The Pillow Book of the Flower Samurai

by Barbara Lazar

  My life turned into a ceaseless blizzard. On the rare occasions I glimpsed Tashiko, she bowed her head and swung her nut-brown cascade of hair around herself, like an empress. My heart twisted at the sight of such elegance and the frustration of not being able to speak to or touch her.

  I missed her voice at night because she had always sung the old songs our mothers sang. Her melodies had decorated our hut as bush warblers, with their honeyed notes, muted the thunder of a spring storm.

  My degradation, locked into a room with a guard, meant I slept little and endured nightmares of Hitomi’s hut, scars and funerals.

  The storm persisted undiminished night after night, day after day, until it ended.

  V. Treachery

  It ended like this.

  Early snow arrived in the Godless month, concealing colourful leaves and grasses with an icy brightness that hurt my eyes. It was even more bleak and bitter since I slept alone. I had none of Akio’s exercises to distract me. In such a winter my family would have been sowing barley, perhaps on the extra land I had given them. That thought made me sad. I recalled a lullaby, the smell of barley cooking and a grinding stone, although I no longer remembered the faces of my parents or siblings. I wondered if they remembered me.

  Had I forgotten Tashiko’s face? No! I remembered her loam-brown eyes, her wispy hair and especially her voice, which soothed my anger and despair. How could I go on? She was the one with whom I awakened and with whom I slept. I shared my triumphs with the bow and failures with the bokken. She listened to my stories, then told me whether or not they would work with clients. She was often correct. I spoke with no one now, except clients, and all that was dissembling.

  Twenty-three prolonged days and nights in a locked room, only allowed out, like an ox, to work. I counted the remaining days until I could be with Tashiko. I did not even have with me my pink festival smock, and I had never slept without it since my father had sold me. I searched for Tashiko’s presence in my mind to ease my pain.

  Rin usually brought my rice bowl each morning, her eyes gloating. That morning – it was not her footsteps that came towards my hut. The lock’s heavy metallic clunk mixed with the buntings’ early-morning prattling, ‘tseewee-tseewee-tseewee-tseewee’.

  The door opened. Scents of rice and the last of the summer’s vegetables floated into my prison. The back of a head on hands in five-point. I glanced for the samurai who guarded me and saw only the empty corridor to the big room is Main House. Where could he be?

  ‘I bring you your morning meal, honourable Kozaishō.’

  Misuki’s voice. Why would she speak so formally? I tugged at her hair playfully. ‘Thank you, Misuki.’ Then I realised her voice had sounded flat and empty.

  She stayed silent and on the floor. I pushed aside the bowl and placed my hands over hers. Our heads almost touched. ‘What, Misuki?’

  Motionless. Silent.

  ‘Please sit. Misuki, tell me,’ I whispered, my insides tightening to the breadth of a chopstick.

  Misuki’s tears fell to the floor. Thin cries bubbled from her lips.

  I waited.

  Something was wrong. What hideousness had a man perpetrated on one of the Women-for-Play now?

  Misuki’s cries slowed, and the words dribbled out: ‘Kozaishō. Honourable Kozaishō.’

  ‘Yes.’ I stroked her thick, coarse hair.

  ‘Kozaishō. I cannot believe I must tell you this.’

  Those words sounded familiar – too familiar. I froze. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Oh, Kozaishō.’

  With one hand I continued to stroke her hair. With the other, I lifted her chin. ‘Who, Misuki? Me? Aya? Emi? How bad is the harm?’

  She shook her head with each name, her makeup dripping in her tears on to my hand.

  I trembled, like an earthquake. ‘No! Not—’

  She nodded only with her eyes. ‘Tashiko is dead. Do you want to see her before they prepare her?’

  ‘Prepare her? Who is they?’ Rage charged through me. I bolted from my prison. No one else must touch her!

  This had to be an evil joke. Had Hitomi played a terrible trick for punishment? I rushed into Tashiko’s work room. Disarrayed. Table, lamp, bamboo tree. All splayed out. No Tashiko.

  I whirled back to Misuki. Outside the hut Emi and Aya wrapped their arms around each other. With tearful faces, my family stared at me. There was now a grinding stone on each of my feet.

