31.
An Earlier Walker than His Uncle

THOUGH THE OTHERS were pleased, even somewhat giddy, with how things had turned out, Einosuke was not so quick to forgive his brother. He skipped his fathers meeting on the subject entirely—an unprecedented act of protest in itself—and the following morning, the third after Ned Clark’s wounding, went out to his garden early again, with Masako this time, who ran from the castle to help him when she saw him getting his rakes. She stepped on top of Keiko’s cordon, rubbing it into the ground with both her feet. She had faith that she could end her father’s grouchiness better than anyone else.

“I think we will need a wall,” she told her father, “to give our new garden the necessary privacy. Then we can come inside of it and be as gloomy as we want and no one will even notice. We can pout and rage in here, then rake everything nicely again before we come out. How would that be, Father?”

It was raining again and a group of laborers from the pebble village were slumped nearby, using their empty A-frames for umbrellas. Einosuke gave his younger daughter a grim-faced smile, but went on with his work, would not be drawn in by her teasing, so Masako gave up, and did what she liked best to do anyway. She sat down next to the laborers to ask if they had seen any three-legged frogs. She loved talking to anyone about nature’s aberrations, and workers were more observant than lords.

ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, when his garden site was leveled, the problems of drainage corrected, and Einosuke was instructing the laborers concerning the last remaining unpebbled corner, Lord Okubo, Manjiro, Kyuzo, Ichiro, and the wounded American minstrel all came riding around the side of the castle, heading for a village of artisans, to the shop of someone named Denzaimon, a well-known prosthetics maker. It was Lord Okubo’s idea, announced at the meeting Einosuke hadn’t attended, that when Ned was finally returned to his ship, there should be some small evidence, at least, that they had done what they could to repair the irreparable damage. The village was only a thirty-minute trip up the lowest mountain road, but the American was ensconced in a palanquin, while the others surrounded it on horseback. Tsune and Keiko were going, too, in open sedan chairs, so the whole event might double as a family outing, a reunion of sorts. They were dressed demurely with their heads covered and holding fans below their eyes, the two beautiful women, and looked across the courtyard at their solitary brother-in-law and father. The other American would stay at the castle, so that if there was trouble on the road, one of them, at least, would not be put in the way of Ueno’s sword.

Einosuke, tired and sweating among the laborers, leaned on his rake in order to watch them pass. The evening before he had had a short conversation with his father, in which Lord Okubo had repeated what he’d told the others at the meeting, that he was moved to pity by the thought of a man, even an unknowable foreigner, having to live his life without a nose. He thanked Einosuke for his long years of service in Edo, told him he understood the nature of his work in the garden, and also that he was satisfied with Einosuke’s preparation, the much harder work he had done, to get ready to succeed him as the fiefdom’s lord. They would both, he let it be known, find a way of properly admonishing Manjiro once the Americans were actually back on their ships and the trouble was truly over. Manjiro’s engagement to Tsune, it now appeared, would be announced soon, also, in a letter from Lord Tokugawa.

At just about the time that Fumiko, herself struggling under all these family upheavals but also under the secret weight she bore, came from the castle with tea for Einosuke and Masako, the gate opened and the party moved out. Manjiro, however, sorely sorry for Einosuke’s continued distance from him, waited until everyone else was gone and then dismounted and walked toward his brother. Einosuke knew that he could not stay angry forever, that some kind of mending was in order—that, of course, had been the point his father was trying to make last night—but he couldn’t keep the pain he felt from showing in his eyes. Manjiro had survived this incredible folly of his, as always, through the good auspices of others and through pure dumb luck. And so when Manjiro said good morning he barely nodded.

“We wont be gone long,” Manjiro said. “Father thinks if we try to fix the unfixable, the mendable things will take care of themselves.”

He looked at his brother keenly, hoping for some sign.

“I am told more rain will come by midday,” Einosuke said.

Fumiko had brought only two teacups, and as she filled one for each of the brothers she was reminded of the political arguments they had had before their father came to Edo, how easy that all seemed now, and how long ago. She touched her husbands sleeve so that he might try, at least, not to start another argument now.

“I’ve made such grave mistakes,” Manjiro said. “I know I have been thoughtless, Einosuke, that I am an unworthy brother and son. I hope you can believe that I will be more serious as a married man.”

He disliked having to say such words with Tsune, quite miraculously, at the center of them. Einosuke, however, seemed to accept the words for what they were, and replied with this small offering. “You have been wrong, but unworthiness is not in your character. And I wish upon you a marriage that will do for you what mine has done for me.”

“A more cautious approach from here on out,” said Manjiro. “I know that is the lesson you have been trying to teach me since I was a boy.”

But Einosuke waved further conversation away. That Manjiro would never learn what he had been trying to teach him was the lesson Einosuke, himself, had learned too well. “Others can see the honor in what you did,” he said. “To others you have become like Kambei. I am not unhappy to see that our father is among them.”

“I hold your good opinion above those of others,” Manjiro answered, “even Father’s.”

But then he strode off toward the open gate, and got back on his horse, fearing he had said too much.

BECAUSE THE OTHERS were gone and the great weight of the family’s shame had been so suddenly and unexpectedly lifted, Fumiko meant to work beside her husband for the rest of the day, as she had often done in Edo. By doing so she expected to reinvest herself as a dutiful and single-minded wife. What was a dream, after all, but the random wanderings of an undisciplined mind? And what dreamer, when she awoke, did anything but get on with her ordinary life? A child might be forgiven her desire for romantic love, but not a mother of three, some eighteen years after her miai, her arranged and successful marriage.

