Togakushi Legend Murders (Tuttle Classics)

by Yasuo Uchida

  But Tachibana did not want to die, and his father's fainthearted look told him it was all right to run. The elder Tachibana must have known what that would mean for the rest of the family, but thought it preferable to having his whole family line cut off. "This war can't last much longer," he said finally, avoiding the expression of any personal feeling before turning abruptly and walking away.

  Having gotten the message that he should not throw away his life, Tachibana had run. The day before he was supposed to report, he had taken the morning train from Ueno and arrived in Nagano that evening. Avoiding the bus, he had headed for Togakushi along the winding path that led from behind the Zenko Temple to the old road. Hurrying through the night on an empty stomach without a stop at either of the two teahouses along the way, solely concerned with getting to his destination, he had reached the Tendoh house in the dead of night, and been startled to find Taki waiting for him beside the door. Keijiro and his wife were up as well, happily preparing a bath for him.

  "Taki was sure you would be here, and here you are! Now don't you worry about a thing. We're all ready to protect you," said Keijiro, alluding to the secret room. He and his wife were crying for joy, unconcerned that Tachibana was betraying his country.

  That night, Tachibana had slept with Taki for the first time, at her instigation. She had come into the secret room behind the closet in her shrine-maiden's dancing costume and put something that looked like dried weeds into an incense burner. When he asked her what it was, she had answered only that it was hemp, as she put her head coquettishly against his chest. The bluish smoke rising over the incense burner had filled him with a miraculous feeling of exaltation, such that all his fears and troubles and self-hatred gave way to an expansive feeling that the only people in the world were himself and Taki. His time of joy and fulfillment passed in a dream, and before long, he had fallen into a deep sleep.

  And now, three months later, Taki had another such premonition. He could reason it away, but seeing how unhappy she was, he could not rid himself of the uneasy feeling that she might be right. As evening approached, her state became really alarming. At supper, she did not touch her food, but kept looking around her restlessly, throwing her arms around him from time to time. Infected by her fear, Keijiro and his wife were both nervous and kept getting up to make sure all the doors were locked.

  After sunset, the north wind began to blow, and the evening cold belied the comfortable warmth of the day. Taki made Tachibana retire early to the secret room, staying right beside him all the time, too rigid to speak and crying incessantly. She could not tell him what was frightening her. She knew only that something evil was approaching.

  Around nine, they heard the sound of a car coming up the slope and stopping in front of the house. She held her breath, and he could feel her clinging ever harder to him. Voices came from the entryway, Keijiro asking who was there, and a very loud voice answering. Tachibana did not recognize the name given, but he was relieved to realize that he did know the voice. Keijiro must have been just as relieved, because he released the lock and opened the door.

  Simultaneously with Keijiro's scream, they heard an unfamiliar, angry voice, followed by the rude clump of street shoes approaching down the hallway. "There!" said the first voice, and they heard the closet door open. Something fell, and then the wall was yanked open in front of them. A young military officer stood there, gripping his saber. Seeing his military police armband, Tachibana knew all was over.

  "Oho! You've been living quite a life here, I see!" said the officer, barging straight into the room, casting a lecherous look at Taki in her shrine-maiden's costume. "Well, you can't make fools of the army like that." He glanced back at the NCO behind him, then turned toward Tachibana and shouted, "Get up!"

  Tachibana stood up slowly, pulling his robe closed across his chest, Taki cowering at his feet. With no warning, the officer slammed Tachibana with his fist, knocking him back against the wall. With difficulty, Tachibana regained his footing.

  "Handcuff him!" ordered the officer.

  The NCO yanked Tachibana's hands behind him and put handcuffs on so tight they dug into his skin. Then the officer hit him again, this time full in the face, knocking him flat. His head hit the wall as he fell, and he began to lose consciousness. Though aware his nose was bleeding, strangely enough, he felt no pain at all. He heard Taki scream.

