“For Kenzo-san? I see…”
Akiko frowned slightly, but didn’t slow her pace. Tucking the paper into the obi sash of her kimono, she left the kitchen and peered into the sitting room. Itoko was in there in conversation with her maid, Kiyo, who was helping her with her formal kimono. Suzuko, already wearing her own kimono, sat by her mother’s side, plucking at a beautiful gold-lacquered koto.
“Auntie, where’s Kenzo-san?”
“I don’t know. He’s probably in his study. Just a moment, Akiko-san, would you help Kiyo tie my obi?”
Right as Akiko and the maid had finished tying Itoko’s obi sash, Saburo came ambling in wearing a heavy winter kimono.
“Saburo, why are you still in those clothes?… Where have you been?”
“I was in the study.”
“Reading another of those detective books, I’ll bet,” Suzuko said, as she tuned the koto. Saburo was obsessed with mystery novels.
“What’s wrong with reading novels? How about you, Suzuko? Have you held a funeral for that cat yet?”
Suzuko ignored him and kept playing.
“If you haven’t then you’d better hurry up. If you leave a dead cat lying around, it’s going to turn into a howling ghost.”
Suzuko looked upset.
“You can be as mean as you like, Sabu-chan, but I already did Tama-chan’s funeral this morning.”
“Stop it, Saburo! That’s completely inappropriate,” Itoko admonished him. “Be careful what you say. By the way, was your brother in the study?”
“No. Isn’t he in the annexe?”
“Akiko-san, if you find Kenzo could you tell him to start getting ready as soon as possible? The bride will be arriving any time now.”
Akiko left the sitting room and just as she started to slip on her geta garden sandals to head over to the annexe house, her husband, Ryosuke, came strolling casually out of the branch family house, still in his everyday clothes.
“What are you thinking? You need to start getting dressed or you won’t be ready in time!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. The bride won’t be here until eight. There’s no hurry. And anyway, where are you off to?”
“To the annexe to look for Kenzo-san…”
Kenzo was standing on the wooden engawa veranda of the annexe house, staring up at the sky.
“Aki-san,” he said, as he saw her heading his way, “it looks as if the weather’s going to change. What? This is for me?… Ah, thanks.”
Kenzo took the note from Akiko and moved inside to read it under the electric light. Akiko followed and began to adjust the flower arrangement in the tokonoma alcove.
“Aki-san, tell me who brought you this note!”
Noticing something out of the ordinary in Kenzo’s tone of voice, Akiko stopped and turned to look at him. Kenzo was standing over her with a look of animal fury on his face.
“I… er… Nao-san was the one who gave it to me. She said it was delivered by a kind of vagrant. Is there some problem or…”
Kenzo continued to glare at Akiko as she spoke, but then he seemed to remember himself and turned away. His eye fell on the note again. He grabbed it, ripped it into shreds, then looked around for some place to dispose of the pieces. Finding nowhere appropriate, he stuffed them into the sleeve of his kimono.
“Kenzo-san, your mother asked me to tell you to prepare for the ceremony.”
“Yes, right. Aki-san, would you mind closing the shutters?”
And with that, Kenzo left the annexe house.
The previous all happened around seven in the evening. About an hour later the bride arrived, accompanied by the official matchmakers, and the wedding ceremony began.
As I previously mentioned, there were very few wedding guests. On the groom’s side the dowager Itoko; brother and sister Saburo and Suzuko; the branch family husband and wife, Ryosuke and Akiko; and one more, a seventy-year-old great-uncle from K—town by the name of Ihei. The sole guest on the bride’s side was her uncle, Ginzo Kubo. The official matchmaker was the mayor of the village, but this was a mere formality; he was just there for show.
After the pledges were made and sake cups exchanged, the beautiful black- and gold-embellished koto was brought out, and Suzuko performed as had been arranged. Suzuko may have been backward for her age in most regards, but when it came to the koto she was incredibly accomplished. The player and the instrument together filled that room with their beauty.
