The Pure Land (37 page)

‘A noble goal.’

‘It really was a splendid evening.’ Tomisaburo warmed to the telling. ‘The Mayor was presiding, and the Governor was present, as was the American Consul. And yet there was no undue formality to the proceedings, and an excellent meal progressed in an atmosphere of conviviality throughout.’

Glover laughed again. ‘There are times, Tomi, when you sound like the perfect English gentleman!’

Tomisaburo looked confused by the remark. ‘Indeed,’ he said, and fell silent.

Glover knew it had not been easy for the boy. His years at school,
Gakushuin
, had been troubled. The other boys, sons of the aristocracy, had shunned him, called him a half-caste. More than once he’d come home battered and bloodied, but he’d borne it, stoical, retreated into that carapace, that hard protective shell, withdrawn to somewhere inside himself.

I am who I am, and what my life has made me
.

‘The irony is,’ continued Tomisaburo after some time, ‘many of the English gentlemen with whom I’ve had dealings regard me as a little Jap upstart with ideas above his station.’

‘Worst of both worlds,’ said Glover, suddenly feeling the weight of it all.

Again they sat in silence. The fire sputtered in the grate.

‘You know,’ said Tomisaburo, ‘I am
ujiko
, parishioner of Suwa Shrine. This is a status not granted to outsiders, foreigners. So at least in that one respect I am wholly Japanese.’

‘I know Suwa Shrine,’ said Glover. ‘Do they still have the white horse, for the gods to ride on?’

‘They do.’

Riding out past the shrine, on his way to see Maki. The boy awed,
terrified by the horse, by the terrible gaijin, come to change his world
.

‘What do you think of such things?’ asked Tomisaburo, tentative.

‘What things?’

‘Shrines. White horses. The gods.’

‘Religion?’

‘Religion, philosophy, superstition, call it what you will. We never discussed such matters.’

‘No.’ He gave it some thought. ‘I suppose I inherited a certain reticence from my own father, God rest him.’

‘And you also inherited his faith?’

‘I suppose I did. A grim northern fatalism! I may have spent my life defying it or ignoring it, but it’s there nevertheless, a bedrock.’

‘Was it never shaken by the theories of Mister Darwin?’

‘I never troubled to give them a great deal of thought.’

‘I find his ideas interesting.’

‘The biologist speaks!’

‘And you know, from a Shinto point of view, or Buddhist for that matter, there is no conflict with these ideas. Shinto has an inherent animism, a sense that everything has a soul, and the soul transmigrates. Buddhism already recognises the idea of evolution, through reincarnation. It’s only the Judaeo-Christian tradition that has a problem.’

‘So you believe in this … reincarnation, that we live many lives?’

‘I try to keep an open mind, and live from moment to moment as best I can.’

‘You’re right,’ said Glover, ‘we’ve never discussed such things.’

‘No.’

‘Or much else, for that matter.’

‘You were a busy man.’

‘And now I’m an old man, a sick man, and soon I’ll be a dead man.’

‘It comes to us all, father.’

‘Too damn soon.’ He coughed and the spasm shook him, the pain so sharp a stab he cried out, choked, gulped in air. Tomisaburo called for Yuko, who was already on her way, bringing water, a whole jug of it; she poured a glass and Glover swigged it, held it out for a refill, his hand shaking; he was red-faced and sweating, Yuko dabbed his forehead with a cloth, said to Tomisaburo in Japanese that his father was tired and needed to rest, that he was grateful for the visit, but perhaps she could humbly and respectfully suggest it was time to leave.

He nodded, bowed. Glover waved a hand, struggled to speak.

‘Bloody hell!’ he said. ‘The attacks get worse.’ He drew breath. ‘They come quicker.’

Tomisaburo was anxious. ‘Maybe you should go to hospital.’ He darted a glance at Yuko for confirmation, support. She looked away.

Again Glover waved a hand, grimaced, managed to speak. ‘Nothing they can do.’ He concentrated hard. The worst of it passed. ‘When the time comes I want it to be here, tended by this ministering angel.’

Yuko didn’t understand completely, but she got the gist of it. She put a hand on Glover’s arm, turned and left the room, quickly.

Glover got to his feet, shaky but taking charge again.

‘It was good to see you, Tomi. Good to talk to you.’ He reached across and they shook hands.

‘I’ll come again,’ said Tomisaburo. ‘Next month.’