  "Hey, get those funny clothes off the girl," said the officer with a leer.

  "Huh?" said the NCO, hesitating.

  "Hop to it!" shouted the officer.

  The NCO put his hands on Taki. Tachibana tried to cry out, but his voice wouldn't work. The crimson pantaloons and white tunic were ripped off.

  "All of them!" rasped the officer.

  "Yes, sir!" said the NCO, his eyes getting bloodshot like the officer's. He slapped Taki's cheeks as she tried desperately to resist, distracted with fear, her eyes vacant and moving aimlessly, her whole body twitching. Dimly seeing her exposed breasts, Tachibana finally managed to raise himself, open his mouth, and shout, whereupon the officer shoved the muzzle of his gun into it. With the excruciating pain of broken front teeth, he sprawled backwards.

  "You do it first," said the officer with a lewd laugh. "I don't mind."

  "No, no, after you, Lieutenant."

  "Don't be silly! Go ahead!"

  "No, I'll go last."

  Totally limp against the wall, Tachibana heard the misplaced courtesies from far away. The last thing he heard was the officer saying, "Now take this, you son of a bitch," as he kicked him in the pit of the stomach with his military boot. Tachibana's already foggy vision went blank.

  * * *

  On August 20, 1945, the Hoko Shrine village suffered the most disastrous fire in its history.

  Seeing the flames lick upward, Haru Kusumoto knew immediately that it was going to be a big one. The summer's drought had been endless. Not only had there not been any rain for the past month, there hadn't even been any clouds worthy of the name. The dry south wind coming across the Zenkoji Plain had been blowing up the slope all day every day, until it had taken every last drop of moisture out of the soil.

  Situated on an incline at the southern edge of the Togakushi Plateau, the village centered on ten-odd households of Shinto priests who tended the Hoko Shrine, one of the three main shrines of Togakushi. The approach to the peak where the shrine stood was a straight road up a long steep slope lined on both sides with the magnificent thatched-roof houses of the priests, around which were scattered the houses and shops of the villagers. At the top of the slope, the road made a wide detour to the right around the base of the peak and continued on toward the village around the Middle Shrine.

  Standing on the very summit of the peak, the Hoko Shrine was reached by a precipitous stone staircase from the top of the slope. Togakushi had once been a mecca for ascetics practicing their religious austerities, and this staircase was one of the remnants of that past. Standing at the bottom and looking far up the stairs between the giant cedars, most people dreaded the thought of climbing them.

  Even some of the local people, not to mention many unaccustomed worshippers from afar, avoided the main approach up the stairs in favor of the gentler "Women's Slope" to the left.

  But it was not until she became pregnant with her first child, her daughter Natsue, that Haru Kusumoto had begun to use the Women's Slope. Until then, ever since she was old enough, she had always used the long staircase in both directions. Even now, she was still in the habit of breezing down it.

  Leaving the shrine office, Haru looked back from the top of the stairs to see Natsue still watching her from the passageway that ran from the office to the shrine stage like the gallery used in Noh drama. Leaning against the railing, Natsue spread out her arms and gave the long sleeves of her shrine-maiden's dancing costume a big shake. It was the cute mannerism of a child, but looking at her from this distance, Haru realized that her daughter was growing up. Give her just six months or a year.

  In a
ddition to the regular rituals, for a suitable donation the dancers and musicians of the Hoko Shrine could be employed at any time, as they were this day, to make special offerings for individual parishioners or groups. Until shortly before, warlike prayers for victory and good fortune in battle had been in the overwhelming majority, but with the official surrender, these had given way completely to prayers for the safe return of soldiers from foreign campaigns, and routine peacetime prayers for a good harvest and family safety.

  Only Shinto priests and their families could be shrine dancers. It was the obligation of every little girl born into a Shinto priest's family, as soon as she reached school age, to serve several shifts a week dancing on the stage as a shrine maiden. She was relieved of the obligation only when she reached puberty, a menstruating woman being the greatest taboo in a Shinto ritual.

