AHMM, May 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Okichi trembled and her face turned from red to ashen.

  * * * *

  [3]

  Although she worked in the bathhouse, Okichi was still just a nalve young girl. Hanshichi's threats so terrified her that she could scarcely breathe. She still maintained, however, that she knew nothing about the two men's identities.

  "I heard them say their lord's residence is near Azabu, but I swear I don't know anything else,” she insisted. But Hanshichi continued to coax and cajole her, and at last she offered up one more piece of information.

  "It seems they're on a vendetta."

  "A vendetta,” Hanshichi said, bursting into laughter. “You must be joking! This isn't kabuki, you know. These days a couple of samurai don't just launch a vendetta in the middle of Edo! All right, though ... for now, let's just say that they are on a vendetta. Do you mean you have no idea where they live?"

  "None whatsoever."

  Hanshichi continued to press Okichi, but when it seemed he would get nothing more out of her, he fell quiet and sat thinking for a while. At that moment, Kumazo's head appeared above the opening in the floor at the top of the ladder.

  "Boss!” he called out excitedly. “Could you come down here for a minute?"

  "What's all the fuss about?"

  With self-conscious calm, Hanshichi descended the ladder. Kumazo sidled up to him and whispered, “It turns out that three old kimonos and five sharkskins were taken from the Iseya in addition to the cash."

  "Sharkskins,” Hanshichi repeated, his pulse quickening. “Had they been cleaned already, or were they still covered in mud?"

  "Hmm, I didn't ask them that ... guess I'd better go back and find out, huh?"

  Kumazo left again in a hurry. He returned to report that they had been white, polished sharkskins, which the pawnbroker had received from a hilt maker in Rogetsucho. Hanshichi was a bit disappointed at this news; it meant that he could no longer link the samurai who broke into the Iseya the previous night with the man who sold the sharkskin to the Aizuya that morning.

  "Well, it beats me,” he said.

  In any case, it was already nearly noon, so he and Kumazo went out for a meal at a nearby restaurant.

  "It seems Okichi is really stuck on that samurai,” Hanshichi said, laughing.

  "That's just it—that's why we can't get anywhere. Why don't we go lean on her a bit?"

  "No, I already scared the life out of her—that's enough for now. It won't do us any good to overdo it, so let's just leave her alone for a while."

  The two men left the restaurant, toothpicks still drooping from between their lips. As they approached the bathhouse, they spotted one of the young samurai parting the curtain on his way out. No mistake, it was the man Hanshichi had seen in Hikagecho. He was carefully holding something wrapped in a yellowish-green cloth. It appeared to be one of the boxes.

  "There's that fellow now! Looks like he's making off with a box,” Kumazo said, drawing himself up with a glint in his eyes.

  "No doubt about it. Go and follow him."

  "Right."

  Kumazo headed off in pursuit. Hanshichi entered the bathhouse and went upstairs to check on the boxes. Okichi was nowhere to be seen. An inspection of the cupboard revealed that both boxes were indeed missing.

  "They're gone!"

  He climbed back down the ladder and asked the attendant what had become of Okichi. The man told him that she had descended the ladder only a few moments earlier and disappeared into the back of the house. Hanshichi headed in the same direction. According to the man stoking the fire that heated the baths, Okichi had said she was stepping outside for a moment, then had rushed out of the back door into the street.

  "Was she carrying anything?"

  "I dunno."

  The man was a country bumpkin, totally oblivious of what was going on around him. Hanshichi clicked his tongue in frustration. Undoubtedly, the samurai and Okichi had happened to return to the bathhouse just as he and Kumazo were out eating lunch, and quickly decided to abscond with the boxes, one of them slipping out the front door and the other out the back.

  "I've really gone and bungled it!” Hanshichi thought. He could have kicked himself for his carelessness. “If I'd known this was going to happen, I'd have hauled that Okichi girl off to the watchpost in the first place."

