The Hell Screen

by I. J. Parker

  He felt a mild curiosity about that long-dead young woman, so hated by her rival, and so beloved by his father. For if he had not loved her, surely the woman whom Akitada had thought of as his mother would not have hated her son so bitterly and long. He recalled, too, moments when his stepmother’s guard had slipped and she had revealed her bitterness toward her late husband, her many complaints about his political and financial failure, her bitter reminders that she had married someone unworthy of her own family. And gradually the stern, unforgiving image of his father softened in his memory until it became almost human.

  He was still pondering these relationships when the door opened softly and Seimei entered with another message of condolence.

  Seimei! Akitada looked at the old man with new eyes. He put the message aside unread and said brusquely, “Please take a seat!”

  Seimei was surprised but obeyed.

  “I have just had some extraordinary news, and it occurs to me that you must have known about it for many years.”

  The old man looked blank. “What is that, sir?”

  “It seems the woman who claimed to be my mother all these years unburdened herself on her deathbed and told my sister that I am another woman’s son.”

  Seimei paled slightly, but his eyes did not flinch. “It is true, sir,” he said. “Lady Sugawara was not your mother. I regret that you had to find out before I could speak.”

  Akitada stared at him. How could the old man be so calm? A bitter resentment rose in his stomach. “Why did you not tell me?

  “I was bound by a promise to your honored father, but I was about to do so now, since Lady Sugawara has passed out of this sad world.”

  Akitada felt stark disbelief. This Seimei was a stranger to him, not the friend he had trusted from childhood, to whom he had confided every hurt and all his uncertainty about his parents, and whom he had loved like the father he had wished for. This man had kept a secret from him through all those years, a secret which would have saved him so much heartache! How could he have done it?

  Seimei was still looking fully at him, but there were tears in his eyes now. “I gave my word, sir,” he repeated.

  His word! Was keeping one’s word more important than a child’s misery? Was it more important than seeing the adult struggle with self-recrimination? As recently as yesterday Akitada had still agonized over the relationship between himself and his supposed mother.

  Seimei said softly, “I promised your father, because we feared for your life.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Seimei flinched at the harshness of Akitada’s voice. “Lady Sugawara believed she would have a son of her own. There came a time when she was certain she was with child and she made arrangements for an accident to happen to you. Your father discovered it in time and sent you away.”

  All these years Akitada had believed that his father had driven him out of the house because he disliked him so intensely that he could not bear his sight any longer. He was moved profoundly by the thought that his father had cared for him after all. He stared at Seimei, but the tears welling up in his eyes blurred the old man’s image until he could barely see him, and he turned away to regain his. composure. The news raised more questions. After a moment he asked, “If he discovered his wife in such a plot, why did he not divorce her?”

  “He, too, believed her with child. By the time it became apparent that she was not, you were quite happy in the Hirata family and refused to come home.”

  Yes, that was true. His professor at the university had taken him in. Hirata and his daughter Tamako, now Akitada’s wife, had both welcomed the deeply distressed Akitada with such unaccustomed kindness and warmth that he had rejected out of hand his father’s rapprochement.

  “But why did you not speak after my father’s death?” Akitada asked. “And why did my father not leave a letter for me?”

  “Your father asked for my silence again on his deathbed. I do not know if he feared for your safety or wished to protect Lady Sugawara and your sisters. I could only give my word that I would do as he asked.” Seimei quoted softly, “ ‘First and foremost be faithful to your lord and keep your promise to him.’ “

  Akitada closed his eyes. Confound Confucius! He had much to answer for in this case, he thought bitterly.

  “You would not wish me to break my word to you, sir, would you?”

  Akitada looked at the old man and saw tears sliding down the wrinkled cheeks into his straggly beard. He sighed. “No, I suppose not. Tell me about my mother!”

  “Her name was Sadako. She was the only child of Tamba Tosuke, one of your father’s clerks. Her family was provincial, very poor but respectable. When his wife died, Tamba Tosuke suddenly took Buddhist vows without a thought to his daughter’s welfare. People took it for a sign of his extreme devotion, but your father was angry and he paid for the young lady’s support. In time he fell in love with her and married her, though arrangements had been made for another marriage to the late Lady Sugawara. Your mother died when you were born, sir, and then your father brought you to this house to be raised by Lady Sugawara, hoping she would be a mother to you.” Seimei paused, then added diffidently, “Her ladyship came from very different circumstances than your poor mother.”

  Akitada knew it well enough. Of course she despised the child of a woman of the lower classes, one who had been her predecessor and her rival. She had never allowed anyone to forget her own pedigree.

  A sudden thought struck him. What if she had passed some of her qualities on to Akiko? Had not Akiko also wished to be rid of the sons of her husband’s earlier marriage? He was immediately appalled at his lack of faith in his sister. Akiko was merely spoiled, not evil. She could be selfish and thoughtless, but she was not cruel. Still, she might already have caused trouble in Toshikage’s house. He had to make an effort to undo it! That, too, was one of the legacies his stepmother had burdened him with. He considered bitterly that he was about to become the late Lady Sugawara’s chief mourner in an elaborate funeral ceremony. It was ironic. In a way he was bound as irrevocably as Seimei to carrying out the wishes of the dead.