  Looking back, most women had fond memories of the days they had spent dancing on the shrine stage, but for some little girls, it could be a very trying experience. A shy child like Natsue, for instance, would never get used to the stage no matter how long she spent on it. On a day when it was her turn to serve, she was always in a bad mood, from the time she got up. It was Haru's job to coax her into her costume and get her to the shrine office, from which point her husband Nagaharu, a Shinto priest, took over.

  Waving back at Natsue, Haru turned to go down the steps, and it was then that she saw the flames. The lines of cedars, said to be hundreds of years old, rose toward the sky on either side of the staircase. In the green of the branches which hung over the stairs from left and right, there remained a thin strip of open space directly above, and through that space, from the vicinity of the farmers' houses at the bottom of the slope far off in the distance, she saw a column of smoke and flame shooting up almost like a signal flare.

  It was later determined that the fire had started in a barn, the result of three little children accidentally setting fire to the hemp-stalk wall while playing with matches. Of the principal products of Togakushi, the best known by far was buckwheat, but next came hemp, which flourished because the soil was conducive to the growth of long fibers of high quality. The stalks were a by-product that remained after the outer skin was peeled off for fiber, and when dried they burned very well and could be used for such things as fuel for the big fires built as a send-off for the spirits at the end of the celebration of their annual visit. Unfortunately, the local farmers also used the stalks to make the inner thatching for the walls and roofs of their barns, because they provided the needed ventilation and were the cheapest thing available. But in the event of a fire, there was no material worse.

  Consuming the hemp-stalk wall in an instant, the fire leaped quickly to some brushwood piled up in the barn and then to the thatched roof, from which it soared skyward with an appalling shower of sparks. Except for the post office and the school, almost every building had a thatched roof, every one dry as a withered shepherd's purse. The fire jumped first to the house of the barn owner, and about the time that house was enveloped in flames, blue smoke was beginning to rise from the roofs of surrounding houses.

  Any number of unfortunate circumstances compounded the disaster. Next to the drought itself, there was the fact that the fire had started at the lower edge of the village, and was thus blown up the slope by the dry south wind from the valley. Lunch was over and all hands had just gone off again to the fields. The drought had completely dried up the water supply for firefighting. In normal weather, the stands of cedar would have served to impede the flames, but the tips of their sprigs had dried to the color of straw, and far from serving as a check, they flared up like giant torches as soon as the resin was heated to combustion point by the fiery hot wind.

  Nagaharu Kusumoto, who came running at his wife's call, stood there at the top of the stairs and groaned. He was still in the costume of the god Tajikarao, in which role he was always cast because of his strong build. Based on the myth of the Rock Door of the Heavens, the performance at the Hoko Shrine consisted of such parts as the goddess Uzume's dance, with Tajikarao's opening of the Rock Door as a climax, and the Dance of Urayasu, performed by shrine maidens. Other priests came running out after Nagaharu. Mitsuyoshi Otomo, who had been playing the role of Uzume, came out in a white flaxen tunic over a crimson pleated skirt. His gentle face instantly began to twitch. Of all the priests there, his house appeared closest to the fire, although the view was obstructed by the cedars, making it hard to determine the exact location from which the smoke was rising.

  "Oh my God! I've got to get down there," said Mitsuyoshi, dropping his skirt on the ground and rushing down the steps.

  "Father Otomo," called Haru after him, suddenly remembering, "Would you check Taki's place, too, please?"

  "Okay," called Mitsuyoshi, too busy watching his footsteps to turn or even nod his head, leaving Haru wondering if he had really heard.

  Toward the end of the year before, the military police had come to Taki Tendoh's house and taken away the viscount's son, who had been harbored there. Haru had heard from Keijiro and his wife that the men had raped Taki. Several days later, Taki, Keijiro, and his wife had been arrested, this time by the civilian police. Three months after that, Taki had been released alone and sent home, four months pregnant, and insane. Since then, she had been taken care of by Haru and her mother.

