Heart of a Samurai

by Margi Preus

  “I know, I know,” Goemon said. “The sea has a powerful kami, but look at her! She is so cruel! Nothing but water as far as you can see, yet can we drink even a handful? Full of fish, yet can we catch one? When we get out of here, I’m never going to look at the sea again.”

  “But you are a fisherman, Goemon-chan,” Manjiro had said. “How will you fish, if you never look at the sea?”

  “I shall wear a blindfold,” he said.

  Manjiro laughed.

  That was back when they used to laugh. Back when there had been birds, thousands of albatross flopping about on their enormous feet, clacking their bills and flapping their huge wings.

  But that was then.

  Now Manjiro hung over a rock ledge, groping with his fingers on the underside for any clinging shellfish or strip of seaweed. Something to bring back to the others, who were too weak to leave the cave. With his back to the sky and his belly pressed to the earth, Manjiro stared down into the blue eye of the sea.

  The water was so clear, he could see straight to the bottom. A snail was making a path like a shiny ribbon slowly unfurling on the sand. How does a snail move when it has no feet? he wondered. And where was the tiny creature going with such purpose?

  Manjiro watched it, losing himself in its slow, graceful movement. He remembered how the days had passed, so many sunrises fading into sunsets, until finally he had lost count.

  There had been the first day, of course, the day their little boat had splintered on the rocks. Manjiro, Goemon, and Toraemon dove in just before the boat capsized, but Denzo and Jusuke had been trapped underneath. Eventually, all five made it to shore, but Jusuke’s leg was injured in the struggle. Still unhealed, Jusuke never left the cave.

  There had been the day the earth shook and rocks tumbled down, blocking the entrance to their shelter. But they had been able, with all of them pushing, to roll the rocks away. That was back when they had enough strength for work like that.

  The few days the sky had given up some rain were very good days. Rain pooled in the depressions and cracks in the rock. The fishermen collected water in eggshells and the bucket that had drifted ashore, but nothing held enough to last until the next rain. They rationed their water: one oyster shell per bird eaten. That was back when there had been water. And birds.

  There had been so many birds, they had gotten sick of them.

  “Oh, for a cucumber!” Goemon had said one day. “A bite of sweet potato! I am soooo sick of raw bird.”

  But Manjiro had an idea. “Let us cook them today, Goemon,” he said.

  “Yes, let’s, with a nice rich sauce and many spices. …,” Goemon teased, but then grew serious. “Manjiro-chan, you know our flint and steel are on the bottom of the sea. We have no fire.”

  “I’ve been thinking, though,” Manjiro said. “Maybe there’s another way.”

  They skinned the birds as usual, with the fish spears they’d salvaged from the boat wreck. Next, they pounded the bird meat with stones until it turned into a kind of paste.

  “Now we’ll let the sun bake it,” Manjiro said, smearing the paste on a rock. “All we have to do is wait.”

  While they waited, they stared out across the ocean, toward the northwest—toward home. Manjiro’s stomach tightened with worry. How was his family getting along without him? Were his little sisters gathering taro in the mountains, trying to find something to eat? Oh, how he wished he could fly like these birds, wheeling and caterwauling above them! He would fly home to his family; he could take them a fish in his beak!

  “Thinking about home?” Goemon said.

  Manjiro nodded.

  “I guess you’ll never become a samurai now, huh, Manjirochan?”

  “Why not?” Manjiro asked.

  “Even if we should get home, you know very well you can’t be. You weren’t born into a samurai family. You were born a fisherman’s son and you will be a fisherman, and any sons you have, they also will be fishermen. That is the way it is; that is the way it has always been; that is the way it will always be.”

  Manjiro sighed. That was always the reason; that had always been the reason; and, he supposed, that would always be the reason.

  “Why would you want to be a samurai anyway? So you could beat up on poor peasants like us?” Goemon asked.

  Goemon had probably never actually seen a samurai. Manjiro certainly hadn’t. His village was far away from the hub of government and power, where most of the samurai spent their time, but of course he had heard stories. Before Manjiro’s father had died, he had taught Manjiro about Bushido, the samurai code of honor.

