Gai-Jin

by James Clavell

“That’s better, Jamie. Thank you. An oared cutter then. After dealing with Norbert, we get aboard as fast as we can. Tomorrow tell Vargas to organize a meeting with our Japanese silk dealers for Friday, make it look as if we’ve a heavy schedule for the rest of this week and next, all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything else, Jamie?”

  “May I make a suggestion?”

  “Of course.”

  “After tomorrow’s trip in Pearl …” McFay hesitated. “You said there might be a change of plan—because of weather? Weather’s forecast as good, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. That was just in case Marlowe has to stay in port,” he said easily. “With all the fleet preparations to savage Yedo, or threaten it, you never know what Ketterer or Sir William might decide. What’s your suggestion, Jamie?”

  “Actually I’ve a couple. After you come back tomorrow—Marlowe said you’d be back by sunset—why don’t you and Angelique go aboard Prancing Cloud for dinner with Captain Strongbow, even stay aboard overnight. At dawn you and I could come ashore an—”

  “That’s a much better plan,” Struan said at once, jumping ahead with a beam, “much better. Then Angelique’s already aboard, so’s her luggage, so we don’t have to worry about her, and after Norbert we can come straight back. Great thinking, Jamie. Our stuff can be sent aboard with Chen and Ah Soh, no reason why they shouldn’t stay aboard too, no one should suspect anything.” His smile was fine and genuine. “You’re very clever to think of that, you’re very clever, which is why I don’t want you to leave Struan’s.”

  Jamie smiled ruefully. “We’ll see.”

  “By the way, in case there’s an accident,” Malcolm said calmly, eyes level and without fear. “If I’m wounded but mobile enough to get aboard, that’s what I want to do. If there’s a real emergency, well, just fetch either Babcott or Hoag. Plan to bring Hoag aboard anyway, we’ll take him back to Hong Kong.”

  “I checked their Kanagawa clinic but that’s on Thursday so they’ll both be here.”

  “You think of everything.”

  “No. Wish I could, and wish you’d cancel the duel.”

  “There won’t be any accident.”

  “I pray you’re right. But whatever happens it’s better that I stay here until you get back, or you send for me.”

  “But Mother said in her letter th—”

  “I know. Let’s be honest, Tai-pan. I’m out, one way or another. It’s best I’m here to cover your tail, if Norbert’s all right or if he isn’t, and to keep an eye on Gornt. Sorry, I still don’t trust that fellow, My job’s here not in Hong Kong. In the spring I’ll quit. That’s best, and we should agree on it now—but not before your twenty-first.”

  The two men looked at each other, eyes locked. Both broke off sharply as coals fell onto the hearth. The coals flickered and died without danger. “You’re a wonderful friend,” Malcolm said quietly. “Truly.”

  “No, just trying to keep my oath—to the tai-pan of the Noble House.”

  André and Phillip Tyrer were outside the British Legation. “Malcolm’s idea of an embargo, however moral, would be a disaster for every trading company in Asia,” Tyrer said, “including yours, not that you’d follow suit or the Germans or Russians or Yanks.” The wind ruffled his hair but he was not cold, with all the alcohol he had consumed and the excitement. “Sir William doubts if the Governor in Hong Kong will approve, could approve whatever Parliament orders, he’d prevaricate, not that I can officially speak for either of them. Parliament’s a law unto itself,” he added with a yawn. “I’m beat, aren’t you?”

  “I have a date.”

  “Ah!” Tyrer had seen the flash of expectation. “Lucky man! You’ve certainly seemed a lot happier recently, a very lot happier. We were all quite worried.”

  André changed to French and dropped his voice. “I’m fine now, the best I’ve ever been. Can’t tell you how happy I am and the girl, well, she treats me like a king—best I’ve ever had. No more wandering for me. I have an exclusive.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Listen, talking of that, what about Fujiko? Raiko’s getting nervous and so is she. I hear the poor girl’s crushed, cries all the time.”

  “Oh?” Tyrer felt a shaft in his loins. “Then your advice was right,” he said, hardly noticing that he replied in French—most of the evening he had been speaking to Seratard, Zergeyev and other ministers, English intermingled with French.

