“A vow,” explained uMubaya.
So saying, he popped open the visor-like hinged flap and poked a ball of rice and meat into his mouth. His hands were covered by light gloves. Then he made a drinking motion and the man poured him out sochu from a jug. The big African liked it. Tossed it down and let it burn.
“Good,” he said, holding out the cup for a refill which came – along with a confidential stream of words and bad breath.
“Some priests don’t drink. I don’t trust them. How can you show compassion for sinners if you don’t share the sins?”
“I have many faults,” agreed uMubaya, leaning away slightly as the man went on, moving even closer and almost whispering the smell that the Zulu thought must be a rotting tooth.
“This is a bad place, Holy One.” The shopkeeper squinted one eye nearly shut and nodded. He was now so close uMubaya couldn’t focus on his face; not that he wanted to. The prince was trying to remain polite. He twisted away to give the impression he was bringing his ear closer but the smell seemed to gather inside the headpiece.
“To eat and drink?” uMubaya sort of answered, losing the thread, somewhat.
“No, no. This village. Not good, Holy One. All gamblers. Crooks. Killers without pity.”
He kept looking over his shoulder, automatically. The black man had noticed this habit in others and had sort of grasped the alien concept of a society where police spies often overlapped criminal informants;, where every clan and crime family had spies and police duties to help suppress, not local crime, but the threat of uprisings that could flare up in city and country and rage for years…
uMubaya grunted. Leaning back away from the breath while he took another drink through his “visor.”
“I heard a noble woman was murdered here. Her head cut from her body.”
“Better not talk about that,” the man said, kind of leering. “They don’t like it. Big trouble. Covering up a big mistake.”
While the Zulu understood what Takezo wanted, the complex and obscure interactions of these people eluded him, at times, so he cut to the point:
“Some believe the woman is here and not murdered.”
“Hidden?” The man seemed surprised. He leaned back in his seat and the breath relented.
uMubaya made a shrugging gesture. This seemed to be pointless and his mind reverted to the farm woman, her strong body, intense hands gripping and kneading him. He half-decided to go back to her village and find her.
That would be good, he said to himself.
Thirty-Seven
At the estuary where the river had widened and shallowed out opening into Edo bay, the sluggish current was presently negated by the incoming tide so the long shadows from the moored fishing boats masts seemed to lie perfectly flat as on a sheet of polished glass. On the far side were spindly docks and low buildings just starting to cohere and blend into the hazy dimming as the sun hung hot and yellow-red, falling over the edge of evening. The brilliant splashed sunglare on the water contrasted the rest of the river into a purplish, faded blue.
Takezo stood a few feet into the almost unmoving water on a semi-firm mix of sandy mud and smooth pebbles. He was in a loincloth, sheathed katana in his hand.
He was facing out to sea. The reflected light hit the flat shoreline in softly shifting, wavy patterns of brightness. His shadow stretched, angular and exaggerated, over the rocky, weed-spattered beach and up over the high-tide embankment about 25 yards further on.
The heat was steady and oppressive. He could scent the dead fish lying at the water’s slightly undulant edge in pale and silver bloat.
He glanced at Yazu wading out to him, bokkuken over his shoulder, “live” short sword sheathed in his sash. He’d been promised a lesson; having put the dung defeat by the tavernkeeper’s wife aside, he felt pretty good about his martial improvements. That morning he’d made the point fairly strongly to his fierce and fearful spouse.
He and his young son were working together in the small, fenced-in space behind his modest house. The afternoon was bright and steamy. For a week they’d been turning the weeded lot into a garden. He’d even dug a short channel from the stream where the women washed clothes so that a thin trickle just made it to partly fill the shallow, five foot around rock-lined pool he’d dug.
Today they were planting hibiscus bushes wheedled from a landscaper who owed him a small gambling debt. Since the battle of the inn, he’d been taking a more aggressive stance among his fellows. And the keen shogo in his waistband had to be considered.
