Red Chrysanthemum

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Last night she’d promised Sano that she wouldn’t give up hope. Last night they’d gone to bed together knowing that it could be the last time. They’d made love, careful of the baby. Afterward, safe and cherished in Sano’s arms, Reiko had been able to think mat everything would turn out all right. But when dawn had come, defeat had slithered under her skin, cold and poisonous as a snake, hissing, You murdered Lord Mori. You will pay. Now she was forcing herself to go through motions that seemed pointless.

  From behind the bamboo fence emerged a thin, gray-haired lady.

  Asukai led her up to Reiko’s palanquin, opened the door, and said, “Please get inside.”

  The woman saw Reiko, and dismay crossed her shriveled features. Reiko thought about how glad people were to see her when they wanted her help, and how they preferred to avoid her after she’d done what they’d asked but things hadn’t turned out the way they wished.

  “Please don’t go, Madam Tsuzuki,” she said. “I only ask a moment of your time.”

  The woman reluctantly climbed into the palanquin and knelt as far from Reiko as possible. She said, “I heard what happened to you.” She avoided Reiko’s gaze. Her gentle voice didn’t soften her obvious hostility. “What are you doing here?”

  “I didn’t kill Lord Mori,” Reiko said. “I’m trying to find out who did and prove my innocence. I need your help.”

  Obligation to Reiko weighed like a visible burden upon Madam Tsuzuki. She looked unconvinced, but she said, “My apologies. I shouldn’t judge you when I don’t know anything but rumors. And I shouldn’t blame you for what you found out about the girl who was engaged to my son.”

  She and her husband, an Edo Castle guard, had asked Reiko to investigate the girl’s family. Although samurai usually married within their class and knew all about their prospective in-laws, the son had fallen in love with a woman whose parents were artisans. Owners of a lucrative business, they were eager to marry their daughter into the samurai class. The Tsuzukis had been willing to accept a social inferior into their clan because of her rich dowry. This was a not uncommon practice by which commoners rose in the world and samurai improved their finances. But first the Tsuzukis had wanted to make sure that the girl and her family were of good character.

  Reiko had questioned their neighbors and learned that they’d moved to Edo from Osaka ten years ago. The man had started as a peddler, then opened a small market stall, which he’d built into his current large shop. They were well respected, but nobody knew anything of their past. They never discussed their life in Osaka, where Reiko had sent one of her attendants to inquire about them.

  “It’s not your fault that the girl turned out to be eta,” Madam Tsuzuki said.

  Reiko had discovered that the family were outcasts, shunned by society because their hereditary link with death-related occupations such as butchering and leather tanning rendered them spiritually unclean. Most eta were doomed to a miserable existence cleaning streets, hauling garbage, or working at other dirty, menial jobs, but the man had had rare ambition and talent. He’d moved himself, his wife, and their daughter to Edo, where no one knew about their disgraceful origins, and changed their names. But Reiko had given her attendant an example of the man’s distinctive work to show around Osaka, and an eta he’d met in the street had recognized it. The results of her investigation had put an end to the wedding plans: A samurai couldn’t marry an outcast.

  “You did me a service,” Madam Tsuzuki said, “but why do you think I can be of service to you?”

  “It’s about your son,” Reiko said.

  Tears filled the woman’s eyes and ran down her face. “He married her anyway. His father and I disowned him. He is dead to us.”

  Reiko pitied this woman who’d lost her son due to his defiance of a strict, centuries-old taboo. She regretted that her well-meant efforts had caused a family tragedy. “Where is he?”

  Instead of answering, Madam Tsuzuki asked, “What does he have to do with your problems?”

  “He sent me this,” Reiko said, taking a letter from beneath her sash.

  The woman averted her gaze from her son’s handwriting. Pain closed her eyes. Reiko read aloud, “ ‘Lady Reiko, you are an evil, meddlesome witch. You have ruined our lives. Someday I will hurt you as much as you have hurt us.” “

  Madam Tsuzuki turned a look of horror on Reiko. “You can’t think that my son is responsible for what happened to you?”

  He was as good a suspect as Colonel Kubota and better than the family of the clerk that had been executed for murder because of Reiko. “He belonged to a gang that included men from Lord Mori’s retinue.” Such samurai gangs spent their idle hours roving the town, drinking, brawling, and chasing women. “They were a way into the Mori estate. And he’s intelligent enough to invent an elaborate murder scheme.” Besides, the fact that he’d been disowned gave him all the more reason to hate Reiko. “What do you think? Could he have done it?”

  “I don’t know.” Madam Tsuzuki shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know what my son is capable of or who he is anymore. I haven’t seen him in a year, since he told us he was going to marry that woman against our wishes and his father told him to leave our house and never come back.”

  “Where did he go?” Reiko said.

  “I don’t know. But her family might. Ask them.”

