by Gai-Jin(Lit)
But that did not become necessary. The sailors, used to handling cannon in tight places below decks, good-naturedly shoved and pushed and cursed and half carried the carriage around the bottlenecks.
The Legation was on a slight rise in the suburb of Gotenyama, beside a Buddhist temple. It was a two-story, still uncompleted structure of British style and design inside a high fence and gates. Within three months of the
Treaty's signing, work had begun.
Building had been agonizingly slow, partially because of British insistence on using their plans and their normal building materials such as glass for windows and bricks for bearing walls--that had to be brought from London, Hong Kong or Shanghai
--constructing foundations and the like which Japanese houses did not normally possess, being of wood, deliberately light and easy to erect and repair because of earthquakes and raised off the ground. Most of the delays, however, were due to Bakufu reluctance to have any foreign edifices whatsoever outside Yokohama.
Even though not fully finished, the Legation was occupied and the British flag raised daily on the dominant flagpole which further incensed the
Bakufu and local citizens. Last year occupation was temporarily abandoned by Sir
William's predecessor when ronin, at night, killed two guards outside his bedroom door to British fury and Japanese rejoicing.
"Oh so sorry..." the Bakufu said.
But the site, leased in perpetuity by the
Bakufu--mistakenly, it had been claimed ever since--had been wisely chosen. The view from the forecourt was the best in the neighborhood and they could see the fleet drawn up in battle order, safely offshore, safely at anchor.
The cortege arrived in martial style to take possession again. Sir William had decided to spend the night in the Legation to prepare for tomorrow's meeting and he bustled about, stopped as the Captain saluted. "Yes?"
"Raise the flag, sir? Secure the
Legation?"
"At once. Keep to the plan, lots of noise, drums, pipes and so on. Pipe the retreat at sunset, and have the band march up and down."
"Yes sir." The Captain walked over to the flagstaff. Ceremoniously, to the heady skirl of more pipes and drums, once more the Union
Jack broke out at the masthead. Immediately, by previous agreement, there was an acknowledging broadside from the flagship. Sir William raised his hat and led three resounding cheers for the
Queen. "Good, that's better. Lun!"
"Heya Mass'er?"
"Wait a minute, you're not Lun!"
"I Lun Two, Mass'r, Lun One come
'night, chop chop."
"All right, Lun Two. Dinner sunset, you make every Mass'er shipshape never mind."
Lun Two nodded sourly, hating to be in such an isolated, indefensible place, surrounded by a thousand hidden, hostile eyes that everyone carelessly dismissed, though nearly all must sense. I'll never understand barbarians, he thought.
That night Phillip Tyrer could not sleep.
He lay on one of the straw mattresses atop a ragged carpet on the floor, wearily changing his position every few minutes, his mind unpleasantly crossed with thoughts of London and
Angelique, the attack and the meeting tomorrow, the ache in his arm, and Sir William who had been irritable all day. It was cold with a slight promise of winter on the air, the room small.
Windows with glass panes overlooked the spacious, well-planted back gardens. The other mattress bed was for the Captain but he was still making his rounds.
Apart from sounds of dogs foraging, a few tomcats, the city was silent. Occasionally he could hear distant ships' bells of the fleet sounding the hours and the throaty laughter of their soldiers and he felt reassured. Those men are superb, he thought. We're safe here.
At length he got up, yawned and padded over to the window, opened it to lean on the sill.
Outside it was black, the cloud cover thick.
No shadows but he saw many Highlanders patrolling with oil lamps. Beyond the fence to one side was the vague shape of the Buddhist temple.
At sunset after the bagpipes had beat the retreat and the Union Jack ritually pulled down for the night, monks had barred their heavy gate, sounded their bell, then filled the night with their strange chanting: "Ommm mahnee padmee hummmmm..." over and over again.
Tyrer had been calmed by it, unlike many of the others who shouted catcalls, telling them rudely to shut up.
He lit a candle that was beside the bed. His fob watch showed it was 2:30. Yawning again, he rearranged the blanket, propped himself up with the rough pillow and opened his small attach`e case, his initials embossed on it--a parting gift from his mother--and took out his notebook. Covering the column of Japanese words and phrases he had written out phonetically, he muttered the
English equivalents, then the next page, and the next. Then the same with the English and said aloud the
Japanese. It pleased him every one was right.
"They're so few, I don't know if I'm pronouncing them correctly, I've so little time, and I haven't even begun to learn the writing," he muttered.
At Kanagawa he had asked
Babcott where he could get the best teacher.
"Why not ask the padre?"' Babcott had said.
He had, yesterday. "Certainly, my boy.
But can't this week, how about next month? Care for another sherry?"'
