"Why anger? No worry. I pray at Shinto shrine like doctor say, pay priest many taels, I eat..." Her face crinkled with her laugh, "eat nasty medicine. Few week all gone."
"It hasn't gone. It won't. There's no cure!"
She had looked at him strangely. "All gon', you see me, my body, all, how many time, neh? Of course all gon'way."
"For Christ sake it hasn't!"
Another frown, then she shrugged. "Karma, neh?"' He had exploded. Her shock was vast and she put her head to the tatami and pitifully began to beg his pardon, "No bad, Furansu-san, gon'way, doctor say, gon'way. You see same doctor soon, all go'way...."
Outside their shoji walls he could hear footsteps and whispers. "You have to see the English doctor!" His heart was thundering in his ears and he was trying to speak coherently, knowing that going to a doctor, any doctor, was useless and that though sometimes the ravages could be arrested, perhaps, as sure as the sun would dawn tomorrow, the ravages would one day arrive in force. "Don't you understand?"' he had shrieked. "There's no cure!"
She just stayed bowed, shaking like a brutalized puppy, saying monotonously, "No bad, Furansu-san, no bad, all go'way..."
He dragged himself back and looked again at Seratard. "When I questioned her about it she said she had been cured, a year ago. She believed it, of course she believed it and she was cured. Me, oh yes I was screaming and asked her why she hadn't told Raiko-san and she mumbled something about, What was there to tell, the doctor said it was nothing and her mama-san would have told Raiko-san if it had been important."
"But this is terrible, Andr`e. Did Babcott see her?"
"No." Another swallow of brandy but he felt none of its customary bite, then said in a rush, desperate to tell someone at last, "Babcott told me the pox... he told me an early poxed woman can appear to be without blemish in every way, that she won't always pass it on, not every time you bed, God knows why, but it's inevitable she will sometime if you continue with her and once a sore appears you're lost though after a month or so the sore or sores go away and you think you're safe but you're not!" Now the vein in the center of Andr`e's forehead was knotted and black and pulsating. "Weeks or months later there's a rash, this's the second stage. It's strong or weak depending on only God knows what and sometimes brings hepatitis or meningitis and stays or goes away, the rash, depending on Christ knows what. The last stage, the horror stage, appears anytime, anytime, months up to, up to thirty years later."
Seratard took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow, praying that he would be spared, thinking about the frequent times he visited the Yoshiwara, about his own musume that now he kept for himself alone but could never guarantee had no other lover.
How can you prove or disprove that if there's collusion with the mama-san when they're only interested in fleecing you? "You had the right to kill her," he said grimly. "And the mama-san."
"Raiko wasn't responsible. I'd told her none of the girls here, anywhere in the Yoshiwara, were ones I wanted. I wanted someone young, special, a virgin or almost one.
I begged her to find me a flower, explaining exactly what I wanted, and she did and Hana-chan was everything I wanted, perfection-- she came from one of the best Houses in Yedo. You can't imagine how beautiful she is, was..."
He remembered how his heart had leapt the first time Raiko had shown her to him, chattering with other girls in another room. "That one, Raiko, in the pale blue kimono."
"I advise stay with Fujiko or Akiko or one of my other ladies," Raiko had said, when she wanted, her English good. "In time I will find you another. There little Saiko. In a year or two..."
"That one, Raiko. She perfect. Who is she?"' "Her name is Hana, the Flower. Her mama-san say the pretty little thing was born near Kyoto, bought by her House when three or four for training as geisha." Raiko smiled.
"Luckily, she's not geisha--if geisha, she would be not on offer, so sorry."
"Because I gai-jin?"' "Because geisha is for entertainment, not pillowing, and, Furansu-san, so sorry, truly difficult to appreciate if not Japanese.
Hana's teachers were patient, but she could not develop the skills so she was trained for the pillow."
"I want her, Raiko."
"A year ago she was old enough to begin. Her mama-san arranged the best pillow prices, of course only after Hana had approved the client. Three clients only have enjoyed her, her mama-san says she is fine pupil, and only allowed to pillow twice weekly. Only mark against her, she was born in the Year of the Fire Horse."
"What that mean?"' "You know we count time in cycles of twelve years, like the Chinese, each year with an animal name, Dragon, Snake, Cockerel, Bull, Horse and so on. But each also has one of the five elements: fire, water, earth, iron, wood that vary, cycle by cycle. Ladies born in Year of Horse, with the fire sign, are thought to be... unlucky."
"Not believe superstitions. Please say price."
"She is a pillow Flower beyond price."
"The price, Raiko."
"To the other House, ten koku, Furansu-san. To this House, two koku a year, and price of her house of own within my fence, two maids, all the clothes she wants, and parting gift of five koku when you no longer require her services--this sum to be deposited with our Gyokoyama rice merchant-banker, at interest which, until time of parting, is yours--all to be in writing, signed and registered with Bakufu."
The sum was huge by Japanese standards, extravagant by European counting even with the rate of exchange heavily weighed in the European's favor. For a week he had bartered and had managed to reduce the price only a few sous.
Every night his dreams drove him onwards. So he had agreed. With due ritual seven months ago she had been presented to him formally. She agreed to accept him formally. They both signed formally. The next night he had pillowed and she was everything he had dreamed. Laughing, happy, enthusiastic, tender, loving. "She was a gift of God, Henri."
"Of the devil. The mama-san too."
"No, it wasn't her fault. The day before I received Hana, Raiko told me, formally--it was also on the deed of payment--that the past was the past, she promised only to cherish Hana as one of her own girls, to make sure Hana was never seen by other men and remained mine alone, from that day onwards."
"Then she killed her?"
Andr`e poured another drink. "I... I asked Hana to name the three men, one of them is my murderer, but she said she couldn't--or wouldn't.
I, I smashed her around the face to force it out of her and she just whimpered and didn't cry out. I would have killed her, yes, but I loved her and... then I left. I was like a mad dog, it was three or four o'clock by then and I just walked into the sea. Maybe I wanted to drown myself, I don't know, don't remember exactly, but the cold water gave me back my head. When I got back to the House, Raiko and the others were in shock, incoherent. Hana was crumpled where I left her. Now in a mess of blood, my knife in her throat."
"Then she committed suicide?"
"That's what Raiko said."
"You don't believe it?"
"I don't know what to believe," Andr`e said in anguish. "I only know I went back to tell her I loved her, that the pox was karma, not her fault, not her fault, that I was sorry I said what I said and did what I did, that everything would be as before except, except when it became, became obvious we would suicide together..."
Henri was trying to think, his own brain addled.
He had never even heard of the House of the Three Carp before rumors of the girl's death had rushed through the Settlement. Andr`e's always been so secretive, he thought, correctly so, and he's right, it was none of my business--until the Bakufu made it official. "The three men, did this Raiko know who they were?"
Numbed, Andr`e shook his head. "No, and the other mama-san would not tell her."