  Hanshichi returned to the front of the house and asked the bath attendant where Okichi lived. Her house was located in Shiba just outside the main gate of the Shinmei Shrine, he was told; so he headed straight over. Okichi's brother was out at work, but her mother, an honest-looking woman, was alone, mending some well-worn clothes. Okichi had gone out as usual that morning, she said, and had not returned home since. There was no trace of duplicity in the woman's face. Moreover, it seemed unlikely that Okichi could be hiding anywhere in such a small house.

  His spirits deflated, Hanshichi left. By the time he reached the bathhouse, Kumazo had already returned. He directed a look of disappointment at Hanshichi.

  "Bad news, boss. I ran into a friend along the way, and was just having a word with him when that guy gave me the slip."

  "Idiot! How could you stop to shoot the breeze with a friend when you're in the middle of a case!” But he realized that bawling out Kumazo wouldn't do any good. Hanshichi chafed with frustration.

  "After what's happened today, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I want you to watch carefully to see if Okichi returns. And if the other samurai comes, I want you to trail him ... and make sure you find out where he lives this time! This investigation was all your idea—let's see if you can take your job seriously for a change."

  Hanshichi left Kumazo and went home. He was still so wound up, however, that he spent a restless night.

  * * * *

  It was freezing the next morning. Splashing cold water on his face in his usual routine, Hanshichi hurried out of the house, only to find the alleyway in back, where the sun hadn't reached, covered in a sheet of ice. Some local children had apparently emptied the neighbor's rain barrel onto the street as a prank; the ice looked two or three inches thick and was hard as steel.

  It was so cold that Hanshichi could see his breath as he hurried toward Atagoshita.

  "Well, Kuma? Any new developments since last night?"

  "Boss, Okichi seems to have eloped. She never went home last night. Her mother came by this morning to ask after her because she was worried,” Kumazo spoke in a hushed voice, frowning.

  "Is that so?” Hanshichi replied. His brow, too, was deeply furrowed. “Well, there's nothing we can do. Let's just set our nets and be patient. There's still a chance the other fellow will show up."

  "I guess so,” Kumazo responded in a vacant and desultory manner.

  Hanshichi went upstairs. Since Okichi had not shown up that morning, there was no heat in the room yet. Kumazo's wife appeared, offering her apologies, and brought in the charcoal brazier and some tea. No other customers were upstairs yet and Hanshichi sat there alone, absentmindedly smoking his pipe, shivering as he felt the spring chill creep under his collar.

  "That Okichi's been so flighty of late she hasn't even mended the paper screens,” Kumazo said, tut-tutting disapprovingly as he turned to look at the tattered shoji.

  Lost in thought, Hanshichi made no response. The grotesque heads he had found there in the bathhouse the day before yesterday ... the mud-covered sharkskin he had seen yesterday in Hikagecho—the three objects fused together and raced round and round in his mind like a revolving picture lantern. Was it black magic, Christianity, or just plain old-fashioned robbery? Hanshichi could find no easy solution to the conundrum. Moreover, he was still kicking himself for allowing the samurai to get away the day before. It was all his own fault for having asked a nincompoop like Kumazo to trail the man rather than doing it himself.

  Seeing the disgruntled look on his boss's face, Kumazo simply sat quietly whiling away the time. Presently, the bell on the hill in Shiba struck ten o'clock. At that moment, they heard the lattice door
downstairs open and the voice of the attendant greeting a customer. Then they heard him clear his throat as though sending a signal to the two of them upstairs. Hanshichi and Kumazo looked at each other.

  "He's here!” Kumazo exclaimed, jumping up excitedly and peering downstairs. At that very moment, the taller of the two young samurai came climbing swiftly up the ladder carrying his swords.

  "Ah, come in!” said Kumazo, smiling affably. “Another cold day, isn't it? Have a seat. The young lady has taken the day off, so I'm afraid it's a bit messy up here."

  "Taken the day off?” the samurai said, cocking his head slightly to one side as he placed his swords on the sword rack. “Is Okichi sick?” he asked in a meaningful tone.

  "Well now, she didn't say exactly. She's probably caught some bug that's going around."

