The Consolation of Maps

by Thomas Bourke

Genres: Cultural Heritage; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

Arresting and beautiful, The Consolation of Maps tells a story of ill-fated passion. Theodora Appel runs a company that is more like a family. When young Kenji Tanabe moves from Tokyo to Washington, he's initiated into her rarefied world of antiquarian cartography. But Theodora - brilliantly successful, beguilingly secretive - has another obsession. It is in Florence, where past clashes with present and even love has a price, that her impossible dream will threaten them all.

Release date: June 14, 2018

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 280

Sample

I

The lights of Tokyo made a celestial imprint on the ceiling of thick cloud. Kenji took the earthen path along the river and a shortcut through the alleys of Kawaguchi. Sparks showered across the floors of corrugated foundries near the station. It was not yet dawn on the last Thursday of November when the blue Keihin-Tohoku train arrived downtown. He let the icy wind blow open his overcoat as he approached the fish market near the Ginza. The auctions would be ending and he could have breakfast with the fishmongers and the last of the revellers.

As he approached the gallery Kenji’s anxiety was heightened by the giant vertical banner with the title of the exhibition: Artworks on Paper and Vellum. This was the first time he’d seen the dark green canvas with gold leaf script. The gallery was on the seventh floor of a pre-war department store – one of the most exclusive in Tokyo. As a specialist in rare maps, Kenji’s selection would share the exhibition hall with modern American prints and Italian architectural drawings. His chosen theme was ‘Progress in Cartography’. Kenji followed the security guard inside. A light-box transparency of a fourteenth-century map flickered in the silent space. In the carpeted bays he nervously scanned his captions, rich in detail and conjecture. He tried to imagine what kind of impression the exhibition would make on someone seeing it for the first time. The maps were arranged to show the steady accumulation of knowledge towards accurate representations of Japan and the world. Exhibitions like this were located at the top of the building to entice visitors to the higher floors. Emporium exhibition openings were invitation-only Tokyo society events – attracting business executives, museum curators, celebrities and rival dealers. The prestige and purchasing power of the galleries made them the premier art dealerships in the city.

That evening a hundred purple irises were arrayed in the centre of the gallery under an art deco chandelier. Near the doorway a leather-bound visitors’ book was bathed in soft light. Kenji nervously checked his business cards. But he didn’t fidget with them – he’d been reprimanded for this as a junior. Be courteous without being condescending, they taught him. Carefully adjust your tone without compromising your authority. Engage the collector and the novice. Keep a certain distance. As the first patrons arrived Kenji unlocked the antique desk drawer and checked the list again. Although he didn’t expect price enquiries during the reception, he memorised them in case someone asked.

Kenji was autonomous in his dealings – his superiors were less interested in rare maps than the lucrative market for modern art. Although he was the youngest of the departmental specialists, his colleagues thought his subject inaccessible and archaic. This gave him more freedom than his peers. When the gallery director passed through the gallery he wished Kenji well, but he didn’t stop to view the maps. Nor did he notice the captions about a nineteenth-century astronomer to the Shogun, called Johannes Globius. This was the flourish in Kenji’s homage to progress and a reminder of its price. It was only when the American arrived that Kenji found himself – for the first time in any language – sharing his embedded story. The fair-haired visitor was about thirty-five. He held the exhibition booklet open at Kenji’s bilingual notes on the scientific importance and aesthetic beauty of antiquarian maps. Behind him was a Japanese woman in a buttoned overcoat who must have been an interpreter.

‘This is a beautiful space,’ said the man.

‘It is,’ said Kenji. ‘Thank you.’

‘All these old maps in such a modern gallery.’

‘Past and present.’

‘Precisely!’

The interpreter moved away when she heard them speaking English.

‘I like this Martini map,’ said the visitor.

‘It is very fine,’ said Kenji. ‘The first we have ever had.’

‘How’s business?’

‘Good. We are hoping 1989 will be even better.’

