The Ends of the Earth (26 page)

‘I was a relative newcomer myself when they arrived and we saw a good deal of each other. Henry and I worked together as well of course, and became friends. The English-speaking community was small and closely knit. One met the same people at every social engagement. There was much mixing with the members and spouses of the other foreign legations as well – American, French, German, Russian, Italian, Dutch. The Japanese we met were mostly of the upper and government classes. Unless you count the courtesans, of course.

‘I have a Japanese wife. Naturally, I’m biased in an assessment of Japanese women. Some Western men find them supremely attractive. And there’s never been the shame attached to … the needs of the flesh … in this culture. The Japanese are remarkably honest about such things. If you go to the local bath-house, you’ll find men and women bathing together, quite unselfconsciously. It’s truly a different world.

‘Not surprisingly, many Western men took Japanese lovers, sometimes with the benefit of sham marriages. The French were particularly noted for marrying local girls they’d rapidly tire of before going home to France and contracting what they regarded as a genuine marriage to a well-born Frenchwoman. This was before Puccini turned such stories into grand opera, of course. But Madame Butterfly certainly existed.

‘I mean to give no offence, but I imagine Winifred would have been prepared to turn a blind eye to a few discreet dalliances on Henry’s part. She was – and clearly still is – a pragmatist. Ironically, Henry never required a blind eye to be turned. He wasn’t a man who bestowed his affections casually.

‘His work in the chancery section required him to meet Japanese politicians, both formally and informally. Baron Tomura Iwazu was one such, a rising star of sorts, though even then it was unclear what his affiliations were. He was unusual in many ways. He was known to have a variety of business interests, for instance, some of them allegedly shady. Also, he had an English wife: Matilda, daughter of Claude Farngold, a Yokohama tea merchant. Henry and Winifred entertained the Tomuras at their home and were entertained in turn at Tomura’s residence here in Tokyo. They were soon on friendly terms. Winifred and Matilda met for tea. Tomura enrolled Henry in the Kojunsha Club. They were seen together often.

‘I asked Henry once, quite early in our acquaintance – it was more of a warning, really – whether he thought he was in danger of growing too close to Tomura. As I recall, he told me not to be an old woman; Tomura was a rising force who’d repay study. Well, it was convincing enough, if you believed dispassionate scrutiny of the thought processes of a young Japanese politician was what Henry was about. The chief, Fraser, was evidently convinced. But he was a new boy himself, of course. He hadn’t quite got the lie of the land.

‘Then things started to happen, though it was only later that the shape of events became apparent. There was the assassination attempt against the Foreign Minister, Count Okuma, followed shortly by the death of Claude Farngold. Then there was a change of government. Under the new prime minister, Yamagata, Viscount Aoki became Foreign Minister. And one of Aoki’s juniors was … Baron Tomura.

‘Aoki had a foreign wife himself. She was German. It’s probably no coincidence Japanese policy took a turn in favour of Germany around then. Fritz Lemmer popped up at the German legation to encourage the process. He was soon on friendly terms with Tomura himself. Rumours began to circulate that Lemmer exercised a sinister influence on Tomura, and through him on Aoki and other ministers.

‘Political life here tends to close down in late July. Everyone heads for the hills. The heat in Tokyo, as you’ve discovered, can be stifling. Winifred had found her first summer well nigh unbearable. So, Henry took pity on her and sent her to spend the summer of 1890 with friends in Kashmir. As it happened, Tomura was out of the country as well, despatched to China by Aoki on some hush-hush mission: probably to assess how weak the Chinese government was. He was away for a couple of months or more. So was Winifred.

‘I was unaware of the growing attachment between Henry and Matilda Tomura. I was out of town rather a lot myself. It’s not so surprising it happened. Henry was alone, with time on his hands. Matilda was alone as well, still mourning her father and perhaps harbouring suspicions about her husband’s role in his death. She and Henry became lovers. That much is clear. For how long they remained so … I don’t know. Presumably, when Winifred returned from Kashmir and Tomura from China, or shortly thereafter … it ended. Well, it must have done, I think. To have continued would have been madly reckless. Although love, as you may not yet be aware, can inspire madness in the sanest people.

