Shogun_ A Novel of Japan Part 62

"Christ Jesus, that's grand," he exulted, and let the heat seep into his muscles, his eyes closed, the sweat running down his forehead.

He heard the door open and Suwo's voice and "Good evening, Master," followed by many words of j.a.panese which he did not understand. But tonight he was too tired to try to converse with Suwo. And the bath, as Mariko had explained many times, 'is not merely for cleaning the skin. The bath is a gift to us from G.o.d or the G.o.ds, a G.o.d-bequeathed pleasure to be enjoyed and treated as such.'

"No talk, Suwo," he said. "Tonight wish think."

"Yes, Master. Your pardon, but you should say, 'Tonight I wish to think.'"

"Tonight I wish to think." Blackthorne repeated the correct j.a.panese, trying to get the almost incomprehensible sounds into his head, glad to be corrected but very weary of it.

"Where's the dictionary-grammar book?" he had asked Mariko first thing this morning. "Has Yabu-sama sent another request for it?"

"Yes. Please be patient, Anjin-san. It will arrive soon."

"It was promised with the galley and the troops. It didn't arrive. Troops and guns but no books. I'm lucky you're here. It'd be impossible without you."

"Difficult, but not impossible, Anjin-san."

"How do I say, 'No, you're doing it wrong! You must all run as a team, stop as a team, aim and fire as a team'?"

"To whom are you talking, Anjin-san?" she had asked.

And then again he had felt his frustration rising. "It's all very difficult, Mariko-san."

"Oh, no, Anjin-san. j.a.panese is very simple to speak compared with other languages. There are no articles, no 'the,' 'a,' or 'an.' No verb conjugations or infinitives. All verbs are regular, ending in masu masu, and you can say almost everything by using the present tense only, if you want. For a question just add ka ka after the verb. For a negative just change after the verb. For a negative just change masu masu to to masen masen. What could be easier? Yukimasu Yukimasu means I go, but equally you, he, she, it, we, they go, or will go, or even could have gone. Even plural and singular nouns are the same. means I go, but equally you, he, she, it, we, they go, or will go, or even could have gone. Even plural and singular nouns are the same. Tsuma Tsuma means wife, or wives. Very simple." means wife, or wives. Very simple."

"Well, how do you tell the difference between I go, yukimasu yukimasu, and they went, yukimasu?" yukimasu?"

"By inflection, Anjin-san, and tone. Listen: yukimasu-yukimasu." yukimasu-yukimasu."

"But these both sounded exactly the same."

"Ah, Anjin-san, that's because you're thinking in your own language. To understand j.a.panese you have to think j.a.panese. Don't forget our language is the language of the infinite. It's all so simple, Anjin-san. Just change your concept of the world. j.a.panese is just learning a new art, detached from the world.... It's all so simple."

"It's all s.h.i.+t," he had muttered in English, and felt better.

"What? What did you say?"

"Nothing. But what you say doesn't make sense."

"Learn the written characters," Mariko had said.

"I can't. It'll take too long. They're meaningless."

"Look, they're really simple pictures, Anjin-san. The Chinese are very clever. We borrowed their writing a thousand years ago. Look, take this character, or symbol, for a pig."

"It doesn't look like a pig."

"Once it did, Anjin-san. Let me show you. Here. Add a 'roof' symbol over a 'pig' symbol and what do you have?"

"A pig and a roof."

"But what does that mean? The new character?"

"I don't know."

"'Home.' In the olden days the Chinese thought a pig under a roof was home. They're not Buddhists, they're meat eaters, so a pig to them, to peasants, represented wealth, hence a good home. Hence the character."

"But how do you say it?"

"That depends if you're Chinese or j.a.panese."

"Oh ko!"

"Oh ko, indeed," she had laughed. "Here's another character. A 'roof' symbol and a 'pig' symbol and a 'woman' symbol. A 'roof' with two 'pigs' under it means 'contentment.' A 'roof' with two 'women' under it equals 'discord.' Neh?" Neh?"

"Absolutely!"

"Of course, the Chinese are very stupid in many things and their women are not trained as women are here. There's no discord in your home, is there?"

Blackthorne thought about that now, on the twelfth day of his rebirth. No. There was no discord. But neither was it a home. Fujiko was only like a trustworthy housekeeper and tonight when he went to his bed to sleep, the futons would be turned back and she would be kneeling beside them patiently, expressionlessly. She would be dressed in her sleeping kimono, which was similar to a day kimono but softer and with only a loose sash instead of a stiff obi at the waist.

