by Margi Preus
“What for?”
“It will make the paperwork on my end so much easier.”
“Paperwork?”
“Just do it, if you want the barbarian released.”
Kitsune swept the remaining vegetables off the table and set down paper, brush, and ink bowl, then gestured for Yoshi to sit.
Yoshi picked up the brush and pressed it into the ink bowl. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Coughing One slowly wiping the blood off the sword’s blade.
“Have it say, ‘I killed Nakahama Manjiro,’” Kitsune demanded.
Yoshi wrote it down.
“‘On this day in the Month of New Life, seventh year of Kaei,’” Kitsune continued.
As he wrote, Yoshi thought, Well, it is not going to make any difference what I write, because the man is alive, so clearly I couldn’t have killed him. He was pleased that his ruse had worked and that Kitsune had been so easily deceived.
But as he dipped the brush again, he began to wonder if this paperwork was for some other purpose. Maybe Kitsune wasn’t as oafish as he thought. Maybe he was as sly as a fox. He would get Yoshi to confess in writing that he had killed Manjiro, and then Kitsune would be free to do it himself with impunity, since a confession had already been signed. Not only that, but Kitsune could kill Yoshi without any pesky questions, either, since he could tell the authorities he’d cut down a murderer.
But there was nothing Yoshi could do about it now. Kitsune had already plucked up the paper, blown on it to dry the ink, rolled it up, and shoved it inside his kimono.
Kitsune made a sound deep in his throat, then spoke: “Now, little samurai, it is time for you to earn your reward.” Without hesitation, Kitsune drew his katana.
Yoshi snatched up the only thing at hand, the brush, as if to defend himself with it, which made Kitsune tip his head back and roar with laughter. When Kitsune’s head tipped forward again, Yoshi flicked the brush at him, spraying ink into his eyes.
Kitsune clutched his face and roared again, this time in pain.
Yoshi dropped the brush and dashed toward Jack, but Coughing One stepped between them, brandishing Manjiro’s clean and gleaming sword.
At that very moment, startling everyone, Jack stood up, lifted the chair he’d been sitting in over his head, and brought it down with a cra-ack on Coughing One’s head. So that’s what that strange barbarian item is for, Yoshi thought, as the man slumped to the ground. It has a useful purpose after all.
As Jack and Yoshi ran toward the door with the other three bushi in pursuit, Jack grabbed the ink bowl and whipped it at the closest one, hitting him squarely between the eyes. Yoshi snagged the dropped sword and scabbard.
The two boys bolted into the alley. For a moment, Jack thought they would escape, but then Yoshi tripped over a sack of rice and Jack slipped on something—sodden onion skins, it smelled like—and they both went down.
Say your prayers, Jack Sullivan, Jack thought as the desperadoes closed in on them. But a pattering sound above them diverted their attention to the roofs overhead.
All at once, the quiet was pierced with screeching and squealing, as if a flock of winged demons were arriving from the sky. The air was filled with silvery spinning loops of rope, and the alleyway became a blur—not of winged spirits but of boys. Boys leaping from the rooftops, lassos spinning.
“Well, I’ll be . . . ,” Jack said. He would not have guessed the lasso was in popular use in Japan.
Yoshi grabbed his arm and, once again, they ran.
During their flight, Jack tried to tuck little images into his memory: pools of lantern light on the damp streets, the glowing paper walls of houses and tea shops, a door sliding open, people staring up from their soup bowls as the boys rushed past, then out through another sliding paper door into a dark alley; women with white-painted faces and elaborate hairdos teetering on high wooden sandals; the reflections in the black canal water as they climbed into a boat, with a man standing in the back with a long pole.
There was only one other man in the boat. He smiled at the boys, and offered them dried persimmons and little balls made of sticky rice.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” the man said to Jack.
Had that man just spoken in English, or was Jack losing his mind?
“Are you quite all right? No injuries?”
“You speak English . . . ,” Jack began.
The man nodded. “You aren’t hurt?” he repeated.