But Einosuke, his mood somewhat better but still not entirely assuaged by what Manjiro had said, told Fumiko that he didn’t want her working with him, that they couldn’t act so expansively in Odawara, and that she should return to the castle where she belonged. At first she was hurt and intended to go to her room to sulk—how dare he continue to pout so obstinately when the need for it was gone?—but soon she realized that it was that kind of reaction that exhausted her more than anything else. So she decided that she would forget her selfish husband and called out for O-bata instead. And by noon the entire castle staff was flinging wide the doors to unused rooms, cleaning everywhere, futon sticking out of the windows like dozens of severed tongues. It was good to be busy, to hear the slap of sticks against those futon, and to see dust rising in the rainy morning like the sighs of relief they had all, save Einosuke, expelled the night before. The guards at the gate felt it, and so did Masako, whom her father had finally chased away, too, and so did Ace Bledsoe, who was wandering the castle’s lower floor and grounds, wondering what the day might bring him, and longing for someone to talk to.

As the hours passed Einosuke sped up his work to conform to the sounds of the work from the castle, and made such good progress with his final raking that he decided to place just one large boulder in the garden, as his own symbol of better times to come. The one he chose wasn’t nearly the largest boulder, but was important to the garden’s strict asymmetry, and he wanted to be able to see it there, providing stability, when he brought Fumiko out that evening to show her.

When he called the workers and went to retrieve the boulder from its place at the forest’s edge, however, he was surprised to find that a fissure had appeared, thick as the line of a closed eye, over most of its near side. At the beach there were more like this one, others that conformed to the necessary look and size, but he had been sure of his decision and had brought home only one. Now what would he do? He couldn’t have a broken boulder outside the castle of a slowly repairing family, so he called his workers, deciding to go to the beach for a replacement while there was still sufficient light. If he didn’t go now he would have to go in the morning, when everyone was back from the prosthetist’s village.

“Quickly then,” he told the workers. “If we hurry we can be back in an hour.”

While the workers, trying not to grumble, moved off to get their nets and poles, Einosuke went to the castle’s side door and called for Fumiko. He didn’t want to enter the castle because of his filthy clothes, but though he called repeatedly, his wife didn’t answer. As he turned to look elsewhere for her, however, he found both Fumiko and Masako standing nearby and broadly smiling, Junichiro between them, his stubby legs firmly planted on the ground. And a few feet beyond them stood the remaining American, unseen by the women and shyly watching.

When the baby saw his father he pulled his arms from the grasps of both his sister and mother, staggered forward, then turned and staggered back. He took a step in one direction, a step in another, stopped to gain his balance, then took two more. There had been evidence that he might soon stand by himself when Einosuke and Fumiko played with him at night, but little hint of early walking, and Einosuke knelt, delighted when his son plunged into his open arms.

“What’s this?” he laughed, his heart finally freed from the last of the recent trouble. “What power are we unleashing on this poor country of ours?”

“He did it inside, too,” Masako cried, “but not nearly so well.”

In truth she had been irritated earlier, at not having been allowed to go with Keiko to get the foreigner’s new nose, but oh how happy she was now. Think what she would have to goad Keiko with when the party returned that night. Junichiro walking! What better sign could there be that they were about to reenter normal life?

“He really is precocious,” Fumiko said. “We’re going to ask his grandpa if he took his first steps earlier than his rather or his Uncle Manjiro.”

When she turned to point at the gate through which that grandpa had gone, she saw Ace Bledsoe standing there, smiling at the universal treat of having been allowed to see a baby’s first walking. Masako bowed to him, and Einosuke did, too, then pulled Junichiro up against his dirty chest.

“He’s an earlier walker than his uncle,” he told his wife. “I can tell you that right now. I remember Manjiro’s first steps better than Father, for he, too, walked into my arms.”

It was as precious a memory to him as watching his son’s steps just now, and a few wayward tears washed the dirt from his eyes. Fumiko, however, stood looking at the American. He was not fearsome as he’d been at the treaty-signing ceremony, nor was he particularly handsome, if you stayed away from his eyes. He was just a man, younger than she was, probably, who might very well have a wife and children of his own waiting for him. Oh, she had been so foolish! Of course the way to disarm this anxiety—no, she must not be coy—the way to disarm this attraction was to face the man squarely, talk to him in some personal way, and by so doing take away his strangeness, take away his draw. And that, she decided, was what she would do, as soon as the chance presented itself.

Einosuke let the squirming Junichiro fall back into the waiting arms of Masako. He smiled at his wife and said that though he was going to the beach for another boulder, he would be quick about it, and when he returned they would spend the evening together, just the four of them, eating and talking and finally celebrating the fact that, though it had seemed impossible only a day ago, things would now be fine. He thought that perhaps they might even include the American, though he kept that part to himself. Until he got back, until he decided if he was capable of such a thing.

The laborers had assembled at the gate but Einosuke decided that instead of walking with them he would take a horse to the beach. That way he could choose his boulder and be ready when they arrived, and return to those he loved. Lord Okubo’s fiefdom was cash poor but rich in horses, so though many of them had been taken that morning, Einosuke was still able to select a good one. He had often argued with his father in favor of selling most of the horses, in order to pay their bills, but as he rode under the castle gate now he was glad he had lost the argument. To be poor in Edo and rich in Odawara, it seemed, would continue to be the state of things for a while.

By this late hour most of the vendors who set up shop in front of the castle each morning were gone. But as always there were ronin standing idly by, talking and getting ready for another cold night. As Einosuke passed them he made the horse go faster, until he had passed his laborers, too—men who did not look forward to the work that was in store for them, and seemed to be trudging along.