However, a koto performance during a wedding ceremony was very unusual, and the piece that Suzuko played was one that Katsuko had never heard before, so the bride was rather confused. Itoko explained it to her:
“Many years ago, the wife of the head of the Ichiyanagi family was a very talented koto player. It so happened that a noblewoman—the daughter of a daimyo—was passing through on her way west for a wedding ceremony and stopped at the honjin. The expert koto player performed a song that she had written herself called ‘The Lovebirds’. The daimyo’s daughter admired the song so much that the next day she sent the family a koto, which they nicknamed ‘The Lovebird’. Ever since, the Ichiyanagi family has required the bride of the heir to play the koto at her wedding ceremony. The piece that Suzuko just played was ‘The Lovebirds’ and the instrument that she used was that very same Lovebird koto.”
Hearing this, Katsuko’s eyes grew wide.
“So I should have been playing the koto just now?”
“That’s right. But as I had no idea whether you were aware of our tradition or not, I hesitated to ask, and requested Suzuko to play in your place.”
Katsuko refrained from responding. Instead Ginzo Kubo answered for his niece.
“If Katsuko had been asked beforehand, she would gladly have played for you.”
“Really? Big sister, do you play the koto too?” asked Suzuko.
“Miss, this young lady is going to become a good companion to you,” said Ginzo, addressing Suzuko. “And perhaps she’ll be more than just your big sister. She could be your koto teacher too.”
Itoko and Ryosuke exchanged glances. Seeing this, Kenzo spoke up.
“So then this koto belongs to Katsuko now.”
Itoko didn’t respond right away, and there was an awkward silence in the room. It was the worldly-wise mayor who came to the rescue:
“If the bride is talented at the koto, she really ought to have been invited to play today.” He turned to Itoko. “There’s still the final part of the ceremony to take place in the annexe building. What do you think, madam, about a second performance?”
“That’s true,” said Itoko. “Would you play for us, Katsukosan? As we’ve already had Suzuko perform ‘The Lovebirds’, please choose any piece. Something joyful that you like to play… It is after all this family’s tradition for the bride to play the koto on her wedding night.”
And that was how it came about that Katsuko played the koto later that evening.
The wedding ceremony ended around 9.30 p.m. and that was when the drinking and merrymaking began for guests in the house and kitchen alike.
Before they finally get to retire on their wedding night, all newly-weds have to go through something of an ordeal, but in the countryside it’s especially tough. Kenzo and Katsuko were obliged to bring sake to their guests long into the dead of night.
As they served the locals in the kitchen, they were treated to lewd songs. Back in the house of course they weren’t subjected to anything so bad, but Great-Uncle Ihei got blind drunk and starting ranting incoherently.
This character was the younger brother of Kenzo and Ryosuke’s grandfather, but he had set up his own branch of the family when he was young, and they referred to him as the sub-branch uncle. Like most elderly men he was known for being quarrelsome and fond of his drink. On top of that he had all kinds of objections to and complaints about the wedding, and the more he drank the worse he got, spewing out his disgust directly to the bride and groom. Finally they entreated him to stay over, as he was in no state to make it home safely
, but he refused to listen. Eventually, after midnight, he announced he was leaving.
“Saburo, you’d better see him home.”
Kenzo, who’d done a good job of ignoring Ihei’s abusive language, was kind enough to be worried about the drunken old man getting home in the dark.
“And as it’s so late you might as well stay over at Uncle’s place too.”
It wasn’t until they opened the door for Ihei to leave that they all realized it was snowing, and rather heavily too. It was rare for snow to fall at all in those parts, and to see it really piling up, it was natural that everyone was surprised. When they recalled events later, they would realize the crucial role that this snow had played in the terrible crime that was about to be committed.
