Gai-Jin

by James Clavell

  “You’d better not let them hear you say that, by God. Perhaps some of them speak pidgin.”

  Lun stared at him. “Wat say, Mass’er?”

  “Oh, never mind.”

  Lun went out laughing to himself.

  “Well, gentlemen, as expected, progress zero.”

  Seratard was lighting his pipe, André Poncin beside him, carelessly pleased with Sir William’s discomfiture. “What do you propose to do, Sir William?”

  “What’s your advice?”

  “It is a British problem, only partially French. If it was entirely mine I would have already settled it with French élan—on the day it happened.”

  “But of course, mein Herr, you would need an equally fine fleet,” von Heimrich said curtly.

  “Of course. In Europe we have many, as you know. And if it was Imperial French policy to be here in strength as our British allies, we would have had one or two fleets here.”

  “Yes, well …” Sir William was tired. “It’s clear that your collective advice is to be tough with them?”

  “Rough and tough,” Count Zergeyev said.

  “Ja.”

  “Of course,” Seratard agreed. “I thought that’s what you had already in mind, Sir William.”

  The Minister munched on a sandwich and finished his tea. “All right. I’ll close the meeting now, reconvene for ten tomorrow, with an ultimatum: a meeting with the Shōgun within a week, the murderers, the indemnity or else—with, er, of course your joint approval.”

  Seratard said, “I suggest, Sir William, given it might be difficult for them to deliver a meeting with the Shōgun, why not keep that for later until we have reinforcements—and real cause for a meeting with him. After all, this exercise is a show of force to correct an evil, not to implement Imperial policy, yours or ours.”

  “Wise,” the Prussian said reluctantly.

  Sir William pondered the reasons behind the suggestion but could find no fault or hidden hazard. “Very well. We’ll demand an ‘early meeting’ with the Shōgun. Agreed?”

  They nodded. “Excuse me, Sir William,” André Poncin said pleasantly, “may I suggest that I tell them your decision—for you to begin the meeting and then close it at once would be somewhat of a loss of face. Yes?”

  “Very wise, André,” Seratard said. As far as the others knew, Poncin was just an occasional trader with some knowledge of Japanese customs, a smattering of Japanese, a personal friend and occasional interpreter. In reality Poncin was a highly regarded spy employed to uncover and neutralize all British, German, and Russian endeavors in the Japans. “Eh, Sir William?”

  “Yes,” Sir William said thoughtfully. “Yes, you’re right, André, thank you, I shouldn’t do it myself. Lun!”

  The door opened instantly. “Heya, Mass’er?”

  “Fetch young Mass’er Tyrer quick quick!” Then to the others, “Tyrer can do it for me. As it’s a British problem.”

  When Phillip Tyrer returned to the other reception room overlooking the forecourt, he went up to Johann with as much dignity as he could muster. The Bakufu officials paid no attention and continued chatting, Yoshi slightly apart. Misamoto was beside him—the only one not talking. “Johann, give them Sir William’s compliments and tell them today’s unsatisfactory meeting is adjourned and they are to reconvene tomorrow at ten for what he expects will be a satisfactory conclusion to this unwarranted affair: the murderers, the indemnity and a guaranteed early meeting with the Shōgun or else.”

  Johann blanched. “Just like that?”

  “Yes, exactly like that.” Tyrer was also tired of the shilly-shallying, constantly reminded of John Canterbury’s violent death, Malcolm Struan’s serious wounds and Angelique’s terror. “Tell them!”

  He watched Johann deliver the short ultimatum in guttural Dutch. The Japanese interpreter flushed and began the lengthy translation as Tyrer studied the officials carefully without appearing to do so. Four were attentive, the last was not, the small man with narrow eyes and callused hands that he had noticed earlier—all other hands were well groomed. Again this man began whispering to the youngest and most handsome official, Watanabe, as he had been doing from time to time all day.

  Wish to God I could understand what they were saying, Tyrer thought irritably, more determined than ever to do whatever was necessary to learn the language quickly.

