The Pure Land

by Spence, Alan

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Now why don’t I believe that?’

  ‘Safe journey, Ken. I’ll see you in three months.’

  Mackenzie shook his hand, the grip as firm as ever. He strode up the gangplank, waved once. Glover turned away, surprised at the choke of emotion in his throat, in his chest. He headed back to his office to start making preparations for his own departure.

  Ken was right, it would be strange going back. So much had changed for him, yet he imagined everything at home being just the same. He knew Martha would have blossomed, there was a young man, talk of engagement. His father had retired and the family had moved out of the house by the coastguard station. Glover himself had sent money home for them to buy another place, further up the hill at Bridge of Don. He could imagine his father’s response to the gift, a pride in his son, but discomfort at feeling beholden. He could see the old man’s face, hear his voice, Aye, well, and it made him laugh. He could almost smell the place, its salt and reek, fish-tang in the stinging wind.

  *

  He had packed and was ready to go, had set his business dealings in order, insofar as that was possible. It was a wrench, leaving it to others, to Harrison and Groom, to the young Japanese Shibata and Nakajimo, now his senior clerks, with instructions to refer to Walsh if a tricky situation should arise. Walsh had been flattered, said he would never match Glover for deviousness and sheer cussedness, but he’d do his best.

  Walsh tried to entice him to Sakura one last time, the night before his departure, but he wanted to keep his mind clear for the journey.

  ‘And besides,’ he said, ‘Maki seems to have disappeared. I haven’t seen her in weeks and the madame gives me the full weight of her silence whenever I ask.’

  ‘These butterflies,’ said Walsh. ‘They come and they go!’

  He saw Maki’s face a moment, could almost smell her perfume. Then he was taking a gruff goodbye of Walsh, heading home up Minami Yamate.

  Tsuru had moved in to Ipponmatsu, stayed in one of the smaller rooms to the back. It made sense, especially with him going away, having someone to mind the place, look after it.

  She had run him a hot bath, and he scrubbed himself clean, lay back and soaked in the tub, heard a light rain pattering on the roof, felt strangely content. When he’d dried himself off, he came through to his room mellow and rested, skin tingling. Tsuru had laid out his cotton yukata, now she brought him tea, poured it for him. Her movements were careful and unhurried, and he felt a kind of peacefulness in just watching her.

  ‘I’ll miss this when I’m back home,’ he said, touched by simple gratitude.

  She bowed but he thought she seemed a little agitated, flustered. ‘You stay a long time in Sukottorando?’

  ‘As long as it takes. A few months maybe, then with the journey there and back I’ll likely be away a year.’

  ‘A, so desu ka.’ She took in the information, poured him more tea. ‘I wish you not go.’

  ‘Och,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know you cared!’

  ‘Care,’ she said, nodding.

  And he saw in the moment, clearly, she was moved, was struggling to stay composed. Then she was sniffling and there were tears in her eyes.

  ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘what’s this?’

  ‘Is nothing. I be all right.’

  ‘Och, lassie,’ he said. ‘Tsuru.’

  Now her shoulders were shaking, her small frame wracked by real deep sobs. He put down his tea-bowl, went to her, held her to him, let her cry. He shooshed and murmured to her, like comforting a bairn. Her face was wet against the soft cotton of his yukata; he had tied the robe loosely and as he moved, it opened at the neck and he felt the warmth there, a trickle on his skin, in the hairs on his chest. He kissed her hair, the nape of her neck, felt his own nakedness under the yukata, stiffening, rousing towards her, and her responding, pressing against him, her breath quickening to sharp gasps, unfastening her sash, letting her kimono fall open and slide to the floor, and he was carrying her to the bed, amazed at the sheer unexpectedness of this, this, this.

  *

  Maki was certain; she had been for some weeks. The sickness and ache, the exhaustion, the missed periods. The madame had told her to go away and deal with the situation, one way or another, and she’d taken herself to a quiet place, outside town. Now it was time, she had to tell Tomu, Guraba-san. She had no idea what he would say. She had seen other gaijin who had fathered children grow angry, become redfaced devils, beat their women. She had heard of others who turned away from the mess, denied responsibility, headed home to their old life and left it all behind.

