Anyway, at the time of the gruesome murder, the occupants of the Ichiyanagi family compound were as follows:
First and foremost, there was the widow of the previous head of the family, and mistress of the house, Itoko. She was at the time fifty-seven years old. She always wore her hair in a meticulously coiled chignon, and never once let her mask of dignity drop. Itoko was immensely proud of being a descendant of a honjin family. When the villagers spoke of the “old matriarch”, this was to whom they referred.
The dowager Itoko had five children, but only three of them were living with her at the time. The oldest of these was her son Kenzo, a graduate of philosophy at a certain private university in Kyoto. He’d taught for a few years at his alma mater after graduation, but had fallen prey to a respiratory disorder and returned home, shutting himself away from the world. Nevertheless, he was a great scholar and being confined to the house didn’t prevent him from dedicating himself to his studies. He wrote books, from time to time contributed articles to journals, and had become a well-known academic. Apparently it wasn’t his poor health that had prevented him from marrying—he was just too busy with his studies to think about such matters.
After Kenzo came Itoko’s elder daughter, Taeko. She had married a businessman and was living in Shanghai at the time, so had no direct connection to the events of that night. Itoko’s second son, Ryuji, was thirty-five and a doctor, employed by a major hospital in Osaka. He had not been at the family home that night either. He rushed home right after hearing of the tragedy, and so had some involvement in the immediate aftermath.
For many years after giving birth to Ryuji, Itoko and her husband hadn’t had any more children. Everyone thought there wouldn’t be further additions to the family, but after a gap of almost ten years, she had another son, and then a full eight years after that, a daughter. The boy was called Saburo, and the girl Suzuko. At the time of the murder, Saburo was twenty-five, and Suzuko seventeen.
Saburo was definitely the black sheep of the family. He’d been expelled from middle school, and sent instead to a private vocational school in Kobe. He was expelled from that school too, and at the time of the murder had no occupation of any kind. He used to hang around the house all day. The consensus was that he was intelligent enough, but never applied himself to any kind of work. There was also a certain slyness to his nature. Down in the village he was pretty much universally despised.
As for the youngest child, Suzuko, well… I can’t help feeling sorry for her. Perhaps it was because her parents were already quite old when they had her that she was rather delicate, like a flower that had to bloom in the shade. In addition to her poor physical health, she was a bit slow. She wasn’t exactly mentally disabled—in some ways she was very gifted; in fact, when it came to playing the koto, one would go so far as to call her a musical genius. From time to time, she would show flashes of incredible insight, but in most everyday matters she behaved like a child of seven or eight.
These were the members of the main Ichiyanagi family, but there was another branch of the family living on the same property. The head of this branch family was Ryosuke, a cousin of Kenzo and his siblings. He was thirty-eight years old at the time, and he lived there with his wife, Akiko, and three young children. Obviously, these children had nothing to do with the murder case, and so I’ll leave them off this list.
Ryosuke was completely different in temperament from his cousin Kenzo and the others. He’d only finished primary school, but being good at mathematics and a worldly type, he was the perfect person to manage the Ichiyanagi family’s affairs. As far as Itoko was concerned, more than her eccentric oldest son, the absent second son and the untrustworthy third son, Ryosuke proved to be the closest to a confidant that she had in her life. As for his wife, Akiko, there was nothing particularly distinctive about her; she was just an ordinary woman, obedient to her husband.
And so these were the six inhabitants of the Ichiyanagi residence: Itoko the family matriarch, Kenzo, Saburo, Suzuko, Ryosuke and Akiko. Together they lived a conservative, traditional lifestyle, peaceful until the moment that Kenzo announced his engagement. Then it was if a large pebble had been dropped into a still pond. The ripples spread wider and further, building into waves of anger. The woman Kenzo wanted to marry was Katsuko Kubo, a teacher at a girls’ school in Okayama City. The Ichiyanagi family was united in their opposition to this marriage, not because they had any kind of problem with Katsuko personally, but because they objected to her lineage.
Gentle reader, the word “lineage”, which has all but fallen out of usage in the city, is even today alive and well in rural villages like this one. You might even say it rules every aspect of people’s lives. We are now in a period of upheaval following the Second World War, and farmers and peasants are increasingly no longer obliged to kowtow to the upper classes, or to show the same level of respect for those with high social standing, fortune or property. Those values have come crashing down in the wake of Japan’s defeat.
However, what is still intact is lineage. The reverence, respect and pride associated with being born into a family with distinguished ancestry are still alive and well in rural communities. And lineage has nothing whatsoever to do with genetics or eugenics. For example, if the family of an established community leader, such as someone who’d been a village headman in the days of the shogunate, started producing male children who suffered from physical disabilities or epilepsy or lunacy, each would still be permitted to serve as headman when his time came because his family line was good. This is still true now, and even more so in 1937, when this story takes place. As far as the Ichiyanagi family was concerned, there was nothing in the world more important than being the descendants of the owners of a honjin. It was everything to them.
