We bowed to the samurai in front and behind. Misuki, I know, imitated my lead and Emi followed her, as usual. We ambled through long corridors hung with banners and lined with identically dressed samurai.
The corridors had screens and doors along them. At first the screens were plain, translucent or opaque. As we walked, the frames of the doors were made of more decorative woods. Carved birds, trees and animals, such as cats, embellished them. While I kept watch on one side, I motioned with my eyes to Misuki to concentrate on the other. We halted at one door.
Its frame was thickly carved with gods, demons and leaves. Tokikazu bowed, his eyes slightly downwards.
‘If you please, my honourable lord Taira no Michimori has ordered your Purification: Exorcism, Cleansing and Abstention. In several days I may take you to your permanent quarters, such as other wives and concubines have.’ I stared at him with growing realisation, then adopted my usual neutral expression. I was most eager to establish myself in my new home. Wives! Concubines! I was not for the samurai, after all. Inwardly, I smiled to myself.
‘I regret this, but I have my orders from Governor Taira no Michimori.’ Tokikazu’s eyes appeared curiously sad. ‘I have been told the priest is old-fashioned. You are to undergo Purification in this place.’ He meant Misuki and me. Since Emi had worked only as an assistant, there was no need for her to be Purified. Although Misuki and I were the focus of attention, it was refreshing to revisit the familiar customs. I bowed again and shared a short poem with him as an expression of gratitude:
After snows and winds
Bush warblers in plum blossoms
Above icy waters
The kind songs of a friend
Changing the cold into spring
Tokikazu nodded, and his eyes blazed. Next he instructed the samurai to carry our belongings into a set of rooms. ‘Forgive the small size. Your permanent home will be much larger.’
‘Thank you, honourable Captain Tokikazu. Might I ask where Akio and his family are?’
His entire face was suddenly immobilised. ‘He and his family are well provided for.’
His words sounded rigid as stone. What had he against Akio? More importantly, what did Akio hold against Tokikazu?
I turned my attention to the plain wooden floor, which shone, and the walls, which bore no tapestries or scrolls. Instead, the Gods’ and the Buddha’s names, with other writing, adorned them in bright blue, pine green and lustrous black. A simple futon hunched in a corner. A table rested next to the fireplace, and a stack of fuel was tied in a heavy cloth furoshiki. Books lay on the table, piquing my curiosity. The writing, I recognised, included parts of the Lotus Sutra.
A single opaque three-part folding screen stood beside the opening for other rooms. Again, the names of gods were written, but only in black. These plain rooms had the same names written on the walls and smaller tables. Smaller futons leaned into the furthest corners. I seemed to have exchanged one hut for another.
No fire was needed because of the heat and closeness of the rooms. I bowed, and Tokikazu’s eyes flickered over me appreciatively. His men stayed with us briefly, then returned to their stations. A novice priest, freshly shorn head, blackened teeth, and a little goatee below his lower lip, presented himself to inform us we had been assigned to the Chief Priest. In the next hour he would conduct our Exorcism and Cleansing.
Our Abstention, the third part of Purification, was to take place in these rooms. Tokikazu whispered that he had posted guards on our permanent rooms and our belongings so that no harm could come to them. His generosity touched me again – I had realised the danger to us if someone read our papers. With fear nearly leaking out of my eyes, I bowed as low as I dared without touching the floor. Tokikazu left us, and I heard him ordering food for us.
Preparing to go to the Chief Priest, we ate sparingly, and dressed modestly: no hair or shoe ornaments, only three over-kimonos and none bright, all with small patterns, such as trees, rivers, clouds and small animals, especially birds. Two more priests arrived, one missing part of his right earlobe, the other with extraordinarily large front teeth. They escorted us down a corridor to the ceremony and stood at either side of the opening to the altar room.
