Tokyo Bay Read online

  ‘You did not seem to be unhappy to find yourself at the mercy of a foreign barbarian in a deserted barn!’ said Tanaka sharply.

  Tokiwa stifled a sob. ‘I didn’t expect to encounter a barbarian. He came ashore secretly in the darkness . .

  Tanaka stood up suddenly, grasping the hilt of his short sword. ‘I have listened to enough of your evasions! Tell me now what happened. Did you undo your sash for him - or did he force you to do so?’

  Without looking, Tokiwa could feel that he was poised for action and she choked back her tears. ‘Neither, O Kami-san! I didn’t unfasten my sash for him. And he did not have time to force me to do so.’ She kept her eyes averted, and began to tremble for fear that he would see through her lie. ‘You arrived just in time to prevent it.’

  ‘Are you quite sure you’re telling me the truth?’ He took a step nearer, leaning angrily down towards her. ‘You seem much afraid.’

  ‘I am telling you the whole truth, O Kami-san.’ She glanced up imploringly. ‘Please believe me. I am trembling because your anger is so frightening.’

  He gazed back fiercely at her, his right hand whitening on the hilt of his sword - then slowly it relaxed. ‘Very well! You have given me your answer.’

  ‘Thank you, O Kami-san she whispered. ‘I am grateful that you have understood.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I’ve understood you fully, O Tokiwa-san he said, uncertainty still apparent in his eyes. ‘Only you can truly know the meaning of your thoughts and deeds.’

  ‘I was numb with shock when the barbarian appeared, O Kami-san she said tearfully. ‘I can see now it would have been wiser if I could have found some way to run away from him too...’

  Her shoulders shook again as she wept in relief and he stood looking at her in silence, noting the slender paleness of her neck, the swell of her breasts and the curve of her thighs outlined by the tightly drawn swathes of her kimono. As the moments passed, the gleam of anger in his eyes gave way gradually to the light of desire, and he laid aside his sword and his fan.

  ‘Let us cease this discussion for the moment, O Tokiwa-san,’ he said. ‘Your tears make your beauty impossible to resist. I bid you to unfasten your sash now - for me.’

  After a moment’s hesitation, she shrugged out of her haori and reached behind her back to undo her broad sash. Still trembling, she drew open the front of the kimono and arranged its folds so that the soft contours of her body were mistily visible beneath the pale white gauze of her undergarment. When she had settled herself again, she raised her tearstained face to look at him and found he was gazing at her with an expression of fierce longing in his eyes. Still holding her gaze, he untied his own sash and knelt on the tatami beside her.

  ‘You may undress me now, O Tokiwa-san he commanded in a whisper, letting his own kimono fall open. ‘And make yourself naked quickly, too!’

  Tokiwa brushed tears from her cheek with the back of her hand and moved obediently towards him. She reached out to take hold of his outer jacket, then paused.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked impatiently. ‘Did you not hear what I said?’

  Tokiwa lowered her eyes again. ‘I heard you, O Kami-san, and it is my pleasure and my duty to obey

  - but you haven’t informed me yet why we’ve broken our journey at this place. I still feel uneasy in my heart, and I would like you to explain.’

  ‘This castle belongs to a nobleman friendly to my clan,’ said Tanaka quickly. ‘You are quite safe here and you may remain in this pavilion as long as you wish. You will be well cared for by experienced maids, and you won’t be disturbed by any guards.’

  ‘But I believed we were returning to Yedo!’

  ‘A messenger has recently brought news from Yedo. It’s not yet safe to return to the capital because the foreign barbarians have threatened to land an armed force and to march on Yedo castle.’

  ‘So the city and all its people are still in danger?

  He nodded quickly. ‘Yes - and disputes are still raging about how we should best defend ourselves.

  There’s more bitterness than ever between the group who want to attack the black ships immediately, and those of us who want time to build up our strength.’

  ‘Then how long must I stay here?’ asked Tokiwa anxiously.

  ‘Until this crisis has passed. It’s impossible to say more.’

  ‘If I must stay, O Kami-san, may I ask you a favour?’

  “What is it?’

