The Pure Land (30 page)

‘And what about those charming little women of yours, those lovely butterflies?’

‘Maki just disappeared. Was gone when I came back from Scotland.’ As always when he thought of her he felt a curious pang, a stab of melancholy. ‘Tsuru is expecting my child, in fact the arrival is imminent.’

‘I take it congratulations are in order?’

‘Indeed. I’ve grown fond of her. We’ll marry.’

‘Do the decent thing. Good for you!’

‘Now,’ said Glover. ‘How’s Yaban?’

Risley led him out past the main tent, to a smaller covered area, guarded by two Japanese warriors, armed with pikes. They stepped back to let Risley pass, he lifted back the tent-flap and he entered, Glover following behind. The light in the place was dim, the smell unmistakable, raw meat and bloodsoaked sawdust, the rank animal odour of the beast itself. It was curled in the corner of an iron-barred cage, rose slowly as if to greet them, imperious, admit them to its lair, its domain. It sniffed the air, glanced at Risley, fixed its gaze on Glover. Once more he felt its immense power, the mystery of its sheer otherness. Its look was predatory, a threat; he sensed himself weighed up as so much meat, flesh and sinew on the bone.

Risley held up a lantern and the light flashed in the animal’s eyes, glinted, demonic. It bared its great fangs, rumbled a deep muted growl in its belly.

‘Aye, big fella,’ said Glover. ‘It’s good to see you.’

The animal growled again, glared at him, implacable.

Still holding the tiger’s gaze, Glover spoke to Risley.

‘The notice said you’ll go in the cage with him.’

‘I’ve rehearsed it. We still have to resort to laudanum, though not enough to make him groggy. And we make sure he’s well fed – a hog or two usually do the trick! But if he should decide he fancies a roly-poly Englishman for pudding, these stout fellows are on hand with their spears!’

The show drew a reasonable audience, given that all forms of entertainment had been so recently discouraged during the period of national mourning for the Emperor. There was an equal mix of Japanese, eager to see the spectacle, and bored foreigners desperate for a little stimulation. A crowd of young bucks roistered and swaggered through the place, took over a whole section of seating, rollicked and hollered, cursed up a storm, swigged liquor from their own flasks, jeered and catcalled at the performers.

The lights were dimmed then there was a sudden flash, a magnesium flare, and a troupe of Chinese acrobats leapt and bounded into a dragon dance, drums and cymbals banging and clashing. The rowdies howled, cheered, stamped their feet. The acrobats climbed thin bamboo poles, swung and spun and launched into the air, seemed indeed to fly, landing so lightly they hardly touched the ground before leaping again, almost running up the poles and soaring once more. Risley’s publicity was right. It defied all physical laws, was breathtaking.

The acrobats were chased out of the ring by another troupe, half a dozen men in light samurai armour. Again they spun, dizzying, clashed flashing blades in a choreographed sword fight, balletic and graceful and military in its precision. Glover wavered a moment, lightheaded, remembered the attack on the Legation, the swordblade an inch from his tingling scalp. The young bucks yelled and stamped their feet, all pigheaded bravado.

The Wild West scene caught their fancy. The redskins were clearly Chinese in long wigs, their faces daubed with war paint. They whooped and yelped as they urged their ponies in a circle
round the beleaguered pioneers in their covered wagon. The groundlings whooped and yelped along with them, howled like wolves. When the cowboys came charging to the rescue, chasing the Indians down and firing at them from horseback, the bucks roared and cheered, quite beyond themselves with drunken excitement. One stood and fired a pistol in the air, to the huge amusement of his friends. Glover saw Risley step from the shadows, size up the situation. The young fool sat down again and one of his friends took the gun from him, for safekeeping. Risley stepped back.

An oompah band struck up, raucous, between acts; the Wild West extravaganza was followed by a gang of jugglers and acrobats, fire-eaters, tumbling midgets; they all exited to a drunken fanfare, rasping brass; the groundlings howled their derisive approval, laughed.

Then, with a dramatic drumroll, the thunder of timpani, the mood changed. A huge cube, draped in shimmering velvet, was carried by a squad of workmen and placed in the centre of the ring. Risley spoke through a megaphone, stilled the audience by the intensity, the sheer drama, of his delivery. ‘Ladies and gentlemen! I crave your indulgence for the final act of the evening! For this, I am putting my very life at risk!’

