Uzaemon wants to defend his wife, but how to combat a painted mudslide?

‘Could your husband,’ Mrs Nabeshima is asking Uzaemon’s mother, ‘spare you and Okinu-san this afternoon, I wonder? We’re having a little party at home, and your daughter-in-law may benefit from the advice of mothers her own age. But – oh!’ She regards Ogawa the Elder with a dismayed frown. ‘What must you think of such an imposition at so short a notice, given your husband’s health-’

‘Her husband’s health,’ the old man interrupts, ‘is excellent. You two,’ he sneers at his wife and daughter-in-law, ‘do whatever you wish. I’m going to have sutras recited for Hisanobu.’

‘Such a devout father,’ Mrs Nabeshima shakes her head, ‘is a model for the youth of today. All’s settled, then, yes, Mrs Ogawa? After the fumi-e, come back to our-’ She breaks off her sentence to address a wet-nurse. ‘Silence that mewling piglet! Have you forgotten where we are? For shame!’

The wet-nurse turns away, bares her breast and feeds the baby.

Uzaemon peers at the queue into the gallery, trying to gauge its speed.

The Buddhist deity Fudô Myôô glares from his candlelit shrine: his fury, Uzaemon was taught, frightens the impious; his sword slices their ignorance; his rope binds demons; his third eye scrutinises human hearts; and the rock on which he stands signifies immovability. Seated before him are six officials from the Inspectorate of Spiritual Purity, dressed in ceremonial attire.

The first official asks Uzaemon’s father, ‘Please state your name and position.’

‘Ogawa Mimasaku, Interpreter of the First Rank of Dejima Interpreters, head of the Ogawa household of the Higashizaka Ward.’

The first inspector tells a second, ‘Ogawa Mimasaku is present.’

The second finds the name on a register. ‘Ogawa Mimasaku’s name is listed.’

The third writes the name. ‘Ogawa Mimasaku, hereby registered as present.’

A fourth declaims, ‘Ogawa Mimasaku will now perform the act of fumi-e.’

Ogawa Mimasaku steps on to the well-worn bronze plaque of Jesus Christ, and grinds his heel on the image for good measure.

A fifth official calls out, ‘Ogawa Mimasaku has performed fumi-e.’

The Interpreter of the First Rank steps off the idolatrous plaque, and is helped by Kiyoshichi to a low bench. Uzaemon suspects he is suffering more pain than he is willing to show.

A sixth official marks his register. ‘Ogawa Mimasaku is registered as having performed the act of fumi-e.’

Uzaemon thinks about the foreigner de Zoet’s Psalms of David and the narrowness of his own escape when Kobayashi had the Dutchman’s apartment burgled. He wishes he had asked de Zoet about his mysterious religion last summer.

Festive noise washes in from the commoners’ ritual in a neighbouring hall.

The first official is now addressing him: ‘Please state your name and profession…’

Once the formalities are completed, Uzaemon steps up to the fumi-e.

He glances down and meets the pained eyes of the foreign god. Uzaemon presses his foot down on the bronze, and thinks of the long line of Ogawas of Nagasaki who have stood on this same fumi-e. On previous New Year’s Days, Uzaemon felt proud to be the latest in this line: some ancestors would, like him, have been adoptive sons. But today he feels like an impostor, and he knows why.

My loyalty to Orito, he phrases it, is stronger than my loyalty to the Ogawas.

He feels the face of Jesus Christ against the sole of his foot.

Whatever the cost, Uzaemon vows, I shall free her. But I need help.

The walls of Shuzai’s dojo hall echo with the two swordsmen’s shrieks and the crack of bamboo poles. They attack, parry, counter, rout; attack, parry, counter, rout. The sprung wooden floor creaks under their bare feet. Drips of rainwater are caught by buckets, which, when full, are changed by Shuzai’s last remaining apprentice. The practice bout comes to an abrupt end when the shorter of the two combatants deals his partner a blow on his right elbow, causing Uzaemon to drop his pole. The concerned victor slides up his face-mask, revealing a flat-nosed, well-weathered and watchful man well into his forties. ‘Is it broken?’

‘The fault was mine.’ Uzaemon is clutching his elbow.

Yohei hurries over to help his master unfasten his mask.

Unlike his teacher’s face, Uzaemon’s drips with sweat. ‘There’s no breakage… look.’ He bends and straightens his elbow. ‘Just a well-deserved bruise.’

‘The light was too poor. I should have lit lamps.’

‘Shuzai-san mustn’t waste oil on my account. Let us end here.’

‘I hope you won’t oblige me to drink your generous gift alone?’

‘On such an auspicious day, your engagements must be pressing…’

Shuzai looks around his empty dojo hall and shrugs at Uzaemon.

‘Then,’ the interpreter bows, ‘I accept your courteous invitation.’

Shuzai orders his pupil to light the fire in his private apartment. The men change out of their practice clothes, discussing the New Year Promotions and Demotions announced earlier by Magistrate Ômatsu. Stepping up into the teacher’s quarters, Uzaemon recalls the ten or more young disciples who ate, slept and studied here when he first took lessons from Shuzai, and the pair of matronly neighbourhood women who cajoled and cared for them. The rooms are colder and quieter nowadays, but as the fire comes to life, the two men slip into informal manners and their native Tosa dialect, and Uzaemon is warmed by his and Shuzai’s ten-year-old acquaintance.

Shuzai’s boy pours the heated sake into a chipped flask, bows and leaves.

Now is the time, Uzaemon prompts himself, to say what I have to say…

The thoughtful host and his hesitant guest fill each other’s cups.

‘To the fortunes of the Ogawas of Nagasaki,’ proposes Shuzai, ‘and to the speedy recovery of your honourable father.’

‘To a prosperous Year of the Sheep for the dojo hall of Master Shuzai.’

The men empty the first cup of sake, and Shuzai sighs contentedly. ‘But prosperity is gone for good, I fear. I pray I’m wrong but I doubt I am. The old values are decaying, that’s the problem. The smell of decadence hangs everywhere, like smoke. Oh, samurai enjoy the notion of wading into battle like their valiant ancestors, but when the storehouse is hungry, it’s swordsmanship they say goodbye to, not their concubines and silk linings. Those who do care about the old ways are the very ones who fall foul of the new. Another of my students quit last week, with tears in his eyes: his father’s stipend at the Armoury has been paid at half-rate for two years running – and now the gentleman learns that his rank won’t be eligible for a New Year payment. This at the end of the Twelfth Month, when the money-lenders and bailiffs do their rounds, badgering decent people! Have you heard Edo ’s newest advice to its unpaid officials? “Cover your indulgences by breeding goldfish.” Goldfish! Who has money to waste on goldfish, other than merchants? Now if merchants’ sons were permitted to carry swords -’ Shuzai lowers his voice ‘- I would have a line of pupils stretching from here to the Fish Market, but better to plant silver coins in horse-shit than wait for Edo to pass that edict.’ He refills his cup and Uzaemon’s. ‘Ah, so much for my woes: your mind was on other things during sword-practice.’

Uzaemon is no longer surprised by Shuzai’s perspicacity. ‘I don’t know if I have the right to involve you.’

‘To a believer in Fate,’ replies Shuzai, ‘it’s not you who is involving me.’

Damp twigs on the weak fire crackle as if trodden upon.

‘Some disturbing news came into my possession, some days ago…’

A cockroach, shiny as lacquer, crawls along the base of the wall.

‘… in the form of a scroll. It concerns the Order of the Shrine of Shiranui.’