The Fire Kimono

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Doi plowed past the people who separated him and Etsuko from Egen. The men shoved and fought everyone in their way. When they broke free of the crush, Doi said, “We can’t go home. The fire has already burned down the estate. I saw.”

  Etsuko was horrified. “What’s become of everyone?”

  “I don’t know,” Doi said.

  “The fire’s coming. Where do we go?” Egen said urgently.

  Doi led Etsuko and Egen on a mad dash through the inferno. They raced holding hands, their quarrel forgotten, united by the desire to survive. Every neighborhood they traversed was on fire. Tongues of flame shot into masses of people who pushed wheeled chests filled with their possessions. Etsuko, Egen, and Doi climbed over abandoned chests that blocked the gates and intersections. Not until morning did they find refuge.

  They fell to their knees, exhausted, inside the Koishikawa district. Edo Castle loomed above a neighborhood of walled samurai estates. The fire had so far spared the district, but men on horseback and ladies in palanquins, accompanied by servants loaded with baggage, moved in processions toward the hills. Firemen wielded pickaxes, tearing down houses at the edge of the district, clearing bare space that the fire couldn’t cross. They’d already leveled a swath littered with ruins.

  “We’ll be safe here,” Egen said. His face and Doi’s were black with soot, their clothes charred.

  Etsuko coughed up phlegm that tasted like smoke. She felt dizzy and sick from breathing it all night. Doi said, “I’ll climb up that fire-watch tower and see what’s happening.”

  When he came back, he said, “Half the city is gone. Yushima, Hongo, Hatchobori, Ishikawajima, Kyobashi, Reiganjima—” His voice broke during his recitation of the districts destroyed. “And the fire is still burning.”

  He and Etsuko and Egen wept for Edo and all the people who must have died. But Etsuko hadn’t forgotten the mission that had sent them into hell.

  “What about Tadatoshi?” she asked.

  “Never mind him,” Doi said, angrily wiping off his tears with his fists. “He’s probably dead.”

  Some instinct made Etsuko look into the crowds. She saw, not thirty paces away, Tadatoshi standing against a wall. He wore his swords at his waist. His gaze was lifted toward the flames that rose from the burning city. His face had the same sly, private smile as on that night in the garden. At first Etsuko was astonished to have found him, but then she realized that many people who’d survived the fire had flocked to this small, unburned oasis.

  “There he is!” she cried, pointing.

  Tadatoshi’s gaze met hers. The sudden anger in his eyes flashed across the space between them, hot as the fires, in the moment before he turned and ran.

  Etsuko staggered to her feet. “Let’s catch him! Hurry!”

  Egen and Doi followed her. Perhaps they couldn’t think of anything better to do. Tadatoshi raced in and out of the crowds, around corners. The Koishikawa district was home to the officials who tended the shogun’s falcons. The processions included oxcarts laden with cages that contained hawks and eagles. Other birds had escaped. They winged over Etsuko, bound for the hills. She lost sight of Tadatoshi, but Egen called, “He went in there!”

  He and Etsuko and Doi burst through a gate into a courtyard outside a mansion. The sudden quiet rang in Etsuko’s ears. Doi put a finger to his lips. The three tiptoed around the mansion. At the rear were outbuildings. Etsuko heard a scrabbling noise from one. She and the men peered through its open door into a kitchen. Tadatoshi crouched, blowing into a brazier. Flames licked the coals.

  That he would set a fire after so much of Edo had already burned!

  Doi shouted Tadatoshi’s name. Tadatoshi leaped up and backed away as Doi and Egen moved toward him. His eyes danced with manic light. He grinned and Etsuko saw, in his hands, a ceramic jar.

  “No!” she cried. “Look out!”

  Tadatoshi flung kerosene from the jar onto the brazier. The flames exploded into a huge, red-hot blast. Etsuko, Doi, and Egen screamed and reeled backward from the fire. Tadatoshi giggled wildly. He kicked the brazier, scattering the coals, and dashed kerosene around the room. More fires ignited.

  “Help!” Doi cried.

  He writhed on the floor, his cape on fire. Etsuko beat the flames out with her gloved hands. Egen pulled Doi to his feet, yelling, “We have to get out of here!”

