Gai-Jin by James Clavell
“You’re wonderful!” she burst out and hugged him. “Wonderful, what would I do without you?” She embraced him again, thanked him again and virtually danced out of the room.
He looked at the closed door a long time. Yes, it will cover the medicine, and my twenty louis, and other expenses if I decide, he thought, curiously unsettled. Poor little cabbage, so easy to manipulate you. You embroil yourself in deeper and deeper whirlpools. Don’t you realize that now you become a thief and worse, you’re a criminal planning a willful fraud.
And you, André, you are an accessory to the conspiracy.
He laughed outright, a bad twisted laugh. Prove it! Will she tell a court about an abortion, will the mama-san be witness against me? Will the court believe the story of the daughter and niece of criminals against mine?
No, but God will know and soon you will be before him.
Yes, and HE will know I’ve done much worse. And intend to do even more evil.
Tears began to stream down his face.
“Ayeeyah, Miss’ee,” Ah Soh said, trying to help Angelique undress, who would not be still, again in a merry mood, her immediate problem solved. “Miss’ee!”
“Oh, very well, but do hurry.” Angelique stood by her bed but continued to hum her cheery polka, the room more feminine and friendly in the oil light than during the day, the glass windows slightly ajar with the slatted shutters barred.
“Miss’ee gud time, heya?” Nimbly Ah Soh began to untie the waist straps of the crinoline.
“Good, thank you,” Angelique said politely, not liking her particularly. Ah Soh was a big-hipped, middle-aged woman, a servant and not a real amah. “But she’s so old, Malcolm, can’t you find me someone young and pretty who laughs!”
“Gordon Chen, our compradore, chose her, Angel. He guarantees she’s completely trustworthy, she can brush your hair, bathe you, can look after your European clothes, and she’s my gift to you while she’s with you in Japan…. ”
The straps loosened and the crinoline fell away, then Ah Soh did the same with the petticoat and last the vast framework of hoops of bone and metal that gave the crinoline body. Long pantaloons, silk stockings, short slip and the boned cinch and corset that made her twenty-inch waist eighteen inches and swelled her breasts fashionably. As the maid unlaced the cinch-corset Angelique let out a deep sigh of contentment, stepped out of the sea of material and flopped on the bed and, as a child would, allowed herself to be undressed completely. Obediently she raised her arms to permit the flowery nightdress to be eased around her.
“Sit, Miss’ee.”
“No, not tonight, Ah Soh, my hair can wait.”
“Ayeeyah, t’morro no gud!” Ah Soh brandished the brush.
“Oh, all right.” Angelique sighed and scrambled off the bed and sat by the dressing table and allowed her to take out the pins and begin to brush. It felt very good. Oh, how clever André is! He makes everything so simple—now I can get all the money I need. Oh, how clever he is.
From time to time a benign sea breeze creaked the shutters. A hundred yards away, across the promenade, waves ran up the pebbled shore and departed and came again with a good sound that promised another gentle night that all in the Settlement had welcomed. The fleet had left with the light. Everyone not drunk or bedridden had watched with varying degrees of anxiety as the ships sailed off. All wished them Godspeed and a quick return. Except the Japanese. Ori was one of them and he had his eyes pressed to a crack in one of her shutters, well hidden and camouflaged by the tall camellia bushes that grew here abundantly and that Seratard, a keen gardener, had had planted.
Long before midnight Ori was in this ambush, waiting for her, time passing slowly, thinking and rethinking schemes, exhausting himself, nervously checking and rechecking that his short sword was loose in its scabbard and the derringer safe in the sleeve of his fisherman’s kimono. But when he had seen her approaching the Legation in the company of the two gai-jin, all his tiredness had vanished.
For a moment he had contemplated rushing out and killing them but discarded that foolishness, knowing it was unlikely he could kill the three of them, and the sentry, before being killed himself. And anyway, he thought grimly, that would end my plan to have her once more before I die, and then to burn the Settlement. Without me to goad Hiraga he will never do it. He’s too weak now—he’s gai-jin infected. If Hiraga the Strong can succumb so quickly, what about others? The Emperor is right to hate gai-jin and want them expelled!