After the tension of imagined reactions, Kenji was relieved to speak freely. And he was pleased that the first person he was speaking to was a foreigner. Potential buyers and colleagues would take note. He explained to his guest that early European information about Asia was based on Marco Polo’s speculations. Kenji showed him a 1522 woodcut with the insular Zinpangri – Japan – lying far off shore. The map was by Canon Martin Waldseemüller, the German cartographer who was first to use the word ‘America’ on a map. By associating the map in his exhibition with that historic work, Kenji was underlining the rarity and investment potential of his stock.

‘How long have you worked in this place?’ asked the American.

‘Since leaving university,’ Kenji replied. ‘Four years.’

‘You studied history – or geography?’

‘I studied English literature – at Waseda University. I learned about maps when I started working here.’

‘It’s strange to see all this – in a department store, I mean.’

‘I believe it was an American idea,’ said Kenji in a well-rehearsed way. ‘In the early days of our company, employees were sent to Wanamaker’s for training.’ He carefully pronounced their catchphrase. ‘Best Philadelphia Tradition.’

‘Wonderful!’ said the visitor with a broad smile.

But when Kenji mentioned the demise of Altman’s department store in New York – and the on-site auction of maps, autographs, antiquarian books and paintings two years previously – the visitor was unsure if his host was speaking with regret or competitive satisfaction.

‘The department stores of Japan have also changed,’ Kenji added quickly. ‘Many years ago – long before I came – there was a garden on the roof. There were telescopes and a small zoo.’

‘A zoo?’ the American repeated. ‘Up there?’

‘Yes. On the roof.’

‘Great for clients.’

‘It’s our hope to put a telescope up there again,’ said Kenji. ‘I proposed this to our director. Visitors will compare the night sky with our celestial globes.’

He looked directly at his visitor. His face was pale. Perhaps he came straight from the airport, Kenji wondered.

‘Are you in the art business, sir?’

‘Yes – in New York. I’m Curtis Hahn.’

‘Kenji Tanabe.’

As they exchanged cards a hostess approached with glasses of white wine on a silver tray.

‘From Veneto in Italy,’ said Kenji. ‘Some of the architectural plans are by Palladio.’

‘Thank you. Aren’t you going to—’

‘It is not allowed. Please – I want to show you something. It’s the first Japanese map with parallels and meridians.’

The 1779 Revised Map of Japan and its Highways was mounted in a simple lacquered frame. Kenji didn’t say its author, Nagakubo Sekisui, came from his home town near the Pacific coast. Beside it were two subsequent iterations of the map showing progress towards a true outline of Japan. As Kenji spoke he felt his visitor was considering – for the very first time – the notion of rare Japanese maps. From the thousands of catalogues he’d seen, Kenji knew American galleries dealt mostly in western cartography. He silently rehearsed the prices again, prepared for the question. But the man didn’t ask. He was there for something else. Then they moved to the final alcove – Kenji’s favourite part.

‘Every schoolchild knows about Tadataka Ino,’ he said. ‘He spent sixteen years surveying Japan. The drafting of the maps was not completed until 1821 – three years after he died. The Shogun didn’t announce his death until the maps were ready. Tadataka Ino was a great man.’ The posthumous map production, Kenji explained, was carried out by state cartographers under the Shogun’s astronomer, Takahashi Kageyasu. His Latinised name was Johannes Globius. ‘No trade version of that great work was issued until 1866. This is one of them. We can say ours is a first trade edition.’

In 1826, Globius met Philipp Franz von Siebold, a Bavarian scientist in the Dutch colonial service. Kenji explained that, although he knew that sharing maps with foreigners was a capital offence, Globius exchanged a copy of the new survey for books on exploration and maps of the Dutch East Indies. The ship on which von Siebold was to sail for Europe was damaged by a typhoon in Nagasaki Bay. The cargo was saved but officials discovered the maps. Von Siebold was deported. Globius was charged with treason.

