Commodore Perry's Minstrel Show

by Richard Wiley

  But behind his anger Manjiro understood that no one was less likely than Tsune to act as someone’s pawn, that far from having been used, it was she who had engineered everything, carefully and well. He might have drawn his sword anyway, or cut the man with words, at least, had that single sheet of paper not slipped out of his kimono sleeve and scratched his arm. He bolted from the library then with such quickness that the cold morning sun hurt his eyes.

  “Ah!” he said. “Ouch! It is bright!”

  She was sitting in a partially opened palanquin, its bearers below her on the ground. The other palanquin, the one Manjiro had come in, was gone. She told him to get in, and when he was beside her in the crowded space, the soft material of her kimono touching him, she lowered the palanquin’s side panels. Such closeness unbalanced Manjiro more than the sharp-edged sun, but he ordered himself to be calm, determined not to push up against her, as, through that surrogate table, those abhorrent custodians had done.

  NEITHER OF THEM spoke again until they were halfway across Edo and began to hear the bearers’ efforts as they ascended a hill.

  “But where are we going?” asked Manjiro. “Have you not instructed them to take us home?”

  “I have told them to bring us here as a precaution,” said Tsune, leaning over to turn the side panel nearest Manjiro up again. “If you have discovered that Lord Abe’s activities are suspect, then you might also decide that you need to inform another powerful lord. And if not, then I brought you here because I wanted to show you Lord Tokugawa’s beautiful forest and hunting lodge. They are quite exquisite. The lodge is modeled after Nijo Castle in Kyoto, you know, the famous one with the chirping floors.”

  Lord Tokugawa’s hunting lodge? How strange that they should come here instead of home, to bring the news of what they had found to Einosuke. Was he also in trouble with Lord Tokugawa, Manjiro wondered again, for the same reasons he had been in trouble with his father? And was Tsune therefore bringing him here to save their chances of marriage? Manjiro sighed. Was it due to strength or weakness that he could not decide whether or not Tsune had gone too far?

  “Are you carrying any coins,” she asked him, when they stepped out into a dimmer daylight than the one outside the library, “or shall I fetch some inside?”

  Manjiro found a few coppers for the exhausted palanquin men, who had fallen down around them on the ground, and when he returned his purse to his sash the stolen paper touched his arm again. He had no intention of showing it to Lord Tokugawa—on the point of Lord Abe’s activities he was sure that Tsune was wrong—but he revealed the paper anyway, smoothing it against his chest.

  “I found this,” he told her quietly. “I took it from a book in the library.”

  He had not read the paper yet, and in his mind’s eye he saw Tsune sitting beside him, faces touching while they puzzled it out.

  “What could you have been thinking?” she said. “Surely you didn’t cut it?”

  She had turned him up the path to the lodge, but when Manjiro handed her the paper she turned him again, down toward a teahouse at the center of a bamboo grove. She lifted her head from the paper long enough to order tea from the attendant at the door, but even after they entered the building, which had the words “Pavilion of Timelessness” cut onto a sign above its arch, she studied the paper for a long time.

  “I don’t understand this very well,” she finally said.

  “I found it tucked inside what I think was Lord Abe’s volume,” Manjiro said. “Someone had copied it and left it there. It marked an identically worded page.”

  “Read it to me,” Tsune ordered. “It will be clearer, maybe, if you say the words out loud.”

  So while the tearoom girl poured tea, Manjiro took the paper back and leaned away from Tsune toward the light.

  Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind framed that should you require not to be so, you may know how to change to the opposite.

  Though he was only half done, Manjiro stopped. It was no doubt philosophy, for he recognized, in it, some of his tutor’s argumentative tone, but who could think such a thing, what breed of man would subscribe to such beliefs? If this was American philosophy then maybe he and the others on his side had been wrong about wanting to engage them.

  “Does it seem correct to you,” asked Tsune, “or does it seem wrong? And whose thinking does this document represent? Is it the belief of the outside world that a man must pretend to honor but not of necessity have it? Do I understand it correcdy or not?”

