The Diamond Chariot (30 page)

The titch didn’t make a sound.

Wiping the sweat off his forehead, the hunchback asked another question.

‘He wants to know if there is anyone else left in the Chobei-gumi,’ a voice whispered in Erast Petrovich’s ear.

It was Shirota. He had led Sophia Diogenovna outside and come back – he took his responsibilities very seriously.

‘Left where?’

‘In the gang. But the Yakuza won’t tell him, of course. They’ll kill him now. Let us leave this place. The police will be here soon, they must have been informed already.’

Three men in white bandanas grunted as they dragged the dead man-mountain across the floor. The mighty arms flopped about helplessly. The tips of both little fingers were missing.

The servant girl busily sprinkled white powder on the straw mats and immediately wiped them with a rag, and the red blotches disappeared as if by magic. Meanwhile the owner put a thin cord round the prisoner’s neck and pulled the noose tight. He tugged and tugged, and when the Yakuza’s face was suffused with blood, he asked the same question again.

The titch lashed out despairingly at his tormentor with his foot once again, but once again to no avail.

Then the hunchback evidently decided that there was no point in wasting any more time. His flat face spread into a grim smile and his right hand started slowly winding the cord on to his left wrist. The captive started wheezing, his lips started clutching vainly at the air, his eyes bulged out of their sockets.

‘Right then, translate!’ Fandorin ordered the clerk. ‘I am a representative of the consular authority of the city of Yokohama, which is under the jurisdiction of the great powers. I demand that you put an end to this summary execution immediately.’

Shirota translated, but what came out was much longer than what Fandorin had said, and at the end he performed a weird trick: he took out of his pocket two little flags, Russian and Japanese (the same ones that Erast Petrovich had recently seen on his desk), and performed a strange manipulation with them – he raised the red, white and blue tricolour high in the air and leaned the red and white flag over sideways.

‘What was that you showed them?’ the puzzled vice-consul asked.

‘I translated what you said and added on my own behalf that if he kills the bandit, he will have to kill you as well, and then our emperor will have to apologise to the Russian emperor, and that will bring terrible shame on Japan.’

Erast Petrovich was astounded that such an argument could have any effect on the owner of a bandit den. Japanese cut-throats were clearly different from Russian ones after all.

‘But the flags? Do you always carry them with you?’

Shirota nodded solemnly.

‘I always have to remember that I serve Russia, but at the same time remain a Japanese subject. And then, they are so beautiful!’

He bowed respectfully, first to the Russian flag, then to the Japanese one.

After a moment’s thought, Erast Petrovich did the same, only he began with the flag of the Land of the Rising Sun.

Meanwhile there was strange, bustling activity taking place in the room. They took the noose off the captive Yakuza’s neck, but for some reason laid him out on the floor, and four guards sat on his arms and legs. From the evil grin on the hunchback’s face, it was clear that he had thought up some new infamy.

Two male servants came running into the room – one was holding a bizarre-looking piece of metal, and the other a small chalice of black ink.

The half-pint started squirming with every part of his body, he shuddered and howled in misery. Erast Petrovich was astounded – after all, this man had just demonstrated absolute fearlessness in the face of imminent death!

‘What’s happening? What are they about to do to him? Tell them I won’t allow them to torture him!’

‘They are not going to torture him,’ the clerk said sombrely. ‘The owner of the establishment intends to tattoo the hieroglyph
ura
on his forehead. It means “traitor”. It is the mark used by Yakuza to brand renegades who have committed the worst of all crimes – betraying their own. For this they deserve death. A man cannot possibly live with this brand, and he cannot commit suicide either, because his body will be buried in the slaughterhouse quarter. What appalling villainy! No, Japan is not what she used to be. The honest bandits of former times would never have done anything so vile.’

‘Then we must stop this!’ Fandorin exclaimed.

‘Semushi will not back down, or he will lose face in front of his men. And we cannot force him. This is an internal Japanese matter, it lies beyond consular jurisdiction.’

The owner seated himself on the prostrate man’s chest, set his head in a wooden vice and dipped the piece of metal into the inkwell – and it became clear that the face of the elaborate contrivance was covered with little needles.

