The Watchmaker Of Filigree Street Part 21

'Oh!' Sullivan exclaimed. 'Excellent. Everybody listen up; the date of Mr Ito's visit has been confirmed by the Foreign Office. Our debut performance will be on the twenty-eighth of October, at the j.a.panese show village in Hyde Park. You will be performing outside in autumn, but there will be fireworks and wine afterwards to make it worth your while.' His cheer cracked and he looked wretched underneath. 'It seems to be turning into quite the diplomatic gathering. Anybody found to have double-booked himself therefore will be summarily beheaded.' Laughter rippled around the pit. 'Oh, isn't that delightful,' he muttered. 'You all think I'm joking.'

PART THREE.

TWENTY-ONE.

TOKYO, 1882.

Mori had a habit of walking through traffic as though he couldn't see it. Ito usually attributed it to absent-mindedness, but at a place like s.h.i.+nbas.h.i.+ station, it struck him as wilful. s.h.i.+nbas.h.i.+ was the terminus of the trunk line from Yokohama, a great Western-style building with wide ticket halls that horseshoed the end of the tracks and stood twice as tall as anything around it. The road outside swarmed.

While everyone else gathered outside the station, waiting for a lull in the traffic, Mori came straight out and straight across. Ito wondered how many generations of knights it took to produce one who came with a guarantee that even a Tokyo rickshawman could spot good breeding and get out of its way. b.a.s.t.a.r.dy, it seemed, was no obstacle. He looked just like his mother. The old n.o.blemen of the court tended to say it with a certain reverence.

Of course, the good breeding was at double strength today, because he was walking with Kiyotaka Kuroda. Always vain of his name, the man was wearing all black. Even discounting his personality, Ito would have disliked him vigorously just for that. It was a special sort of bad taste for an admiral to go about advertising a name that translated into what sounded like a copycat pirate. Blackfield: between that and his triannual invasions of Korea, he might as well have sewn matches in his beard. But Mori had always liked him. Kuroda was walking close to him now, and as they approached, Ito caught s.n.a.t.c.hes of their conversation, half whipped away by the pa.s.sing traffic that never quite hit them.

'-should make a fuss. d.a.m.n embarra.s.sing.'

'-no reason you idiot.'

'A baronetcy for services to the throne when you should be Duke of Choushu. Might as well have slung mud at you. Why haven't you stabbed anyone yet?'

'I'm better off. The castle land was requisitioned but-'

Kuroda's voice dropped into an indistinct gutturalness that eventually resolved itself into, 'I'd better leave you to the bookseller.'

Ito waited for Mori to defend him, but he said nothing about it. 'Remember to come tonight.'

'What's happening tonight?'

'The opening of the Rok.u.meikan,' Mori said.

They were just on the pavement, a few feet away. Ito turned his back to them and watched the river to give, at least, the impression of not overhearing. It didn't work. He felt Kuroda notice him.

'The whatkan?'

'The new foreigners' residence. You burnt the invitation.'

'Oh, that. Is it mandatory?'

'The Emperor says so. Foreign relations.'

'I'll show him what foreign relations look like, when he can be bothered to stir himself and get on a battles.h.i.+p. Why has it got such a stupid name? What have foreigners got to do with deer? Deer Cry Hall,' he said, p.r.o.nouncing the words very separately. He had pitched his voice for Ito to hear. 'Sounds like a pub.'

'It's a Chinese poem. A general sees deer grazing near his camp and thinks what good guests they make.'

'I've got deer in my garden. Used to have orchids.'

'The Americans don't read Chinese poetry,' Mori said, and the gem edges of his Imperial accent showed much more, suddenly, now that he had enough of the games. 'They won't know if we've accidentally called them vermin. The point is, put in an appearance. Hysterical as it would be to see the Emperor shout at you and demote you to mids.h.i.+pman, I really haven't the time to soothe your ensuing alcoholism. The ball finishes at one o'clock in the morning.'

'I'll be there at ten to, then.'