  They and Etsuko ran from the kitchen. It burst into flames that the wind blew high and far. Before they were out the gate, the mansion had caught fire. Sparks leaped to the other houses. In a mere instant the whole district was ablaze.

  “We’ll go to the castle,” Doi said. “It’s the most protected place in town.”

  But as they and the crowds hastened uphill, the fire overtook them. The streets became tunnels with walls of flames that spewed in every direction. Women shrieked as their clothes and hair caught fire. They flailed their arms, whirled, and dropped. The flames stripped them naked and bald, blackened their skin. Etsuko retched at the sight and smell of flesh burning, of blood boiling.

  “Turn back!” Doi shouted.

  He and Egen hauled Etsuko in the opposite direction. Coughing and gasping, they trampled people who’d succumbed to the smoke, over bodies burned to the bone. They ran past an intersection where hundreds of men stood massed together, arms raised, forming a human wall against the fire in a desperate attempt to hold it back and let their families escape. The fire washed over them like a brilliant orange tidal wave.

  Doi spied some abandoned water buckets. He snatched them up and flung water over Etsuko, Egen, and himself. As they ran onward, the water steamed off them, protecting them while other people burned and died.

  “We have to get to the river,” Egen panted. “It’s our only hope.”

  When they reached the waterfront, the lone bridge across the Sumida River was already packed with crowds, the warehouses already burning. People swarmed the wharves and docks. Men and children, and mothers with babies in arms, samurai and commoners, jumped into the river. The crowd swept Etsuko, Egen, and Doi off the dock. Etsuko cried out as they plunged into freezing water where thousands of heads bobbed. The river was so thick with humanity that she could barely move. Arms struck and legs kicked her. People sank and drowned. Somehow Doi, Etsuko, and Egen broke through the jam, into the deep middle of the river, in the fast-moving current.

  Doi submerged, crying, “I don’t know how to swim.”

  Neither did Etsuko. Egen grabbed her and Doi, locking his arms around their necks. Holding their heads above the water, he lay on his back and kicked. Etsuko and Doi floated with him. As the current carried them along, Doi pointed up at the city and cried, “Edo Castle is burning.”

  Etsuko was aghast to see that its roofs were sheets of flame, the tall, square tower of the keep burning like a giant torch. “That’s from the fire Tadatoshi set. If only we’d found him sooner!”

  An eternity later, Etsuko and her companions crawled, half dead from cold and fatigue, onto the riverbank near a fishing village. The villagers gave them food, shelter, and warm clothes. Two days afterward, they made their way back to Edo.

  The city lay in ruins. Most of it had burned to the ground. Etsuko, Egen, and Doi walked in horrified awe through streets littered with smoking debris. Charred skeletons lay amid the wreckage. Survivors wandered, searching for the remains of their homes, mourning the dead. Orphaned children cried and called for their mothers. The air was frigid. All over the city, people huddled in miserable, shivering groups.

  Etsuko felt an overwhelming sorrow, helplessness, and anger. “How many deaths must be Tadatoshi’s fault?”

  “Too many,” Egen said grimly.

  Doi said, “If the little demon is still alive, I swear I’ll teach him a lesson. That is, if I ever find him again.”

  Snow began to fall, white as ashes. Etsuko craved action as well as revenge. “I think I know where to look.”

  The city was unrecognizable, but Etsuko had a good sense of direction. She led the men t
o the place that had once been Koishikawa. Soldiers were unloading bundles from handcarts and passing out food to the starved crowds. Among these Etsuko saw Tadatoshi. He was gazing upon the black timbers and scattered roof tiles of the house he’d set on fire. He’d come through the disaster completely unscathed.

  Finding him again was no miracle. Etsuko’s suspicion that Tadatoshi would return to the scene of his crime had proved correct.

  “Hey!” Doi stalked over to Tadatoshi. “Come to look at what you did?”

  Tadatoshi smiled his strange smile. “Wasn’t the fire the most exciting thing you’ve ever seen? Especially when the castle burned?”

  Not only did he have no remorse; he wanted credit!

  “‘Exciting’?” Egen stared at Tadatoshi. “You killed thousands of people, and you enjoyed it. You’re mad!”

  Tadatoshi shrugged. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “We’re going to report you to the authorities,” Egen said.

  “Go ahead.” Tadatoshi sniggered. “I’m a Tokugawa. You people are nobodies. They’ll never believe you.”