Before we went inside, I smiled reassuringly at Misuki because her hands were quivering. Perhaps she did not have, as I had, such marvellous memories of shrines. I had cleaned and guarded the Family Deity with my mother. Everyone had swept the Abode of Deity and the Stone Enclosure. My mother had hummed as we worked, and my heart had filled with the sound of her songs. Parading around the Dwelling House, we carried and tied the Demarcation Rope to keep evil away from us. The joy came back as I recalled how well we had worked together, Mother smiling and hugging me. Mother had named the water and rice gods and made me name them to her. It was the game my elder siblings had played on the long journey from the shrine to our home. At this memory I smiled inwardly and brushed Misuki’s sleeve. The doors of the altar room screeched as they opened.
V. Misuki’s Exorcism
The heavy doors opened to reveal the altar room, lit with flickering candles. In my sleeve I rubbed the coin Tokikazu had given to Misuki and me to pay the priest to cleanse us of our Women-for-Play and warrior states. Smoke from incense and candles filled the air. As I waited, it stung my eyes. In the dim light, the six-part folding screens’ carvings reshaped to tangled shadows. My fingers identified the vines and faces of gods or demons.
I saw no nusa, the Purification wand with white cloth strips. Beautiful music and singing evoked a childhood memory of the Festival of the First Fruits. That day had been special. My mother, my sisters and I had cleaned the shrine. My mother and two older sisters, Second and Fourth Daughters, invoked the Divine Father and Divine Mother as we entered. We children had the luxury of a sleep at midday because the ceremonies began in the middle of the night.
We offered our rice, vegetables, fish, and placed them before the Chief Priest. Silence, everything dark. No one told me the names of the Gods or even let me ask questions. I could only hear the dancers. With no lights, I could barely see them, their steps, their gestures. My parents had carried their nusa, flapping, in the dark.
Misuki and I knelt on deep red cushions in front of the altar, and I glimpsed the back of the priest, who was dressed in red, gold and black. He lifted the cowl from his head, and I saw that his hair was wrapped in a stiff knot and held high with sticks sharpened at the ends. He strutted in an odd but familiar way. He dropped behind the altar and returned, face forward. When my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I recognised him.
Goro.
He carried an elongated package, wrapped in paper with gods’ names written on it in the same colours as his robes. A singer and biwa player hid behind screens with curved black edging and sculpted beasts of prey. Since I could not see the singer or musician, I presumed they could not see me. Other than them, there were only the three of us.
Goro stepped from behind the altar, unwrapping a massive brush with thick, stiff boars’ bristles (almost three forearms long). He circled it around his head as he invoked the Gods in a low chant. He intoned in a rigid monotone, contrasting with the melodic notes and mellifluous voice that had come from behind the screen.
I glanced at Misuki. Should we leave, scream or cry out for help? Had my new master fed me to this monster? Yet Tokikazu had been so sure that this was what Michimori wanted for me. Could Goro have deceived Michimori? Or perhaps my honourable lord did not know it was Goro. Perhaps he had decided on a different priest, but Goro had sought me out.
I heard Goro had obtained a Black Hat. He was cunning and influential.
I could run away. But where would I go? I could fight Goro – I had before when I was smaller and less proficient. But there could be no honour in either course of action.
I had pledged loyalty. Tokikazu had been confident that this ceremony was what Michimori wanted for me. He had shown me the order with Michimori’s seal. If that was what my new lord wished, I knew where
my duty, my honour, lay: in this room, without my weapons, without a struggle, I would submit. I prepared myself as if I were going to Hitomi’s Hell Hut. But afterwards, I promised, I would find Three Eyes, named after an ogre in a story, and take revenge for Tashiko and perhaps for me.
When I think of this later, I feel it all again. My fingers tremble.
Goro turns to Misuki first, dishonouring me by performing Exorcism on my servant first. He recites her crimes of impurity. He gestures, as if to brush the offences away from her, over her face, arms, torso and legs.
‘The coin.’
Misuki produces hers from her kimono.
He points silently, and she places it in a little bowl in front of the altar. She bows and he dismisses her with a sign. As she leaves, Misuki glances at me, fear creeping into her eyes, like a flooding river.
I am alone with him.
Goro moves to me slowly with the unnatural smile I recognise from my time with Chiba and Hitomi.
Trapped by my family’s honour and my oath to Michimori, I breathe in and out slowly so that I do not appear panicked. My heart beats faster than the music. I bow, glancing furtively for instruments of torture or death. I fear my life will end as had my beloved Tashiko’s.