There was a b.u.mp that sounded like an elbow meeting ribs, and then Kuroda's sudden roar at a rickshaw boy. Ito didn't turn around. He had no doubt Kuroda was looking back to see if he would.

Mori came to stand next to him. 'Afternoon.' He had a leather case over one wrist, but it was not the right shape for doc.u.ments.

'Yes, good afternoon.' He sounded stuffy after their roughness.

'What are we looking at?'

'Nothing in particular.'

'You know,' he said in his solemn way, 'I sometimes think this country could be quite a good place unabsorbed by the British or the Chinese if you and Kuroda could face each other without spitting.'

'And I think it would be quite good if he would see that these parties have a far greater impact on foreign policy than any of his battles.h.i.+ps. I hope you've brought a change of clothes,' he added. Mori was in greys and old tweed and looking, as usual, chronically unofficial. 'It's white tie. I did tell you, ten or twelve times.'

'I would have if you hadn't had one of your aides bring one for me.'

Ito didn't ask him how he knew. Mori was paid to know things and in all fairness it would have been odd if he didn't know the whereabouts of his own dinner jacket. It was still irritating. He felt as though a trap had been laid for him.

Mori put his free hand to the rail of the bridge just before Ito felt the judder too. It began like an ordinary earthquake, but then the ground jumped and the road was full of falling rickshawmen and stumbling horses. The plant pots that decorated the upper windowsills of the station all fell and burst on to the pavement. On the river, the barges tipped. A haul of barrels splashed in and, roped together as they were, bobbed away in line.

It lasted a long time, about a minute, and when it died down, Ito straightened and tugged down his jacket, rattled. Other than the plant pots and one teetering carriage, there was no obvious damage, although of course there would be in the parts of the city where the buildings were old and wooden rather than new and stone. Wooden houses had a strangely complete way of collapsing; they fell flat, as if they were designed to be packed away. He imagined rows of little flat heaps along the ca.n.a.ls and pushed his hand over his face.

'Right. Let's go and make sure our vermin hall hasn't fallen down,' he said, setting off at once so that Mori was left behind.

Mori caught up easily. He had lately proven himself to be one of those men designed much more for middle age than youth. Where Ito was starting to thin and grey, he had broadened from the unhappy frailty of his twenties, and brightened.

'I'm sorry about Kuroda,' he said.

'No, no. I'm teasing.'

Determined not to talk about Kuroda, Ito turned over a few other things in his mind, but couldn't find anything of substance to introduce. The point came where anything at all would have thunked in the quiet. Mori turned his head away to follow the path of a swarm of dragonflies.

They came to Hibiya Park from the small gate in the south wall. It brought them in by the lake, where the trees were turning now. The last of the cicadas had stopped singing a fortnight before, and so the place was quiet except for the hoots of the crows. Where the trees leaned together over the path, spiders hung in the lower branches, quite big enough to see easily. There was a ripping noise and Ito jumped, thinking it was the battle cry of something upset and arachnoid, but it was only Mori tearing a bouquet of seeds from a gra.s.s stem, like he always did when they came through. He smoothed his waistcoat down again and gave himself a talking to. He had grown used to the solid ground of London and Was.h.i.+ngton, and now earthquakes made him jittery.

As he turned his head, he saw a human figure among the trees. The man was standing still and watching them. He was not a groundsman; he was in a full evening suit. Ito lifted his hand, thinking that he must be an early guest come strolling, but the man did not wave back. Unsettled, Ito glanced forward again to check where he was going, and then looked back to find the man still watching them.

The ground shook again, not so badly this time, though the trees still rained down dead leaves and insects. The man had disappeared when Ito looked back a second time. He brushed bits of twig from his jacket sleeves and tried to brush off the memory of the unbroken stare. People did stare when they saw a man they knew from the newspapers, after all.

Beyond the lake, they came out into a tailored garden where small streams ran under red bridges and by new stone lanterns. Some of Ito's aides were set up under the paG.o.da, drinking tea from English china. They had not yet changed for the ball, and so they were still in kimono and bowler hats, and in one case a fez.