So he curbed his anger and slunk deeper into hiding, biding his time, planning for any eventuality. No way through the windows unless she unbarred them. The back door was unguarded and possible—and plenty of footholds to the next floor if it would not open. He had watched the undressing in every detail, barely two paces away, beyond the wall. Now she was being prepared for bed, the maid fussing about her mistress. His impatience became almost unbearable.
Earlier one of the mixed naval and army patrols that roamed the Settlement nightly to keep order had suddenly challenged him in a lane behind High Street. He had stopped without fear; there was no curfew nor was any part of the Settlement forbidden to Japanese, though, wisely, they kept mostly to their own quarter and chose not to tempt gai-jin temper. Unfortunately the Sergeant had rudely shoved a lantern in his face, making him jerk back, startled. The concealed short sword clattered to the ground. “’Ere, you little bastard, you knows daggers’n the like is forbidden, kinjiru.”
Though Ori did not understand the words, the rule and penalty were common knowledge. At once he grabbed up his knife and fled. The Sergeant fired at him but the bullet haranggged off a tile harmlessly and he leapt over a low wall to lose himself in the maze of lanes and dwellings. The patrol did not bother to give chase, just shouted a few curses after him. Carrying a knife was a small misdemeanor, worth only an immediate beating and the weapon confiscated.
Again he had waited in hiding until he could join a group of fishermen to go down to the shore, then doubled back, scaled the Legation fence and quickly found a safe place. Once there he had slumped down and began to wait.
This morning, he had pretended he was ready to leave the Yoshiwara for Kyōto as Hiraga had demanded. “As soon as I’ve contacted Katsumata there, I’ll send you a message,” he had said, deliberately tight-lipped. “Make sure the girl does not escape!”
“She’s the tai-pan’s woman so her every step is measured and she’ll be easy to find,” Hiraga had told him, as coldly. “Watch yourself, the Tokaidō will be dangerous—Enforcer patrol and barrier guards will be very alert.”
“Better we honor sonno-joi, better you allow me to stay, better we burn Yokohama. Akimoto arrives today, we could do it easily.”
“We will, when you return. If you stay now you will make a mistake, the woman has turned your head and made you dangerous, to yourself, your friends and sonno-joi.”
“What about you, Hiraga? The gai-jin have turned you and twisted your judgment.”
“No. I tell you for the last time.”
Careless of provoking Hiraga even more, he flared, “You saw what scum gai-jin are, drunk and revolting, fighting like beasts, carousing in the filth of Drunk Town—are these the men you want to know more of, to be like?”
“Go!”
Angrily he had collected his short sword and derringer. At Raiko’s suggestion he joined the daily procession of servants leaving for Kanagawa market where the best saké and foods were purchased. With them he had passed through the Yoshiwara and Settlement barriers, the Enforcer patrol still lurking amongst the guards, making them as nervous as the villagers. Halfway to Kanagawa, the road traffic heavy, he had slipped away to the shore. There he had bribed a fisherman to row him to the far end of the Settlement, near Drunk Town, to hide him till dusk.
I am doing the correct thing, he thought with absolute conviction, the small sea wind scattering the night insects. The woman is the perfect target for sonno-joi. Whatever Hiraga says I may never have another chance to cast away her spell.
Tonight I will lay her for the second time. Then I will kill her. If I escape, karma. If I do not escape, karma. But she will die by my hand.
The sweat was running down his face and back. Once more he concentrated, watching her through the crack, so very close that, but for the wall, he could almost reach out and touch her. She climbed into bed, nightdress revealing. Now the maid turned down the oil flame to leave a warm glow of light.
“’Night, Miss’ee.”
“’Night, Ah Soh.”
