Gai-Jin

by James Clavell

  Hiraga’s smile never wavered. “I take him away, so sorry.” He took Akimoto by the arm and hurried him into an alley that led to the village. “Are you mad? To come here y—”

  “I agree.” Akimoto was not over his fright at having a bayonet shoved within an inch of his throat. “I agree, but the shoya, the village elder, asked me to find you urgently.”

  The shoya motioned Hiraga to sit on the other side of the low table. These private quarters, behind his deliberately drab and untidy shop, were spotless, the tatami and shoji window papers the best quality. The tabby cat sat comfortably in his lap, her eyes malevolently fixed on the intruder. White-green porcelain teacups sat around a small iron teapot. “Please, some tea, Otami-sama, so sorry to cause you inconvenience,” he said, pouring and using the name Hiraga used, then stroked the cat. Her ears twitched nervously. “Please excuse me for interrupting you.”

  The tea was aromatic and noteworthy. Hiraga mentioned it politely, feeling awkward in front of the shoya in his European clothes, difficult to sit in them, and uncomfortable without swords. After the customary courtesies, the shoya nodded, half to himself, and looked at his guest, eyes flinty in the mask of graciousness. “Some news has arrived from Kyōto. I thought you should have it at once.”

  Hiraga’s disquiet increased. “So?”

  “It seems that ten shishi of Choshu, Satsuma and Tosa, attacked Shōgun Nobusada at Otsu. The assassination attempt failed and all were killed.”

  Hiraga pretended to be uninterested but he was sick inside. Which ten and why had they failed? “When was this?”

  The shoya had seen nothing to indicate if Hiraga knew of the attack or not. “Eight days ago.”

  “How could you possibly know in such a short time?”

  To his astonishment the shoya reached into his sleeve and brought out a tiny cylinder. Inside was a roll of very thin paper. “This arrived today. Our Gyokoyama zaïbatsu has carrier pigeons for important news.” It had actually arrived yesterday but he had needed time to decide how he was to deal with Hiraga. “Important to have quick, accurate information, neh?”

  “Were names mentioned?”

  “No, no names, so sorry.”

  “Is that all your information?”

  The eyes glinted. To Hiraga’s shock he added, “The same night, in Kyōto, Lord Yoshi and Lord Ogama and their forces fell on the shishi headquarters, caught them unawares, destroyed it and them. Forty heads were spiked outside the wreckage.” The older man kept the smile from his face. “Otami-sama, would forty be a big percentage of our brave shishi?”

  Hiraga shrugged and said he did not know, hoping that the shoya could not tell if he lied. His head was hurting as he wondered who was dead, who survived, who had betrayed them, and how could it be that such enemies as Yoshi and Ogama were acting in concert? “Why are you telling me all this?”

  For a moment the shoya looked down at the cat, his eyes softened and his fingers began scratching the center of her head and her eyes closed with pleasure, her claws moving in and out of their sheaths without menace. “It seems that not all those ambushed were caught,” he said quietly. “Two escaped. The leader, sometimes called the Raven, his real name is Katsumata, the trusted advisor of Sanjiro of Satsuma, and a Choshu shishi called Takeda.”

  Hiraga was rocked to his core that so much could be known and his muscles coiled, ready to reach out and kill with his hands if need be. His mouth opened but he said nothing.

  “Would you know this Takeda, Otami-sama?”

  Anger rushed through Hiraga at this impertinence, he felt his face flush but he held on to a measure of control. “Why are you telling me this, shoya?”

  “My Gyokoyama overlord ordered it, Otami-sama.”

  “Why? What is all this to me? Eh?”

  The shoya, to calm his own nerves—though he had a small, loaded pistol in the pocket of his sleeve—poured some more tea for both of them, knowing this was a dangerous game and this shishi was no man to fool with. But orders were orders, and standing orders of the Gyokoyama zaibatsu were that anything unusual, in any of their hundred branches, must be reported instantly. Particularly the Yokohama branch, more important now than Nagasaki as it was the main gai-jin base, and so the main observation post on gai-jin—and he specially chosen for the senior post. Of necessity he had carrier-pigeoned news of this man’s arrival, Ori’s death, all subsequent events and the actions he himself had taken—all of which had been approved.