'Evening, sir!' one of them called. 'We're about to have a game of baseball care to join in?'

'Oh, heavens, I can't play baseball,' Ito laughed. 'But don't let me stop the young and vigorous being young and vigorous.'

'Mr Mori?' he said hopefully. The aides were all frightened of Mori, but he was well known for his reflexes. 'Please? Baseball, the modern man's swordsmans.h.i.+p?'

'Not ... this time, thank you,' said Mori. The young man winced.

Ito nudged his arm. 'Be kind.'

'I didn't say anything.'

'Well then, come down off your high horse and take off your d.a.m.n armour: you're clanking,' Ito said. He had meant it to be a joke, but it came out snappishly. 'And while you're at it, you might see Kuroda less often. I know I said liaise, but you're on the point of turning it into a liaison, if you haven't already.'

'All right. Our plans to overthrow everyone in cufflinks are almost complete anyway.'

Ito sighed. He yearned for a row, sometimes. 'Do warn me, when you act on them. Are there bombs in that briefcase?'

'No. He's going to be an octopus.'

'Octopus?'

'I want a pet,' Mori explained, insufficiently.

'Gone off your bees?' Mori kept bees. He lived in the middle of nowhere, in s.h.i.+buya, next door to a monastery. He let the monks come in to collect the honey. The hives had gla.s.s sides so that you could see when the combs were ready, and the peristalsis writhing of the drones. Ito had always hated them and asked why he bothered with them at the beginning of every visit, because Mori was hardly a keen entomologist, but he never had much in the way of a reply.

'They aren't pets.'

'Then ... I know a fellow who sells puppies?'

'Clockwork doesn't bark all the time and it's easier to take on a s.h.i.+p.'

'I've told you, you're not going to England until you explain why.'

'And I've told you, I've a friend in London.'

'No, you haven't got a friend in London. You've never been to London, and you don't write to anyone.'

'I'm not secret-selling to the British,' he said.

'But you can see why this worries me?'

'I've been telling you for years, you can't say you've had no notice.'

Ito was quiet, because it was true; after having initially said he would leave in ten years, Mori had brought it up every now and then to show he meant it. But he had never explained, and lately it had begun to make Ito nervous. That being so, he had given Mori's photograph to every harbourmaster between here and Nagasaki, and strict instructions. He had no doubt that Mori knew, because he could feel the heaviness in these moments when neither of them mentioned it. Or perhaps Mori would have mentioned it now, because he looked as if he wanted to say something, but then he put his hand in front of his face and caught the baseball that would otherwise have broken his nose. A flock of apologies came from the aides and whatever it was he had meant to say was forgotten.

There was, near the edge of the lawn, an enormous, ancient pear tree. Mori veered to it and dropped his handful of seeds among the long gra.s.s that had already grown around the trunk. He did the same thing whenever they came, and by now he had cultivated a lush patch of the stuff. He had a pathology of un-neatening overly neat things that matched his aversion to new houses and ironing his s.h.i.+rts. It was no accident he had chosen the one spot the gardeners absolutely could not mow without resorting to a pair of nail scissors. The roots were risen and twisting, and they wrapped all about the trunk making nooks and pools of withered pears, and little havens for weeds.

In the warm evening, the Rok.u.meikan was a rosy colour. A double bank of Roman arches ran the whole width of the building, one along the ground and one along the balcony above. Even in comparison to the train station, which was hardly elderly, it was magnificently new and clean. The earthquake had not unseated even a tile, which did not surprise him now he was here. It had a look of immense permanency, like a church. As they crunched on to the gravel drive, the great double doors of the balcony opened, and the Foreign Minister's young wife stepped out, already in her evening gown. The air was so still that Ito heard the silk hiss. The gown was Parisian, the bodice a sheaf of grey and pink pearls that sheened.

'Oh, h.e.l.lo, gentlemen,' she called down. She spoke English with a beautiful American accent. 'Baron Mori, it's been such a long time! What do you think, now the scaffolding is gone? Will all those fussy foreigners take us seriously now?'

