Sake for breakfast, he thought. Still, I’m not so drunk…
He wanted a bath more than anything else. Was considering sobering up. Wondered what that would be like. The foreigner was talking but he didn’t really listen. Vaguely liked the man because he was obviously sincere.
“Will you continue?” Gentile repeated.
“Sure. Like a stone rolling down a hill. What else can I do?”
Takezo told him where to leave messages for him and watched them go back down the alley to the main street, picking their way around the litter and empty storage barrels, crossing into and out of light and shadow; the lean foreigner with his strange sword and the compact samurai who was a perfect example of what they were bred to be: taciturn, incurious, fearless and intentionally stupid…
Whereas I remain a fool, he thought, despite my best efforts to be wise…
He went to a cheap bathhouse near where he lodged. The women who ran it knew him and weren’t likely to distract anyone with their beauty. He felt improved. Except he knew Miou would have been buried by now and he was going to have to go to real emptiness…
The bathhouse was four posts and a roughly thatched, pitched roof over wall-less raised boards with four big wooden tubs into which the women poured steaming water while you soaked, then doused you with cold. Takezo had never been crazy about the cold part but in this weather he was almost looking forward to it. The sole customer, he could enjoy the view across the tanner’s sheds, the backyard of a small stable plus a few feet of dry earth and a cracked stone lantern in a clump of tired-looking, pale flowers that hinted at what once might have been a garden.
Whatever he’d said to the Italian, he had no real plans beyond going to Miou’s grave. The idea of revenge didn’t mean much: he was weary and sorry and nothing was going to make him less sorry…
He cupped water onto his face and sat with eyes shut, up to his neck. When the eyes re-opened, the nodding, serious, intent, nervous, pale, bony face of Yazu greeted them peering around the side of the adjoining well shed. The rest of the small, wiry fellow appeared bowing, wooden sword thrust through his sash. He came, spryly, out of the brightness and approached Takezo. The sword was too long for him and tended to slip so the point tip-tapped the damp boards as he walked. The ronin had to smile.
“Sensei,” he ejaculated, “sorry to be so rude, but I have discovered a fact.”
“What? That no other can piss for you?”
“No, no, sensei. I… I saw father Osihatchi and …”
“Was he well? Has his sleep been untroubled?”
Yazu frowned.
“I know not. He seemed in good condition, sir.”
“Thank heaven for it.” Takezo raised himself and now knelt waist-deep. “Please, get the cold bucket over there.”
The skinny man virtually scuttled with pleasure, darting to the wooden pails, hefting the biggest and then swaying under the weight, came, wobbling, and heaved the cool water over his master’s head and shoulders.
Talkezo gasped and exhaled.
“Villain!” he snarled. “Ah… hhh …” Shook his head. He never got used to the shock.
“Sensei?”
Breathing normally, again, Takezo asked:
“What about Hachimachi?”
“Who?” Then Yazu got it. Looked pleased with himself, even gloating a little, the detective noticed, as he answered: “The Father was deeply concerned about the sorrow that came to you. He does not think she was run down by a drunken fool, as was given out.”
Takezo nodded.
“I know,” he said, quietly. “She was murdered.”
“So the Father thinks.” Yazu was obviously pleased at having the ear and attention of great and powerful men. He looked thoughtful.
“Is this your ‘discovery?”
“No, master.” He leaned over the huge tub, serious and concentrated. “Father Osimachi told me who struck down the prostitute, ‘Cherry Blossom.’”
Takezo took this in. He knew what was going to follow. Sometimes time was the river and you the wheel and it passed and just turned you.
I have spilled much blood, he said to himself, maybe enough will wash itself out…
“Kill a man, bad or good or indifferent,” he said, “and another comes in his place. In that sense, killing is pointless except for its own sake; make up whatever fine story you like.”
“Sensei?”
“You did well, Yazu. You did well.”
“Thank you, master.”
“The best thing is to run and hide.” Shook his head. “How few have the talent and strength for that.”
Yazu didn’t try to really understand. He’d accepted that his teacher was an extraordinary being disguised as a drunkard who liked to say too much or far too little. He shrugged.
“I’m pretty good at that, master.”
“It doesn’t count until you’re good enough to win.”
He stood up and left the tub. One of the older women came in and chuckled at the sight. She held a worn, clean towel.
“More cold water, Takezo-san?” she inquired.
“Spare me,” he replied.
“Want a bath?” she asked the disciple, looking at him as if there could be no doubt, handing the towel to the swordsman.
“No,” said Yazu. “I’m clean in all my parts, woman.”
“Ha, ha,” she said. “I count myself fortunate not to encounter them. I see enough strange things in my trade.”
Takezo laughed. Then went cold, empty and serious again.
“Do you know where the grave is?”
“Of Cherry Blossom, master?”
“No.”
“Ah. I’m sorry, master. I can show you.”
“Good. You show me tonight. Meanwhile, who does the ‘Father’ say is responsible for the Blossom?”
The bath woman, exited, at this point, as the ronin had already paid. Takezo began dressing himself in his worse-for-wear kimono.