My God, can they drink here! They're sozzled most of the time and certainly by lunch. The padre's useless, and smells to high heaven. But what a stroke of luck about Andr`e Poncin!
Yesterday afternoon he had accidentally met the
Frenchman in one of the Japanese village shops that serviced their needs. These lined the village main street that was behind High Street, away from the sea and adjoined Drunk Town.
All the shops appeared to be the same, selling the same kinds of local merchandise from food to fishing tackle, from cheap swords to curios. He was searching through a rack of Japanese books--the paper of very high quality, many beautifully printed and illustrated from woodblocks--trying to make himself understood to the beaming proprietor.
"Pardon, Monsieur," the stranger had said, "but you have to name the type of book you want." He was in his thirties, clean-shaven, with brown eyes and brown, wavy hair, a fine
Gallic nose and well dressed. "You say:
Watashi hoshii hon, Ing'erish
Nihongo, dozo--I would like a book that has
English and Japanese." He smiled. "Of course there aren't any though this fellow will tell you with abject sincerity, Ah so desu ka, gomen nasai, etc.--Ah so sorry I have none today but if you come back tomorrow... Of course he's not telling the truth, only telling you what he thinks you want to know, a fundamental
Japanese habit. I'm afraid Japanese are not generous with the truth, even amongst themselves."
"But, Monsieur, may I ask, then how did you learn Japanese--obviously you're fluent."
The man laughed pleasantly. "You are too kind. Me, I'm not, though I try." An amused shrug. "Patience. And because some of our
Holy Fathers speak it."
Philip Tyrer frowned. "I'm afraid
I'm not Catholic, I'm Church of England, and, er, and an apprentice interpreter at the
British Legation. My name is Phillip
Tyrer and I've just arrived and a bit out of my depth."
"Ah, of course, the young Englishman of the
Tokaid@o. Please excuse me, I should have recognized you, we were all horrified to hear about it. May I present myself, Andr`e Poncin, late of Paris, I'm a trader."
"Je suis enchant`e de vous voir," Tyrer said, speaking French easily and well though with a slight English accent--throughout the world, outside of Britain, French was the language of diplomacy, and lingua franca of most Europeans, therefore essential for a Foreign
Office posting--as well as for anyone considering themselves well educated. In French he added,
"Do you think the Fathers would consider teaching me, o
r allowing me to join their classes?"'
"I don't believe any actually give classes. I could ask. Are you going with the fleet tomorrow?"'
"Yes, indeed."
"So am I, with Monsieur Seratard, our
Minister. You were at the Legation in Paris before here?"'
"Unfortunately no, I've only been to Paris for two weeks, Monsieur, on holiday--this is my first posting."
"Oh, but your French is very good,
Monsieur."
"Afraid it's not, not really," Tyrer said in English again. "I presume you are an interpreter too?"'
"Oh no, just a businessman, but I try help Monsieur Seratard sometimes when his official Dutch-speaking interpreter is sick--
I speak Dutch. So you wish to learn
Japanese, as quickly as possible, eh?"'
Poncin went over to the rack and selected a book. "Have you seen one of these yet? It's
Hiroshige's Fifty-Three Stages on the
Tokaid@o Road. Don't forget the beginning of the book is at the end for us, their writing right to left. The pictures show the way stations all the way to Ky@oto." He thumbed through them.
"Here's Kanagawa, and here Hodogaya."
The four-color woodblock prints were exquisite, better than anything Tyrer had ever seen, the detail extraordinary. "They're marvelous."
"Yes. He died four years ago, pity, because he was a marvel. Some of their artists are extraordinary, Hokusai,
Masanobu, Utamaro and a dozen others."
Andr`e laughed and pulled out another book.
"Here, these are a must, a primer for Japanese humor and calligraphy as they call their writing."
Phillip Tyrer's mouth dropped open. The pornography was decorous and completely explicit, page after page, with beautifully gowned men and women, their naked parts monstrously exaggerated and drawn in majestic, hairy detail as they joined vigorously and inventively. "Oh my God!"
Poncin laughed outright. "Ah, then I have given you a new pleasure. As erotica they're unique, I have a collection I'd be glad to show you. They're called shunga-every the others ukiyo-every--pictures from the Willow World or
Floating World. Have you visited one of the bordellos yet?"'
"I... I, no... no I, I, er, haven't."
"Oh, in that case, may I be a guide?"'
Now in the night, Tyrer remembered their conversation and how secretly embarrassed he had been. He had tried to pretend he was equally a man of the world, but at the same time kept hearing his father's grave and constant advice: "Listen,
Phillip, Frenchmen are all vile and totally untrustworthy, Parisians the dregs of France and Paris without doubt the sin city of the civilized world--licentious, vulgar, and French!"
