and not yet recovered from her fright, both because of him and because of the sudden sound. Why did it happen then? Was it someone, or just a God-given wind—truly a gift from God? Wind or not, person or not, I don’t care, she decided. I don’t care, I escaped, tomorrow I move back beside Malcolm, daren’t stay here, mustn’t stay, too close to André, too dangerous. “It sounded like someone banging, but—but I could be mistaken. It could have been a—a sudden gust.”

“I’m sure it was,” Vervene said confidently. “My shutters are always banging, wake me up all the time.” He coughed and sat down, peering kindly at André whose face was still chalky. “No need for you to wait, my friend. You don’t look very well at all, as though, Heaven forbid, you’ve a crisis of the liver.”

“Perhaps—perhaps I have. I—I certainly don’t feel very well.” André glanced at Angelique. “Sorry,” he said, holding her eyes, making his voice calm and soft, seemingly the old André once more, all strangeness and lust and violence vanished. “Good night, Angelique, you’ve nothing to be afraid of, ever. Monsieur Vervene is quite right.”

“Yes … yes, thank you, André.” She forced a smile and then he was gone. She had looked at him deeply, wanting to read the truth behind his eyes. They were friendly, nothing else. But she did not trust what she had seen. Even so, she knew that she would have to make peace with him, would accept his inevitable apologies—pretending to forget everything and agreeing the attack was a momentary madness—and would become friends again. On the surface.

She shuddered. In her innermost being she also grasped that whatever he demanded, eventually she would have to give. While he lived.

Ori was trembling, hunched down against an upturned fishing boat on the pebbled beach. Twenty yards away was the edge of the surf, the waves sibilant. “You’re completely
baka,”
he gasped, his fury directed totally against
himself. Before he realized what he was doing he had hammered on the shutters and then, appalled at his stupidity, had rushed away, scaled the fence, found the oar he used as camouflage, shouldered it and loped across the roadway without being challenged, gai-jin voices in his wake.

Hiraga must be right, he thought, nauseated, mixed up, his heart aching in his chest, shoulder throbbing and a warm trickle of blood seeping from the tear in the wound his headlong flight had caused. Perhaps this woman really has sent me mad. Madness to pound on the shutters—what good would that do me? What does it matter if another pillows her? Why should that enflame me, make my heart roar in my ears? I don’t own her or want to own her, what does it matter if another gai-jin takes her with or without violence? Some women need a measure of violence to excite them, like many men … ah, wait, would it have been better if she had fought me rather than welcoming me, however drugged she was—or pretended to be?

Pretended?

This was the first time such a thought had entered his mind. Some of his venom left him though his heart continued to race and the ache behind his temples did not leave.
Could
she have been pretending? Eeee, it’s possible, her arms embraced me and her legs wrapped me and her body moved like no one has ever moved—all pillow partners move sensually, with moans and sighs and sometimes a few tears and, “Oh, how strong you are, how you exhaust me, never have I had the privilege of such a man before …” but every client knows that these are surface words, learned by rote, part of their training, nothing more, and meaningless.

She wasn’t like that, every moment had meaning for me. Whether she pretended or not doesn’t matter—she probably did, women are so filled with guile. I don’t care, I should not have bludgeoned the shutter like a berserk fool, revealing my presence and hiding place and probably ruining forever my chance of gaining access there again!

Again his anger burst. His fist smashed the wood of the hull.
“Baka!”
he croaked, wanting to shriek it aloud.

Footsteps on the pebbles. On guard, he slid deeper into the shadows, the moon baleful, then heard the voices of approaching fishermen, chatting one with another, and cursed himself afresh for not being more alert. Almost at once, a rough, middle-aged fisherman came around the stern of the boat and stopped. “Watch out! Who’re you, stranger?” the man said angrily, readying the short mast he carried as a club. “What are you up to?”

Ori did not move, just glared up at him and at the other two who moved up beside him. One was also middle-aged, the other a youth not much older than Ori himself. Both carried oars and fishing tackle. “You do not ask those questions of your betters,” he said. “Where are your manners?”

“Who’re you, you’re not samur—” The man stopped, petrified, as Ori
leapt to his feet, the sword instantly in his hand, the blade dangerously half out of its scabbard.

