12.
A Fly in the Ointment

BUT NO MATTER WHAT his mood about her marital status, Lord Tokugawa always received Tsune when she came to visit, and when he heard she was waiting now, he got up from his futon where he’d been pondering Lord Abe’s minstrel invitation, and dressed in a casual gown.

On his way out of his rooms he stopped to get Keiki, his son. It had earlier been Tsune’s father’s hope, and the primary reason why he had not pressed her into some other obligation, that she might one day marry Keiki, but aside from the fact that she was far too old for him, Lord Tokugawa was against the match. Though he loved Tsune like a daughter, he wanted to marry Keiki into one of Japan’s “hereditary” families, actually have him adopted into one of them, so that Keiki might someday be Shogun. That, no matter what the political issues of the day, was what Lord Tokugawa constantly worked toward.

Tsune had just got up from her bench and gone back to join Manjiro—Kyuzo had left some moments before—when Keiki came around the corner to say that his father awaited them in his study. Keiki’s hair was mussed, his kimono askew—Tsune was like a sister to him, so he didn’t feel the need to better his appearance—but when he saw Manjiro and heard her say his name, he gave a hearty laugh and tried to straighten his clothes.

“How splendid to meet the newly famous man!” he said. “Come in, come in, tell me the latest! What’s the news? What goes on? What do they really look like, these foreigners?”

Keiki was overweight and energetic and had a ready smile. His exuberance reminded Manjiro of the American Commodore.

“Nothing but sun in the morning, rain in the afternoon,” Keiki continued, “and if more cold is on its way it’s sure to make the cherry blossoms late this year. I’ve been hearing recently that there are parts of the world where summer comes in winter or doesn’t come at all! Do you suppose that’s possible, Manjiro-san? I know we’ve only just met but if you find the opportunity, ask one of the Americans. Try to get the names of the places that are constantly warm.”

The hallway they were walking down was opposite the one Tsune had recently sat in, and was in grave disorder, as if no maid had yet cleaned it from the night before. But its floors “chirped” under their feet again, just like the famous ones in Kyoto. Keiki, who was in bare feet, did his best to make the floors sing louder as they progressed toward Lord Tokugawa, and when they entered the study he said, “Ah, father, we really must rediscipline ourselves. We are rising later every day we are in Edo. Both of us need to try harder, you know.”

But while Keiki seemed to have risen from his futon as a beaming sun rises in the sky, all Lord Tokugawa could manage was a nod and a groan. His intelligence was a good deal sharper than his son’s, but he couldn’t easily find it so early in the day.

Manjiro, nervous and solemn, bowed when Tsune introduced him, pulling the sheet of paper from his sleeve even before he sat down. To meet this great lord in such a private way was as fine an honor as being among the first to visit the American fleet, but the lord seemed only peeved, his eyes still half closed. Manjiro had no idea of the exact time, but he knew that in his life he had never slept so late. This, plus that old warrior Kyuzo’s strange attitude toward him, made him try to remember what he was doing there in the first place. His own father, though he admired Lord Tokugawa, had always been firmly pledged to the Shogun, and thus to the Great Council and Lord Abe. What had made Manjiro forget it for a while was the shock of reading the horrible paragraphs with Tsune.

He was on the point of picking up his paper again and making his apologies, when Lord Tokugawa spoke for the first time. “What’s that?” he asked. “What do you have there, young man?”

“That is the reason we are troubling you like this at the crack of dawn,” said Tsune, her buoyancy regained. “That is the fly in the ointment, the chink in someone’s armor that you have searched for for so long.”

“It doesn’t look like a chink,” said Keiki, but his humor was ill timed.

“Don’t speak in riddles. Give it here,” said Lord Tokugawa.

Manjiro wanted to take a moment to explain, but all he could do was push the paper across the table. Lord Tokugawa read it and handed it to Keiki. “It’s Lord Abe’s handwriting,” he said. “After all these years of sparring with the man I know that much, but what has he written? Is it a novel? I hope not, I don’t like it when politicians are of two minds.”

Lord Tokugawa was looking at Manjiro, but this was Tsune’s domain, and Manjiro was grateful when she spoke, telling the story of what had happened in the Barbarian Book Room, yet careful not to violate her promise to Einosuke.

“I don’t trust it very much,” said Keiki. “Was Lord Abe really this careless? Are you saying that he went to the trouble of copying a page from a banned book and then left it there for you to find?”

