Mr. Darcy's Great Escape

by Marsha Altman

  “Otasuh.”

  “Cathay?”

  “Nippon.”

  Did he mean the Japans? How did they ever get here? It must have been closer than Brian imagined. Or they had been truly lost at sea for longer than they thought. He forgot all that when he was helped into the next room and found his wife on a similar bed being attended to by the woman in the tightly wrapped silk robe. She scampered out, bowing stiffly, like a man, to Brian and Tahkonanna. Brian would have run in, if he could walk without the Oriental’s help. But Tahkonanna stopped him. “Shoes.”

  “What?”

  “Your shoes. Please.” For the man had already slipped his off.

  Brian did so, treading barefoot to his wife’s side. “Nadezhda.” Whether the Oriental took his leave or not, Brian paid no attention as he cupped her cheek. “Nady?”

  This seemed to jostle her awake. “Brian,” she said, her voice weak but less clouded than his, possibly because she had the sensibility to be resting when they were both obviously still weakened. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” Brian said in Romanian, kissing her hand. “Now.”

  “Your color—you should lie down. Now.”

  He was happy to oblige. He was feeling drained and if in this strange country it was terrible for a husband and wife to lie together, then they would have to suffer the embarrassment. “I love you,” he whispered, nestling his head into the crook of her neck, and then his strength was truly and wholly gone again.

  ***

  Now that the immediate problem of locating his wife and seeing that she was being cared for was solved, Brian did not attempt the same feat of moving about again for some time. Nor did they interrogate their hosts, whom they saw little of except for the old woman with the food who spoke no Russian. They barely moved at all beyond the basic necessities of life.

  “Do you know where we are?”

  “Japan, I think. We must have been driven south by the currents.”

  “Japan is not so far south from Russia.”

  “No?” To be honest, his non-Western geography was not particularly well-researched. “I suppose not.”

  They eventually learned Kayano was the head of the village, and Tahkonanna his son, who was fluent from some trade with the Russians. They had every intention of forcing their guests to learn their language. Instruction began immediately, but it was so foreign (and Brian’s Russian not so perfectly fluent to begin with) in nature that they could barely pronounce it.

  The days fell into a familiar routine. In their weakness they spent much time sitting on steps of the porch of their hut, watching the villagers go to and fro, and listening to their conversations.

  There was one ritual that was never altered, not even for Sundays, whenever Sundays were here and if they even existed. Every morning, the man in the blue pants and black shirt would fight Kayano in the sort of town center in front of them. They had determined that he was from a different tribe because he dressed and acted differently, and seemed most aloof and unhappy to be there. Every day he took up a wooden sword and charged at Kayano with fury. Every day Kayano fought him off with only his staff, without drawing any one of his three swords. Despite his advanced age, Kayano was wiry and seemed impossibly accomplished at not only walking on those wooden stilt shoes but also fighting in them. Once, they even saw him block the wooden blade with his own shoe, balancing on the other leg, to which the man in black threw down his sword in frustration, bowed, and walked away.

  “His name is Miyoshi,” said Tahkonanna.

  “He is not from here?” Nadezhda said in Russian.

  “No. He is ronin.” When they looked at him, he shook his head. “Warrior is the best similar word, but not the same. He is not Ainu.”

  “Ainu?”

  “Us. Not Japanese.”

  Brian decided to hold back his remark that they seemed similar enough. “What is he doing here?”

  For this, Tahkonanna had to switch to Russian. “Father took away his swords, and he cannot leave until he gets them back.”

  “Why?”

  “He insulted his honor. By law, Father had every right to take his head. He chose this way instead. Now the stupid samurai will win his swords back and take his own head over the shame.” He shook his head.

  Brian looked at his wife; they decided to interpret that as a mistranslation because it made no sense and they did not want to offend their hosts. Instead, Brian changed the subject as Miyoshi was knocked off his feet yet again. “Miyoshi keeps saying something to me. I don’t understand it.” He attempted to repeat the Nipponese phrase to the best of his ability.