‘Goldfish,’ he said, peering into the somewhat murky water swirling sluggishly into the tiny pond. ‘That’s the thing.’ His bony, intent face looked back at him from the dull, brownish swirl, dim and blurry. “I know a man in 1st street who —’
‘Think you’re a samurai?’ his wife wanted to know. ‘Crazy fellow. We’ve been eating millet and mouldy rice for weeks and you construct a garden that looks worse than a weedlot.’
‘Nevermind, woman,’ he responded. ‘I have plans. The sensei promised me gold ryo for my work. Consider that.’
‘Ahha,’ she reacted, ‘that tramp. When has he seen a metal penny? Don’t talk to me about him.’
‘Guard your mouth, woman. He’s the best swordsman in Edo. Maybe in –’
‘My robes are frayed. This child –’ indicating the boy, ‘— wears worn-down sandals of cheap hemp. He –’
‘Mother, Takezo-san promised to instruct me, too,’ said the sleek, soft-looking, big-thighed lad with rather feminine pectorals. His mother always made sure he got sweet buns every day.
‘Quiet!’ snapped the bony little man, standing up and striking a samurai’s pose, fists on hips, narrow, bare feet gripping the earth with long toes, suggesting a bird. His confidence was real and she felt it. He stepped over to her. ‘Woman, busy yourself. My son and I are working together. After this comes sword practice.’
Oh, she knew she could have stabbed him with scorn and tossed a pot or two at his skull; she didn’t want to because, even if futile, there was a gesture of hope there like being lost in the country at night and seeing the soft light in the distance that might be the inn you’re looking for. It had been so long since she’d believed anything, ground down by the dull, automatic cynicism of poverty and disappointment.
So she almost smiled as she reached up a jug of water from the shade of the porch.
‘Thirsty work,’ she said, noting that he flinched, slightly, thinking she might dump it on him as she held the jug out. He took it, clearly surprised. Her expression was a kind of shrug. ‘Save some sword practice for tonight, husband.’
Oh, she didn’t really believe it, but the hope felt good. Maybe that was enough. Maybe it was just a moment or maybe a change was actually coming…
He took a drink, too careful to risk saying anything else. Nodded with satisfaction and handed the cool jug to his son.
‘Boy, in this existence we don’t get many chances,’ he told him and her, too, not checking if she were listening. Stared, reflectively, at the little world they were making there. ‘Can’t do much about much. A man lives with one eye over his shoulder.’ The boy nodded, serious. ‘But do what you can do with a whole heart. Master something and when they take all else away you still have that.’ She’d stopped partway back inside and was just looking at him. ‘Master something and you don’t die in vain.’
Takezo watched a shadowy flutter of minnows around his feet, stopping and going in instant, synchronized flashing. No humans could imagine such precision. How did they signal, instantly?
He was about to share his observation with Yazu the way he might have with his pet dog – if he’d had a pet dog.
The bony, excitable student was already speaking, saying:
“Master, master, important news!”
Not looking at him Takezo swept a leisurely stroke with his sheathed blade at Yazu’s head not hard enough to do more than stun him. The splay-legged little man reacted well, ducking forward and under (har
d to teach) so that the impact was too close to the hilt to hurt, glancing off his back and shoulder. His own counter actually creased his teacher’s leg. A “live” sword would have made a shallow cut.
“Impressive,” he told Yazu, stooping down and splashing some cool water over his face. Peered at his fragmented reflection on the broken surface.
That’s how I really look, he thought. The face of my soul…
“I did as you instructed, sensei,” said Yazu. “I surrendered my love of life. I cling no more to —”
“Ready for the mountaintop?”
“Yes, sensei, I can feel my mind turning away from worldly matters.” He looked into the hazy distance where the river opened into the ocean. Their shadows lengthened, side-by-side on water and beach as the sun inched down and slowly dulled to red. “I see myself meditating with sword in hand and —”
“Sounds like you’re holding something else in your hand,” Takezo commented, straightening up from his disturbing image on the water. “But you’re changing, maybe a little.”