  As the shocked and embarrassed interpreter finished there was a silence, broken only by the sucking in of breath though all faces remained impassive. During the translation he had noticed two glance surreptitiously at Watanabe.

  Why?

  Now they seemed to be waiting. Watanabe dropped his eyes, hid behind his fan and muttered something. At once the narrow-eyed man beside him stood awkwardly, and spoke briefly. Relieved, they all got up and, without bowing, silently trooped out, Watanabe last, except for the interpreter.

  “Johann, they really got the message this time,” Tyrer said happily.

  “Yes. And they were very plenty pissed.”

  “Obviously that’s what Sir William wanted.”

  Johann mopped his brow. He was brown-haired and medium height, thin, strong with a hard, lined face. “The sooner you’re interpreter the better. It’s time I went home to my mountains and snows while I’ve still got my head intact. There’re too many of these cretins, they’re too unpredictable.”

  “As the interpreter, surely you have a privileged position,” Tyrer said uneasily. “The first to know.”

  “And the carrier of bad news! They’re all bad news, mon vieux. They hate us and can’t wait to throw us out. I made a contract with your Foreign Office for two years, renewable by mutual consent. The contract, she is up in two months and three days and my English is going to hell.” Johann went to the sideboard near the window and took a deep draft of the beer he had ordered instead of tea. “No renewal, whatever the temptation.” He beamed suddenly. “Merde, that’s the problem about leaving here.”

  Tyrer laughed at his pixy look. “Musume? Your girl?”

  “You learn fast.”

  In the forecourt the officials were getting into their palanquins. All gardening activity had stopped, the half dozen gardeners kneeling motionless with heads to the earth. Misamoto was waiting beside Yoshi, conscious that any mistake and he would not be standing erect, desperately hoping he had passed the first test. Somehow or another I’ll be useful to this bastard, he was thinking in English, until I can get back aboard an American ship and paradise and tell the Captain how I was kidnapped off Harris’s staff by these poxy scum …

  He looked up, froze. Yoshi was watching him. “Lord?”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “I was hoping I’d been of value, Sire. I … Look out behind you, Sire!” he whispered.

  André Poncin was coming down the steps, heading for Yoshi. Instantly his guards were a protective screen. Unafraid, Poncin bowed politely and said in fair though halting Japanese: “Lord, excuse please, can give message from my Master, French High Lord, please?”

  “What message?”

  “He say please perhaps you like see inside steamship, engine, cannons. Asks humbly invite you and officials.” Poncin waited, saw no reaction, except an imperious wave of the fan in dismissal. “Thank you, Lord, please excuse me.” He walked away, sure he had been right. On the first step he noticed Tyrer watching him from the audience room window, bit back a curse, and waved. Tyrer waved back.

  When the last samurai left the forecourt the gardeners carefully resumed their work. One of them shouldered his spade and limped away. Hiraga, his head swathed with a filthy old cloth, his kimono ragged and dirty, was happy with the success of his spying. Now he knew how and when and where the attack tomorrow should take place.

  Once more safe in his palanquin en route back to the castle—with Misamoto, at his orders, sitting at the far end—Yoshi let his mind roam. He was still astonished at their ill-mannered dismissal, not furious like the others, just patient: revenge will be taken in a mann
er of my own choosing.

  An invitation to see the engines of a warship and to go over one? Eeee, an opportunity not to be missed. Dangerous to accept but it will be done. His eyes focused on Misamoto who was staring out of a slit window. Certainly prisoner Misamoto has been useful so far. Stupid of interpreters not to translate accurately. Stupid of the Russian to threaten us. Stupid for them to be so rude. Stupid of the Chinese servant to call us monkeys. Very stupid. Well, I shall deal with them all, some sooner than others.

  But how to deal with the leaders and their fleet?

  “Misamoto, I have decided not to send you back to the guard house. For twenty days you will be housed with my retainers and continue to learn how to behave like a samurai.”

  Misamoto’s head was on the floor of the palanquin at once. “Thank you, Lord.”

  “If you please me. Now, what will happen tomorrow?”