  “The Gyokoyama …” he began, following instructions and using great care, for he could see Hiraga was seething and unnerved by the revelations, which was their purpose. His overlords in Osaka had written: Put this shishi, whose real name is Rezan Hiraga, off balance quickly. Risks will be great. Be armed and talk to him when he is not …

  “… my Masters thought that perhaps they could be of use to you, as you could be of great value to them.”

  “Use to me?” Hiraga grated, ready to explode, his right hand nervously seeking the sword hilt that was not there. “I can order no taxes. I have no koku. What use have I for parasites, that’s what moneylenders are, what even the great Gyokoyama is! Neh?”

  “It is true that samurai believe it and have believed it forever. But we wonder if your Sensei Taira would agree.”

  “Eh?” Again Hiraga was unbalanced and he stuttered, “Wh-what about Taira? What about him?”

  “Maid! Saké!” the shoya called out, then to Hiraga, “I ask your patience but my superiors … I am an old man,” he added humbly, with open self-deprecation, knowing his power in the zaibatsu was large, his yang still functioned perfectly, and if need be he could shoot this man or cripple him and hand him over to the Bakufu Enforcers who still guarded their gates. “I am old and we live in dangerous times.”

  “Yes, you do,” Hiraga said through his teeth. The saké came quickly, the maid poured quickly and fled. Hiraga quaffed some and was glad of it though he feigned otherwise, accepted more and drained that too. “So? Taira? You better make sense.”

  The shoya took a deep breath, launching himself on what he knew would be the biggest chance of his life, with vast implications for his zaibatsu and all his future generations: “Ever since you have been here, Otami-sama, you have wondered and enquired how and why the Ing’erish gai-jin rule much of the world outside our shores when they are a small island nation, I understand smaller than ours …” He stopped, amused by the sudden blank look on Hiraga’s face. “Ah, so sorry, but you must know you have been overheard talking to your friend who is now dead, and your cousin, so sorry. I can assure you your confidences are safe, your aims and Gyokoyama aims and shishi aims are the same. It could be important to you … We believe we know a major secret you seek.”

  “Eh?”

  “Yes, we believe the major secret is their moneylending, banking and financ—”

  He was drowned out as Hiraga was convulsed with a paroxysm of jeering laughter. The cat was torn from her tranquility and her claws dug through the shoya’s kimono into his flesh. Gingerly he eased the claws out and began to soothe her, controlling his fury, wishing he could beat some sense into the insolent young man. But that would cost him his life eventually—there would be Akimoto to deal with, and other shishi. Doggedly he waited, the task his overlords had given him fraught with hazards: “Probe this young man, find out what his true aims are, true thoughts, true desires and allegiance, use him, he could be a perfect tool …”

  “You are mad. It’s only their machines and cannon and wealth and ships.”

  “Exactly. If we had those, Hiraga-sama, we could …” The instant he deliberately used the real name he saw all laughter vanish and the eyes focus, menacingly. “My superiors told me to use your name only once, and then only so you would know we are to be trusted.”

  “How do they know?”

  “You mentioned the Shinsaku Otami account, the code name of your honored father, Toyo Hiraga. Of course this is written in their most private books of record.”

  Hiraga
was filled with rage. It had never occurred to him that moneylenders would have private books, and as everyone, from the low to the highest, needed their services from time to time, moneylenders would have access to all kinds of private knowledge, recorded knowledge, dangerous knowledge that they could use as pressure or a cudgel to gain all kinds of other information they should not have—how could they possibly have found out about our shishi except by foul means—as this dog is daring to use on me! Rightfully merchants and moneylenders are despised and distrusted and should be stamped out. When sonno-joi’s a fact, our first request to the Emperor should be an order for their destruction. “So!”

  The shoya was prepared, aware the thread between a sudden, berserk attack and sanity was stretched to breaking, shishi never to be trusted, one hand not far from his sleeve pocket. He kept his voice soft, nevertheless there was no mistaking the threat, or promise: “My superiors told me to tell you that your secrets and those of your father, honored clients, though recorded, are private, completely private…between us.”

