"Oh sorry, Taira-san it's bad manners point with the thin end of a chopstick.
Please use the other end. This is wasabeh."
Before Hiraga could stop him, Tyrer had picked up the nodule of green paste and eaten it. At once his sinuses caught fire and he gasped, eyes watering, almost blinded. In time the conflagration passed, leaving him panting. "My Go'd," Hiraga said, copying Tyrer and trying not to laugh, "Wasabeh do not eat, just put 'ritt'er--sorry, word very hard for me--just put some in the soy to make spicy."
"My mistake." Tyrer gasped, momentarily strangled. "My God, that's lethal, worse than chilli! Next time I careful."
"You very good for man who begin, Taira-san.
And you 'rearn Japanese o'rr so quick, very good."
"Domo, Nakama-san, domo." Same with you in English. Pleased to be complimented, Tyrer concentrated on being more deft. The next morsel he tried was tako, sliced octopus tentacle. It tasted like slimy rubber even with a touch of soy and wasabeh. "This is very tasty, I like this very much."
I'm starving, he was thinking. I'd like triples of the chicken, another bowl of rice, twenty more of the tempura prawns, and Hiraga eats like a baby. Never mind, I'm being entertained by a samurai, it's not a week since he helped get us out of the Yedo Legation without an international incident, not six weeks since I first met Andr`e, yet I can already talk a little Japanese, already know more about their customs than most traders who have been here since the beginning.
If I can keep this up I'll be gazetted as an official interpreter in a few months and in line for the official salary: Four hundred pounds a year! Hooray, or Banzai as a Japanese would say. At the present rate of exchange I can easily afford another pony but before that...
His heart quickened.
Before that I'll buy Fujiko's contract.
Nakama's promised to help so I'll have no trouble. He promised. Perhaps we'll begin tonight-- thank God, Fujiko's back from visiting her grandmother. I suppose I really shouldn't on a Sunday, but never mind. Karma.
He sighed. Between Andr`e and Nakama he had discovered that word and the marvelous way it became a panacea for all happenings, good or bad, over which you had no control. "Karma!"
"What, Taira-san?"
"Nothing. Food's good."
"Food's good," Hiraga mimicked him.
"Good, thank you, I p'reased." He called for more beer and sak`e. The shoji slid back and the drinks appeared on a tray carried by a merry-faced maid who beamed at Hiraga, smiled shyly at Tyrer. With hardly a thought, Hiraga caressed her rump. "How would you like it Over the Mountain?"
"Eeee, you naughty man! Over Mountain?
Oh no, not me, nor Under, but I might Play the Flute for a gold oban!"
They both laughed at the sally--one gold oban being outrageously expensive, the fee a courtesan of the first class might charge for such a service. The maid poured the sak`e, filled Tyrer's mug and left.
"What she say, Nakama-san?"
He smiled. "So sorry, difficu't exp'rain, not words enough yet. Just joke, man-woman joke, you understand?"
"Wakarimasu. Church today, you like?" With Sir William's approval and the avid consent of the Reverend Michaelmas Tweet he had sneaked Hiraga up to the minstrel's gallery.
Dressed in his new Western clothes, made to order by the Chinese tailor with his usual unbelievable speed, and beaver top hat, Hiraga had passed as Eurasian and was hardly noticed. Except by Jamie McFay who had winked discreetly.
"Church good, and your exp'rain too,"
Hiraga said, but inside he was still trying to sift Tyrer's information into perspective, along with the astonishing sight of all these grown men, and two revolting-looking women, singing in unison, getting up, sitting down, solemnly droning out prayers, bowing their heads to their very strange God who, after the service, Tyrer had explained was actually three people, the Father, his Son who was crucified like a common criminal, and a kami.
"So ka?"' Hiraga had said perplexed.
"So, Taira-san, woman name Madonna who not God has son God--but she not God--and she pi'rrow with kami who not God but like hatomoto of God with wing who not husband, husband who o'rso not God, but father is, so father of her son is grandfather, neh?"' "No, there was no pillowing. You see..."
Again he listened, eventually pretended to understand so he could question Taira about the enmity of the two churches for he had noticed that Ori's woman was not present and had asked why. Two churches, equally powerful, constantly at war! And Ori wanted me to give up. Baka!
