The Diamond Chariot

by Boris Akunin

  The snow-white colonialist stepped on to the quayside and no more doubt remained. Definitely Fandorin, every point of the description fitted. Dark hair, blue eyes and the most significant distinguishing feature – prematurely grey temples. But oh, he was dolled up as if he were going on an elephant hunt!

  The initial impression was not reassuring. The consul sighed and moved forward to meet him. The omurasaki butterfly flitted its wings in response to this upheaval, but remained on the flower, still unnoticed by Doronin.

  Oh, deary me, look at his finger – a diamond ring, Vsevolod Vitalievich noted as he bowed in greeting to the new arrival. And a moustache curled into little loops, if you please! Not a single hair out of place on those temples! And that languorous, blasé expression in the eyes! Griboedov’s Chatsky, to an absolute T. Pushkin’s Onegin: ‘And, like everything in the world, travelling palled on him’.

  Immediately after they had introduced themselves, he asked, with an ingenuous air:

  ‘Do tell me at once, Erast Petrovich, did you see Fuji? Did she hide from your eyes or reveal herself to you?’ And then he explained confidentially: ‘It’s a kind of omen I have. If a person has seen Mount Fuji as he approaches the shore, it means that Japan will open her soul to him. But if capricious Fuji has shut herself off behind the clouds – then, alas. Though you may live here for ten years, you will neither see, nor understand, the most important things of all.’

  Actually, Doronin knew perfectly well that Fuji could not possibly have been visible from the sea today, owing to the low clouds, but he needed to take this Childe Harold from the Third Section down a peg.

  However, the titular counsellor was neither flustered, nor upset.

  He merely remarked, with a slight stammer:

  ‘I don’t b-believe in omens.’

  Well naturally. A materialist. All right, let’s give him a nip from the other side.

  ‘I am acquainted with your service record,’ said Vsevolod Vitalievich, raising his eyebrows admiringly. ‘What a career you have made, you have even been decorated! Abandon a brilliant stage like that for our modest backwater? There can only be one reason for it: you must have a great love for Japan! Am I right?’

  ‘No,’ the latter-day Onegin said with a shrug, squinting at the flower in the consul’s buttonhole. ‘How can one love what one does not know?’

  ‘Why, most certainly one can!’ Doronin assured him. ‘And with far greater ease than objects that are only too familiar to us … Hmm, is that your luggage?’

  This von-baron had so many things that almost a dozen porters were required to carry them: suitcases, boxes, bundles of books, a huge three-wheeled velocipede and even a sazhen-long clock made in the image of London’s Big Ben.

  ‘A beautiful item. And useful. I confess, I prefer a pocket watch myself,’ said the consul, unable to resist a sardonic comment, but he promptly took himself in hand, put on a radiantly polite smile and extended one arm in the direction of the shoreline. ‘Welcome to Yokohama. A splendid city, you will like it!’

  This final phrase was uttered entirely without irony. In three years Doronin had developed a genuine affection for this city that grew larger and lovelier by the day.

  Just twenty years ago there had been a tiny fishing village here, but now, thanks to the meeting of two civilisations, a truly magnificent modern port had sprung up, with a population of fifty thousand, of whom almost one fifth were foreigners. A little piece of Europe at the very end of the world. Vsevolod Vitalievich was especially fond of the Bund – a seaside esplanade with beautiful stone buildings, gas street lamps and an elegant public.

  But Onegin, having cast an eye over this magnificent sight, pulled a sour face, which only served to confirm Doronin’s decision not to like his new work fellow. He passed his verdict: a pompous, preening peacock and supercilious snob. ‘And I’m a fine fellow too, putting on a carnation for his sake,’ thought the consul, gesturing irritably for Fandorin to follow him. He pulled the flower out of his buttonhole and flung it away.

  The butterfly soared into the air, fluttered its wings above the heads of the Russian diplomats and, mesmerised by the whiteness of it, settled on Fandorin’s helmet.

  Why did I have to dress up in this clown’s outfit? the owner of the miraculous headgear thought in purple anguish. The moment he stepped on the gangway and surveyed the public on the quayside, Erast Petrovich had made a highly unpleasant discovery for anyone who attaches importance to correct dress. When one is dressed correctly, people around you look you straight in the face; they do not gape open-mouthed at your attire. It is the portrait that should attract attention, not the frame. But exactly the opposite was happening here. The outfit purchased in Calcutta, which had appeared perfectly appropriate in India, looked absurd in Yokohama. From the appearance of the crowd, it was clear that in this city people did not dress in the colonial fashion, but in a perfectly normal manner, European-style. Fandorin pretended not to notice the inquisitive glances (which he thought seemed derisive) and strove with all his might to maintain an air of equanimity. There was only one thought in his mind – that he must change as soon as possible.

