by Spence, Alan
‘Maki,’ he said, felt the surge of emotion in his chest. Once as a boy, in Banchory at the falls, he’d seen the salmon in their upstream rush leap out of the water, flip in the air. That was the feeling.
Or a flurry of birds startled from cover.
‘Maki!’
She looked bewildered, in a dream, as she carefully set down the basket she was carrying, held the boy even tighter, bowed.
‘Guraba-san.’
‘Christ, Maki, it’s me! Tom! Your gaijin. The hairy barbarian. Yaban!’
‘I thought you go home,’ she said. ‘To Sucoturando. Not come back to Japan in this life.’
‘I did,’ he said. ‘Go home, I mean. But I’ve been back three, four years.’
‘So long time?’ she said.
‘A lot’s happened,’ he said. ‘A hell of a lot. We say, a lot of water under the bridge.’
‘Hai,’ she said. ‘So desu. Water.’
‘So much has changed.’
‘Much change,’ she said. ‘Everything.’
‘Upheaval,’ he said, gesturing with his arms, trying to encompass it all.
‘Water under bridge.’
‘Aye.’
She’d spoken quietly, now fell silent, pushed back a stray hair that had fallen across her face. She looked tired, a deep weariness in her eyes. She wore no jewellery and her clothes were simple, a dark cotton robe tied with an obi sash at the waist. The boy was burying his face in the robe, hiding there, clinging to her. He peered out, stared up, awed and fearful, at Glover, who looked back, saw him for the first time, this wee frightened creature, eyes wide. There was something in the features, the skin paler than his mother’s, the hair not jet black but light brown, and something too in the eyes that looked out at him. And in the moment Glover knew, beyond all doubt, the way he’d known with Annie and her lad Jamie, at Brig o’ Balgownie in that other life.
He crouched down, spoke quietly to the boy. ‘O namae wa?’
The boy buried his face again, hid.
‘His name is Shinsaburo,’ said Maki.
Glover bowed to the boy. ‘Shinsaburo-san. Yoroshiko onegai shimasu.’
The boy peered out again, squinted at him with one eye. Glover covered his own face with his hands, peeked out. The boy was still unsure, moved round behind his mother for safety.
Glover stood up.
‘His father is gaijin?’
‘Yaban,’ she said with the faintest hint of a smile, sad and tired, ironic. ‘You know.’
He asked the question. ‘My son?’
She nodded. ‘Hai. So desu.’
He drew in a deep breath. ‘You’re sure?’
She looked right at him, right into him. ‘All that time, was nobody else. You only one.’
He reached out a hand to the boy. The boy turned away, hid again.
His son. Shinsaburo. Flesh of his flesh.
‘God,’ he said. ‘Maki. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I try,’ she said. ‘You not there. Woman at house tell me you gone, maybe not come back.’
‘Tsuru?’
‘So desu.’
‘That’s why you left?’
She nodded. ‘Happen all the time. Gaijin go away. Not want to know. Then not easy for me. I pray to Jizo, go to doctor to lose child. But not do it. No hard heart.’ She held the boy close again, tight. ‘So, have to go. Not work at Sakura. Go to home village.’
‘Christ, Maki, if I’d known!’
Her shoulders hunched, her head sagged forward. ‘I also not know. Not know you. Not know what you do.’
He tried to take it in, adjust.
‘Christ!’
‘Bad time for me,’ said Maki. ‘After baby born, people see he is gaijin child. Many not kind to me. Shout at me. Sometime throw things at me in street.’
‘Just now,’ he said, suddenly making sense of what he’d seen. The stallholder had been angry with her, brusque. ‘That man just now, he said something?’
‘Hai,’ she said. ‘But not matter. Happen all the time. Is nothing.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s not nothing! It’s bloody insufferable!’
The anger welled up in him. He moved as if to double back and find the stallholder. He would make him apologise, beat the bastard black and blue if he refused. But Maki put a hand on his arm, restrained him with the lightness of her touch, familiar after all this time.
‘No,’ she said. ‘It not help.’
He knew she was right. He unclenched his fists, tried to quell the useless rage. Her hand still rested on his arm; he took it a moment in his own.
