XXX The Room of the Last Chrysanthemum at the Magistracy in Nagasaki

The Second Day of the Ninth Month

Lord Abbot Enomoto of Kyôga Domain places a white stone on the board.

A way-station, sees Magistrate Shiroyama, between his northern flank…

Shadows of slender maples stripe the board of gold kaya wood.

… and his eastern groups… or else a diversionary attack? Both…

Shiroyama believed he was gaining control, but he was losing it.

Where is the hidden way, he wonders, to reverse my reverses?

‘Nobody can refute,’ comments Enomoto, ‘we live in straitened times.’

One may refute, thinks Shiroyama, that your times are straitened.

‘A minor daimyo of the Aso Plateau who sought my assistance -’

Yes, yes, thinks the Magistrate, your discretion is impeccable…

‘- observed that what grandfathers called “debt” is now called “credit”.’

‘Meaning,’ Shiroyama extends his north-south group with a black stone, ‘that debts no longer have to be repaid?’

With a polite smile, Enomoto removes his next stone from his rosewood bowl. ‘Repayments remain a tiresome necessity, alas, but the Aso noble’s case illustrates the point. Two years ago he borrowed a sizeable sum from Numa here,’ Numa, one of the Abbot’s pet money-lenders bows in his corner, ‘to drain a marsh: in the Seventh Month of this year, his smallholders harvested their first rice crop. So in an age when Edo’s stipends are tardy and dwindling, Numa’s client has well-fed, grateful peasants fattening his storehouses. His account with Numa shall be settled in full… when?’

Numa bows again. ‘A full two years early, Your Grace.’

‘That same daimyo’s lofty neighbour, who swore never to owe a grain of rice to anyone, despatches ever-more frantic begging letters to the Council of Elders…’ Enomoto places an island stone between his two eastern groups ‘… whose servants use them for kindling. Credit is the seed of wealth. The finest minds of Europe study credit and money within a discipline they call,’ Enomoto uses a foreign phrase, ‘ “Political Economy”.’

This merely confirms, thinks Shiroyama, my view of Europeans.

‘A young friend at the Academy was translating a remarkable text, The Wealth of Nations. His death was a tragedy for us scholars, but also, I believe, for Japan.’

‘Ogawa Uzaemon?’ Shiroyama remembers. ‘A distressing affair.’

‘Had he but told me he was using the Ariake Road, I would have provided an escort through my domain. But on a pilgrimage for his ailing father, the modest young man wanted to eschew comfort…’ Enomoto runs a thumbnail to and fro along his lifeline. The Magistrate has been told the story by several sources, but does not interrupt. ‘My men rounded up the bandits responsible. I beheaded the one who confessed, and hung the others by iron spikes through the feet until wolves and crows had done their work. Then,’ he sighs, ‘Ogawa the Elder died, before an heir was chosen.’

‘The death of a family line,’ Shiroyama concurs, ‘is a terrible thing.’

‘A cousin from a lesser branch is rebuilding the house – I made a donation – but he’s a common cutler, and the Ogawa name is gone from Dejima forever.’

Shiroyama has nothing to add, but to change the subject is disrespectful.

Doors are slid open to reveal a veranda. Bright clouds bloom to the south.

Over the hilly headland, smoke uncoils from a burning field.

One is here and one is gone, thinks Shiroyama. Platitudes are profundities.

The game of Go reasserts itself. Starched silk sleeves rustle. ‘It is customary,’ observes Enomoto, ‘to flatter a magistrate’s skill at Go, but truly you are the best player I have met these last five years. I detect the influence of the Honinbo School.’

‘My father’ – the Magistrate sees the old man’s ghost scowling at Enomoto’s money-lender – ‘reached the Second Ryu of the Honinbo. I am an unworthy disciple…’ Shiroyama attacks an isolated stone of Enomoto’s ‘… when time permits.’ He lifts the teapot, but it is empty. He claps, once, and Chamberlain Tomine appears in person. ‘Tea,’ says the Magistrate. Tomine turns around and claps for another servant, who glides to the table, retrieves the tray in perfect silence and vanishes, with a bow in the doorway. The Magistrate imagines the tray descending the ladder of servitude to the toothless crone in the furthest kitchen who warms the water to the perfect heat before pouring it over perfect leaves.

Chamberlain Tomine has gone nowhere: this is his mild protest.

‘So, Tomine: the place is infested with landowners in boundary disputes, petty officials needing positions for errant nephews, bruised wives begging for divorces, all of whom assail you with offers of coins and daughters, chorusing and imploring, “Please, Chamberlain-sama, speak with the Magistrate on my behalf.” ’

Tomine makes an awkward mmf noise in his crushed nose.

A magistrate is the slave, Shiroyama thinks, of that many-headed wanting…

‘Watch the goldfish,’ he tells Tomine. ‘Fetch me in a few minutes.’

The circumspect chamberlain withdraws to the Courtyard.

‘Our game is unfair,’ says Enomoto. ‘You are distracted by duty.’

A jade-and-ash dragonfly lands on the edge of the board.

‘High office,’ replies the Magistrate, ‘is distractions, of all sizes.’ He has heard that the Abbot can remove the ki of insects and small creatures through the palm of his hand, and he half hopes for a demonstration, but the dragonfly is already gone. ‘Lord Enomoto, too, has a domain to govern, a Shrine to maintain, scholarly interests and…’ to accuse him of commercial interests would be an insult ‘… other matters.’

‘My days, to be certain, are never idle,’ Enomoto places a stone in the heart of the board, ‘but Mount Shiranui rejuvenates me.’

An autumn breeze drags its invisible robes around the fine room.

I am powerful enough, the casual reference reminds the Magistrate, to oblige the Aibagawa girl, a favourite of yours, to take vows in my Shrine, and you could not intercede.

Shiroyama tries to concentrate on the game’s present and future.

Once, Shiroyama’s father taught him, nobility and samurai ruled Japan…

The kneeling servant parts the doors, bows, and brings in the tray.

… but now it is Deception, Greed, Corruption and Lust who govern.

The servant brings two new cups and a teapot.

‘Lord Abbot,’ says Shiroyama, ‘would you care for some tea?’

‘You shan’t be insulted,’ he states, ‘by my preference for my own drink.’

‘Your…’ what is the tactful word? ‘… your reticence no longer surprises.’

Enomoto’s indigo-clad aspirant is already there. The shaven-headed youth uncorks a gourd and leaves it with his master.

‘Has your host ever…’ Once again, the Magistrate hunts for the right words.

‘Been angered by an implicit accusation that he meant to poison me? Yes, upon occasion. But then I pacify him with the story of how an enemy’s servant – a woman – obtained a post at the residence of a famous Miyako family. She worked there as a trusted maid for two years until my next visit. She embellished my meal with a few grains of an odourless poison. Had my Order’s doctor, Master Suzaku, not been on hand to administer an antidote, I would have died, and my friend’s family would have been disgraced.’

‘You have some unscrupulous enemies, Lord Abbot.’

He lifts the neck of the gourd to his mouth, tilts his head and drinks. ‘Enemies flock to power,’ he wipes his lips, ‘like wasps to split figs.’

Shiroyama threatens Enomoto’s isolated stone by placing it in atari.

An earth tremor animates the stones; they blur and buzz…

… but are not dislocated, and the tremor passes.

‘Pardon my vulgarity,’ says Enomoto, ‘for referring to the business of Numa once again, but that I keep a Shogun’s magistrate from his duties troubles my conscience. How much credit would it be helpful for Numa to supply in the first instance?’