The Last Concubine (51 page)

‘The smoke – I was choking from it; and the stench, the foul stench of blood and brains and men’s innards. When I killed men in Kyoto it didn’t bother me. It was just the enemy. I was proud. But this was our own men dying.

‘We were sheltering in the trees, trying to keep out of the way, trying not to tread on dead or dying men, feeling their bodies squelching under our feet. And the sound of men screaming. You always hope that when it’s your turn you’ll die like a samurai, in silence. But not all of them did.

‘It was raining,’ he continued. ‘We were soaked to the skin. We kept slipping. We were running here, running there, trying to dodge the shells.’

His voice trailed away. Sachi saw that his forehead was sticky with sweat.

‘By afternoon the shelling had died down. We went down to the Black Gate.’

‘You . . . ?’ breathed Taki. They were all hanging on his words.

‘Me, Tora and Shin. We all made it through. And Gen – Genzaburo – a friend of ours we’d known in Kyoto. Shin had met up with him again in Kiso.’

‘I know,’ Sachi whispered.

‘The men at the Black Gate needed reinforcements. The southerners had cannons there too. They were out to kill us all. We just kept firing and firing, squatting down to load our guns and standing up and firing, like we’d been trained to do. At least we could see them, in their black uniforms, and the Tosa guys in their red wigs. At least we didn’t have to fight an invisible enemy. I was deaf from the noise of my rifle, all I could taste was gunpowder in my mouth.’

He squeezed his eyes tight shut, frowning. ‘Hold the Black Gate: that was the order. We stuck together, we four. Once they broke through our ranks we crouched behind rocks and picked them off.’

‘With swords?’ asked Taki. She was looking at him, her eyes blazing, as if wishing that she too could have been there, fighting alongside them; as if seeing him there reminded her of being back on the road, like a breath of fresh air after being imprisoned in the mansion for so long.

‘We had rifles, French rifles. We’d done a lot of training – target practice, learning how to load and shoot fast. Tora was brilliant. He could hit anything. There’d be a man charging towards him and he’d get him right in the face. Shin was yelling like he was crazy, shooting and stabbing with his bayonet. Half the southerners ran away when they saw him. I saw him do in ten men. No, more like twenty men. You would have been proud.’

He was gazing into the distance. Sachi smiled. For a moment she was picturing Shinzaemon, fighting in that reckless way of his, utterly fearless.

‘Gen was a terror too. Took down a lot of the enemy. Yeah, we could use our guns. But we had to keep stopping to put in more bullets. The enemy had rifles that never stopped firing. It was like it was raining bullets. Then they charged, hordes of them. Every
time we killed one, another one came. They just kept coming. They forced us further and further up the hill. Somewhere along the way we lost sight of Gen. I don’t know what happened to him.’

Sachi was silent. She couldn’t bear to tell him he was dead.

‘Finally they forced us out on to the hilltop. I guess that was when . . . I got hit.’

His face crumpled. ‘It was a good fight,’ he mumbled, choking out the words. ‘A glorious fight. Many men died . . . heroic deaths. But I . . . I was useless. I failed my comrades and my lord. I’m ashamed. I should be dead like everyone else.’

Like everyone else . . . For a moment Sachi couldn’t breathe. The heat and closeness seemed to close in on her. She tried to keep her voice from shaking. ‘You mean . . . Toranosuké and Shinzaemon . . .’

‘They were there when . . . We were all together,’ he said helplessly. ‘I don’t know what happened to them.’

So there was still hope. Her throat was so dry she couldn’t speak.

‘Didn’t you see them?’ he asked. ‘When you found me – weren’t they there too?’

‘They weren’t there,’ Sachi whispered. She didn’t know what to say – she didn’t want him to think they had gone off and left him alone on the battlefield to die. But she also didn’t want him to think they were dead.

‘Maybe they went to get help?’ she offered feebly.

‘Help?’ He smiled grimly. ‘They thought I’d had it. It was a massacre.’

‘We looked for them,’ said Taki. ‘We searched the whole battlefield.’

‘They must be alive,’ said Sachi. Her voice was shaking. She needed to persuade herself as much as him. She took a breath and continued firmly, ‘I’m sure of it.’

He nodded. ‘That’s it,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s what happened. They went north. We always said if we made it through we’d go north. I’ve got to get up there. I’ve got to join them.’