Glover nodded but the look in his eyes held a certainty, a foreknowledge. ‘Give my love to Waka, and to Hana and the children when you see them.’ He squeezed his son’s hand, said ‘Ach!’ and hugged him, something he hadn’t done since Tomi was a child. And Tomisaburo the man looked startled, dumbfounded.

‘We should have talked more,’ said Glover.

‘
Hai
,’ said Tomisaburo. ‘Yes.’

Glover crossed the room, took down the short samurai sword in its sheath, turned and held it out, in both hands.

‘I’d like you to have this.’

‘But this …’ said Tomisaburo. ‘This is … It’s …’

‘I know,’ said Glover. ‘Please.’ And he bowed, stepped forward, held out the sword again. And Tomisaburo, caught in the ritual formality of the moment, could do nothing other than respond, bow, take the sword.

In his eyes Glover saw for an instant something of the boy’s mother, just a glimmer, then gone.

‘Ach, son,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why?’

‘I just am.’

Tomisaburo bowed again, touched the sword to his forehead. 

He was burning up. The pain seared through him, racked and tore, beyond bearing. He sweated and shook, smelled rank, his nightshirt stuck to him, drenched. Was this it? Had he died and gone to hell? The minister had ranted about it in the dank grey kirk, in the cold north, a lifetime ago. Lead us not into temptation. Deliver us from evil. Hellfire and damnation. The wages of sin. He was on fire, fevered, he writhed and kicked off the bedclothes, tugged at his throat. Needed to cool down, douse the flames. He imagined diving into cool water, saw himself a
wee skinny boy near naked diving off the bridge, arms flailing legs pedalling the air to splash and plunge into the cold Don, go under and come up gasping, exhilarated, shake the water off like a mongrel tike, run and clamber back up the bridge to dive in again for the sheer joy of it, the sensation. And himself as a young lad, about the town with his cronies, drunk and climbing onto the parapet, balanced there, and the young fellow Robertson keeling over, falling in, himself not thinking, jumping in to drag him out. And win the keystane o’ the brig. Dripping wet his clothes soaked boots the lot waterlogged. Robertson. Was he still alive? An old man with grown-up family, grandchildren. Dear God, Annie. Those blonde curls, the bonnet, a summer night at Brig o’ Balgownie. Bonnie lassie O. Down among the dunes, a long spurt into nothing, Houghmagandie. Fuck. Annie’s white hanky smeared with red. Fuck. No. Ah, Tam. Ah, Tam. Thou’ll get thy fairin. In hell they’ll roast thee like a herrin. Burning turned on a spit. No not this.

He sat up in bed, he was here, it was night, the wee small hours. Yes. There was water in a jug at his bedside. Yuko, God bless her, a treasure. His hands trembled as he picked up the jug, slugged straight from the lip of it, spilled as much as he swigged, but the drouth was killing him, he had to swallow it down, drank and drank to slake this thirst, slopped and swilled, wet his face his shirt the bedclothes, drank. He was here in his own home, his house. Azabu. Shiba Park. Tokyo. Japan. As a boy at school, the solid granite Gymnasium in the Chanonry, he’d written his name and address in his exercise book, inside the front cover. Thomas Blake Glover. The Coastguard Station. Bridge of Don. Aberdeen. Scotland. Britain. Europe. The Northern Hemisphere. The Earth. The Solar System. The Universe. Spinning the globe in the shipbroker’s office, putting his finger on Japan. Here be dragons. A land that floweth with milk and honey. A bit far, is it no?

Now he shivered, the water he’d spilled started to chill him.
And the cold feared him more than the fire, the thought of it, descending into endless dark, buried in the cold hard ground. The earth. Without form and void. Nothing. A tiger, he’d burned bright. Now the fire would be doused, extinguished. Tomi had said we continued. As long as the red earth rolls. To end for good, be finished, be nothing. To go forever to heaven or hell, a dream or a nightmare everlasting. To keep coming back again and again. He would find out soon enough. He would ken.

Now he was really shivering. It was winter. Out there the earth was frozen, the trees were bare. Azabu. Shiba Park. Tokyo. Kyushu. Japan. Asia. The Northern Hemisphere. The Earth. The Solar System. The Universe. The Void. His nightshirt was wet. He curled under the covers, cooried down to get warm again. He wanted to sleep, feared if he did he might not wake up. He lay still, huddled, felt the warmth come back to his core. Atsuka! Old Ken Mackenzie had laughed at that. And Ken too was long gone, dead and buried, and Walsh, in some accident after he’d gone home. A rogue. The pleasure quarter, soaking in the hot tub. The screen doors opening.

