At Kanagawa he had asked Babcott where he could get the best teacher.
"Why not ask the padre?"' Babcott had said.
He had, yesterday. "Certainly, my boy.
But can't this week, how about next month? Care for another sherry?"' My God, can they drink here! They're sozzled most of the time and certainly by lunch. The padre's useless, and smells to high heaven. But what a stroke of luck about Andr`e Poncin!
Yesterday afternoon he had accidentally met the Frenchman in one of the Japanese village shops that serviced their needs. These lined the village main street that was behind High Street, away from the sea and adjoined Drunk Town.
All the shops appeared to be the same, selling the same kinds of local merchandise from food to fishing tackle, from cheap swords to curios. He was searching through a rack of Japanese books--the paper of very high quality, many beautifully printed and illustrated from woodblocks--trying to make himself understood to the beaming proprietor.
"Pardon, Monsieur," the stranger had said, "but you have to name the type of book you want." He was in his thirties, clean-shaven, with brown eyes and brown, wavy hair, a fine Gallic nose and well dressed. "You say: Watashi hoshii hon, Ing'erish Nihongo, dozo--I would like a book that has English and Japanese." He smiled. "Of course there aren't any though this fellow will tell you with abject sincerity, Ah so desu ka, gomen nasai, etc.--Ah so sorry I have none today but if you come back tomorrow... Of course he's not telling the truth, only telling you what he thinks you want to know, a fundamental Japanese habit. I'm afraid Japanese are not generous with the truth, even amongst themselves."
"But, Monsieur, may I ask, then how did you learn Japanese--obviously you're fluent."
The man laughed pleasantly. "You are too kind. Me, I'm not, though I try." An amused shrug. "Patience. And because some of our Holy Fathers speak it."
Philip Tyrer frowned. "I'm afraid I'm not Catholic, I'm Church of England, and, er, and an apprentice interpreter at the British Legation. My name is Phillip Tyrer and I've just arrived and a bit out of my depth."
"Ah, of course, the young Englishman of the Tokaido. Please excuse me, I should have recognized you, we were all horrified to hear about it. May I present myself, Andr`e Poncin, late of Paris, I'm a trader."
"Je suis enchant`e de vous voir," Tyrer said, speaking French easily and well though with a slight English accent--throughout the world, outside of Britain, French was the language of diplomacy, and lingua franca of most Europeans, therefore essential for a Foreign Office posting--as well as for anyone considering themselves well educated. In French he added, "Do you think the Fathers would consider teaching me, or allowing me to join their classes?"' "I don't believe any actually give classes. I could ask. Are you going with the fleet tomorrow?"' "Yes, indeed."
"So am I, with Monsieur Seratard, our Minister. You were at the Legation in Paris before here?"' "Unfortunately no, I've only been to Paris for two weeks, Monsieur, on holiday--this is my first posting."
"Oh, but your French is very good, Monsieur."
"Afraid it's not, not really," Tyrer said in English again. "I presume you are an interpreter too?"' "Oh no, just a businessman, but I try help Monsieur Seratard sometimes when his official Dutch-speaking interpreter is sick-- I speak Dutch. So you wish to learn Japanese, as quickly as possible, eh?"' Poncin went over to the rack and selected a book. "Have you seen one of these yet? It's Hiroshige's Fifty-Three Stages on the Tokaido Road. Don't forget the beginning of the book is at the end for us, their writing right to left. The pictures show the way stations all the way to Kyoto." He thumbed through them.
"Here's Kanagawa, and here Hodogaya."
The four-color woodblock prints were exquisite, better than anything Tyrer had ever seen, the detail extraordinary. "They're marvelous."
"Yes. He died four years ago, pity, because he was a marvel. Some of their artists are extraordinary, Hokusai, Masanobu, Utamaro and a dozen others."
Andr`e laughed and pulled out another book.
"Here, these are a must, a primer for Japanese humor and calligraphy as they call their writing."
Phillip Tyrer's mouth dropped open. The pornography was decorous and completely explicit, page after page, with beautifully gowned men and women, their naked parts monstrously exaggerated and drawn in majestic, hairy detail as they joined vigorously and inventively. "Oh my God!"
Poncin laughed outright. "Ah, then I have given you a new pleasure. As erotica they're unique, I have a collection I'd be glad to show you. They're called shunga-every the others ukiyo-every--pictures from the Willow World or Floating World. Have you visited one of the bordellos yet?"' "I... I, no... no I, I, er, haven't."
"Oh, in that case, may I be a guide?"' Now in the night, Tyrer remembered their conversation and how secretly embarrassed he had been. He had tried to pretend he was equally a man of the world, but at the same time kept hearing his father's grave and constant advice: "Listen, Phillip, Frenchmen are all vile and totally untrustworthy, Parisians the dregs of France and Paris without doubt the sin city of the civilized world--licentious, vulgar, and French!"
Poor Papa, he thought, he's so wrong about so many things, but then he lived in Napoleonic times and survived the bloodbath of Waterloo.
However great the victory, it must have been terrible for a ten-year-old drummer boy, no wonder he will never forgive or could forget or accept the new Era. Never mind, Papa has his life and as much as I love him, and admire him for what he did, I have to make my own way. France is almost an ally now--it's not wrong to listen and learn.
He flushed, remembering how he had hung on Andr`e's words--secretly ashamed of his avid fascination.
The Frenchman explained that here bordellos were places of great beauty, the best of them, and their courtesans, the Ladies of the Floating World, or Willow World as they were called, easily the best he had ever experienced. "There are degrees, of course, and streetwalkers in most towns. But here we have our own Pleasure Quarter, called Yoshiwara. It's over the bridge outside the fence." Again the pleasant laugh, "We call it the Bridge to Paradise. Oh yes and you should know that... oh excuse me, I interrupt your shopping."
"Oh but no, not at all," he had said at once, aghast that this flow of information and rare opportunity would cease, and added in his most flowery and honeyed French, "I would consider it an honor if you would care to continue, really, it is so important to learn as much as one can and I'm afraid the people I associate with, and talk to, are... regretfully, not Parisian, mostly stodgy and without French sophistication.
To return your kindness perhaps I may offer you some tea or champagne at the English Tea House, or perhaps a drink at the Yokohama Hotel--sorry, but I'm not a member of the Club yet."
"You are too kind, yes I would like that."
Thankfully he beckoned the shopkeeper, with Poncin's help paid for the book, astonished it was so inexpensive. They went into the street. "You were saying about the Willow World?"' "There's nothing sordid about it as in most of our brothels and almost all those elsewhere in the world.
Here, as in Paris, but more so, the act of sex is an art form, as delicate and special as great cuisine, to be considered and practiced and savored and thought of as such, with no... please excuse me, no misguided Anglo-Saxon "guilt."
Instinctively, Tyrer bridled. For a moment was tempted to correct him and say that there was a vast difference between guilt, and a healthy attitude towards morality and all good Victorian values. And to add that, regretfully the French had never possessed any distinction with their leaning towards loose living that seduced even such august nobles as the Prince of Wales who openly considered Paris home ("a source of grave concern in the highest English circles," the Times glowered, "French vulgarity knows no end, their wretched display of wealth and outrageous innovative dances, like the cancan where, it is reliably reported, the dancers deliberately do not and are even required not to wear any under garments whatsoever").