The Bamboo Sword

by Margi Preus

  “Really?” Yoshi wondered aloud. “But the edict says that everyone is to stay away from the Black Ships.”

  The artist waved his hand dismissively. “Yes, edicts and more edicts. People will get over their fear and want to see—just as you did. And what do you suppose? The Bakufu will pay good money to see these pictures. Why? Because they want to know about these American ships. How many cannon? What size? What other weapons do they have? These are the things the shogun’s councillors want to know. When they see these pictures”—here Ozawa held up one of a steamship with its cannon barrels sticking out of the gun ports—”oh, yes, little samurai, things are about to change,” he said. “In ways we cannot imagine.”

  Perry’s flagship, as drawn by an anonymous Japanese artist. The commentary reads: “Crew of 350. Twenty-one medium cannon, 8 large cannon.”

  Things had already changed for Yoshi. He had a new job with a new master. How much more different could things be?

  Ozawa broke into song. “What a joke: the steaming teapot fixed by America—” he sang. “Just four cups, and we cannot sleep at night!” He turned to Yoshi. “Off you go!” he urged, and Yoshi ran off to the waterfront to find a ferryboat.

  Riding on the ferry, Yoshi tried to decipher what Ozawa’s steaming teapot song meant. Perhaps it had to do with the steamships. “Just four cups” referred to the four ships that steamed into the air like hot teapots. And “we cannot sleep at night”? Maybe fear of the ships took away sleep, the way strong tea sometimes did. But to lose sleep because of only four cups of tea? Maybe the song was saying that people were getting all worked up over nothing.

  By the looks of things, people were surely getting worked up. The countryside was in a frenzy. Yoshi watched multitudes of people struggling up steep hillsides carrying their belongings. The boat in which he rode, like hundreds of others plying the bay, was crowded with mothers and children being sent to stay with distant relatives.

  And while ordinary people were fleeing the nearby villages, soldiers and warriors were flooding toward the town of Uraga.

  Yoshi could feel the other passengers staring at him. It was his clothes, he knew. He was likely to get into trouble wearing them. There was only one thing to do: At the first opportunity, he would sell them and get himself proper clothing. Meanwhile, he paid a penny for a dome-like straw hat—too big for him, so it covered a large part of his face. This was on purpose. The last thing he needed right now was to be recognized by Kitsune.

  9

  EDO

  Edo! The biggest of all Japanese cities! The home of the shogun. Here was where all the great lords spent at least part of every year. Here was where a million people lived and worked . . . and worried, it looked like to Yoshi.

  The streets were crowded with people hurrying this way and that. Here a mother rushed along with children in her arms, there a man carried his elderly mother on his back, everyone looking for a safe place to hide family and belongings.

  Yoshi moved along, trying to stay out from under the hooves of the warhorses and out of the way of tramping soldiers. Everywhere, he heard the clang of metal on metal: helmets being straightened and swords sharpened. Lines of servants holding tattered armor formed outside the tailors’ shops. Yoshi thought of the boom of the cannon, its fire and smoke, and wondered if that armor, against those guns, offered any better protection than wearing a suit of rice paper.

  This made him remember his own incorrect clothing, and he ducked into a small shop on a side street. The shopkeeper rubbed the fabric between his fingers and, almost purring, offered what Yoshi thought must be a fair price for the haori and hakama. The shopkeeper even gave him a short kimono and leggings to wear.

  A Japanese print shop. (Ando Hiroshige)

  Wearing more proper attire, Yoshi reentered the street and studied Ozawa’s map. He didn’t need it to find the shogun’s palace. As he drew closer, he could see the many buildings of the castle grounds. Beyond the moats, the castle’s many gateways and massive doors, he knew, were all guarded by armed sentries and soldiers. The white walls of the castle keep rose and rose, like one castle balanced on another, so high it made him dizzy to look up. Thankfully, he was not required to go there.

  In the shadow of the castle, he found the engraver’s shop. The inside was cluttered with pots of ink, colored paint, stacks of rice paper, rags, and all kinds of tools and brushes, and it smelled pleasantly of ink and wood shavings. Workers busy at their tasks barely glanced up as he was shown into the shop.