Happy to be alone, Angelique snuggled down in the bedclothes, watching the flame shadows dance with the drafts, her head resting comfortably on her arm. Before Kanagawa the dark had never bothered her and she would go quickly into dreamtime to awake refreshed. Since Kanagawa her pattern had changed. Now she insisted on a night light. Sleep did not come easily. Soon her mind took her into paths of wild surmise. Her hands would stray to her breasts. Are they a little fuller than yesterday, my nipples more sensitive? Yes, yes, they are, no, it is just imagination. And my stomach? Is it rounder? No, there’s no difference and yet …
And yet there is a vast difference, like b.c. and a.d. and at least once a day I wonder, would it be a boy or girl? Or devil, taking after the rapist father. No, no child of mine could be a devil!
Devil. That reminds me today’s Friday and in two days I have to go to church and confess again. The words get no easier. How I hate confession now and loathe Father Leo, such a fat, uncouth, tobacco-smelling and lecherous old man. He reminds me of Aunt Emma’s confessor in Paris—the ancient Scot, smelling of whisky, whose French was as vile as his cassock. Lucky for me that neither she nor Uncle Michel were fanatic, just ordinary Sunday Catholics. I wonder how she is, and poor Uncle Michel. Tomorrow I will speak to Malcolm….
Dear, dear Malcolm, he was so nice tonight, so strong and wise and oh, how I wanted him. So glad I can talk to him, so lucky for me that Aunt Emma refused to learn French so I had to learn English. How could she possibly survive in Paris all those years speaking only English, and what possessed Uncle Michel to marry her and endure such hardship? Though I love her and him, she so dowdy, he so ordinary.
Love! That’s what he would always say and she would say and that they had met when he was in Normandy one summer vacation, she an actress with a travelling Shakespearean troupe, he a junior official. It was love at first glance, they would always say, and tell how beautiful she was and handsome he was. Then running away together, married within the week, so romantic but not so happy ever after.
But we will be, Malcolm and I. Ah, yes, and I will love Malcolm as a modern wife should, we’ll have lots of children, they’ll be brought up Catholic, it won’t matter to him, he’s not fanatic either: “I’m really not, Angelique. Of course we’ll be married according to Protestant traditions, Mother will not have it otherwise, of that I’m certain. Afterwards we can have a Catholic ceremony, privately, if you wish …”
Never mind, even if it’s secret, it’s the real marriage—not like the other—the children will be accepted into Mother Church, we will all live in Paris most of the year, he will love me and I will love him and we’ll make love marvelously, she thought, her heart beginning to thump pleasantly as she let her mind roam. Deeper and deeper. Then, because the evening had been wonderful and she felt wonderful and quite safe, she allowed the pleasing parts of that night’s dream to return.
She could remember none of it exactly. The outrage dissolved into pictures within erotic pictures within erotic pictures. A little burning that became a pervading warmth. Knowing but not knowing. Feeling but not feeling strong arms embracing, and being possessed by a never-before-experienced sensuality and openness, head, body, life, gloriously free to abandon all restraint, to relish everything because it was…just a dream.
But did I awake, or almost awake, and only pretend that I didn’t, she asked herself again and again, always with a shudder. I could not have responded that wantonly awake—surely not—but the dream was so strong and, in its grasp, I was driven by a tempest to want more and again more and …
She heard the outer door open and close and then the bedroom door latch moving and whirled to see André open the door silently and close it silently, bolt it, and lean against it, a mocking smile on his lips.
Suddenly she was afraid. “What do you want, André?”
For a long time he did not answer, then came over to the bed and stared down at her. “To … to talk, eh?” he said softly. “We should, eh? Talk, or—or what?”
“I don’t understand,” she said, understanding too well, painfully aware of the disturbing glitter in his eyes where only a few minutes before there had been only compassion. But she kept her voice reasonable, cursing herself that she had not barred the door—never a need here, always servants or Legation staff about and no one would dare enter without permission. “Please, don’t y—”
“We should talk, about tomorrow and be—be friends.”