  “‘In the land of the Rising Sun, even if dogs, cats, and bugs can live, there is no law that Westerners can live,’” Tahkonanna said.

  “Is that true?”

  “By law we should have killed you on sight, Madokusu-san.”

  Brian wondered if they were saving it up.

  When he procured a pen—more of a brush—some ink and paper, Brian “Madokusu” began to write. Specifically, he was writing to his brother, but the utter lack of mail service prevented him from sending anything. That did not discourage him from pouring out every fascinating detail onto the page. It was also nice to write in English again, a language he’d used only to mutter to himself in the last year. He also ticked off the days as soon as he became aware enough of their passing. They had been in Otasuh nearly a month now. As unlikely as it was that any of his posts from Russia had made it to England, he had literally dropped off the map, and he doubted if he could find where he was on a map.

  It was also a comfort. They were gone beyond the known world and certainly beyond the count’s now terribly extensive reach. They had found shelter at last. Maybe they could, somehow, return to England. Brian knew that the Dutch East India Company stopped in Japan for the silk trade. When he inquired where, Kayano said, “To the south.”

  “How far?” he asked.

  “Very far.”

  In the evenings, most of the men smoked long, wooden pipes in front of the fire, where their language skills increased tremendously. Brian brought up again the most important subject to Tahkonanna, switching back and forth between Japanese and Russian when needed.

  “You have discovered you cannot stay here,” his host said, and Brian nodded. “If the authorities find you, they will execute you.”

  “And you, for taking us in?”

  Tahkonanna nodded.

  “Where should we go? Back to Russia?”

  “Can you travel to your home from there?”

  “No. We cannot go the way we came. We must go to Cathay.”

  “The Middle Kingdom does not tolerate gaijin much more than we do.”

  Brian sighed.

  “Miyoshi-san says there is a port for foreigners. Nagasaki. From there, you could ride a ship to the west.”

  “How far is Nagasaki? Did he say?”

  “It is the length of Japan. Very far.”

  “How would we get there?”

  Tahkonanna seemed surprised by the question. “How else? You walk.”

  “But—we cannot travel in Japan. As gaijin.”

  “No.” The Ainu blew a ring of smoke. “I will ask Kayano-sama.”

  Later that night, Brian retired with his wife. No one had any opposition to their sleeping arrangements, or if they did, they expressed none. Tonight, they did not do much sleeping. Brian propped himself up, and they spoke in hushed tones, even though they doubted anyone spoke a word of Romanian. “We cannot stay.”

  “I know,” Nadezhda said. “But Lord Kayano is thinking of a plan.”

  He rolled onto his back. “I don’t know why he’s being so kind to us.”

  “I don’t think the Ainu like the Japanese, or the other way around, or both,” she said. “Miyoshi looks down on all of them. Haven’t you noticed?”
>
  “I have. But he looks down on us too, so it’s hard to tell if that’s not just his general disposition.”

  “But he has not betrayed us.”

  “That we know of.”

  There was a call at the door. It was not possible to knock with the paper sliding doors. Brian had accidentally destroyed his twice already.

  “Coming,” he said in Russian, as he closed his sash and went to the door. It was Kayano. “Nani?” (What?)

  “Kinasai,” (Come!) Kayano said, with a little urgency in his voice. Brian nodded to his wife, slipped on his sandals, followed the old man out the door and out into the woods surrounding the forest. Kayano stopped in front of an old lantern and a statue of some sort. It seemed to be a sort of shrine. “Now,” he said. “Take this.” He passed him a wooden sword. Brian held it in his hands in confusion. “Now. Defend!”

  As slow of an attack as it was, he was not ready for it. He barely got the sword up in time to block the staff from hitting him, and the force of it threw the sword right out of his hands.