Sono.

Och, lassie, so young so young, and the wee bairn that never lived at all. He didn’t want to think about this, about any of it, he just wanted to sleep, but it came at him, battered him. Kagoshima, the town bombarded, laid waste, fire raging along the waterfront, the smell of burning, the dead bodies so much meat. Sono. A wisp of smoke as he looked back. The pain tore at him again, again, now there was a steady throb that wouldn’t stop, an ache that was constant, and at intervals the jab and jab of real deep pain, sharp point of a blade twisting. He had given Matsuo’s sword to Tomisaburo, seen the look in his eyes, the look that had minded Glover of Maki, gone these long years but still there, like that, in the memory. Maki. Sound of the samisen. Nights at the Sakura, the sheer intensity of it, fire of the flesh, never so fully alive before or since. Lying in her arms, sated
utterly, breathing in the smell of her, hearing her laugh. The stories she’d told him, haltingly. One hand clapping. Cutting the cat in half. The cliff-edge and the tiger chasing, the tiger waiting, the sweet taste of the strawberry. The tiger roared. Burning bright. Hot ginger and dynamite. Nothing but that at night. Back in Nagasaki where the fellers chew tabacky and the women, the women. He felt another pang, saw Tsuru his goodwife all these years, the young woman she was, grown old with him and gone. Turned to dust in Sakamoto. He would join her there when his time came, soon. Drifting into sleep, just letting go.

He was on his way home to Ipponmatsu where they were all waiting for him, were throwing a party in his honour. But every step was effort, hurt, and he moved so slow so painfully slow. Someone gave him a white hanky and he wiped his brow with it, so hot,
atsuka
, then the pain racked again and he coughed and hacked, spat into it, saw the spatter of bright red blood, opened it out and it was the Japanese flag and he didn’t dare to drop it on the ground. Another step on and up, another, in pain. Just to rest was all. He stopped and leaned against the tree. They were waiting for him, were all inside. Then someone was striding straight towards him, a dark hostile figure he knew, a threat, and he couldn’t move, couldn’t get out of the way. And Takashi had drawn his sword, was coming at him, blade raised, and all he could do was bend his head, and the blade cut and cut, stuck in the overhanging branch so the blow never fell. This had happened before. And so had this, Takashi kneeling and falling forward onto the blade. Glover was the witness and Ito was the kaishaku, the friend ready to behead him. It was swift, a single stroke and the head rolled on the ground, face grimacing. But then the face was Glover’s own, looking up at him, resting on the flag now placed there. He couldn’t move, he had to, he gathered all his strength and dragged himself up out of sleep, a dream, all of it.

This was real. This. The constant pain deeper, the gaps
between the sharp jabs less. This. His bare feet on the floor, sweat-damp nightshirt clinging to him. This. Bedside candle lit, its flicker. The porcelain pisspot under the bed. The effort to bend and pick it up. Fuck. Leave it on the floor stand over it, piss a red trickle, sear of the pain, the gaps between would close altogether be one long pain. He needed laudanum. The bottle was in the cabinet across the room, a distance. His feet swollen and hot. On impulse open the curtains and look out. Frost on the ground. The faintest suggestion of grey light in the sky. Bare forms of the trees and through them the stars, high far and cold. He opened the drawer took out the bottle of tincture, the little glass dropper with the rubber bulb, filled it, squeezed the drops into his mouth. Got back to the bed, shoved the chamberpot under again with his foot, felt it slop. Lay down, head back on the pillow. This.

That last poem of Ito’s. Nothing changes in the universe. Past and present are as one. But it did change, everything did, nothing stayed the same. Then something about swimming in deep waters. Water under the bridge. Time passed. Everything aged and died.

He’d arrived in autumn, felt the warmth, breathed the air. The hillside opposite the harbour had been a swathe of bright red, maple. He’d come off the boat down the gangplank, unsteady. He’d seen the young girl, keeping the paper butterfly in the air with the updraft from a fan, he’d been enchanted.

He closed his eyes, saw water and dived in, it was cold and dark, he surfaced, went under again and the water closed over him.

Yuko found him in the morning, already stiff and cold, face clenched in a last grimace. She stood a moment in silence, bowed, pulled up the sheet to cover him.