Sachi closed her eyes. She was back on the bridge. She felt Shinzaemon’s arms around her, saw his eyes burning into her.
Someone as alive as he could never be dead. And if he was alive . . . she had to get a message to him. She had to tell him where she was so that when he returned . . .

She looked at Tatsuemon, bent down and put her mouth to his ear.

‘When you find your comrades, will you . . . ?’ she whispered. Their eyes met. He nodded.

She looked around for paper and a brush and told Taki to grind some ink for her. She thought for a moment. That poem by the poet Teika, written long before the Tokugawa era began, about being together, dreading the approach of dawn, knowing that the future most likely held only sadness – it expressed her feelings perfectly. In as beautiful and flowing a hand as she could manage she brushed the first three lines:

Shinzaemon would know the ending:

She added a scribbled note: ‘At the Shimizu mansion . . . waiting.’

She looked at it for a while, made sure she was happy with every rise and fall of the brush, blew on it, waited for it to dry. Then she rolled it up and wrote Shinzaemon’s name on the outside. She slipped it into Tatsuemon’s hand and closed his fingers round it.

‘Don’t forget,’ she whispered.

III

Edwards called for tea. He was squatting uncomfortably on the floor, his great legs bent up on each side of him like a cricket’s. His body was so angular, all elbows and knees. It made Sachi
aware of how compact and rounded her own was. He bowed and took a cup from the tray which the maid held out. Sachi glanced at his huge pale hands with their broad square-tipped fingers, sprinkled with reddish hairs. The porcelain teacup looked even tinier and more fragile in his grasp.

As she sipped, she looked around curiously at this exotic foreigner’s house. It had tatami mats and sliding doors and windows like any other but it was cluttered with strange objects – containers like chests standing on end and a table so tall only a giant could write on it. The top of it was above the level of her head as she sat on the floor.

In the alcove, instead of a hanging scroll or a piece of calligraphy, there was a picture of a woman, painted in some thick oily substance. She had plump cheeks and big round eyes like Edwards’s and something shiny and metallic on her head like the crest on a samurai helmet. She was wearing a voluminous gown even fuller and more lavish than a courtesan’s kimono but her arms and shoulders were naked. Sachi was about to ask if she was a courtesan when Edwards saw her eyes on it and said, ‘That is the queen of my country – Queen Bikutoria.’ Sachi heaved a sigh of relief that she hadn’t said anything. What a strange country to be ruled by a semi-naked woman who dressed in such an undignified way.

She caught a hint of something rich and spicy, quite different from the subtle scents she was used to, and a background odour of damp. The house was full of mysterious foreign smells. It filled her with a mixture of fascination and repulsion. She felt sorry that Tatsuemon had to stay in such a place, yet she was envious too. Then there was the smell that hung about Edwards, his pungent body odour that smelt of the meat he ate. Initially Sachi had found it disgusting but now it seemed rather exciting. There was a whiff of something untamed about it, like a wild beast.

‘Can I ask . . . ?’ said Haru, shifting forward on her knees. Her small slanted eyes were open wide and her round face was brimming with curiosity. Sachi prayed she wasn’t going to ask something outrageous. Even at the darkest moments Haru never lost her earthy sense of humour or her liking for naughty tales. Sachi remembered that time when she was young – the very day
after she had gone to His Majesty – when Haru had told her about dried lizard powder and how it was supposed to fill anyone who ate it with desire; and those jokes she always used to make about mushroom stems.

‘In your country . . .’ Haru whispered, crossing one plump hand, then the other, over her mouth and keeping her eyes on the tatami, ‘is it true you have iron monsters that travel faster than a horse? I heard they can go as far in a day as a man can walk in seven.’

Sachi glanced at Tatsuemon. He was lying back weakly, but she could see that he was listening. Perhaps some foolish talk might cheer him up and distract him from dark thoughts. She smiled and shook her head.

‘Iron monsters indeed!’ she said. ‘The things you say, Big Sister!’

‘But those ships we saw in the bay – they were iron monsters,’ said Taki. ‘Perhaps there are iron monsters that travel on land as well.’

The women looked expectantly at Edwards. He was looking at Haru, his pale eyebrows pushed together in a puzzled frown. Then he threw back his head and laughed, showing his teeth.