The drapes were removed revealing the iron cage, the tiger, suddenly uncovered, pacing back and forth, restless, snarling. There was an audible gasp from the audience, and even the young bucks had the decency to be impressed.

‘This magnificent beast has been brought at considerable expense from the Malay Straits where until recently he roamed the jungles, the lord of all he surveyed. He is the finest specimen you’re ever likely to see of
Panthera Tigris Malayensis
, the great Malay tiger, the embodiment of strength, power and mystery. I bring you Yaban!’

The audience applauded, the Japanese laughing behind their hands at the appropriateness of the name.

‘It has been argued that such beasts cannot be tamed. They are man-eaters, fearsomely strong, capable of tearing a man in two with one snap of those mighty jaws.’

As he spoke, Risley moved towards the gate of the cage, stopped.

The realisation spread through the audience that this man was indeed about to enter the cage. There was a sudden hush, broken only by a cough, an inappropriate laugh that was instantly stilled. Risley put down his megaphone, held up a key; he opened the lock, entered the cage, locked the door behind him. The tiger turned to face him and he picked up a whip, a wooden chair.

For the next ten or fifteen minutes he cracked his whip, goaded the tiger to walk round the cage, climb on an upturned wooden tub, leap through a hoop. By sheer force of will he kept the beast at bay, bade it perform, turn tricks.

He ended with a flourish, turned his back on the tiger and bowed, walked calmly to the door, unlocked it and stepped out. The crowd roared.

‘Impressive,’ said Glover afterwards.

‘I don’t mind admitting,’ said Risley, ‘I was in a sweat. Something was telling me I shouldn’t presume on the beast’s patience with me. Just something in his eyes. A few more minutes and I fear he might have mauled me.’

Glover took a last look at the tiger, saw exactly what Risley meant. There was no containing this power, except by sheer brute force. As he stared at the beast he felt it stare right back at him, defiant. And there was something more he couldn’t define, a sense of the beast’s awareness, its consciousness; it was utterly alive, self-existent, other; and he felt something akin to recognition, identification; for a moment he
was
the tiger, looking back at himself.

He minded the last line of the poem young Mitchell had told him.

Did he who made the lamb make thee?

He bowed to the tiger.

‘
Yaban-
san. Sayonara
.’

The beast bared its teeth. 

The tiger’s face appeared before him in a dream. He had to hold its gaze, not blink or flicker. If he looked away it would swipe him with its great paw, rampage through his home. Sono was next door, giving birth, but that was impossible, the tiger had already destroyed her. It was Tsuru, and at the same time Maki, and he had to protect them both, hold steady, face the tiger down. But he was consumed with foreboding, knew the tiger’s power was great and if it broke free there would be no end to the havoc it would wreak. He woke in a sweat, shouting out. Maki calmed him. No, Tsuru.

Tsuru.

She gave birth a week later. A message was brought to him at his office and he ran all the way back, along the Bund, folk stepping aside, startled, to let him pass, up Minami Yamate, in at the gate of Ipponmatsu and through the front door.

The Japanese doctor stood in the hallway, stonefaced. The bedroom door was closed.

God.

No.

The doctor smiled.

‘Guraba-san. You father. Baby girl.’

Yes.

Yes!

A squall of a cry. He pushed open the door, saw Tsuru with the baby held to her, wrapped in a shawl. She looked exhausted but calm, smiled out at him from a deep quiet place. The baby was a wee red puckered thing, like the son he’d lost. But somehow
he knew the life was there, the will to survive. She held her up, the tiny hands grasping, tiny eyes screwed shut.

‘Bonny wee thing,’ he said, taking the baby, overwhelmed for the second time in his life by the sheer miraculousness of this. He heard what he’d said, line from an old song, from back home in that other life. Burns again.
Bonny wee thing, lovely wee thing,
canty wee thing
.

Tsuru spoke, quiet but strong, from that place he’d never go.

‘We call her Hana.’

They’d already discussed it. Tomu for a boy, Hana for a girl. It meant Blossom. Was good. And it sounded like Anna, or Hannah.

‘Hana,’ he said. ‘
Hai!
’

Hana.

Later the doctor asked to speak to him. He had given Tsuru something to make her sleep; the baby was being looked after by the nurse.