‘Villainy always falls within jurisdiction,’ Erast Petrovich said with a shrug, stepping forward and seizing the owner by the shoulder.

He nodded at the heap of silver, pointed at the prisoner and said in English:

‘All this against him. Stake?’

The hunchback visibly wavered. Shirota also took a step forward, stood shoulder to shoulder with Fandorin and lifted up the Russian flag, making it clear that the entire might of a great empire stood behind the vice-consul’s suggestion.

‘OK. Stake,’ the owner agreed in a hoarse voice, getting up.

He snapped his fingers, and the bamboo cup and dice were handed to him with a bow.

Would that you always
inspired only true respect,
my own country’s flag!

A COBBLED STREET RUNNING DOWN A HILL

They did not linger in the vicinity of the ‘Rakuen’. Without a word being spoken, they immediately turned the corner and strode off at a smart pace. Certainly, Shirota tried to assure Fandorin that the hunchback would not dare to pursue them, because taking back someone’s winnings was not the
Bakuto
custom, but he himself did not appear entirely convinced of the inviolability of bandit traditions and kept looking round. The clerk was lugging the sack of silver. Erast Petrovich was leading the young lady along by the elbow and the Yakuza who had been beaten at dice was plodding along behind, still seeming not quite to have recovered from all his ordeals and so many twists of fate.

They stopped to catch their breath only when they were already out of the ‘quarter of shame’. Rikshas ran along the street, the decorous public strolled along the lines of shop windows and the cobbled road leading down to the river was brightly illuminated by gas lamps – twilight had descended on the city.

And here the titular counsellor was beset by a triple ordeal.

The example was set by the spinster Blagolepova. She embraced him passionately round the neck (in so doing, striking him a painful blow on the back with the bundle containing the captain’s legacy) and watered his cheek with tears of gratitude. The young man was called ‘a saviour’, ‘a hero’, ‘an angel’ and even ‘a darling’.

And that was only the beginning.

While Fandorin, dumbstruck by that ‘darling’, comforted the lady by cautiously stroking her heaving shoulders, Shirota waited patiently. But the moment Erast Petrovich freed himself from the maiden’s embraces, the clerk bowed to him, almost right down to the ground, and froze in that position.

‘Good Lord, Shirota, now what are you doing?’

‘I am ashamed that there are people like Semushi in Japan,’ the clerk said in a flat voice. ‘And this on the day of your arrival! What must you think of us!’

Fandorin was about to explain to this patriot that there were very many bad people in Russia too, and he knew very well that a people should be judged by its best representatives, not its worst, but then the vice-consul was struck by another blow.

The plump-faced bandit stopped glancing round repeatedly at the bridge, panted, dropped at Erast Petrovich’s feet and suddenly started banging his firm forehead against the road!

‘He is thanking you for saving his honour and his life,’ Shirota translated.

‘Please tell him that his gratitude is accepted and to get up quickly,’ the titular counsellor said nervously, glancing round at the people in the street.

The bandit got up and bowed from the waist.

‘He says that he is a soldier of the honourable Chobei-gumi gang, which no longer exists.’

Fandorin found the term ‘honourable gang’ so intriguing that he said:

‘Ask him to tell me about himself.’

‘
Hai, kashikomarimashita
,’
¹
said the ‘soldier’, bowing once again, and then, with his arms pressed to his sides, he began reporting in true military style, his eyes staring fixedly at the superior officer whose role Erast Petrovich was playing.

‘He comes from a family of hereditary
machi-yakko
and is very proud of it. (These are also noble Yakuza, who defend little people against the tyranny of the authorities. Well, and they also collect tribute from them, of course),’ said Shirota, mingling translation with comment. ‘His father had only two fingers on his hand. (That is a Yakuza custom: if a bandit has committed some offence and wishes to apologise to the gang, he cuts off a section of a finger.) He himself, of course, does not remember his father – he has heard about him from other people. His mother also came from a respected family, her entire body was covered in tattoos, right down to the knees. When he was three years old, his father escaped from jail, hid in a lighthouse and sent word to his wife – she worked in a teahouse. His mother tied the child to her back and hurried to join her husband at the lighthouse, but she was followed and the warders of the jail were informed. They surrounded the lighthouse. His father did not wish to return to jail. He stabbed his wife in the heart and himself in the throat. He wanted to kill his little son too, but could not do it, and simply threw him into the sea. However, karma did not allow the child to drown – he was fished out and taken to an orphanage.’