“On your knees, scum, before I cut your
baka
hearts out—a haircut does not make me any less samurai!” Instantly the fishermen fell to their knees, heads to the beach and were bleating their apologies, no mistaking the authority or the way the short sword was held. “Shut up!” Ori snarled. “Where were you going?”

“To fish, Lord, half a league out to sea, please excuse us but, well, in the dark and your hair not norm—”

“Shut up! Get the boat in the water. Move!”

Once safe out to sea, now over his blinding anger, the salt air cleansing, Ori looked back at the Settlement. Lights still on in the French and British Legations, the Struan Building and the Club that Hiraga had identified for him. Oil streetlamps along the
praia
, a few windows glowing in other bungalows and godowns, Drunk Town pulsating as normal throughout the night, the gin shops never totally sleeping.

But all of his attention was on the French Legation. Why? he kept asking himself. Why should I have been so possessed with—jealousy, that’s the real word. An insane jealousy. To be jealous over pillowing is
baka!

Was it because of what Hiraga had told me: “Taira says their custom is like ours amongst the leader class, a man does not pillow the woman he will marry before marriage …” which means this tai-pan will not bed her and, as she is promised, no one else has the right. Did I smash the shutters to prevent that man pillowing her—or was it to protect her?

Or was it just because I wanted no other man to enjoy her until I can again—that’s even more stupid, how could I ever tell? Was it because I was the first? Does that make that pillowing different: because you have possessed her uniquely? Remember, Chinese have always believed virginity to be the most powerful aphrodisiac between Heaven and Earth. Is that why I did what I did?

No. It was a sudden impulse. I believe she is a wolf woman who must be killed—preferably after I’ve pillowed her once more—for me to escape her spell.

But how and when? It must be now.

Too dangerous to stay in the Settlement, or Yoshiwara. Hiraga is bound to hear I have not left. I am a dead man if he finds me. Could I risk three more days, then, if I fail to snare her, hurry off to Kyōto with Hiraga none the wiser? Safer to leave now. Which? “You, old man, where do you live?”

“Second Street, Fifth House, Lord,” the fisherman said, all of them deeply afraid, long since realizing that this must be one of the ronin who were hiding in the Settlement to escape the Toranaga Enforcers.

SUNDAY, 19TH OCTOBER
:

Church bells were beckoning the faithful on this nice crisp morning. “Not many bloody faithful in Yokohama,” Jamie McFay said to Struan. McFay’s shoulders and back were aching, the church and the coming service not to his liking, nothing like the austere Scottish Presbyterianism of his childhood. “Not that I’m a real churchgoer, not anymore,” he said, very much on guard, unsure how Struan was going to be after their violent row the day before. “My ma’s still as strict as they come, three times on Sunday!”

“Like mine, though she’s Church of England,” Struan agreed heavily. He walked slowly and badly, hunched over, leaning on his canes, amid groups of men converging on the church that was down the High Street and set back slightly in its own garden on a choice lot facing the sea. “The church is pretty though. Makes Yokohama permanent.”

Holy Trinity, or Holy Titty as they privately dubbed it, was the pride of the Settlement. It had been consecrated last year by the Bishop of Hong Kong. The steeple was tall and the bell sweet-sounding, reminding all ex-patriots of home—so very far away. Wood and plaster and bricks from Shanghai. Neat gardens and small cemetery with only seven graves, sickness rare in Yokohama—unlike Hong Kong with its plagues and the lethal Happy Valley fever, malaria—all seven deaths by misadventure, except one of old age. Twenty years working in Asia were rare and men past retirement age, rarer still.

Again the bell tolled, not yet insistent, more than enough time to take their places, the Noble House pew in the first row. I need all the help I can get, Struan was thinking fervently, never devout though always a believer. I’m glad it’s our church more than the other traders’.

The land and the building had been donated to the Church of England by all traders. They had enthusiastically voted the levy four hours after the Yokohama Club had opened its doors for business, the same day the Settlement was founded—at McFay’s insistence and on the orders of Tess Struan, who guaranteed fifty percent of the cost. She had also pledged to provide the bell and had it cast in their new foundry in Hong Kong. When Tyler Brock heard about it, not to be outdone by his estranged and hated daughter, he had ordered a stained-glass window from London and pews of English oak.

