Shogun_ A Novel of Japan - James Clavell [265]
“Where’s the dictionary-grammar book?” he had asked Mariko first thing this morning. “Has Yabu-sama sent another request for it?”
“Yes. Please be patient, Anjin-san. It will arrive soon.”
“It was promised with the galley and the troops. It didn’t arrive. Troops and guns but no books. I’m lucky you’re here. It’d be impossible without you.”
“Difficult, but not impossible, Anjin-san.”
“How do I say, ‘No, you’re doing it wrong! You must all run as a team, stop as a team, aim and fire as a team’?”
“To whom are you talking, Anjin-san?” she had asked.
And then again he had felt his frustration rising. “It’s all very difficult, Mariko-san.”
“Oh, no, Anjin-san. Japanese is very simple to speak compared with other languages. There are no articles, no ‘the,’ ‘a,’ or ‘an.’ No verb conjugations or infinitives. All verbs are regular, ending in masu, and you can say almost everything by using the present tense only, if you want. For a question just add ka after the verb. For a negative just change masu to masen. What could be easier? Yukimasu means I go, but equally you, he, she, it, we, they go, or will go, or even could have gone. Even plural and singular nouns are the same. Tsuma means wife, or wives. Very simple.”
“Well, how do you tell the difference between I go, yukimasu, and they went, yukimasu?”
“By inflection, Anjin-san, and tone. Listen: yukimasu—yukimasu.”
“But these both sounded exactly the same.”
“Ah, Anjin-san, that’s because you’re thinking in your own language. To understand Japanese you have to think Japanese. Don’t forget our language is the language of the infinite. It’s all so simple, Anjin-san. Just change your concept of the world. Japanese is just learning a new art, detached from the world…. It’s all so simple.”
“It’s all shit,” he had muttered in English, and felt better.
“What? What did you say?”
“Nothing. But what you say doesn’t make sense.”
“Learn the written characters,” Mariko had said.
“I can’t. It’ll take too long. They’re meaningless.”
“Look, they’re really simple pictures, Anjin-san. The Chinese are very clever. We borrowed their writing a thousand years ago. Look, take this character, or symbol, for a pig.”
“It doesn’t look like a pig.”
“Once it did, Anjin-san. Let me show you. Here. Add a ‘roof’ symbol over a ‘pig’ symbol and what do you have?”
“A pig and a roof.”
“But what does that mean? The new character?”
“I don’t know.”
“‘Home.’ In the olden days the Chinese thought a pig under a roof was home. They’re not Buddhists, they’re meat eaters, so a pig to them, to peasants, represented wealth, hence a good home. Hence the character.”
“But how do you say it?”
“That depends if you’re Chinese or Japanese.”
“Oh ko!”
“Oh ko, indeed,” she had laughed. “Here’s another character. A ‘roof’ symbol and a ‘pig’ symbol and a ‘woman’ symbol. A ‘roof’ with two ‘pigs’ under it means ‘contentment.’ A ‘roof’ with two ‘women’ under it equals ‘discord.’ Neh?”
“Absolutely!”
“Of course, the Chinese are very stupid in many things and their women are not trained as women are here. There’s no discord in your home, is there?”
Blackthorne thought about that now, on the twelfth day of his rebirth. No. There was no discord. But neither was it a home. Fujiko was only like a trustworthy housekeeper and tonight when he went to his bed to sleep, the futons would be turned back and she would be kneeling beside them patiently, expressionlessly. She would be dressed in her sleeping kimono, which was similar to a day kimono but softer and with only a loose sash instead of a stiff obi at the waist.
“Thank you, Lady,” he would say. “Good night.”
She would bow and go silently to the room across the corridor, next to the one Mariko slept in. Then he would get under the fine silk mosquito net. He had never known such nets before. Then he would lie back happily, and in the night, hearing the few insects buzzing outside, he would dwell on the Black Ship, how important the Black Ship was to Japan.
Without the Portuguese, no trade with China. And