“Yes. Even my wife has been …”
Takezo smiled.
“Yes,” he said. “When people even think you have money they want to make you loans.”
Stared through his shadow to the shallow bottom and remembered when he was a boy, swimming in the lake, going underwater, sinking through the strange, reversed rays that seemed to radiate from the bright, sandy bottom as if the sunlight were spraying up among the swaying fronds in spreading, soft beams.
Decided to wade out and really swim underwater. Maybe he’d forget a few things for a few minutes. Tossed his sword to his apprentice. Started heading out.
“Hold this,” he ordered.
“Wait, master. Hear news. Father Osimachi discovered what you wanted.”
He looked back, up to his knees.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Discovered who paid poor Miou’s burial expenses. I approached him. He responded.”
Takezo sighed, not moving. Because whoever paid knew she was dead far too soon. Whoever paid did it maybe from mockery or even shame. And to make a point, too, for all he knew.
I see this through or else commit seppuku by sake… it isn’t even for revenge, just to finish something in this nasty, ugly life of mine that goes on and on from one corpse to another until, I swear, I could walk on bodies from here to Kyoto…
“If you don’t tell me I won’t have to do anything,” he said.
“Master?”
“I want to write poems about time.”
“Master?”
“I want to swim to an island and think about nothing.”
“A certain island, master?”
“Just speak. Who was it?”
“A man you know. The samurai Yoshi.”
“That fist-full of shit?” Sighed, again. Deeper. “Of course. It was mockery. I let him live twice. How weak of me.”
But he wasn’t the killer, that’s part of another trap, I think…
“Yoshi paid the madam of Sanjuro House, master.”
“And he will know the true culprit. He is at the heart of the big, great plan or plot or sickness for the good of our people.” He clenched both fists and shut his eyes, hard. “It’s so important it can only mean endless slaughter. It’s such a blessing it can only mean pain and misery without end.” Opened his eyes, blinking at the blur of sweat and tears, his back to the now dull red sun that was melting into the cloudy horizon behind him, silhouetting him in the reddening water. “It’s big and important, Yazu.”
“Ah,” breathed the little man, reverently holding Takezo’s heavy blade. “I don’t doubt it. But Father Osihachi said it is unwise to press further in these matters.”
“He said that, that sage and revered criminal?”
His eyes were still prone to blurring since the duel in the flames with Osa-Kame. He tried to focus out to sea where long, inky black clouds spread across the horizon. Extreme-looking weather.
Another temptation, he thought. Another grain of rice for the silly bird to peck as he follows the trail they left him until he comes into the trap… I think this has been from the first day… too late to stop…
“Yes.” Answered Yazu, shifting from foot to foot, waist-deep in the water. “So he said. Too dangerous to keep on.”
“How can I not, then?” Blinked and rubbed his uncertain eyes. “I need to talk to him. Arrange it.”
“Yes, sensei.”
Their shadows had now blended away into the general dimming of the day. The sea was deepening to purple. On the sea horizon the dark clouds seemed thick as paste. The sunset was gathering into stunning red over the city.
“Looks like a storm on one side,” he said, “and blood on the other.”
*
A few hours later
Night in the city. Takezo followed Yazu into a low-ceilinged gambling den, full of tobacco smoke, bad music, strong incense, shouts, songs, laughter, whore’s perfume, spilled sake on wood and cooking food.
They worked their way across the main room into the back area closed off by a dingy curtain with the characters for “private” scrawled on it. They went through. On the other side an immensely squat guard in black kimono sat on a low stool, back to the wall. He seemed to recognize Yazu but otherwise seemed as responsive as a bag of rocks.
“Father” Osimachi and two of his men were sitting on their heels at a low table laden with cold food and sake. A big, dull red lantern hung over the table on a cord, coloring his bald, oily-looking head and sinking all but his long beaked nose and heavy brows in shadow.
