by Gai-Jin(Lit)
"Machiavelli wrote, "It is necessary for the
State to deal in lies and half truths, because people are made up of lies and half truths. Even princes." And certainly, by definition, all
Ambassadors and politicians." Andr`e shrugged. Carefully he folded the letter. "Perhaps we won't have to use it, but it's good to have it because we represent the State."
"Use it, how?"
"The fact that she tore it up and..."
"She didn't," Seratard said, shocked.
"Of course," Andr`e said coldly. "But it's her word against mine and who wins that contest? The fact that she tore up the second page and only showed
Struan the first should be enough to damn her in his eyes.
This gives him a perfect excuse to annul any promise of marriage "as he had been deceived." His mother? If she knew about this she would concede us all sorts of concessions to gain possession of it, if he insists on marrying her, against her advice."
"I don't like blackmail."
Andr`e flushed. "I don't like lots of methods I'm obliged to use for our, I repeat our purposes." He put the page with the fine writing into his pocket. "Circulated in society or published, with the details, this document would destroy Angelique. In a court it would damn her. Perhaps it only shows the truth: that she is just an adventuress, in conspiracy with her father who is, who is at best a gambler and soon to be bankrupt, like her uncle. As to encouraging her, I only tell her what she wants to know and say. To help her. It's her mess, not mine or ours."
Seratard sighed. "Sad. Sad that she is embroiled."
"Yes, but she is, isn't she, to our advantage?" Andr`e's lips smiled but not his eyes. "And yours personally, Monsieur?
Judiciously used this would guarantee her into your bed, would it not, if your undoubted charm failed, which
I doubt."
Seratard did not smile. "And you Andr`e?
What are we going to do about Hana, the Flower?"
Andr`e looked at him abruptly. "The
Flower is dead."
"Yes. And under such strange circumstances."
"Not strange," Andr`e said, his eyes suddenly flat as a reptile's. "She committed suicide."
"She was found with her throat cut, with your knife. The mama-san says you spent the night with her as usual."
Andr`e was trying to work out why Seratard was probing now. "I did but this is none of your business."
"I'm afraid it is. The local Bakufu official sent a formal request for information yesterday."
"Tell him to kill himself. Hana, the Flower was special, yes, she was mine, yes. I paid the very top pillow price for her, but she was still only part of the Willow World."
"As you said so rightly, people are made up of lies and half-truths. The complaint reports that you had a violent row with her. Because she had taken a lover."
"We had a row yes and I wanted to kill her yes, but not for that reason," Andr`e muttered, choked. "The truth is... the truth is she did have some clients. Three--in the other House but this was this was before she became my property. One of them
... one of them gave her the pox, she gave it to me."
Seratard was aghast. "Mon Dieu, syphilis?"
"Yes."
"Mon Dieu, you're sure?"
"Yes." Andr`e got up and went to the sideboard and poured some brandy and drank it.
"Babcott confirmed it a month ago. No mistake. It could only have been her. When I asked her about it, she...."
He was seeing her again, looking up at him in the little house within the walls of the House of the Three
Carp, a little frown on the perfect oval of her face. She was just seventeen and five feet tall.
"Hai, gomen nasai,
Furansu-san, spot, like yours, but year 'g, mine sukoshi, rittle, hai, rittle,
Furansu-san, sukoshi, no bad, go
'way," she said gently with her sweet smile in her usual mixture of Japanese and bits of
English, her l's always like r's. "Hana tell mama-san. Mama-san say see doctor, he say no bad. No bad spot but because just begin pillow and I small. Doctor say pray at shrine and drink medicine, ugh! But few week all gon'way." She added happily.
"All gon'way year ago."
"It hasn't "gone away"!"
"Why anger? No worry. I pray at
Shinto shrine like doctor say, pay priest many taels, I eat..." Her face crinkled with her laugh, "eat nasty medicine. Few week all gone."
"It hasn't gone. It won't. There's no cure!"
She had looked at him strangely. "All gon', you see me, my body, all, how many time, neh? Of course all gon'way."
"For Christ sake it hasn't!"
Another frown, then she shrugged. "Karma, neh?"'
He had exploded. Her shock was vast and she put her head to the tatami and pitifully began to beg his pardon, "No bad, Furansu-san, gon'way, doctor say, gon'way. You see same doctor soon, all go'way...."
Outside their shoji walls he could hear footsteps and whispers. "You have to see the
English doctor!" His heart was thundering in his ears and he was trying to speak coherently, knowing that going to a doctor, any doctor, was useless and that though sometimes the ravages could be arrested, perhaps, as sure as the sun would dawn tomorrow, the ravages would one day arrive in force. "Don't you understand?"' he had shrieked. "There's no cure!"