  With one hand I pointed to the chaos of her hut. I opened my mouth to scream— No words. No sounds. My legs did not touch the ground. I grew smaller. The room’s commotion expanded and I dropped to the floor. No blood. Before, I argued with myself, there had been much blood. I saw no blood.

  I pleaded with Kannon-sama, the Goddess of Mercy, for the health and safety of my precious one.

  My three sisters came towards me. I heard Aya’s bawls. I recognised Emi’s gulping sobs. They circled me: hands stroked me, voices said my name. They pulled me to my feet.

  ‘Do you want to see her before they prepare her?’ Misuki could not look me in the face.

  I ran to the unclean room set aside for such.

  Tashiko lay on the floor, her lustrous hair swirled across her favourite pale blue costume. With the heavy makeup she wore, she appeared available for work, but it could not hide the line of raw flesh that twisted around her neck.

  I ran out, vomited and retched over and over. On that day, the Goddess of Mercy – and all the Gods – abandoned me.

  Wet leaves wiped my lips. ‘Sip the water, Kozaishō,’ Misuki murmured.

  I did, although the sickly smell of vomit remained.

  ‘Kozaishō, Madam Hitomi says you are not to touch her. You are not to defile yourself, she says.’ Misuki’s fingers squeezed my upper arm, as if that might stop me.

  I flew into the Pollution Hut. My fingers traced Tashiko’s face and neck. I placed my cheek against hers, her skin, soft, yet chilled. Her hair still smelt of brush clover. Her long neck, now torn, destroyed by a stranger’s hands. By a stranger whose life I would hold in mine – soon.

  Misuki touched me and joined me in the defilement. ‘The human fire has already left her body, Kozaishō. Her spirit is gone. When this happened, the Lord Buddha came down to earth on a cloud. He has accompanied Tashiko to Heaven.’

  A myth. My dear one, gone from my life. Misuki clung to my hands with both of hers. I did not know if this abomination had resulted from fun, a joke or part of a tale. I would find out.

  My tears washed my beloved. Misuki anointed her body with pungent herbs, especially her neck. How could anyone have hurt Tashiko so? My desolation fought with my disgust. I shaved her head and took her favurite blue takenaga to bind her hair. Would I be allowed to have her takenaga and hair as a keepsake? Misuki and I wrapped her in white gauze. It roughened the pads of my fingers. Stronger, I rolled Tashiko back and forth. Together Misuki and I encased my loved one’s body in the gauze until she appeared like the chrysalis of a caterpillar. If the Buddha accompanied anyone’s soul to heaven, that soul would be Tashiko’s.

  I glanced around me. No one. I put my hands on Misuki’s shoulders and whispered, ‘Madam Hitomi has a samurai who lurks around me. Please, take the coins under my cleaned defilement cloths and pay someone, with a good brush, to write a sutra epitaph on a piece of wood or a stone. My brush is too poor or I would write myself. You can touch the coins now because you and I are already unclean.’

  A few months before a customer had told me the courts had prohibited the use of coins. Perhaps officials would take me far away. Perhaps that would relieve the pain that continuously pierced my skin.

  When Misuki left, I spoke to Tashiko: ‘My beloved, I must undertake the honourable action. This I promise on my family and ancestors’ honour. Know that I shall do everything I can to believe in your Buddha and your Bodhisattvas. Know I will avenge your murder.’

  I wrote:

  Tashiko, my soul

  Press your essence into mine

  Only
tears remain

  Until we can both return

  To love each other again

  Out of the next morning’s mists, the priest entered the Village, parading like a courtier in white and purple silk. Tall and thin, like late harvest straw.

  BOOK 7

  I. Knowledge

  The one I hated, Goro.

  He strolled to Main House. His purple and white silk robes swirled about him, like rapids around a rock. He hesitated, his thin hair slick against his skull. Our eyes met. His eyes, like water on a moonless night, the eyes of a man who feasted on others’ pain.

  He would not feast on mine.

  ‘Tomorrow is the most propitious day for the funeral.’ Goro’s shrill voice scratched along the watadono in front of Main House.

  Misuki and I, with Emi and Aya, stood far from the others because we were polluted by death. I searched the women, one by one, with my eyes. Who had killed Tashiko? Who looked guilty? Who did not return my gaze? Who kept their head turned away? Whose hands were not loosely at their sides?