  "I wonder what this is going to do to Taki," said Haru to her husband, standing beside her. Taki was due this month, and Haru was afraid the shock might cause her to give birth on the spot. She didn't know what they would do if that happened.

  But Nagaharu did not seem to hear her. "Why aren't they ringing the fire bell?" he shouted.

  "Isn't that fire pretty close to the fire tower?" someone shouted back.

  "Then maybe they can't get the firefighting pump out," shouted someone else.

  Everyone was apprehensive, imagining what was going to happen to the place if they were forced to just let the fire burn itself out.

  "Anyway, all of you had better get home," said Nagaharu. "Haru, you take Natsue and get down there quick."

  "What are you going to do?" she asked.

  "Warn the villagers with the drum. Without the bell, people in the fields and mountains may not know there's a fire yet." He started at a run toward the shrine.

  At the shrine stage, the religious group gathered to witness the dance offering they were supposed to get for their donation stirred in surprise as Tajikarao burst on stage and began to beat the drum with a discordant rhythm. Hurried along by the sound, Haru, with Natsue by the hand, went down the Women's Slope. Still in her shrine-maiden's costume, Natsue had trouble keeping her cuffs from getting tangled as she tried to keep up with her mother. On top of that, she was still holding the bell she had been using in the dance, and it was ringing busily with every step she took. This annoyed Haru, but she couldn't tell Natsue to throw it away. Moving along to the mingling of drum and bell, she was greatly surprised to find herself imagining that she was back dancing on stage in the days of her childhood.

  The Kusumoto house was right at the base of the peak, so Nagaharu could afford to let the other priests go down first, because his house was farthest away from the fire. Haru's mother, Nobu, was standing outside the yew hedge wondering what to do. "It's a big one!" she exclaimed, relieved to see Haru. She pointed all around toward the bottom of the slope. In the time it had taken Haru to get down from the peak, the smoke had spread considerably.

  "Where did it start?" asked Haru.

  "Who knows? The patrolman from the Middle Shrine was here a few minutes ago, and he says he got word that the fire had even got into the post office."

  "Even the post office? That means it must be all over the bottom of the slope."

  "I guess so. Dry as it is, who can tell how far it will burn?" Suddenly Nobu realized someone was missing. "Where's Nagaharu?"

  "He's beating the drum, because the firebell didn't ring."

  "Oh he is, is he?" Nobu looked up at the peak. She was used to the sound o
f the drum, but right now it only made her mad. "At a time like this, he ought to be down here with us. What are we supposed to do without him?" she said, scowling. Nagaharu was an adopted son-in-law. The Kusumotos had produced only women for the last two generations, and he and Haru had yet to produce a son.

  "I wonder how Taki's doing?" worried Haru. The smoke did not look like it was too far from the Tendoh house. "I'm going to go have a look."

  "This is no time for you to be doing that!"

  "I'll be right back. Would you mind getting Natsue changed out of her costume?" said Haru over her shoulder as she rushed off.

  As Haru came around the curve at the top of the slope, the whole scene of the fire came into view. The level area at the bottom was already a sea of flames, and even outside that area, the fire had spread to ten or more houses. It seemed to be moving faster along the houses to the east than it was north up the slope with its many trees, and there was already a lot of smoke pouring from the windows of the school building, about a hundred meters from the heart of the flames. If the school caught, the fire would spread much further in one leap. Haru imagined the scene as she ran along with shaky knees.

  The handcart with the pump being brought down from the Middle Shrine village rattled loudly past her. The firemen in their livery coats were mostly middle-aged or older, and their hoarse shouts to mark time as they pulled the pump hardly inspired confidence. Out of the blue smoke into which they were headed came small groups of people fleeing up the slope with only the clothes on their backs. The fire must have spread too quickly for them to save a thing. They hurried along as fast as they could, covered with soot, children howling and adults raving.