The Hell Screen

by I. J. Parker

  “Another hemorrhage. A bit worse than last time. She finally fell asleep.” Yoshiko passed a hand over her dark-ringed eyes. “At least I think so. It is hard to tell if she is asleep or simply too weak to bother.”

  “You are tired. Shall I go sit with her today?”

  Yoshiko gave him a grateful look. “If you would. For just a few hours. I have not had any sleep. Don’t wake her, though.”

  In the corridor outside his mother’s room, some five or six monks sat in a line, their eyes closed and their lips moving continuously, while prayer beads passed between their fingers. Akitada stepped over them and opened the door. They neither looked up nor paused in their chant.

  His mother’s room was in semidarkness, the air overheated and thick with the smell of blood and urine. Braziers glowed here and there. The sturdy maid looked up at him with startled eyes, but Lady Sugawara lay still. She was on her back, hands folded across her stomach, sunken eyes closed, nose and chin jutting up sharply from a face which already looked more like a skull than a living human being.

  Akitada gestured for silence and took a seat near the maid, whispering, “I shall stay for a while. Please do not let me trouble you. How has she been?”

  “ ‘Twas bad in the night,” the maid whispered back. “But she’s been asleep the last hour or so.”

  “Good.” Akitada prepared himself for a long vigil, but suddenly his mother’s eyes opened and fixed on him. “Mother?” he asked tentatively. When she said nothing, he tried, “How are you feeling?”

  “Where is my grandson?” Her voice was shockingly loud and harsh in that stillness. “Have you brought my grandson?”

  “Not yet. They will be here shortly. In a...” He stopped, seeing her face contract into a mask of fury.

  “Get out!” she gasped, choking. “Get out of my room! Leave me alone!” The gasping turned to convulsive coughing. “I can... not even die in... peace ... without you rushing me along.... Curse you ... for ...” She raised up suddenly, pointing a clawlike hand at him accusingly, her eyes filled with implacable hatred. But whatever she had meant to shout at him was never said. A gush of dark blood spilled from her mouth and over the bedding, and she fell back choking.

  Akitada jumped up in horror and stood helplessly by as the maid busied herself, mopping blood and holding the gasping, coughing figure of his mother.

  “A doctor,” said Akitada, “I’ll get the doctor. Where does he live?”

  The maid glanced up impatiently. “No, sir. He can’t help. She’ll calm down in a moment. But you’d best go away. It upsets her to see you.”

  Akitada almost ran from the room. In his haste he stumbled over one of the monks outside. The man grunted, and Akitada mumbled an apology as he fled.

  In his room his breakfast waited. He stared at the bowl of rice gruel, then rushed out onto the veranda and vomited into the shrubbery.

  Feeling slightly better, he returned to his room to put on his outdoor clothes. Then he left the house.

  The weather was still overcast and chill. Now and then the frigid wind picked up and shifted some of the dead leaves. Most trees were bare already. A good time for death, Akitada thought morosely, hunching his shoulders against the cold.

  He no longer hoped for a reconciliation with his mother. Her venomous hatred of himself had to be accepted. It seemed to him that it must always have existed, contained for all those years under a mantle of propriety. Now that she was dying and no longer cared what anyone, least of all himself, thought of her, she spat out the stored-up bitterness of a lifetime as if it had been her life’s blood. At least it absolved him from further attendance on her.

  But the thought gave him no peace. His mother’s words had poisoned something in him, and for the first time in his life he wished her dead. In fact, he hoped fervently that she would die soon, before his family arrived, before she could poison also his beloved Tamako and the child she had given him! He hated the thought of those skeletal hands touching Yori, those wrinkled, hate-dripping lips kissing the soft, rosy cheek of his son. Bitter resentment twisted inside him like an awakening dragon. How dare his mother destroy the peace and happiness he had finally won after leaving his home? He clenched his fists in helpless misery and wished he had not returned. By heaven, now that he was here, he would not allow her to spoil his future and that of his family.

  In his aimless walking, he had reached a quiet street in he knew not which quarter, but before him rose the tall gates to a shrine. It was one of the many Shinto shrines which occupied small tranquil spaces in the middle of the mercantile bustle around them. Thetorii, gateways of two tall upright wooden pillars topped with a gently up-curved top beam, marked the entrance to sacred space. A grove surrounded the modest thatched shrine building, but the trees were bare of leaves now, and the weather had driven worshipers away. The isolation of the place exerted a powerful pull on Akitada, and the shrine gate seemed to beckon. As if under a spell, he obeyed.

  Once through the torii, he entered a world of silence. A thick carpet of leaves under his feet muffled his steps, and the human sounds of voices and wagon wheels dropped away behind. Somewhere a bird chirped. Turning a corner, Akitada found a stone basin. With a soft flutter of wings, a sparrow landed on its rim and drank. Akitada stood very still and waited until the bird had his fill and flew away. Then he approached and dipped some water with a bamboo ladle which lay on the basin. He rinsed his mouth with it, a familiar and comforting action, then spat the water on the ground. Next he rinsed his hands. The water tasted and felt cool and fresh, and it seemed to him that the symbolic cleansing had eased his mind and he approached the shrine with a calmer heart. Above the doorway, small paper twists tied to the sacred rice-straw ropes rustled softly in the wind, as if whispering the prayers inscribed on them by the troubled worshipers who had come here before him. He had brought no paper and, surprised at the impulse, regretted it.