  “I wouldn’t be that kind of samurai,” Manjiro said. “I’d be like the noble samurai of old times: heroic warriors who were loyal to their lords, and who studied calligraphy and poetry as well as the art of fighting.”

  “We can never go back to Japan, you know,” Goemon said, staring across the sea.

  “Why not?”

  “The law says, ‘Any person who leaves the country and later returns will be put to death.’”

  They brooded on this in silence.

  Finally, Manjiro said, “But why?”

  “Because, if we were to encounter any of the foreign devils, we would be poisoned by them.”

  “Poisoned!” Manjiro said.

  “Maybe not our bodies, but they will poison our minds with their way of thinking. That’s why no fishermen are allowed to go very far from the coast—they say ‘contamination lies beyond the reach of the tides.’ The barbarians would fill our heads with wrong thoughts!”

  “What kind of wrong thoughts?” Manjiro said.

  “Manjiro-chan, you ask too many questions,” Goemon said.

  “I know,” Manjiro said. “I’m sorry.” He hung his head, but then looked up again. “I hope the barbarians will never find us. May the gods protect us from them!” he cried. Then he plucked up two pieces of driftwood of unequal length. He bowed to his friend, presenting the smooth, worn sticks in both his outstretched hands.

  “Oh, honored friend,” he said, “I present your katana—your long sword. And your wakizashi—your short knife.”

  Then he took two smooth pieces of driftwood of unequal length for himself. He shoved the short piece into the cloth belt he wore around his waist and waved the other one like a sword, challenging Goemon.

  “We can’t carry swords,” Goemon said. “You know that.”

  “May I humbly suggest,” Manjiro said, “that on this island, we are the rulers—we are the Samurai of Bird Island. And from now on we shall live by Bushido. And we shall defend our honor and our island and each other against the blue-eyed barbarians.” He leaped up onto a rock and swung his stick over his head. “Agreed?”

  Goemon jumped up. “Agreed,” he said, jamming his “knife” into his sash and slashing at Manjiro’s “sword.” Their imaginary swords clashed and clattered as they lunged or leaped aside to avoid being hit.

  Manjiro had just knocked Goemon’s stick from his hand when he felt his own stick snatched away from him. He turned to see Denzo frowning at them both.

  “Do you think this is a picnic?” Denzo barked. “You boys were sent to find water and food, not to play at sword fighting.”

  The boys quickly bowed to Denzo, then pointed at their meat cooking on the rocks.

  Denzo squinted at it. “What is that?” he said.

  “Stone roast!” Goemon said.

  Manjiro laughed. Even Denzo couldn’t help but smile.

  After that they made stone roast often. It wasn’t delicious, but it was at least different from eating raw bird meat.

  That was back when they had bird meat, back when the island had been alive with feather-fluttering, wing-flapping, beak-clacking, mooing, cooing, belly-flopping birds. But in the course of a few months, it had come to an end. The babies that were hatching when the fishermen first landed had grown up. Once they were strong enough, all the birds flew away.

  Drawing of Denzo, Goemon, and Manjiro

  (The arti
st has drawn them much older than they were at the time.)

  Now the island was utterly still and silent.

  One day Manjiro and Denzo had agreed it was worth climbing the big hill to look for water. The two of them clambered up the rocky slope. At the top, Manjiro noticed two oblong piles of stones. He stared at them for a long time thinking that they reminded him of something.

  “Denzo-san,” Manjiro said. “Excuse me for interrupting your thoughts, but what are—?” he broke off, realizing what the piles of rocks were. “Graves!” The word escaped his mouth.

  Denzo chanted, “Namu Amida Butsu—Buddha of Infinite Light.” They wept to think that people had been here before them, people who had died!

  “Where do you think they came from?” Manjiro wondered. “Do you think they were our countrymen?”