  A man greeted him, and Yoshi presented the ink drawings, whispering the name of Ozawa.

  “Ah, yes,” the engraver said. “Tell your master we will take care of it. The prints will be sent to him when they are finished.”

  “Will you know where to find him?” Yoshi asked.

  “Wherever the barbarians are,” the man said, “is where Ozawa will be found.”

  Bowing, Yoshi backed out the door.

  He then went straight to the shop that sold the buns and bought several for Ozawa and two for himself. He sat down and ate his on the spot, savoring the delicious burst of sweetened bean paste in his mouth. It was so good! Next he bought himself a meal of grilled fish and eggplant in miso paste. He could have kept eating all day. He thought of the money he had gotten for Hideki’s clothes. He could spend some of that for more food, he supposed. No, he thought, I am going to save it for Hideki, since I can’t give him back his clothes.

  Next he found a shrine where he could offer a prayer. He rang the bell, clapped to get the attention of the gods, and dropped a small coin into the waiting pot. He knew he should be praying, as others were, for kamikaze—the divine wind—to come and blow the invaders away, but secretly he prayed that when the barbarians came warring, he would be given a sword, in order that he might help fight them.

  10

  BRUSH VERSUS SWORD

  Upon his return to Uraga, Yoshi was able to find Ozawa with little difficulty. He spotted him near the waterfront, his round, bald head with its ring of white hair bent over his work. As Yoshi waited for Ozawa to finish, he began to feel that something about the artist seemed familiar. He reminded Yoshi of someone. Then he knew: It was the sword master! Was it how he held the brush? How he seemed so comfortable with it—as if it were an extension of his arm? Was it how he used his brush the way the sword master used his katana—as if they were one being? How he made confident sweeping movements with it? Or his total concentration while he worked?

  Perhaps sensing Yoshi standing nearby, Ozawa said, “Would you like to draw something?”

  “Oh, I’m not good at it,” Yoshi said.

  “I didn’t ask if you were good, only if you’d like to try.” Ozawa held out brush and paper. “Here, try!”

  “Really? Me?”

  The artist glanced around him and said, “I don’t see anyone else standing there.”

  Using the artist’s offered brush and inkstone, Yoshi carefully painted a horse.

  “Not terrible!” Ozawa said. He made a few suggestions for improvement, and Yoshi tried again. The next picture was better, and the next even better than that. “Better and better!” Ozawa commented, looking over Yoshi’s shoulder. “Perhaps you have talent!”

  Yoshi thought perhaps he would like drawing.

  While Yoshi practiced, Ozawa munched on the bean paste buns and gave Yoshi pointers. Then he talked about how Japanese officials had been received on one of the big ships, where they had asked the barbarians to leave. As anyone could see just by looking, the ships hadn’t gone anywhere. The red-hairs had then been asked to move their ships to Nagasaki. They hadn’t. Instead, they had threatened to take their ships to Edo—in which case, they were told, the Japanese officials who had allowed such a thing would be forced to slice open their own bellies by committing seppuku.

  Although no one dared say any of these things aloud, it was whispered that the hairy ones could—and would—do anything they wanted to. It was whispered even more quietly that the shogun seemed u
nable to stop them.

  “Our warriors’ swords will stop them,” Yoshi said, fervently hoping it was true.

  “I think it’s more likely that this will stop them,” Ozawa said, holding up a paintbrush, “than swords.”

  “How can that be?” Yoshi said. He looked up from his drawing. He was trying to draw a picture of a katana with a fancy hilt.

  “A brush can cut deeper than a sword, and, unlike a sword, it can also heal. And, really”—Ozawa examined his brush as if it were a precious thing—“the brush is more powerful than a sword. It speaks truth when truth cannot be spoken any other way.” He nodded at Yoshi’s drawing. “What can you say for your sword? Which would you pick, given a choice? Brush or sword?”