*
They walked, along by the waterfront, spoke little in between the silences.
‘It’s cruel,’ he said. ‘Now Tsuru is my wife. We have a daughter, Hana.’
‘So desu.’
It was uncanny that he’d stayed late at his office, hammering out the agreement with the others, that he’d left at that time, taken the detour, wandered through the market, something he never did. And she had come in from the village to shop there, had also been later than usual. She would stay the night with her friend Yumi. Yumi too had left the Sakura, married one of her clients, a wealthy merchant from Kobe. When the husband was in Osaka or Edo on business, Maki could stay overnight.
‘Yumi understand,’ she said. ‘She is kind to me.’
The boy was tired, was starting to whimper. She picked him up, held and shooshed him.
The darkening night. The resignation in Maki’s eyes. The boy’s crying. The starkness, the sheer complexity of it all.
‘I need time,’ said Glover. ‘I need to think what to do.’
‘What to do,’ she echoed, and she smiled at him, wry and sad. ‘Maybe is nothing to do.’
He hailed a jinrikisha driver to take her to her friend’s house, gave her the little money he had in his wallet.
‘More tomorow,’ he said. ‘You come to my office. Same time.’
‘Hai,’ she said. ‘So desu. Tomorrow.’
He watched the rickshaw trundle into the night, turned home towards Ipponmatsu, to Tsuru and Hana.
*
Tsuru was calm, showed no emotion, said nothing as he explained the situation, just gave the slightest nod of the head.
‘I just want to do what’s best,’ he said.
‘Hai,’ she said. ‘Best.’
The day had been long. He was tired. He soaked in a hot tub, dried off, lay down. But his sleep was restless, fitful, twitching between waking and dream. He was in some kind of temple, looking for Maki, and everyone was giving him advice. Walsh was laughing. Got yourself the mother of a dilemma here, Tom, with real big horns! He mimed being a pantomime devil, forefingers to the sides of his head, sticking out like horns, then they metamorphosed into real horns, sharp enough to gore and wound. Mackenzie was shaking his head. Ach, Tom, daft loon! I told ye, I told ye, to mind where ye dipped yer wick. And did ye listen? Did ye hell! Then Ito was offering him a drink. Drunk, I lie, head pillowed in some beauty’s lap. He leered. Great man have many women! Ha! Then the mask of his face changed, became serious. But you marry Tsuru, have duty. He withdrew the drink he was offering, swigged it himself, laughed again as it slobbered down his chin, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Is koan, Guraba-san. Question to answer. What to do? And he clanged an iron bell that rang in Glover’s skull as he woke and sat up.
The bed beside him was empty.
‘Tsuru?’
He got up, lit the lamp and went through to the next door room where Hana slept. Tsuru was sitting there in the dark, in her nightgown, her hair undone, beside the child’s bed. She looked up, startled, as he shone the lamp, and in its flicker he saw she was crying.
‘Tsuru,’ he said.
She hung her head, sobbed.
‘What is it, lassie?’
He moved closer to her, put a hand on her arm, let the crying subside.
She sniffed, wiped her face.
‘Now you have son,’ she said. This was difficult
for her. ‘Tsuru not have son, ever. Maybe you want marry other one, bring son here. Send Tsuru and Hana away.’
‘Tsuru,’ he said. ‘For God’s sake! You’re my wife! Hana’s my daughter! Do you think I’d just throw you out?’
‘I not know,’ she said. ‘How I know? Not know gaijin way.’
‘Christ Almighty! Or should that be, In the name of Buddha? Amida Almighty!’
He could see she didn’t understand what he was saying, but his manner, the cajoling reassurance, seemed to reach her, and she laugh-cried. He put an arm round her shoulder, took her back through to the bedroom, blew out the lamp and lay down beside her, held her in his arms till she fell asleep. But he still lay awake, staring into the dark.
