The Nightingale

by Kara Dalkey

  After all the other presentations, Netsubo came behind her screen, as was his right as father. Facing her, he handed to Uguisu the ceremonial white silk trousers in honor of her acceptance at court. As Uguisu leaned forward to accept the garment, her father said softly, “I have had doubts about your behavior these past few weeks, Uguisu. But it appears a wise kami is guiding your fate. I am very proud of you, my daughter.”

  Uguisu bowed deeply to hide her gasp and the brimming of tears in her eyes. Her father had never spoken to her that way. Will you be so proud of me when Prince Nagaya has done his work? Will he require your death as well?

  “Have you nothing to say to me, Uguisu?”

  Trying to control her breathing so she would not speak in sobs, she said, “All that I have done, and will do, is for the greater glory of my family.”

  Netsubo nodded. “You are a good daughter, Uguisu. Your mother in Heaven must look down on you with pride.”

  As her father departed, Uguisu covered her face with her sleeves, wishing she could die.

  That evening, Uguisu played her flute at her honorary banquet, though etiquette required that she be one room away from where the noblemen ate and drank their wine. She could hear the muffled voices of the Emperor over the chatter and laughter of the women around her, and she wished his voice were not so strong and clear.

  Uguisu put down her flute to rest and looked at her new ladies-in-waiting, trying to remember their names. The plump one—her name is Nikao, “two faces.” She is pleasant to look at, but I think she smiles too much. She tries too hard to please me. The narrow-faced one, she is pretty too, but she looks like a fox—ah, Kitsune—that’s it. I don’t think she likes me. And the third, Shonasaki, she’s the nicest of them. But she spends so much time staring at nothing, and then scribbling poems, that I doubt she’ll be of much use.

  “You play so beautifully, Lady Uguisu!” said Nikao. “And it is so charmingly appropriate that Our Majesty should lodge you in the Plum Pavillion. The plum tree, after all, is the rightful home of the uguisu, neh?”

  Uguisu managed a little smile and picked up the flute to play again. Suddenly, a small page boy slid aside their shoji and came into the room. He handed Kitsune a piece of folded purple paper that had a sprig of plum blossoms attached. “For the Lady Uguisu, from His Majesty,” he whispered loudly.

  Nikao giggled into her sleeves. Shonasaki looked up with interest. Kitsune balanced the note on one palm as if deciding whether Uguisu should have it. Uguisu, a cold ball forming in her stomach, didn’t want to see it.

  “Don’t keep us waiting!” said Nikao, snatching the note from Kitsune’s hand. “Let’s see what it says.”

  Placing the plum branch gently to one side, Nikao opened it and read:

  “The song of the nightingale is so soft and sweet,

  One wonders if her feathered breast is soft to touch as well.”

  “Ooooh, how lovely,” said Nikao, “and such an elegant hand. He never wrote poems like this to our old Empress.”

  “Hush, Nikao!” chided Kitsune. “You should not speak so about her.”

  “Well, it’s true!”

  “It is not important to Our Lady here. You must, of course, answer him, Lady Uguisu.”

  Uguisu sat utterly still. It was what she feared. His Majesty had the right to ask for her embrace this night. But to fulfill the wishes of her guardian spirit, Uguisu had to deny him until a particular day.

  “Would you like me to compose a reply for you, My Lady?” asked Shonasaki.

  Uguisu shook herself. “No, thank you.” She reached for a writing brush, but as she took it her hand trembled so that she put it down immediately.

  “Please allow me, my lady.” Shonasaki took the brush and in a spirited hand wrote:

  “The feathers of the nightingale

  Tremble at the winds from Heaven.

  Our lady is tired, my lord, from all the ceremony. Have pity and let her rest for now.”

  Uguisu nodded her approval, wondering how Shonasaki knew her mood.

  Kitsune haughtily folded the note, and they decided the best poem gift would be some reeds from a sleeping mat. This was given to the page boy, and he scurried out, sliding the shoji shut behind him.

  A moment later, there came an odd scratching on the shoji. As Kitsune opened it a crack, a yellow cat with golden eyes slipped in.

  “Ah!” said Nikao, “Lady Hinata graces us with a visit.”