‘It’s true,’ he said. ‘How on earth do you know that, Lady Haruko?’

‘I saw one,’ said Haru. She blushed so fiercely even the backs of her hands glowed, then lowered her hands to her lap and looked around. A provocative smile hovered on her lips.

‘You saw one?’ Sachi and Taki stared at her in amazement. Edwards’s round eyes grew even rounder and his mouth opened in a grin.

‘Yes,’ said Haru, nodding. She glanced round to see if Tatsuemon was listening then paused for a while, letting them all take it in, holding them in suspense.

‘Tell us, Big Sister,’ pleaded Sachi.

A shadow crossed Haru’s face as if it caused her pain to look back into the past. She took a breath.

‘I’ll never forget it,’ she said quietly. ‘It was the first time the foreigners came, fourteen years ago. They came to the castle. It
was just after the old shogun, Lord Ieyoshi, passed away. Lord Iesada was the new shogun.’

Fourteen years ago, thought Sachi; four years after she was born, after her mother . . . disappeared.

‘We were all dying to see the foreigners, we women,’ Haru continued. ‘Of course we weren’t allowed into the men’s palace, but they took the foreigners to the great courtyard in the middle palace. We sat behind the lattices there to look. That was the first time I ever saw foreigners.’

She glanced at Edwards. Her plump cheeks dimpled.

‘We thought they looked terrifying,’ she said, smiling ruefully. ‘We were glad they didn’t see us though they stared in our direction. I think they guessed we were there though we sat quiet as mice. That was when we saw the iron monster. They had brought it to present to His Majesty. You’ve never seen anything so big. It was black and shiny, like a huge tree trunk laid on its side. It was made of iron.’

There was a rustle. Tatsuemon was sitting up on his cushions, leaning forward, his eyes shining. He was gazing at Haru as if he didn’t want to miss a word.

‘The noise it made! Like an old lady snoring. That was what we all said. It puffed out smoke, as much as a thousand watchfires or . . . or like the chimney of a potter’s kiln or a swordsmith’s furnace. Or those ships we saw in the bay.’

‘Or a cannon?’ asked Tatsuemon, butting in unexpectedly. ‘As much smoke as that? And a boom like that?’

‘Not smoke. Steam,’ said Edwards. ‘We call it a “steam engine”. I heard about it. The first American delegation brought it as a gift for the shogun. Not that he would have had much use for it. We heard he was like a prisoner in that palace of yours.’ He looked at them hard. Sachi looked away.

‘It ran on metal rails, round and round,’ said Haru. ‘Some of the senior counsellors took rides. You’ve never seen anything like it, those grand officials in their robes flying round and round. They were clinging on for dear life, doing their best to look dignified.’ She cupped her hands over her mouth and laughed.

‘It was a model, like a child’s toy,’ said Edwards. ‘Real steam engines are much bigger. You should see one. We have them
everywhere in our country. They pull huge metal boxes, much bigger than palanquins or trunks, filled with goods and people, hundreds of people.’

The women gazed at him wide-eyed. It was impossible even to imagine a world so different from their own. Yet they had seen the ships, they had heard the cannons, they had ridden in the wheeled carriage. They could see that there were things in the world they’d never heard of.

‘You’ll get one here too very soon, I promise. Probably several. You thought my carriage went fast. They go much faster. You could travel along the entire Inner Mountain Road in a day in one of those.’

Sachi stared down at her small white hands neatly placed one on top of the other on her kimono skirts. She couldn’t imagine wanting to travel so quickly, without stopping to see the famous views. Surely the whole point was the journey? That was why people travelled.

‘Really?’ she said, smiling at him. ‘But you’ve forgotten all those mountains. I think you must be a fortune teller.’ She couldn’t help teasing him. ‘You have no divining rods, you make no incantations, you haven’t even looked at our faces or hands or asked us for a fee. And yet you say you can see the future.’

Edwards grinned at her. ‘Maybe I can,’ he said playfully. ‘There’s no holding back progress, it’ll come no matter what. And I’ll tell you another thing: an engineer has already arrived from my country to build a . . . a . . . When you see watchfires on the hills and you know there’s a fire or an army approaching. You know? It’s like that. To pass a message across a long distance. But much more precise. You tap out a message here in Edo and someone – for example in Osaka – receives it immediately. At the same moment.’