  Even Doronin seemed staggered by Erast Petrovich’s gaffe – Fandorin could sense it from the consul’s barbed glance, which not even the dark glasses could conceal.

  Observing Doronin more closely, Erast Petrovich followed his customary habit and employed deductive analysis to construct a cognitive image. Age – forty-seven or forty-eight. Married, with no children. Disposition – intelligent, choleric, inclined to caustic irony. An excellent professional. What else? He had bad habits. The circles under his eyes and a sallow complexion indicated an unhealthy liver.

  But the young functionary’s first impression of Yokohama was not at all favourable. He had been hoping to see a picture from a lacquered casket: multi-tiered pagodas, little teahouses, junks with webbed-membrane sails skimming across the water – but this was an ordinary European seafront. Not Japan, more like Yalta. Was it really worth travelling halfway round the globe for this?

  The first thing Fandorin did was to get rid of the idiotic helmet – in the simplest way possible. First he took it off as if he was suddenly feeling hot. And then, as they walked up the stairway to the esplanade, he surreptitiously set the colonialist contrivance down on a step and left it there – if anybody wanted it, they were welcome.

  The omurasaki did not wish to be parted from the titular counsellor. Forsaking the helmet, it fluttered its wings just above the young man’s broad shoulder, but did not actually alight – it had spotted a more interesting landing place: a colourful tattoo, glistening with little drops of sweat, on a rickshaw man’s shoulder: a dragon in blue, red and green.

  The butterfly’s legs brushed against the taut bicep and the fleet-winged traveller caught the local man’s guileless, brownish-bronze thought (‘Kayui!’),1 after which its brief life came to an end. Without even looking, the rickshaw man slapped his open hand against his shoulder, and all that was left of the exquisite creature was a little blob of greyish blue.

  Careless of beauty

  And ever fearless of death:

  A butterfly’s flight.

  1 ‘That tickles!’ (Japanese).

  THE OLD KURUMA

  ‘Mr Titular Counsellor, I was expecting you on the SS Volga a week ago, on the first of May,’ said the consul, halting beside a red-lacquered gig that had clearly seen better days. ‘For what reason were you pleased to be delayed?’

  The question, despite being posed in a strict tone of voice, was essentially simple and natural, but for some reason it embarrassed Erast Petrovich.

  The young man coughed and his face fell.

  ‘I’m sorry. When I was changing ships, I c-caught a cold …’

  ‘In Calcutta? In a temperature of more than a hundred degrees?’

  ‘That is, I mean, I overslept … In general, I missed the boat and was obliged to wait for the next steamer.’

  Fandorin suddenly blushed,
turning almost the same colour as the gig.

  Tut-tut-tut! thought Doronin, gazing at Fandorin in delighted amazement and shifting his spectacles to the end of his nose. So much for Onegin! We don’t know how to lie. How splendid.

  Vsevolod Vitalievich’s bilious features softened and sparks glinted in those lacklustre eyes with the reddish veins.

  ‘So it’s not a clerical error in the service record, we really are only twenty-two, it’s just that we make ourselves out to be a romantic hero,’ the consul purred, by which he only embarrassed the other man even more. Cutting loose entirely, he winked and said:

  ‘I bet it was some young Indian beauty. Am I right?’

  Fandorin frowned and snapped: ‘No,’ but he did not add another word, and so it remained unclear whether there was no young beauty at all, or there was, but she was not Indian.

  The consul did not pursue the immodest interrogation. Not a trace was left of his earlier hostility. He took the young man by the elbow and pulled him towards the gig.

  ‘Get in, get in. This is the most common form of transport in Japan. It is called a kuruma.’

  Erast Petrovich was surprised to see that there was no horse harnessed to the carriage. For a moment a quite fantastic image was conjured up in his mind: a magic carriage, dashing along the street on its own, its shafts held out ahead of it like crimson antennae.