  Yoshi didn’t need to think about it. “A sword!” he said, holding up his finished drawing. “A sword can slash and cut. You can hear it sing as it slices the air. It makes real work for your muscles to do—not just your brain. Can a brush be so sharp that it can cut a flower petal floating down a river? No. Therefore, a sword is preferable.”

  “Well, you have a certain logic,” Ozawa said. “And you argue well. But can a sword transport you to other places, show you things you’ve never seen or even thought of before? Can a sword make magic?”

  “Magic?”

  “Certainly you’ve heard the story of the boy who was so crazy about drawing that he neglected his religious studies?” The artist’s voice changed to storytelling mode, and Yoshi set down his brush to listen. “The abbot became so angry with the youngster that he tied him to a post to prevent him from drawing. There the lad stood all the day long, with his arms tied to the post. At last the abbot returned, ready to release the young fellow. But as he reached for the ropes, what should he see but rats running underfoot, poised to bite the youngster’s bare feet! Only after he had untied the boy did the abbot see that the rats were only drawings the poor child had made in the dust, with his toe for a brush and his tears for ink.”

  “No!” Yoshi exclaimed.

  “Yes!” the artist said. “Of course, seeing his talent, the abbot regretted his harsh punishment and from then on let the boy draw all he wanted. That boy grew up to be Sesshu Toyo, one of our greatest artists.”

  “That couldn’t really happen, though,” Yoshi said.

  “Well, perhaps you are right,” Ozawa offered. “Some say that what really happened is that the rats that Toyo drew gnawed through his ropes and freed him.”

  “That is also too far-fetched to believe,” Yoshi insisted.

  “How much do we fail to imagine is possible just because it does not seem possible?” Ozawa said. “Perhaps the impossible is just exactly what we should try to imagine.” He looked out at the ships. “Who would have imagined a ship that moves without sails? Had you?”

  Yoshi shook his head.

  “Someone did,” Ozawa said. “And there they are.” He picked up the brush, dipped it in the wet ink, pressed down, turned it, pressed down again. “The era of the sword will end, perhaps soon.” He glanced at the ships. “Their guns have made the sword obsolete already.” Yoshi looked out over the water at the Black Ships. Still anchored broadside to the bay, they looked solid and immovable. They looked like they had every intention of staying there, and that they would stay as long as they felt like it.

  “The only thing that everyone seems to agree upon is that to fight the foreigners is to fight to the death,” Ozawa said. “It seems that although the barbarians won’t back down on our demand to leave the country, neither do they intend to start the fight. You can see for yourself.” He pointed the tip of his brush at the ships. “They simply stay!”

  Yoshi burned with anger at those who would defy the laws of his land. Who did they think they were? The Sacred Land of the Rising Sun would not stand for this affront! The mighty samurai warriors would rise against the barbarians and send them away!

  He hoped.

  11

  THE SALESMAN

  Towels! Scrolls! Fans!” Yoshi shouted from his perch on an overturned bucket. He unrolled a scroll so his audience could see the colored print. “Images of the hairy ones! See their bulbous noses—big and bumpy as ginger roots! See their frightening, icicle-colored eyes and their hairy, hairy faces! Prepare to be astounded! You will hardly believe what you see!”

  Every day, Yoshi’s countrymen had become less fearful and more curious, and every day the crowd at the waterfront grew larger. The audience gasped, clucked, oohed, retrieved money from sleeves or pouches, and paid for a keepsake fan or scroll or towel. Soon his pouch bulged with coins. It wasn’t strictly his money; still, it gave him a feeling of—well, he didn’t know what it was, for he’d never felt it before, but it was a good feeling, in any case.

  Not long after, Ozawa approached while Yoshi was counting out coins and said, “I have some news! The Americans are going to come ashore.”

  Yoshi raised his head. “Really?” he asked. His stomach buzzed and fluttered as if filled with crowds of dragonflies.

  “His High and Mighty Mysteriousness, the American mikado, is going to deliver a letter from the king of America,” Ozawa crowed. “So it is said.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.” Ozawa smiled. “And we’ll be allowed to get close to the procession to make sketches.”