  “I’d say you’ve been tough enough and it’s time. No point in hurting anyone, they’re nice people. They’re both sorry for irritating you.”

  A few nights ago Raiko had intercepted him and again asked if he had his overdue payment. After he had put her off with the promise that he was expecting funds any day—gambling that Angelique would find the money—Raiko had questioned him about Tyrer. “What’s wrong with the man? It would be a service to him, to me, to Fujiko, and to you, old friend, to correct whatever needs to be corrected. Obviously he’s been seduced by the whores at the Inn of the Lily. In these bad times it would help us, and you, if you would convince him to return. The poor girl is near suicide.”

  He had not believed that but Raiko had been ready to twist the knife called Hinodeh.

  “Phillip, you’ve played the game perfectly,” he said. “I’ll arrange a rendezvous and we’ll reopen negotiations.”

  “Well, André, I don’t know about that,” Tyrer said. “I, er, I must say I did try another girl, once—the Inn you recommended is not bad at all—and I’ve been thinking perhaps having a permanent girl is not a good idea. I mean it’s a large expense and, well, I need a polo pony …”

  “There are good points and bad points to having your own girl,” André said, hiding his angst. “Perhaps the best idea would be to shelve contract talks pending ‘an improvement in relations.’”

  “You mean have your cake and eat it?”

  “Why not? They’re all there for our pleasure, aren’t they—though Fujiko and Raiko are very special.” André was persuasive, not wanting Tyrer off the Fujiko hook any more than he wanted to be on Raiko’s. To be secret partners with her was one thing. To be at her mercy was another. He would make the date, the rest would be up to them to seduce Tyrer back to his previous state of passion. “Leave them to me. How about tomorrow? I can promise your welcome will be enthusiastic.”

  “Oh, really? Well, all right.”

  “Phillip …” André glanced around again. “Henri is more than anxious to support Sir William in moves to rap this fool Tairō Anjo severely—the cretin went too far this time. Could Sir William have a private discussion tomorrow? Henri has a few ideas he would like to pass on, privately.”

  “I’m sure he would.” Tyrer was at once attentive and pleasantly surprised, his tiredness leaving him. Usually Seratard would launch a French initiative and they would only hear of it when it was in full force. Like the secret invitation to Lord Yoshi to visit the French flagship that they had just heard about through their own sources—Chinese servants in the French Legation had overheard André and Seratard planning, they had passed it on to Number One Chen, who had told Struan who had told him who had told Sir William. “A council of war? The two of them?”

  André said, “I suggest the four of us—they’ll need assistants to put their ideas into motion, but the fewer involved the better. If later they wanted to bring in the Admiral and General, all right. But later, eh?”

  “An Entente Cordiale! I’ll take it up with the Old Man first thing in the morning. How about eleven?”

  “Could we make it ten? I must keep a noon appointment.” André had already cleared the idea with Seratard the moment he had returned from seeing Raiko: “Henri, this meeting could be very important, the more secret we keep it from other Ministers the better. This time we’ve got to pretend to be a hundred percent with the British. They have the warships, we haven’t. This time we must encourage them to go to war.”

  “Why?”

  “I gather from Tyrer who ge
ts it from his tame samurai Nakama—Henri, Tyrer’s Japanese is astonishingly good for the short time he’s been here. He has a remarkable aptitude for it so we should seriously watch him, and befriend him. Tyrer has found out that there’s no love lost between this Anjo and Toranaga Yoshi, who is a patrician like you, whereas Anjo is more of a commoner.”

  It had amused him to see Seratard puff up at the flattery—no more a patrician than he was himself. “We secretly encourage the British to smash Anjo while distancing ourselves at the last moment from the actual conflict, while cultivating Yoshi as urgent, secret national policy. We make him an ally, we must, then through him we’ll dump the British back in their sewer and control the foreign presence here.”

  “How do we do that, André? Cultivate him?”

  “Leave that to me,” he had said, gambling again that, through Raiko and by providing her with first-rate intelligence, and money, he could make the right contacts to get close to Yoshi. “He’s going to be our key to unlock Japan. We’ll have to invest some money, not much. But in the right pocket …” With a little wandering into mine, he had chortled “I’ll guarantee success. He’s going to be our Knight in Shining Armor. We’re going to help him become Sir Galahad to wreck Wee Willie’s King Arthur.”

