The Bamboo Sword

by Margi Preus

  Yoshi shook his head. “I don’t know anything—” he started.

  “Hold your tongue, you impudent cur, or this is what will happen to you.” Kitsune slid a straw sandal off the pole. He held it, dangling from one hand, and said in a low voice, “First I’ll sever the tendon behind your knees, like this.” He sliced through one of the straw straps. “Then I’ll cut the tendon at your elbows.” He snagged another sandal with his sword and sliced it apart. Then he took another one, tossed it up in the air, and slashed it to ribbons as it fell. He continued to destroy sandal after sandal this way.

  Yoshi could not stand to watch. The ruin of the sandals was one thing, but for a samurai to use his sword for such a purpose—it was disgraceful. “No honorable samurai would use his sword that way,” Yoshi scolded.

  “What did you say, worm?” Kitsune spit out the words and stepped toward Yoshi.

  At the same moment, a streak of color dropped from the tree and landed with a plop! on Kitsune’s back. Kitsune twisted to grab at the little boy, whose arms were wrapped around the big man’s neck.

  Yoshi leaped up, snatched his sandal pole, and swung it into the back of Kitsune’s knees. The big man went down, Chibi sprang away, and the two boys took off running. Kitsune staggered to his feet and followed.

  The boys doubled back onto the road, with Kitsune close on their heels. That was why they didn’t notice the kago until too late, when they were directly in its path. The kago bearers lurched to a halt, the samurai retainers following on foot also stopped, and the boys froze.

  The man in the kago stuck his head out and asked, “What is going on here?” The boys dropped to their knees and pressed their foreheads to the ground.

  “Tell the boys to come here,” the man said.

  Yoshi and Chibi crept to him on their knees, heads down.

  “I will cut down these rude little peasants who have caused you distress,” Kitsune told the man in the kago.

  But the man held up his hand and said, “Please, put your sword away. I would like to talk with the boys.”

  Kitsune must have noticed the crest of the Lord of Tosa on the man’s sleeve, because he slid his sword into its scabbard and stalked away, glancing back once to glower at Yoshi.

  The man unfolded himself out of the kago and said to the boys, “Stand up now and tell me what happened. You darted into the road as if you were being chased by a tiger!”

  “We were just minding our own business,” Chibi blurted out, “selling horseshoes. See these fine horseshoes?” He held up a tattered sandal. “Very fine! Does your horse need shoes?”

  “Honorable sir,” Yoshi interrupted, “please excuse the ignorance of the little boy. Of course you have no need of horseshoes.”

  “Let me see.” The man moved the boys and his small entourage to the side of the road—the opposite side from Kitsune, Yoshi noticed.

  “I am sorry,” Yoshi said. “The shoes have all been damaged.” He slid the least-damaged one off the pole and handed it to the man, who examined it as if he’d never seen such a thing before. While the man was looking at it, Yoshi set the pole down.

  “You know, in some places they make shoes for horses out of iron,” the Tosa man said.

  “Wouldn’t that be terribly heavy?” Yoshi asked.

  “Yes, but the shoe is not a shoe like this.” The man held up one of the straw shoes. “It doesn’t go all the way around the horse’s hoof. It is worn only on the underside and is affixed with nails. It gives very strong protection to the horse’s foot and lasts for a long time. They make them in the way a sword is made—heated in a forge, then hammered and bent into a shape like this.” The man drew a half circle in the air.

  “I have never heard of anything like that,” Yoshi said. “What place is this where you saw such a thing?”

  “Why, it was in America,” the man said.

  “America!” Yoshi whispered.

  “Where the giants come from!” Chibi crowed, then started singing: “ ‘They came from the land of darkness. Giants with hooked noses. Giants with rough hair, loose and red . . .’”

  The man laughed. “Is that a popular song these days?”

  Chibi continued singing: “‘They danced with joy as they sailed away to the distant land of darkness.’”

  “Do you want to hear a song from that ‘land of darkness’?” the man asked.

  Chibi hushed instantly and stared at the Tosa man, who cleared his throat. “Ohhh . . . ,” he began, singing in English, “I come from Alabama, with a banjo on my knee. I’m going to Louisiana, my true love for to see . . .”

