Apart from sounds of dogs foraging, a few tomcats, the city was silent. Occasionally he could hear distant ships' bells of the fleet sounding the hours and the throaty laughter of their soldiers and he felt reassured. Those men are superb, he thought. We're safe here.
At length he got up, yawned and padded over to the window, opened it to lean on the sill.
Outside it was black, the cloud cover thick.
No shadows but he saw many Highlanders patrolling with oil lamps. Beyond the fence to one side was the vague shape of the Buddhist temple.
At sunset after the bagpipes had beat the retreat and the Union Jack ritually pulled down for the night, monks had barred their heavy gate, sounded their bell, then filled the night with their strange chanting: "Ommm mahnee padmee hummmmm..." over and over again.
Tyrer had been calmed by it, unlike many of the others who shouted catcalls, telling them rudely to shut up.
He lit a candle that was beside the bed. His fob watch showed it was 2:30. Yawning again, he rearranged the blanket, propped himself up with the rough pillow and opened his small attach`e case, his initials embossed on it--a parting gift from his mother--and took out his notebook. Covering the column of Japanese words and phrases he had written out phonetically, he muttered the English equivalents, then the next page, and the next. Then the same with the English and said aloud the Japanese. It pleased him every one was right.
"They're so few, I don't know if I'm pronouncing them correctly, I've so little time, and I haven't even begun to learn the writing," he muttered.
At Kanagawa he had asked Babcott where he could get the best teacher.
"Why not ask the padre?"' Babcott had said.
He had, yesterday. "Certainly, my boy.
But can't this week, how about next month? Care for another sherry?"' My God, can they drink here! They're sozzled most of the time and certainly by lunch. The padre's useless, and smells to high heaven. But what a stroke of luck about Andr`e Poncin!
Yesterday afternoon he had accidentally met the Frenchman in one of the Japanese village shops that serviced their needs. These lined the village main street that was behind High Street, away from the sea and adjoined Drunk Town.
All the shops appeared to be the same, selling the same kinds of local merchandise from food to fishing tackle, from cheap swords to curios. He was searching through a rack of Japanese books--the paper of very high quality, many beautifully printed and illustrated from woodblocks--trying to make himself understood to the beaming proprietor.
"Pardon, Monsieur," the stranger had said, "but you have to name the type of book you want." He was in his thirties, clean-shaven, with brown eyes and brown, wavy hair, a fine Gallic nose and well dressed. "You say: Watashi hoshii hon, Ing'erish Nihongo, dozo--I would like a book that has English and Japanese." He smiled. "Of course there aren't any though this fellow will tell you with abject sincerity, Ah so desu ka, gomen nasai, etc.--Ah so sorry I have none today but if you come back tomorrow... Of course he's not telling the truth, only telling you what he thinks you want to know, a fundamental Japanese habit. I'm afraid Japanese are not generous with the truth, even amongst themselves."
"But, Monsieur, may I ask, then how did you learn Japanese--obviously you're fluent."
The man laughed pleasantly. "You are too kind. Me, I'm not, though I try." An amused shrug. "Patience. And because some of our Holy Fathers speak it."
Philip Tyrer frowned. "I'm afraid I'm not Catholic, I'm Church of England, and, er, and an apprentice interpreter at the British Legation. My name is Phillip Tyrer and I've just arrived and a bit out of my depth."
"Ah, of course, the young Englishman of the Tokaido. Please excuse me, I should have recognized you, we were all horrified to hear about it. May I present myself, Andr`e Poncin, late of Paris, I'm a trader."
"Je suis enchant`e de vous voir," Tyrer said, speaking French easily and well though with a slight English accent--throughout the world, outside of Britain, French was the language of diplomacy, and lingua franca of most Europeans, therefore essential for a Foreign Office posting--as well as for anyone considering themselves well educated. In French he added, "Do you think the Fathers would consider teaching me, or allowing me to join their classes?"' "I don't believe any actually give classes. I could ask. Are you going with the fleet tomorrow?"' "Yes, indeed."
"So am I, with Monsieur Seratard, our Minister. You were at the Legation in Paris before here?"' "Unfortunately no, I've only been to Paris for two weeks, Monsieur, on holiday--this is my first posting."
"Oh, but your French is very good, Monsieur."
"Afraid it's not, not really," Tyrer said in English again. "I presume you are an interpreter too?"' "Oh no, just a businessman, but I try help Monsieur Seratard sometimes when his official Dutch-speaking interpreter is sick-- I speak Dutch. So you wish to learn Japanese, as quickly as possible, eh?"' Poncin went over to the rack and selected a book. "Have you seen one of these yet? It's Hiroshige's Fifty-Three Stages on the Tokaido Road. Don't forget the beginning of the book is at the end for us, their writing right to left. The pictures show the way stations all the way to Kyoto." He thumbed through them.
"Here's Kanagawa, and here Hodogaya."
The four-color woodblock prints were exquisite, better than anything Tyrer had ever seen, the detail extraordinary. "They're marvelous."
"Yes. He died four years ago, pity, because he was a marvel. Some of their artists are extraordinary, Hokusai, Masanobu, Utamaro and a dozen others."
Andr`e laughed and pulled out another book.
"Here, these are a must, a primer for Japanese humor and calligraphy as they call their writing."
Phillip Tyrer's mouth dropped open. The pornography was decorous and completely explicit, page after page, with beautifully gowned men and women, their naked parts monstrously exaggerated and drawn in majestic, hairy detail as they joined vigorously and inventively. "Oh my God!"
Poncin laughed outright. "Ah, then I have given you a new pleasure. As erotica they're unique, I have a collection I'd be glad to show you. They're called shunga-every the others ukiyo-every--pictures from the Willow World or Floating World. Have you visited one of the bordellos yet?"' "I... I, no... no I, I, er, haven't."
"Oh, in that case, may I be a guide?"' Now in the night, Tyrer remembered their conversation and how secretly embarrassed he had been. He had tried to pretend he was equally a man of the world, but at the same time kept hearing his father's grave and constant advice: "Listen, Phillip, Frenchmen are all vile and totally untrustworthy, Parisians the dregs of France and Paris without doubt the sin city of the civilized world--licentious, vulgar, and French!"
Poor Papa, he thought, he's so wrong about so many things, but then he lived in Napoleonic times and survived the bloodbath of Waterloo.
However great the victory, it must have been terrible for a ten-year-old drummer boy, no wonder he will never forgive or could forget or accept the new Era. Never mind, Papa has his life and as much as I love him, and admire him for what he did, I have to make my own way. France is almost an ally now--it's not wrong to listen and learn.
He flushed, remembering how he had hung on Andr`e's words--secretly ashamed of his avid fascination.
The Frenchman explained that here bordellos were places of great beauty, the best of them, and their courtesans, the Ladies of the Floating World, or Willow World as they were called, easily the best he had ever experienced. "There are degrees, of course, and streetwalkers in most towns. But here we have our own Pleasure Quarter, called Yoshiwara. It's over the bridge outside the fence." Again the pleasant laugh, "We call it the Bridge to Paradise. Oh yes and you should know that... oh excuse me, I interrupt your shopping."