He approaches. Passivity is safer, but I want to scream, to call for my serving girls, as I did at Hitomi’s. If I run out, no one will understand. My unclean, unknown story against his priestly one. I am ensnared like a rabbit.
Silently I call to my childhood gods as I remember the injuries I received from other such men. He approaches me, chanting praises. His voice is strong and loud. His eyes glint with gold from the candlelight.
‘May the Goddess Seori-tsu-hime, who lives in the white waters of swift-flowing rivers purify you and grant you swift-flowing forgiveness.’
He sings, quite loudly. His knuckles punch the rhythm on my shoulders and back and crush my skin.
‘May the Goddess Seori-tsu-hime, who lives in the white waters of swift-flowing rivers, send you white-water Cleansing with pure liquid forgiveness.’
I do not flinch – that always encourages them.
He strikes my shoulders as he would a drum. His voice is louder, bolder, drowning the battering. ‘May the Goddess Haya-akitsu-hime, residing where ocean tides meet the sea paths, show forgiveness.’
With both hands he clenches the front of my kimonos and wrenches them off my shoulders . . .
‘May the Goddess Haya-akitsu-hime have pity on you in your filth.’
. . . and down to my waist, exposing me to the smoky air. Even with the incense and candles, my moist skin is chilled.
‘May the Goddess Haya-akitsu-hime remove your impurities and wickedness.’
I hold my breath. In the cold my shoulder twitches, a slight shudder, which I know will enrage him.
It does.
His voice thunders and hisses. The blows come faster, more deliberately, aimed . . .
Terror blazes in my chest. I glance up. His face is that of a demon guarding Hell, but with a smile.
‘May the Goddess Haya-akitsu-hime have pity on your wretched life.’
Now with each syllable his brush strikes my shoulders, my neck . . .
‘May the Goddess Haya-akitsu-hime take back your impurities!’
. . . my back and my breasts . . .
‘May the Goddess Haya-akitsu-hime hear your pleas for forgiveness . . .’
Each word is accentuated with the sound of bristles thrust heavily through the air . . . and the crack when it collides . . .
‘. . . and grant you cool cleansing of all impurities.’
The warm blood cools on my skin . . . I can no longer control the shaking . . .
‘May the God Ibukido Nushi, Master of the Surging Place, send your impurities to the nether world.’
He pushes on my chest with the brush’s wooden handle and forces me on to my back.
‘May the God Ibukido Nushi, Ruler of the Spouting-out Point, send your foulness to the furthest bottom area.’
I fall backwards, my legs splayed open over the deep red cushions . . .
‘May the God Ibukido Nushi, Overlord of the Spurting Site, dispatch your filth to the lowest territory.’
He wrests aside my skirts . . .
‘May the Goddess Hayasasura-hime, who dwells in the nether world, dissolve your impurities.’
. . . and the wooden handle stabs with each syllable . . . His other hand clenches himself, then pushes on my naked stomach, keeping me down. I submit, I do not move . . .
‘May the Goddess Hayasasura-hime, who lives in the furthest bottom area, decompose your foulness.’
With sharp wet sounds his brush slashes my skin . . .
‘May the Goddess Hayasasura-hime, who rules lowest territory, destroy your filth.’
. . . and pierces me below . . .
‘May the Goddess Hayasasura-hime, who is lord in the lower sector, dissolve your impurities.’
The brush stabs with each phrase, slashing, tearing . . .
‘May the Goddess Hayasasura-hime, who endures in the bottom land, grant you forgiveness.’
I think he will stop. No. He intones my list of impure crimes, and the bristles pierce my skin and Golden Gate.
Drops of blood fly and glint against the lights. Do not scream. I hold the Goddess of Mercy in my mind . . .
He stops. Breathes hard. ‘The coin. My payment.’ He takes it slowly from me, caressing my palm. ‘The priests taught me in the monastery. I grew to enjoy, relish, yearn for this. You crave it as well, I can see.’
I stifle the vomit surging sour and hot in my mouth.
