TAIKO: AN EPIC NOVEL OF WAR AND GLORY IN FEUDAL JAPAN

by Eiji Yoshikawa

  "He's all mouth, and sassy to boot. Just looking for a sunny place to pick the dirt from his navel," said one of the workmen operating the dye press.

  Soon after that, word came from the go-between: "I'm afraid he's of no use." And back home he went.

  Chikuami glared at him. "Well, how about it, Monkey? Is society going to feed an idler like you? Don't you yet understand the value of parents?"

  He wanted to say, I'm not bad! but instead he said, "You're the one who no longer farms, and it'd be better if you didn't just gamble and drink at the horse market. Everybody's sorry for my mother."

  "How dare you talk that way to your father!" Chikuami's thundering roar shut the boy up, but now he was beginning to see Hiyoshi in a different light. He thought, Bit by bit, he's growing up. Each time Hiyoshi went out into the world and came back again, he was noticeably bigger. The eyes that judged his parents and his home were maturing quickly. And the fact that Hiyoshi was looking at him with the eyes of an adult deeply an­noyed, frightened, and displeased the errant stepfather.

  "Go on, hurry and find work," he ordered.

  The following day, Hiyoshi went to his next employer, the village cooper. He was back home within a month, the mistress of the shop having complained, "I can't have a dis­turbing child like this in my house."

  Hiyoshi's mother could not understand what she meant by "disturbing." Other places where Hiyoshi began apprenticeships were the plasterer's shop, the lunch counter at the horse market, and the blacksmith's. Each time he stayed no longer than three to six months. His comings and goings gradually became known, and his reputation got so bad that no one would act as his go-between.

  "Ah, that boy at Chikuami's house. He's a foulmouthed good-for-nothing."

  Naturally, Hiyoshi's mother felt embarrassed around people. She felt awkward about her son, and in response to the gossip she would quickly deprecate him, as if his growing delinquency were incurable. "I don't know what can be done with him," she'd say. "He hates farming, and he just won't settle down at home."

  In the spring of his fourteenth year, Hiyoshi's mother told him, "This time you absolutely must stick with it. If the same thing happens one more time, my sister isn't going be able to look Master Kato in the face, and everybody's going to laugh and say, 'Again?’ Mind you, if you fail this time, I won't forgive you."

  The next day his aunt took him to Shinkawa for an interview. The large, imposing mansion they went to belonged to Sutejiro, the pottery merchant. Ofuku was now a pale youth of sixteen; from helping his adoptive father, the boy had learned the pottery business himself.

  In the pottery store, the distinction between superior and subordinate was rigidly applied. During his first interview, Hiyoshi knelt respectfully on the wooden veranda while Ofuku sat inside, eating cakes, chatting happily with his parents.

  "Well, it's Yaemon's little monkey. Your father died, and Chikuami from the village became your stepfather. And now you want to serve in this house? You'll have to work hard." This was said in such a grown-up tone of voice that no one who had known the younger Ofuku would have believed it was the same person speaking.

  "Yes, sir," Hiyoshi replied.

  He was taken to the servants' quarters, from which he could hear the laughter of the master's family in the living room. That his friend had not shown him the least bit friendliness made him feel even lonelier.

  "Hey, Monkey!" Ofuku did not mince his words. "Tomorrow, get up early and go to Kiyosu. Since you'll be taking goods to an official, load the packages onto the regular handcart. On your way back, stop in at the shipping agent's and check whether the pottery has arrived from Hizen. If you loiter along the way or get back too late, as you did the other day, you won't be let into the house."

  Hiyoshi's answer was not a simple "yes" or "yes, sir." Like the clerks who had served much longer in the shop, he said, "Most certainly, sir, and with the greatest respect, sir.”

  Hiyoshi was often sent on errands to Nagoya and Kiyosu. That day he took note the white walls and high stone ramparts of Kiyosu Castle and mused, What kind of pe people live inside? How can I get to live there myself?

  Feeling as small and wretched as a worm, he was frustrated. As he made his way through town, pushing the heavy handcart piled high with pottery wrapped in straw, he heard the familiar words:

  "Well, well, there goes a monkey!"

  "A monkey pushing a handcart!"