  * * * *

  The funeral took place after dark. They set out for the cremation site in procession. Torchbearers and monks chanting Buddhist mantras walked ahead. Lady Sugawara’s corpse, washed again and wrapped in white cotton sheets perfumed with incense, lay in an ox-drawn carriage behind drawn curtains made of her embroidered court robes. Ahead walked Seimei, carrying the sacred lamp, and Saburo followed behind with a censer from which clouds of incense perfumed the night air. The mourners walked behind, Akitada first, followed by Yori in the arms of Tora, and Toshikage. The three women followed in hired litters. After them walked the Sugawara servants and friends. The long line moved slowly, silent except for the chanting of the monks, through the deserted streets of the capital.

  The cremation ground was outside the city. A site had been prepared for them, with white sand strewn about the funeral pyre, and temporary shelters had been erected for the mourners.

  Akitada took his seat among the men and prepared for the long night’s watch. There was a clear sky with many stars, and it was bitterly cold. He had made arrangements for open braziers to be placed in all the shelters, but they made only a slight difference. He glanced worriedly at his son, who sat next to him. Yori was bundled into so many quilted robes that his round, rosy face looked absurdly small among all the silken coverings. Akitada had insisted that hemp was to be worn over ordinary clothing and only by his sisters and the servants. He, Tamako, and Yori wore dark silk robes instead. He had chosen that single subtle gesture because he was no blood relation to the dead woman. Since both dark silks and hemp were customary in mourning, outsiders would hardly realize the significance. If anything, they would ascribe the silk to his position as head of the family.

  It was a very small act of defiance, for otherwise Akitada mourned Lady Sugawara publicly with all the expense and proper behavior of an only son.

&n
bsp; Akitada saw that Yori’s eyes were large with excitement as he watched the flames of the funerary pyre being lit by one of the monks. When the moment came, Akitada rose and ceremoniously placed Lady Sugawara’s favorite possessions, her elegant toiletry boxes, carved rosary, zither, and writing utensils, along with the token coins to pay her way in the other world, into the flames.

  The monks began their chanting again, and the flames rose higher, crackling softly, sending a long column of darker black smoke into the night sky, slowly obscuring the stars. The fire consumed symbols of emptiness, for life was no more than a wisp of dark smoke fading into night.

  Yori fell asleep after a while, and his father pulled him close into his protective arm. Across the way, in the women’s shelter, someone sobbed loudly. Akiko, no doubt, Akitada thought wryly. She always knew what was expected of her in public. Toshikage half turned to cast anxious looks that way, and Akitada thought, not for the first time, that Akiko had been very lucky to have found such a husband.

  Of course, Toshikage’s problem also affected her, and if Akitada was right in his suspicions, Akiko was the cause of it. Either way, he had a duty to help Toshikage. But this death had made things very awkward. None of them could go about naturally for the next seven days. They were, for all intents and purposes, housebound. And even after that Akitada and his sisters would have to observe restrictions of normal activities for another six weeks, until the ceremonies of the forty-ninth day had been completed and the soul of the deceased had departed the world.

  On the positive side he need not worry about being called to court for the coming weeks. But meanwhile Toshikage’s situation was pressing. For all they knew, the director of the Bureau of Palace Storehouses was already planning an investigation into Toshikage’s stewardship. It was dangerous to let another day pass without taking action, and Akitada pondered this problem as the hours passed slowly.

  The fire began to burn out after a while, and more wood was added to the pyre. The air became saturated with the smell of wood smoke and incense and, very faintly, of burnt flesh.

  Tora came quietly to take the sleeping child to his mother. When he left, Toshikage whispered, “Do you think the ladies are warm enough?”

  Akitada nodded and glanced at the sky. “It will be dawn soon,” he murmured. “Come to my house to warm up before returning home.”

  Toshikage nodded gratefully.

  Akitada thought how easily the words “my house” had come to his lips. It was truly his home now, no longer poisoned by memories of his parents’ supposed rejection of him. He recalled his father’s stern mien, so harsh and frightening in his childhood memories, and tried to see it as a mask put on to reassure a jealous wife that he felt no love for this son and merely tolerated him. And he thought much of the young woman who had been his mother. How short her life had been! Had she loved his father? If she had lived, would his life have been different? He felt in his heart that his mother would have loved him.

  With the first light of the dawn, the monks stopped chanting. They went to pour water on the smoking remnants of the fire, then sprinkled the ashes with rice wine. Later they would collect the bones and inter them near his father. Akitada wondered where his mother’s remains lay. The mourners straggled to their feet stiffly, and attendants went to get the litters ready for the women. Yori, still asleep, would ride with Tamako, but Akitada and Toshikage walked back side by side.