  Why not, he told himself again, standing there on the promenade with Tyrer, another key piece on the chessboard of French dominance in Asia. Phillip will …

  My God! He almost burst out as the wild idea jumped into his mind: If Struan gets killed in his duel and Angelique becomes a free card, could she become a Guinevere for this Jappo Yoshi? Why not? He might enjoy a different tidbit. Through Raiko, perhaps Angelique would—for she would be perilously without funds and therefore vulnerable.

  He laughed and put the thought aside as too heady to consider seriously tonight. “Phillip,” he said, wanting him to consider him to be his best friend. “If we can help our masters to arrive at a firm solution and put it into effect … eh?”

  “That would be marvelous, André!”

  “One day you’ll be Ambassador here.”

  Tyrer laughed. “Don’t be silly.”

  “I’m not.” In spite of the fact they would always be on opposite sides and he needed to be able to influence him, he genuinely liked Tyrer. “In a year you’ll speak and write fluent Japanese, you’re trusted by Wee Willie, you’ve your wild card, Nakama, to assist you. Why not?”

  “Why not?” Tyrer said with a grin. “It’s a nice idea to end a night on. Happy dreams, André.”

  Almost no one in the Settlement was sleeping as contentedly as Angelique—Struan’s bombshell tonight, coupled with anxiety over the coming war here and in Europe and the resultant hazards for business, kept most awake: “As if there’s not enough to worry about with our own civil war,” Dmitri muttered to his pillow in the deep darkness of his room in the Cooper-Tillman Building. News from home was getting worse and worse, whichever side you supported, and he had family on both sides.

  Dreadful numbers of casualties on both sides, looting and burning and atrocities and mutinies and brutalities and corruptions and monstrous tragedies, again on both sides. An uncle had written from Maryland that whole towns were being burned and pillaged by Quantrill’s Raiders for the South and the Jayhawkers for the North, and that, by now, most important men in the North had legally bought themselves and their sons out of the army draft: The war’s being fought by the poor, the undernourished, the ill-equipped and the half starving. This is the end of our country, Dmitri …

  His father wrote from Richmond the same: There’ll be nothing left if this goes on another year. Nothing. Terrible to tell you, my darling son, your brother Janny was killed at the second battle at Bull Run, poor lad, our cavalry was decimated, carnage …

  Dmitri twisted and turned in his bed, striving to put the pain for his nation away from him but could not.

  In the Club a noisy, drunken row was still in progress amongst the few remaining traders at the bar. A few naval and army officers, Tweet and others were at tables scattered about the room, having final nightcaps.

  Near the window, Count Zergeyev and the newly arrived Swiss Minister, Fritz Erlicher, sat at a table. The Russian hid his amusement and leaned over their glasses of port. “They’re all fools, Herr Erlicher,” he said above the hubbub.

  “Do you think this young Struan means it?”

  “He means it, but whether or not the policy is ever implemented remains to be seen.” They spoke French, and Zergeyev explained the conflict of mother and son within Struan’s. “That’s the current rumor, she pulls the strings though he has the title quite legally.”

  “If it’s implemented it would be good, for us both.”

  “Ah! You have a proposal?”

  “An idea, Count Zergeyev.” Erlicher untied his cravat and breathed easier, the air in the Club smoky and close, the smell of beer and urine heavy, and the sawdust of the floor in need of replacement. “We are a small, independent nation with few resources but plenty of courage, and skills. The British, for whom you have no love, monopolize most arms manufacturing and sales throughout Europe—though Krupp’s factory looks promising.” The bearded, heavyset man smiled. “We hear Mother Russia already has a substantial interest there.”

  “You astonish me.”

  Erlicher laughed. “I astonish myself sometimes, Herr Count. But I wanted to mention we’ve the beginnings of fine gun and cannon foundries, privately I can tell you we are negotiating with Gatling to make his machine gun under license, and can supply you liberally with any arms you might need on a long-term basis.”

  “Thank you, my dear sir, but we’ve no such need. Tsar Alexander II is a peace-loving reformer, last year he emancipated our serfs, this year he’s reforming the army, navy, bureaucracy, the judiciary, education, everything.”