  The cat gave a perfunctory sniff to each of the ladies’ hands, then approached Uguisu. Uguisu reached out to pet Hinata, but the cat drew back out of reach.

  “Lady Hinata is very particular about who she befriends,” said Kitsune. “She must get to know you first.”

  So Uguisu sat still as Hinata intently sniffed her clothing and hands, as if conducting a thorough examination. When Hinata reached the flute, she sniffed most carefully indeed. When she raised her head at last, her mouth was slightly open, as if she had caught a whiff of something distasteful.

  “She probably dislikes the woodstain,” said Nikao shrugging.

  The cat sat and stared at Uguisu, and Uguisu felt as though those golden eyes were seeing into her soul. Amida help me, could this creature actually sense my guilt? Uguisu felt suddenly afraid.

  “She must think highly of you, to gaze at you so,” said Nikao.

  Hinata gave a little sneeze and swiftly turned away, trotting out past the shoji just as the page boy returned.

  This time the note was on white paper, with a pine twig attached. Shonasaki took the note and read:

  “The winds from Heaven shall be stilled by the pines,

  So as not to scare the nightingale away.”

  “Ah,” said Shonasaki, “Matsu means ‘to wait’ as well as ‘pine tree.’ His Majesty will wait until you are ready.”

  Uguisu closed her eyes and gave a long sigh. Then, picking up her flute, she played once more.

  Ladies of Fashion

  The cherry blossoms in the Divine Spring Garden, just south of the Imperial Palace, were in full bloom. Their sweet scent filled the air, and their boughs provided a lavish pink and white canopy against the pale blue sky.

  “This was a wonderful idea!” said Nikao, setting down the large picnic boxes she carried. She, Kitsune and Shonasaki settled themselves in a mossy hollow, ringed with cherry trees. They all wore pink and white robes to match the flowers, and Shonasaki imagined that to a bird they would resemble enormous cherry blossoms fallen to earth. As she lay back against the moss, it seemed the world ended at the edge of the hollow, and all of existence was the moss, the trees and the sky.

  “Are you sure Lady Uguisu won’t notice we’re gone?” the poet asked dreamily.

  “Hmpf,” Kitsune replied, “she’s observing another day of abstinence. She’ll want to see no one but priests to chant sutras for her.”

  “That’s the third abstinence this month,” mused Shonasaki. “What lies so heavy on her heart that she feels she must deprive herself so?”

  “Why look at it that way?” said Nikao. “Everyone I talk to admires her devotion and piety.”

  “She should show such devotion to His Majesty,” said Kitsune.

  “She’s just shy. She has said she will give in to him in time, when she is comfortable here. He doesn’t seem to mind.”

  “Her music is so sad,” said Shonasaki. “Even the cheerful saibara she plays have an undertone of sorrow.”

  “Lady Uguisu has a fine sense of awaré, the transience of all things. That only shows she has noble sensitivity. Everyone I talk to—”

  “Everyone you talk to knows she is the darling of the Emperor and dares not speak against her!” snapped Kitsune.

  “You know that is not so! And you should be glad to be waiting on her, for it reflects well on us. We are at the center of fashion now, as we were when we served the Empress.”

  “But such fashions!” Kitsune protested. “Some ladies no longer blacken their teeth because she does not. And they now wear s
ticks of wood painted to look like her flute as netsuke on their sleeves. Men go about whistling the tunes she plays. And a mother-to-be I know says she will name her baby ‘Uguisu’ whether it is a girl or a boy.”

  Nikao giggled. “Yes, isn’t it delightful? And Shonasaki’s poems about her are being read and praised everywhere. And whenever there is a gathering for gossip we are always invited. You cannot say you do not enjoy the attention we are getting, Kitsune.”

  “Well,” Kitsune said, smoothing a fold in her outermost kimono, “it is true that the Chancellor, Daimigi-sama himself, just the other day approached me. He said he would like to speak with me often, for he wants to know everything that Lady Uguisu does. The Fujiwara have taken a great interest in her, it seems. The Chancellor said that if my conversation pleases him, he would not take it amiss if his son Kazenatsu should choose to spend time with me.”