  Veiled courtesans, fashionably dressed townswomen, and the pretty young wives good families all whispered, pointed, and stared at him as he went by. He himself had already become proficient at spotting the pretty ones. What annoyed him most was the staring, as though he were some kind of freak.

  The governor of Kiyosu Castle was Shiba Yoshimune, and one of his principal retainers was Oda Nobutomo. At the spot where the castle moat and the Gojo River met, one still sensed the presence of the declining grandeur of the old Ashikaga shogunate, and the

  prosperity that lingered here, even in the midst of the many disturbances going on in the

  world, upheld Kiyosu's reputation as the most glamorous town in any of the provinces.

  For sake, go to the sake shop.

  For good tea, go to the tea shop.

  But for courtesans, it's Sugaguchi in Kiyosu.

  In the pleasure quarter of Sugaguchi, the eaves of brothels and teahouses lined the streets. In the daytime, the young girls who served in the brothels sang as they played catch. Hiyoshi pushed his handcart through their game, dreaming, How can I become great? Unable to come up with an answer, he kept thinking, Someday…someday…He spun out one fantasy after another as he walked along. The town was full of all the things that were denied to him: delicious food, opulent houses, gaudy military gear and saddlery, rich clothing and precious stones.

  Thinking of his skinny sister with her pale face in Nakamura, he watched the steam rising from dumpling steamers in the sweet shops and wished he could buy some for her. Or passing an old apothecary, he would gaze in ecstasy at the bags of medicinal herbs and say to himself, Mother, if I could give you medicine like that, I bet you'd soon get much better. Ever present in his dreams was the wish to improve the wretched lives of his other and Otsumi. The one person he gave no thought to at all was Chikuami.

  As he approached the castle town, his mind was dazzled by his usual daydreams, Someday… someday…but how? was his only thought as he walked along.

  "Fool!"

  On his way across a busy crossroads, he abruptly found himself in the center of a noisy mob. He had run his cart into a mounted samurai, followed by ten retainers carrying spears and leading a horse. Straw-wrapped bowls and plates fell all over the road, breaking into pieces. Hiyoshi tottered uncertainly among the wreckage.

  "Are you blind?"

  "You idiot!"

  While scolding Hiyoshi, the attendants trampled on the broken dishes. Not a single passerby drew near to offer him help. He collected the broken pieces, tossed them into the handcart, and began pushing again, his blood boiling in indignation for having been treated this way in public. And within his childish fantasies, he struck a serious note: How will I ever be able to make people like that prostrate themselves in front of me?

  A little later, he thought of the scolding he would get when he got back to his master’s house, and the cold look on Ofuku's face loomed large in his imagination. His great fantasy, like a soaring phoenix, vanished in a host of worries, as if he had been swallowed up in a cloud of poppy seeds.

  Night had fallen. Hiyoshi had put the handcart away in the shed and was washing his feet by the well. Sutejiro's establishment, which was called the Pottery Mansion, was like the residence of a great provincial warrior clan. The imposing main house was linked to any outbuildings, and rows of warehouses stood nearby.

  "Little Monkey! Little Monkey!"

  As Ofuku drew near, Hiyoshi got up.

  "Yeah?"

  Ofuku struck Hiyoshi's shoulder with the thin bamboo cane he always carried when looking around th
e employees' quarters or giving orders to the warehouse workers. This was not the first time he had struck Hiyoshi. Hiyoshi stumbled, and was immediately covered with mud again.

  "When addressing the master, do you say 'yeah'? No matter how many times I tell you, your manners don't improve. This is not a farmer's house!"

  Hiyoshi made no reply.

  "Why don't you say something? Don't you understand? Say 'yes, sir.'"

  Afraid of being hit again, Hiyoshi said, "Yes, sir."

  "When did you get back from Kiyosu?"

  "Just now."

  "You're lying. I asked the people in the kitchen, and they told me you'd already eaten.”

  "I felt dizzy. I was afraid I was going to faint."

  "Why?"

  "Because I was hungry after walking all that way."

  "Hungry! When you got back, why didn't you go to the master to make your report right away?"

  "I was going to, after washing my feet."

  "Excuses, excuses! From what the kitchen workers told me, a lot of the pottery you were supposed to deliver in Kiyosu was broken on the way. Is it true?"

  "Yes."