It had at first seemed unlikely to Manjiro, too, but upon reading the paper he had noticed that the brushstrokes on some of the characters were sloppy, one or two of them entirely wrong.

“I think this was a kind of draft,” he said. “I think he’s in possession of another copy, one with more perfection in the writing.”

Lord Tokugawa got to his knees, looming over them. “It is late in the game since the treaty is already signed, but do you think Lord Abe intends to try to use this piece of thinking against the Americans in some way? Do you think that’s what was behind his stupid invitation, what he was trying to tell your father and me in the treaty house the other night?”

Manjiro was perplexed. He didn’t think anything, and he hadn’t the slightest notion what Lord Abe’s intentions might be. But while he was wondering how best to answer, Keiki posed a question of his own.

“In the old days if some lord were carrying out a plan against another, if the two lords were, let’s say, on the brink of war, what would the second lord’s reaction be if the first one were to capture a few of his musicians and refuse to let them go?”

Manjiro could not see how Keiki’s question related to the paper, but he was glad to have an easy one to answer. Not only in the old days, but in these current days as well, it would be unlikely that the second lord would care. Musicians were expendable, and so, for that matter, were samurai warriors. Lord Tokugawa, however, seemed to see more relevance in his son’s question than did Manjiro.

“Lord Abe’s no fool,” he said. “Someone read it aloud. Let’s try to better understand what we have here.”

Keiki was a good reader and was pleased to show off. He took the paper and sat up straight, trying to make the words sound ominous.

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them…

When he finished, his listeners were no closer to understanding the thing than they had been previously, no closer to seeing how Lord Abe might use it to his advantage.

“It’s intriguing,” Lord Tokugawa finally said, “and it’s quite like Lord Abe to find his poison in the medicine chest of his enemy. Someone say, in plainer words, the meaning of these paragraphs.”

“One must appear to be acting in the common good while using whatever means necessary to achieve one’s goal,” Tsune said, but Lord Tokugawa ignored her. He had fixed his eyes on Manjiro, asking, “Where do you find the crux of the matter, young man?”

Manjiro didn’t want to comment again, since he was remembering his father’s loyalty to Lord Abe more clearly with every passing second, but he found himself answering anyway. “I think Lord Abe has not so much devised a plan as a frame of mind,” he said. “Previous to reading the book from which these paragraphs came, I think he felt that however loath he was to perform them, his dealings with the Americans had to be honorable. Now maybe he has changed his mind.”

Tsune and Keiki sat in silence but Lord Tokugawa was engaged. “Do you think he means harm to the musicians he so brashly decided to invite ashore?”

He was looking at Keiki, but all his son could do was shrug. “Maybe Lord Abe has not yet decided how to act and has invited them so that, when he finally does decide, he’ll have someone to act upon.”

But Lord Tokugawa rapped his knuckles on the tabletop. “Come, Keiki, this is Lord Abe we are discussing, not some Confucian scholar! He’s less philosophically minded than anyone I know.”

That sounded right to Manjiro, too, not only because Lord Tokugawa said so, but because Lord Abe’s methods had proven it. Lord Abe was a strong leader precisely because of his predictability, precisely because the other lords knew he was someone who wasn’t frivolous, someone they could count on.

All three men felt relieved, glad to properly pigeonhole Lord Abe again, until Tsune said, “If that’s the case then why didn’t he ask for the Great Council’s approval?”

Lord Tokugawa looked at her meanly but she went on. “I am suggesting only that because you do not know what he is up to, rather than guess at it, you should meet with Lord Abe and ask him. After all, our two most powerful lords aren’t enemies but allies who speak together often.”

“But how am I to know he’s up to anything but the desire to hear these minstrels sing?” asked Lord Tokugawa. “Am I to say that it is because you two have brought me this copied page?”

Manjiro and Tsune would have urged against that, but this time it was Keiki who spoke. “Yes, father, just so, only tell him it was delivered to you in confidence. And tell him you knew it was his because his calligraphy is among the finest in the land.”

Keiki was cheerful again, insisting it was the best course of action because, while it included only true statements, it would at the same time force Lord Abe either to lie or to tell Lord Tokugawa of his plan.

“Ah, yes,” said Tsune, touching Manjiro’s fingers under the table, “don’t you agree Manjiro-san? Doesn’t Keiki’s idea have the simple elegance of which you and I have so long been fond?”

She smiled, but could not help wishing for such simplicity in love.