Finally the newly-weds were able to retire to the annexe, and it was about one in the morning when they performed the last of the ritual exchanges of sake cups. In the words of Ryosuke’s wife, Akiko, this is what happened:
“I carried the koto to the annexe with the help of the maid, Kiyo. They performed the sake ceremony, but the only family members present were Aunt Itoko, my husband and myself. Sabu-chan had gone to take Uncle Ihei home and Suzu-chan had already gone to bed. After the ceremony, Katsuko played ‘Chidori’ for us. When she’d finished, we leaned the koto vertically up against the tokonoma alcove. I placed the box of picks in the far corner of the alcove, but I don’t really remember clearly whether the katana was on the shelf at that time.”
It was almost two in the morning by the time the ceremonies were finished. The family left the newly-weds alone in the annexe and went back to the main house. At that time, it was still snowing heavily.
Then, some two hours later, a blood-curdling scream rang out, followed by the eerie strains of a koto being plucked with wild abandon.
CHAPTER 4
A Great Tragedy
Ginzo Kubo lay down in the spare room of the Ichiyanagi home where he was to spend the night. He suddenly felt very weary. This wasn’t surprising. He had his own misgivings about his niece’s marriage.
He knew all too well the feudal manners and sentiments of a rural village, and what this might mean for a lower-born woman such as Katsuko. If he was honest about it, he was concerned about how she might be treated. He wasn’t convinced that joining the Ichiyanagi family—his former landlords—would bring Katsuko happiness.
But Katsuko herself had been eager to marry Kenzo. Ginzo’s wife had offered her own view:
“I’m sure if your brother had been alive, he would have been thrilled about it. Marrying into the Ichiyanagi family is a huge mark of success.”
Ginzo had let himself be convinced. His older brother, Rinkichi, had a far deeper admiration of Japanese traditions and class structure than Ginzo ever did. It was true—if Rinkichi had been alive, he would have been very proud of his daughter’s match. In the end, despite his misgivings, Ginzo had given his consent to the marriage.
Once he’d made his decision, he rushed full speed ahead. So as not to embarrass Katsuko, he made sure there was nothing the Ichiyanagis could grumble about behind her back. He threw himself into organizing the wedding with the greatest efficiency. He drew on everything he had learned during his stay in America and ordered wedding clothes from the finest tailors in Kyoto and Osaka. He spared no expense.
“Uncle Ginzo, I can’t believe you’ve spent so much on me!”
Katsuko was so taken aback at the lavish kimonos he’d bought for her that she burst into tears. But in the end all of Ginzo’s efforts would be in vain…
That evening, Katsuko had set out from the house of the village mayor, who was invited to act as the go-between for the wedding. Decked out in her formal wedding kimono, her beauty left a great impression on everyone who saw her. The magnificence of the furniture and dishes and decorative items that had been sent as a dowry were the talk of the whole village. Ginzo was pleased to see that even the haughty Ichiyanagis were impressed.
“Rinkichi would have been gratified to see this,” he said to himself that night, after the wedding was over. “He would have been truly delighted.”
And with that, he felt his heart swell and tears begin to trickle down his cheek.
The sound of bawdy songs drifted over from the kitchen where the locals were still drinking. He tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep with all the racket, but eventually he drifted off.
Some time later he was woken from a fitful and dream-filled sleep. His eyes snapped open—had he just heard a scream?
He sat up in his futon. It wasn’t a dream. He heard the same sound again—he couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. Over and over it came—one voice, two voices, again and again, screams that were so terrifying they seemed to tear through the stillness of the night. Then from somewhere nearby, he heard the sound of hurried footsteps on a wooden floor.
The annexe house! Those screams came from the annexe! Instantly, Ginzo was pulling on his shirt and a gown over his pyjamas. He checked his watch: 4.15 a.m.
And that was when he heard the koto.
Pling pling thrum thrummm—the sound of all thirteen strings of the instrument being quickly plucked, followed right away by a loud thump like a folding screen falling over. And then dead silence. The merrymaking in the kitchen appeared to be over.
Ginzo slid open the shutters of his room. The snow had already stopped; a sliver of moon glinted coldly in the night sky. The garden was coated in a thick, downy layer of snow.
A figure appeared, struggling through the snow.
“Who’s that?” Ginzo challenged the shadow.
“Ah, hello, sir. Did you hear that too?”