  Denzo just shook his head, and with heavy steps, they plodded back to the cave. Manjiro thought about never seeing his family again. What would happen to his family without him bringing home fish, a little rice—even the mushrooms and ferns he used to gather in the forests that had helped keep them alive? Would they starve? Would there be graves for all of them, too?

  The ache he had felt when his father died had been a sharp pain at first, but had dulled over time until he hardly noticed it. But now, like a sore muscle, the pain flared up again. He longed for his mother, and for his dead father, too. Imagining himself dead in one of those graves made him even miss himself!

  When Denzo told the others about what they had seen, the gathering grew solemn.

  “That could be our fate,” Toraemon said.

  “I have thought that also,” said Denzo.

  Everyone turned to Jusuke, who heard none of this conversation. He tossed and moaned, in the throes of fever.

  Tears streamed down their faces. None of them wanted to have to bury any of their friends.

  Manjiro felt the darkness about to swallow them. But he pushed it away. He had thought of something.

  “Please pardon me, friends,” he said softly, “but I have a question.”

  Toraemon said sharply, “Manjiro, now is not the time—”

  But Denzo laid a hand on Toraemon’s arm and said to Manjiro, “What is it?”

  “There were two graves, right, Denzo-san?” Manjiro said.

  Denzo nodded.

  “My question is: Where is the third person?”

  Everyone stared at Manjiro.

  “Who made the graves?”

  Of course, he was right—someone had to have survived to bury the others.

  “Maybe,” Manjiro said, brightening, “maybe whoever survived was rescued!”

  This idea heartened them; they lay down to sleep a little less burdened.

  That night their beds were more comfortable than before—Toraemon and Goemon had salvaged some planks that had washed ashore from their broken boat. So instead of stretching out on cold rock, they each had a wide board on which to sleep.

  “Please excuse my intrusion,” Manjiro whispered, “but thanks for the planks.” When the others chuckled, he smiled. He had pushed aside the darkness for the time being.

  Much time had passed since then, and now, hanging over the rock ledge staring at the snail in the water, Manjiro wondered how much longer they could last. There was so very little to eat. There was so little water, they had even tried drinking their own urine. Those rocky graves would not leave his thoughts.

  He had not found any shellfish or seaweed clinging to the rock, and he had spent too much time watching the snail. But the snail had created such a beautiful design in the sand, like a kare-sansui, a Zen garden. Yet not created, Manjiro realized—traced. The snail had taken its long, arduous journey to trace—

  “My face!” Manjiro whispered. The shadow of Manjiro’s face must have seemed like an island of shade in the bright sea. The snail and I, Manjiro thought, are alike. I trace out the length and breadth of this island every day, pacing around and around its face. Like the snail, I have no idea of all that lies beyond.

  Beyond this island was a world about which Manjiro knew nothing. It was, perhaps, a huge world. It might be a frightening place, full of demons and monsters. But it might be a dazzling world, full of wonder and mystery. It might be, he thought, very beautiful. If only he had wings, he could fly across the ocean and see all there was to see. Then he would fly home, his beak full of food, his head full of wonders.

  Manjiro stood to look out beyond the edges of his island. But standing up so fast made him dizzy. The sky, the sea, the earth all spun around him, in a blur of blue and green and gray, as if he’d been twirling and twirling.

  Bird Island as drawn by John Mung

  That is why he did not notice the boats at first.

  And that is why, when he did notice the boats, he didn’t believe he really saw them.

  Two small boats moved toward the island.

  Manjiro’s heart beat deep in his stomach. His already weak limbs felt numb. The world began to spin again and he thought he might faint.

  “Boats!” he croaked. Finding his voice, he shouted, “Rescue!”

  The boats were not coming straight toward him, though, but toward a different part of the island.

  With strength he didn’t know he had, Manjiro plunged into the sea and swam, head down, toward the boats.

  When he finally reached one of them, he raised his head and looked up. He could not lift his arm to reach out. His blood turned to ice, and dizzy again, he felt himself sinking. For when he had looked into his rescuer’s face, he had gazed into a pair of eyes as blue as the sea.