  "I suppose you felt it was all right not to apologize to me directly. You thought you'd make up some kind of lie, make a joke of it, or ask the kitchen workers to cover for you! This time I'm not going to put up with it." Ofuku grabbed Hiyoshi's ear and pulled. "Well, come on. Speak up." »

  I’m sorry.

  "This is getting to be a habit. We're going to get to the bottom of this. Come along we'll talk to my father."

  "Please forgive me." Hiyoshi's voice sounded just like the cry of a monkey.

  Ofuku did not loosen his grip. He started to go around the house. The path that led from the warehouse to the garden entrance of the house was screened by a thicket of tall Chinese bamboos.

  Suddenly, Hiyoshi stopped in his tracks. "Listen," he said, glaring at Ofuku and knocking away his hand, "I've got something to tell you."

  "What are you up to now? I'm the master here, remember?" Ofuku said, turning pale and beginning to tremble.

  "That's why I'm always obedient, but there's something I want to say to you. Ofuku, have you forgotten our childhood days? You and I were friends, weren't we?"

  "That belongs to the past."

  "All right, it belongs to the past, but you shouldn't forget it. When they teased you and called you 'the Chinese kid,' do you remember who always stuck up for you?"

  "I remember."

  "Don't you think you owe me something?" Hiyoshi asked, scowling. He was much smaller than Ofuku, but he had such an air of dignity about him that it was impossible to ell who was the elder. "The other workers are all talking, too," Hiyoshi went on. "They say the master is good, but the young master is conceited and hasn't got a heart. A boy like you, who's never known poverty or hardship, should try working in someone else's house. If you bully me and the other employees again, I don't know what I'll do. But remember that I have a relative who's a ronin in Mikuriya. He has over a thousand men under his command. If he came here on my account, he could wipe out a house like this in a single night." Hiyoshi's threatening stream of nonsense, combined with the fire in his eyes, terrified the hapless Ofuku.

  "Master Ofuku!"

  "Master Ofuku! Where's Master Ofuku?"

  The servants from the main house had been searching for Ofuku for some time. Ofuku, held prisoner by Hiyoshi's stare, had lost the courage to answer them.

  "They're calling you," Hiyoshi muttered. And he added, making it sound like an order, "You can go now, but don't forget what I told you." With this parting remark, he turned away and walked toward the back entrance to the house. Later, his heart beating wildly, he wondered if they were going to punish him. But nothing happened. The incident was forgotten.

  * * *

  The year drew to a close. Among farmers and townspeople, a boy turning fifteen usually had a coming-of-age ceremony. In Hiyoshi's case, there was no one to give him a sin­gle ceremonial fan, much less a feast. Since it was New Year's, he sat on the corner of a wooden platform with the other servants, sniffling and eating millet cakes cooked with vegetables—a rare treat.

  He wondered grimly, Are my mother and Otsumi eating millet cakes this New Year's? Although they were millet farmers, he could recall many a New Year's when there had jeen no cakes to eat. The other men around him were grumbling.

  "Tonight the master will have visitors, so we'll have to sit up straight and listen to his stories again."

  "I'll have to pretend to have a stomachache and stay in bed."

  "I hate that. Especially at New Year's."

  There were similar occasions two or three times a year, at the New Year and at the festival of the god of wealth. Whatever the pretext, Sutejiro invited a great many guests: the potters of Seto, the families of favored customers in Nagoya and Kiyosu, members of samurai clans, even the acquaintances of relatives. From that evening on, there would be a horrendous crush of people.

  Today, Sutejiro was in an especially good mood. Bowing low, he welcomed his guests in person, apologizing for having neglected them that past year. In the tearoom, which was decorated with one exquisite, carefully chosen flower, Sutejiro's beautiful wife served tea to her guests. The utensils she used were all rare and precious.

  It was Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa who, late in the previous century, had first practiced the tea ceremony as an aesthetic exercise. It had spread to the common people, and before long, without anyone consciously realizing it, tea had become a central part of people's daily lives. Within the confines of the narrow little tearoom with its single flower and single cup of tea, the turbulence of the world and human suffering could be forgotten. Even in the midst of a corrupt world, the tea ceremony could teach one the cultivation of the spirit.

