Gai-Jin by James Clavell
I could say, let us have the meeting as planned and then the Shōgun meeting. That would be best, but I feel they won’t go against the mystical Shōgun’s wishes and somehow they’ll wheedle and twist and mesh us again.
Johann said, “The spokesman says, as that’s agreed, we will bid you farewell.”
“Nothing is agreed. A thirty-day extension is not possible for many reasons. We have already arranged a date for the Council of Elders that will take place as planned and then, ten days later, we will be pleased to meet the Shōgun.”
After an hour of sucked-in breaths, aghast silences, blunt Anglo-Saxonese, Sir William allowed himself to be whittled down and got his compromise position: The meeting with the Council of Elders to take place as planned, and the meeting with the Shōgun twenty days after that.
Once alone again with Sir William, Johann said, “They won’t abide by it.”
“Yes, I know. Never mind.”
“Sir William, my contract’s up in a couple of months. I won’t renew.”
Sir William said sharply, “I can’t do without your services for at least six months.”
“It’s time to go home. This place is going to be a bloodbath soon and I’ve no want to have my head on a spike.”
“I’ll increase your salary by fifty pounds a year.”
“It’s not the money, Sir William. I’m tired. Ninety-eight percent of all the talk is Sheisse. I’ve no patience now to sift the kernel of wheat from the barrel of dung!”
“I need you for these two meetings.”
“They’ll never take place. Two months odd, then I’m off, the exact day is on the paper. Sorry, Sir William, but that’s the end, and now I am going to get drunk.” He left.
Sir William went across the hall to his office window and searched the horizon. It was nearing sunset now. No sign of any of the fleet. My God, I hope they’re safe. Must keep Johann somehow. Tyrer won’t be ready for a year at least. Who can I get that I can trust? God damn it!
Light from the dying sun illuminated the sparsely furnished room, not enough to see by so he lit an oil lamp, adjusting the wick carefully. On his desk were neat piles of dispatches, his edition of All the Year Round—long since read from cover to cover, with all the newspapers from the last mail ship, several editions of Illustrated London News and Punch. He picked up the advance copy of Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons in Russian sent to him by a friend at the Court of St. Petersburg, amongst other English and French books, started to read it, then, distracted, put it aside and began the second letter of the day to the Governor of Hong Kong, giving details of today’s meeting, and asking for a replacement for Johann. Lun came in silently, closing the door.
“Yes, Lun?”
Lun came up to his desk, hesitated, then dropped his voice. “Mass’er,” he said cautiously, “hear trou’bel, trou’bel soon Yedo Big House, big trou’bel.”
Sir William stared up at him. Big House was what the Chinese servants called their Yedo Legation. “What trouble?”
Lun shrugged. “Trou’bel.”
“When trouble?”
Again Lun shrugged. “Whisk’y water, heya?”
Sir William nodded thoughtfully. From time to time Lun whispered rumors to him with an uncanny knack of being right. He watched him pad over to the sideboard and make the drink, just as he liked it.
* * *
Phillip Tyrer and the kilted Captain were watching the same sunset from an upstairs window of the Legation at Yedo, the usual groups of samurai stationed outside the walls and in all approaches up the hill. Dark reds and orange and browns on the empty horizon mixed with a strip of blue above the sea. “Will the weather be good tomorrow?”
“Don’t know much about the weather here, Mr. Tyrer. If we were in Scotland I could give you a wee forecast,” the Captain, a sandy-haired, thirty-year-old ramrod, laughed. “Rain with scattered showers … but, och ay, it’s no’ so bad.”
“I’ve never been to Scotland, but I will on my next leave. When do you go home?”
“Maybe next year, or the year after. This is only my second year.” Their attention went back to the square. Four Highlanders and a sergeant plodded up the hill through the samurai and entered the iron gates, returning from a routine patrol to the wharf where a detachment of marines and a cutter were stationed. Samurai were always in attendance, standing around, sometimes chatting, or in clusters near fires that they lit if it was cold, movement constant. No one, soldier or Legation employee, had been prevented from leaving or entering, though all had passed through intense, always silent scrutiny.