Jack shook his head. The one man in all of Japan who can speak English, Jack thought, and I found him.
As the boatman pushed the boat downriver, the man, whose name was Manjiro, told Jack how he had come to learn English, about his time in America, and some of the things he had learned there.
“With the new developments in transportation and communication, countries can no longer expect to live in isolation,” he said. “But I believe that good will come out of this changing world.”
The boat came out from under overhanging trees, and the dark sky spread out above them, dotted with bright stars.
“There is the Milky Way,” Manjiro said, pointing to the thick streak of stars in the sky. “Here we call it the River of Heaven. It is said that it separates a pair of lovers—a farmhand and a princess. A sad story. But that same river of stars unites you and me, for we see the same stars when we look up from our very different places on earth. As a sailor, you know that those stars show us how to find each other.”
Yoshi listened to the strange language for a while as the boat plied the Sumida River. Through the dark night they went, with the lingering scent of simmered broths and grilled fish still hanging in the air, and the fragrance of flowering shrubs and trees exploding in little bursts.
It was odd, Yoshi thought, but for the first time in his life, he felt as if he were moving toward something rather than running away.
43
UNDER THE BLOSSOMS
Under the blossoms
utter strangers
simply don’t exist
—Issa
Yoshi woke to the sound of the boat scraping along a pier. Dawn was just beginning to break. He stumbled off the boat to find himself, along with Jack and Manjiro, standing in a quiet grove of flowering cherry trees. Jack and Manjiro continued to chatter in that strange language that sounded like nonsense syllables to Yoshi. Otherwise, it was quiet.
A cherry tree grove. (Ando Hiroshige)
Manjiro handed Yoshi the bundle of Jack’s American clothes and shoes, and told Yoshi in Japanese, and Jack in English, what was to happen: The two boys were to wait for some of the stableboys, who would arrive shortly with a kago. They should be able to reach Kanagawa in time.
“In time for what?” Jack asked.
“For the banquet,” Manjiro explained.
Jack glanced at Yoshi. So the little rascal had understood all along, he thought.
Jack’s scolding glance did not escape Yoshi. He grinned sheepishly and tried that gesture that Manjiro made sometimes—that little lift of the shoulders.
Manjiro said it was time for him to take his leave. Yoshi watched him shake hands with Jack; it looked almost natural when they did it. He could almost understand it as a ritual of greeting or of parting. Then Manjiro turned to Yoshi, who bowed and held Manjiro’s katana in his two extended hands, palms up, offering it to its owner.
But Manjiro shook his head. “Not yet,” he said. “Who knows? You might still have need of it.” He stepped into the boat, and the boatman pushed off, heading back upriver.
Yoshi figured this was as close to being a bushi as he would ever get. After this adventure was over, he would return the katana and be, simply, Yoshi. And that, he thought, would be fine. Still, he thought, for one time in his life, he could practice with a real blade, before the boys arrived with the kago.
He pulled the katana from its scabbard and admired the way it gleamed in the sunlight, the way it received, reflected, and deflected the light. Could Japan do the same? he wondered. Coul
d Japan receive, reflect, and reject the changes that were sure to come?
His country would have to be like water, Yoshi thought, able to turn itself into a single drop or a vast ocean. It would have to be as renewing as fire, as elusive as air. Like wind, both he and his country would have to strive to find the right path in the coming days and years.
Now he gave himself up to his practice: He lunged, twisted, turned, and spun. He was water running over stones. He was a leaf, spinning in the spring wind. He was fire. He was like everything and like nothing at all. He was air.
Jack turned his eyes up at the flickering leaves overhead and breathed in the scent of the flowering trees. It was so quiet. In the very early morning light, pale blossoms drifted down around him silent as snow. Peaceful. He thought of the sounds of an American harbor: the clang of metal and the shouts of hundreds of dock and ship workers, the rumble of carts and carriage wheels on the cobbled streets, the shrill scream of steam whistles, the metallic grating of capstans. He could hear none of that here. The breeze in the pines, the twitter of birds, the gentle lapping of water. Tranquil.
