Spinning Silk

by T. Cook

  It took all of my strength to dig up the ungodly secret beneath my feet. All my strength, and a night of digging, but I finally unearthed the corpses. They could not have been very long dead, but they were well beyond my limited power of recognition. I vomited twice, and then covered the grotesque forms quickly back over.

  I had been alone on that night when the soldiers invaded Madame’s gates. Try as I might to rationalize it, I could not escape the probability that it had been me, and no one else, who had killed, then brutalized these men and buried their corpses deep within what, to me, was the most secret, and therefore precious, place in Madame’s garden.

  I had never before confronted myself a killer. And yet I knew the defensive potential had always been there: my uncommon physical strength, acute senses, and unnatural quickness. Before my attackers, I had never defended myself from abuse, nor had I the right to, but now I wondered what would have happened if I had. Would there have been more deaths?

  I had always believed my greatest power was constructive, creative, life giving—not destroying. But I could not unsee the maimed corpses in the ground. I could not be blind to this killing, however strangely accomplished.

  There was no grief for the death of my attackers. I had killed them to defend myself, but these were conscripted men, and they would be counted. They would be missed! Someone or ones would search for them. They might yet be found. I would be tried an enemy to the Whitegrain Shogunate.

  A new thought dawned, even as I struggled with these frightening realizations. The truth of my newly discovered nature explained at least one mystery: why Shin had held me at such a distance and with such fear. He was afraid I would harm him, too.

  In my confusion, dark thoughts visited night and day. I lost many hours, possibly days at a time to abandoned consciousness.

  Whenever I awakened, evidence of violence awaited nearby. In once instance, I found I had, or someone had, torn apart the tatami floor and much of a shoji wall. Victims, real or imagined, haunted me, all suffering deaths of poisoning. I began to question my innocence in Cook and Kame’s passing. I didn’t know for certain, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if I had lifted my hand against them in a dream state. Sometimes I fell into dreams by mid-afternoon and slept through the night until the following afternoon. Some nights I didn’t sleep at all.

  I fattened. I didn’t know on what food, but I found it somewhere, and I couldn’t avoid confronting the mystery when once, upon awakening, I discovered a strange goblet. It was very fine, but cracked as though it had been dropped upon the stone walk. Stranger yet were the remnants of its contents, thick and blood red. And perhaps it was blood. I didn’t taste it twice. But I couldn’t be sure I hadn’t done so once. I had little notion where it had come from, but etched on the base of the goblet was a single character, which if I read it correctly, meant “spider.”

  I hid within the garden walls, never setting foot into the town. No news of the disease’s progress reached me. No army or lone soldier ever passed within the walls again. I knew nothing of Madame’s whereabouts or even if she had survived. It seemed so perverse. I was free of my long time oppressor, only to discover an intangible, darker, and far more powerful captor whose identity I didn’t know.

  17

  Time passed. I retreated so far into sleep, death might have taken me without a cry. But in a lucid moment, I plucked an over-ripe persimmon still clinging to the tree. I tasted it and savored the subtle sweetness, and felt its wholesome strength. But it was finished too quickly and it had been the only fruit not yet fallen and spoiled. Then I remembered the food still preserved within Shin’s ferments in his shed. They had sustained me through difficulty before. They might do the same for me now. I ate these and they seemed to do me immediate good, increasing my strength and lucidity.

  I needed warmer clothing, and went through my old trunk for something proper to wear. I washed at the well as best I could. As I washed, I caught my reflection in a shard of mirror and shuddered at the image of a ghost woman I scarcely recognized as myself.

  In my trunk, I found a rough spun woolen robe and put it on, discarding the silken fibers I had once thought so important. I ate once more, and was about to lie down again to rest when the shuffle of geta on the veranda startled my attention. It was not the stealthy sound of trespassers. This sounded different—neither careful nor suspicious. I recognized the voice that followed.

  The visitor was Madame Sato, much thinner than I had ever seen her, but still very much alive and apparently well. She gasped when she saw me. “Then there is life within. I heard the old man say there was. But you are weak. Are you yet ill?”

  I had not spoken in so long, my vocal chords wouldn’t respond on first command. I finally rasped a brief answer and she nodded, turned and left me.

  Madame Sato’s appearance was perhaps the least likely of any I might have expected. She was a frequent purchaser of Madame Ozawa’s silks. But the Sato house was nobility in our region. She had a large family, and her arrival here within the plague-ravaged village, and by herself, seemed as strange as her abrupt disappearance.

  I did not expect to see her again, but she returned later in the evening with a fish broth to feed to me. This was a luxury I had not tasted in many, many months, and my whole body trembled with energy in response to the sustenance.

