Careless of beauty
And ever fearless of death:
A butterfly’s flight.
THE OLD KURUMA
‘Mr Titular Counsellor, I was expecting you on the SS Volga a week ago, on the first of May,’ said the consul, halting beside a red-lacquered gig that had clearly seen better days. ‘For what reason were you pleased to be delayed?’
The question, despite being posed in a strict tone of voice, was essentially simple and natural, but for some reason it embarrassed Erast Petrovich.
The young man coughed and his face fell.
‘I’m sorry. When I was changing ships, I c-caught a cold…’
‘In Calcutta? In a temperature of more than a hundred degrees?’
‘That is, I mean, I overslept… In general, I missed the boat and was obliged to wait for the next steamer.’
Fandorin suddenly blushed, turning almost the same colour as the gig.
Tut-tut-tut! thought Doronin, gazing at Fandorin in delighted amazement and shifting his spectacles to the end of his nose. So much for Onegin! We don’t know how to lie. How splendid.
Vsevolod Vitalievich’s bilious features softened and sparks glinted in those lacklustre eyes with the reddish veins.
‘So it’s not a clerical error in the service record, we really are only twenty-two, it’s just that we make ourselves out to be a romantic hero,’ the consul purred, by which he only embarrassed the other man even more. Cutting loose entirely, he winked and said:
‘I bet it was some young Indian beauty. Am I right?’
Fandorin frowned and snapped: ‘No,’ but he did not add another word, and so it remained unclear whether there was no young beauty at all, or there was, but she was not Indian.
The consul did not pursue the immodest interrogation. Not a trace was left of his earlier hostility. He took the young man by the elbow and pulled him towards the gig.
‘Get in, get in. This is the most common form of transport in Japan. It is called a kuruma.’
Erast Petrovich was surprised to see that there was no horse harnessed to the carriage. For a moment a quite fantastic image was conjured up in his mind: a magic carriage, dashing along the street on its own, its shafts held out ahead of it like crimson antennae.
The kuruma accepted the young man with obvious pleasure, rocking him on its threadbare but soft seat. But it greeted Doronin inhospitably, jabbing a broken spring into his scraggy buttock. The consul squirmed, arranging himself more comfortably, and muttered:
‘This chariot has a vile soul.’
‘What?’
‘In Japan every creature, and even every object, has its own soul. At least, so the Japanese believe. The scholarly term for it is “animism”… Aha, and here are our little horses.’
Three locals, whose entire wardrobe consisted of tight-fitting drawers and twisted towels coiled tightly round their heads, grasped the bridle in unison, shouted ‘hey-hey-tya!’ and set off with their wooden sandals clattering along the road.
‘See the troika dashing along snowy Mother Volga,’ Vsevolod Vitalievich sang in a pleasant light tenor, and laughed.
But Fandorin half-rose off the seat, holding on to the side of the gig, and exclaimed:
‘Mr Consul! How can one use human beings like animals! It’s… it’s barbaric!’
He lost his balance and fell back on to the cushion.
‘Accustom yourself to it,’ Doronin said, laughing, ‘otherwise you’ll have to move around on foot. There are hardly any cab drivers at all here. And these fine fellows are called dzinrikisya, or “rikshas”, as the Europeans pronounce it.’
‘But why not use horses to pull carriages?’
‘There are not many horses in Japan, and they are expensive, but there are a lot of people, and they are cheap. A riksha is a new profession – ten years or so ago, no one had ever heard of it. Wheeled transport is regarded as a European novelty here. One of these poor fellows here runs about sixty versts a day. But then, by local standards, the pay is very good. If he is lucky, he can earn half a yen, which is a rouble in our money. Although rikshas don’t live long – they overstrain themselves. Three or four years, and they go to pay their respects to the Buddha.’
‘But that is monstrous!’ Fandorin exploded, swearing to himself that he would never use this shameful form of transport again. ‘To set such a low price on one’s own life!’
‘You will have to get used to that too. In Japan life is worth no more than a kopeck – whether it’s someone else’s or your own. And why should the heathens settle for half-measures? After all, there is no Last Judgement in store for them, merely a long cycle of reincarnations. Today – that is, in this life – you drag the carriage along, but if you drag it honestly, then tomorrow someone else will be pulling you along in the kuruma.’
The consul laughed, but somehow ambiguously; the young functionary thought he heard a note of something like envy in that laugh, rather than ridicule of the local beliefs.
‘Please observe that the city of Yokohama consists of three parts,’ Doronin explained, pointing with his stick. ‘Over that way, where the roofs are clumped close together, is the Native Town. Here, in the middle, is the actual Settlement: banks, shops, institutions. And on the left, beyond the river, is the Bluff. That’s something like a little piece of Good Old England. Everyone who is even slightly better off makes his home there, well away from the port. Generally speaking, it’s possible to live a quite civilised life here, in the European fashion. There are a few clubs: rowing, cricket, tennis, horse riding, even gastronomic. I think they will be glad to welcome you there.’
As he said that, he glanced back. Their red ‘troika’ was being followed by an entire caravan of vehicles carrying Fandorin’s luggage, all drawn by the same kind of yellow-skinned horsemen, some by a pair, some by just one. Bringing up the rear of the cavalcade was a cart loaded with athletic equipment: there were cast-iron weights, and a boxer’s punchball, and gleaming on top of it all was the polished steel of the aforementioned velocipede – the patented American ‘Royal Crescent Tricycle’.
‘All foreigners except the embassy employees try to live here, not in the capital,’ the long-time Yokohama resident boasted. ‘Especially since it’s only an hour’s journey to the centre of Tokyo by railway.’
‘There is a railway here too?’ Erast Petrovich asked dismally, feeling his final hopes for oriental exoticism evaporating.
‘And a most excellent one!’ Doronin exclaimed with enthusiasm. ‘This is how the modern Yokohamian lives nowadays: he orders tickets for the theatre by telegraph, gets into the train, and a hour and a quarter later he is already watching a kabuki performance!’
‘I’m glad that it is at least kabuki, and not operetta…’ the newly minted vice-consul remarked, surveying the seafront glumly. ‘But listen, where are all the Japanese women in kimonos, with fans and umbrellas? I can’t see a single one.’
‘With fans?’ Vsevolod Vitalievich chuckled. ‘They’re all in the teahouses.’
‘Are those like the local cafés? Where they drink Japanese tea?’
‘One can take a drink of tea, of course. Additionally. But people visit those places to satisfy a different need.’ Doronin manipulated his fingers in a cynical gesture that might have been expected from a spotty grammar-school boy, but certainly not from the Consul of the Russian Empire – Erast Petrovich even blinked in surprise. ‘Would you like to pay a visit? Personally, I abstain from tea parties of that kind, but I can recommend the best of the establishments – it is called “Number Nine”. The sailor gentlemen are highly satisfied with it.’