‘Matilda was pregnant by Henry, however. Tomura may not have known Henry was responsible, but obviously he would have known he himself wasn’t. And he might well have guessed the identity of his wife’s summertime lover. The list of suspects can’t have been a long one. At all events, the cold rage of a Japanese nobleman betrayed by his English wife would have been a formidable thing. Was it partly revenge for Tomura’s murder of her father, I’ve sometimes wondered. Tomura might have wondered that too. She might even have told him.

‘Tomura’s family is an ancient clan. They were feudal lords from the beginning of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Some have suggested Tomura hates the Koreans because an ancestor of his was killed during a failed attempt to conquer Korea in 1593. It could be true. Such men think in ways neither you nor I can properly understand. It was that ancestor’s son who entered into a well-judged political alliance with Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Shogunate. His reward was a grant of strategically important land north of Kyoto, where he reconstructed an old fort as a massive castle.

‘Kawajuki-jo – literally, Kawajuki Castle – is a forbidding place. The architecture is typical of seventeenth-century castle construction, but something about the stonework – dark, unreflective – chills the blood. Well, it chilled mine when I first saw it. It’s known generally by another name – Zangai-jo. Zangai’s a difficult word to translate. It means the wreck of something, the original shape of which can no longer be discerned. That something could be a human in some renderings. No one seems to know how the name arose. Maybe it refers to some incident in the Tomuras’ past that’s been forgotten. If so, the name itself would be a zangai. A strange concept. But fitting, somehow.

‘When Tomura discovered Matilda was pregnant, he sent her to Zangai-jo. Nothing more was heard of her in Tokyo. Henry kept the secret of their love bottled up. He didn’t know she was carrying his child, though he probably suspected he was to blame for her banishment. As you correctly said, you weren’t born in Tokyo. You were born in Kawajuki Castle.

‘Tomura was in Kyoto at the time, serving as a member of the reception committee preparing for the visit of the Tsarevich. Well, you’ve read my report. You know I believe – and so did Henry – that Tomura was also preparing an attempt on the Tsarevich’s life, with the encouragement and assistance of Lemmer, in order to poison Russo-Japanese relations, greatly to Germany’s advantage.

‘We never unearthed any proof of that. Neither did Kuroda. Still, Tomura and Lemmer both knew Henry suspected their involvement and Tomura knew Henry had personal reasons for doing everything he could to implicate him. Blocking Kuroda’s investigations wasn’t enough for him. I suppose he felt Henry was challenging him. And the challenge had to be answered.

‘He sent you to Tokyo in the care of a servant called Ishibashi, with instructions to deliver you to Henry’s house, accompanied by a letter. I never saw the letter, but I gather in it Tomura made clear his contempt both for Henry and his child, whom Tomura disowned. “Do with him as you please,” was the gist of it. “He is no son of mine.” And nor were you, of course, for which I suggest you should be grateful.

‘It was a time of crisis. Fraser was under mounting pressure because a member of his staff had made allegations against a Japanese nobleman and a German diplomat that couldn’t be substantiated. I alone at the legation was privy to the turmoil in that member of staff’s private life. Your arrival forced him to confess his infidelity to Winifred. And both were forced to consider what should be done with you. Matilda was beyond help, locked away at Zangai-jo. A scandal was looming of alarming proportions.

‘Then the news came. Matilda had died, purportedly of the after-effects of childbirth. A son – a son Tomura was pleased to call his own – had been born. The boy was, in truth, wholly Japanese, the child of one of Tomura’s numerous mistresses, who’d accompanied him to China. He fitted the bill, apparently. You’ve met Noburo. He would never have been acknowledged by Tomura under normal circumstances. But the circumstances were far from normal. And the arrangement defeated any accusation Henry cared to make before he’d even made it.

‘When I explained the situation to Fraser, he decided Henry’s immediate departure from Japan was essential. I set about arranging it. He and Winifred had come to an understanding by then, reached, I imagine, after many harsh words had been exchanged and both had searched their hearts. They would take you and raise you as their son. The circumstances of your birth weren’t your fault. It’s greatly to Winifred’s credit that she put an innocent child’s welfare above the settling of a marital grievance.

