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The Year of the Barbarian

By Elizabeth Ann Boyles

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Prologue

July 1848 (Year of the Monkey), Nagasaki, Japan

Seven-year-old Taguchi Sumi stood by her home’s vestibule, erect and still, as suited the daughter of a samurai, even though her heart pounded like a drum and her feet wanted to dance. As soon as her father finished his breakfast of miso soup, they would bow to her grandfather and make their way toward Nagasaki Harbor for the most fascinating sight imaginable.
Ever since she could remember, she had wanted nothing more than to accompany her father to watch the arrival of the annual Dutch ship. Last New Year’s Day, he promised to take her when the tall sailing ship reached the port.
Today was the day at last. If she were lucky, she might even glimpse one of the strange-looking foreigners. The painting she’d seen at a street stall showed a tall man with red hair all around his face and a long nose. Her chances of seeing one would increase if her father, Dutch Scholar of the Second Rank, were asked to interpret at the customs house. If that happened, she’d also get to see the curious cargo the barbarians’ ship disgorged.
Her grandfather slid back his room’s panel and stepped out. “Kenshin,” he called to her father. “I must speak with you about those plans you have.” Impatience filled his crackly voice.
A butterfly jumped in Sumi’s stomach and lodged in her throat as her father quickly rose. She crept after him, the tatami floor’s straw mats muffling her footsteps. Early morning shadows helped cloak her as she approached her grandfather’s room.
“You cannot take the child.” His words stung like angry hornets. “Encouraging her interest in the barbarians will surely anger the spirits of our ancestors.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She rushed toward her grandfather and stamped her foot. “No, I must see the ship! Father promised. I cannot wait another year.”
Sumi clasped her hand to her mouth. She had done the unthinkable.
Her father’s eyes grew stern. He removed her favorite kimono with its pattern of blue dragonflies, leaving only her long under-robe. Her face grew hot. She wanted to collapse on the mat beneath her, but she couldn’t. She was the daughter of a samurai.
A whimper escaped from somewhere deep within as her father half-picked her up, then pushed her out into the garden.
“Your impertinence is intolerable. You will learn respect for your elders before you reenter.” He slid the back entrance closed in her face.
“I am sorry,” she cried. Leaning her ear against one of the panels, she heard nothing. She put her right eye up to the slim crack between the two panels, but the tight closure blocked even the tiniest view.
She called out her apology again, this time to just her grandfather. By now her father had left for the harbor. Without her. He might even interpret for a foreigner. Without her. She couldn’t hold back a sob despite belonging to a long line of samurai.
Lunchtime came and went. The afternoon dragged on. Kneeling by the door, she cried her apology many more times, but no one came. The sun slipped behind the trees. The blue hydrangea blossoms that charmed her the previous day now looked pale. Ghostly.
All of a sudden, a dark shape among the clouds cast a shadow. Could it be a tengu, a goblin? Their maid often told her how tengu grabbed bad children with its sharp claws.
She gasped. There it was, half-hidden by clouds, hovering over their neighbor’s pine tree. Glancing over her shoulder to see if it came any closer, she hurried back to the door.
“Please, please, let me in! I am sorry. I will obey.” She dared rap on the panels’ frame.
No voice, no footsteps came from within. A thought struck her. Maybe her grandfather would be happy if the tengu took her.
If her family wouldn’t save her, she had to save herself. She darted her eyes over the garden’s pear and maple trees, the small pool with its fountain, the bushes encircling the jutting rocks, the garden’s own pine tree at the back. There was no place to hide. None.