  She could still get rid of it. It was not too late. There was a doctor in Naminohira, near the docks. She could take a chance, risk her miserable life, pray to Jizo, who cared for the unborn.

  Or she could go to Tomu, tell him the child was his, she was sure of it, and not just from the dates, she knew, it was in her blood.

  She had never minded the roughness of him, the barbarian smell, in fact she liked it, as he liked her craziness, the way she made him laugh. He had taken her to his home, showed him the tiger in its cage. Yaban! He had waved to her from that great roaring railway engine, his face black, like some wild-eyed demon.

  She laughed at the memory, but was shaken by another spasm, cramped and gagged as the bile came back up her throat; she held her hair back from her face, retched and vomited into a basin beside the bed. A sudden shower of rain battered the roof, should have brought ease, but she ached, every nerve strained and taut. The window was wide open, to let in cooling air. She leaned out, held a cotton cloth to soak in the rain, not caring that it also soaked her sleeve. She wiped her face, dabbed the back of her neck to cool herself down. He had liked to kiss her there, holding up her hair.

  From nowhere a poem came to her, a tanka written by Izumi Shikibu, almost a thousand years ago.

  My long black hair is as tangled

  as my tangled thoughts.

  I sleep alone and dream

  of one who has gone.

  He stroked my hair till it shone.

  A thousand years. Izumi had been a famous beauty, had many lovers, been hated by the Lady Murasaki. What would she have written about this? Unkempt, dishevelled, sweating, assailed by the acrid stink of her own vomit. This.

  Maki struggled to her feet, looked out the window again, gulped in the clear washed air. The shower had stopped as suddenly as it had started. The rising moon hung low in the sky, full and heavy, blood-red.

  *

  Glover stood on the deck of the clipper as it eased out through the long harbour, for all the world like a broad river, the hills sloping down on either side, and just for a moment he remembered arriving here for the first time, so long ago, himself so young and knowing nothing. Sometimes he thought he still knew nothing. The ship passed by the sugarloaf island of Pappenberg, tacked and headed out to sea. He took one last look back.

  *

  Tsuru moved around the house in a dream. It was bittersweet this feeling; the memory of the night still clung to her like his smell. It was like an old poem, a Noh drama, to be with the lover at last, only for him to go. But he would come back, she was sure of it. He had this house, his life here, his work. She picked up his yukata from the floor, held it to her face, breathed in its smell. She would tidy the house, clean it, but in her own good time, not yet. She would make the bed later; she folded back the sheets, lay down again; she would just lie there a few minutes more.

  *

  In the light of another day, Maki composed herself. She bathed, put up her hair with a silver comb, made up her face, put on a perfumed kimono – one he liked with a design of leaves and butterflies. She hired a norimon to transport her from the edge of town, carried by two men. They laughed and said she was so light she added little to the weight of it. As if a tiny bird had landed on the seat, said one. A butterfly, said the other, like the ones on her kimono. She smiled, pulled down the blinds and closed her eyes, listened to
the sounds she passed through, the strange, familiar music of it all, washing over her as she bumped along; vendors and hawkers haggling with their customers, the chop of an axe cutting bamboo, a child laughing, another crying, cartwheels turning, a nightingale, a cricket, the bark of a dog. She stopped at the foot of Minami Yamate, paid the two men. It won’t feel any lighter going back, said the one. Might as well still be carrying her, said the other. And his words brought a story back to her, about two monks crossing a river. One of them carried a woman across, set her down. The other was still angry about it hours later, and his companion asked why he was still carrying her. Guraba-san loved her stories. They made him laugh.

  She walked on up Minami Yamate, took short, slow, precise steps, placed one foot after the other, delicate in her wooden-soled geta. She went in at the gate of Ipponmatsu, stood in front of Guraba-san’s door, breathed deep, knocked.

  Tsuru was dragged from a dream by the tap tapping. She had been with Guraba-san but knew that the tiger was outside; now it was tapping with its claws at the door and he had gone to answer it; she had to stop him. The tapping came again and now she was fully awake, sitting up. It wasn’t the tiger, it had gone long ago. And Guraba-san had gone too, that very morning. And someone really was knocking at the door.