  On the way from the cremation grounds, they stopped to perform the ritual purification at one of the canals which crisscrossed the city. The water was icy, and they hurried their ablutions.

  “A fine funeral,” remarked Toshikage, wrapping his wet hands into the full sleeves of his gown.

  “Yes. It went very well,” replied Akitada. One said such things, when there was nothing else to say. Certainly Toshikage knew better than to assume that Lady Sugawara was sincerely mourned by anyone, including his wife Akiko.

  But this did not stop Akiko later from reciting lines of poetry about the melancholy event when they gathered for some hot rice gruel and warm wine. She dwelt with many sighs on the emptiness of life, and spoke of that sad period spent in “a night of endless dreams” before entering “the dark path” into death, meanwhile eating and drinking heartily between moments of inspiration.

  Toshikage watched her complacently, remarking that the enforced period of mourning would give him a chance to see more of his wife. “I shall not be expected at the office,” he said, adding with a distinct note of fatherly pride, “Takenori is quite capable of carrying out my duties for the next week. The boy is really a great help to me these days.”

  * * * *

  Akitada went to visit Takenori later that day. It was early afternoon, and he had had only a few hours of sleep. The weather was still wintry, but the sun shone brightly and warmed the air. He had dressed in a plain gray robe and formal black cap which could pass for either mourning or ordinary wear, but wore the wooden taboo pendant attached to the cap. It would stop casual acquaintances and strangers from engaging him in conversation on his way across the palace grounds.

  He left the house quiet and shuttered, the large taboo sign at the gate warning visitors away from the contamination that a recent death placed on a household. The morbid presence of these reminders of death cast a dark mood over his errand. Much—no, everything—depended on Toshikage’s son, and their previous meeting had not been encouraging.

  When he reached the Greater Palace, the streets and buildings of the large enclosure hummed with activity: officials and clerks bustled about and messengers ran to and fro, carrying documents and records; the Imperial Guard made a splendid show at the gates, and performed a snappy drill in front of their headquarters. Akitada had his private doubts about the guard’s effectiveness in case of an armed attack on the emperor. It had become a much-sought-after profession for the sons of minor nobles and provincial lords who wished to give their offspring exposure at court. But the guardsmen were young and looked sharp enough in their stiff black robes and feathered hats as they rode their horses in tight circles and twanged their bows.

  The Bureau of Palace Storehouses was in a large building immediately to the north of the imperial residence. It contained not only offices but storage for the treasures belonging to the sovereign and other members of the emperor’s family. The entrance was guarded by two young guardsmen who cast sharp glances at Akitada, noting his cap rank as well as the taboo marker, and let him pass.

  Akitada was not prepared to answer searching questions about his identity and business there, so he was pleased to find Toshikage’s name on a door almost immediately. He knocked, heard a firm young voice inviting him in, and entered, closing the door behind him.

  Takenori was seated at his father’s desk, bent over a ledger into which he was making entries. When he saw who had walked in, he froze, brush in hand, and stared openmouthed.

  “Good afternoon, Takenori,” said Akitada pleasantly, seating himself across from the young man.

  Takenori dropped his brush into the water container and scrambled to his feet to bow. “Good afternoon, my lord,” he gasped. When he straightened up, he still looked utterly confused. “Er, allow me to express my condolences, my lord,” he stammered, then ruined the conventional courtesy by blurting out, “But your honored mother’s funeral was only last night. My father is at home because of it. How is it that you are here?” He stopped and, with sudden panic showing in his face and voice, cried, “Something has happened! Is it my father? Is he ill?”

  Akitada noted this reaction with approval and relief. So the young man did care about his father! That made things easier. He said, “No. Nothing of the sort. Please be seated. I had hoped to have a chat with you while your father is elsewhere, that is all.”

  Slowly Takenori sat down. His brows contracted, and some of his former antipathy returned. No doubt he wondered what could be of such importance that Akitada would break the social and moral rules of mourning so flagrantly to consult him persona
lly.

  Akitada smiled at him. “Though I have not known your father very long, you should know that already I feel a great affection for him.”

  Takenori barely suppressed a look of distaste. He clearly did not believe Akitada, but said politely enough, “Thank you. You do us a great honor, my lord.”

  “And that is why I am very concerned about the missing items. I think you must be aware of the seriousness of your father’s situation. Should he be found guilty of this theft, he along with his whole family would be exiled to some very unpleasant, faraway province.”

  Takenori flushed. “My father is innocent and will prove it.”

  “Furthermore,” continued Akitada as if Takenori had not spoken, “his property, large though it is, would be confiscated and all of you, you and your brother included, would be penniless.”

  Takenori became quite still. He looked at Akitada for a long time, clenching and unclenching his hands. Then he asked harshly, “Did you come here to tell me that you wish my father’s wife, your sister, to return to her family because you fear for her future?”