  Yoshi and Chibi stood in shocked silence, their mouths impolitely agape. Then Yoshi said, “I saw the outsiders myself. And their ships, too.”

  “Did you?” The man bent down toward him. “Tell me about it.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Yoshi watched Kitsune. He had retreated to the shadows and sat, madly shredding grass in his hand, tearing it into tiny pieces. What he wishes he were doing to me! Yoshi thought.

  So Yoshi took his time, telling the man from Tosa every detail he could remember and hoping that Kitsune would grow tired of waiting and just go away.

  “I will show you a picture,” Yoshi said. He pulled out the one wrinkled, rumpled picture he’d salvaged from his underwater adventure. It was printed with the image of a person who seemed half animal, half man. Fur-like hair sprouted from everywhere: his head and all over his face, too. His eyes were huge and fierce, his nose immense, his face as creased as the paper.

  An anonymous Japanese artist’s interpretation of a “foreign barbarian.” The commentary claims it’s a “true portrait of Perry.”

  The Tosa man hooted. “This is a silly rendering. This looks like a tengu—a demon. Americans don’t look like that.”

  “Yes, they do!” Yoshi blurted out. “I know, for I saw them myself. And they look just like that.”

  “Boy!” said one of the man’s retainers. “Remember your place.”

  Yoshi quickly lowered his gaze and held his tongue.

  “Let him speak,” the Tosa man said.

  “What does he know?” the retainer complained. “He’s only a boy making up stories.”

  “Let him say what he knows,” the man insisted.

  “They have bits of round jewelry on their jackets,” Yoshi said.

  “Those are called buttons,” the man said.

  “Buttons . . . ,” Yoshi repeated. “And they put their hands into their clothes and they disappear into pouches sewn right into their clothing.”

  “Pockets,” the man said.

  “Pockets,” Yoshi repeated.

  The man smiled and said, “I remember myself at your age, learning these same words.”

  “You were just my age when you went to America?” Yoshi asked.

  “How old are you?” the man asked him.

  “Thirteen,” Yoshi said. He frowned. “Or thereabouts.”

  “Yes, I was about that age. Perhaps a little older. And I was just a poor fisherman’s son from Tosa. But in America, I had a horse with iron shoes.”

  “You had your own horse?”

  “Yes,” the man said. “Anyone can have a horse in America, gentlemen and farmers, rich and not so rich. Would you like a horse of your own?”

  “He has a horse,” Chibi chirped, holding up Yoshi’s drawing.

  “Did you draw this?” the Tosa man asked Yoshi. “Very well done. You are a bright boy, I can see. And you are going to grow up to see great change. There is a big world out there—a big, new world, and you will have the opportunity to see it.”

  Yoshi listened to the man in silence. Was he kind of crazy? People were not allowed to leave Japan, even if they wanted to go. Didn’t he know the edict that said that anyone who tried to leave the country would be put to death? And no one had ever called him “bright” before. The man talked strangely, too. In addition to his Tosa accent, he had a funny way of talking. And it was impossible to tell if he was a samurai or not. He wore
the samurai’s haori and hakama, and his two retainers were samurai, but the Tosa man carried no swords. Not only that, he lowered himself to converse with a poor peasant boy like Yoshi. He must be at least a little bit crazy.

  Still, it was as if he had looked into Yoshi’s heart and read his secret desire to see more of the world.

  “How . . . ,” Yoshi started. He hesitated, not sure if he was even legally permitted to ask such a question. “How did you get to America?” he blurted.

  “That is a long story, which I hope to share with you another time. But right now, I feel quite tired, and would like to rest. In fact,” he said to his retainers, “there’s a fine-looking inn, right there.” He turned back to Yoshi and Chibi, bid them good-bye, and walked toward the inn, humming. Humming, right out in public!

  “He’s gone,” Chibi said.

  “Gone?” Yoshi asked absently.

  “The bad man. He went away while you were talking.”

  Yoshi had almost forgotten about Kitsune. “Good,” he said. “Let’s get back to work.”

  As they went to fetch the sandal pole, Yoshi thought about some of the strange things the Tosa man seemed to know: words and songs and humming.