“Sunday church’s all right, once a month, Father used to say, but never in Mother’s hearing.” Struan smiled bleakly. “When he was younger he was as much a churchgoer as she is now …” He stopped a moment to gather his
breath and stared out to sea. The sea was choppy, blue-grey, the sky speckled with cumulus. A dozen or so merchantmen lay snug in the roads, English predominately, one American, one Russian, yesterday’s mail steamer, the French paddle steamer flagship wallowing at anchor, and the 21-gun steam frigate H.M.S.
Pearl
, still without her foremast. “Feels naked without the fleet, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does. Not many will miss prayers today.” McFay circled his head to ease the ache in his neck.

“How long do you think they’ll be gone?”

“A month is my bet…. ’Morning, Mrs. Lunkchurch.” Both raised their hats politely, Struan awkwardly, as she sailed past, bustled and bonneted, husband sweatily in tow, his face dark with bruises. “What the devil happened to him?”

“Fighting,” McFay said cautiously, still trying to gauge Struan’s humor—he had not seen him or heard from him since yesterday except to get a curt message this morning to join him for their walk to church. He fell into step as Struan started off again. “Seems he, Dmitri and a few others decided to visit Drunk Town last night for a Saturday night binge.”

“You mean punch-up?”

“’Fraid that was the basic idea. Dmitri, well, he said they had a grand time.”

Struan noticed the sudden glint in McFay’s eyes. “Ah, you were there too, Jamie?” he asked dryly, then smiled.

McFay saw the smile and was greatly relieved. “Well, yes, Tai-pan, yes, I went along…but just to make sure Dmitri didn’t get into trouble.”

“Did he?” Struan asked with a sudden stab of envy.

“No, but och ay, Tai-pan, we had a grand time.”

“You lucky fellow! Come on, Jamie, tell all!”

Jamie heard and saw the open friendliness and camaraderie that he had been afraid he had lost forever and beamed, his aches forgotten, angers forgotten and worries over his future. “There was a smashing cockfight at the Bull and Cock, best we’ve had here, they’ve a new ring now and a new Nagasaki beer that’s better than our own Highland Dark! Two army handlers were pitted against two of our lads, Chandler Sykes and Old Bloody.”

“Who?”

“He’s one of our retired seamen, a master gunner, name of Charlie Bent, who paid off of
Lasting Cloud—
the same gunner who blew Wu Sung Choi’s war junk out of the water for your dad, back in ’43. Now he’s nicknamed ‘Old Bloody’ as he looks after the abattoir. Well, I backed him all the way, Tai-pan, and won twenty-five pounds. Afterwards we descended on the Yokopoko Palace—that’s the biggest tavern in Drunk Town, Army mostly, the Navy go to the Friar Tuck and never the twain shall meet.” He laughed. “Lost a tenner at roulette, another five at dice. In no time at all there was
the greatest free-for-all, traders against the rest. I think we won. Then home to bed though, er, a few repaired to Naughty Nellie’s.”

“You too?”

“Well, yes, but only for a nightcap, her champagne’s the best and cheapest in Yokohama.”

“And the girls?”

McFay laughed again. “Nothing like Mrs. Fortheringill’s Establishment for Young Ladies in Hong Kong! There’re about a dozen birds, most from the East End via Hong Kong, a few from Sydney in Australia, daughters of women convicts who’ve served their time and stayed on. They’re all a bit grotty, and not to my taste.” Filled with bonhomie he greeted passersby and added without thinking, “My needs are more than well looked after by Nemi.” He glanced at Struan and saw the stretched face. His good humor vanished and he cursed himself for mentioning her. “You all right, Tai-pan?”

“Yes, yes of course,” Struan said, abruptly filled with envy at the other man’s strength and virility, not loathing him for it, just himself. “Can’t bear being like this, Jamie, hate it. Hate it! Christ, it’s so difficult to be patient. I’ve just got to, I know that.” He forced a smile. “Nemi? Oh yes, she seemed a nice girl. Pretty.” With a vast effort Struan tore his mind off Shizuka and his failure, his frantic need to succeed with Angelique, and to weather the shoals ahead and coming tempest his mother was bound to generate. One thing at a time. Gear yourself to get through church, then through the rest of the day until six o’clock when Ah Tok will bring you the medicine: “Would you like a little before you go to your temple, my son?”