"Thank you, Lady," he would say. "Good night."

She would bow and go silently to the room across the corridor, next to the one Mariko slept in. Then he would get under the fine silk mosquito net. He had never known such nets before. Then he would lie back happily, and in the night, hearing the few insects buzzing outside, he would dwell on the Black s.h.i.+p, how important the Black s.h.i.+p was to j.a.pan.

Without the Portuguese, no trade with China. And no silks for clothes or for nets. Even now, with the humidity only just beginning, he knew their value.

If he stirred in the night a maid would open the door almost instantly to ask if there was anything he wanted. Once he had not understood. He motioned the maid away and went to the garden and sat on the steps, looking at the moon. Within a few minutes Fujiko, tousled and bleary, came and sat silently behind him.

"Can I get you anything, Lord?"

"No, thank you. Please go to bed."

She had said something he did not understand. Again he had motioned her away so she spoke sharply to the maid, who attended her like a shadow. Soon Mariko came.

"Are you all right, Anjin-san?"

"Yes. I don't know why you were disturbed. Christ Jesus-I'm just looking at the moon. I couldn't sleep. I just wanted some air."

Fujiko spoke to her haltingly, ill at ease, hurt by the irritation in his voice. "She says you told her to go back to sleep. She just wanted you to know that it's not our custom for a wife or consort to sleep while her master's awake, that's all, Anjin-san."

"Then she'll have to change her custom. I'm often up at night. By myself. It's a habit from being at sea-I sleep very lightly ash.o.r.e."

"Yes, Anjin-san."

Mariko had explained and the two women had gone away. But Blackthorne knew that Fujiko had not gone back to sleep and would not, until he slept. She was always up and waiting whatever time he came back to the house. Some nights he walked the sh.o.r.e alone. Even though he insisted on being alone, he knew that he was followed and watched. Not because they were afraid he was trying to escape. Only because it was their custom for important people always to be attended. In Anjiro he was important.

In time he accepted her presence. It was as Mariko had first said, 'Think of her as a rock or a shoji or a wall. It is her duty to serve you.'

It was different with Mariko.

He was glad that she had stayed. Without her presence he could never have begun the training, let alone explained the intricacies of strategy. He blessed her and Father Domingo and Alban Caradoc and his other teachers.

I never thought the battles would ever be put to good use, he thought again. Once when his s.h.i.+p was carrying a cargo of English wools to Antwerp, a Spanish army had swooped down upon the city and every man had gone to the barricades and to the dikes. The sneak attack had been beaten off and the Spanish infantry outgunned and out-maneuvered. That was the first time he had seen William, Duke of Orange, using regiments like chess pieces. Advancing, retreating in pretended panic to regroup again, charging back again, guns blazing in packed, gut-hurting, ear-pounding salvos, breaking through the Invincibles to leave them dying and screaming, the stench of blood and powder and urine and horses and dung filling you, and a wild frantic joy of killing possessing you and the strength of twenty in your arms.

"Christ Jesus, it's grand to be victorious," he said aloud in the tub.

"Master?" Suwo said.

"Nothing," he replied in j.a.panese. "I talking-I was just think-just thinking aloud."

"I understand, Master. Yes. Your pardon."

Blackthorne let himself drift away.

Mariko. Yes, she's been invaluable.

After that first night of his almost suicide, nothing had ever been said again. What was there to say?

I'm glad there's so much to do, he thought. No time to think except here in the bath for these few minutes. Never enough time to do everything. Ordered to concentrate on training and teaching and not on learning, but wanting to learn, trying to learn, needing to learn to fulfill the promise to Yabu. Never enough hours. Always exhausted and drained by bedtime, sleeping instantly, to be up at dawn and riding fast to the plateau. Training all morning, then a spa.r.s.e meal, never satisfying and never meat. Then every afternoon until nightfall-sometimes till very late at night-with Yabu and Omi and Iguras.h.i.+ and Naga and Zukimoto and a few of the other officers, talking about war, answering questions about war. How to wage war. How barbarians war and how j.a.panese war. On land and at sea. Scribes always taking notes. Many, many notes.

Sometimes with Yabu alone.