And when, head aching from concentration, he had discovered the reason for the schism--and the resulting scale of hatred and mass killings and universal wars--he knew for certain in some areas gai-jin were totally mad, but oh so vulnerable: the split was only because an old bonze called 'Ruther, three hundred odd years before, had decided on a different interpretation of some minor point of dogma that had been invented by another bonze fourteen or fifteen centuries before him. This man, clearly another lunatic, had decreed, amongst other things, that poverty was to be sought, and no pillowing with women would, after death, send you forever to somewhere called Heaven, where there was no sak`e, no food and no women, and you were a bird.
Barbarians are beyond belief. Who could want to go to such a place? Any one could see at once that old bonze was like any other ambitious, disgruntled fool who, after a lifetime of pretending to be chaste, just wanted to have a wife or concubine openly like any ordinary sensible bonze or person.
"Taira-san," he had said weakly: "Need ba'f, massage, sak`e, you also, then food. Fo'rrow p'rease."
At first he had been worried that he had proffered the invitation. Now the village elder, the shoya, would discover he could speak English.
"Eeee, how wonderful to speak gai-jin, I wish I did, Otami-san!" the shoya had chortled with open admiration. "May I tell you again that I support sonno-joi, and also I have assigned the cleverest of my sons to a gai-jin bonze with orders to pretend to convert to their ridiculous beliefs so he can learn their language and their ways."
"You will make sure the servants are safe?"' "You will be protected like one of my family.
For extra safety I suggest you should hire the whole restaurant and order this Taira to speak only Japanese in the bathhouse. You say learns quickly?"' "V."
"Your secrets are safe with me.
Sonno-joi!"
Hiraga smiled grimly remembering the fervor with which the shoya had echoed him, believing him not at all. I wonder what he would do if he knew of our plan to burn all Yokohama. He would shit. But before even cleaning himself he would run to the Bakufu and bash his head to the earth in his haste to serve them and betray me.
Baka!
Tyrer was still eating voraciously. Though still hungry Hiraga toyed with his food following accepted Japanese custom and training, of disciplining oneself to be satisfied with little, there being more hungry times than abundant, to bear cold and pain with fortitude, there being more bad days than good, more cold than warmth so best be prepared. Less is better than more. Except for sak`e. And fornication. He smiled. "Sak`e!
Taira-san, kampai!"
This flask was soon gone. He pressed Tyrer to drink, pretending it was an important Japanese custom to toast each other. Soon Tyrer was happily telling about gai-jin wars, the extent of the British Empire, about the goods they manufactured and the amounts thereof. Because of Tyrer's sincerity--possible sincerity--and his "I swear it's the God's truth!"--he decided to accept the information, however frightening or preposterous until proven false. An hour's study of Tyrer's school atlas and maps had truly shocked him.
"But, p'rease, how can so 'ritter country 'rike Ing'rand ru're so many?"
"Lots of reasons," Tyrer said, warm and loose and pleased with himself and, forgetting for a moment to use simple words and ideas, he went on guilelessly, "lots of reasons, because of our superior education--superior learning, you understand?
--a superior heritage, a wise and benevolent Queen and our unique and special form of government, our Parliament, which has given us superior laws and freedoms. At the same time we're blessed, we're an island fortress, the sea protects us, our fleets control the sea-lanes for trade so we've been able to develop better skills in peace and quiet, to invent and experiment, we trade more therefore we've more capital, Nakama-san, more money than anyone else... and we're very clever at "divide and rule"--that's an old Roman law..." he laughed and finished the flask, "and, most important of all, I've told you before, we've twice the number of cannon, ships and fire power than the next two countries--half the world's ships are British, with British crews and British gunners."
So many words and ideas I don't understand, Hiraga thought, his head reeling. Romans? Who are they?
If half of what Taira says is true, no, a hundredth part, then it will take decades to catch up with them. Yes, he thought, but in time we will catch them. We are an island too. Better than them this is Land of the Gods, man for man we are tougher, stronger, better fighters, we've discipline and more courage and, most of all we must win eventually because we're not afraid to die!
Eeee, even today I can see ways to twist them that I could not have conceived a few days ago.