“A bad samurai. Very bad. Very feared. Treacherous as a snake. A poisonous man who works for one, then another. His sword, they say, is evil.” Which was like saying: his soul.
“I don’t require his credentials,” said Takezo. “Where will I discover him?”
With both swords back in his sash Takezo turned to Yazu.
“Draw quickly and strike me on the shoulder. Now!”
He drew his own short sword at moderate speed. Yazu hesitated, then struck, leaning away from possible retaliation. Naturally, the master barely moved to avoid his half-hearted blow.
“Yazu,” he declared. “I can improve your almost non-existent skill 10 times over before we leave this spot. You value your life too much. Think about your woman and all the miserable days you’ve lived. Consider your probable future. Do this continually and we’ll practice again.”
Thirty-One
Lorenzo Gentile left word that he would meet Takezo at the graveyard that night. Then, uncomfortable, the Italian went to see Issa so she wouldn’t think he was avoiding her.
He was at the castle by sunset and sent a message he actually was able to write himself. He’d already been told his calligraphy was surprisingly good. He liked the Chinese brush they used for writing and pointing.
The rocks and miniature trees were already blended together by the thickening twilight. Fireflies were staining the humid air with streaks and curls of lingering greenish gold as if, he imagined, something inexplicable was sketching a message on the gathering night. Somewhere there was a faint, pinging tinkle of water.
He sighed.
There was no way to have refused her, he reasoned.
A woman from Issa’s retinue, carrying a red lantern, came up the path. Her exaggeratedly delicate, mincing steps made the light and shadow of her coming seem to flicker rather than sway.
She bowed deeply and handed him a note, holding the soft light so he could read the long, sharp-looking characters.
“Eh,” he sighed. “Momenta, signorina …” Concentrated… got it. I
t was a haiku, naturally.
The ice in the pond, he translated, jewels in the moonlight, too cold to wear…
“Will you reply?” she asked.
He shook his head and let his hands rise and fall back on his knees.
“No,” he told her.
Delicately done, he remarked to himself. I’ve been dismissed in verse…
Outside he met Sanada the bodyguard and went into his leather bag. Removed five “Puffer” pistols and tucked the heavy, charged Wheelocks into his wide belt. The sun was well down, now. The stars were big and soft-looking in the wet sky.
“Take me to the burial place, Sanada, please,” he requested, “where Takezo went.”
At the first checkpoint Sanada pulled out a pass sighed by Hideo. Then they followed a curving street that joined the road that went up to the hilltop where the detective had attended Osan’s supposed funeral, uninvited and in disguise.
The moon hadn’t risen yet. In this suburb, long, low houses were set back screened by trees and walls; lanterns shifted their glow in the warm, easy breezes.
At the last checkpoint at the city limits, the big policeman, Taro, blocked their way after the yoriki already let them pass. He was in his official basin helmet and gold and black clothes.
“You saw Takezo, the swordsman?” he wanted to know. He didn’t seem pleased.
“Yes,” replied Gentile. “We are going to find him, now.”
“I will come with you.”
“How did you know we were coming this way?” Gentile wondered, as they started walking up the long slope away from the city. Sanada the taciturn bodyguard held a pale, moon-colored lantern and led the way.
“You are as difficult to locate as a burning building,” Taro told him.
“Ah. Of course. My appearance. Are you a policeman? A friend of Takezo-san?”
“Aha. Both. Sometimes. Neither today.”
“He went to the graveyard.”
“A good idea,” grunted Taro. “Saves expense.”
Thirty-Two
Akichi Cemetery
Less drunk, Takezo was still walking on balloons, putting each foot down a little too carefully, stepping over imaginary obstacles. The earth was uneven and loamy between the grave markers.
The full moon was above the horizon, fat and intensely red, reflected in the great bay visible from the hillside, the water seeming still as a sheet of dark glass.
Like another bloodstain, he couldn’t help but think.
Her grave was the only fresh one in the section. He stood near it. The moon’s sanguinary gleaming shown on the stone and wooden grave markers; tall pillars with mini pitched roofs on top that always reminded him of tiny houses. As a boy, he’d imagined a race of tiny people with tiny ideas and problems, weapons and small lives living there, hiding when people were around, active at night when almost no one visited the territory of the dead…
The rising moon half-shadowed the mounded earth and hinted the shapes of trees, bushes and artifacts, all twisted and blurred by his tears.
“Silent, empty ground,” he half-whispered. “A road to a gateless wall.”
I’m so sorry, his mind dinned. I should have seen it… I let myself believe you were safe because you said you were safe… fool!… so sorry… I believed I had time… time… like a man working hard in a dream to finish a task that awake does not exist…
He gripped his face with both, long, powerful hands and puffed out a rending cry as if through the dull, heavy flesh itself, flushed and agonized:
“Unseeing fool!”
He let himself fall forward over the grave, fingers now clutching into the warm, damp soil.
“My plans,” he whispered, not-quite-sobbing, into the muffling earth, “had no more… no more substance than… than the schemes of a madman by the roadside, twisting his fingers in the air to give shape to nonsense …”
Oh, Miou… Miou… am I just the drunkard, at last, swearing at night how he’ll recover his lost life… recover his lost riches… dig up buried honor? Recover lost face?