  Later that day I performed the purification rituals to clear myself of the death pollution. All night I remained with my cherished one, a noxious, cloying scent mixed with the aromatic herbs I had rubbed into her stiff skin. Shrikes landed in naked paulownia trees their eyes banded black for grief, like mine. These birds shrieked against the silence of my Abstention while I could not.

  I attended to the world’s silence without Tashiko’s heartbeats.

  The funeral seemed remote, like thunder before clouds are seen.

  My three sisters dressed me in the chief mourner’s black clothes. The coarse hemp irritated my neck, arms and nipples, reminding me to show no misery to this priest. Misuki placed the bamboo staff in my hand. She brought little flags with Tashiko’s virtues written on them. Women-for-Play and servants also carried flags with virtues. They had loved her, too, but I had loved her with my entire soul. She had loved me in the same way.

  The bamboo staff and the little flags were cold in my hands. My feet tripped on the smallest pebbles. Misuki supported me on one side and the staff on the other.

  The gravesite altar was undressed, no flowers, now in the deep death of winter. The wooden tablet inscribed with Tashiko’s name lay on the ground next to the shallow pit. Misuki had written the inscription, an exquisite brush. I recognised her writing. Four eta carried her body wrapped in the white cloth and lowered her into the ground. They carried my life wrapped in that white sheath to the grave.

  Something shone in the shallow pit. Misuki nudged me and whispered, ‘All the Women-for-Play donated to buy gofu.’

  Seeing my confusion, she said, ‘You know. The round jars. To protect from evil spirits.’

  In the frosty air, Goro fussed with his robes and leered at the women huddled around Tashiko’s body. His breath smoked in front of his face, like a dragon’s.

  He turned to the altar, placed his prayer book on it and nodded at Hitomi. Then his eyes flickered across my face. His hand signalled for the lighting of incense, and he chanted another prayer.

  Each mourner was supposed to light incense at the altar. As chief mourner, I went first. Wretchedness stabbed my chest. All my coins had bought the tablet but there had been none for incense. How could I meet Goro’s eyes without an incense stick? Such shame. Such dishonour to Tashiko and to me. As I rose, a thin stick was pushed into my hand. My hand pressed Misuki’s in thanks. After me, each person went to the altar and lit incense in the burner.

  A gust of wind ruffled pages. He put the book of prayers on the altar and, with both hands, patted the book open to its place again. He frowned, shifted his eyes to Hitomi and turned more pages.

  He cleared his throat, read a short passage, turned pages. He repeated this again, and flipped to the last page.

  Goro stepped away from the altar, his shoulders drooping.

  Would he return to finish the prayers? I pressed my lips together and directed my gaze at him.

  He turned the prayer book to the end. He moved his head. His eyes rammed on to me and held for a moment. The corners of his lips turned up. His hand went to his cheek and a finger touched the twist I had created in his nose. His eyes narrowed.

  Tashiko’s soul. His anger with me would cost Tashiko her place in Heaven. ‘Please, honourable Daigoro no Goro, complete the ceremony.’

  The muscles of my arms constricted. My feet itched to run. I ordered my face to remain smooth. I stepped closer to him. Misuki grabbed my arm. I jerked away. ‘Let me be!’

  Goro nodded to madam Hitomi and oriented himself towards the open grave.

  He was going to stop. He would not finish the ceremony. Tashiko needed these prayers to go to Heaven. ‘Wait!’ I yelled, my arms as stiff as old bamboo, my hands ready, my feet in the attack position.

  Goro lifted a hand into the air and looked down at me with disdain. He recited a short prayer.

  He had lured me into an insolent and ill-mannered action. He trapped me.

  ‘Please do not cut short her funeral prayers.’ I bowed and made my best attempt to keep my voice low and respectful. My jaw clenched in fury at my outburst, my shame. My heart and breath rode at a gallop. Yet I could not risk my beloved’s soul, regardless of the consequences to me.

  ‘All that should be done has been done.’ Goro’s eyes went to madam Hitomi, who dipped her head, and then to me. With both his hands, Goro slammed the prayer book closed, stood erect and pivoted towards the grave, his lips in that odd half-smile.

  He was not going to finish the funeral. My Tashiko might burn in Hell because of him. Because of me. I had to protect her spirit. How? Fierceness and despair melded in my core, like the steel of a sword. I desired to avenge my love, to shoot an arrow into the priest’s gut.