  If Manjiro had learned anything in his years of study with his tutor it was that philosophy was difficult. His tutor would often trap him, sometimes even arguing the opposite of what he believed in order to force Manjiro into thinking well. So he said, “Let me read the rest before we decide.” He took a sip of tea, cleared his throat, and read on:

  And you have to understand this, that a prince, especially a new one, cannot observe all those things for which men are esteemed, being often forced, in order to maintain the state, to act contrary to fidelity, friendship, humanity, and religion. Therefore it is necessary for him to have a mind ready to turn itself accordingly as the winds and variations of fortune force it, yet, as I have said above, not to diverge from the good if he can avoid doing so, but, if compelled, then to know how to set about it.

  When he finished Manjiro sat there for a long time, the paper on the table next to his hand.

  “I am glad we came here instead of returning to Einosuke’s house,” Tsune finally said. “You will, of course, decide for yourself, Manjiro-san, but I think we have no choice now but to share your strange discovery with Lord Tokugawa.”

  Lord Tokugawa again! Oh, why did Manjiro feel like a student, his many accomplishments dimming, when confronted with a mind more beautifully housed and of firmer resolve?

  “If we show it to him it will be out of our hands,” he said.

  “On the contrary, showing this document to Lord Tokugawa may be the only way to keep it in our hands,” Tsune said. “Do you not see that? Otherwise we will be able to do nothing. Knowledge without power is a weakly burning light.”

  That she had said he would be allowed to decide for himself made Manjiro calm. He thought about it for a while but soon he asked whether Lord Tokugawa was at home that morning, and, if he was, whether Tsune could arrange an audience.

  11.

  Where Has My Heart Gone?

  WHEN THEY LEFT the Pavilion of Timelessness it was just after noon and raining. Manjiro carried the smoothed-out sheet of paper inside his kimono, and Tsune carried a bangasa, one of those thickly waxed paper umbrellas that seemed permanently stationed by the teahouse door. The bamboo forest was quiet as they walked. The tops of the trees swayed in the rising wind, but the leaves on the pathways were as sodden as the ones from Einosuke’s neighbor’s yard.

  Some of Lord Tokugawa’s samurai had come out to practice their skills in the rain and were strutting about in a clearing close to the lodge. A few made passes at each other with bamboo swords, while others exchanged insults in the dialects of fiefdoms that were most often politically opposed to their lord’s. They wanted to be ready with words as well as with weapons, on the off chance that interfiefdom warfare should break out.

  All Lord Tokugawa’s samurai knew Tsune and all, save the older of the two men at the door, had at one time or another fallen into gossiping about her, saying that her father had been lax, that he and Lord Tokugawa should have married her off years earlier. The older man who had not gossiped about her was the famous swordsman Kyuzo, originally from Kyoto and in Lord Tokugawa’s employ for just this last half year or so. He had come not only out of respect for the lord, but also because he hoped, as the end of his life approach
ed, to be at the center of the action should there be a war with America. Tsune had not expected to meet him, standing as if on guard duty, and seeing him made her face grow flushed and her feet stumble on the path.

  “Will his lordship allow me to present this nobleman?” she asked the younger samurai, and while he went to inform Lord Tokugawa of her arrival, she introduced Manjiro to Kyuzo, who bowed but did not speak, though Lord Okubo’s crest, plainly visible on Manjiro’s sleeve, seemed to require him to do so. When he came out of his bow the older man examined Manjiro thoroughly, with engaged and honest curiosity. Manjiro felt like one of the three-legged toads that Masako had been finding lately, hopping along in front of their disrepaired home, yet there was no rudeness in Kyuzo’s glance, no hostility. Manjiro stared back at him but soon grew comfortable enough to begin thinking about those paragraphs again. Tsune, however, could not bear what was happening and left the men quickly, tripping up into the lodge, to run down the nearest hallway before the “chirping” floors called to her in a strong enough voice to make her slow down. There was a bench in the hallway and she fell upon it, slumping there with none of the presence she had shown in the Pavilion of Timelessness. Her chest heaved and tears gathered in her eyes. She said, “Oh this complicated, mixed-up life of mine!”