He lay still, for a while, just breathing, unevenly.
“All we were,” he murmured down to her, “has unraveled like smoke… I was blind… my eyes two empty holes in a stone head …”
He arched back to his knees then sat on his heels as if at a formal meeting with the dead. The moon was well up, now, and had gone to silver, the subtle tones spilling unevenly over the burial ground.
Die, he considered, and the dreams must go on… asleep they seem solid… without the body they will be solid for the body deadens everything, I think… Would I see her, then, or just dream her?
He drew his short sword and angled the blade to glitter and break the moonlight.
Kill yourself or go on and kill them… either way, you die killing… and how can you be sure of even the dreams? Or of darkness, either… or 10,000 rebirths to come? Small wonder samurai are trained to avoid thinking too much…
“I love you,” was all he said, this time.
He just stayed there with eyes closed, not even thinking. That was good because he heard the bow twang behind him and the whuttt of the arrow as his body threw itself aside as if jerked by an unseen cord.
Rolling onto his back below the level of the mound he stared around into the night’s silvery hush, wondering how many were out there. Shut one eye to eliminate a slight double blur.
The next arrow would have to come from within his field of vision. It did, well-shot. A flicker of movement he sensed as much as actually saw. He deflected the shaft with his short sword.
It was pointless to wait there so he rolled up and over the mounded grave, vaguely thinking how if he died now he’d be near her. The brilliant moon and thin streaked, illuminated clouds flashed around twice before he was down the far side in time to catch half-a-dozen men in dark clothing, not ninja, crouching close to him with drawn swords and long poles with jutting hooks to deflect or even trap swung blades. They’d just emerged from a screen of bushes and pines.
This section of the cemetery was closed by a high wall with a single gate back behind him. No point trying to lose himself in the night this time since there were probably men hiding everywhere, inside and out.
Must have been waiting and here I come, mumbling and weeping like a woman…
In an almost child-like response he rolled at them, then, almost under their feet, leaped up with both swords drawn. He stabbed the short sword into a spearman’s foot, cut the shoulder of a swordsman whose downslice bit the earth. Went behind a thick-boled tree as a spear chukked into the bark. He was angry, now. Where he’d been grieving he now spit fury – icy fury because they were all so stupid, because it was stupid not to pity and care but instead just do murder.
There’s no rain for you all to hide behind, this time, he thought. Or me, either… maybe we finish it, now…
His awareness seemed detached from his actions like the still eye of a typhoon. He moved around the tree to whip his blade across the face of the next attacker and then shatter the spear of another who barely flung himself aside in time. His mind flashed: suppose he could kill all the retainers and then all the captains up to the rulers, themselves, it would be like trying to empty a river with a bucket and, anyway, most of them wouldn’t understand whether what they did was right or wrong because, always: “Duty is a mountain, life a feather …”
He wiped blood from his eyes as he cut into the heart of a man he could tell was a good swordsman and the warm spatter hit his face. Spinning back out from the clump of bushes, he jumped up on her grave, blade upraised in the bright moonlight.
“Come on,” he cried, “if you savor death!” Another arrow zipped past and missed. “Come closer and maybe you’ll hit something.”
Several goaded samurai broke from cover and charged the mound. Someone called for more archers. The voice sounded familiar.
This caused laughter out there and a hissed curse from Yoshi… there he was, limping out of the shadows to the delight of
the detective. The moonlight brought out the roundness of his high-shaved head. It was too dark to see his scowl or his scar. He raised his sword high.
“Orders are clear!” he cried. “Destroy this shit-pile in the shape of a man!”
“You call for your own death,” Takezo observed, to more laughter. “How strange.”
Samurai charged the ronin from front and rear as Yoshi moved cautiously forward. The night was a glittering hush. The weapons glinted and flashed silverbright. The air was thick, warm and sweet with perfume, green scents and the dark richness of the earth.
Part of Takezo’s being looked on as if he were standing still, immersed in contemplation while the rest of him danced into combat, again, in the slowed-motion where time seemed to be ineffectual and he was free to move: each shift, each position determined by fate’s choreography so that even his drunken looseness and inexactness became a natural advantage, a new skill exposing the clumsy weaknesses of the angry, struggling shadows closing in, striking at him.
His sword whipped around like a child swinging a stick at the air, relaxed and unplanned. He accepted he’d probably be tangled in a steel net of doom, sooner or later, but paid no attention to that observation. The dance was everything. There was no objective or outcome that he imagined because that part of his consciousness was taken up with the still stars, the wild moon and the surrounding shadows that seemed to form and dissolve around their flashing steel: the beauty absorbed everything else.
So he waved the blade as if it were imaginary and he cut down waves of attacking dream-figures and the groans, shouts and curses seemed to come from some unconnected, remote waking place where blade slashes and impacts were all part of the dance he was watching unfold as his body spun and stepped and new figures kept springing up and striking at him…
For an instant, the glitter of steel in the persistence of vision resembled an almost decipherable calligraphy slashing doom’s meaning into the lucent night in complex sweeps and blots and stops…
Dead Blossoms: The Third Geisha Page 21