  The samurai nodded silently for a moment, and then took off his kimono and went downstairs.

  "Is that the other one?” Hanshichi asked in a low voice.

  Kumazo nodded. “What should we do, boss?"

  "Well, we can't very well arrest him just like that. Listen—when he comes back, think of a good way to ask him about his partner without arousing his suspicions. What we decide to do after that will depend on his answer. Don't forget, he's a samurai. Better hide his swords somewhere—things could get tricky if he started brandishing them about."

  "All right. Should we call in some reinforcements?"

  "That shouldn't be necessary. There's only one of him, after all. We'll handle him somehow,” Hanshichi said, feeling inside his kimono to check that he had his truncheon.[7]

  [FOOTNOTE 7. Jitte. A forked metal instrument used to ward off sword blows and subdue criminals.]

  The two men waited in great suspense.

  * * * *

  [4]

  "It's a silly story, I'm afraid,” old Hanshichi said to me with a smile. “Looking back on it now, it all seems so ridiculous!” Then he continued.

  "We waited for the samurai to return, whereupon Kumazo, with an innocent air, started asking him questions. His answers were pretty vague, and it seemed to me he was hiding something. I chimed in a few times to try to find out more, but a lot of what he said just didn't make sense. Finally, I got so impatient that I whipped out my truncheon. My, what a stupid thing to do!” Hinshichi laughed. “One should never be too hasty. But the samurai seemed to realize he was cornered and finally confessed what they had really been up to. It was just as Okichi had said—they were on a vendetta!"

  "A vendetta ... ,” I echoed. Hanshichi gave me a big grin.

  "A genuine, honest-to-goodness vendetta! But wait—it gets even stranger. Listen to this..."

  * * * *

  The samurai whom Hanshichi had threatened with his truncheon, Kajii Gengoro by name, was from a fief in the west country. His lord had a mansion in Azabu, and Gengoro had been sent to Edo the previous spring to serve there. He was a man who enjoyed the good life; he became close friends with a colleague, one Takashima Yashichi, and the two together would make the rounds of the pleasure quarters in the Yoshiwara and Shinagawa. Gradually, they came to feel very much at home in Edo.

  Then, at the beginning of November, they invited two of their fellow retainers, Kanzaki Gosuke and Mobara Ichiroemon, to visit a brothel in Shinagawa with them. While they were there, Gosuke and Ichiroemon got drunk and started a quarrel. Gengoro and Yashichi intervened and managed to effect a reconciliation. But Gosuke declared that he'd had enough and wanted to go straight home. Gengoro and Yashichi tried to prevent him from leaving; it was already well past their curfew, so he'd have to spend the night there and go back in the morning, they said. But Gosuke was adamant.

  They couldn't very well let Gosuke go home alone, so in the end all four men had left the brothel together. It was past eight o'clock when they approached the coast of Takanawa. Torches aboard two or three fishing boats floated forlornly in the darkness of the ocean, and a sobering north wind blew frost in their faces. Packhorses hurried along past them on the road heading for the next station, the sound of their bells ringing out in the night seeming to magnify the chill. For some time, Gosuke had been walking quietly beside them, but at some point he must have fallen a step or two behind the others and unsheathed his sword. No sooner did Ichiroemon see something glimmer in the darkness than he cried out and fell to the ground. Withdrawing his sword immediately, Gosuke set off running at full speed in the direction of Shiba.

  For some time, Gengoro and Yashichi stood dumbstruck, rooted to the spot. Ichiroemon had been cut down with a single stroke that ran from his shoulder diagonally across his back. He had died instantly. It was too late to do anything for him, so they loaded his body in the first free palanquin they could find and transported it back to Azabu, arriving in the dead of night. The murder of a fellow samurai as the result of a drunken brawl at a house of ill-repute was an inexcusable offense that could not go unpunished. A search was immediately mounted, but five days passed, then ten, and still no one had any clue as to Gosuke's whereabouts.