Jardine’s were still pressing him for payment and the currency fluctuations continued. He was in the process of selling his slipdock to the new government for $130,000, a profit of $60,000 – a bargain for them and it would buy him time, breathing space. A second battleship, the Jho Sho Maru, was on its way from Aberdeen. It was larger than its predecessor, more powerful, more heavily armed. The Japanese would learn to build on that scale themselves. With Scottish expertise they would build bigger and better docks, develop their own industry, mine their own coal, forge their own iron and steel. He would be part of that, would ride out this storm. He had already invested in a coal mine, on Takashima island in Nagasaki Bay. When the operation was up and running, it would produce coal at a cost of $2 a ton; that would sell in Nagasaki at $4.50. If it produced 300 tons a day, working 20 days a month, that would make a profit of what?
He was tired. Tsuru moaned in her sleep. He saw Maki’s face, the boy, his son. $2.50 a ton. Pure profit. The price of coal. Work it out. 300 tons. The Jho Sho Maru cleaving through the waves. He couldn’t concentrate. It kept slipsliding away. Like trying to hold water cupped in your hands. Like trying to thread a needle. Ito laughing. Fluctuations. Profit and loss. Those stupid unanswerable questions. One hand clapping. The wee small hours.
*
Maki didn’t come the next day. He waited in his office into the evening, paced the floor, peered out the window, watched the sky darken, the lamps flicker in the shops and stalls, but there was no sign of her. It began to rain. He locked up and headed home, took a detour through the market again, just in case. He found the place even more irritating, the noises and the smells. He saw the stallholder who’d been rude to Maki swiftly filleting fish with a razorsharp chopping knife, his movements practised, deft. The man caught his eye, smiled, a twitch of the lip, half-obsequious half-ironic, and Glover was overwhelmed with the urge to punch him in the face. He imagined himself going further, grabbing the knife from the man’s grasp, slicing his throat, gutting him. The ferocity of the thought, its sheer violence, shocked him. His hands were clammy, damp. He turned away, headed for home, felt the night air cool the sweat on his face.
He was curt with Tsuru when she asked if he was all right, told her brusquely that Maki hadn’t showed up and he hadn’t taken her address, had no way of contacting her right away. Tsuru nodded, looked relieved, and that annoyed him even more. He said he would track down Maki through the madame at the Sakura; she would lead him to Yumi and he would take it from there. But it would all have to wait a few days; he had to go to Tokyo for a meeting with Ito.
Tsuru bowed low, kept her head down. He saw she was sobbing and it tore at him.
‘Och, lassie,’ he said. ‘The boy’s my son.’
‘I know,’ she said, her voice bleak. ‘I know.’
*
Prince Ito Hirobumi of the Choshu clan, Prime Minister designate of the Meiji government, was waiting to receive him, in a spacious office furnished with heavy European chairs, an oak table.
‘Guraba-san! It is good to see you!’
‘Ito-san! It is an honour to be ushered into your magisterial presence!’
‘You rascal!’
‘You rogue!’
A painting of the Emperor hung on the wall behind him, further along a smaller portrait of Ito himself looking massively dignified, a row of medals on the jacket of his well-cut English suit.
‘Impressive,’ said Glover.
‘Thank you,’ said Ito, offering him a cigar, motioning him to sit in one of the chairs, upholstered in dark leather.
They discussed again the devaluation of the currency. Ito expressed his regret that Glover had suffered losses.
‘That was the chance I took.’
‘Situation should calm down,’ said Ito. ‘Get on even keel.’
‘I hope so,’ said Glover. He told Ito about his debts, his investment in the mine, his other plans. And he told him about Maki and the boy.
‘Son make it complicated,’ said Ito.
‘Like one of your damn riddles,’ said Glover. ‘Those bloody infuriating conundrums.’
‘Koan,’ said Ito. ‘Hai.’
‘Insoluble.’
‘My favourite is one about master Nansen,’ said Ito. ‘He come into meditation hall one day and two monks are fighting over a cat, both say it belong to them. He take up the cat in one hand, take sword in the other. He say if one of them can say good word they can save the cat. They tonguetied, say nothing. He cut the cat in two.’
‘Good God!’
Ito mimed slashing with a swordblade. ‘Ha!’
The story was still troubling Glover when Ito said there was someone he wanted him to meet. He struck a little brass bell that sat on his desk and a young man came hurrying in to the room, bowed low. Ito barked a command at him, and the young man backed out, returned with the visitor, a middle-aged Japanese businessman, dressed, like Ito, in a western suit, a collar and tie.