  “There, you see?” said Nikao. “Lady Uguisu will bring us nothing but good fortune.”

  Kitsune smiled a thin smile and looked at Shonasaki.

  The poet understood and raised an eyebrow. A cherry blossom, blown free by the wind, drifted down and Shonasaki caught it in her hand. “Then we must beware, Nikao. For it is the essence of awaré that all things of beauty and joy must fall.”

  “In that case,” said Nikao, popping a rice ball into her mouth, “we should enjoy the good things while we may.”

  SUMMER

  Storm-wind walks the fields.

  Rising from the cowering grass,

  Full moon haunts the night.

  —Chora

  TEMPLE BLOSSOMS

  Springtime lingered on the hillsides of Yamashiro. In the vale of Heian Kyo cherry blossoms were making way for the orange blossoms of summer. But on the slopes surrounding the Temple of Ninna-Ji, the cherry trees and azaleas retained their spring glory.

  They, too, are reluctant to leave this world, thought Takenoko.

  Takenoko ran a hand over his tonsured hair and looked down at his grey robe. Would anyone from my past recognize me now?

  Sighing, he took up his rake again, and continued drawing fine lines through the white sand of the temple garden. No matter that I am now a student to a master priest. I am still a gardener.

  He raked up to a large plum tree and noticed that it stubbornly bore some purple blossoms, though it was long past the time they should have fallen. Takenoko plucked one of the flowers and smelled its fading perfume. “The orange blossom is supposed to be the flower of reminiscence,” he murmured to the plum flower, “yet you remain to cruelly bring me thoughts of one I left behind.”

  Just days before, a pilgrim had come to the temple and spoke of rumors that Uguisu had gone to live in the Imperial Palace. I suppose that means her father made her marry Hidoi. Takenoko sighed again and whispered, “Uguisu.”

  There came a gentle cough behind him, and Takenoko jumped. He saw the old priest who had become his teacher standing there, leaning on a wooden staff. He wore an amused smile.

  “Er, I was just thinking of the bird that is commonly associated with plum trees,” Takenoko blurted. “The uguisu, you know.”

  “Were you?” said the priest. “Let me tell you an old story.”

  Takenoko closed his eyes. Not another story!

  The old priest cleared his throat and began. “Once there was a master and his student, and they were walking along a lonely mountain path. Presently they came to a rushing stream, for it was spring and much water came down from the mountains. On their side of the stream stood a woman in bright kimonos. She said to them, ‘Excuse, me, good sirs, but I cannot cross the stream, for it would sweep me away. Could one of you please help me cross?’

  “So, the master took her upon his back and the three of them crossed the rushing stream. On the other side, the master set the woman down and he and the student continued on their way.

  “But many ri later, the student turned to the master and said angrily, ‘How could you do that? I thought we are not supposed to touch women! How could you do such a thing?’

  “And the master turned to the student and said, ‘I left the woman by the side of the stream. Why do you continue to carry her?’ ”

  The old priest then nodded at Takenoko and walked away across the garden.

  Takenoko blinked and breathed, “Why do I still carry her?” Reluctantly, he allowed the plum blossom to fall from his hand and he took up his rake again.

  Winding Water Banquet

  “She still denies you?” Daimigi said.

  “Mmmmm?” replied the Emperor.

  The Chancellor could see His Majesty was too enchanted by the warm evening to pay serious attention, and it irritated him.

  They both sat beside a winding stream that flowed around and beneath the buildings of the Nine-Fold Enclosure. In the burbling, rippling water there floated little boats. Each boat held a cup of sake, or a candle, and some held little dolls dressed as nobles or fishermen. Further up and down the stream, other courtiers and ladies sat, sipping wine and writing poems that they might place on the drifting boats.

  At every errant breeze, cherry blossoms fell like snow from boughs overhead, and the air was rich with their perfume. A full moon shone pale in the sky, becoming bolder as the golden-pink sunlight faded. And across the garden, hidden somewhere behind bamboo shades, Uguisu played. Her haunting melodies added poignance to the beauty of the evening, and even Daimigi found his heart tempted to drift away with her music, to float with the sake boats down the stream. And this irritated him even more.