Katsuko Kubo’s father had once been a tenant farmer in O—village. But he’d been rather more ambitious than the average peasant. He had left the village, along with his younger brother, and set sail for America. There the brothers had found work on fruit farms until they had saved enough money to return to Japan and establish their own orchard about twenty-five miles from their home village. Both brothers married, but the elder died shortly after his wife had given birth to their daughter, Katsuko. Upon the death of her husband, the young widow had returned to her home village, leaving Katsuko to be raised by her uncle. She turned out to be a very studious child, and her uncle spared no expense in paying her school tuition. After graduating from a teacher-training school in Tokyo, she took a job in a girls’ school in Okayama City, not too far from her home.
The fruit farm established by Katsuko’s father and uncle was hugely successful. Katsuko’s uncle was scrupulously honest when it came to putting his niece’s share aside for her, so that she worked as a schoolteacher not because it was necessary to make a living, but because it was what she wanted to do. She was a woman in possession of both her own fortune and a career.
Despite this, in the eyes of the Ichiyanagi family, it didn’t matter how educated she was, how wise or intelligent, or how large a fortune she possessed—the daughter of a tenant farmer would always be just that: the daughter of a tenant farmer. She had no family name, no pedigree, and they thought of her as no more than the child of Rinkichi Kubo, poor peasant farmer.
Kenzo had met Katsuko when he’d been invited to speak at a students’ group in Kurashiki City. Katsuko was a member of the group. After this initial meeting, Katsuko used to visit Kenzo to ask him for help with the foreign-language books she liked to read. This relationship continued for about a year, until suddenly one day Kenzo proposed marriage.
I’ve already mentioned how the Ichiyanagi family opposed this marriage, led by Itoko and Kenzo’s cousin Ryosuke. Out of Kenzo’s own siblings, it was his sister Taeko who felt the most strongly about the engagement; she even wrote a vehement letter to her older brother on the subject. On the other hand, the middle brother, Ryuji, supported Kenzo and privately sent a letter to Itoko saying that she should let her eldest son
do as he liked. However, he never said a word about this directly to his older brother.
And what was Kenzo’s reaction to all this criticism? His approach was to stay completely silent. He made no move whatsoever to respond to any of it. And of course, water eventually wins over fire. One by one, the opponents ran out of heat, their voices faded, their steps faltered and finally, with a wry smile and a shoulder shrug, they were forced to admit defeat.
The wedding ceremony was held on 25th November 1937. And that very night, the heinous crime was committed. However, before I can get to the gory details of the murder, I must mention a few apparently trivial incidents that seem to have been some kind of prelude to what finally transpired.
These all took place on the day before the wedding; in other words, on 24th November in the afternoon. The scene was the Ichiyanagi family sitting room, where Itoko and Kenzo were taking tea, and having what was clearly an uncomfortable conversation. The youngest, Suzuko, was sitting nearby, happily playing with a doll. This was typical of Suzuko—wherever she went she was absorbed in her own world and never got in anyone’s way.
“But that has been the tradition in this house for generations.”
Itoko had already lost to her son over his choice of marriage partner, and was apparently still unable to hide her displeasure.
“But, Mother, we didn’t do that when Ryuji got married.”
Kenzo didn’t even deign to glance at the sweet manju bun offered to him by his mother. Instead, with a sour face, he continued to smoke his cigarette.
“That’s because he’s the second son. You and Ryuji aren’t the same at all. You are the heir of this family, and Katsukosan will be the wife of the heir.”
“But I don’t think Katsuko can even play the koto. She can probably play the piano.”
That was the topic of their quarrel. For several generations, the bride of the heir to the family title had been expected to play certain pieces on a koto at the official wedding ceremony.
“So you see, Mother, there’s no point in bringing this up now,” Kenzo went on. “If you’d told me about this earlier, I could have prepared Katsuko.”
“My intention isn’t to put any kind of damper on the wedding ceremony. I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to embarrass Katsuko in any way. However, family tradition is what it is…”
Just as the tension in the room was beginning to mount, Suzuko came to the rescue.
“Mama, can’t I play the koto?”
Itoko was taken by surprise, but Kenzo gave a wry smile.
“That’s a lovely idea. Thank you, Suzuko. Mother, surely no one could object to Suzuko’s playing?”
Itoko seemed about to concede, but right at that moment her nephew, Ryosuke, appeared in the sitting room and addressed his young cousin.
“Suzu-chan! This is where you’ve been hiding. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. See, I’ve finished making that box for you!”
He was holding a beautifully fashioned wooden box of the size that usually held mikan—mandarin oranges. Itoko frowned:
“Ryo-san, what’s that?”
“It’s Tama’s coffin. Suzu-chan was upset when someone said she should bury him in a mikan box. She said, ‘Poor Tama being stuck an old box like that.’ She refused to use it, so I managed to make this one instead.”
“Yes, poor Tama!” Suzuko echoed. “Thank you, Ryosuke.”
Tama was the name of Suzuko’s pet kitten, but for the past few days it had suffered from vomiting and diarrhoea, and had finally died that morning.
Itoko grimaced slightly at the sight of this wooden coffin.
“Ryo-san,” she said quickly, as if to change the subject, “what do you think of Suzuko being the one to play the koto?”