Kenji noticed two clients waiting for him beside the guest book. He recognised them as curators from the Kobe City Museum, home to one of the finest collections in the country. He pretended not to notice.

‘Four months after his arrest, the Shogun’s astronomer died in prison. His body was preserved and the trial continued. He was found guilty of treason. The body was decapitated.’

The American paused, glanced at the two men and then spoke in a low, earnest voice. ‘Would you be interested in working in America for a while? Kind of like those people who went to Wanamaker’s.’

Although Kenji had no difficulty with his visitor’s accent, he thought he’d misunderstood. The interpreter watched from behind the purple flowers.

‘It’s a business proposition – an opportunity,’ the American added. Kenji bowed silently, then turned towards the men from Kobe.

*

The morning after the gala opening Kenji was startled to see the gallery director standing in the final alcove. He only visited the main gallery when important clients were expected.

‘This is not right,’ said the director in the tight air of the silent space. His tone was simultaneously accusatorial and wounded. Kenji felt a cold sensation in his right ear, as though a draught had entered or gone out of his head. He had experienced this once before when, as a child, he overheard his mother asking the school doctor about autism.

‘What’s this?’ the director asked, pointing towards the final exhibits.

‘This is the—’

The director cut him off as he moved between the maps.

‘There’s been a complaint. The story of Tadataka Ino is not told the right way.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Kenji.

‘He’s a national hero. Why is there so much about this – this Globius? And scandal about a treason trial? There should be none of this!’

The security guard looked away, the keys tinkling on the ring in his white-gloved hand.

‘It’s the context, sir. Mapmaking in scientific and historical context. Globius was the Shogun’s astronomer. He supervised the drafting of Tadataka Ino’s charts. He made an important contribution to progress in mapmaking – in science.’

As he spoke, Kenji realised the director was reading the captions for the first time.

‘Change it!’

The guard followed him out of the gallery. Kenji sat down at the bare, polished desk. After a few moments he got up and went to the visitors’ book. He turned the pages, trying to guess who had complained. Perhaps a rival dealer, perhaps someone he’d refused a discount, perhaps a political man. He was sickened by the thought of having to rearrange the meticulously assembled narrative. He would be humiliated before his colleagues.

*

On the Saturday after the opening Kenji took the limited express to Mito, his home town seventy minutes north-east of Tokyo. At the railway station he spoke to the cobbler kneeling on the ground, his kit spread on a worn blue sack. The man, a friend of Kenji’s father, asked him about the city. Kenji didn’t say something had changed. He went to the Kairaku-en gardens where gnarled plum trees stood in ranks and tall bamboo swayed over darkened paths. He paused at the white rock fountain. His mother told him to bathe his eyes here when he started wearing glasses because the spring had curative properties. The nearby samurai lodge – a tourist attraction in summer – was deserted. He hadn’t been inside since school but felt an urge to see it now. The rooms were decorated in homage to the plants outside: plum, peach, bamboo, maple, bush clover, cherry and chrysanthemum. The precise paintings were embellished with red blossoms, pale green leaves, ducks, parrots and a golden sun. Kenji stood for a moment at the entrance to the Room of Purity, white and empty. From an upstairs window he saw the gardens stretch out towards the sunless gleam of Lake Senba. Near the orchard gate, a woman in a heavy apron stoked a pyre of wood, scattering sparks high into the fading November light.

In the morning Kenji heard the shutter of his parents’ bicycle shop that woke him each day as a boy. In the rain he walked to the construction site of the new Mito art complex. He smoked one cigarette after another as he gazed up at the strange molecular tower. At the glass doors workers tried to clear an untested drain. He watched them struggle, shoeless, poking the water as though trying to catch something. In the rain he walked to the central post office and phoned New York. When he introduced himself, the woman who answered seemed to sense his purpose. She ignored his request to speak to Mr Hahn and asked about his. . .