Autumn Bridge (9 page)

She returned Genji’s smile with one of her own. His smile was as carefree as it had always been, and he still looked like a noble youth with no concern beyond the location of the evening’s entertainment. It was an appearance that had deceived his enemies into taking him lightly, and that mistake had cost many of them their lives. Bloodshed seemed to occur with disturbing frequency around Genji, which was another factor that had convinced Emily that the time to leave Japan had come.

She had not yet told him of the offers of marriage she had received, nor had she given any indication of her decision to leave. She feared that if she told him prematurely, he would say or do something that would cause her fragile resolve to crumble. Love was compelling her to leave, but it could just as easily prevent her doing so. She was safe so long as Genji did not return her feelings. Life was painful, but it was pain she could bear. At least she was with him.

Then the roses began to appear. What could it mean other than that Genji was beginning to develop feelings for her, the same kind of feelings she had long had for him? Her own fate did not concern her. She was willing to commit any sin, endure any condemnation, to truly be with him, so long as her presence helped him on the path toward Christian righteousness. What she most fervently did not want was to be an instrument of his injury. If she gave in to her feelings, it would cause no end of troubles for Genji, both among his own people and among Westerners, who would be revolted by the idea of an Oriental, lord or no lord, with a white wife. It would do great damage to Genji’s efforts to bring Japan into the family of civilized nations. Yet she could brush all that aside as well, if she could be certain they were part of the price paid for the salvation of his immortal soul. That was her dilemma. Would having her help save him, or push him another step toward his eternal damnation?

“I see your secret admirer has brought you his daily rose,” Genji said.

“He is certainly very stealthy,” Emily said. “No one has ever seen him, nor has he ever left the slightest hint of who he might be.” She knew she should stop there, but she could not, and added, “It’s certainly not very chivalrous of him.”

“It was my understanding that such anonymous tokens of affection were considered quite proper in the West. Am I mistaken?”

“A certain period of anonymity, perhaps. Six months somewhat pushes the matter from flattering to disturbing.”

“How so?”

“One begins to wonder why it has gone on so long with no indication of identity. Might there be, perhaps, a motivation that is not entirely healthy?”

“Perhaps, for good reasons, your admirer cannot openly declare himself,” Genji said. “Perhaps admiring you, with no possibility of anything more, is the most he can hope for.”

Before she could stop herself, she said, “If so, that is cowardly behavior.”

Genji smiled. “An excess of courage, in the wrong circumstances, in the wrong place, and at the wrong time, can have far worse consequences than cowardice.”

“That sounds like something quite opposite from what most samurai would say,” she said, then added with emphasis, “Lord Genji.”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it? Perhaps I will have to give up my two swords and my topknot.”

“But not today,” she said.

“No, not today.”

She stood and made a show of examining the sky. If she pushed him into an open declaration, any declaration, her path would be so much clearer. Was her love causing her to misinterpret what was no more than friendly regard from him? If so, the romantic crisis was imaginary, and hers alone.

Emily said, “It may rain. Shall we dine indoors?”

“As you wish.”

She had prepared a variation on cucumber sandwiches, which she had recently sampled for the first time at the British embassy. She found the combination of vegetable slices, covered with a sauce of her own made of whipped egg yolks and cream, particularly refreshing in the humidity of the early Edo autumn. Genji was unusually quiet throughout the meal, which meant either that he was doing his best not to gag on food he found repulsive, or he was still thinking about the anonymous rose. To err on the side of caution, she decided to remove cucumber sandwiches from future menus.

So far, her efforts to broaden his diet to include more Western foods was a complete failure. Admittedly, she had not been any more successful in adapting herself to Japanese cuisine. So much of it involved bizarre sea creatures, many times in uncooked form sliced right from the living animal. The mere thought of it tainted the flavor of the cucumber in her mouth. She had to fight a wave of nausea in order to swallow, and quickly chased it with tea.

“Is something wrong?” Genji asked.

“Not at all,” Emily said, putting down her sandwich. “I’m just not very hungry today.”

“Neither am I,” he said, clearly relieved to follow her lead.

They were both silent then for some time. She tried to imagine what he might be thinking. Perhaps he was doing the same with her. It was an amusing conceit, and no doubt entirely imaginary. There was no profit in such fantasizing. She turned her attention to another subject, one possibly more amenable to inquiry.

Emily said, “I have a question about the
Suzume-no-kumo
scrolls. A matter of curiosity rather than an issue relating to translation. Are the supposed visions of the future always conveyed in dreams?”

“You have read several hundred years’ worth of predictions, many of which have come to pass, and you can still refer to them as ‘supposed’?”

“As I have said many times, only the prophets of the Old Testament—”

“—were able to see the future,” Genji said, finishing her statement for her. “Yes, you have indeed said so many times. I can’t understand how you reconcile that belief with what you have read in the scrolls.”

“If you prefer not to answer my question, just say so,” Emily said, rather more petulantly than she had intended.

“Why would I have such a preference? The answer is yes. Every glimpse of the future has come in a dream.”

“Never brought by an unexpected visitor?”

“A visitor?” This might have been the first time Emily had seen Genji looking baffled.

“Yes,” she said. “Perhaps a messenger.”

“What messenger would know anything about the future?”

“Well, he wouldn’t, of course. But an otherwise mundane report might somehow be interpreted in a special way by the visionary.”