  The kuruma accepted the young man with obvious pleasure, rocking him on its threadbare but soft seat. But it greeted Doronin inhospitably, jabbing a broken spring into his scraggy buttock. The consul squirmed, arranging himself more comfortably, and muttered:

  ‘This chariot has a vile soul.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In Japan every creature, and even every object, has its own soul. At least, so the Japanese believe. The scholarly term for it is “animism” … Aha, and here are our little horses.’

  Three locals, whose entire wardrobe consisted of tight-fitting drawers and twisted towels coiled tightly round their heads, grasped the bridle in unison, shouted ‘hey-hey-tya!’ and set off with their wooden sandals clattering along the road.

  ‘See the troika dashing along snowy Mother Volga,’ Vsevolod Vitalievich sang in a pleasant light tenor, and laughed.

  But Fandorin half-rose off the seat, holding on to the side of the gig, and exclaimed:

  ‘Mr Consul! How can one use human beings like animals! It’s … it’s barbaric!’

  He lost his balance and fell back on to the cushion.

  ‘Accustom yourself to it,’ Doronin said, laughing, ‘otherwise you’ll have to move around on foot. There are hardly any cab drivers at all here. And these fine fellows are called dzinrikisya, or “rikshas”, as the Europeans pronounce it.’

  ‘But why not use horses to pull carriages?’

  ‘There are not many horses in Japan, and they are expensive, but there are a lot of people, and they are cheap. A riksha is a new profession – ten years or so ago, no one had ever heard of it. Wheeled transport is regarded as a European novelty here. One of these poor fellows here runs about sixty versts a day. But then, by local standards, the pay is very good. If he is lucky, he can earn half a yen, which is a rouble in our money. Although rikshas don’t live long – they overstrain themselves. Three or four years, and they go to pay their respects to the Buddha.’

  ‘But that is monstrous!’ Fandorin exploded, swearing to himself that he would never use this shameful form of transport again. ‘To set such a low price on one’s own life!’

  ‘You will have to get used to that too. In Japan life is worth no more than a kopeck – whether it’s someone else’s or your own. And why should the heathens settle for half-measures? After all, there is no Last Judgement in store for them, merely a long cycle of reincarnations. Today – that is, in this life – you drag the carriage along, but if you drag it honestly, then tomorrow someone else will be pulling you along in the kuruma.’

  The consul laughed, but somehow ambiguously; the young functionary thought he heard a note of something like envy in that laugh, rather than ridicule of the local beliefs.

  ‘Please observe that the city of Yokohama consists of three parts,’ Doronin explained, pointing with his stick. ‘Over that way, where the roofs are clumped close together, is the Native Town. Here, in the middle, is the actual Settlement: banks, shops, institutions. And on the left, beyond the river, is the Bluff. That’s something like a little piece of Good Old England. Everyone who is even slightly better off makes his home there, well away from the port. Generally speaking, it’s possible to live a quite civilised life here, in the European fashion. There are a few clubs: rowing, cricket, tennis, horse riding, even gastronomic. I think they will be glad to welcome you there.’

  As he said that, he glanced back. Their red ‘troika’ was being followed by an entire caravan of vehicles carrying Fandorin’s luggage, all drawn by the same kind of yellow-skinned horsemen, some by a pair, some by just one. Bringing up the rear of the cavalcade was a cart loaded with athletic equipment: there were cast-iron weights, and a boxer’s punchball, and gleaming on top of it all was the polished steel of the aforementioned velocipede – the patented American ‘Royal Crescent Tricycle’.

  ‘All foreigners except the embassy employees try to live here, not in the capital,’ the long-time Yokohama resident boasted. ‘Especially since it’s only an hour’s journey to the centre of Tokyo by railway.’

  ‘There is a railway here too?’ Erast Petrovich asked dismally, feeling his final hopes for oriental exoticism evaporating.

  ‘And a most excellent one!’ Doronin exclaimed with enthusiasm. ‘This is how the modern Yokohamian lives nowadays: he orders tickets for the theatre by telegraph, gets into the train, and a hour and a quarter later he is already watching a kabuki performance!’

  ‘I’m glad that it is at least kabuki, and not operetta …’ the newly minted vice-consul remarked, surveying the seafront glumly. ‘But listen, where are all the Japanese women in kimonos, with fans and umbrellas? I can’t see a single one.’

  ‘With fans?’ Vsevolod Vitalievich chuckled. ‘They’re all in the teahouses.’

  ‘Are those like the local cafés? Where they drink Japanese tea?’