  At the door to the shrine he bowed. The sweet smell of fruit and rice wine, gifts presented to the god in small bowls on the plain wooden veranda, mixed pleasantly with a trace of incense. He looked into the dim interior, a space too sacred to enter. There were no images in this particular shrine, just a large carved box in the center of a table. It housed the spirit of the deity, an ancestral god associated with the neighborhood, perhaps. Akitada was about to turn away when his shoulder touched a thick straw rope suspended from the eaves of the roof. It was for ringing a bell which would announce a request. Akitada paused.

  Then he turned back to the face the shrine, clapped his hands three times, concentrated his thoughts, and pulled the rope sharply. A muffled clanging sounded in the roof. He bowed again, stood a moment longer, and then left.

  The ritual was as ancient as his people and familiar to him from his earliest childhood. He felt strangely calm and at peace, as if performing the simple act of worship had exorcised his demons and had helped him see his way. He was grateful to the god of the shrine.

  At home, in the house filled with his dying mother’s curses, it had been impossible to think clearly, but now he knew that he must turn his back on a past which was dying with his mother and care for the future of the living. His sisters needed his help. His heart had gone out to Yoshiko, no longer the laughing young girl he remembered, but a sadly changed young woman who rarely smiled these days. He would find her a husband as soon as he had settled back into his work and met eligible men. Someone, he hoped, that she could laugh with.

  But Akiko’s problem was her husband. There was nothing Akitada could do about her marriage, of which, in any case, Akiko herself seemed to approve. He wondered if she would if she knew the trouble Toshikage was in.

  And so, because of Toshikage, Akitada went to see Nagaoka again. He still had Toshikage’s list of the treasures which had disappeared from the Imperial Treasury, but had never consulted the antiquarian about them.

  When he knocked at Nagaoka’s gate, the same servant opened. To Akitada’s surprise, he was back in ordinary clothes, and the
courtyard looked raked and tidy. Apparently Nagaoka had reestablished some order in his house and put aside mourning his wife.

  Nagaoka was in his study, sitting behind his desk much as the day before, except that he was busy inspecting an object in a wooden box. When he saw Akitada, he rose and invited him to sit. There was something cool and formal about his manner which told Akitada that he was not really welcome.

  “I apologize for another unannounced visit,” said Akitada, taking the offered seat, “but there is something I forgot to ask you. I hope I do not intrude?”

  Nagaoka sat also and pushed the open box aside. “Not at all, my lord,” he murmured formally. “May I offer you some refreshments?”

  Having left without his morning rice, Akitada became aware of feeling ravenously hungry, but in the present chill ambiance he decided against accepting hospitality. “Thank you, no.”

  A brief silence fell. Nagaoka apparently had no wish to discuss the murder. Akitada was puzzled and wondered what had brought about the change. He glanced at the box. “Have I interrupted your work?”

  “I was merely looking at an antique I may sell. Are you interested in theatrical performances?” He tipped the box toward Akitada, who suppressed a gasp.

  His first shocked impression was of a man’s severed head. From the brocade folds surrounding it, a human face glared back at him. Disconcertingly, the disembodied head appeared alive. The forehead was wrinkled in a deep frown, bushy eyebrows nearly meeting above a large hooked nose, and the thick lips were compressed in a scowl. Fathomless black eyes stared angrily at Akitada. The head wore a folded cap resembling formal court hats, but the face was demonic rather than human.

  Nagaoka’s dry voice cut through the blur of Akitada’s confusion. “A very fine specimen, don’t you think?” His eyes lingered on the mask with an intent, almost passionate expression.

  “Er, yes. Very lifelike. What precisely is it?”

  “Oh, a bugaku mask. Quite old. Either Chinese or Korean in origin. It represents one of the Indian characters in a Buddhist play.”

  A mask for a dancer! Akitada reached across and lifted it from the box. He saw now that it was the hollow wood carving of the face and top of the head only. The ribbons with which the performer tied it on dangled from its edges. The mask’s cap was really quite different in style from those worn at court, and the large hooked nose was definitely foreign. But the workmanship was masterful and it was painted in lifelike colors. The piercing eyes were holes through which the actor looked during a performance.

  Bugaku dances were much admired at court and occasionally put on by great nobles to entertain the emperor and his family. A connection of this mask to the Imperial Treasury was quite possible. To be sure, no mask was mentioned on Toshikage’s list, but perhaps this was a more recent theft.

  “Is it valuable?” he asked Nagaoka.

  Nagaoka pursed his lips. “It is almost certainly two hundred years old and in excellent condition. Yes. I would think for a collector or someone wishing to make a present to a great man or to a temple it might well be worth twenty rolls of brocade.” He looked down at his hands, adding, “However, I do not expect an offer of that size.”