  Erlicher grinned. “And meanwhile he’s presiding over the biggest land conquest in history, with the subjugation of more peoples in history, except for Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes. Genghis rode westwards,” his smile became a beam, “while your Tsar’s hordes spread eastwards. Over the whole continent! Imagine that! Over the whole continent to the sea, through Siberia to the Kamchatka Peninsula. And that’s not the end. Is it?”

  “Isn’t it?” the Count said, smiling.

  “We hear the Tsar’s hoping to pass through your new fortress of Vladivostok to the Japans, then north to the Kuriles, north again to the Aleutians, at last to join with Russian Alaska that rolls down to northern California. While the world sleeps. Astonishing.” Erlicher brought out his cigar case and offered it. “Please—they’re the best Cuban.”

  Zergeyev took one and smelt it and rolled it between his fingers, and accepted a flame. “Thank you. Excellent. Are all the Swiss dreamers like you?” he asked pleasantly.

  “No, sir, Count. But we are peace lovers, and good hosts to peace lovers, but we stay in our mountains, well armed, and watch the world outside. Happily our mountains are prickly to those who come uninvited.”

  Another burst of shouting distracted them for a moment, Lunkchurch, Swann, Grimm and others more vociferous than usual.

  “I’ve never been to Switzerland. You should see Russia, we have many sights there to feast the eye.”

  “I’ve been to your beautiful St. Petersburg. Three years ago, I was in our Embassy there for a few months. Best city in Europe I think, if you are nobility, wealthy, or a foreign diplomat. You must miss it.”

  “I bleed for it, more than you can imagine.” Zergeyev sighed. “Not long now and I’ll be there. I’m told my next posting will be London—then I will visit your mountains.”

  “I would be honored to be your host.” Erlicher puffed his cigar and blew a smoke ring. “Then my business suggestion doesn’t interest you?”

  “It’s certainly true that the British monopolize all manner of enterprises, all sea routes and seas, all manner of wealths from subjugated lands”—now there was no warmth in Zergeyev’s smile—“which should be shared.”

/>   “Then we should talk again, in quieter surroundings?”

  “Over lunch, why not? I would certainly inform my superiors of any discussion. If there is ever a future need, where should I contact you, or your superiors?”

  “Here is my card. If you ask for me in Zurich, I’m easily found.” Erlicher watched him reading the superb calligraphy of the miraculous new printing process they had just developed. Count Zergeyev had elegant features, patrician in every pore, with perfect clothes where he knew his own were mediocre and that his forebears were peasants. But he did not envy him.

  I’m Swiss, he was thinking. I’m free. I don’t have to bow a knee or doff my cap to any king or tsar or priest or man—if I don’t want to. This poor fellow’s still a serf in a way. Thank God for my mountains and my valleys, and my brothers and sisters and living amongst them, all free as I am free and will remain free.

  Near the bar, half drunk and swaying, Lunkchurch was comically squaring off against another man, shouting at the top of his voice, “That there eff’ing Struan’s blown his eff’ing rocker wot ever way you eff’ing want and no eff’ing …”

  “For goodness’ sake, Barnaby, stop your foul language,” the Reverend Tweet shouted, pushing through the crush for the door, his collar slightly askew and his face flushed and sweating. “When you think about it from a fair, English point of view you have to agree, morally, young Struan has the right approach!”

  Lunkchurch drunkenly made a very rude gesture in his face. “Stuff your eff’ing santimonio eff’ing doodle do!”

  Purple with rage, the Reverend Tweet bunched his fist and threw an ineffectual blow. Those near Lunkchurch jerked him out of the way as usual, as others surrounded Tweet and soothed his soaring tirade, and then Charlie Grimm, always ready to take up the gauntlet, any gauntlet, roared above the noise and through his own sodden haze. “Barnaby, prepare to meet thy Maker!”

  Helpfully, those nearby gave them room and, to cheers, the two men began battering each other with abandon.

  “Drinks on the ’ouse,” the chief barman ordered for those still remaining. “Scotch for the Rev, port for the Count and ’is guest. Now you two, stop fighting!”