  Hiraga sighed and sat back, the threat cleansing his head of useless anger, and he considered all that the shoya had told him, the threat—or the promise—and all the rest, the danger of the man himself, the Gyokoyama and their like, weighing his choice, his heritage and training in the balance.

  The choice was simple: To kill or not to kill, to listen or not to listen. When he was very young his mother had said, “Beware, my son, and remember seriously: to kill is easy, to unkill impossible.”

  For a moment his mind dwelt on her, always wise, always welcoming him, always with arms outstretched—even during the pains in her joints that were a way of life for her as long as he could remember, and twisted her a little worse every year. “Very well, shoya, I will listen, once.”

  In his turn the shoya sighed, a major ravine straddled. He filled the cups. “To sonno-joi and shishi!”

  They drank. He replenished the cups from time to time. “Otami-sama, please be patient with me but we believe we can have all that the gai-jin have. As you know, in Nippon rice is a currency, rice merchants are bankers, they lend money to farmers against future crops, to buy seeds and so on, without the money most years there would be no crops, therefore no taxes to collect; they lend to samurai and daimyos for their living against future pay, future koku, future taxes, without this money there is usually no living until there are crops to tax. Money makes any way of life possible. Money, in the form of gold, silver, rice or silk or even manure, money is the wheel of life, profit the grease of the wheel an—”

  “Come to the point. The secret.”

  “Oh, so sorry, the point is that somehow, incredibly, gai-jin moneylenders, bankers—in their world it is an honorable profession—have found a way to finance all their industries, machines, ships, cannon, buildings, armies, anything and everything, profitably, without using real gold. There cannot be that amount of real gold in all the world. Somehow they can make vast loans using the promise of real gold, or pretend gold, and that alone makes them strong, and, seemingly, they do it without debasing their currency, as daimyos do.”

  “Pretend gold? What are you talking about? Be clearer!”

  The shoya wiped a bead of sweat off his lip, excited now, the saké helping his tongue, but more so because now he began to believe it was possible that this youth could solve the puzzle. “Excuse me if I am complicated but we know what they do, but not yet know how they do it. Perhaps your Taira, this gai-jin fountain of information you so cleverly drain, perhaps he would know, could explain to you how they do it, the tricks, the secrets, then you can tell us and we can make Nippon as strong as five Englands. When you achieve sonno-joi, we and other moneylenders can join to finance all the ships and arms Nippon will ever need …”

  Cautiously, he elaborated on his theme, eloquently answering questions, guiding Hiraga, helping him, flattering him, judiciously plying him with saké and knowledge, impressed with his intelligence, over the hours snaring his imagination, and he continued until the sun was down.

  “Money, eh? I will ad … admit, shoya,” Hiraga said unsteadily, heavy with alcohol, his head bursting with so many new and unsettling ideas that conflicted with as many deep beliefs, “admit money never inter … ested me. Never really … really understood money, only the lack.” A belch almost choked him. “I—I think I can see—yes, Taira will tell me.” He tried to get up and failed.

  “First may I offer a bath, and I will send for the masseuse?” The shoya easily persuaded him, called for a servant to help and gave Hiraga over to strong though gentle hands—soon to be snoring and oblivious.

  “Well done, Ichi-chan,” his wife whispered when it was safe, beaming at him. “You were perfect, neh?”

  He beamed back, also speaking softly, “He is dangerous, always will be, but we begin, that’s the important part.”

  She nodded, satisfied that he had taken her advice to send for Hiraga this afternoon, to be armed, and not to be afraid to use the threat. Both knew the risks, but then, she reminded herself, her heart still pounding from listening to the parry and thrust, this is an opportunity sent by the gods and gains are proportionate to risks. Eeee, she chortled to herself, with success we will be granted samurai status, our descendants will be samurai, and my Ichi will be a Gyokoyama overlord. “You were so wise to say two and not three escapees and not to reveal what else we know.”

  “It is important to keep something in reserve. To further control him.”