He shook his head once. 'No. The moment they take j.a.pan seriously will be the moment she defeats an existing Western power in a war of sufficient significance.'

She was a woman of grace, and so she laughed. 'But I guess it's better to try a dance hall before we order a thousand ironclads from Liverpool, right?'

'Exactly right,' Ito said, kicking Mori's ankle. 'I'm afraid I've been working him too hard, Countess Inoue, he's forgotten what few social graces he used to have.'

'Oh, it's okay. It's important to have blunt men around. Why don't you come in?'

Ito pushed Mori to the door before he could refuse, and the Countess turned inside again. Another little earthquake rattled the teacup she had left on the banister. Behind them, the pear tree creaked.

Few by few, the grand ballroom filled with glittering girls and tall foreigners in military tails or white ties. So many purple banners waved in the heat of the lamps that it felt to Ito like being inside an inflating hot-air balloon. Imperial chrysanthemums crowded everywhere, on the stairway, round the doors, in looping arches around the floor, a forest's worth. Over the past year, Ito and Count Inoue had poured more than fourfold more funds into this building than had gone into the new Foreign Ministry, and it showed. Mori of course had looked at it as if it were a casino and taken himself and his case of clockwork off to the balcony, which was empty except for six of the Empress's ladies, who had lost no time in making it clear they had been ordered to come.

Ito turned away from the buffet with a saucer full of chocolate strawberries to find the man from the woods looking at him across the room. Ito looked back at him, thinking that there must be something wrong with him. The man began to walk toward him, and as he pa.s.sed under a chandelier, it traced the shape of his hands in his pockets, and the gun in his left. Ito stood still and realised that he was about to die holding a plate of chocolate strawberries. He couldn't move, only think how stupid it was.

Mori stepped between a pair of dancers as they spun and stood between Ito and the man. Ito lurched, because every inch of him expected a gunshot, but the man only froze and stared at him. Mori handed him a slip of folded paper. Without opening it, the man turned from him and almost ran.

Ito swallowed, and after what felt like a long time, set down the saucer and went to Mori.

'Who was that?' he said.

He saw Mori prepare a lie about the man having needed directions to the balcony, but then give up on it. 'a.s.sa.s.sin.'

'What was that paper you gave him?'

'I didn't give him anything.'

'You did, I saw.'

'I didn't.'

Ito made an impatient noise that his wife would have called rude. He would have too, if he had been talking to someone less impervious. 'You are an astonis.h.i.+ngly poor liar, for an intelligence officer. I'll go and ask him, shall I?'

'Ito-'

'What, something else you don't want me to know?' he snapped as he made for the stairs.

Mori lifted his hands but didn't bother to chase him. Ito was downstairs in time to see the man running through the front door.

The fine afternoon had turned into a cool night. The wind was up and even from the drive, he could hear the old pear tree s.h.i.+vering. The man was going that way now. Ito hesitated before he stepped off the drive and on to the gra.s.s, but then, feeling angry with himself, followed more quickly. Kuroda had once said that the difference between n.o.blemen and commoners was the same as that between warhorses and donkeys. Mori was modern but not liberal. He thought the same, Ito knew he did. He had let him go because he thought the bookseller's boy would, as an inevitable consequence of his unimpressive breeding, prove a coward.

The man slowed as he reached the pear tree. Ito moved to the left so that he would not pa.s.s from view, and saw that there was a horse there too, grazing its way through Mori's patch of long gra.s.s. The man stopped and stood still. He had unfolded the piece of paper. As Ito watched, the man took out his watch and took more than usual care over the time, then looked around, all the way, so that Ito had to duck behind a hedge. Then he screwed up the paper and shoved it in his pocket, shaking his head as if he thought he had been conned somehow. His hand went to the gun again and he stood fingering it, but didn't move back toward the hall. He glanced around, as though waiting for something, but n.o.body else was coming.

'What did he give you, just now?'