She just stayed bowed, shaking like a brutalized puppy, saying monotonously, "No bad,
Furansu-san, no bad, all go'way..."
He dragged himself back and looked again at
Seratard. "When I questioned her about it she said she had been cured, a year ago. She believed it, of course she believed it and she was cured. Me, oh yes I was screaming and asked her why she hadn't told Raiko-san and she mumbled something about, What was there to tell, the doctor said it was nothing and her mama-san would have told
Raiko-san if it had been important."
"But this is terrible, Andr`e. Did Babcott see her?"
"No." Another swallow of brandy but he felt none of its customary bite, then said in a rush, desperate to tell someone at last,
"Babcott told me the pox... he told me an early poxed woman can appear to be without blemish in every way, that she won't always pass it on, not every time you bed, God knows why, but it's inevitable she will sometime if you continue with her and once a sore appears you're lost though after a month or so the sore or sores go away and you think you're safe but you're not!" Now the vein in the center of Andr`e's forehead was knotted and black and pulsating. "Weeks or months later there's a rash, this's the second stage. It's strong or weak depending on only God knows what and sometimes brings hepatitis or meningitis and stays or goes away, the rash, depending on
Christ knows what. The last stage, the horror stage, appears anytime, anytime, months up to, up to thirty years later."
Seratard took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow, praying that he would be spared, thinking about the frequent times he visited the Yoshiwara, about his own musume that now he kept for himself alone but could never guarantee had no other lover.
How can you prove or disprove that if there's collusion with the mama-san when they're only interested in fleecing you? "You had the right to kill her," he said grimly. "And the mama-san."
"Raiko wasn't responsible. I'd told her none of the girls here, anywhere in the
Yoshiwara, were ones I wanted. I wanted someone young, special, a virgin or almost one.
I begged her to find me a flower, explaining exactly what I wanted, and she did and
Hana-chan was everything I wanted, perfection-- she came from one of the best Houses in Yedo. You can't imagine how beautiful she is, was..."
He remembered how his heart had leapt the first time Raiko had shown her to him, chattering with other girls in another room. "That one, Raiko, in the pale blue kimono."
"I advise stay with Fujiko or Akiko or one of my other ladies," Raiko had said, when she wanted, her English good. "In time I will find you
another. There little Saiko. In a year or two..."
"That one, Raiko. She perfect. Who is she?"'
"Her name is Hana, the Flower. Her mama-san say the pretty little thing was born near
Ky@oto, bought by her House when three or four for training as geisha." Raiko smiled.
"Luckily, she's not geisha--if geisha, she would be not on offer, so sorry."
"Because I gai-jin?"'
"Because geisha is for entertainment, not pillowing, and, Furansu-san, so sorry, truly difficult to appreciate if not Japanese.
Hana's teachers were patient, but she could not develop the skills so she was trained for the pillow."
"I want her, Raiko."
"A year ago she was old enough to begin. Her mama-san arranged the best pillow prices, of course only after Hana had approved the client. Three clients only have enjoyed her, her mama-san says she is fine pupil, and only allowed to pillow twice weekly. Only mark against her, she was born in the Year of the
Fire Horse."
"What that mean?"'
"You know we count time in cycles of twelve years, like the Chinese, each year with an animal name, Dragon, Snake, Cockerel, Bull,
Horse and so on. But each also has one of the five elements: fire, water, earth, iron, wood that vary, cycle by cycle. Ladies born in Year of Horse, with the fire sign, are thought to be... unlucky."
"Not believe superstitions. Please say price."
"She is a pillow Flower beyond price."
"The price, Raiko."
"To the other House, ten koku,
Furansu-san. To this House, two koku a year, and price of her house of own within my fence, two maids, all the clothes she wants, and parting gift of five koku when you no longer require her services--this sum to be deposited with our
Gyokoyama rice merchant-banker, at interest which, until time of parting, is yours--all to be in writing, signed and registered with Bakufu."
The sum was huge by Japanese standards, extravagant by European counting even with the rate of exchange heavily weighed in the European's favor. For a week he had bartered and had managed to reduce the price only a few sous.
Every night his dreams drove him onwards. So he had agreed. With due ritual seven months ago she had been presented to him formally. She agreed to accept him formally. They both signed formally. The next night he had pillowed and she was everything he had dreamed. Laughing, happy, enthusiastic, tender, loving. "She was a gift of God,
Henri."
"Of the devil. The mama-san too."
"No, it wasn't her fault. The day before I received Hana, Raiko told me, formally--it was also on the deed of payment--that the past was the past, she promised only to cherish Hana as one of her own girls, to make sure Hana was never seen by other men and remained mine alone, from that day onwards."
"Then she killed her?"