But always Mariko there-part of him-talking for him. And for Yabu. Mariko different now toward him, he no longer a stranger.

Other days the scribes reading back the notes, always checking, being meticulous, revising and checking again until now, after twelve days and a hundred hours or so of detailed exhaustive explanation, a war manual was forming. Exact. And lethal.

Lethal to whom? Not to us English or Hollanders, who will come here peacefully and only as traders. Lethal to Yabu's enemies and to Toranaga's enemies, and to our Portuguese and Spanish enemies when they try to conquer j.a.pan. Like they've done everywhere else. In every newly discovered territory. First the priests arrive. Then the conquistadores.

But not here, he thought with great contentment. Never here-now. The manual's lethal and proof against that. No conquest here, given a few years for the knowledge to spread.

"Anjin-san?"

"Hai, Mariko-san?"

She was bowing to him. "Yabu-ko wa kiden no goshusseki o kon-ya wa hitsuyo to senu to oserareru, Anjin-san."

The words formed slowly in his head: 'Lord Yabu does not require to see you tonight.'

"Ichi-ban," he said blissfully. " he said blissfully. "Domo."

"Gomen nasai, Anjin-san. Anatawa-" Anatawa-"

"Yes, Mariko-san," he interrupted her, the heat of the water sapping his energy. "I know I should have said it differently but I don't want to speak any more j.a.panese now. Not tonight. Now I feel like a schoolboy who's been let out of school for the Christmas holiday. Do you realize these'll be the first free hours I've had since I arrived?"

"Yes, yes I do." She smiled wryly. "And do you realize, Senhor Captain-Pilot B'rack'fon, these will be the first free hours I've had since I arrived?"

He laughed. She was wearing a thick cotton bathing robe tied loosely, and a towel around her head to protect her hair. Every evening as soon as his ma.s.sage began, she would take the bath, sometimes alone, sometimes with Fujiko.

"Here, you have it now," he said, beginning to get out.

"Oh, please, no, I don't wish to disturb you."

"Then share it. It's wonderful."

"Thank you. I can hardly wait to soak the sweat and dust away." She took off her robe and sat on the tiny seat. A servant began to lather her, Suwo waiting patiently near the ma.s.sage table.

"It is is rather like a school holiday," she said, as happily. rather like a school holiday," she said, as happily.

The first time Blackthorne had seen her naked on the day that they swam he had been greatly affected. Now her nakedness, of itself, did not touch him physically. Living closely in j.a.panese style in a j.a.panese house where the walls were paper and the rooms multipurpose, he had seen her unclothed and partially clothed many times. He had even seen her relieving herself.

"What's more normal, Anjin-san? Bodies are normal, and differences between men and women are normal, neh?" neh?"

"Yes, but it's, er, just that we're trained differently."

"But now you're here and our customs are your customs and normal is normal. Neh?" Neh?"

Normal was urinating or defecating in the open if there were no latrines or buckets, just lifting your kimono or parting it and squatting or standing, everyone else politely waiting and not watching, rarely screens for privacy. Why should one require privacy? And soon one of the peasants would gather the feces and mix it with water to fertilize crops. Human manure and urine were the only substantial source of fertilizer in the Empire. There were few horses and bullocks, and no other animal sources at all. So every human particle was harbored and sold to the farmers throughout the land.

And after you've seen the highborn and the lowborn parting or lifting and standing or squatting, there's not much left to be embarra.s.sed about.

"Is there, Anjin-san?"

"No."

"Good," she had said, very satisfied. "Soon you will like raw fish and fresh seaweed and then you'll really be hatamoto."

The maid poured water over her. Then, cleansed, Mariko stepped into the bath and lay down opposite him with a long-drawn sigh of ecstasy, the little crucifix dangling between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"How do you do that?" he said.

"What?"

"Get in so quickly. It's so hot."

"I don't know, Anjin-san, but I asked them to put more firewood on and to heat up the water. For you, Fujiko always makes sure it's-we would call it tepid."

"If this is tepid, then I'm a Dutchman's uncle!"

"What?"

"Nothing."

The water's heat made them drowsy and they lolled a while, not saying a word.

Later she said, "What would you like to do this evening, Anjin-san?"

"If we were up in London we'd-" Blackthorne stopped. I won't think about them, he told himself. Or London. That's gone. That doesn't exist. Only here exists.