‘I arranged for them to go home by an indirect route, via Australia, so there’d be no one among the passengers to note the oddity that you arrived in Brisbane as their orphaned nephew and left Fremantle as their son. How they were reconciled in the course of that long journey I don’t know. Perhaps you’ll tell me they never properly were. However that may be, they both did a noble thing.

‘That might seem more obvious in your mother’s case than in your father’s. But I know he wrestled with his conscience over what to do. He doubted Matilda had died of natural causes. He suspected – and I couldn’t blame him – that she’d been killed on Tomura’s orders. The rejected child and the murdered mother would be the sum of such a man’s response to her betrayal of him. Perhaps he let her live until she’d given birth so that Henry would understand his responsibility for what had happened to her.

‘And he did understand it. There was one long, desperate night when I had to talk him out of trying to kill Tomura. I reminded him of his diplomatic duty. Such an act would have handed Lemmer a second triumph. The damage it would have done to Anglo-Japanese relations was incalculable. Henry knew he had to leave. And he knew he had to allow Tomura his victory. With every atom of his being he rebelled against that dismal truth. Yet still he boarded the ship with you and Winifred … and left.

‘No doubt by then Winifred had already sent a letter to her family – and to your unsuspecting elder brother at his prep school – announcing the birth of her second son. She told me she’d explain that complications with the pregnancy had caused her to keep the news to herself in case of a miscarriage. She’d thought it all through quite thoroughly. It was the version of events she meant to live by.

‘I supplied your birth certificate. It’s as authentic as any forgery can be, thanks to the advantages a foreign legation enjoys in such matters. The date – the fifth of May – was a guess. It could be wrong by several days. The only man who could tell you is Count Tomura – if he actually remembers. I doubt he’d be willing to tell you, anyway.

‘Jack Farngold was at sea when Matilda died. By the time he reached Tokyo, Henry and Winifred – and you – had left. It seemed wise to supply him only with the official version of events. I believe he approached Tomura in hopes of meeting his nephew, as he supposed Noburo to be, and learning something of his sister’s final days. I imagine he was given a chilly reception.

‘If so, that was a mistake on Tomura’s part. Somehow, at some point, Jack Farngold realized – or guessed – that Matilda had been murdered, perhaps along with her child. He asked me to help him bring Tomura to justice. I explained there was nothing I could do for him. Kuroda was obliged to turn him away as well. Kuroda had wheedled the truth out of me after Henry and Winifred’s sudden departure and reluctantly agreed what had been done was for the best.

‘Yes, we all agreed that. It was for the best. Except Jack Farngold, of course. He was a strange, stubborn, solitary man. He had no one left in the world he cared for, convinced as he was that Noburo wasn’t really his nephew at all. He returned to the sea. And I forgot him.

‘But he didn’t forget. At some point – I don’t know when – he began investigating Tomura’s affairs. Perhaps in one of the many ports he put into he met someone who’d met someone who’d said, yes, Tomura murdered his English wife to punish her for adultery. Or perhaps it was just Tomura’s growing fame after his military exploits in the wars against China and Russia that embittered him in some way. Whatever it was, it set him on his course, searching, always searching, for some way to bring Tomura down.

‘Well, Jack Farngold learnt – as you’ve learnt – that Count Tomura has powerful friends and ample resources. They render him about as invulnerable as a man can be. The Japanese government will want nothing more to do with Lemmer now C can name and expose his spies. But that will damage only Lemmer, not Tomura. He’ll brush off the embarrassment and find some other way to pursue his objectives. It’s interesting your friend Morahan and his associates were accused of conspiring to assassinate the Prime Minister. If I was Hara and I ever heard about it I’d worry the accusation came from those to whom the idea had already occurred. Dark Ocean isn’t the only group plotting to push the government in a militarist direction. Tomura’s at the centre of a network of influential people who see expansion and aggression as the fulfilment of Japan’s imperial destiny. They’re the future. And it isn’t a pleasant future to contemplate.

‘You’ve defeated Lemmer and you’ve inconvenienced Tomura. But you’re alive. And the collapse of Tomura’s brokerage of Lemmer means it’ll seem prudent to him to let the charges against your friends be dropped. You can’t help Jack Farngold now. And you certainly can’t help his sister, the woman who bore you. She’s long dead. I imagine Henry felt he owed it to her to do all he could to rescue her brother. But it’s too late to rescue him. It’s all too late.