Poor Papa, he thought, he's so wrong about so many things, but then he lived in Napoleonic times and survived the bloodbath of Waterloo.
However great the victory, it must have been terrible for a ten-year-old drummer boy, no wonder he will never forgive or could forget or accept the new
Era. Never mind, Papa has his life and as much as I love him, and admire him for what he did, I have to make my own way. France is almost an ally now--it's not wrong to listen and learn.
He flushed, remembering how he had hung on
Andr`e's words--secretly ashamed of his avid fascination.
The Frenchman explained that here bordellos were places of great beauty, the best of them, and their courtesans, the Ladies of the Floating World, or Willow World as they were called, easily the best he had ever experienced. "There are degrees, of course, and streetwalkers in most towns. But here we have our own Pleasure
Quarter, called Yoshiwara. It's over the bridge outside the fence." Again the pleasant laugh, "We call it the Bridge to Paradise. Oh yes and you should know that... oh excuse me, I interrupt your shopping."
"Oh but no, not at all," he had said at once, aghast that this flow of information and rare opportunity would cease, and added in his most flowery and honeyed French, "I would consider it an honor if you would care to continue, really, it is so important to learn as much as one can and
I'm afraid the people I associate with, and talk to, are... regretfully, not Parisian, mostly stodgy and without French sophistication.
To return your kindness perhaps I may offer you some tea or champagne at the English Tea
House, or perhaps a drink at the Yokohama
Hotel--sorry, but I'm not a member of the
Club yet."
"You are too kind, yes I would like that."
Thankfully he beckoned the shopkeeper, with
Poncin's help paid for the book, astonished it was so inexpensive. They went into the street. "You were saying about the Willow World?"'
"There's nothing sordid about it as in most of our brothels and almost all those elsewhere in the world.
Here, as in Paris, but more so, the act of sex is an art form, as delicate and special as great cuisine, to be considered and practiced and savored and thought of as such, with no... please excuse me, no misguided Anglo-Saxon
"guilt.""
Instinctively, Tyrer bridled. For a moment was tempted to correct him and say that there was a vast difference between guilt, and a healthy attitude towards morality and all good Victorian values. And to add that, regretfully the French had never possessed any distinction with their leaning towards loose living that seduced even such august nobles as the Prince of Wales who openly considered Paris home ("a source of grave concern in the highest English circles," the
Times glowered, "French vulgarity knows no end, their wretched display of wealth and outrageous innovative dances, like the cancan where, it is reliably reported, the dancers deliberately do not and are even required not to wear any under garments whatsoever").
But he said none of it, knowing he would only be parroting more of his father's words. Poor Papa, he thought again, concentrating on Poncin as they strolled the High Street, the sun pleasing and the air bracing, with the promise of a fine day tomorrow.
"But here in Nippon, Monsieur
Tyrer," the Frenchman continued happily,
"there are marvelous rules and regulations, both for clients and the girls. For instance, they're not all on show at one time, except in the very low-class places, and even then you can't just go in and say I want that one."
"You can't?"'
"Oh no, she always has the right to refuse you without any loss of face on her part. There are special protocols--I can explain in detail later if you wish--but each House is run by a madam, called mama-san, the san being a suffix meaning mistress, madam or mister, who prides herself on the elegance of her surroundings and her Ladies. They vary, of course, in price and excellence. In the best, the mama-san vets you, that's the right word, she considers if you are worthy to grace her House and all it contains, in substance whether or not you can pay the bill. Here a good customer can have a great deal of credit, Monsieur Tyrer, but woe betide you if you do not pay or are late once the bill is discreetly presented. Every House in all Japan will then refuse you every kind of entrance."
Tyrer had guffawed nervously at the pun.
"How word passes I don't know but it does, from here to Nagasaki. So, Monsieur, in certain ways this is paradise. A man can fornicate for a year on credit, if he so desires." Poncin's voice changed imperceptibly. "But the wise man buys a lady's contract and reserves her for his private pleasure. They are really so, so charming and so inexpensive when you consider the enormous profit we make on the money exchange."
"You, well, that's what you advise?"'
"Yes, yes I do."
They had had tea. Then champagne at the
Club where Andr`e was clearly a well-known and popular member. Before they parted, Andr`e had said,
"The Willow World deserves care and attention.
I would be honored to be one of your guides."
He had thanked him, knowing he would never take advantage of the offer. I mean, what about Angelique? What about, what about catching o
ne of the vile diseases, gonorrhea, or the
French disease that the French call the English disease and the doctors call syphilis that
George Babcott mentioned pointedly abounds, under any name, in any Asian or Middle
Eastern Treaty Ports, "... or any port for that matter, Phillip. I see lots of cases here amongst the Japanese, not all