‘I insist on you, my own Creator Goddess, my own Izanami. Next time I will be Izanagi, and we will make the world.’ He strokes his genitals, motions for me to dress and turns away, with more Purification chants.
With his back to me, my heart liquefies to molten metal, where my vengeance will be forged at my leisure.
BOOK 11
I. Abstention
Misuki waited outside the altar room and bowed, acknowledging me. Shooting a wide-eyed belligerent glare to the guard, the one with the missing earlobe, her eyes softened when she looked at me. She took a cloth to wipe the blood from my face and neck. Cleansing baths were next.
Abstention required silence. On the way I memorised each guard’s face. They had all shared in this conspiracy: they were strangers. Where were the samurai who had guarded me in battle and to Rokuhara? Perhaps Michimori had not ordered this torment. Yet I had seen the order, myself, surrendering me to such a man as Goro. The samurai, especially Tokikazu, knew I was to undergo Purification. And I was, after all, the property of the Echizen governor.
I faltered in the corridor because of the stinging gashes between my legs. The baths seem to move further and further away until my legs felt as if I had shuffled four chō.
Entering the room for Cleansing, I saw yet another priest. He wore Goro’s threatening smile, the tips of his ugly white teeth gleaming and his clouded left eye reflecting the candles and the water. This priest scattered salt at the bath’s corners. Perhaps not like Goro, I thought, and fear began to release its death grip on my chest.
I breathed more easily. I had only to be cleansed by immersion in water. I turned to Misuki, whose eyes had widened with dread. The priest was pouring heaped bowls of salt into the tiny bath. In the Village a pinch of salt at a bath’s corners had sufficed. There were no friendly faces. I could not avoid stepping into this new scourge.
‘All is ready for you.’ The priest motioned to me, grinning with his thick lips.
I did not speak. I did not make eye contact with this new oni. I straightened, memorising his features.
The gashes dripped blood down my legs, and the bruises already showed. Seeing this, Misuki went into the water first, holding out her hand. I clutched it as if it were my tachi, but tighter.
She moved her lips, but made no sound. I recognised the spell for protection from the Lotus Sutra: ‘Iti me, iti me, iti me, it
i me, iti me; ni me, ni me, ni me, ni me, ni me; ruhe, ruhe, ruhe, ruhe, ruhe; stuhe, stuhe, stuhe, stuhe, stuhe svaha.’
I did not make a sound in Misuki’s steadfast presence. This torment thwarted Goro’s purpose, although it intensified my agony. The saltwater closed my wounds and helped me heal without scars.
Several priests led us back to our temporary quarters. During those long, silent days, we wore white silk and plain straw shoes, and ate only rice gruel. I saw only the faces of those who had persecuted me, especially that of Daigoro no Goro, or Three Eyes, named for the oni in one of my stories: I remembered each priest – blackened teeth and little goatee, right earlobe missing, large front teeth, thick lips and clouded eye, and the lost three teeth. Those faces bred my plan for reprisal. It burned brightly, like dry leaves for kindling, unlike my vengeance for Tashiko, which had simmered like a pot on a dying fire.
I needed to take my revenge as thoroughly as I had been tortured. I did not think my heart could heal until I saw the head of Three Eyes on a stake. My desire for his death surprised me. I heard Tashiko’s voice and remembered her gentleness, yet my craving for revenge was that of a raging boar.
Tashiko’s agony!
All my stories for nothing
Cruelty again
An armoured fist within my heart
Must strike this demon, and soon!
During my days of Abstention, fan-shaped papers folded into little books distracted my thoughts from vengeance. On every page, drawings danced below the text, which was highlighted with gold and silver.
After three days an unknown priest stood at my door to inform me my Abstention was complete. Tokikazu, Sadakokai and Mokuhasa accompanied me through the corridors to my new home. The new, heavy kimonos pressed against my wounds yet even Tokikazu, handsome and dressed in beautiful clothes, did not seem to notice any difference in my gait. Three Eyes, as sly as he was cruel, had not injured my face, neck or hands.
I was relieved to see the honourable faces of the samurai, and they had brought Emi with them. She cried when she saw me, so great had been her loneliness. I held her and wept too.
The Pillow Book of the Flower Samurai Page 24