  Maki had knocked twice, was about to turn away when she heard sounds from inside, movement. She would try one more time, rapped again, sharp and firm, waited.

  Tsuru pulled her housecoat about her, tried to arrange her dishevelled hair as she hurried to answer the door. She eased it open, peeked out, saw the woman standing there, the other, his favourite from the Sakura, the one he had brought here to the house.

  Maki looked at the woman staring out at him, the other, the one who cooked and cleaned for him, looked after him.

  The women stared at each other, said nothing.

  *

  Glover, on deck, was thinking of Tsuru, remembering the unexpectedness of the night before. Then it was Maki he was picturing, her face a moment vivid to him, clear. She had told him stories, and one came back to him now. A man was crossing a field when he met a tiger. The tiger growled and chased him. The field ended in a precipice, and the man fell over it, grabbed a wild vine to stop himself plummeting to his death. The tiger stood above him, teeth bared. Far below, at the foot of the precipice, another tiger paced up and down, growling, looking up at him, waiting for him to fall. Two mice appeared and started nibbling at either side of the vine, little by little chewing their way through it. Just beside the vine hung a luscious strawberry. By holding on with one hand and reaching out with the other, the man could just reach the strawberry. He plucked it and popped it in his mouth. How sweet it tasted!

  *

  Maki bowed, asked if Guraba-san was at home.

  Tsuru bowed, a strand of hair falling forward over her face, said she was sorry, Guraba-san had left, had gone home to Scotland, would be away for a very long time, maybe years.

  The silence lay heavy. Tsuru excused herself and closed the door. Maki stood on the step, mind empty, a grey blank. She felt the sickness rise again in her throat. She would head back down the hill, go to Sakura and speak to the madame, ask for the address of the doctor in Naminohira.

  10

  BRIG O’ BALGOWNIE

  Aberdeen, 1865–66

  The train journey north, after the long sea voyage, was debilitating, took a day and a half. By the last stage, from Edinburgh, he was in a kind of limbo, a dead zone, neither asleep nor fully awake, drifting or jolting between the two. North of Montrose it all felt chillingly familiar, a dream of something he had once known, the harsh windswept landscape, grey rain falling out of a grey sky into the grey sea. So far. So far north. By Stonehaven he felt it clench in his guts, a sense that this was reality, and this was him waking to it, the last seven years just a dream. Then the train was gathering momentum, hurtling down the last sweep into Aberdeen, smoke and cinders billowing past, and they were passing the lighthouse, and the fishing village at Torrie, and trundling into the city itself, its grey granite heart.

  He eased down the window, slipped its holding belt a notch or two, stuck out his head, took a deep breath of that unforgettable tang, in behind the smoke and oil of the station, the stink of fish that hung in the air. And there were the sea gulls, swooping and diving inside the station, hovering under the iron girders, the massive overarching glass roof, filling the vaulted space with their cry. A specific fierce northern breed, tough and predatory, they swept over folk’s heads, shouldered their way along the platform, scavenging for scraps.

  Then he was out on the platform himself, stretching his limbs, negotiating with a porter to carry his luggage, the same old battered trunk that had served him all these years, and, in addition, a wooden crate laden with gifts; and all the time he was keeping an eye open, looking out, and through the hissing smoke and steam he saw something small and white, fluttering, a hanky waving at him; and the young woman waving it was Martha, his sister, the turn of her head, the way she stood, unmistakable, so dear and familiar it moved him, deeply and unexpectedly. It welled in his heart, choked in his throat. And there behind Martha stood an old couple, looking at him, unsure, and it took him a moment to recognise them as his mother, his father. Dear God. How could they have aged so quickly, shrunk in on themselves so much?

  He went to them, hugged Martha, who laugh-cried. ‘Look at my big brother!’

  ‘Look at you!’ he said, holding her at arm’s length, amazed.

  He embraced his mother, felt her thin shoulderblades through her coat.

  ‘Tom!’ she said, reluctantly delighted. ‘You’re … a man!’

  ‘Ach, mother,’ he said. ‘You always were one for the sharp observation!’

