Commodore Perry's Minstrel Show by Richard Wiley Page A

sister’s hand.
    â€œDo we have any ginseng in the house?” she asked. “When the subject came up just now I realized that though I have heard of its powers often, I have never tried it. It might be interesting to see if its effects are as readily available to women as men.”
    It was a harmless joke, meant to tell Einosuke that she was a reliable sister-in-law, but it titillated Manjiro and entirely perplexed Fumiko.
    â€œHave you done your raking this morning, dear?” she asked her husband. “Did you smooth the gravel below the porch?”
    Einosuke assured her that he had, and when the others left the garden room ahead of them he slid his hand along the contours of his wife’s back, hoping to let her know that he would like to meet her here later, and mess up the rocks again.
    At breakfast Lord Okubo was contrite about the shouting he had done the night before. He apologized to Einosuke and Fumiko, but could manage only a nod to Manjiro.

10 .
The Pavilion of Timelessness
    TSUNE WAS KNOWN in Edo society not only because her name had once surfaced on a list of candidates when a previous Shogun needed a wife, or because in recent years she had had two marriage proposals from sons of members of the Great Council and had cut off negotiations with both, but also because of a certain recent and serious indiscretion, word of which had somehow reached Edo. And now that she was back in the capital, now that she had been seen at the treaty-signing ceremonies, people were talking again. What was she up to, this woman with the spotted reputation, this no-longer-quite-so-eligible daughter of the realm? And who was this strange younger brother of her brother-in-law, this usurping young scoundrel, Manjiro?
    Such were the public conditions under which the two young people left Einosuke’s house the next morning, to search out the Barbarian Book Library. Manjiro had departed first, so was inside the library’s main room, in the presence of the official from the Institute of Fish and the previously missing Barbarian Book Room man, when Tsune arrived shortly after him.
    â€œAh, my husband, I have found you,” she said. “I worried I might not.
    Manjiro’s face darkened. Wasn’t that too bold a comment, too risky a joke? There had been no formal talk yet, nor had there been the slightest private word between them concerning marriage. Was she trying to tell him something, or was she merely choosing the most obvious ruse to fool the book room man?
    â€œHere I am,” he said.
    Her entrance drew the man from the Institute for the Investigation of Chinese Herbs, making him hurry over to join the others. He had not heard the exchange and assumed that whenever a woman came into the building she wanted what he had to offer. Exotic Chinese herbs! The constantly whispered-about promise of female sexual pleasure!
    â€œGood morning, madam,” he said, in a slightly lascivious voice. “Allow me to help you find what you want.”
    The herb official’s greatest joy came when he placed his medicines in front of these young wives or geisha, for years earlier he had discovered that if he leaned into the table while explaining their properties, and if he watched the expressions on the women’s faces as he did so, the herbs worked far more quickly for him than if he ingested them.
    â€œPlease,” he said, “there have been so many advances recently, let me give my litde talk. There is nothing for you to spend on it except time.”
    He bowed, in respect for Tsune’s station, but he also waved his hands in the air in the way certain merchants had recendy found to somehow garner authority. Tsune knew that Manjiro’s papers would not allow him to take her, wife or not, into the Barbarian Book Room with him. Her idea had simply been to engage the room’s attendant in small talk so that Manjiro could search in peace. She was therefore hesitant to go with the herb