  She patted her husband maternally and again told him how clever he was and did not remind him that this too had been her suggestion. She let her mind drift a moment, still puzzled by the two shishi making for Yedo, thus surely risking capture or betrayal immeasurably. And even more puzzling was why the girl Sumomo, Hiraga’s samurai wife-to-be, had joined the household of Koiko, Yedo’s most famous courtesan, now the pleasure person of Lord Yoshi. Very puzzling indeed.

  A vagrant thought blossomed. “Ichi-chan,” she said delicately, “something you said earlier made me want to ask you: If these gai-jin are so clever and such magical bankers, would it not be wise for you to begin a careful venture with one of them, quietly, very quietly.” She saw his eyes fix and the dawning of a seraphic smile. “Toshi is nineteen, the cleverest of our sons, and could be the figurehead, neh?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  MONDAY, 1ST DECEMBER:

  Norbert Greyforth came on deck of the mail ship just rounding the headland. She was from Hong Kong via Shanghai and now ahead was the Yokohama coastline. He was freshly shaven and wore a top hat and frock coat against the early morning chill and he saw the Captain and others on the bridge in front of the funnel with its plume of acrid smoke trailing aft, seamen preparing for port, sails furled on her three masts. On the fore-deck, behind locked grilles separating them completely from the rest of the ship, were steerage passengers, the flotsam of Asia, remittance men and riffraff, huddled under canvas shelters. Grilles were standard on passenger ships against piracies attempted from this area.

  The wind was brisk and smelt good to him and tasted clean, not like below where the stench of oil and coal smoke and the throbbing, headache-making engine noise permeated the closeness. Asian Queen had been under power for hours, battling the head wind. Much as he loathed steamers, Norbert was pleased, otherwise they would have been many more days late. He bit the end off a cheroot, spat it overboard and cupped his hands, lighting it carefully.

  The Settlement looked the same as ever. Samurai guard houses and Customs House, north and south, outside the fence and over small bridges, smoke from various chimneys, men walking the promenade, horsemen exercising their ponies on the racetrack, Drunk Town its usual mess with little of their fire and earthquake damage cleaned up, contrasting with the disciplined tent lines of the encampment on the bluff where soldiers were drilling, the odd bugle call wafting seawards. As if peeping over the fence were the Yoshiwara roofs. He felt a halfhearted stirring, nothing like normal for he was still satiated from carous
ing in Shanghai, the richest, raunchiest, wildest city in Asia, with the best racing, gambling, whoring, bars and European food anywhere.

  Never mind, he thought, I’ll give Sako the bolt of silk and that’ll make her toolie flutter and who knows?

  His eyes passed the flagpoles of the various Legations, hardened as they saw the Struan Building, then centered on his own. During the three weeks he had been away he was pleased to see external repairs to the top floor had been completed, no sign of fire damage. He was too far away to recognize people going in and out of the buildings fronting High Street, then he caught a glimpse of a blue bonnet and hooped dress and parasol crossing to the French Legation. Only one like that, he thought. Angel Tits! It was as if he could smell the perfume surrounding her. Wonder if she knows about the duel.

  Morgan Brock had guffawed when he told them. “Thee’s my consent to blow his head or balls off. ’Stead of pistols, make it fighting irons and really earn thy bonus.”

  Tenders were already scurrying to meet the mail ship. Sourly, he noted that the Struan steam launch was waiting in the chop, first in line, Jamie McFay in the stern. His oared launch second. Never mind, won’t be long before your launch’s mine, your building, with you and all the bloody Struans beached or dead, though maybe I’ll give you a job, Jamie, maybe, just for amusement. Then he saw McFay put binoculars to his eyes and knew he would see him. He waved perfunctorily, spat over the side and went to his cabin below.

  “’Morning, Mr. Greyforth, suh,” Edward Gornt said with Southern charm. He stood at the door of the cabin opposite, a tall, though slight, good-looking young man from Virginia, twenty-seven, with deep-set brown eyes and brown hair. “I’ve been watching from the aft deck. Nothing like Shanghai, is it?”

  “In more ways than you can think. Are you packed?”