  “Get it!” Kayano demanded, and Brian scrambled to the wooden sword. This time, he took a proper stance against him, holding it up in his right hand. “Stupid gaijin! Reverse!”

  “Reverse what?”

  “Side! Reverse your side!” Kayano insisted. “You are weak on your right. Don’t reveal it!”

  He meant, of course, to fight left-handed. “But—” He did not know the proper translation for “un-gentlemanly.” Not that he had considered himself a gentleman in a long time, but that did not mean he forgot how to fence. “Not—proper.”

  “Left side! Now!” Kayano beat his staff against the ground impatiently. Brian hesitantly took up his left side. Still, the old man was not happy. “Both hands on blade!”

  Brian did not attempt to argue this. He put his hands on the blade as he had seen Miyoshi do time and time again, even though at least Miyoshi fought properly, on his right side.

  “Now. Block!”

  He was stronger on his left but untrained. He barely managed to block again, but this time he did not lose the sword.

  “Again!”

  So it continued. Block, block, block. By the end he was sweating and exhausted, while Kayano’s response was to strike his feet. “Move them!”

  “I can’t—”

  “Motion!”

  Brian stepped back in a sort of shuffle, maintaining his stance.

  “The Buddha says change drives the world. Change is inevitable. You must change!” Kayano said, but then more calmly continued, “But you know this.”

  Weakly, Brian nodded.

  “You have changed many times. Many, many times. Like a wheel moving too fast.”

  Again, he nodded.

  “Miyoshi cannot change. Japanese, they cannot adapt. Every day, the same strike! Every day, the same block! Useless samurai. He would be better use to you,” he said. “Change or die.”

  With that, he let Brian hobble back to his room, where he collapsed next to his wife and fell promptly asleep.

  ***

  At the next meeting, it was decided. “Pilgrims,” Kayano said, and the others nodded.

  “Pilgrims cover their faces and speak little,” Tahkonanna said. “You will go to visit a shrine in the south.”

  “Apologies,” Nadezhda said, “but how will we find our way?”

  “Miyoshi-san,” Kayano announced, to Miyoshi’s surprise. The samurai, whatever that meant, stood off to the side of village meetings, his hands in the folds of his robe. Kayano rose, pulled out the two swords on his right side, and presented them to Miyoshi. “You will escort them to Nagasaki. Do you know the way?”

  “Hai,” Miyoshi said, obviously shocked at the gesture.

  “Then take them there, samurai,” Kayano said, then handed him his swords, which Miyoshi quickly slipped into his belt. “And then do what you will.”

  Miyoshi bowed to him before Kayano turned his attentions back to the couple. “We have obtained a traveler’s permit, some money, and provisions for the road. When you are well enough, you will go.”

  “We have no way to repay you,” Brian said, bowing low to the ground from his kneeling position as he’d seen others do before Kayano-sama, Lord Kayano.

  But Kayano just laughed and slapped him on the shoulder before walking off.

  Their instructions on how to dress and act like pilgrims began in the morning; first thing to do was to learn how to wear gigantic hats that were little more than overturned rush buckets with slits to see through. These illogical contraptions were not at all heavy and would thoroughly hide their features, but they had to be tied because, to the best of his knowledge, Brian hadn’t seen a buckle or button since they left Russia.

  Tahkonanna aided them. Miyoshi went off somewhere, and they did not see him but were assured that he would keep to his assignment all the way to Nagasaki. “He is an honorable man.”

  “He is a bit…” Nadezhda searched for the word in Japanese. “Rude.”

  “He is proud. Samurai. The warrior class. Nobility.”

  “What is he do—here?” Brian asked as the village head’s son showed them how to tie up their white pilgrim’s outfits with all the proper knots.

  “Doing here,” he corrected. “I don’t know what he did, but he had to leave his lord, a very dishonorable thing. He came here to die. Seppuku. So sorry, I don’t know the word in Russian.”

  “Kill himself?” Brian said.