  Sano, Hirata, and their detectives and entourage gathered in the neighborhood where Reiko had claimed she’d met Lily and all her problems had begun. Rain dripped off sagging roofs and balconies; mildew and green moss infected damp, dingy, plaster walls. The streets were deserted, but as Sano and his men dismounted and tied their horses to posts, people peeked out windows at them.

  “There’s the Persimmon Teahouse,” Hirata said, pointing at the drab storefront overhung with a wet blue curtain.

  Sano gave it scant attention as he walked by. “Never mind that for now.”

  “Do you want us to round up all the residents for questioning?” Hirata asked.

  “That probably won’t work any better than before.” Sano kept moving, past shops and a little shrine.

  “What are we looking for?” Detective Marume asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Sano said. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

  He attuned himself to his surroundings. Instinct told him that the answers were here. He opened his mind to all stimuli. He smelled nightsoil bins in an alley, heard voices chanting prayers inside houses, tasted garlic in charcoal smoke that wafted from a kitchen. He felt new hope as he continued along the street, alert for whatever he’d come to discover.

  His men followed him silently. They came to a shop halfway down the block, whose door was open a crack. It seemed to beckon Sano. He went up to the storefront, stood under the overhanging eaves, and looked inside while Hirata and the detectives peered over his shoulder.

  It was a stationer’s shop, filled with writing brushes, ink stones, ceramic water jars, scroll cases, and stacks of paper. An old man knelt at a desk. Opposite him sat a young woman. “The baby was sick with a cold, but he’s better,” she said. “My husband is working hard. I’m well, but I miss you.” The old man wrote down her words as she continued dictating, “Good-bye for now. With love from your daughter, Emiko.”

  Sano pictured a different, older woman sitting in her place; he heard another voice: Dear Lady Reiko, please excuse we for imposing on you, but I need your help. The old man was probably one of the few literate people in his neighborhood. Shops like his were patronized by folks who needed letters written or read for them. Sano felt the tingling sensation of excitement that told him he was on the right track. He slid the door open wider and stepped into the shop.

  The proprietor bowed to him. “I’ll be right with you, master.”

  Sano nodded, but was looking at the letter that the man carefully blotted dry. The inked characters were square-shaped, neat, precise, and familiar. The man rolled the page into a bamboo case and handed it to the woman; she paid, thanked him, and left.
He asked Sano, “How may I serve you?”

  “I want to talk to you about a letter you once wrote,” Sano said. “It was for a dancer named Lily.”

  The old man’s courteous smile faded. “I respectfully beg to disagree; I’ve never had a customer by that name.”

  “Yes, you did,” Sano said. “I’ve seen the letter. It was sent to Lady Reiko, my wife. I recognized your calligraphy.” It was proof at last that Lily existed, that Reiko hadn’t imagined her in a fit of madness.

  Fear crept into the old man’s withered features. “A thousand apologies, but I don’t know any Lily.” He turned to Hirata, who’d crowded into the shop with Sano. “I told you so the other night, when you were here.”

  “Yes, you did. I remember you.” Hirata said to Sano, “I threatened to beat him if he didn’t tell me where to find Lily, but he wouldn’t. Neither would the other folks in the street.”

  And Hirata had backed off because he’d believed them rather than Reiko’s story and didn’t want to hurt innocent people, Sano thought. But now the old man had unwittingly furnished proof of a conspiracy of silence. Now Sano and Hirata were desperate.

  “Today we’re going to give you another chance to tell the truth,” Hirata told the old man.

  He shut the door. He and Sano stood over the old man, who shrank behind his desk. “Please don’t hurt me!” he cried, raising his hands to fend off blows.

  “Just tell us where Lily is,” Sano said, “and we won’t touch you.”

  “I can’t!”

  The small, stuffy room reeked of the man’s old age and terror. Sano said, “Who threatened you into keeping quiet?”

  “Some samurai. I don’t know who they were. They came here two days ago.” Anxious to placate Sano and Hirata, the old man babbled, “They went from house to house, looking for Lily. They didn’t find her; she was already gone. They told us that if anyone asked about her, we were to say we didn’t know her, or they would come back and kill us all.”

  “Don’t be afraid of them. I’ll protect you.” Urgency mounted in Sano. He grabbed the old man by the front of his robe. “Now where is she?”

  Even though the old man whimpered and quaked, he cried, “I promised her I wouldn’t tell!”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere,” Hirata said.

  “Why did she disappear?” Sano asked.

  “She heard that those samurai were after her. She came hurrying into my shop, all frightened. She begged me to write a letter for her.”

  “A letter to whom?”

  When the old man didn’t answer, Sano turned him to face Hirata, who drew his sword. Hirata held the blade to the man’s chest. They didn’t have time to waste on gentle persuasion. The man shrieked, then blurted, “It was to Lady Reiko.”

  Sano was surprised because Reiko hadn’t, as far as he knew, received a second letter from Lily. “What did she tell you to write?”

  “That some bad men were after her, and she had to hide. She begged Lady Reiko to save her.”

  “If she expected help, she would have said where she would be,” Sano said. She must not have had a chance to send the letter to Reiko. “Tell me!”