Takezo knelt to face them, sword laid beside him. Yazu stood, uneasily, at the outskirts of the ring of illumination. One of the criminal boss’s henchmen was smoking a long iron pipe, the smoke hanging low and thick in the stagnant, wet air. The effect of the hot coal colored light struck the ronin as a scene of shades in some Buddhist hell.
Men are just men, his mind said. All of us… Yet, lately, more and more, some people were, somehow, truly dark like the shadows on the stagnant smoke.
He noticed an unadorned wicker screen behind them and assumed there would be a bodyguard or two behind.
“Takezo-san,” said the big-nosed boss, nodding a slight bow that winked his nose into and out of the light. “Pleasant to see you.”
The ronin snorted a laugh like a cough.
“Oh, no doubt, thank you,” he said, bowing back.
As the non-smoking cohort pushed the sake jug across the table, Takezo said:
“‘Father’ Osimachi, I want to press further. Though I thank you for your concern.”
“Press what?”
“I have another question for you, ‘Father,’ and beg your knowledge be bestowed on me.”
“Well, ask, then, sir.”
“Yoshi, the dung-beetle,” Takezo said, “since one cannot tell from his robes, what color is his loincloth?” Which was to say: what was his true allegiance?
This is an obvious trap, Takezo decided, watching, concentrating and feeling no substantial threat in the room. Obvious makes it subtle… The boss chuckled softly with about as much mirth as a man with a toothache. Takezo took a drink of sake. It was thin and had too much wood in the taste. Cheap stuff.
“Why did you come here?” the boss asked, mildly, almost abstractly.
“Because you suggested I press no further.”
“Of course.” Bowed an inch, again. “Is Yoshi so important to you? I doubt it.”
“Who is his true master? And don’t say Hideo.”
“Yes, yes, we see your cleverness.”
“You see more than I do.” Poured and tossed back another cup. The second was always much better. It tingled with promise. “Can you assist me?”
The man behind the nose that poked into the light spoke almost soothingly.
“Takezo-san, there is a man who can answer your questions. I can send you to him, tonight.”
The detective smiled. Looked into his sake cup as if some answer la
y there and saw only the reddish shadows of the lantern like a tiny pool.
“I like this trap,” he said.
“But, Father,” put in Yazu from the background, “you promised no deception!”
“Not so bold, runt-man,” one of the lieutenants at the table said, harshly.
“There’s no deception,” said Takezo. “It is all far too plain.” Took another sake. “I trap myself because I have to go on looking at things even when there’s really nothing to see.” The third drink was even a little better. He felt relaxed and easy. He almost liked these silly, self-important plotters who were the least pieces in a game of shogi. Gestured with his head. “Who’s behind the screen? I hope it’s Yoshi or Chamberlain Chamberpot.”
Someone guffawed. Osimachi didn’t. He raised a cautionary hand.
“No point in bloodshed. In the end you’d perish. Even the greatest swimmer must drown in a lake of mud.” The hand dropped back out of the light. “You will be brought to him safely. No treachery.”
“Excellent,” said the detective, standing up and thrusting his katana back into his wide sash. “You’re not really going to tell me anything. Annoying. Maybe I’ll go tomorrow. Come, Yazu. Too many promises here.”
“Go now,” said a woman’s voice he knew as she came around the screen and moved into the dull reddish gleaming. A shock: Issa, hair up in a perfect bun pierced with silver needles, wearing water-smooth shimmering silks, looking like a high-priced courtesan, came around the table through the hanging smoke that flowed around her tall body. She came so near her long, aquiline face was breath close and again those long eyes showed something he couldn’t read. “You are thinking,” she murmured, “that maybe I wasn’t born a great lady.”
“It would explain some things,” he murmured back. “If you were born a whore.”
“Not born one.”
She smiled but didn’t kiss or touch him. He was surprised but not enough to be off guard. In the main room the music, talk, yells dinned on.
“And your secrets are safe with these noble men,” he said.
Dead Blossoms: The Third Geisha Page 27