Andr`e poured another drink. "I... I asked Hana to name the three men, one of them is my murderer, but she said she couldn't--or wouldn't.
I, I smashed her around the face to force it out of her and she just whimpered and didn't cry out. I would have killed her, yes, but I loved her and... then
I left. I was like a mad dog, it was three or four o'clock by then and I just walked into the sea. Maybe I wanted to drown myself, I don't know, don't remember exactly, but the cold water gave me back my head. When I got back to the House, Raiko and the others were in shock, incoherent. Hana was crumpled where I left her. Now in a mess of blood, my knife in her throat."
"Then she committed suicide?"
"That's what Raiko said."
"You don't believe it?"
"I don't know what to believe," Andr`e said in anguish. "I only know I went back to tell her I loved her, that the pox was karma, not her fault, not her fault, that I was sorry I said what I said and did what I did, that everything would be as before except, except when it became, became obvious we would suicide together..."
Henri was trying to think, his own brain addled.
He had never even heard of the House of the Three
Carp before rumors of the girl's death had rushed through the Settlement. Andr`e's always been so secretive, he thought, correctly so, and he's right, it was none of my business--until the
Bakufu made it official. "The three men, did this Raiko know who they were?"
Numbed, Andr`e shook his head. "No, and the other mama-san would not tell her."
"Who is she? What's her name? Where is she?
We'll report her to the Bakufu, they could force it out of her."
"They wouldn't care, why should they? The other
House--it was a meeting place for revolutionaries, Inn of the Forty-seven Ronin, a week or so ago it was burned to the ground and her head stuck on a spike. Holy Mother of God,
Henri, what am I going to do? Hana's dead and
I'm alive..."
Early that afternoon Dr. Hoag was in the cutter heading for the Legation wharf at Kanagawa.
Babcott had sent word that he could not leave
Kanagawa as he was operating in his clinic there but would return as soon as possible:... sorry, it can't be until late tonight, probably not until tomorrow morning. You're more than welcome to join me here if you wish but be prepared to stay the night as the weather is changeable...
Waiting on the wharf was a Grenadier and Lim who wore a white coat, loose black trousers, slippers and small skullcap. As
Hoag came ashore Lim yawned a token bow.
"Heya Mass'er, Lim-ah, Numb'r One
Boy."
"We can stop pidgin coolie talk, Lim,"
Hoag said in passable Cantonese, and Lim's eyes crossed. "I am Medicine Doctor
Wise Enlightened." This was Hoag's Chinese name--the meaning of the two characters nearest to the
Cantonese sound of "hoh" and "geh"-- selected out of dozens of possibilities for him by Gordon Chen, the Struan compradore, one of his patients.
Lim stared at him, pretending not to understand, the usual and quickest way to make a foreign devil lose face who had the impertinence to dare to learn a few words of the civilized tongue. Ayeeyah, he thought, who's this gamy fornicator, this putrid red devil mother-eater with the neck of a bull, this toadlike monkey who has the gall to speak in our tongue with such a foul superior manner...
"Ayeeyah," Hoag said sweetly, "also I have many, very many dirty word to describe a fornicator's mother and her putrefying parts if a man from a dog-piss, dung-heap village gives me an eyelid of cause--like pretending not to understand me."
"Medicine Doctor Wise Enlightened?
Ayeeyah, that's a good name!" Lim guffawed.
"And never have I heard such good man-talk from a foreign devil in many a year."
"Good. You will soon hear more if I am called again foreign devil. Noble House Chen selected my name."
"Noble House Chen?" Lim gawked at him.
"Illustrious Chen who has more bags of gold than an oxen has hairs? Ayeeyah, what a fornicating privilege!"
"Yes," Hoag agreed, adding not quite the truth,
"and he told me if I have any dung-mixed troubles from any person of the Middle Kingdom--be he high or low--or not the at-once-service a friend of his must expect, to mention the vile fornicator's name on my return."
"Oh ko, Medicine Doctor Wise
Enlightened, it is indeed an honor to have you in our humble dung-heap house."
Dr. Hoag felt he had achieved greatness, blessing his teachers, mostly grateful patients, who had taught him the really important words and how to deal with certain persons and situations in the
Middle Kingdom. The day was pleasant and warm and the look of the small town pleased him, the temples he could see over the rooftops, fishermen trawling the inland waters, peasants everywhere in the paddy, people coming and going and the inevitable stream of travellers on the Tokaid@o beyond.
By the time they reached the Legation with Lim's overtly attentive support, Hoag had a fairly good picture of what the situation was in
Kanagawa, today's number of Babcott's patients, and what to expect.
George Babcott was in his surgery, assisted in the operation by a Japanese acolyte, a trainee appointed by the Bakufu to learn