  Yoshi tried humming a little, and was still humming when he reached for his sandal pole. But when he saw the pole, dangling with ruined sandals, his smile faded and the song died on his lips. How could he have forgotten what a sorry mess he’d made of things? He was already in debt to Ozawa. Now he was further indebted to Jiro. He slid the ruined sandals off the pole and threw them into the bushes.

  “Come on,” he said to Chibi. “I’ll take you home.”

  Back at the cypress grove, Jiro sat, still working away. Yoshi set the empty pole on the ground and kneeled before him.

  “You must have met with good fortune,” Jiro said, smiling at the sight of the empty pole.

  “No, Jiro-san,” Yoshi said. “I am a miserable failure. All the good sandals you made were ruined by a bully on the road because of my stupidity. But I will pay for them!” He still had the coins that he had been saving, and he counted out the exact number to cover the cost of all the shoes he had lost. He handed the money to Jiro. Then, because there really wasn’t quite enough, he also gave Jiro his drawing kit.

  Jiro looked at the coins, then handed two of them back to Yoshi.

  “Here,” he said. “Take Chibi to the public bath. You both could use one.”

  17

  AT THE PUBLIC BATH

  Steam rose from the large pool of hot water and from the bare heads and bodies of the bathers. The steam was so heavy, it obscured all but the closest bathers, but their voices were clear. Yoshi could only make out the tops of their heads, some of which were bald except for the topknots. Even naked, you could always tell a samurai by his topknot. A group of samurai, merchants, and artisans were all conversing about . . . what else? The coming barbarian invasion. Was Kitsune among them? Yoshi couldn’t tell.

  “Perhaps the divine wind will come again to save us from the barbarians,” one of the bathers said. “It saved us before!” It was not Kitsune’s voice.

  “That was five hundred years ago!” a wheezy voice scoffed. Also not Kitsune. “But one thing is sure, we must drive them away now, or we will never have another chance.”

  That’s right, Yoshi thought.

  “And the only way to rid the country of them is by force,” a man with a deep, rumbly voice said. Not Kitsune.

  Yoshi agreed with that, too. Japan’s warriors must drive the outsiders away.

  Having determined that Kitsune was not among the men present, he plunked Chibi on a stool and sat on one himself, and they began to scrub themselves clean before entering the pool.

  “Our warriors are not well trained anymore,” said yet another voice. “Many have become lazy. There are quite a few who have sold their armor and even their swords to pay their debts.”

  As Yoshi scrubbed Chibi’s back with a bag of rice bran, he thought, If I were allowed to carry a sword, it would not matter how hungry I got. I would never, ever sell it. How could a true samurai ever sell his katana?

  “It seems impossible,” the gruff voice was saying. “We have no real army, and our coastal defenses are in shambles.”

  “What if we just let them in?” said a soft but clear voice. “Without fighting? Maybe nothing would happen.”

  “How can you say such a thing?” crowed the wheezy voice. His face appeared out of the steam, rosy and pink. “They will destroy our way of life. Would we have to succumb to their barbaric ways?”

  Yoshi tried to picture the foreigners walking around in their country. He shuddered at the thought of having to look upon those creatures on a daily basis, with their sharp, beak-like noses, wicked-looking eyes, and bristly faces!

  He couldn’t get the picture out of his head, and he barely heard the men as they discussed the possibility of the Americans being contained on their own separate little island, as the Dutch traders were on the island of Dejima.

  “Perhaps the Americans can supply us with the few goods we desire, as the Dutch have done for us,” one of the men suggested.

  But it was generally agreed that the American barbarians had already proved their unwillingness to conform to the laws of the land, and probably wouldn’t comply the way the Dutch had done.

  “There has to be a way of using their thinking without becoming like them,” a man said, draping a towel over his head. “There must be some kind of compromise.”

  “Compromise? Never! Are we not samurai?”

  “That we may be, but are we also idiots?” the other man countered, complacently rubbing a wet towel over his face. “We either compromise or are crushed. What I’m saying is that we need to learn their ways in order to know how to get rid of them! We need expert help. We need people who have firsthand knowledge of Western might and military power, who understand ships and guns.”

  “You’re talking about that fellow who went to America and came back,” said the rumbly one.