  Despite the outside world’s view of her, Tsune believed her life to be painful and unlucky. She had first met the older Kyuzo just a few months earlier, when he’d arrived in Mito from Kyoto. He had been teaching kendo to Lord Tokugawa’s younger samurai and reading Confucian doctrine for a fortnight before she truly noticed him. She had heard stories of his earlier exploits, of course, of his great accomplishments with a sword, but because she was by nature dismissive of such tales it was not until she felt a certain lassitude one night, and hoped to confront it by reading Empty Chestnut, an old collection of Basho poems, that she came upon the man direcdy. The room that contained the volume—another library!—was one Lord Tokugawa’s samurai rarely entered, so she was surprised not only to find him there, but to discover that he had that very collection before him, Empty Chestnut, and was reading it aloud. As usual she had come with her maid, but when she heard Kyuzo’s halting voice she left the girl outside.

  Kyuzo stopped his recitation when the door opened, but she had already recognized the poem and said, “What I have come for, sir, is that which you hold in your hand.”

  Kyuzo barked out a laugh, so fearing she had been rude to him she offered a kind of explanation. “I often take a book to my bed chambers and the one you are reading best suits my mood tonight.” After that she waited. She would not speak again, nor would she give up the volume. Let him read fighting manuals if he had to read something, or if he wanted to broaden himself let him read one of those ridiculous new popular novels.

  Kyuzo seemed to understand that he couldn’t beat her by waiting, so when a small amount of time had passed he simply bent to the book again and resumed, as if she were not there, in the same unmodulated voice.

  Tired of Cherry,

  Tired of this whole world,

  I sit facing muddy saké

  And black rice.

  Tsune was insulted, but felt that to show her anger would be unseemly and also grant this man what he was after. So since she knew the poem better than he did she strode up to him and spoke its second verse in a far more suitable tone. She hoped it would offend him on several counts, not the least of which because he was old.

  Who could it possibly be,

  Who mourns the passing autumn,

  Careless of the wind

  Rustling his beard?

  There was a third stanza, and if he looked down to read it, if he did not immediately close the book and recite it from memory, she would snatch the volume from his hands, declare victory, and march back out the door. She stared at him, but while she waited she began to remember that her maid was shivering on the porch, and in the instant her attention shifted Kyuzo slammed the volume shut with a startling crack. He stepped off the dais to land in front of her quietly, like a ghost from worlds past.

  With frozen water

  That tastes painfully bitter

  A sewer rat relieves in vain

  His parched throat.

  At first she wanted to slap him, to make the same noise the closing book had made with the palm of her hand on his face, but his look was quizzical now, not victorious, as if he only hoped he’d said it right, and the voice he had used was so opposed to the despair of the poem that she abruptly lost her anger and started to laugh. Kyuzo puffed up again, letting air whistle out through his mouth.

  “What?” he asked. “Why in the world are you laughing?”

  “Forgive me,” she said. “Your rendition was adequate, I guess, but had I taken it to my bed chambers I think I would have captured a little more of the poet’s original intent.”

  Kyuzo’s reply was immediate. “Because my rendition was frivolous or because your bed chambers harbor despair?” His voice, like his stare at Manjiro, did not easily carry insult and Tsune was not offended. Rather she considered the question seriously, succumbing to a long pause.

  “‘Despair’ is too strong for what I always feel. Is there not another word that carries just a bit of it, in the midst of something easier to bear?”

  “Loneliness,” he said. “Not only another word but a better one. You are entirely too young for despair.”

  “I’m not too young for it but too strong,” Tsune responded. “And while loneliness might feed on strength, despair despairs of it.”

  They were both quiet for a moment, proud, despite themselves, of the exchange. And then Kyuzo handed her the book and left the reading room by a back door.