  ‘That Eiko, the maid from the yadoya, be brought here as my personal servant. I fear she might be maltreated for trying to help me. I know she would feel happier here with me.’

  Tanaka considered the request for a moment. ‘She has not been maltreated. But I will fetch her if it will comfort you.’

  She bowed her head formally then raised her eyes to his once more, an expression of surprise spreading across her face. ‘Am I also being kept here, O Kami-san, because I know about the presence of the foreign barbarian?’

  Tanaka sat up straighter on the matting, a flicker of unease in his expression betraying the fact that he was taken aback by her question.

  ‘What I’ve already told you is the truth, O Tokiwa-san he said quietly. ‘There is danger for you in Yedo.’

  ‘But it would be dangerous also for you - if your enemies knew about the foreign barbarian. Wouldn’t they condemn you for allowing a foreign spy to go free?’

  ‘We should not discuss the subject further,’ snapped Tanaka. ‘There might have been some danger, if the foreign barbarian had not returned to his ship. But it is my wish that you should never speak of this to anyone. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, O Kami-san she said meekly. ‘It’s quite clear.’

  They looked at each other in silence for a moment.

  ‘I have already given you permission to disrobe me,’ he said in an urgent undertone. ‘I do not wish to wait any longer.’

  After lowering her head in a formal bow she reached out with both hands to slip the stiff, half- jacket from his shoulders. She felt his body tense as she took hold of the front edges of the yellow silk kimono and drew it apart, baring his chest. But before removing it altogether, she paused and looked enquiringly at him.

  ‘And what will happen, O Kami-san, when this crisis is over? You know well our liaison is already a subject of widespread gossip in Yedo. Will I expect you to continue visiting meat the Golden Pavilion?’

  With an exclamation of impatience he gripped both her hands with his own. Guiding them roughly, he forced her to remove the yellow kimono from his upper body and draw it aside from his thighs. Letting go of her hands he unfastened her filmy white under kimono, flung it from her shoulders, and gazed hungrily at her nakedness.

  ‘It is right that you should be famed far and wide for such rare beauty;’ he said in a voice that was heavy with desire. ‘Even before the black ships of the foreign barbarians appeared, I had decided I no longer wanted to make the long journey to Yedo every time I wished to see you...’

  He reached out suddenly to caress her, running his hands roughly along her limbs and down the front of her body. She closed her eyes and submitted passively to these clumsy attentions, but did not respond in any other way.

  ‘But the barbarian black ships have arrived now; she whispered. ‘Has that changed your wish?’

  His breathing had become uneven and suddenly he took hold of her shoulders and bore her backwards onto the tatami. Crouching over her, he parted her legs and manoeuvred himself without ceremony between her splayed thighs. Looking down at her, his expression became intense and he paused, savouring the moment.

  ‘This is not the time to talk of the future, O Tokiwa-san!’ Drawing a long, deep breath, he shifted his position slightly. ‘In truth this is not the time to talk at all!’

  Acting with unexpected suddenness, he lunged downward and entered her. She winced and let out a whimper of pain, but he took no notice. Aroused further by her involuntary cries, he forced himself deeper, covering her body heavily with his own.
She moaned in protest once more and closed her eyes, but he continued to move against her with growing force, giving no sign that he had heard.

  ‘Forgive me, O Kami-san, for intruding. I must see you very urgently!’

  The guttural male voice calling agitatedly from outside the closed shoji at the rear of the pavilion was accompanied by an urgent knocking on the wooden lattice work. Finding no immediate response, the knocking resumed after a pause, and the voice called out again more loudly.

  ‘Forgive this interruption, O Kami-san! But I must speak to you at once.’

  On recognizing the voice of Gotaro, Tanaka ceased his movements abruptly. After taking a moment to control his breathing he turned his head and spoke angrily in the direction of the shoji. ‘Your message can wait! Return in a little while!’

  He glanced at Tokiwa, to find her staring up at him with an alarmed expression in her eyes. The sight of her lying submissive and helpless beneath him provoked a new rush of desire, and he began to move urgently against her once more.

  ‘My message, O Kami-san, should not wait called the samurai uneasily. ‘You would never pardon me if I delayed this news.’