  He turned to his father. The old man cleared his throat, shook his hand, firmly, with dour restraint.

  ‘Aye, Tom.’

  ‘Aye, faither.’

  Behind the family group, hanging back, stood another familiar figure, Mackenzie, grinning.

  ‘Ken!’ he shouted. ‘O genki desuka?’

  ‘O genki desu!’ said Mackenzie, and they bowed to each other formally, then laughed and shook hands.

  ‘Just a wee exchange in Japanese,’ he explained to Martha.

  ‘I’m guessing,’ she said, ‘a rough translation would be Fit like? Aa right!’

  He laughed again, said, ‘Och, Martha! It’s grand to see you, lass.’

  ‘You too,’ she said, beaming.

  A sudden disturbance, a commotion at the other side of the station, made them all turn. The crowds in the concourse parted and there was a short, stocky figure, striding towards them with that rolling gait, that distinctive samurai swagger, so familiar, but incongruous here.

  Young Nagasawa was dressed in full samurai garb, the dark wide-sleeved robes; in place of a full-length sword he carried a short dagger, tucked in at his waist, his right hand resting on the hilt.

  ‘Christ!’ said Glover. ‘Did he walk down Union Street like that? He must have turned a few heads!’

  The boy’s expression was all seriousness, composure, restraint. Folk in the crowd gawped at him, pointed, guffawed. One or two shouted out, jeered as he passed.

  ‘Hey, daftie!’

  ‘Chinkie boy!’

  ‘Eezie peezie japaneezy!’

  He stopped, turned to face them, gripped the handle of the dagger tighter.

  Glover called out to him. ‘Nagasawa-san!’

  The boy hurried the last few strides towards him, stood in front of him, bowed deeply.

  ‘Guraba-san.’

  Glover also bowed, then laughed, took him by the shoulders, shook him till he grinned.

  ‘You can take the boy out of Japan,’ said Mackenzie. ‘But you can’t take Japan out of the boy!’

  *

  It was the first time he had seen the new house at Braehead. His father was trying to thank him for the money he had sent home, helping them buy the house.

  ‘It was goo
d of you,’ he said, top lip tight, keeping any unseemly emotion in check.

  ‘Och,’ said Glover, ending the discussion.

  The house was only half a mile from the coastguard station. Like Ipponmatsu, it stood on the brow of a hill, had a spacious garden and open views. Compared to their old home, it was a mansion.

  Glover’s crate was delivered by horsedrawn cart from the station. In the front room he prised it open with a crowbar from his father’s toolshed, carefully unpacked his treasures. For his mother and Martha he had brought rolls of shimmering silk, to be made into dresses. For his father there was a set of samurai swords, sheathed and mounted, a carved hardwood pipe. For the house itself, for pure adornment, there was a little bronze Buddha, a suit of samurai armour, hanging silk scrolls delicately painted with birds and flowers, a trove of ornaments and knick-knacks, exquisite netsuke carvings, Satsuma pottery in black and white with its subtle dull glaze. His father handled a matt black vase, nodded his approval.

  ‘There’s so much!’ said his mother. ‘You didn’t have to.’

  ‘This is nothing,’ he said. ‘There’s furniture on its way, and screens and rugs, and a whole crate of tea!’

  ‘You’ll be turning the place into a wee corner of Japan,’ said Martha.

  ‘Nothing wrong with that,’ he said, and he produced from the crate a seedling, packed in earth, wrapped in muslin.

  ‘Kurumi,’ he said. ‘Japanese walnut. I thought we could plant it in the garden.’

  For Mackenzie he had brought a book he’d had specially bound, full of bright woodblock prints of Nagasaki.

  ‘A wee memento,’ he said.

  ‘Och!’ said Mackenzie, but he smiled, looked moved as he turned the pages.

  For Nagasawa he had brought another, smaller, samurai sword. The boy looked stunned, unbelieving, as he took it, held it reverently. That Glover should bring him a gift, as if he were one of the family, and that the gift should be this. This. He was almost overcome, bowed and touched the sword with his forehead. Then he stood rigidly to attention, bowed again, turned on his heel and left the room.