“Excuse me, I’ll see the Sergeant, make sure our cutter’s there, in case, and close down for the night. Dinner at seven as usual?”
“Yes.” When he was alone Tyrer stifled a nervous yawn, stretched and moved his arm to ease the slight ache there. His wound had healed perfectly, no longer any need to use a sling. I’m bloody lucky, he thought, except for Wee Willie. Damn the man for sending me here, I’m supposed to be training to be an interpreter, not a dogsbody. Damn damn damn. And now I’ll miss André’s recital that I was so looking forward to. Angelique is certain to be there.
Rumors of her secret betrothal had rushed around the Settlement like a foehn wind—unsettling. Hints dropped to her or to Struan had brought forth neither denial nor confirmation, nor even a clue. In the Club the betting was two to one that it was a fact, twenty to one that the marriage would never take place: “Struan’s as sick as a dog, she’s Catholic and you know his mum, for God’s sake, Jamie!”
“Taken! He’s better every day and you don’t know him like I do. Ten guineas against two hundred.”
“Charlie, what odds you give me that one’s up the spout?”
“Oh, for God’s sake!”
“Angel Tits ain’t a doxy, for Chris’ sake!”
“A thousand to one?”
“Done, by God … a golden guinea!”
To Tyrer and Pallidar’s disgust, the odds and bets, ever more personal and detailed, changed daily. “The buggers here are a lot of guttersnipes!”
“You’re right, of course, Pallidar. A scummy lot!”
With intense speculation going on about Struan and Angelique, there was more about the extent of the storm and the fleet, worse that it might be in dire trouble, and doom generally. Japanese merchants were more nervous than usual too, whispering rumors of insurrections all over Japan against or for the Bakufu, that the mystical Mikado, supposed high priest of all Japanese, who held sway in Kyōto, had ordered all samurai to attack Yokohama.
“Poppycock, if you ask me,” the Westerners told one another, but more and more guns were purchased and even the two trader wives slept with a loaded weapon beside their beds. Drunk Town was rumored to be an armed camp.
Then, a few days ago, an act of war: an American merchantman, storm battered, had limped into Yokohama. In the Shimonoseki Straits, inbound from Shanghai for Yokohama with a cargo of silver, ammunition and arms, then onwards to the Philippines with opium, tea and general trade goods, she had been fired upon by shore batteries.
“The devil you were!” someone called out over the explosion of anger in the Club.
“You’re goddam right we were! And us as peaceful as a buttercup! Those Choshu bastards were mighty accurate—what crazy bastard sold them goddam cannon? Blew off our top t’gallants before we knew what was happening and could take evading action. Sure, we returned their fire but we’ve only a couple of stinky goddam five-pounders that’d not give a body much cause to hiccup. We counted as many as twenty cannon.”
“My God, twenty cannon and expert gunners could easily close Shimonoseki, and if that happens we’re in dead trouble. That’s the quickest and only safe way here.”
“Ay! The Inland Waters are a must, by God!”
“Where the hell’s the fleet? They could go and knock out those batteries! What about our trade?”
“Ay, where’s the fleet, hope to God she’s safe!”
“And if she’s not?”
“Charlie, we’ll just have to send for another …”
Stupid people, Tyrer thought, all they can think of is send for the fleet, boozing and money.
Thank God the French Admiral brought back André with him. Thank God for André even though he’s volatile and strange but that’s only because he’s French. Thanks to him I’ve already two exercise books crammed with Japanese words and phrases, my daily journal’s chockablock with an abundance of folklore, I’ve a rendezvous with a Jesuit when we’re again in Yokohama. Such marvelous progress and so important for me to learn quickly—and that’s without even thinking about the Yoshiwara.
Three visits. The first two guided, the third alone.
“André, I just can’t tell you how much I appreciate all the time you’ve given me, and all the help. And as to tonight, I can never repay you, never.”
That was after the first visit.