  ‘Enter, then!’ roared Tanaka impatiently. ‘And be quick!’

  The shoji opened and closed quietly and Gotaro entered. His cloak and armour were stained with dust and mud from a long ride and he bowed low as he stepped into the room. But when he raised his head and saw the naked figures of Tanaka and the geisha, he stopped in mid-stride, at a loss for words.

  ‘What is your message?’ demanded Tanaka, without turning or slowing his movements. ‘Speak out quickly!’

  ‘I beg your understanding again, O Kami-san said Gotaro in a disconcerted voice. ‘I would not normally wish to approach you at such a time...’

  ‘Speak on, while I continue to ride my horse: snapped Tanaka over his shoulder. ‘And be brief!’

  ‘My message concerns the foreign barbarian, O Kami-san!’

  Tanaka suddenly became still and lifted his head to listen. ‘What of the foreign barbarian? What news do you bring me?’

  ‘He has failed to return to his ship as ordered. I followed him as you instructed, but he concealed his tracks in the darkness. ..‘

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He hid somewhere - then changed his direction completely. .

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘I don’t know, O Kami-san. I gave chase for many ri, but in the end I lost his trail.’

  ‘In which region did you lose him?’

  ‘Almost from the start he headed towards the north - away from the black ships. He rode on for many miles and seemed always to be going in the general direction of Fuji-san - that is all that I can say:

  ‘Towards Fuji-san?’ demanded Tanaka, his tone surprised and angry ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, O Kami-san, I’m quite sure. Always towards Fuji-san.’

  Tanaka forced himself downward again more sharply, expressing anger and annoyance with each repeated movement of his body. Tokiwa, who had flung up one arm to hide her face as soon as the samurai entered, cried out repeatedly, but her cries again served only to heighten the ferocity of Tanaka’s passion.

  ‘Assemble twenty of my best warriors. . .‘ he grunted over his shoulder. ‘And saddle fresh horses . . . If the foreign barbarian falls into the hands of my enemies, they will use him as an excuse to start a war. We must recapture him ourselves. Go now!’

  ‘Yes, O Kami-san.’ Gotaro bowed very low, relieved to be dismissed from the pavilion. ‘I’ll see to that at once.’

  When the guard had closed the screens behind him, Tanaka shifted Tokiwa’s arm from her face and looked down at her. Fearing he was about to demand an answer to some new question, she gazed apprehensively back at him, wincing with each new thrust of his body. But, to her surprise, he remained silent and holding her gaze, he began to bear down on her anew with even greater force. His movements quickened, becoming ever more frantic, and he closed his eyes suddenly and opened his throat to emit a long guttural shout that was a mixture of anger and desire. He did not look at her again and as his passion mounted swiftly towards its climax, he ignored all her pained cries and gave himself up entirely to the gratification of his own senses.

  PART III

  The Black Ships Close In

  10-12 July 1853

  Japan’s characteristic determination to resist foreign intrusion at all costs, which was demonstrated so forcefully in the summer of 1853, had been greatly strengthened by one momentous experience in its history. Under their shogun of the time, the Japanese fought ferociously to repel several attacks by the Mongol hordes of Kublai Khan, who swept through China and all Asia towards the end of the thirteenth century. When an overwhelming sea-borne force of one hundred and forty thousand Mongols was finally sent to Japan’s shores in 1281, to put down the resistance once and for all, everything seemed lost; but a kamikaze, a so- called ‘divine wind’, blew up and wrecked the Mongol fleet at the last moment, drowning more than half of the invading troops. This seemingly miraculous deliverance from all powerful enemies reaffirmed the belief of the Japanese in their own supposedly divine origins, and helped mould their national character in a manner which endures into the present.

