"Kiku-san says we should all be honored that you say such things. I agree, Anjin-san. You make me feel very proud. I was very proud of you today. But surely it's not as bad as you say."
"It's worse. It's difficult to understand, let alone explain, if you've never been there or weren't brought up there. You see - in truth . . ." Blackthorne saw them watching him, waiting patiently, multihued, so lovely and clean, the room so stark and uncluttered and tranquil. All at once his mind began to contrast it with the warm, friendly stench of his English home, rushes on the earth floor, smoke from the open brick fire rising to the roof hole-only three of the new fireplaces with chimneys in his whole village, and those only for the very wealthy. Two small bedrooms and then the one large untidy room of the cottage for eating, living, cooking, and talking. You walked into the cottage in your seaboots, summer or winter, mud unnoticed, dung unnoticed, and sat on a chair or bench, the oak table cluttered like the room, three or four dogs and the two children - his son and his dead brother Arthur's girl - climbing and falling and playing higgledy piggledy, Felicity cooking, her long dress trailing in the rushes and dirt, the skivvy maid sniffing and getting in the way and Mary, Arthur's widow, coughing in the next room he'd built for her, near death as always, but never dying.
Felicity. Dear Felicity. A bath once a month perhaps, and then in summer, very private, in the copper tub, but washing her face and hands and feet every day, always hidden to the neck and wrists, swathed in layers of heavy woolens all year long that were unwashed for months or years, reeking like everyone, lice-infested like everyone, scratching like everyone.
And all the other stupid beliefs and superstitions, that cleanliness could kill, open windows could kill, water could kill and encourage flux or bring in the plague, that lice and fleas and flies and dirt and disease were God's punishments for sins on earth.
Fleas, flies, and fresh rushes every spring, but every day to church and twice on Sundays to hear the Word pounded into you: Nothing matters, only God and salvation.
Born in sin, living in shame, Devil's brood, condemned to Hell, praying for salvation and forgiveness, Felicity so devout and filled with fear of the Lord and terror of the Devil, desperate for Heaven. Then going home to food. A haunch of meat from the spit and if a piece fell on the floor you'd pick it up and brush the dirt off and eat it if the dogs didn't get it first, but you'd throw them the bones anyway. Castings on the floor. Leavings pushed onto the floor to be swept up perhaps and thrown into the road perhaps. Sleeping most of the time in your dayclothes and scratching like a contented dog, always scratching. Old so young and ugly so young and dying so young. Felicity. Now twenty-nine, gray, few teeth left, old, lined, and dried up.
"Before her time, poor bloody woman. My God, how unnecessary!" he cried out in rage. "What a stinking bloody waste!"
"Nam desu ka, Anjin-san?" both women said in the same breath, their contentment vanishing.
"So sorry . . . it was just . . . you're all so clean and we're filthy and it's all such a waste, countless millions, me too, all my life . . . and only because we don't know any better! Christ Jesus, what a waste! It's the priests - they're the educated and the educators, priests own all the schools, do all the teaching, always in the name of God, filth in the name of God . . . . It's the truth!"
"Oh yes, of course," Mariko said soothingly, touched by his pain. "Please don't concern yourself now, Anjin-san. That's for tomorrow...
Kiku wore a smile but she was furious with herself. You should have been more careful, she told herself. Stupid stupid stupid! Mariko-san warned you! Now you've allowed the evening to be ruined, and the magic's gone gone gone!
In truth, the heavy, almost tangible sexuality that had touched all of them had disappeared. Perhaps that's just as well, she thought. At least Mariko and the Anjin-san are protected for one more night.
Poor man, poor lady. So sad. She watched them talking, then sensed a change in tone between them.
"Now I must leave thee," Mariko was saying in Latin.
"Let us leave together."
"I beg thee stay. For thy honor and hers. And mine, Anjin-san."
"I do not want this thy gift," he said. "I want thee."
"I am thine, believe it, Anjin-san. Please stay, I beg thee, and know that tonight I am thine."
He did not insist that she stay.
After she had gone he lay back and put his arms under his head and stared out of the window at the night. Rain splattered the tiles, the wind gusted caressingly from the sea.