  “We?”

  “Yes,” Ozawa said. “We. Unless you are too afraid?”

  “I’m not afraid!” Yoshi answered, perhaps not being entirely truthful.

  “Good,” Ozawa said. “Because I am going to need my assistant.”

  12

  THE LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

  The marines led the way, and the sailors following, the Commodore was duly escorted up the beach. . . . Two boys, dressed for the ceremony, preceded the Commodore, bearing in an envelope of scarlet cloth the boxes which contained his credentials and the President’s letter.

  —M. C. Perry, Narrative of the Expedition to the China Seas and Japan, 1852–1854

  Jack knew he was marching, but he almost felt as if he were floating, he was so excited. In fact, he was so excited, or maybe so nervous, that he’d leaped out of the boat a little early, and splashed into water up to his knees.

  The Americans’ procession. (artist unknown)

  “Are you trying to be the first to touch Japanese soil?” joked Smith, one of the sailors. “Too late, for Captain Buchanan has taken that honor.”

  It was lucky the ships’ bands were playing, because the music covered the sounds of his wet shoes squish-squishing and his heart hammering away. He knew he should keep a serious demeanor—eyes straight ahead, focus forward—but there was so much to look at!

  The Americans’ procession, he thought, was quite impressive. The commodore had seen to that. A company of one hundred marines and a company of that many sailors headed the parade. Two of the biggest and burliest sailors carried the flag and pennant, and two black crewmen, both very tall, had been selected to march alongside Commodore Perry.

  Jack and another boy walked just ahead of the commodore, each carrying a large scarlet cloth envelope containing a rosewood box. Within the boxes were letters to the mikado: one from the president of the United States and one from the commodore.

  Although the Americans were strong in number—probably three hundred souls in all—that was nothing compared to the Japanese presence. Thousands upon thousands of Japanese warriors, some on foot and some mounted, some carrying pikes and some longbows and feathered arrows crowded the area. Jack had ever seen so many swords. In addition to the warriors, at least another thousand Japanese onlookers stood silently and politely behind the barricades.

  Sketch artists from the ships, as well as a row of Japanese artists, were situated along the parade route, drawing away. Jack longed to get a look at the sketches to see how the Americans were being depicted. As he passed by the artists, he tried to look as regal, serious, handsome, and tall as he possibly could in his uniform, with every single button in place—sewn on with great care by Jack Sulliva
n himself.

  Just as he was thinking proudly of his newfound sewing skill, something pinged into the gravel at his feet. Glancing down, he saw that it was a button. Apparently he hadn’t done as good a job stitching them on as he’d thought. Without getting out of step, he scooped up the button. When he stood, his eye snagged the eyes of a Japanese boy about his own age: same height, same size, but in every other way completely and utterly different. He was darker, his hair shiny and black, his nose small, and his eyes almond shaped. His eyes! So dark—almost black—and for a moment Jack’s own eyes were locked with them.

  The boy, though small, looked strong, like he might have a good pitching arm. But what was Jack thinking? This boy wouldn’t even know about baseball! The thought made him smile.

  The American expedition’s artist, William Heine, sketching, as portrayed by an anonymous Japanese artist.

  The boy smiled back. He was just a kid! Jack thought. They might even be friends, if only the boy wasn’t a heathen.

  Yoshi glanced up just in time to see a boy looking at him, a boy about his age, and the same height, but in every other way completely and utterly different. The boy had strange, extreme features: a sharp nose, a sharp chin, and pale skin—except for a smattering of darker spots that ran up and over his nose. And his hair! It was so red, yet it still seemed as if the color had been rinsed out of it. His eyes, too, were so pale as to be almost translucent. Was the boy sick? Maybe sick with some contagious barbarian disease! Except that his cheeks wore a blush of health, or maybe excitement.

  The boy gave Yoshi a crooked smile. It looked like there could be fun—and trouble—in that smile. And Yoshi couldn’t help but smile back. He’s just a boy, Yoshi thought. They might even have been friends, if only the boy wasn’t a barbarian.