  “Suicide?” Nadezhda said in Russian.

  “Yes.” He gestured with his hand as if he was holding a sword and thrusting it into his stomach. “Seppuku. A very honorable way to die, the proper action, for one who has brought shame to themselves.”

  Then I would be dead many times over, Brian mused. “Are you serious?”

  Tahkonanna gave them both a look of mild surprise, which indicated that he was, and they decided not to push the matter any further. “Here.” He handed him what appeared to be a walking stick but upon closer inspection it had an obvious handle and a longer portion.

  Brian pulled it apart to reveal a thin sword. “I don’t know how to use this.”

  “You’ve never held a sword?”

  “Oh, I have, but—never in serious combat. We use guns.”

  “Your gun was destroyed, Madokusu-san. Miyoshi-san is your samurai. It is only for emergencies,” he assured him. “Nadi-san,” and he passed her a much smaller one, which could be concealed easily in her robes.

  There was another town nearby that had regular trade with the Russians, however illegal. Through them, Brian and Nadezhda were able to convert their fortune to Japanese coinage. Brian offered some to Kayano, who refused. “You will take this instead.” He pointed to his head.

  Brian wasn’t quite sure how literal he was being. “What?”

  “Memories,” Kayano said. “We have lost. The Japanese came from the south and defeated us. In time, we will be gone. But you will remember.”

  Brian understood and bowed.

  That night, they shaved his head or most of it. His usually wild mane of hair was particularly hard to trim, as it was naturally frizzy and overly knotted. They shaved off his long, Russian-esque beard, including the sideburns. The only thing they left long was the back, to be tied up in a knot of some kind, and he left the room feeling more naked than he had ever been in his life despite being otherwise covered in clothing.

  When he entered his chambers, Nadezhda made no attempt to hide her laughter at his bizarrely tonsured head.

  “It’s not funny,” he said in Romanian with mock indignity.

  “Oh, darling, I’ve not seen you this way for a long time. Or ever,” she said, holding out her arms as an invitation. He sat down on the mattress beside her as she caressed his face. “Though your cheeks do feel good again.”

  “I had no idea y
ou took such pleasure in them.”

  “Now that I have told you, you must be as fastidious in your shaving habits as you can.”

  He kissed her. “Of course.”

  She continued to massage his face and then his neck. Over their long flight and then even longer recovery from typhus, they had had understandably little time for any intimacy.

  “We will have to be very quiet,” he whispered into her neck. “I don’t think these walls are particularly good at disguising sound.”

  “Then they must be accustomed to it,” she said simply, because she always seemed to take things with greater ease than he did. She had learned the language better than he had. She had no provocation against approaching elders and speaking for herself, and they seemed unruffled by it, here in this tiny barbarian village at the end of the world. She was his Nadezhda, and she was constantly surprising him. He had already decided, long ago, that he liked that part of their marriage very much.

  ***

  “We don’t know how to thank you,” Brian said to Kayano, meaning it somewhat literally. The leader had already refused what little Russian coinage they had, saying they would need it in Nagasaki.

  “Taking Miyoshi-san off our hands is enough,” said Tahkonanna. “Good luck.”

  “I would say we would never be this way again,” Brian said, “but luck keeps surprising me.” He tightened his grip on his wife’s hand, and though with the bucket of straw over his head he could not see her smile, he could feel it.

  Miyoshi was waiting for them, up the road, as they said their good-byes to the village. Other than wearing a hat that resembled a lampshade, which covered the upper half of his face, his traveling clothes were no different from his regular ones. “It will be good if you remain silent,” Miyoshi said. “Your accents give you away.”

  “How far is Nagasaki?”

  “Very far. Months.”

  They were going to be walking for months? Brian looked at Nadezhda through the holes of his tengai nervously. Could she take it? Could he take it? Miyoshi seemed to have no hesitation at such a long journey on foot, even in sandals.