  Even so, he had kept his voice casual, hoping the Emperor might respond as a comrade, not an adversary. It would not do to break the evening’s mood. “Uguisu, Your Majesty. Does she yet—”

  “Oh. No, not exactly.”

  “What?” Daimigi immediately cursed himself for allowing his alarm to show. So long as Uguisu denied the Emperor, there remained the chance she would be sent back home as unsuitable.

  “She has told me the day she will accept me.”

  “Indeed? And what day shall this be?”

  The Emperor raised an eyebrow. “You show surprising interest in such a personal matter, Daimigi-san.”

  “I was merely hoping that the day would be an auspicious one.”

  “I’m sure it will be.” The Emperor sighed and closed his eyes with a smile.

  The Chancellor sighed also, but with annoyance. He dared not discuss the topic more. It disturbed him that a simple girl should prove to be such an obstacle to his plans. The guardsman had been an easy matter; he had already run away from the palace in humiliation. Things were proceeding well against the kitchen woman … it would take little to encourage her to leave also. Old Niwa might well die in office, aided or unaided. But Uguisu …

  “Isn’t her music beautiful?” said the Emperor. “What an intricate melody! I cannot divine how she makes the tune do such dances.”

  “A pretty puzzle, Your Majesty.” Her lady-in-waiting has told me nothing useful. Still nothing is known of her mother. And all of the court loves her too much to think any ill of her. “A pretty puzzle, indeed.”

  Idly, Daimigi reached out to a passing boat and snatched up the sake cup it carried. But as he tried to drink from the cup, he found instead of sake a piece of rice paper between his lips. On it some wag had written:

  “Oh dull and empty sake cup, your spirit’s been drained dry,

  But through its magic, like the moon, now bright and full am I!”

  Daimigi threw the poem into the water and watched as the paper danced away on the currents and eddies of the stream. He wondered if his plans, like fallen cherry blossoms and crumpled poems, were drifting away from him on the waves and currents of fortune.

  By The Rasho-Mon

  At the southernmost end of the Suzaku Oji, in the great crumbling wall that surrounded Heian Kyo, stood the infamous Rasho-Mon. Of all the eighteen gates to the city, the Rasho Gate had become the most reknowned. Kuma thought it ironic, as he stood leaning against one of the th
ick pillars, that the gate facing the direction of good fortune should attract the least fortunate of people. Including, at the moment, myself.

  Kuma swatted at flies that hummed near his face, cursing the midafternoon heat. For a moment he wondered if it would not have been better to have remained at the palace. Soon there would be the Great Festival at the Kamo Shrine and the Procession of the Guards along the route to the shrine. Next month would come the Iris Festival, with horse races and archery contests. But staying would have meant humiliation before his comrades, and watching Katte marry someone else. No. No, summer flies and heat are more easily endured.

  Kuma looked around at the beggars curled up asleep in the empty corners. A pair of grubby thieves conspired in their argot in an alcove. A haggard woman in patched and faded finery looked Kuma over invitingly, then assessed his probable worth and moved on. Kuma continued to stare south, down the road leading from the Rasho-Mon. He hoped, despite the heat, that there might be travelers today who would need a guide or a protector in the city.

  Feeling a tug on his trousers, Kuma looked down to see a thin, dried-up stick of a beggar crouched beside him.

  “Hoi, Ronin-san!”

  Kuma winced at the epithet and looked away.

  “Ronin-san,” continued the beggar, “This is the seventh day I have seen you here. Yet you do not beg or steal. You stand as you are and wait. And I am thinking, ‘What is it he is waiting for, eh?’ What do you find so alluring at the Rasho-mon?” A sweep of one bony arm indicated the whole miserable structure. “Do you hope to catch a demon?”

  Kuma ignored the beggar, though he was not surprised that folk tales set demons here as well as brigands.

  “Ah, perhaps, I think to myself, he is waiting for a rich merchant or lord to come up the road. And this rich one will see the fine, strong man standing by the pillar and say, ‘There! That is the one! He will make a perfect bodyguard!’ Is that what you hope to be, Ronin-san?”

  Kuma shifted in irritation. The beggar’s words stung him because it was precisely what he hoped for. So far his strength had only earned him bowls of rice for chopping wood.