“Dear André, please, it’s late, whatever it is can wait until tomorrow, sorry but you’ve no right to come in here without knock—” In momentary panic she retreated to the other side of the bed as he sat on the edge and reached for her. “Stop or I’ll scream!”
His laugh was soft and barbed. “If you scream, dear Angelique, that will bring the servants and I will unlock the door and tell them you invited me here—you wanted privacy to discuss your need for money, cash money, for your abortion.” Again the mocking twisted smile. “Eh?”
“Oh, André, don’t be like that, please leave, please—if someone were to see you, please.”
“First … first a kiss.”
She flushed. “Get out, how dare you!”
“Shut up and listen,” he whispered harshly, and his hand caught her wrist and held it in a vise. “I can dare anything, if I want more than a kiss you’ll give it to me happily or else. Without me you’ll be found out, without me—”
“André … please let me go.” As much as she tried she could not break his grip. With a twisted smile he released her. “You hurt me,” she said, near tears.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said throatily, his voice sounding strange to him and he knew he was insane to be here and doing this, but he had been caught up in such sudden horror that it had overpowered his reason, his feet carrying him here of their own volition, to force her to—to what? To share his degradation. Why not? his brain was shrieking. It’s her fault, flaunting her tits and blatant sexuality, reminding me! She’s no better than a street slut, maybe she wasn’t raped, isn’t she out to trap Struan and his millions by any means? “I’m—I’m your friend, aren’t I helping you? Come over here, a—a kiss isn’t much payment.”
“No!”
“By Christ, do it happily or I’ll stop helping you and, in a day or two, I’ll inform Struan and Babcott, anonymously. You want that? Eh?”
“André, please …” She looked around, desperate for a way to escape. There was none. He moved closer to her on the bed and reached for her breast but she pushed his hand away and began to resist and to fight and hacked with her nails for his eyes but he held her helpless as she struggled, afraid to call out, knowing she was snared and lost and would have to submit. Abruptly, there was a violent pounding on the shutter.
The suddenness ripped André out of his madness and she screamed in fright. Aghast, he leapt off the bed, rushed for the door, unlocked it and the one to the corridor, then whirled and ran to the windows, pulling them open. In seconds he had unbarred the shutters and shoved them outwards. Nothing. No one there. Nothing but bushes waving in the wind, the sound of the sea, the promenade beyond the fence empty of people.
A sentry hurried into view. “What’s going on?”
“I should ask you that, soldier,” André said, his heart grind
Behind him, Pierre Vervene, the Chargé d’Affaires, a flickering candle in his hand, hurried anxiously into the room, dressing gown over his nightshirt, nightcap askew. Others began crowding the doorway, “What’s going on—oh, André! What the devil … what’s going on? Mademoiselle, you screamed?”
“Yes … I … he—” she stammered. “André was … he … someone banged on the shutters and André, well, he—”
“I was just passing her door,” André said, “and rushed in—isn’t that true, Angelique?”
She dropped her eyes, holding the bedclothes closer around her. “Yes, yes, that’s true,” she said, afraid and hating him but attempting to hide it.
Vervene joined André at the window and peered out. “Perhaps it was the wind, we have sudden squalls here and the shutters aren’t exactly new.” He shook one of them. Indeed it was loose and rattled noisily. Then he leaned out and shouted after the sentry. “Make a very good search and come back and report to me.” Then he closed and barred the shutters, and rebolted the windows. “There! Nothing to worry about.”
“Yes, yes, but …” Tears of relief began to well.
“Mon Dieu, Mademoiselle, nothing to worry about, don’t cry, you’re perfectly safe, no need to worry, of course not.” Vervene took off his nightcap and scratched his bald pate, at a loss. Then, thankfully, he saw Ah Soh amongst the others at the doorway and motioned at her importantly. “Ah Soh, you-ah sleep here, with Miss’ee, heya?”