He had heard it said that Japan was like an oyster—to open it would be to kill it. Maybe, he thought. He supposed the country would surely change. It would never be again like it was right now.
Jack watched as Yoshi carved the air with that big sword, practicing his lunging and parrying. Graceful, he thought. Like an art form.
Perhaps this, too, would be lost with the coming of modern weapons.
One thing that would never be killed, he thought as he watched Yoshi, was the spirit of these people. He wanted to drink it in, to open his eyes wide and remember every moment: the long hike to Edo, the baseball game, even the fearful time with those fervent samurai, and this time under these blossoms. But he was so tired, he could not keep his eyes open.
44
“OH! SUSANNA”
We must be encountering rough seas, Jack thought, judging by the uncomfortable jostling, shifting, and banging he was experiencing. Any minute now, he expected the bosun’s whistle, the shout for “All hands!” and the order to “Clew up and furl the main topgallant!” But no order came, and the tossing continued unabated.
Such a dream he’d had: filled with sword-wielding warriors, near escapes, and a fairyland of forests, lush valleys, wooded hills, and distant, misty mountains. He’d seen exotic temples and forbidden castles. His dream, he thought now, in his half-sleep state, had been so real. He had made a friend in his dream, and with his friend had many adventures, fading from memory already, like that distant mountain that hovered, sometimes visible, sometimes not, in the blue haze . . .
He woke and blinked open his eyes, the taste of persimmons still on his tongue. It was dark. Where, he wondered, were the lanterns swaying from the rafters? His snoring berth mates—where were they? The creaking ship timbers? The water “talking” against the side of the ship? Instead, he heard running footfalls, incoherent voices. He was, it seemed, surrounded by cloth walls, and he was being jounced up and down, sideways, jiggling and joggling.
Then he remembered. He was in a kago being carried to Kanagawa. He poked his head outside the cloth flap and took a look around. He was inside a box suspended from a long pole, and it was being carried by four lads, two in front, two in back. This explained the lurching and joggling.
But he only had time for a quick glance before Yoshi’s face appeared. Yoshi shoved Jack back inside and pulled the flap down.
At last they stopped, and the cloth wall lifted. Was that a band he heard? Horns and clarinets? And was that “The Star-Spangled Banner” being played? Jack craned his neck and saw, through the trees, the familiar waterfront, the familiar boats, the familiar blue-jacketed sailors. It was as if the past few days had been a dream after all.
But then he looked down and saw the silly nightgown he was wearing, and realized he had fallen asleep and been carried the last miles to his destination.
Yoshi appeared and presented Jack with his clothes, neatly folded: his jacket, trousers, shoes, and stockings. Everything was there.
“Watch,” Yoshi said in English. “Boat.” He pointed toward the waterfront.
Jack poked his head out of the kago and saw the sailors and marines making their way toward the boats lining the shore. He’d have to hurry or he’d miss his ride again!
Changing clothes inside the kago was no easy feat, even if you weren’t in a hurry. Here an arm and there a leg would stick out as he tried to get a limb into a pant leg or a jacket sleeve. Each time a bare leg emerged, he heard the tittering giggles of the boys. Ah well, he thought, they deserved something for carrying him all that way, even if it was only a laugh. He wished he had something to give them.
Then he had a thought: Buttons! He yanked the two that remained from his jacket and two from his trousers. He climbed out of the kago with one hand full of buttons and the other holding up his pants.
Bowing to the boys, he presented the buttons. “Er . . . dozo,” he said, suddenly remembering a word he’d heard so many times the last few days.
Each boy took one and bowed several times, thanking him.
Jack bowed, too, but he let go of his waistband to do it, and his trousers fell down.
While the others howled with laughter, Hiko took off his cloth headband and offered it to Jack to cinch around his waist. Then the four boys scampered off to examine their gifts more closely.
While Jack was tying the headband around his trousers, Yoshi suddenly remembered something. He reached into his sleeve and took out the small item he had found by the chasm in the forest. He bowed, and presenting it to Jack with both hands, said, “Button.”