‘Guraba-san,’ said Ito. ‘This is Iwasaki-san. He is anxious to meet you.’
‘Hajimemashite,’ said Glover. ‘Dozo yoroshiku.’
‘An honour,’ said Iwasaki.
They bowed, each to each, equally.
‘I admire what you do for Japan,’ said Iwasaki. ‘For Japanese industry.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Slipdock. Now coalmining.’
‘Not to mention the battleships!’
‘Hai, so desu!’
‘Iwasaki-san also has big plans,’ said Ito.
‘Indeed?’
‘Japan need to build these things here, make for ourselves.’
‘Exactly! Develop heavy industry. Compete with the West.’
‘I form company, for shipbuilding, engineering.’
‘Wonderful.’
‘I would be honoured if you would be adviser to company.’
Glover was silent a moment, puffed at his cigar. ‘I am honoured that you should ask me,’ he said at last. ‘Of course I have other commitments.’
‘I am sure we can make agreement,’ said Iwasaki. ‘Make worthwhile.’
‘I shall give it serious consideration,’ said Glover.
‘Company named after clan crest. Call it Three Diamond. Mitsu-bishi.’
‘I like the sound of that. It has a ring to it.’
They bowed again, shook hands.
‘Mitsubishi.’
*
Glover had taken a battering and his creditors were closing in. There was a further communication from Jardine’s, regretfully requesting payment in full. The letter angered him. After all these years, the work he had done for them, the commitment he had shown, to be treated as just one more bad debt was intolerable. He crumpled up the letter, threw it across the room.
There was a letter also from the City of Glasgow Bank, demanding repayment of a loan he’d taken to help finance the building of the Jho Sho Maru. Even if the clans paid him in full for the ship, the devalued currency meant he would lose on the deal.
He had gone, cap in hand, to the agent of the Netherlands Trading Company, who had themselves invested heavily in Japan. He’d asked them to invest in him as part of the country’s future. Now they had written, agreeing to underwrite his debts, but only on condition that he sign over the coal mine as security
. He had no alternative but to accept. He was effectively sunk, bankrupt.
The Daruma doll sat on his desk, stared at him with its fierce-comic face. He cuffed it, knocked it over, watched it roll and right itself, bounce back up.
*
He crossed the two bridges, Hesitation and Decision, into the pleasure quarter, went straight to the Sakura. It looked different during the day, somehow smaller and shabbier, unprepossessing. By night it had always held a magic, an allure: glow of lantern-light, shadows on the shoji screens, sweet scent of incense. This daylight was too harsh for it, rendered it ordinary.
He stepped onto the porch, slid open the screen, and in a moment it all came back to him; he breathed in the smell, the very atmosphere, remembered the boy he had been, an acolyte entering the temple. The sliding of the screen. Sono’s face. The intensity of those nights with Maki that had restored him to some kind of life.
Maki.
A figure moved in the dimness inside, the madame, recognising him, clapping her hands, welcoming him in, calling two of the young girls through to attend to him. It was good to have him back, and at this time of day he must be keen, she had somebody special for him, would take years off his life.
He laughed, explained he couldn’t stay, had only come to ask her a favour. He had to find Maki. The madame looked disappointed. He told her the story and her face was all exaggerated sympathy. She was sorry, she had heard that Maki had a child, but she didn’t know where she lived. But Yumi, perhaps she knew where Yumi lived? Yes, she knew, she could write down the address, it wasn’t too far, he could go in a jinrikisha. And he must come back soon, she missed them all: Ito-san, the American Walsh, but especially Guraba-san, it was good time and they could make good time again.
He thanked her, sincerely, bowed and backed out, retraced his steps over the two bridges, hailed a rickshaw and showed the driver the piece of paper with the address in the madame’s scribbled, effortlessly graceful calligraphy. The driver nodded, indicated Glover should climb aboard. Glover looked apologetic, mimed being big and heavy, cumbersome. The driver laughed, held up his skinny arms, flexing them. But he was wiry.