But the miniature bridge in their neighbor’s garden—it might shelter her.
She dashed for the narrow gap where the walls of the two properties came together and squeezed through. She slid under the edge of the bridge’s arch, thankful now she didn’t have on her best kimono. Hunched between the bridge posts, she tried to remember if the maid had talked about anything dangerous that might lurk in the black pond at her feet.
Darkness settled around her. An angry insect buzzed by her head. Her legs ached, but she couldn’t leave her perch.
Her mother’s voice floated from her family’s back garden, then her father’s, calling her name. Were their voices real? Or was the goblin trying to trick her?
The calls began again from a distance, probably from the road in front of her house.
How terrible that the neighbors would know of her disgrace. She had to get back into her garden even if a goblin saw her. Trembling, she crept through the gap and waited by the door. “I am sorry, Honorable Grandfather,” she murmured one more time.
The door slid open. Her grandfather grabbed her arm and yanked her through the house to the front veranda.
“Stay here.” He twisted her to face him as he spoke. “Do not move.” He picked up a lantern and strode out their front gate.
She hardly dared breathe, let alone move.
Her elders, with a few neighbors, headed toward her in a pack, lanterns swinging wildly.
“Where have you been? Were you hiding?” Her father’s scowl hurt, like a splinter piercing deep into her chest.
She opened her mouth to explain about the tengu, but no sound came out. It was as if all the eyes staring at her stole her voice. She couldn’t stop shivering.
Her father squatted and pulled her toward him, his tunic’s sleeve brushing her bare arm. “You are here now and safe.” He didn’t sound as angry. “Why didn’t you answer when we called? Were you in danger? Did someone try to kidnap you?”
“A tengu.”
“A tengu does not exist.” Her father gripped her shoulder. “There is no such thing. Do not add foolishness to today’s bad behavior.”
Sumi’s head jerked up. She’d been fooled. The maid had seemed to truly fear those goblins. She looked at her grandfather standing over her. He was watching her intently, in the same way he studied a tree or flower before painting it with his watercolors.
“Enough questions.” Her grandfather’s voice had also softened. He nodded to Merchant Omura and his wife and bowed to another man who lived nearby. “We thank our kind friends for their aid and apologize for the inconvenience.”
After adding his own bow, her father accompanied the chattering neighbors to the gate. Before the gate closed, Sumi heard Merchant Omura say it was wise to curb a child’s unnatural interest in the barbarians. But she didn’t think her interest was at all unnatural.
“Come.” Her grandfather turned on his heel. “We shall offer thanks for the child’s safe return.” He led her mother and her into their home.
After preparing the sticks of incense in front of the god shelf, he turned with the lit sticks. “You are too like your father,” he said as he handed Sumi hers, “not cherishing our ancestors’ ways.”
Just as she opened her mouth to give the required apology, her mother interrupted, her voice as gentle as the whisper of a summer breeze. “I am sure my husband has never meant to offend you or the revered ancestors. He wants to do that which pleases you.”
“I can see what is happening. I am old, but not blind.”
“You have been more than patient.” Her mother handed her stick over to Sumi, then knelt and touched her forehead to the straw mat.
Sumi sucked in a breath. To bow down and try to make everyone happy must take the patience of silkworms spinning cocoons. Or maybe a hen waiting for her eggs to hatch.
And on top of that, pleasing people required selflessness. No one knew what the poor silkworm felt the minute before it was killed for its cocoon, the precious result of all its tedious work. Maybe it didn’t care. But she knew chickens resisted foxes wanting to steal chicks. She was much more like a combative chicken than a silkworm—or her meek mother.
For one thing, she would never give up her wish to see the hairy barbarians.
Never.


