The Bamboo Sword by Margi Preus

Author:Margi Preus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2015-07-02T16:00:00+00:00

Later, sitting in the soba shop, hunched over a bowl of broth, he thought of his conversation with Kiku about belonging. He did not belong here, in this place, with these samurai. He had wanted to belong, had wished that he could be one of them, but he wasn’t. And he never would be.

Nonetheless, here is where he was, and the young samurai were peppering him with questions. He was determined not to give them any information about Manjiro, but when they asked what he’d said, he wasn’t prepared, and he blurted out, “E pluribus unum.”

“What?” said the bear-like one, who was named Kuma. “Now you are speaking gibberish.”

The serious one laughed. “It’s Latin,” he said. “It’s a motto of the Americans. I heard about it from Kawada Shoryo, who wrote the book about the castaway. It means”—he paused for a moment, thinking—“‘Out of many, one.’”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“In America they have many states.”

“Thirty-one,” Yoshi mumbled around his soup.

“Many states, one nation. I suppose it would be as if our domain lords all worked together to make one unified nation, instead of ruling their domains as if they were kingdoms.”

Catfish raised an eyebrow. “I would like to see that happen.”

“It can mean other things, too,” Yoshi said.

The others turned to him. “For instance?”

“America is a nation of immigrants. It could mean Out of many nationalities, one people.’”

“They may be all different nationalities, but they are all still barbarians,” Coughing One grumbled.

“Or maybe . . . ” Yoshi stopped for a moment. Something odd had suddenly occurred to him. “I suppose it could mean that out of the many nationalities on earth, we are all still one people.”

Kuma snorted. “A little radical in our midst!” he said, and the others laughed.

But the loose-haired one looked at Yoshi thoughtfully. “Is this what your master tells you?” he asked. “That all people are the same?”

Yoshi shoveled more soup into his mouth and stared at the bowl. He was determined not to say anything else about Manjiro, or what he had or hadn’t told him.

“That is the founding principle of the United States,” the serious one said. “That all men are created equal.”

Yoshi expected to hear the rumble of disagreement, but the room was strangely silent. Perhaps, he thought, they were considering the fact that here in their own country, they were all low-level samurai with little power or say in anything. They had not been born to wealth or power, and so it was unlikely they would ever have either. That is how it was.

Two new young samurai had joined the group, and now one of them spoke. “The thing to do is to go there,” he said.

“Go where?” Coughing One asked.

“To America.”

The room grew still. After a moment, Catfish said, “Why would you want to do that?”

“Only by learning the barbarians’ ways can we hope to defeat them,” the young man answered. “Someone must do it. Why not us?”

“How do you propose to get there?”

“We will approach the Americans, explain that we want to go to their country, and ask to be taken aboard one of the ships.

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