‘Baby girl very strong,’ said the doctor. ‘Very healthy. Be very well.’

‘I thought as much,’ said Glover. The baby cried, lusty, on the other side of the door. ‘She has a fine set of lungs in her!’

The doctor looked serious again. ‘Sorry to say is complication for Tsuru-san.’

Glover tensed, a feeling like cold stone in his belly. ‘What kind of complication?’

‘She have baby before?’

‘Aye. She was married very young.’

‘Maybe was difficult birth.’

‘She didn’t say.’

‘I think is almost sure. Make complication this time. And maybe she not be able to have more children.’

The baby cried again, was shooshed to calm.

‘What are the chances?’

‘Not good.’

‘But otherwise she’ll be fine?’

‘I think so. Just no more children.’

Glover was quiet for a while, thanked the doctor, bowed, paid him handsomely for his time and trouble.

‘
Domo arigato gozaimasu
.’

‘
Do itashimashite
.’

The simple everyday formality of the words, the little politenesses in the face of events, imposing order. Thank you. It’s nothing.

He went quietly into the bedroom. Tsuru was in a deep sleep. He smoothed her hair back from her face, kissed her cheek. 

They held a simple ceremony in the garden at Ipponmatsu on a cool spring morning, the sky washed a pure clear duck-egg blue, a few high clouds scudding. There was traffic out in the bay, junks and cargo boats, ominous warships. The
Ho Sho Maru
was somewhere at sea, on its way from Aberdeen. The slipdock had arrived, was under construction, would change the whole face of the port, the whole face of Japan. The bay would be lined with shipyards; this was just the beginning.

Ito was in Kagoshima, planning strategy, the next phase of the rebellion. Walsh was in Shanghai, securing another deal. Mackenzie was in retirement, in Edinburgh. They had been the witnesses when he’d married Sono; such a short time ago but it seemed a lifetime. Two more years and he’d be thirty. It was true what they said, time accelerated with every year that passed.

The constants from that first ceremony were the minister, Cameron, and the Buddhist priest. The witnesses were the doctor and Tsuru’s nurse along with Harrison and Groom.

‘So there are two Grooms today!’ said Harrison.

The ceremony might have little or no legal validity. For Glover it was simple acknowledgement of Tsuru, of Hana, conferring
on them the status of wife and daughter, at least in the eyes of the community here.

The minister read the vows, Glover and Tsuru repeated them.

Forsaking all others
.

As long as ye both shall live
.

The priest chanted his invocation, sonorous and resonant, bowed as always to Amida, the Buddha of the Pure Land.

Namu Amida Butsu
.

He lit incense, wafted its fragrant smoke over them, clanged a handbell.

Glover held Tsuru’s hand, said it again, ‘Forsaking all others.’ And she bowed to him, smiled, her eyes brimming. 

The change, when it came, came quickly. The combined rebel army, under the banner of the Mikado, marched on Osaka Castle. There were skirmishes, a last desperate resistance from the Shogun’s troops, but again the rebels, better organised, better armed, were victorious. The Choshu fleet, with the recently delivered
Ho Sho Maru
as its flagship, and styling itself the Imperial Japanese Navy, won a decisive final battle at sea.

The Shogun fled from the city, dressed in monk’s robes, took refuge in the sanctuary of a Buddhist monastery in the hills to the north. He sent a messenger bearing a scroll, impressed with his official seal, signed in his elegant, fluid calligraphy, renouncing all power and pledging his allegiance to the Emperor in whose divine hands he now placed his fate. The Tokugawa era was at an end. 

There were factions calling for the Shogun to be hunted down and executed.

The French Consul, Roches, paid for his misreading of the
oracle, his faith in the Shogun; he was summoned home to Paris in some disgrace. That left Parkes in the prime position of authority and power among the western diplomats, and he used his influence with the Daimyo to dissuade him from ordering the Shogun’s disembowelment, the removal of his head.

In spite of the Daimyo’s reassurances, and Glover’s faith in Ito and the rest of the rebels, there was still widespread fear among the foreign community. One of the Shogun’s last official acts had been to convey a message to Parkes expressing his regret that he could no longer guarantee the safety of any foreign resident. Roches, on his departure, fired a parting shot, declared with Gallic insouciance that the Mikado’s armies would set fire to every foreign settlement in the land, butcher every man, woman and child who survived the conflagration.