  “How do you come by rare objects like this?”

  “Usually someone needs money and unearths something from the family treasure-house. Sometimes, more rarely, it is an import from Korea.”

  “And this?”

  Nagaoka met his eyes with a hooded glance. “Part of my reputation, my lord, rests on the absolute confidentiality with which I transact business.”

  “Of course. But do you not wonder if such a precious object might really belong to the person selling it?”

  Nagaoka smiled thinly. “I make certain. Besides, the buyer usually asks about the provenance. It adds to the value of the piece.”

  Akitada raised his brows. “What about the confidentiality, then?”

  The smile widened a fraction. “It may be said to be confined to six ears only.”

  Akitada thought for a moment, then fished Toshikage’s list from his sash. Handing it to Nagaoka, he said, “This does not involve a sale, so I hope the matter will be confined to only you and me. These items have been removed from a collection illegally and may have been offered for sale during the past month. Can you give me any information about such a transaction involving any or all of the items listed?”

  Nagaoka stared at him a moment, then read the list. Frowning, he reread it, then looked at Akitada with a strange expression on his face. “You say these things were stolen?”

  Akitada shook his head. “They were stolen only if they are being offered for sale. Otherwise they have merely been removed without permission.”

  “Ah.” Nagaoka returned the list. His fingers shook slightly. “I am happy to say that I have no news to give you. Indeed, if they have been stolen, then someone has committed a sacrilege of the most serious nature. Such things would not be offered for sale to a reputable dealer like myself. Handling the transaction and being in possession of any one of the objects could mean death or deportation. I would most certainly report any rumors circulating among my colleagues, as I trust would they.”

  Akitada nodded. He was only mildly surprised that Nagaoka had recognized the origin of the objects. A man of his experience would certainly know what was contained in the Imperial Treasury. “Thank you. I thought so, but needed confirmation. What about taking the goods out of the capital and selling them in a distant province, or even in Korea?”

  Nagaoka thought. “It is possible, but dangerous. You would have to assume in the first case that the thief has a buyer in mind who is already disloyal to His Majesty and is willing to pay a great deal to possess such goods. Such a man needs to be very secure in his position.”

  Akitada looked at Nagaoka with new respect. The man was extraordinarily shrewd. Perhaps his profession had taught him a great deal about the secret desires of the powerful. “And in the second instance?” he asked.

  “The thief would have to approach one of the foreign traders either here or at the port city of Naniwa. We have not had any trade ships arrive from Korea in over a year and none are expected to leave for there, since there has been a cooling of relations between our countries. This has been very bad for men of my profession, but it almost certainly means that such objects would not be offered to Korean merchants. They could not leave the country and, as I said, possessing them is dangerous.”

  “Yes. I think you are quite right. Thank you. Do you yourself travel a great deal in your business?”

  “Not often nowadays.”

  Silence fell. Akitada wondered how to introduce the subject of the brother, when Nagaoka cleared his throat and said, “It was very kind of you, my lord, to take an interest in my family affairs the other day, but I hope you will not trouble yourself further on my unfortunate brother’s behalf.”

  “Oh? You have had reassuring news, then? The police have another suspect, perhaps?”

  Nagaoka did not meet his eyes. “Not precisely. Forgive me. I am not at liberty to discuss the case with anyone, but I have hopes the matter will be resolved soon.”

  Now what had happened? Akitada hesitated, then asked the question which had troubled him all along. “I don’t suppose there is any question in your mind about the victim’s identity?”

  Nagaoka stared at him dumfounded. “Of course not. I recognized my wife immediately.”

  So that eliminated Akitada’s suspicion that the corpse was someone else!

  Nagaoka looked miserable, but somehow Akitada did not think it was grief which had him so downcast today. Had Kobe threatened him? Or was there another, deeper reason? Had he decided it was too dangerous to have Akitada poke his nose into his family affairs? Either way the message was clear. Akitada was to stay out of the business.

  Thanking Nagaoka again for his help with Toshikage’s list, Akitada took his leave.

  The servant, less sullen and in an unexpectedly chatty mood, was waiting at the door w
ith his shoes. “Winter’s here for sure,” he said for an opening. “A bit chilly out today.”

  “So it is,” agreed Akitada, sitting down. “I see you have had your hands full with all the leaves. It must be a big job to take care of everything by yourself.”

  “And little thanks I get from the master,” grumbled the man, busying himself with Akitada’s boots. “The funeral’s coming up. That’ll make more work, even if it is to be a small affair.”

  “Very sad, yes. Did you like your mistress?”

  A strange, secretive look passed over the servant’s face. “She was very beautiful.” He paused, then added, “And much younger than the master.”

  “I suppose it must have been dull for a young lady here with your master gone so much from home?”

  “Hmm,” said the servant, rising to his feet.

  Akitada reached into his sash and counted some copper coins into his hand. “Here,” he said, “for your trouble.”