"Lord Harima," she addressed Kiyomori, "Tsunemori is so strait-laced that he came here to Eguchi all fears and qualms, but you've known in your youth of the entertainments to be found in the houses of Sixth Avenue, so you must come here sometimes for a little gaiety. And whenever you come to Eguchi you must stop here and let my young girls entertain you—there are a number of them and all exquisite. If you were not on your way to Kumano Shrine, I would have them come in so you could see for yourself."
This was she—his mother. Kiyomori understood. She had prevailed on Tsunemori to arrange for Kiyomori's stay here that she might meet him. She spoke easily and unaffectedly and with no hint of embarrassment. To his surprise, Kiyomori thought he detected the pride she took in her establishment.
Kiyomori, taken aback, stared at his mother. From her appearance it was impossible to believe that she was nearing sixty; and there was that about her like a lingering fragrance which Kiyomori now recognized as the seductive charm that once led a monarch to woo her, and Tadamori to put up with her infidelities and caprices for so long. And Kiyomori continued to listen to her chatter:
"How delightful to have you staying with us! A pity you are bound by a vow of abstinence. But you must stop here in Eguchi for two or three nights on your way back and give us the honor of your company. Eguchi is a dull place during the winter, when we have few distinguished guests."
While she talked lightly and inconsequentially, she seemed unaware of being the mother of four grown sons. No maternal tenderness prompted her to speak of her joy in seeing her sons grown to manhood; she seemed to have forgotten even Tadamori. That past she appeared to have removed from her memory as casually and easily as she did the cosmetics with which she still adorned herself.
"A most fortunate woman," Kiyomori mused. He began to think himself rather ludicrous. He could hardly be angry with her, she was so utterly naive. She could not be otherwise. She was the born courtesan. Nature had made her what she was and his mother was not at fault. Kiyomori was glad and relieved that he had consented to meet her, for he no longer felt any resentment toward her. She was not to be blamed, the life of the dancing-girl was natural to her; it was a mistake to want her to be otherwise. Kiyomori studied his mother's face and gestures—this was the life in which she throve and was happiest. He had these many years foolishly eaten out his heart in silence, wanting her to be otherwise.
"Mother—I mean, good hostess, is there to be no wine while we talk? It won't be necessary to forgo that until my return. Some wine—and plenty of it?"
His mother laughed brightly. "Wine? That will be easy enough to get. Here—" she called, clapping to get attention. A serving-girl appeared in answer and was given some instructions in a whisper. Soon after she left, three dancing-girls appeared with lamps and the room was flooded with lights. Wine and food were then carried in.
"Good hostess, are these all the entertainers you have?"
"There are still a few more."
"While we're about it, we might as well have them come, too. Tsunemori—"
"Yes?"
"Have you never come here for some gaiety?"
"I? Never."
Tsunemori seemed sulky. He felt himself alone and an intruder as he watched Kiyomori and his mother.
"This is a house of entertainment. This lady is our hostess. Stop looking so glum now."
Kiyomori kept refilling his own cup and urged his brother to join in.
"Come, you must drink, too."
"I shall drink on our way back from Kumano."
"Are you afraid to drink with your brother, who has broken the fast?" Kiyomori laughed. "Don't be so timid, Tsunemori, there's no need to worry. I'm drinking to the memory of our father before we leave for Kumano."
"But why?"
"Don't you see why? Can't you understand that on his deathbed he was anxious that we should be happy?"
"Was it so?"
"That's why I'm doing this—-that his soul may rest in peace. I'm sure that the god of Kumano Shrine will look on this as a filial act and will send no curse upon you, Tsunemori. Come, drink and be gay."
Scarcely had Kiyomori stopped speaking when the room became a dazzling sight as more than ten dancing-girls, each lovelier than the next, entered the room. Kiyomori touched his lips to a large cup and passed it to one of them, and one slender hand after another was held out in turn to receive it.
"Lord Harima is in a genial mood," the dancing-girls chaffed. There was an outburst of light laughter and chatter. Kiyomori, flushed with wine, grew pleasantly lightheaded with the scent of powder and the sight of the glittering hair-ornaments.
"Drums, drums! Someone dance!" he called out in a thick voice.
"Lord Harima orders us to dance. Come, dance, sing!"
There was a buzz of excitement, a bright flutter of long sleeves and skirts as the dancing-girls came to their feet. Screens were pushed back, sliding doors removed, and two rooms thrown into one to make more space. A harp was brought in, large drums were set up on their stands, and flutes removed from their silken cases.