T
he sergeant flicked his Zippo lighter, the flame flared in the darkening room. He lit his cigarette, shook another from the pack for the corporal, who took it, put it behind his ear for later. As an afterthought, the sergeant offered one to Tomisaburo. The old man shook his head, said, ‘No. Thank you. I don’t.’

The sergeant blew out smoke; its sweet acrid haze filled the room. He said they should be going, and Tomisaburo would be hearing from them.

‘Indeed,’ he said, and made no effort to fill the silence.

When he’d smoked the cigarette down to the tip, the sergeant stood up, dropped the butt on the floor, ground it with his heel.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘I guess you won’t be going anywhere in the meantime.’

‘There is nowhere to go,’ said Tomisaburo.

‘Right,’ said the sergeant.

The two GIs fastened the chinstraps on their helmets, shouldered their guns. Tomisaburo showed them to the door, splintered now where they’d kicked it in. It didn’t matter. Nothing did.

He went back to the drawing room and sat in his armchair, trying to think. Cigarette smoke still hung in the air, clung.

He was tired.

At length he came to some kind of decision, got to his feet and lit a stub of candle, made his way to the bathroom, set down the candle on the edge of the tub. He knew the water was almost gone; at best there would be enough in the tank to fill the bucket he used to rinse himself. He placed it under the spout, cranked; a gobbet of dirty brown-black water coughed out, spurted into the bucket, enough to fill it a few inches.

Fine. It was better than nothing.

He took off the clothes he had worn for days, ever since the blast, the black jacket and trousers, the waistcoat, the shirt and tie, the socks and underwear; he left them in a heap on the floor, stood naked; and suddenly he saw his mother’s face.

Not Tsuru. His real mother, turning away, letting him go.

She had called him Shinsaburo.

Her face, now, so clear.

Tsuru had peeled off his clothes, burned them; she’d cut his hair, scrubbed him clean, dressed him in a new white sailor suit, harsh cotton that chafed.

He climbed into the cold tub, hunkered down, wet a clean cloth and washed himself as best he could, poured the last of the grimy water over his head, stood up, shivering, towelled himself dry.

Now.

The candle guttered as he walked through, still naked, to his bedroom.

He opened his wardrobe, pushed aside the sober black business suits, the wing-collared shirts, took out instead his Japanese robes. With a solemn formality he put them on, the white tunic and wide trousers, the wide-sleeved grey robe tied with a sash, the white cotton socks. He saw his reflection in the mirror, wavering in the candlelight. He bowed to it, as if to someone else.

In the drawing room he set the candle down again, on his desk. It was burning down, but would last long enough.

His gramophone was covered in dust; he had no idea if it would still function. He lifted the lid, cranked the handle. The turntable rotated. The mechanism seemed unharmed. His records were stacked in a wooden box. He sifted through, found what he was looking for, the aria from
Butterfly
, eased it from its brown paper sleeve. The Bakelite disc was scratched from much use, but not cracked, in spite of the upheaval. Miraculous. He wiped it with his cuff, placed it on the turntable, cranked the handle again, turned the brass horn so it was facing into the room. He lifted the arm, swung it over, placed the needle in the groove. The familiar introduction crackled into life, filled the room.

He took his father’s sword, the wakizashi, kneeled on the floor and placed it in front of him. Then he touched it to his forehead, slid it out of its sheath, the candlelight glinting on the steel blade. There were Hindu texts that described the soul leaving the body as akin to a sword being drawn from its sheath, the sheath cast aside, the soul shining, free. Others talked of casting off an old worn-out garment.

That old suit of clothes he’d left on the floor.

He glanced up at the portrait of his father, the face stern, admonishing. But strangely he felt something like compassion. His father too had lived and striven and suffered. His life too had been a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying what?

Nothing.

Form is emptiness.

Now his own time was ending. The barbarians at the gate; the Americans or the kenpeitai, it didn’t matter which. A rock and a hard place. Devil and the deep. He was in no-man’s-land. Nowhere to go.

He put the sword down again, untied the sash round his waist, removed his robe. Then he opened the tunic, felt the old slack skin of his belly; picked up the sword and placed the tip of the blade there, below the navel, a little to the left. Even this, the
slightest pressure, pierced the skin, made him flinch, breathe deep. The music built to its glorious climax, heartbreaking.
Un
bel di
… Then the needle stuck and stuck and stuck. He took one sharp intake of breath, leaned forward with his whole weight onto the blade.