Nervous, flushed, sweating, almost tongue-tied but pretending to be manly he had followed André out of the Settlement at dusk, joining the jovial crowds of men Yoshiwara bound, passed the samurai guards, politely raising top hats and receiving perfunctory bows in return, across the Bridge to Paradise towards the tall gates in the enclosing wooden fence.
“Yoshiwara means Place of Reeds,” André said expansively, both of them well lubricated with champagne that in Tyrer’s case had only increased his foreboding. “It was the name of a district in Yedo, a reclaimed swamp, where the first ever, fenced bordello area was decreed and built by Shōgun Toranaga two and a half centuries ago. Before that, bordellos were scattered everywhere. Since then, so we’re told, all cities and towns have similar enclosures, all of them licensed and tightly controlled. By custom, many are called Yoshiwara. See those?”
Above the gate, a series of Chinese characters were etched elegantly into the wood. “They mean, Lust is pressing, something must be done about it.”
Tyrer laughed nervously. Many guards inside and outside the gate. Last night when André had volunteered to escort him—they were in the Club then, drinking—he had mentioned a trader had told him the guards were there not just to keep the peace but mostly to keep the whores from escaping, “So they’re really all slaves, aren’t they?” To his shock he had seen Poncin flush angrily.
“Mon Dieu, don’t think of them as whores or call them whores as we understand the word. They’re not slaves. Some are indentured for a number of years, many sold by their parents at an early age, again for a number of years, but their contracts are Bakufu approved and registered. They’re not whores, they’re Ladies of the Willow World and don’t forget it. Ladies!”
“Sorry, I …”
But André had paid no attention. “Some are geishas—Art Persons—those trained to entertain you, sing and dance and play silly games and are not for bedding. The rest, mon Dieu, I’ve told you, don’t think of them as whores, think of them as Pleasure Women, trained to please, trained over many years.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know.”
“If you treat them properly they’ll give you pleasure, almost any kind you want—if they want to—and if the money you give is correct. You give them money, which has no significance, they give you their youth. It’s an odd bargain.” André had looked at him strangely. “They give you their youth and hide the tears you cause.” He quaffed his wine and stared at the cup, abruptly maudlin.
Tyrer remembered how he had quietly refilled their glasses, cursing himself for breaking the feeling of easy friendship, to him valuable friendship, swearing to be more cautious in future and wondering why the sudden fury. “Tears?”
“Their life isn’t good, but even so it isn’t always bad. For some it can be marvelous. The most beautiful and accomplished become famous, they’re sought after by even the most important daimyo—kings—in the land, they can marry in high places, marry rich merchants, even samurai. But for our Ladies of the Willow World who are just for us gai-jin,” André had continued bitterly, “there’s no future but to open another house here, to drink saké and employ other girls. Mon Dieu, treat them all properly, because once they’re here they’re polluted in the eyes of all other Japanese.”
“Sorry. How awful.”
“Yes, no one understan—” A burst of drunken laughter from the men around drowned him out for a moment, the Club filled, raucous and steaming. “I tell you these cretins don’t care or give a damn, none of them, except Canterbury, he did.” André had looked up from the dregs of his drink. “You’re young and unsullied, here for a year or two and seem willing to learn, so I thought … there’s so much to learn, so much good,” he had said suddenly, and left.
That was last night and now they were within the Yoshiwara gate, André took out his small pistol. “Phillip, are you armed?”
“No.”
André gave the pistol to the unctuous attendant who gave him a receipt and put it with many others. “No weapons are allowed within the fence—the same in all Yoshiwaras, even samurai must give up their swords. On y va!”
Ahead of them now, on either side of the wide street and alleys leading off it, were lines of neat little houses, many for eating or just small bars, all built of wood with verandas and oiled paper shoji screens, and raised off the ground on low pilings. Everywhere color and sprays of flowers, noise and laughter, and lanterns, candles and oil lamps. “Fire’s a huge hazard, Phillip. This whole place burned down the first year but within the week was booming again.”