  The murdered man, Ichiroemon, had a younger brother named Ichijiro, who immediately requested permission from their lord to undertake a vendetta.[8] Ichijiro's request was granted. He was told, however, that officially he could not be released from service to carry out the vendetta. Instead, he was granted leave so that he could return his brother's ashes to his place of birth—and was told that it would not hurt if he stopped along the way to worship at temples or pay visits to relatives. In other words, he was given tacit permission to pursue his brother's killer under the guise of these other activities. After expressing his gratitude and making the proper obeisances, Ichijiro set off from Edo carrying his brother's remains.

  [FOOTNOTE 8. It was official policy that anyone wishing to undertake a vendetta (kataki-uchi) had to apply to the government for permission. The practice was outlawed in 1873.]

  Gengoro and Yashichi were censured for having entered a brothel district, an act unbecoming to a samurai. It was also noted that in regard to the bloodshed on the night in question, they had shown extreme negligence in allowing the murderer to get away, and for that they were severely reprimanded. Moreover, for this act of carelessness they were ordered to assist Ichijiro in his vendetta, with the proviso that they could not set foot in any other clan's domain. “Search every inch of Edo for a hundred days and find the murderer,” they were ordered.

  It was far from clear, even, whether Gosuke was in fact hiding in Edo, but the two men had their orders: they must walk the length and breadth of Edo from dawn to dusk, day after day, searching for him. For the first ten days or so, they conscientiously carried out their duty, but then their resolve began to flag due to the enormity of their task. In the end, they came up with a plan for shirking their duty: they would leave their lord's estate each morning at the usual hour and spend the entire day amusing themselves at teahouses, storyteller's halls, and bathhouses. One day, they would go to Asakusa's busy shopping district, the next they would visit the samurai mansions of Hongo—in these ways they idled away the time, afterward returning to the estate to report on the supposed progress of their search. Needless to say, they made no attempt to ascertain Gosuke's whereabouts.

  Because they spent all their time amusing themselves, the two samurai were obliged by financial necessity to choose places that were inexpensive. They eventually settled on the second floor of the bathhouse as their headquarters, only venturing out from time to time for the sake of appearances. It was while they were there that one of them, Yashichi, became a little too friendly with Okichi. “Stop this vendetta business—it's dangerous,” she was forever urging him, concerned for his safety.

  There was little chance that they would ever track Gosuke down in this manner. Even were they to discover his whereabouts, they had not steeled themselves for the task of assisting Ichigiro in carrying out his vendetta. As time went by, they could not help thinking more and more about their own future. In the event that the one-hundredth day came and they still had not f
ound Gosuke, their ineptness would be exposed. It was unreasonable that they had been ordered to track Gosuke down within a stipulated period of time, given that it was far from certain he was still in Edo. Nevertheless, there was nothing they could do about it. They thought it unlikely that they would be dismissed outright from their lord's service, but they accepted the fact that they would be sent back to their provincial domain for dereliction of duty. As they lazed away the days, their anxiety about their impending exile from Edo began to weigh on their minds like a heavy stone.

  "Well then, I'll become a ronin!” Yashichi declared one day, with Okichi hovering in the background. He dreaded the day when he would be sent back to his domain and would no longer be able to see her. Gengoro, too, was apprehensive about being sent home, but in the absence of any similarly compelling motive, he could not summon the courage to cut his ties with his master. Unlike Yashichi, who was all alone in the world, Gengoro had a mother, an older brother, and a younger sister waiting for him back in the provinces.

  "Now, don't be so hotheaded, Yashichi,” said Gengoro soothingly. But when spring came, Yashichi seemed to have made up his mind once and for all. Every morning when he left the estate, he removed a few of his important personal effects and took them to Okichi's house. It was around the same time that the owner of the bathhouse, Kumazo, began to look askance at him. Okichi had whispered in Yashichi's ear that her boss was a detective's deputy, and Yashichi, fed up with being regarded with suspicion, was becoming increasingly restless. Now, it looked as though he and Okichi had absconded. Alarmed when Yashichi had not returned to the estate the previous night, Gengoro had come to the bathhouse that morning to look for his friend.