A dancer in a tall headdress, wearing a slender gilt sword at her side, came gliding from the women's living-quarters and across the bridge leading to this room. She held up a fan, which hovered and circled to the rhythm of a popular tune. The liquid movement of her legs, the swaying of her hips, and the curve of her shoulders seemed to blend and become one with the music. Kiyomori put aside his cup and stared at the moving figure, all unconscious of the dance. His eyes were fixed hard on the thickly powdered face under the headdress of gold-colored gauze. Of a sudden he grew restless and kept shifting uneasily in his seat. The dancer's eyes only followed the pattern of the dance and never for an instant strayed his way. Impatience showed in every line of Kiyomori's face. A tedious dance! Away with the drums, the flutes! When were they leaving off, so he could speak alone to this woman?
The dance ended. The music ceased abruptly. As the dancer sank to the floor in a low obeisance, the other entertainers crowded round to replenish Kiyomori's cup.
"Don't bother me! Get back out of my way! Bring that dancer back here!" he snapped, impatiently pushing the women away with his elbows and gesturing before him with his wine-cup. But the dancer had already left the room in quick tripping steps and, crossing the bridge, disappeared into the dancing-girls' apartments.
Kiyomori kept calling for her and sent the others one by one to fetch her, but the dancer refused to appear.
Then one of the women said: "I don't know where she has hidden herself, but she is not to be found anywhere."
Kiyomori was furious. He rarely drank so heavily or behaved so churlishly.
"What, she calls herself a dancing-girl? She used to be called Ruriko, a niece of the nobleman Nakamikado! That's Ruriko, I'm certain! Ho, hostess, what do you mean by hiding her?"
Kiyomori threw down his cup and turned on the proprietress in fury, but she herself appeared fuddled and clung limply to an elbow-rest. Kiyomori's outburst of angry accusations seemed only to amuse her and she broke into peals of laughter.
"So Lord Harima never forgot her? Still remembers her? You so loved her that you could never forget her?"
"This is monstrous! You evil woman!"
"Why? What makes you say that?"
"Your shamelessness is your own affair, but you dragged that —that innocent young girl Ruriko down with you into the slime!"
"She was a ward of the Nakamikado. She practically had no father and I reared her. I myself taught her to dance, to play on various musical instruments, and made her into a woman who could proudly make her way alone in the world. What was wrong in that?"
Kiyomori suddenly sobered and shook his head. "It was wrong; if Ruriko had received the right upbringing, she would have made a good wife for some man, but you poisoned her, trained her to be a whore."
"Lord Harima, you remind me somewhat of your late father. Does it matter if one chooses to become a harlot or anything else that one pleases? If Lord Harima feels so in
dignant now, why did he not try to become more adept at love-making when Ruriko and I lived with the Nakamikado? Aren't you to be blamed too for being a coward? . . . Still, it's not too late. Come again on your return journey from Kumano. I shall have a good talk with Ruriko and expect to see you again."
Kiyomori and the proprietress were soon laughing once more, weeping maudlinly, exchanging more cups of wine and jests which puzzled the others, until Kiyomori fell into a stupor, with the hostess asleep on his arm.
Tsunemori and Mokunosukй carried Kiyomori to his bed. When Kiyomori awoke the following morning, he found himself in his own room as though nothing unusual had happened.
"Are you awake, my lord? I have your water ready."
A young serving-girl arrived with the customary greeting with which Kiyomori began his day. A basin of water stood ready on a stand by a window. Kiyomori glanced outside as he bathed his face and smoothed down his hair. It was sunny and warm for December. He got a glimpse of the river from the window. A lively plashing of oars and singing reached his ears, the sounds made by the boatmen who were impatiently waiting for him to start. He tried to recapture a feeling of solemnity and inhaled deeply of the crisp morning air. After all, he was on his way to Kumano Shrine and it was only proper that he should be in a serious frame of mind. . . .
As he hurried, through his morning meal, various members of his retinue began to appear to greet him. Shigemori, too, arrived and addressed his father ceremoniously. He thought his father looked rather sheepish, but the others busied themselves with restoring Kiyomori's good humor by a rapid exchange of small talk about the journey before them.
Inwardly Kiyomori laughed at himself; no one appeared to know what had taken place the night before, yet something deeply moving was mixed with his self-mockery.
Three large sailing vessels awaited them at a distance. The tide was low, and small boats ferried the party in groups of five or six across to the three craft moored in the estuary; the shore was lined with an unusually gay crowd of sightseers.
"Well, Tsunemori, I leave you in charge of Rokuhara," Kiyomori said, as he prepared to step into one of the boats.
Tsunemori, who was returning straight to the capital, replied: "Very well. A peaceful journey to you."