  They were also further strengthened as a nation when the most ruthless and successful of all the shoguns, Tokugawa Iyeyasu, unified the whole country under his uncompromising rule at the beginning of the seventeenth century. This military dynasty, although acknowledging the Emperor’s spiritual supremacy, remained all-powerful for the next two hundred and fifty years, and its first scion imposed those draconian laws which successfully wiped out Christianity and closed Japan off from the outside world until the mid- nineteenth century. Other ruthless edicts issued at that time compelled all the daimyo, the feudal lords, to spend one year in two at the political capital, Yedo; they also had to leave their wives and families in the city as hostages whenever they returned to their provincial estates, to ensure they did not plot rebellion. It was under this tyrannical and oppressive regime that Japan turned inward on itself for so long. No major wars disturbed the Tokugawa peace for more than two centuries - but it was while slumbering in this unnatural isolation that Japan fell seriously out of step with the march of history in the rest of the world, and so became vulnerable to the might of the steam-driven American warships when they arrived.

  That it was men from the United States of America who came across the Pacific to batter down Japan s closed gates at long last was something of an historical irony, because some early drifts of emigration had possibly moved in the opposite direction. There is evidence to support an argument that at least some of the aboriginal tribes of Indians who first populated North America may have originated in the islands of Japan. A great equatorial ocean current, the Kuro Shiwo or Black Stream of Japan, flows by the Japanese islands and onward in a great semicircle past the Aleutian Islands and Alaska, to Oregon and California. For thousands of years countless junks and fishing craft from east Asian shores had been sucked into the Kuro Shiwo by easterly typhoons and whirled across the northern Pai4fic to wreck themselves on the western shores of America. Facial resemblances between some Japanese and certain North American Indian tribes strongly suggest that prehistoric emigration might have followed this natural ocean track. The two ancient peoples also appear to have shared similar religions, customs and superstitions and both have notably been worshippers of the sun and the forces of nature. Some identical words can be found in the Indian and Japanese languages, and myths surrounding such animals as the fox are also shared. Certain Indian totems, crests and methods of picture writing were also strikingly reminiscent of early Japanese forms but, whether or not this sea-route forged a direct link between the original peoples of Japan and America, both almost certainly had ancestors in common among the Mongols of northern Asia and therefore were of a similar bloodline.

  But the powerful American naval force which sailed in the opposite direction from the United States to Ja
pan in 1853 represented those who were then in the last stages of subjugating and dispossessing the North American Indians on their home territory. If the Japanese watching the US Navy squadron so apprehensively from their island fortifications had been aware of such obscure historical crosscurrents, they might have been strengthened further in their resolve to resist encroachment by powerful, foreign, white men just as their distant cousins had done so valiantly in the great open spaces of North America. Because Japan was a chain of mountainous islands buttressed by the cultural and national unity of its people, it was a more compact bastion to defend - but awakening suddenly to the realities of foreign military and industrial superiority was to be traumatic and turbulent for them too, although in a different way. To the most astute among the Japanese, this danger had already become very clear as the ominous squadron of smoking warships continued to ride threateningly at anchor in the Bay of Yedo for the third successive day.

  26

  THE BIG CAPSTAN on the upper deck of the Susquehanna was draped with the red, white and blue United States flag. Lying open on this canopy of stars and stripes was the oversized ship’s Bible, leather- bound and gilded at its edges. Under the misty white haze of Sunday morning which cloaked Yedo Bay, the colours of the American flag seemed to glow with an added vibrancy in the eyes of the three hundred seamen and marines drawn up in orderly ranks below the flagship’s quarterdeck for a formal service of Christian worship.

  The silver and brass instruments of the squadron’s band glowed dully too in the filtered light of the morning sun, as the bandsmen launched into the stirring strains of a hymn. Above the assembled crew and blue-jacketed marine units on the quarterdeck, the squadron’s officers led by the towering figure of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry were arrayed for the occasion in the splendour of their gold- splashed fill-dress uniforms. Staring haughtily ahead, and ignoring the visible Japanese fighting units that were being marshalled and deployed in ever-growing numbers on the cliffs and beaches around Uraga, the commodore added his own deep baritone to the lusty rendering of the hymn. The solemn Christian chant rolled sonorously across the calm waters of the bay, blotting out momentarily the agitated tolling of temple bells and war gongs. Even the sudden boom of a distant shore cannon echoing among the hills did not disturb the flow of the shipboard service, and the three hundred and more voices sang on unperturbed.