‘Why, what a b-brute his dear papa was!’ Erast Petrovich exclaimed, dumbfounded.

Shirota was surprised.

‘Why a brute?’

‘Well, he killed his own wife and threw his own s-son off a cliff!’

‘I assure you that he would not have killed his own wife for anything, unless she had asked him to do it. They did not wish to be parted, their love was stronger than death. This is very beautiful.’

‘But what has this to do with the infant?’

‘Here in Japan we take a different view of this matter, I beg your pardon,’ the clerk replied severely. ‘The Japanese are conscientious people. Parents are responsible for their child, especially if he is very young. The world is so cruel! How is it possible to cast a defenceless creature to the whim of fate? It is simply inhuman! A family should hold together and not be separated. The most touching thing about this story is that the father could not bring himself to stab his little son with a knife …’

While this dialogue was taking place between the vice-consul and his assistant, the titch engaged Sophia Diogenovna in conversation and asked some question that made the spinster sob and burst into bitter tears.

‘What’s wrong?’ Fandorin exclaimed without hearing Shirota out. ‘Has this bandit offended you? What did he say to you?’

‘No-o,’ Blagolepova sniffed. ‘He asked … he asked how my esteemed father was ge-ge-getting on.’

Once again moisture gushed from the young lady’s eyes – apparently her tear glands produced it in genuinely unlimited amounts.

‘Did he really know your father?’ Erast Petrovich asked in surprise.

Sophia Diogenovna blew her nose into the wet handkerchief and was unable to reply, so Shirota readdressed the question to the Yakuza.

‘No, he did not have the honour of being acquainted with the yellow-haired lady’s father, but last night he saw her come to the “Rakuen” for her parent. He was a very sociable man. Opium makes some people fall asleep but others, on the contrary, become merry and talkative. The old captain was never quiet for a moment, he was always talking, talking.’

‘What did he talk about?’ Fandorin asked absentmindedly, taking out his watch.

A quarter to eight. If he had to go to this notorious Bachelors’ Ball with the consul, it would be a good idea to take a bath and tidy himself up first.

‘About how he took three passengers to Tokyo, to the Susaki mooring. How he waited for them there and then brought them back. They spoke the Satsuma dialect. They thought the
gaijin
would not understand, but the captain had been sailing Japanese waters for a long time and had learned to understand all the dialects. The Satsuma men had long bundles with them, and there were swords in the bundles, he made out one of the hilts. Very odd, covered with
kamiyasuri
…’ – at this point Shirota hesitated, unsure of how to translate this difficult word. ‘
Kamiyasuri
is a kind of paper, covered all over in particles of glass. It is used to make the surface of wood smooth …’

‘Glasspaper?’

‘Yes, yes indeed! Glasspaper,’ said Shirota, repeating the word so that he would not forget it again.

‘But how can a sword hilt be covered with glasspaper? It would lacerate your palm.’

‘Of course, it is not possible,’ the Japanese agreed, ‘but I am merely translating.’

He told the Yakuza to continue.

‘Those men said very bad things about Minister Okubo, they called him Inu-Okubo, that is “the Dog Okubo”. One of them, a man with a withered arm who was their leader, said: “Never mind, he will not get away from us tomorrow”. And when the captain brought them back to Yokohama, they told him to be at the same place tomorrow an hour before dawn and paid him a good advance. The captain told everyone who was nearby about this. And he said he would sit there for a little longer and then go to the police and they would give him a big reward for saving the minister from the plotters.’

As he translated the bandit’s story Shirota frowned more and more darkly.

‘This is very alarming information,’ he explained. ‘Former samurai from the principality of Satsuma hate their fellow Satsuman. They regard him as a traitor.’