  "Do I have the honor of addressing the lady of the house?" The speaker was a big-boned warrior, who had come in with the other guests. "My name is Watanabe Tenzo. I am a friend of your kinsman Shichirobei. He promised to bring me tonight, but unfortunately he's been taken ill, so I came alone." He bowed politely. He was gentle in demeanor, and although he had the rustic appearance of a country samurai, he asked for a bowl of tea. Sutejiro's wife served it in a yellow Seto bowl.

  "I am not acquainted with the etiquette of the tea ceremony," he said. Tenzo looked around him while contentedly sipping the tea. "As might be expected of such a famous, wealthy man, the tea implements here are certainly well crafted. While it is rude of me to ask, isn't the porcelain pitcher you are using a piece of akae ware?"

  "Did you notice that?"

  "Yes." Tenzo looked at the pitcher, deeply impressed. "If this were to fall into hands of a Sakai merchant, I daresay it would fetch about a thousand gold pieces. Quite apart from its value, it's a beautiful piece."

  As they were chatting, they were called inside for dinner. Sutejiro's wife led the way, and together they went into the hall. The place settings had been arranged in a circle around the room. As host, Sutejiro sat in the very center, greeting his guests. When wife and the maids had finished serving the sake, he took his own seat at one of the tables. He picked up his cup and started to tell stories about the Ming, among whom had spent many years. It was so that he might talk about his adventures in China, a country he knew well, but one that was still relatively unknown in Japan, that he would invite his guests and treat them to such lavish entertainments.

  "Well, this was a real feast. And again tonight I've heard a number of rather interesing stories," said one guest.

  "I've certainly had my fill. But it's getting late. I'd better be on my way," said another.

  "Me too. I really should be taking my leave."

  The guests departed one by one, and the evening came to a close.

  "Ah, it's over!" said a servant. "The stories may be a great treat for the guests, but hear about the Chinese all year round."

  Not hiding their yawns, the servants, Hiyoshi among them, worked frantically to clean up. The lamps in the large kitchen,
in the hall, and in Sutejiro's and Ofuku's rooms were finally blown out, and the stout bar on the gate in the earthen wall was set in place. As a matter of course, samurai mansions, and also the homes of merchants—if they were at all substantial—were enclosed by an earthen wall or surrounded by a moat, which would be backed up by two or three tiers of fortifications. When night fell, people in cities and the countryside felt uneasy. This had been the case ever since the civil war the previous century, and nobody thought it strange anymore.

  As soon as the sun went down, people slept. When the workers, whose only pleasure was sleeping, crawled into their beds, they slumbered like cattle. Covered by a thin straw mat, Hiyoshi lay in a corner of the male servants' room, his head on a wooden pillow. Along with the other servants, he had listened to his master's stories about the great country of the Ming. But unlike them, he had listened avidly. And he was so prone to fantasizing that he was too excited to sleep, almost as though he had a fever.

  What's that? he wondered, sitting up. He strained his ears, sure he had just heard a sound like a tree branch breaking and, just before that, the sound of muffled footsteps. He got up, went through the kitchen, and stealthily peeked outdoors. On this cold, clear light, the water in the large barrel was frozen, and icicles hung like swords from the wooden eaves. Looking up, he saw a man climbing the huge tree at the back. Hiyoshi guessed that the sound he had heard earlier was the cracking of a branch the man had stepped on. He observed the strange behavior of the figure in the tree. The man was swinging a light no bigger than a firefly around and around. A fuse cord? Hiyoshi wondered. The red swirl threw faint, smoky sparks into the wind. It seemed likely that the man was sending a signal to someone outside the walls.

  He's coming down, Hiyoshi thought, as he hid like a weasel in the shadows. The man slid down the tree and set off with long strides toward the back of the grounds. Hiyoshi let him pass and then trailed after him.

  "Ah! He was one of the guests this evening," he muttered in disbelief. It was the one who had introduced himself as Watanabe Tenzo, the man who had been served tea by the naster's wife, and who had listened raptly to Sutejiro's stories from beginning to end. All he other guests had gone home, so where had Tenzo been until now? And why? He was dressed differently from before. He wore straw sandals, the hems of his baggy trousers vere rolled up and tied back, and a large sword was belted at his side. His eyes took in the surroundings with a fierce, hawklike expression. Anyone seeing him would instantly realize that he was out for someone's blood.