“Sounds all right to me, Aunt Itoko,” said Ryosuke lightly, helping himself to a manju bun. Kenzo kept his back turned to his cousin and continued to puff on his cigarette.
At which point Saburo came in.
“Hey, Suzu-chan, that’s a pretty box you’ve got there! Who made that for you?”
“You’re mean, Sabu-chan. You lied to me—you promised to make one for me, but you didn’t. Anyway, Cousin Ryosuke made this for me so I don’t need yours any more.”
“Really, Suzu-chan. I can’t believe you still don’t trust me!”
“Saburo, did you get a haircut?” said Itoko, glancing at her son’s head.
“Yes, just now. By the way, Mother, I just heard something very strange at the barber’s.”
Itoko didn’t respond, so Saburo turned instead to his elder brother.
“Kenzo, yesterday evening you went by the O—government office in a rickshaw, right? Did you happen to notice a weird-looking character hanging around outside the tavern?”
Kenzo looked puzzled.
“What do you mean by a weird character, Sabu-chan?” Ryosuke asked, his mouth stuffed full of manju.
“Well, it’s really creepy. They say he had a huge scar from his mouth up his cheek like this. And then he had only three fingers on his right hand, just his thumb and the next two fingers… Anyway, it seems this man was asking the okamisan about our house. Hey, Suzuko, you didn’t notice any strange men hanging around yesterday evening, did you?”
Suzuko looked up at Saburo and began to mumble, Thumb, index finger, middle finger. As she did so, she moved each of the corresponding fingers on her right hand as if playing the koto.
Itoko and Saburo watched her in silence. Ryosuke was busy peeling the paper off another manju. Kenzo kept on smoking his cigarette.
CHAPTER 3
The Sound of a Koto
As I said before, a honjin was a kind of inn in feudal Japan where daimyo lords and other important officials would stay on their way to or from paying attendance on the Shogun in the capital, Edo—the old name for Tokyo. Ordinary members of the public were not permitted to stay at a honjin. A family who owned such a high-class lodging house were also members of the elite, and so it followed that this was a place where the rules of high society were closely adhered to. There were differences between a honjin in this region and one on the Tokaido route, closer to Edo. First of all, there were fewer daimyo travelling on the Chugokukaido, and accordingly there were variations in the scale of operations, but a honjin was still a honjin.
In keeping with the honour associated with being descendants of a honjin family, the wedding celebrations of the current head of the Ichiyanagi clan were expected to be a flamboyant affair. The following report was made to me by F—who was kind enough to offer me an insight into the usual customs of the region:
“These kinds of events are way more grandiose in the countryside than they are in the city. And with a family as important as the Ichiyanagis, and the groom being the heir to the family line, he would be dressed in a kamishimo, the formal dress of the samurai; the bride would wear a white kimono with an uchikake robe over it. Normally there would be between fifty and a hundred guests.”
But this particular wedding turned out to be an extremely private gathering. On the bridegroom’s side, besides the immediate family members, there was only a great-uncle from K—town in attendance. Kenzo’s own brother, Ryuji, didn’t even come back from Osaka. The only person to attend from the bride’s side was her uncle, Ginzo Kubo.
Consequently, the ceremony itself was a rather forlorn affair, but there was no question of skimping on the celebrations for the many tenant farmers and farmhands who lived and worked on the Ichiyanagi land. It was tradition in these parts for the newly-weds to drink all night with the locals.
And so, on the day of the wedding ceremony, 25th November, the kitchen at the Ichiyanagi residence was bustling, with extra hands drafted in to help alongside the usual servants. Around 6.30 p.m., when preparations were at their busiest, a man suddenly appeared at the kitchen door.
“Excuse me, is the master home? Would somebody mind passing this to him?”
Old Nao turned from lighting the fire under a pot to see a man wearing a crumpled fel
t hat pulled down low over his eyes, the collar of his worn old jacket turned up against the cold and an oversized mask hiding most of his face. A very suspicious-looking character, she thought.
“You want to see the master of the house?”
“Um… yes. I need to give this to him.”
In his left hand, the man was holding a scrap of paper, folded over several times. Later, when interviewed by the police, Nao would describe his appearance this way:
“It was weird. He had all his fingers curled around it. He was clutching the paper between the knuckles of his forefinger and middle finger. Like a leper would… Yes, that’s right, he kept his right hand in his pocket. I thought there was something off about him, so I tried to get a good look at his face, but he quickly turned his head away. Then he shoved the paper at me and ran away, right out the kitchen door.”
There were lots of other people in the kitchen at the time, but nobody could have dreamed how significant the man’s visit would turn out to be, and so nobody paid him any attention.
After the man ran off, the servant stood there for a while with the paper in her hand, not quite sure what to do until Ryosuke’s wife, Akiko, hurried into the kitchen.
“Does anyone know where my husband’s got to?”
“I think he just went out.”
“Hmm. I wonder what’s so urgent when we’re this busy? Never mind. If you see him, please tell him he needs to get changed as soon as possible.”
Nao called to Akiko to wait and handed her the piece of paper, explaining what had just happened. On closer inspection it looked like a page torn from a pocket diary.
The Honjin Murders Page 2