But even so, the titular counsellor liked it much better here than on the decorous Bund. This was it, the real Japan! It might be plain and dowdy, but even this place had its merits, thought Erast Petrovich, drawing his first conclusions. Despite the poverty, it was clean everywhere. That was one. The simple people were extremely polite and he could not sense any air of abjection about them. That was two. Fandorin could not think of a third argument in favour of Japan quite yet, and he postponed any further conclusions until later.
‘The shameful quarter starts at the other side of the Ivy Bridge,’ said Shirota, pointing to a arched wooden bridge. ‘Teahouses, beer parlours for the sailors. And the “Rakuen” is there too. There, you see it? Over there by the pole with a head on it.’
As he stepped on to the bridge, Erast Petrovich looked in the direction indicated and froze. A woman’s head with an intricate hairstyle was hanging on a tall pole. The young man wanted to turn away immediately, but he held his glance still for a moment, and after that he could not turn away. The dead face was frighteningly, magically lovely.
‘That is a woman by the name of O-Kiku,’ the clerk explained. ‘She was the finest courtesan in the “Chrysanthemum” establishment – the one over there, with the red lantern at the entrance. O-Kiku fell in love with one of her clients, a kabuki actor. But he grew cold towards her, and then she poisoned him with rat poison. She poisoned herself too, but she vomited, and the poison did not take effect. They washed out her stomach and then cut off her head. Before the execution, she composed a beautiful haiku, a verse of three lines…’
Shirota closed his eyes, concentrated and declaimed in a singsong voice:
‘
A tempest at night,
But dawn brings complete silence -
A flower’s dream ends
.’
And he explained:
‘The flower is herself because “kiku” means “chrysanthemum”. The hurricane is her passion, the silence is her forthcoming execution, and the dream is human life… The judge ordered her head to be kept outside the door of the tearoom for a week – as a lesson to the other courtesans and to punish the proprietress. Not many clients will favour a shop sign like that.’
Fandorin was impressed by the story he had been told, and by Japanese justice, and most of all by the wonderful poem. But Sophia Diogenovna remained unmoved. She crossed herself at the sight of the severed head without any excessive fright – in all the years she had lived in Japan, she must have become accustomed to the peculiarities of the Japanese system of justice. Blagolepova was far more interested in the ‘Rakuen’ – the young lady gazed at the stout oak door with eyes wide in terror.
‘There is nothing for you to be afraid of, madam,’ Erast Petrovich reassured her, and was about to enter, but Shirota slipped ahead of him.
‘No, no,’ he declared with a most decisive air. ‘This is my responsibility.’
He knocked and stepped into a small dark passage that reminded Fandorin of the antechamber of a bathhouse. The door immediately slammed shut, evidently impelled by a concealed spring.
‘That’s a procedure they have here. They let people in one at a time,’ Blagolepova explained.
The door opened again, as if of its own accord, and Fandorin let the lady go ahead.
Sophia Diogenovna babbled ‘Merci’ and disappeared into the antechamber.
Finally, it was the titular counsellor’s turn.
For five seconds he stood in total darkness, then another door opened in front of him, admitting a smell of sweat and tobacco and another unfamiliar, sweetish aroma. ‘Opium’, Erast Petrovich guessed, sniffing the air.
A short, thickset, strong-looking fellow (predatory facial features, wearing a bandana with squiggles on it round his forehead) started slapping the functionary on the sides and feeling under his armpits. A second fellow, who looked exactly the same, brusquely searched Sophia Diogenovna at the same time.
Fandorin flushed, prepared to put an end to this intolerable impudence there and then, but Blagolepova said rapidly:
‘It’s all right, I’m used to it. They have to do this, they get far too many wild characters coming here.’ And she added something in Japanese, in a tone that sounded soothing.
Shirota had already been let through – he was standing a little to one side, with a perfectly clear air of disapproval.
But the vice-consul found it all very interesting.
At first glance the Japanese den of iniquity reminded him very strongly of a Khitrovka tavern of the very worst kind. Only in Khitrovka it was very much dirtier and the floor was covered with gobs of spittle, but here, before stepping on to the straw mats covering the floor, he had to take off his shoes.
Sophia Diogenovna became terribly embarrassed, and Fandorin could not immediately understand why. Then he noticed that the poor spinster had no stockings, and he delicately averted his eyes.
‘Now, which man here is the one who owes you money?’ he asked brightly, gazing around.
His eyes quickly accustomed themselves to the dim lighting. There were motionless figures lying and sitting on straw mattresses in the far corner. No, one of them moved: a gaunt Chinese with a long plait blew on the wick of an outlandish-looking lamp that was standing beside him; he used a needle to turn a little white ball that was heating over the flame, then stuffed the ball into the opening of a long pipe and took a long draw. He shook his head for a few moments, then flopped back on to a bolster and took another draw.
In the middle of the room about half a dozen or so gamblers were sitting at a table with tiny little legs. Several other men were not playing, but watching – all exactly the same as in some Daredevil Inn or Half-Bottle Tavern.
Fandorin identified the owner without any prompting. The half-naked man with an unnaturally bloated upper body shook some kind of small cup, then tossed two little cubes on to the table. That was clear enough – they were playing dice. But it was astonishing that the result of the game didn’t arouse any emotions at all in the men sitting round the table. In Russia the winners would have burst into a string of joyful obscenities and the loser would have sworn obscenely too, but viciously. However, these men silently sorted out the money, most of which went to the hunchback, and then started sipping some kind of murky liquid from little cups.
Taking advantage of the break, Sophia Diogenovna walked up to the owner, bowed obsequiously and started asking him about something. The hunchback listened sullenly and drawled: ‘Heh-eh-eh’ once, as if he was surprised at something. (Erast Petrovich guessed that this was his reaction to the news of the captain’s death.) He heard the woman out, shook his head sharply and muttered: ‘Nani-o itterunda!’ – and then several brief, rumbling phrases.
Blagolepova started crying quietly.
‘What? Does he refuse?’ Fandorin asked, touching the lady’s sleeve.
She nodded.
‘This man says he has paid the captain in full. The captain has spent the entire launch from the funnel to the anchor on opium,’ Shirota translated.
‘He’s lying!’ Sophia Diogenovna exclaimed. ‘Papa couldn’t have smoked enough for all the money! He told me himself that there were still seventy-five yen left!’
The owner gestured with one hand and spoke to Fandorin in appalling English:
‘Want play? Want puh-puh? No want play, no want puh-puh – go-go.’
Shirota whispered, looking round anxiously at the well-muscled young fellows with the white bandanas on their foreheads, who were slowly approaching the table from different sides of the room:
‘There’s nothing we can do. There’s no receipt – we can’t prove anything. We must leave, or else there could be an Incident.’