“I have read the entirety of
Suzume-no-kumo
several times,” Genji said, “and no messenger is ever mentioned.”

“You’re right, I’m sure,” Emily said. “I’ll double-check with the dictionary again.”

Rapid footsteps approached their doorway. That was always a sign of trouble.

Genji’s chief bodyguard, Hidé, appeared and bowed. “Lord, there has been another attack on outsiders. Englishmen.”

“Fatalities?”

“Not among the outsiders. They were armed with revolvers. Five Yoshino samurai were killed. Nevertheless, the English ambassador has lodged a formal protest with both the Shogun and the Great Lord of Yoshino.”

“What a fool. Does the man never learn? I thought Lord Saemon had talked him into exercising restraint until the full council can meet.”

“Apparently not.”

“You still have doubts about Lord Saemon’s trustworthiness.”

“No, my lord, I have no doubts at all,” Hidé said. “I am certain he is
not
trustworthy.”

“On what basis have you arrived at this conclusion?”

“He is the son of Kawakami the Sticky Eye.” Hidé mouthed the name as if he would spit it out if he could. “It is not possible for the son of such a father to be a man whose word has weight.”

“We must learn to transcend that kind of thinking,” Genji said. “If Japan is to be accepted among the Great Powers of the world, it must abandon an overemphasis on bloodlines and concentrate on individual merit. Sons should not automatically be condemned for what their fathers were.”

“Yes, lord,” Hidé said, utterly without conviction. Six years ago, he had been one of the few survivors of Kawakami’s treacherous ambush at Mushindo Monastery. By training and inclination, Hidé was a samurai of the old school. Revenge was the only motivation he really understood, and he assumed all samurai were the same — except Lord Genji, whom Hidé viewed as a unique and awe-inspiring prophet beyond emulation.

“We had better meet with Lord Saemon,” Genji said to Hidé. “We must act quickly to keep the situation from getting out of hand. Hotheads may decide the time is ripe to begin a war against the outsiders.”

“Yes, lord. I will assemble the men.”

“Not necessary. It will be enough if you accompany me.”

“Lord—” Hidé began, but Genji stopped him.

“We must demonstrate confidence. A lack of confidence is more dangerous now than a lack of bodyguards.” Genji turned to Emily and said in English, “Did you understand?”

“The essential parts, yes,” Emily said. “Please be careful.”

“Always,” Genji said, smiling. He bowed and was gone.

Emily returned to the new scroll and went over the opening passage word by word with her dictionary. There was no question that it read,
Lord Narihira learned from the visitor that the arrival of American beauty in Cloud of Sparrows Castle would signal the ultimate triumph of the Okumichi clan.
The presence of the word
American
was what excited her attention upon first reading. But now that Genji had insisted that the visions came only in dreams, the word
visitor
was even more fascinating. Those who came to Quiet Crane Palace to see Genji were referred to as
okyaku-sama
, meaning “guest.” The author of the scroll had used
homonsha
instead. Emily would translate it as “visitor.” More literally, however, homonsha meant “one who calls upon others.”

Another distinction between the two terms suddenly struck Emily and, for an unaccountable reason, chilled her.

A guest was invited, or at least expected.

A visitor was not necessarily either.

All during his series of meetings with the council of Great Lords, Genji’s thoughts kept slipping back to Emily.

He was the one leaving the daily rose for Emily, of course. Though nothing had been said, he assumed she knew that he was aware of her feelings. Surely she believed he felt friendship for her and nothing more. All of his behavior was of that kind. Was he assuming too much? Had Emily been Japanese, he would have felt complete confidence in his assumptions. She was very distinctly not Japanese, however, and so he was certain of nothing. Well, almost nothing. He knew she loved him. Unlike Genji, Emily was entirely incapable of convincing dissimulation.

But his performance could not continue indefinitely. Today, during their midday meal together, he had been painfully aroused by the mere sight of her eating — the movement of her mouth, the way her graceful hands held the sandwich, the way her lips parted a moment before the rim of the teacup reached them. If such mundane acts excited him so much that he could not speak, it was clear that he had reached the very limit of his self-control.

His feelings, if known to her, would inevitably free her from restraining the expression of her own. This would culminate, according to the prophetic warning he had received, in her early doom. In that dream, Genji had received a vision of Emily’s death in childbirth. She would insure the survival of the clan and, in doing so, would die. Genji could not accept it. He refused to think of it as an inevitability, as every vision of his grandfather’s had been, but as a warning. His grandfather had received exact premonitions. Genji chose to believe his were warnings. So he was heeding the warning. He would not allow himself to get any closer to Emily than this make-believe secret admiration.

Emily would shortly receive offers of marriage from both Lieutenant Farrington, the American naval attaché, and Charles Smith, the sugar planter and cattle rancher from the Hawaiian Kingdom. Emily did not know that Genji knew this. She did not know that he had befriended each of the men precisely because he saw that they were worthy suitors for her. He knew they in turn would find her irresistible because, with the arrival of increasing numbers of outsiders, he had discovered that Emily was considered an astonishing beauty by them, the opposite of her effect on the Japanese. How strange it was. Now that he had come to love her despite her appearance, it was her appearance that would enable her to leave that love behind. The thought of never again seeing her, even as a friend, brought him great anguish, but he preferred that to being the instrument of her death.