  He was right, Etsuko realized.

  “Then we’ll make you pay!” exclaimed Doi.

  “You’ll have to catch me first.” Tadatoshi turned and ran.

  “Don’t let him get away this time!” Etsuko cried.

  As she and Doi and Egen pursued him, she shouted, “That boy set the fire that burned down the castle! Stop him!”

  Soldiers and crowds only stared, too numb to react or thinking she was crazy. Tadatoshi led Etsuko and her companions on a chase across intact neighborhoods where people broke into shops and fought over the loot. He dashed up a road to the hills. Etsuko strained to keep him in sight among the thousands trudging away from what they’d lost. Night fell. Etsuko, Egen, and Doi were exhausted. Tadatoshi looked over his shoulder, then split from the crowd.

  “He’s going into the woods,” Egen panted.

  “Hurry!” Etsuko cried.

  They forged up the trail he’d taken, between cedar trees. It was so dark they could hardly see his loping figure. High in the hills, they stopped near a torii gate, the entrance to a shrine. Here, above the smoky haze that still shrouded the city, the cold air was clear, the moon bright. Etsuko saw Tadatoshi flopped on the ground. She and her comrades staggered over to him. His chest heaved as he stared at them. His eyes shone with fear and defiance.

  “We’ve got you now,” Doi said.

  “What should we do with him?” Egen asked.

  The answer came from some deep, steady, unforgiving place inside Etsuko. “We’re going to kill him.”

  Doi gaped. “I can’t. He’s my master.”

  “He’s an arsonist and a murderer,” Etsuko said. “He deserves to die.”

  “Whatever he’s done, killing him would be a disgrace to my honor,” Doi protested.

  “We must kill him,” Etsuko said, “or he’ll keep setting fires wherever he goes.”

  “I can’t do it, either,” Egen said. “When I took my religious vows, I swore never to take a life.”

  “How many more lives will he take when he sets his next fire? Who but us can protect innocent people from him?” Angry at her comrades, Etsuko said, “If you won’t do it, I will.”

  She reached over to Doi, yanked the long sword at his waist from its sheath, and swung it at Tadatoshi.

  The boy screamed. A natural coward, he cringed instead of drawing his own weapon and defending himself. Doi shouted, “No!” and grabbed her wrist. Tadatoshi jumped up and fled.

  Etsuko wrenched free of Doi, the sword in her possession, and chased Tadatoshi. Doi and Egen ran after them into the woods. Etsuko bumped into trees and tripped over fallen branches. She followed the sound of Tadatoshi’s panting and sobbing. In the moonlight that penetrated the foliage she saw glimpses of him, flickering in and out of view.

  “Don’t lose him!” Doi shouted.

  “Where did he go?” came Egen’s voice.

  The men crashed through the woods, cursing as they tripped and fell. Tadatoshi sped past Etsuko. She grabbed at him but missed. Doi hurtled out of the darkness and shouted, “I’ve got him!” He and Tadatoshi fell together with a thud that shook the earth. Tadatoshi screamed and struggled. He began hitting Doi, who punched him and ordered, “Hold him still.”

  Egen came panting up beside Etsuko and said, “What are we going to do?”

  “We have to kill him,” Doi said with sorrowful reluctance. “What choice do we have?”

  Tadatoshi fought and sobbed. Doi grunted, swore, and tumbled off the boy. He curled up, holding his groin. He shouted, “You devil! Come back here!”

  Etsuko and Egen charged after Tadatoshi. She heard him fall but didn’t see him until she and Egen tripped over his body. A murderous temper possessed Etsuko. She hacked at Tadatoshi with the sword. She wanted to strike him as many blows as the number of people he’d killed. She screamed while he screamed. Egen joined in, consumed by the same urge. He punched and kicked Tadatoshi. Doi grabbed the sword from Etsuko and slashed at Tadatoshi until his screams stopped.

  Etsuko, Doi, and Egen stood over his body. The forest was silent except for their rapid, fevered breathing. As her temper cooled, Etsuko realized what they’d done. She began to cry.

  The men embraced her. Doi said, “Don’t be upset. It’s over.” His cheek against hers was wet with his own tears. Egen said, “We did what we had to. It’s all right, Etsuko.”