  “I can’t!” The old man pressed his back against Sano, shrinking away from Hirata’s blade. “I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her.”

  “Listen,” Sano said, turning the old man, “those people will find Lily eventually. My wife would want me to rescue her, and I will, but first you have to tell me where she is.”

  Fearful hope battled defiance in the man’s eyes and won. “All right,” he cried. “Just please let me go!”

  Sano did. The old man crumpled onto the floor. Ashamed and woeful, he said, “I guess I can’t do any more harm than I’ve already done. Lily said she was going to Ginkgo Street. There was a fire there before the rains started. She was going to hide in a building that hadn’t quite burned down.”

  “Exactly where is this building?” Sano demanded.

  The man gave complicated directions through Edo’s maze of neighborhoods.

  “Thank you,” Sano said. “You did the right thing. I’m sorry we were so cruel to you.”

  He opened the door and called to some of his troops who were waiting outside: “Take this man to my compound. Guard him with your lives. He’ll testify on behalf of Lady Reiko at her trial.” He assigned more men to protect the residents of the street, then said to Hirata, Inoue, Arai, Marume, and Fukida: “Come with me. We have to find Lily. She’s the most important witness of all.”

  As the troops led the old man out of the shop, he began to weep. “It’s too late. You can’t save her. And it’s my fault.”

  Sano was about to ignore him and go, but he realized there was more to the situation than he’d thought at first. “Wait. What do you mean?”

  “There was another samurai who asked me where Lily went. Just before you came. I told him.” The man sobbed, overcome by guilt and grief. “I shouldn’t have. But my granddaughter was with me. He threatened to cut her throat.”

  Someone had beaten Sano to the witness. Sano demanded, “Who was he?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t give his name, and I’ve never seen him before. He rode off as if demons were chasing him.”

  His hysterical voice followed Sano, Hirata, and the detectives as they raced down the street toward their horses: “Merciful gods, he’s going to kill her!”

  The palanquin bearers let Reiko out on the wide main street that ran through Edo. Here were located the city’s best stores, which served the richest citizens. Today the weather had kept most customers at home. The usual displays outside the storefronts were absent, the shutters partially closed to keep the rain off the fine household furnishings inside. Reiko was glad to find the street so deserted; she didn’t want to run into anyone she knew. The longer the time she spent sneaking around like a fugitive, the more she feared getting caught. But she had to keep moving, had to keep trying to exonerate herself no matter how sure she was that she never would.

  A Tokugawa soldier rode by. Reiko hastily ducked inside a shop whose entrance curtains bore a picture of bamboo canes. Lieutenant Asukai followed her into a showroom filled with articles made from bamboo. Screens lined the walls; baskets sat on shelves; lanterns hung from the ceiling. All featured the intricate designs that had made the shop famous. Near the door was a display of its specialty—cricket cages. They weren’t the simple type in which children placed crickets they’d caught so they could take them indoors and listen to them sing. They were elaborate miniature houses, pagodas, and castles, made for wealthy connoisseurs. The talent that had gone into them had raised their creator from outcast to artisan to successful merchant, a transformation virtually impossible.

  The store was empty except for three clerks kneeling at a counter strewn with ledgers for recording sales and sorobon for calculating prices. One of the men rose and approached Reiko. “Welcome,” he said, bowing. “May I serve you?”

  It took Reiko a moment to recognize him. The last time she’d seen him had been at his parents’ home, when they’d asked her to investigate his prospective bride. Then his crown had been shaved in samurai fashion; now his hair was cropped short all over his head. Then he’d worn silk robes and two swords; now, cotton robes, no weapons. His face, which she recalled as handsome but childish, had a new, mature strength.

  “Greetings, Tsuzuki-san,” Reiko said.

  He took a second look at her, and emotions played across his features in a sequence too rapid for her to sort them out. Lieutenant Asukai put his hand on his sword, in case Tsuzuki should attack Reiko.

  “Well,” Tsuzuki said, smiling with sardonic merriment. “Funny meeting you again.”

  Reiko cautiously relaxed, but Asukai stayed close to her. She said, “My congratulations on your marriage.”

  “So you know about it. Did my mother tell you?”

  “Yes,” Reiko said. “I asked her where to find you, and she said your in-laws might know. I came to see them. But
I didn’t expect you to be here.” She’d thought he and his bride had run away together, as star-crossed lovers did.

  He pantomimed a laugh: His smile opened and his eyes narrowed, without sound. “Oh, I’ve been here ever since my parents disowned me. My father not only cut me off with no money, but he got me kicked out of the army. Luckily, my wife’s parents were more accepting. They took me in even though I was a worthless ronin. Now I’m a clerk and apprentice.”

  Roaming around the shop, he touched several baskets. “These are my work. Not bad, eh?” Genuine pride underlay his self-mocking tone. “But it’ll be a long time before I can do anything like this.” His manner turned reverent as he pointed to the cricket cages. “My father-in-law did those.”