Chapter One

Seven years later
July 1855 (Year of the Rabbit), Nagasaki, Japan

A hungry mosquito flew under the hem of Sumi’s kimono and attacked her ankle. She dared not swat it while old Suzuki-sensei, her tutor, knelt ramrod straight on the cushion opposite her, expounding the virtues found in the Tale of the Heike.
“With true samurai spirit, Lady Nii took the seven-year-old Emperor’s arm and propelled both of them off the ship and into the foaming sea.” A hint of enthusiasm colored his recitation. “Emperor Antoku’s mother leapt in after them, intending to save her son’s life, not his honor.”
The mosquito bite itched, but Sumi held firm. She would not lick her lips. She would not sway. And she would not allow a muscle’s quiver. If she concentrated on the fascinating account, she’d forget the urge to scratch. She was sure of it.
Suzuki closed the worn text and bowed. “I shall continue the history next week when the young student is able to concentrate.” He clamped his lips together.
“Sumimasen,” she apologized, her heart plummeting. She’d kept her eyes cast down and had held perfectly still. How did her tutor know that her mind wandered for a second?
Waiting a week to find out if the three drowned in the sea was disappointing, but worse was this newest failure. Now that she had turned fourteen, the standards for a samurai’s daughter rose impossibly high. In the last lesson, she had left out two phrases from her long recitation. In the lesson before that, Suzuki-sensei scolded her for asking a foolish question about whether women could be samurai in the Western countries. And in the prior weeks? Countless mistakes, no doubt firmly fixed in her elders’ memories.
“Perhaps fresh air will improve your mind.” Suzuki’s knees creaked as he rose. “I shall observe your progress with your weapon.” He gestured toward the open panel and walked down the hall leading to her home’s back garden, his slight limp betraying his age of more than sixty years.
Following at a respectful distance, Sumi held her breath as they approached the closed panel leading to her grandfather’s room. Would her lapse be reported to the Eldest?
Suzuki hesitated a moment, then walked on, the tatami emitting soft puffs as he crossed them.
She practically tiptoed the rest of the way to the garden.
At Suzuki’s word, she grasped the lacquered black shaft of the naginata, a smooth, long spear ending in a curved steel blade, and then waited for his next order.
“Pick the ripest pear. Not one leaf with it.”
Squinting at the bright sky, she studied the nearby tree. The yellowest pear nestled close to the top on an inner bough. She’d never be able to avoid striking the branch. Yet she had to try.
Careful not to entangle a wisp of her long hair, she made a quick thrust at the pear. Amazingly, she hit it, but a twig full of leaves accompanied it into Suzuki’s outstretched hand.
“How many hours did you practice last week?” An icy politeness frosted his words.
“Seven hours. One . . . one each day.” She’d practiced early each morning before the summer heat siphoned her energy, and had endured the chore before breakfast, half-starved.
“Two hours a day this week, and three the next if you do no better. The spear must become an extension of your arm.”
Sumi bowed her assent. At that rate, no pear or branch would be left on the wretched tree. Maybe she could do imaginary battle with leaves instead of fruit, while melting under the sun. For a moment, she envied the merchants’ children. Most of them were privileged to learn to read and write like herself, yet had the leisure to fly kites, roll hoops, and play games like the top-spinning competition, beigoma. They didn’t have to train for nonexistent battles. Yet she couldn’t help being proud of her line of valiant ancestors.
“Taguchi Sumi-san, are you listening to me?” Suzuki-sensei clapped his hands twice.
“Sumimasen,” she apologized again. Her neck grew warm.
“You have an hour left to perform with the naginata. Then review the first five precepts of Higher Learning for Women. Memorize those precepts. Word for word.” His voice rose slightly. “You must train your mind to concentrate and your ears to attend to your elders.”
He gave a stern nod and reentered the house.
Sumi bowed to his back. There was no question about the disappointing report he’d give when he came to her grandfather’s door this time: Failure to keep still. Failure with her weapon. Failure to listen.
Sighing, she wielded the weapon again, decimating more twigs.
A movement on one of the branches on the other side of the tree caught her eye.
A snake! Headed toward a sparrow’s nest.
The mother bird frantically flapped her wings, but the reptile slithered on.
Sumi circled to the far side of the tree until she had a clear view. Only two branches between her and the snake. Heart pounding, she thrust out the naginata. It cut through leaves, but missed the snake, now poised to snatch a hatchling from inside the nest.
Gritting her teeth, she hacked at the monster again.
Missed, but the snake turned to the side.
Once more.
Struck in half, the snake plummeted to the ground.
But, horror of horrors, the mother bird fell next to it, one wing sliced off, flapping the other.
Sumi collapsed.
She sensed her grandfather before she heard him.
“I will take care of the bird and the nest. The sun still shines. Despite your failure, the sun goddess has not forsaken the world.”
Tensing her body lest the forbidden tears break out, Sumi pulled herself up. She looked away from the flailing sparrow and grasped the naginata.
“You are dismissed from practice.” His voice conveyed resignation.
She bowed, replaced the weapon, and fled to her room.
Grabbing two cushions, she fell onto them and sobbed as silently as possible. She had slaughtered the hatchlings’ only source of life. They would starve. More sobs wracked her chest.
She would never be a worthy samurai’s daughter. How could she yank a child into the sea? She couldn’t stand to kill a bird. Her sobs ended in a moan.
But perhaps the sparrows would come back to earth in a different form. She mulled over the thought. The Buddhist priest claimed a person’s behavior determined the next rebirth. People might become a bird or even sink down to be an insect. So if one became a bird, would he have another life beyond that? And how about the child Emperor if he had drowned?
She might ask a priest at the Suwa Shrine to enlighten her about such mysteries if a priest’s acolyte hadn’t treated her recent question as though she’d spoken treason. Mustering her courage, she had bowed under the shrine’s torii lintel, then approached the solemn young man standing to the side of the coin box. “Excuse me,” she’d said as he leaned toward her. “Could you tell me how much respect I should give the foreigners if I ever meet one . . . according to the gods and spirits? Might they be equal to our country’s artisans or the lowly merchants?” She’d known foreigners couldn’t rank among those privileged to be born at the top, like samurai, or next to the top, like farmers, who grew the nation’s food.
The acolyte stepped back as if she’d slapped him. “Barbarians are lower than Untouchables—like animals,” he’d growled.
Her face burned at the memory of his glare, amazed she’d dared to respond.
“But how can they be lower than Untouchables? Dutch Scholars, like my father, wouldn’t spend time reading their books if they didn’t have something worthwhile to say.”
“Who are you to argue?” he’d sputtered, then waved his hand for her to leave.
Another tear slid down her cheek. Maybe she wouldn’t find out what happened to birds when they died—or people—until she met the same fate. But she knew all too well what had happened to the mother bird and her babies in this life.

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