All the Houses bore individual signs. Some had open doors and sliding shoji windows. Many girls were in them, ornately or demurely dressed in kimonos of varying quality, depending on the standing of the House. Other girls were promenading, some with colorful umbrellas, some attended by maids, paying little or no attention to the gawking men. Intermixed were vendors of all kinds, and swarms of maids shouting the virtues of the Houses in versions of pithy, raucous pidgin, and sounding over everything the happy banter of potential customers, most of whom were recognized and had their favored places. There were no Japanese except for guards, servants, porters and masseurs.
“Never forget, Yoshiwaras are a place for joy, the pleasures of the flesh, eating and drinking as well, and that there’s no such thing as sin in Japan, original sin, any kind of sin.” André laughed and led the way through the typically well-ordered crowd, except for a few brawling drunks who were quickly and good-naturedly pulled apart by huge, expert bouncers, at once to be sat on stools and plied with more saké by the ever attentive maids.
“Drunks are welcome, Phillip, because they lose count of their money. But don’t ever pick a quarrel with a bouncer, they’re fantastically good at unarmed combat.”
“Compared to our Drunk Town this place is as well disciplined as the Regent’s Promenade at Brighton.” A boisterous maid caught Tyrer’s arm and tried to pull him into a doorway. “Saké, heya? Jig jig plenty good, Mass’er …”
“Iyé, domo, iyé …” Tyrer burst out—no, thank you, no—and hurriedly caught up with André. “My God, I had to really tug to get away.”
“That’s their job.” André turned off the main street through a passageway between dwellings, down another, stopped at a seedy door set into a fence, a grubby sign above, and knocked. Tyrer recognized the characters that André had written for him earlier: House of the Three Carp. A small grill slid back. Eyes peered out. The door opened and Tyrer stepped into a wonderland.
Tiny garden, oil lanterns and candlelight. Glistening grey stepping-stones in green moss, clusters of flowers, many small maples—blood-red leaves against more green—pale orange light coming from the half-obscured shoji. Little bridge over a miniature stream, waterfall nearby. Kneeling on the veranda was a middle-aged woman, the mama-san, beautifully attired and coiffured. “Bonsoir, Monsieur Furansu-san,” she said, put both her hands on the veranda and bowed.
André bowed back. “Raiko-san, konbanwa. Ikaga desu ka?” Good evening, how are you? “Kore wa watashi no tomodachi desu, Tyrer-san.” This is my friend, Mr. Tyrer.
“She says Taira is a famous old Japanese name. You’re in luck, Phillip, most of us go by nicknames. I’m Furansu-san—the nearest they can get to Frenchman.”
Taking off their shoes so as not to dirty the very clean and expensive tatami, then sitting awkwardly cross-legged in the room, André Poncin explained the tokonoma, the alcove for a special hanging scroll and flower arrangement, changed daily, guiding him to appreciate the quality of the shoji and woods.
Saké arrived. The maid was young, perhaps ten, not pretty but deft and silent. Raiko poured, first for André and then Tyrer, then herself. She sipped, André drained the tiny cup and held it out for more. Tyrer did the same, finding the taste of the warm wine not unpleasant but insipid. Both cups were immediately filled and drained and refilled. More trays and more flasks.
Tyrer lost count but soon he was enveloped with a pleasing glow, forgot his nervousness and watched and listened and understood almost nothing the other two said, just a word here and there. Raiko’s hair was black and shining and dressed with many ornate combs, her face thick with white powder, neither ugly nor beautiful just different, her kimono pink silk with interweaving green carp.
“A carp is koi, usually a sign of good luck,” André had explained earlier. “Townsend Harris’s mistress, the Shimoda courtesan the Bakufu arranged to distract him, called herself Koi, but I’m afraid it didn’t bring her luck.”
“Oh? What happened?”
“The story told amongst courtesans here is that he adored her and when he left he gave her money, enough to set herself up—she was with him for about two years. Shortly after he returned to America, she just vanished. Probably drank herself to death or committed suicide.”