Kiyomori stood in the boat, shimmering with the light reflected from the water's surface. The entire shoreline was now spread out before him as the craft drew away from the beach, and Kiyomori could see at a glance the rows of people who crowded to the water's edge. There was his mother, standing amid a gaily dressed group of women, some of them wearing wide hats, some veiled in cloaks, and others bareheaded, exposing their sleek jet hair. Fans fluttered in his direction in farewell, but Kiyomori's eyes, narrowed in search of one face, could not discover what they sought. Puzzled, he wondered whether last night he had been dreaming.
The sea journey took several days. Kiyomori's party disembarked in the Bay of Waka. The rest of the trip was to be made in the saddle with a train of pack-horses. The first stop was at noon on the 13th of December, when the party put up at inns in Kiribe. It was here that a courier finally caught up with them. He had ridden furiously for a day and night from Kyoto.
"The worst has happened, my lord! A civil disturbance worse than the last!"
"What! In the capital? Name the leaders!"
Every man turned pale at the monstrous news; they were stupefied and babbled their bewilderment—the distance, no weapons, and this the worst possible time! Kiyomori groaned to himself, wondering whether this was a visitation from the wrathful god of Kumano Shrine.
CHAPTER XXI
RED-NOSE THE MERCHANT
The morning sparkled with frost. The market near the gate of Fifth Avenue was already astir with its usual crowds. The bustle and commotion could be heard across the road in Red-Nose's imposing shop and even in the living-quarters of his home. A notoriously early riser, the Nose even now was returning from one of his usual business transactions. His nose, ruddier than ever, emitted plumes of frozen breath like a horse. Instead of stopping to warm himself at a blazing fire, he made straight for the alley of tenements where the shop clerks lived. "Oy—oy! Are you all still packing? You're taking too much time getting ready! Come now, hurry—a little more haste, there!"
The Nose turned in another direction toward another block of houses and bellowed for the shop girls.
"This is the last month of the year, mind you! Doesn't anyone realize that today is the 3rd of December? You girls, if you expect to appear in your finery on New Year's, you'll have to hustle and get some things sold."
The Nose then made his way toward his living-quarters and at the veranda overlooking an inner garden, roared: "Umeno, Umeno! Give me my breakfast, my breakfast!" Unfastening his sandals, he entered the house.
His wife busily laid out a meal of steaming gruel, dried fish, and pickles for her industrious husband.
"How cold it must have been for you—and icicles this morning!"
"That's nothing," the Nose replied, blowing noisily on his steaming bowl. "Comes December, and every soul up while it's dark—carts and oxen busily at work, and our shop clerks, who don't know what it is to go hungry, are a sluggish lot. —Ah, is Shika out in the shop? Tell him to come here."
A servant-girl was sent to fetch him. Shika was the chief clerk. After Tsunemunй's visit of the other morning, the Nose had let Shika into the secret and carefully instructed him to keep an eye on every customer entering the shop.
"Shika, you haven't seen any suspicious characters about, have you?"
"Everything's been taken care of as far as the shop is concerned. I put up a sign saying that the shop was closed until the end of the year."
"It's likely that secret agents or someone from Rokuhara will come round here in disguise."
"It's even more important to keep a sharp watch on the eyes and tongues of our clerks."
"That's just why I'm sending them off to peddle their goods, starting today, and they're taking their time about it, too. I've just given them a piece of my mind. You'd better go and give them a talking-to and see that they get on with it, Shika."
"Quite right. I'll see to that at once!"
"Here, wait a moment—just one thing more. Are you sure that the sea-bream I ordered at the fish market will be here? Today's the 3rd, tomorrow's the 4th—tomorrow will be too late."
"The fishing-boats get into Yodo at dawn, and we can't expect the catch to arrive until well toward noon."
"When the order arrives, I'll have to ask you to go along with the mistress."
"Yes, I've kept that in mind, too."
A lively scene was taking place in front of the warehouses where the clerks—men and women—were shouldering their packs and preparing to start out. It was customary for the merchants of Kyoto to send out peddlers at the end of the year to the near-by towns and outlying districts with merchandise. For some unexplained reason, however, the Nose was sending out his goods rather early in the season.
Shika saw the last of the clerks leave, and with a look of utter relief went back to the dying blaze to warm his hands. Just then two men pulling handcarts appeared in the shop. Their caps and their clothes glistened with fish scales.
"Good morning to you. Just look at these large bream—fifty of them, too! The fishermen say they've never had a haul like this before. Look at these fine fellows!"
The two men proudly unloaded twenty-five baskets, each one containing a pair of foot-long bream carefully packed in bamboo leaves.
The Nose soon appeared. "Good work, good work!" he exclaimed, his eyes starting from his head at this magnificent sight. "Here—what's happened to the sea-bass? The most important thing of all—"
The Heike Story Page 33