It was a male servant whom Ginzo had never seen before.
“Yes, I heard it. What on earth was it? Wait a moment. I’ll go with you.”
Throwing on his overcoat, Ginzo stepped into the outdoor geta by the door and out into the snow. As he moved across the garden, there was the sound of amado rain shutters being opened here and there. Itoko appeared at the door of the main house.
“Is that you out there, Genshichi? What was that voice I just heard?”
“Mama, I heard a koto.” Suzuko’s face appeared under her mother’s sleeve.
“I don’t know what it could have been,” replied the servant, shivering. “It sounded like somebody crying for help.”
Ginzo made straight for the gate in the fence that divided the main house from the annexe, and at that moment from the direction of the branch family’s house on the far south edge of the compound, Ryosuke appeared, fumbling with his obi sash as he ran.
“Aunt Itoko, what was that noise?”
“Ah, Ryo-chan, could you check the annexe for me?”
Ginzo was pulling and rattling the tall garden gate. It seemed to be bolted on the opposite side and he couldn’t get it open. Ryosuke threw himself shoulder first at the gate several times over, but although it was only made of branches and twigs, and appeared frail and rickety, the gate proved unexpectedly sturdy.
“Genshichi, go fetch an axe!”
“Yes, sir!”
Just as Genshichi turned to go, once more from the direction of the annexe house came the sound of a koto.
Ping ping ping, like the sound of each koto string being played in turn, then a loud twang, zing, zing vibrated through the air. It sounded as if a string had snapped.
“What was that?” said the servant, stopping in his tracks.
The moonlight reflecting off the snow revealed a whole collection of pale faces.
“Genshichi, why are you wasting time?” barked Ryosuke. “Go and get that axe!”
By the time the servant returned with the axe, Itoko and Suzuko, along with several maids and other male servants, were gathered around the gate. Ryosuke’s wife, Akiko, arrived a little after the others, but she had thought to bring a lantern.
Genshichi swung the axe and after a few blows the gate came off its hinges and fell inwards. Ryosuke made to go through first, but for some reason Ginzo grabbed him
by the shoulder and pulled him back. Then he stood for a few moments in front of the garden gate, taking in the annexe house and its surroundings.
“No footprints anywhere,” he muttered, and looked back over his shoulder.
“Everyone, wait there! You two come with me.”
Ginzo indicated Ryosuke and the servant, Genshichi.
“Take care… Make sure you don’t kick up the snow too much. Akiko-san, would you mind lending me that lantern?”
Social rank and class mean nothing in an emergency. Everyone present was overwhelmed by Ginzo’s unexpected leadership skills, and not a single person protested. Only Ryosuke seemed to be having trouble concealing his annoyance at having to take orders from this upstart tenant farmer. If he had only realized that this was a man who had succeeded in putting himself through college in America, he would surely have shown him some respect.
As they passed through the garden gate, there was another low bamboo fence running on their left side along the path to the front door of the building. But, looking over it into the annexe garden, they saw that the cotton-wool snow was completely untouched.
There seemed to be lights on in the building: an electric glow spilled out from the decorative ranma transoms at the top of the amado rain shutters.
The entrance to the annexe house was at its east end, and that was where the three men headed first. However, they found that the red-ochre-painted lattice door and the solid wooden door beyond were both locked. They could see a key in the inside lock of the lattice door. They pushed and pulled on this door, but it wouldn’t budge. Ryosuke and Genshichi banged as hard as they could on the slats, and called Kenzo’s name at the top of their lungs, but there was no reply.
Ginzo’s expression hardened. He left the front entrance, stepped over the low fence and walked around the south side of the building. The other two followed. The painted amado were tightly closed on this side. Ryosuke and Genshichi took it in turns to bang on the shutters and shout Kenzo’s name, but still there was no response.
The three men made their way further around the building to the west side, continuing to bang on the shutters. Ryosuke suddenly stopped in his tracks. A kind of strangled noise came from deep in his throat.
The Honjin Murders Page 3