  Tears trickled. My limbs shook. I screamed at the fiend, ‘Her soul will suffer. She must have the complete ceremony.’

  ‘Madam Hitomi knows I am the only priest who will come . . . here.’ He waved his manicured hand at the tannery where the eta lived.

  A hellish fire soared in me. ‘How can you omit prayers for my beloved’s soul? How can you demonstrate such contempt for her? For me. I am the chief mourner!’

  His eyes mocked me. ‘You are the one with no respect for the priesthood. You are the one showing disdain for your . . . loved one.’ Goro pressed his hair with one hand and folded the other across his chest, where he did not have a heart. He straightened his posture and gazed down with a sneer.

  He cackled.

  Blades into my heart! My whole body tensed, heated, coiled and pulsed. I rushed up the watadono to him. My fists punched his chest. I grabbed his robes. ‘You have no respect! You have no respect!’ I screeched. Misuki tugged at my arm. I struck him with my other hand, ‘Tashiko was murdered!’ Misuki grabbed both my arms. ‘Tashiko’s soul will haunt you! Bring you disease! Her soul will come to you in your dreams! In your nightmares! She will give you no peace! She will bring you to an early, painful death!’ I wrenched myself from Misuki’s grasp and continued battering Goro.

  He tottered with my blows. Yet he bent his head to my side and whispered, ‘Tashiko begged me to take her, not you. She agreed to other games. The kind the monks taught me when I was a boy. The special kind I learned to find irresistible.’

  Hitomi called, ‘Guards! Hold her!’

  My hands had opened. My arms fell to my sides. I let my breath out and tilted my head to the ground. Tashiko had sacrificed herself for me.

  Goro’s head lowered into my face, his tongue slowly tracing his lower lip. He murmured, ‘Next time, you.’

  Brawny hands each took an arm and lifted me off the ground.

  ‘Never.’ I spat, through clenched teeth, and saw my sword slice his throat. ‘Goro!’ I shouted, as if each word was a sword stroke. ‘You are a devil who will never reach enlightenment – no matter how many lifetimes you spend as a monk, no matter how many sutras you write and chant. What you have done is so evil you can never erase it. Not through eternity!’ />
  He scraped my cheek with his fingernails. I squirmed to escape him. My thumbs would be daggers puncturing his eyes.

  ‘And now, Kozaishō, I leave soon for Heian-kyō to receive my Hat.’

  I bit back tears at the injustice. ‘They could not possibly give you one.’

  ‘My revenge for this public disgrace will wait, but I will have retribution. Depend upon it.’

  II. Proposal

  A messenger from madam Hitomi requested my presence after I had seen my last customer. I trudged past the sleep huts, work huts and even Hell Hut, which I had visited many times in the almost three months since Tashiko, my love, had died. My slow pace testified to Hitomi’s good efforts, since the wounds around my chest bled easily.

  What new tortures did she plan?

  Wisteria blossoms hung from the vines, and I envied their short lives. Overhead, cranes and wild geese flew in mated pairs. The constant rumble of melted snow racing along the stream soothed me, like Tashiko’s voice. Alone I gazed at the rising Hazy Moon and remembered the first time I had watched that sky, dressed as a doll, drenched in a brook with my Tashiko.

  In Hitomi’s big room I made the five-point, like an old woman, bent down, creeping forward at a slug’s pace so that I did not disturb my bindings or worsen the pain. Also, when the warm blood dribbled in this chill, my body shuddered. Hitomi mistook this for fear. I did not wish to contribute to her amusement.

  ‘You may sit, Kozaishō.’

  I raised myself carefully. She used courtesies now. For two months she had screamed and criticised my performance. She had listed all the complaints from customers, if they had continued to see me.

  She reclined against her winter pillows. Why had she not changed to spring ones?

  ‘Kozaishō, I wish to discuss your performance with clients. You are costing me revenue.’

  Did she want me to sew her new spring pillows? I sighed silently to myself. If she dared put me to needlecraft, my poor skills would grant me permanent dwelling in Hell Hut. Had she just informed me her profits depended on me and my customers? No wonder she continued to harass me about my work, her livelihood. What power I owned, despite my desolation.