  Yoshi scrubbed more slowly so he could listen.

  “It is said he is traveling the Tokaido now, under protection of the shogun,” said the wheezy one, who then coughed.

  Yoshi stopped scrubbing and listened harder. Were they talking about the man he and Chibi had met on the road?

  “But he is just a commoner,” said Rumbly Voice. “His name is Manjiro. His only name.”

  Yoshi led Chibi to the pool and slipped into the water, edging closer to the conversation. The men took no notice of the two small boys.

  “He has been granted samurai status,” the soft-voiced man was saying. “The lowest rank, I think. But he is allowed to carry the daisho, and I have heard he will be allowed to take a second name.”

  “That is because the shogun wants him as an adviser,” said a young man with glistening hair, sitting on the edge of the pool.

  So the Tosa man was going to Edo, Yoshi thought.

  “Adviser to the shogun! What kind of world is this, in which I, a loyal retainer to Lord Shimazu, must bow to an outsider?” a red-faced bushi said.

  “Shh,” said a voice out of the steam. “The shogun’s spies are everywhere.”

  “Well,” said yet another voice, “he isn’t really an outsider. He was born in Tosa somewhere.”

  “He’s as good as an outsider,” said Rumbly Voice. “He was shipwrecked and plucked off an island by the barbarians. He owes his life to them—thus he owes his loyalty to them.”

  “He has only been back in our country for a couple of years,” commented Red Face. “Perhaps it is he who has brought the foreign ships to our shores.”

  “He can only have been sent here as a spy,” agreed Wheezy One.

  Really? Yoshi wondered. The man he’d met had not seemed like a spy.

  But those around him murmured their assent, and that he was a danger to everyone.

  “He is on his way to Edo.” The deep, rumbling voice had lowered itself to an ominous whisper. “He could be here, amo
ng us!”

  “He is here!” Chibi piped up.

  “What? What’s that you say, boy?” Wheezy One asked, turning his attention to Chibi.

  “He’s right here. Not in this bath, but we saw him today—didn’t we, Yoshi-san?”

  Yoshi tried to swallow, but he felt as if he had something lodged in his throat.

  “Yoshi? Didn’t we?” Chibi prodded.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Yoshi said. “I think they’re talking about someone else.”

  “No, Yoshi,” Chibi insisted. “That is the man they’re talking about.”

  “Is that true, boy?” Rumbly Voice asked.

  Once again, Yoshi hesitated.

  Chibi did not. “Yes! Yes!” he chirped. “We talked to him! He comes from Tosa! He rides in a kago! He said Yoshi was a bright boy.”

  Yoshi didn’t think he could deny it now, after Chibi had made such a thorough description. He nodded.

  “And you know where he is staying?”

  Yoshi hesitated.

  During the pause, Red Face whispered harshly, “Our country should be protected against such a man.”

  “He’s staying at the Edge of the River Inn,” Chibi crowed.

  “You, boy,” Rumbly Voice said, addressing Yoshi. “Go and tell him there are some . . . admirers who would like to . . . speak with him. Ask him to meet us at the hour of the boar at the Seven Grasses Teahouse. Then come back and tell us what he says. When you return, I’ll give you a string of copper pennies for your trouble.”

  Chibi had already scrambled out of the pool, and Yoshi now followed. He hastily wrapped Chibi in his tunic, slipped into his own clothes, then hustled the small boy toward the cypress grove. Here and there, paper lanterns bobbed as people came and went. Yoshi tried to peer at their faces, making sure Kitsune was not among them.

  He dropped the protesting Chibi at Jiro’s hut and continued on the dark path to the inn where Manjiro was staying. It would be nice to get those copper pennies, he thought, now that he had no money at all. Even if they were only pennies, it would be something.

  But it didn’t feel right. Leaves turning in the breeze seemed to tsk-tsk their disapproval. Even the crickets along the path seemed to scold him. “Should not, would not, should not, would not,” they sang. What should he do? he wondered. He was sure the men in the bath meant to harm the Tosa man. To whom did he owe his loyalty? Did he not owe his own countrymen his allegiance? But the Tosa man had done him no harm. And, after all, he, too, was a countryman.