  Misamoto hesitated, petrified: the first rule of survival was never to carry bad news to any samurai, to say nothing, volunteer nothing, but if forced, to tell anyone only what you think he wants to hear. Unlike there, America, paradise on earth.

  The answer’s obvious, he wanted to shout, falling back into his habit of thinking in English—the only thing that had kept him sane all the years of his confinement—if you saw how they treat each other in the gai-jin family I lived with, how they treated me, sure a servant, but even so like a man, better than I ever dreamed possible, how every man can walk tall and carry a knife or gun, ’cepting most black men, how impatient they all are to solve a problem to hurry on to the next—if necessary by fist or gun or cannonade—where most everyone’s equal under their law, and there are no stinking daimyos or samurai who can kill you when they wish….

  Yoshi said softly, reading him: “Answer me truthfully, always, if you value your life.”

  “Of course, Lord, always.” Petrified, Misamoto did as he was told blindly. “So sorry, Lord, but unless they get what they want, I think they’ll—they will level Yedo.”

  I agree, but only if we’re stupid, Yoshi thought. “Can their cannon do that?”

  “Yes, Lord. Not the castle but the city would be fired.”

  And that would be a stupid waste of Toranaga resources. We would only have to replace them all, peasants, artisans, courtesans and merchants to service us as usual. “Then how would you give them a little soup but no fish?” Yoshi asked.

  “Please excuse me, I don’t know, Lord, I don’t know.”

  “Then think. And give me your answer at dawn.”

  “But … yes, Lord.”

  Yoshi leaned back on his silk cushions and focused his mind on yesterday’s meeting of the Elders. Eventually Anjo had had to withdraw the order to evacuate the castle, for without a clear majority the order would be invalid—so he, as formal Guardian, had forbidden the Shōgun’s departure.

  I won, this time, but only because that stubborn old fool, Toyama, insisted on voting for his insane attack plan, thus neither for me or against me. Anjo is right: the other two normally vote with him against me. Not because of merit but because I am who I am—the Toranaga who should have been Shōgun, not that stupid boy.

  Because Yoshi was safe in his palanquin, alone but for Misamoto who could not know his inner thoughts, he allowed his mind to open the compartment marked Nobusada, so secret, so volatile, so dangerous, and permanent.

  What to do about him?

  I cannot contain him much longer. He’s infantile and now in the most dangerous claws of all, those of the Princess Yazu: Emperor’s spy and fanatic against the Shōgunate who broke her engagement to her adored childhood playmate, a handsome and very eligible Prince, the Shōgunate who forced her into permanent exile from Kyōto and all her family and friends and into a marriage to a weakling whose erection is as limp as a banner in summer and may never give her children.

  Now she has schemed this State visit to Kyōto to kowtow to the Emperor, a masterstroke that will destroy the delicate balance of centuries: Authority to subdue the whole Empire is granted by Imperial Edict to the Shōgun, and his descendants, who is also appointed Lord High Constable. Therefore orders issued by the Shōgun to the country are its laws.

  One consultation must lead to another, Yoshi thought, and then the Emperor rules and we do not. Nobusada will never realize it, his eyes clouded by her guile.

  What to do?

  Again Yoshi went down the well-trodden but oh-so-secret path: he is my legal liege lord. I cannot kill him directly. He is too well guarded unless I am prepared to throw away my own life with the deed which, at the moment, I am not. Other means? Poison. But then I would be suspect, correctly, and even if I could escape the bonds that surround me—I’m just as much prisoner as this Misamoto—the land would be plunged into a never-ending civil war, gai-jin will be the only gainers, and worse I would have betrayed my oath of allegiance to the Shōgun, whoever he is, and to the Legacy.

  I have to let others kill him for me. The shishi? I could help them, but to help enemies committed to your own destruction is dangerous. One other possibility. The gods.

  He permitted himself a smile. Good luck and bad luck, wrote Shōgun Toranaga, fortune and misfortune are to be left to Heaven and natural law—they are not things that can be got by praying or worked by some cunning device.

  Be patient, he heard Toranaga saying to him. Be patient.

  Yes, I will be.