  ‘One can take a drink of tea, of course. Additionally. But people visit those places to satisfy a different need.’ Doronin manipulated his fingers in a cynical gesture that might have been expected from a spotty grammar-school boy, but certainly not from the Consul of the Russian Empire – Erast Petrovich even blinked in surprise. ‘Would you like to pay a visit? Personally, I abstain from tea parties of that kind, but I can recommend the best of the establishments – it is called “Number Nine”. The sailor gentlemen are highly satisfied with it.’

  ‘N-no,’ Fandorin declared. ‘I am opposed on principle to venal love, and I consider brothels an affront to both the female and the male sexes.’

  Vsevolod Vitalievich smiled as he squinted sideways at his companion, who had blushed for the second time, but he refrained from any comment.

  Erast Petrovich rapidly changed the subject.

  ‘And the samurai with two swords? Where are they? I have read so much about them!’

  ‘We are riding through the territory of the Settlement. The only Japanese who are allowed to live here are shop workers and servants. But you will not see samurai with two swords anywhere now. Since the year before last the carrying of cold steel has been forbidden by imperial decree.’

  ‘What a shame!’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Doronin with a grin. ‘You’ve really lost a lot there. It was a quite unforgettable sensation – squinting timidly at every son of a bitch with two swords stuck in his belt. Wondering if he’d just walk past, or swing round and take a wild slash at you. I’m still in the habit, when I walk through the Japanese quarters, of glancing behind me all the time. You know, I came to Japan at a time when it was considered patriotic to kill gaijins.’

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘You and I. Gaijin means “for
eigner”. They also call us akahige – “red-haired”, ketojin, meaning “hairy”, and saru, namely “monkeys”. And if you go for a stroll in the Native Town, the little children will tease you by doing this …’ The consul removed his spectacles and pulled his eyelids apart with his fingers. ‘That means “round-eyed”, and it is considered very offensive. But never mind, at least they don’t just carve you open for no reason at all. Thanks to the Mikado for disarming his cut-throats.’

  ‘But I read that a samurai’s sword is an object of reverent obeisance, l-like a European nobleman’s sword,’ said Erast Petrovich, sighing – disappointments were raining down one after another. ‘Did the Japanese knights really abandon their ancient tradition as easily as that?’

  ‘There was nothing at all easy about it. They were in revolt all last year, it went as far as a civil war, but Mr Okubo is not a man to be trifled with. He wiped out the most turbulent and the rest changed their tune.’

  ‘Okubo is the minister of internal affairs,’ Fandorin said with a nod, demonstrating a certain knowledge of local politics. ‘The French newspapers call him the First Consul, the Japanese Bonaparte.’

  ‘There is a similarity. Ten years ago there was a coup d’état in Japan …’

  ‘I know. The restoration of the Meiji, the re-establishment of the power of the emperor,’ the titular counsellor put in hastily, not wishing his superior to think him a total ignoramus. ‘The samurai of the southern principalities overthrew the power of the shoguns and declared the Mikado the ruler. I read about it.’

  ‘The southern principalities – Satsuma and Choshu – are like Corsica in France. And Corsican corporals were even found – three of them: Okubo, Saigo and Kido. They presented His Imperial Majesty with the respect and adoration of his subjects, and quite properly reserved the power for themselves. But triumvirates are an unstable sort of arrangement, especially when they contain three Bonapartes. Kido died a year ago, Saido quarrelled with the government and raised a rebellion, but he was routed and, in accordance with Japanese tradition, committed hara-kiri. Which left Minister Okubo as the only cock in the local henhouse … You’re quite right to note this down,’ the consul remarked approvingly, seeing Fandorin scribbling away with a pencil in a leather-covered notebook. ‘The sooner you fathom all the subtle points of our local politics, the better. By the way, you’ll have a chance to take a look at the great Okubo this very day. At four o’clock there will be a ceremonial opening of a House for the Re-education of Fallen Women. It is an entirely new idea for Japan. It had never occurred to anyone here before to re-educate the courtesans. And the funds for this sacred undertaking have not been provided by some missionary club, but a Japanese philanthropist, a certain Don Tsurumaki. The crème de la crème of the Yokohama beau monde will be there. And the Corsican himself is expected. He is hardly likely to show up for the formal ceremony, but he will almost certainly come to the Bachelors’ Ball in the evening. It is an entirely unofficial function and has nothing to do with the re-education of loose women – quite the opposite in fact. You will not find it boring. “He returned and went, like Chatsky, from the ship straight to the ball”.’