Jack indicated to Yoshi that he should keep it, and Yoshi bowed again, touching the button reverently to his forehead. Then Jack thought of something else he wanted to give Yoshi, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out the box of matches.
Yoshi accepted the gift and took Jack’s hand in an awkward handshake. It was not terrible, this hand shaking, he thought. It was a straightforward way of expressing, well, friendship. Yes, Yoshi thought, they had become friends. What, he wondered, could he give Jack?
There was the coin Manjiro had given him for the ferry. It would have been enough for all five boys and the kago, too. But it was the only thing Yoshi had to give, and so he fished it out and, bowing again, offered it to Jack.
Jack took the offered coin and bowed to Yoshi, trying to put as much gratitude, admiration, humility, and friendship into the move as he could. Yes, Jack thought, they had become friends.
Yoshi gestured to the beach, where Jack’s shipmates were now climbing into the boats. Jack found that he had to quickly wipe his nose and swipe away a tear before saying one last good-bye. Looking up, he saw that Yoshi’s eyes were filled with tears, too.
Then he turned and ran down the hill toward the waiting boats.
On the way home, Yoshi, Hiko, Han, Shozo, and Enju took turns riding in or carrying the kago. Manjiro’s sword went inside the kago, because Yoshi didn’t want to carry it. When he got back to Edo, he would return the sword to its owner. He would put away his bamboo sword. What he thought he would do was ask his friend Manjiro to teach him the outsider’s language. He would learn to read it, and with the brush he would learn to write it. He already knew a song that Manjiro had taught him, and he sang it now:
Banquet for the Americans. (Hideki)
“Oh! Susanna, oh don’t you cry for me. / I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee.” Yoshi sang the verse, first in English, then as translated by Manjiro: “It rained all night the day I left, / The weather was so dry. / The sun so hot, I froze to death, / Susanna, don’t you—”
Hiko stopped him. “That can’t be right. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
The other boys agreed.
“That’s the way Manjiro taught me,” Yoshi said.
“How can the weather be dry if it is raining?” Enju asked.
“It just shows you how ignorant th
ose barbarians really are. If the sun is hot, you can’t freeze to death,” Hiko added.
“Is that the way it is in their country?” Shozo said. “Everything is backward? One can freeze from the sun, and the rain is dry?”
“Yoshi has it wrong!” Han squeaked. “He has got the words wrong.”
“Maybe it’s a kind of joke,” Hiko suggested.
Yoshi just smiled. To him it was a song about the impossible. It was a hopeful, optimistic song in which the impossible comes true. And that, Yoshi thought, as he took a last long look across the bay at the Black Ships, seemed more and more possible all the time.
A NOTE FROM JACK SULLIVAN
June 1860, Washington, D.C.
The United States steam frigate Roanoke was telegraphed as off Sandy Hook, on her way to New York City, with the expected Japanese Embassy on board . . . She anchored at half-past seven and allowed the official to convey an order to proceed to Washington before coming to New York.
—Washington Evening Star, May 10, 1860
It has been seven years since I traveled to Japan with Perry. I don’t mean to make it sound as if he and I were traveling companions—hardly that! I was a mere cabin boy and he a commodore. He spoke to me only once, when he gave me the assignment of carrying the letter from President Fillmore in our very first encounter with the people of Japan.
Years later, I would photograph him. He spoke pleasantly to me on that occasion, although I’m sure he had no recollection of our previous association.
I think of it now, however, because of a most curious occurrence. I have, for several years, been working as a camera operator for Mr. Mathew Brady, the famous photographer. As Mr. Brady’s eyesight is failing, I am more and more frequently called upon to do his work. Recently, he asked me to photograph a delegation from Japan—the first official delegation, in fact—newly arrived in Washington, D.C. The embassy consisted of seventy-seven samurai along with their attendants, servants, interpreters, and the like. It was my job to photograph the diplomats during their visit to the Navy Yard.