  Yoshi closed that compartment until the next time and again considered the Council. What shall I tell them? Of course by now they will know I met the gai-jin. I will insist on one absolute rule in future: we must send only clever men to these meetings. What else? Certainly about their soldiers, gigantic, with their scarlet uniforms and short skirts and enormous feathered hats, every man with a breech-loading gun, shining with care, as cherished as any of our blades.

  Shall I tell them that these enemies are fools, who have no finesse and can be ruled through their impatience and hatreds—Misamoto told me enough to conclude they are as fractious and hate-ridden as any daimyo? No, this I will keep to myself. But I will tell them tomorrow our Delegation will fail unless we devise a delay gai-jin will be happy to accept.

  What should that be?

  “That messenger, Misamoto,” he said idly, “the tall man with the big nose, why did he speak like a woman, using women’s words? Was he a half man–half woman?”

  “I don’t know, Sire. Maybe he was—they have many aboard ship, Sire, though they hide it.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t know, Sire, difficult to understand them. They don’t talk openly about fornication as we do, of the best position or if a boy is better than a woman. But about speaking like a woman: in their language men and women, they all speak the same, I mean they use the same words, Sire, unlike Japanese. The few sailors I met who could speak some words of our language, men who’d been to Nagasaki, they spoke the same as the big nose did, because the only people they speak with are whores, learning our words from our whores. They don’t know our women speak different from us, that men, Sire, use different words, as civilized persons should.”

  Yoshi hid his sudden excitement. Our whores are their only real contact, he thought. And they all have whores, of course. So one way to control them, even attack them, is through their whores, female or male.

  “I will not order my fleet to bombard Yedo without a formal written order from the Admiralty, or Foreign Office,” the Admiral said, his face flushed. “My instructions are to be circumspect, like yours. We are not on a punitive mission.”

  “For God’s sake, we have had an incident that must be dealt with. Of course it’s a punitive mission!” Sir William was equally angry. The eight bells of midnight sounded, and they were in the Admiral’s quarters aboard the flagship at the round table, the General, Thomas Ogilvy, the only other person present. The cabin was low, large and heavy-beamed, and through the stern windows the riding lights of other vessels could be seen. “Again, I believe without force they will not budge.”

/>   “Get the order, by God, and I’ll budge them.” The Admiral refilled his own glass with port from the almost empty cut-glass decanter. “Thomas?”

  “Thanks.” The General held out his glass.

  Trying to contain himself, Sir William said, “Lord Russell has already given us instructions to press the Bakufu for damages, twenty-five thousand pounds, over Legation murders, the Sergeant and Corporal last year-he will be even more incensed over the current incident. I know him, you don’t,” he added, exaggerating for effect. “I won’t receive his approval for three months. We must obtain satisfaction now or the murders will continue. Without your support I cannot maneuver.”

  “You have my full support, short of war, by God. Bombarding their capital commits us to war. We’re not equipped for that. Thomas? You agree?”

  The General said carefully, “To surround a village like Hodogaya and eliminate a few hundred savages and put a minor native potentate into chains is a lot different than trying to secure this vast city and invade the castle.”

  Witheringly, Sir William said, “Then what about your ‘no conceivable operation that the forces under my command cannot conclude expeditiously’!”

  The General reddened. “What one says in public, as you well know, bears little relation to practice, as you well know! Yedo is different.”

  “Quite right.” The Admiral drained his glass.

  “Then what do you propose?” The silence grew. Suddenly the stem of Sir William’s glass snapped between his fingers, and the others jumped, unprepared. “Damn!” he said, the destruction somehow diminishing his rage. Carelessly he used the napkin to mop up the wine. “I’m Minister here. If I find it necessary to make it an order and you refuse to obey, which of course you have a right to do, I will ask for your immediate replacement, of course.”

  The Admiral’s neck went purple. “I have already put the facts before the Admiralty. But please don’t mistake me: I am more than ready to seek vengeance for the killing of Mr. Canterbury and the attack on the others. If it’s Yedo, I merely require the written order as I have said. There’s no hurry, now or in three months, these savages will pay as we require, with this city or a hundred others.”