  PART TWO

  THE BARBARIANS

  When meeting difficult situations, one should rush forward bravely and with joy. It is the crossing of a single barrier.

  —from Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

  Drawing of the John Howland

  3

  THE JOHN HOWLAND

  June 27, 1841

  n Japan there was an artist named Hiroshige who made beautiful pictures of everyday scenes. Manjiro had seen some of these prints: two men seeking shelter from rain that fell in cold, slanting streaks; three travelers lighting their pipes by a fire so real it seemed to glow; several geishas in such fine kimonos, you could almost hear the silk rustling.

  Forever afterward, when Manjiro thought of what happened that day, he would remember it in sudden, vivid scenes like Hiroshige’s prints. And yet unlike those pictures, because nowhere in any of them were there scenes as strange as these:

  Twelve shoes, Manjiro counted, as he sat on the bottom of the boat. Stiff-looking things, brown as the skin of hairless dogs. Shiny and smooth, as if made of animal hide.

  Manjiro shuddered. These were certainly barbarians if they killed animals to make shoes! Such a thing was against the law in Japan.

  Eleven eyes. When at last he dared to look up, what he noticed was their eyes. Each pair a different color: green as a stormy sea, blue as the sky, black as night, or brown as his own. One man had only one eye, and that one as gray as a cloudy day. The other eye was covered with a patch.

  There did not seem to be any tails, horns, or fangs among them. There were some alarmingly hairy faces and plenty of big noses, though!

  Six big noses, in fact: one long and hooked, two long and straight, one squashed and wide, one turned up at the end, and another as big and red as a radish.

  No matter how odd-looking or dangerous they were, Manjiro had to choke down his fear and ask them to help his friends.

  “My friends are still on the island,” Manjiro said.

  But it was clear these creatures didn’t understand.

  Then Manjiro remembered. It was said the barbarians were simple-minded.

  Perhaps if he spoke very slowly. “My … friends … on … island,” he said, spacing the words out deliberately.

  Beneath the big noses, their mouths spouted gibberish. They don’t know how to talk, Manjiro thought—they are just pretending.

  Then, there! Along the shore: Torae
mon leaped about the rocks like a monkey. Goemon had tied his tattered tunic on a stick and waved it like a flag.

  The foreigners turned their boats and rowed toward shore. Manjiro’s heart pounded. What had he done? Had he brought help or certain death? Had he made things worse? What would his friends think when they saw the strange men?

  When they got closer, Manjiro saw Goemon’s grip shift on his stick. That stick was his katana, Manjiro realized, his play sword. He remembered their vow to defend the island against the barbarians.

  A glance passed between the two boys, a glance that spoke of gnawing hunger, desperate thirst, endless wind, penetrating cold. Nothing could be worse than staying on this island, the glance said.

  Goemon dropped his stick.

  The strangers leaped out of their boats and pulled them up on the small beach. By signs, they made it clear the castaways should climb aboard.

  The fishermen exchanged frightened glances and whispered to one another, “What about Denzo and Jusuke?”

  Gesturing, Manjiro communicated to the strangers about the two men in the cave. Denzo and Jusuke were retrieved, both of them so weak they had to be carried to the boats. Everyone found a place and the sailors shoved off. The two boats rowed away from the island toward an unknown future.

  The sun flickered on the restless waves just as it always did. The wind blew just as steadily as it always had. Yet everything had changed. They had been rescued from the island, only to be taken captive by barbarians.

  Manjiro stared at the strangers when he thought they weren’t looking. Sometimes he caught them staring at him when they thought he wasn’t looking.

  The strange men were all different colors! Their skins were the colors of weathered wood, or clay, white sand, or dried grasses. One was as black as soot! And all different kinds and colors of hair—like the leaves in fall: yellow, red, brown. The black man’s head was crowded with tight knots. The head of one man seemed to be covered all over with bright golden coins! All the men were burned and weather-beaten, their faces creased and stained with grime. And they were big. Very big.