Free Commodore Perry's Minstrel Show by Richard Wiley Page B

high cheekbones, wondering what there was about him that had so distressed the woman in Manjiro’s group. His English was like it had been when he’d tried to greet Fumiko, also, cleaner and easier for Manjiro to understand, unaffected by the fiery inflections necessary to draw a crowd. And seeing that he was far less ugly, less sharp-featured and more serious than he’d been before, Manjiro wished that Einosuke and Fumiko had not so quickly hurried home. Ace’s cheeks were narrow and his eyes, Manjiro could have pointed out, were the same brown color as Fumiko’s.
    â€œI am only their messenger,” said Manjiro.
    Ace got off the stage, retrieved his satchel from somewhere, and followed Manjiro into the clearing. Manjiro was pleased that on this, the occasion of his second private conversation with the man, his English had held up, but at the same time he was disappointed to find the crowd substantially diminished, that far fewer people were there to see them walking together toward the treaty house. The steam engine still chugged in its circle, a slow silver bullet defining the ceremonial space, but that space was now occupied almost entirely by Americans.
    â€œWhere is everyone?” asked Ace. “Did your family go home already? For once in my life I was in a mingling mood. Where did all of your countrymen go?”
    He had not seemed to Manjiro to be in any kind of mood other than tired and contemplative, but all he said was, “They are sleeping. These days exhaustion is rampant among the Japanese.”
    He wasn’t sure why but he felt ashamed, as if, though the American was speaking normally now, he had let artifice sneak into his reply. To be sure, he didn’t want to say that there were edicts and curfews posted everywhere, strictures against interaction with the foreigners, but what he had said sounded arch, and he tried to think of something more genuine.
    â€œI don’t like Dutch,” he said. “English is the language of the future. Dutch clogs everything up!”
    Ace looked at him, thinking to say “London, England! Paris, France!” in order to determine if it might have been Manjiro who had called out from shore the other night. But because most of the people had gone home and their walk between the minstrel stage and the treaty house didn’t take long, he didn’t respond at all. Though the ground was strewn with the crates and wrappings that had earlier held the American gifts, it otherwise no longer looked like it could have contained such a large crowd. Rather, it appeared desolate again, as if it, like the Japanese people, were prone to exhaustion.
    Directly in front of the treaty house stood four guards, two Americans and two Japanese. The Japanese were young samurai, sure and steady in their gaze, but the Americans looked like giants, this time no doubt chosen because they were large. The Americans stood at stiff attention, the Japanese with their legs spread wide. Because the treaty house had an open front, the two men could see directly into it as they approached. Lord Abe and Commodore Perry were sitting behind the table again, alone but for the company of a solitary whiskey bottle, and looking so unhappy in the dim light that had Manjiro not known the treaty was signed, he’d have called it a light in which negotiations had failed.
    When Perry saw them, however, he tried to stand, and to recover the earlier booming quality of his voice. “Ah,” he said, “Bledsoe, is it? Come in, come in, young man!”
    He pushed himself away from the table as he spoke, but his knees were stuck beneath it and he couldn’t get up. Lord Abe sat next to him, calm and oblivious, while his Dutch translator and the grim-faced Ueno stood against the back wall.
    â€œYes sir,” said Ace, as he stepped into the treaty house, “Bledsoe, it is. What can I do you for? I sorely hope it’s not another song.”
    This was