  That was all, but later in her bed chambers, dressed in gauzy white and sitting before a fickle candle, Tsune couldn’t concentrate. The poems had always before served to alleviate her sadness, reinforcing her view that the world’s nature was harsh, but on this night she put the volume down and was abstractedly thinking things over when her maid came in with a note, folded and cross-folded, as if by a teenage girl.

  Where has my heart gone?

  Of late I have wondered.

  Did I leave it in Kyoto,

  Under a crust of dark winter snow?

  Tsune had never before thought of taking a lover so much older than herself, but she bid the maid wait and penned a quick reply and sent it off.

  Under a crust of dark winter snow,

  Or under early autumn rain

  My lover’s lonely heart.

  Will it know fulfillment or despair?

  It was too enigmatic, she did not know herself whether she was telling him to come or stay away, but she waited beside that fickle candle, until the maid had time to deliver the poem, until Kyuzo had time to read it, until he was either stealing toward her or limp with indecision, hung up, like a younger man would be, on that final question mark.

  Was it the midnight wind that blew the candle out, waking her? The question came from the same frame of mind that had let her write the poem, but her eyes snapped open, searching the incredible dark. Kyuzo’s thumb and index finger had come down upon the flame, making it hiss in his spittle, and then he was beside her, removing her gown. They didn’t move or roll, like Fumiko and Einosuke had done, but seemed to find an unreachable stillness, one inside the other inside the other. And then the coming tremor, like the shivering surface of water in a broad-mouthed jar.

  Every night after that when the sun went down and the lamps at Lord Tokugawa’s main house closed in upon darkness, they were together. Kyuzo sang to her, his voice deep and haunting, nothing like his recitation of the poem, and she danced the dances she had learned as a girl. They read books aloud, poetry sometimes, but more often erotic tales of how Prince Genji had stolen into countless maidens’ rooms, wooing them with words and glances nine hundred years before. They read freely, always after they made love, never before, but they stayed away from Empty Chestnut, which they both cherished for bringing them togeth
er, but which they both also greatly feared because they no longer understood it, could no longer fathom its despair.

  Why such a thing could not go on forever was a question others might have pondered, but neither Tsune nor Kyuzo asked it of themselves. She was an aristocrat and he, by comparison, was nothing much at all. They weathered one fearful storm when two months after the beginning of their affair Tsune turned down another marriage proposal, but that was all. Lord Tokugawa let her know that the next time someone approached them with a good match he would accept on her behalf, whether she liked it or not, after the investigations were done.

  Maybe because he was older and had been in love before, Kyuzo was more philosophical about it than Tsune, for, in the end, it was he who insisted that they stop at a moment chosen by them, that they do so out of strength, before the day of the awful ultimatum. He also suggested something that was at first unbearable to Tsune, but that took root over time: that she strike first, that she find her own suitable husband, someone she could respect and admire. And so, very slowly, she had begun to think of her sister’s brother-in-law, whom she had not seen in years but would see again soon, when she visited Edo to attend Keiko’s dance recital.

  And now, while she waited in the hallway, benched like a censured maid, Manjiro and Kyuzo faced each other just inside the main door of Lord Tokugawa’s hunting lodge.

  12.

  A Fly in the Ointment

  BUT NO MATTER WHAT his mood about her marital status, Lord Tokugawa always received Tsune when she came to visit, and when he heard she was waiting now, he got up from his futon where he’d been pondering Lord Abe’s minstrel invitation, and dressed in a casual gown.

  On his way out of his rooms he stopped to get Keiki, his son. It had earlier been Tsune’s father’s hope, and the primary reason why he had not pressed her into some other obligation, that she might one day marry Keiki, but aside from the fact that she was far too old for him, Lord Tokugawa was against the match. Though he loved Tsune like a daughter, he wanted to marry Keiki into one of Japan’s “hereditary” families, actually have him adopted into one of them, so that Keiki might someday be Shogun. That, no matter what the political issues of the day, was what Lord Tokugawa constantly worked toward.