  The sound of footsteps crunching through dried leaves silenced her sobs. “Someone’s coming. We have to get out of here. Hurry!”

  They ran far from the scene of their crime before they stopped in a clearing. “Swear that you’ll never tell what we did,” Doi said, extending his hand palm-down to Egen and Etsuko.

  Etsuko laid her hand atop Doi’s. Egen pressed his hand onto hers. “I swear,” they all said.

  They returned to the city and joined the thousands of homeless people who drifted around, searching for family, friends, and places they’d known. They ate stew cooked in camps set up by the government, but relief was inadequate. Every day they saw more dead bodies, of people who’d frozen or starved. At night they slept bundled together in quilts they’d stolen from an abandoned house. They hardly spoke; they couldn’t look at one another. They were too ridden by their shared guilt.

  Days later, Etsuko learned from a stranger that Hana was looking for her. She and her friends rushed to the tent city. When she found Hana, Egen and Doi walked away: They were too ashamed to face anyone they knew. Etsuko broke into shuddering, uncontrollable sobs.

  Hana exclaimed, “There’s blood all over you!”

  Etsuko and her friends hadn’t washed Tadatoshi’s blood off their clothes; there’d been no place to wash. When Hana asked what had happened, Etsuko refused to tell and became violently ill. For days she lay in the tent, so nauseated she couldn’t keep food down. She thought her sickness was a punishment from the gods.

  Not until a month later did she learn its real cause.

  By then she and Hana were reunited with her parents, at her family home that had survived the fire. Etsuko hadn’t seen Egen. Maybe he didn’t know where she was, and she couldn’t go looking for him. Her parents wouldn’t let her outside because Edo was a chaotic, dangerous place. She sat in her room and prayed, Please let him come!

  One day her mother called, “Etsuko! We have visitors!”

  Her heart rejoiced; it must be Egen and Doi. When she went to the parlor she found Doi—sitting with his parents and hers. Doi’s father said, “Now that the fire is over, we’d like to set a date for our children’s wedding.”

  “That would be fine with us,” said Etsuko’s father.

  Etsuko was horrified. She saw in Doi’s eyes that he still wanted her and was willing to forget the past. If only Egen would appear and save her from this loveless union!

  Doi’s mother regarded Etsuko with a suspicious, penetrating gaze. “Come closer. Give me a look at you.”

 
Etsuko obeyed. The woman studied her swollen figure, then announced what Etsuko had been hiding. “You’re with child.”

  Her parents exclaimed in appalled shock. Doi looked stunned. His father said, “Since Etsuko is no longer a virgin, we must break the engagement.”

  Etsuko was so ashamed that she ran sobbing from the house. Doi followed her into the alley. “Is it Egen’s?” he demanded.

  She couldn’t answer; she didn’t have to. Doi looked ready to cry himself. “Does he know?”

  “No. I didn’t have a chance to tell him.”

  “Well, you won’t ever have one.” Anger darkened Doi’s face. “He’s left town. He said he’s not coming back. Because he can’t stand to see me, or you, ever again.”

  As Etsuko wept, heartbroken because Egen had deserted her and would never marry her as she’d prayed he would, Doi shouted, “It serves you right! You’re nothing but a whore!”

  He slapped her face so hard that she fell. Then he walked out of her life.

  That night Etsuko miscarried the child. She grieved, for it was all she’d had of her beloved. Her parents were upset because she was still damaged goods. What man would marry her now?

  Six months later, her parents heard of a man who might be willing. They took her to meet him, and Etsuko’s heart sank. He was at least ten years older than she, and so severe! Even worse, from her parents’ standpoint, he was a rōnin who operated a martial arts school. What a grievous comedown from the match they’d planned for her with Doi! But he made a proposal of marriage, and her parents accepted, eager for him to take their wayward daughter off their hands.

  Etsuko had no choice but to marry the ronin. Her parents disowned her, and she lost contact with everyone and everything familiar. She swallowed her grief and pride, accustomed herself to living in near poverty, and worked hard at keeping house for her husband. She never told him about the murder. She bore him a son, who eventually became the shogun’s second-in-command.

  “Now you know why I couldn’t tell you the truth,” Sano’s mother said.

  Shocked beyond words by her tale, Sano turned away from her, rubbed his hand down his mouth, and gazed into space.