  When I finished it, she spoke. “You are weak, but with proper care, you will soon be well, which is quite a feat of strength. Many heartier than you have succumbed to this plague.”

  “I have no news of Madame Ozawa.” I assumed this was her reason for calling.

  Madame Sato nodded. “Nor has anyone else, and I do not expect her back. Over half the town has perished.”

  I blinked in surprise. “So many?”

  “Yes, and we cannot be certain it is past us altogether. So many young children are gone and there is much destruction and loss of property. It will be many years before we can rebuild, and many survivors are going elsewhere to begin anew—the young and strong.”

  “Will you go?”

  “I am not young,” she whispered. “And I am all that is left of my entire household.”

  Madame Sato had had a husband, three grown sons, a young daughter and a household of servants. If she had lost so much, then her own survival was as miraculous as her future was grim.

  I was too weak to offer her solace, and so I nodded, and returned my head to my futon.

  “I will nurse you back to strength,” Madame Sato said. “And then you will come to serve me in my house. You are yet a servant, and cannot expect to change that, but you will find me a kinder mistress than Madame Ozawa. I will provide you with a loom and in time we will prosper together.”

  I raised my head to object, for until today I had not considered seriously my own survival. Madame Sato silenced me gently. “I believe you will live, like it or not. It is the duty of a survivor of great calamity to take her gift and live it out fully. Will you think about my offer?”

  I blinked my ascent, and she rose stiffly from her seiza kneel and shuffled out of the house.

  Madame Sato returned the following morning, and the morning after with food and clean clothing. She helped me to wash. She was still quite weak herself, but her survival alone proved her resources of health. Each day brought me closer and closer to recovery. I slept well without any hint of the trances that had frequently overwhelmed me.

  Slowly, my health returned, but my confidence was shaken. By now I no longer feared the discovery of the soldier’s I had buried inside the garden. Too many lives had been lost and too much time had passed, but dark thoughts and visions of the strange woman of Shin’s sketching troubled my mind almost constantly. What I wanted most was a quiet place of refuge.

  One morning, after a brief walk through the garden, Madame Sato led me back to Madame Ozawa’s parlor. I had not visited this room since my last beating. Shame and physical punishment were my most frequent association with the room, and I had to resist the impulse to
recoil. It was not a good place for Madame Sato to reveal her plans. But she didn’t know this, and her excitement flowed.

  “Look at this. And this,” she said pulling silks of my prior weaving from Madame’s private closet. “You made them?”

  I blinked and lowered my eyes humbly.

  “They are splendid. Truly splendid. The name you will make for us!”

  A flush of heat overcame me and I fought back to retain my composure.

  “I am not like Madame Ozawa. You shall be known! You shall be celebrated for your excellent skill. You shall dress the Empress herself!”

  “No!” I screamed aloud with such force Madame Sato froze. “No I won’t. I cannot be known. I will not, cannot enter into your service that way. There was a time I would have welcomed recognition for my work, but that time is well past. Please! I want only a safe place to work.”

  The woman nodded, silent. “If you wish it.”

  “Thank you for your promise to treat me kindly, but I would like to live away from the village. I must have my own place where I can work in private. And you must never ask me to cultivate fame or following. You must promise!”

  Madame Sato shifted with discomfort, and cleared her throat. “I do not like your terms, but if you insist upon them, then I will make the arrangements. I promise I will not force you or your name into the light. But your silk, I must promote, or I cannot bring you in.”

  I agreed to this, and so the plan evolved. She would lease a farmhouse north of the village, and there construct a large gate around the house. I would live there by myself, and she would come only periodically to retrieve my silk. She would manage all the expenses and provide me with all the raw silk I wanted. She even agreed to give me a tenth of all the raw silk she provided. This concession sent a thrill through my chest that truly surprised me. I did not know how well my creative self had survived my ordeal. But there it was, still eager to create—and still better, to possess a portion of my own work.

  Madame would keep my name and whereabouts entirely secret from her merchants. I would never need to leave the walls of the house. I need not fear. I would be safe—and others safe from me, and I could live and create freely. It was more than I had thought possible.

  We would execute the plan within the month. Madame Sato was determined and she would not be delayed.

  I had at last found a quiet refuge away from Madame Ozawa’s garden and the dreams I had known there. Relief flowed like a spring. I hoped to forget everything, including the brief moments of bliss with Shin by my loom. I still dreamt of him, and was haunted by the probability of his death. I didn’t believe I would ever see him again, and yet I wanted to know of him and whether he had survived.

  No wish of mine had ever been gratified so quickly.

  18

  The night was milder than most, and I let myself out to wander through the garden both for exercise and to say a final goodbye to the place where I had spent the better part of the past eight years. Next morning, I would go with Madame Sato to the country house she had leased for me, and never see Madame Ozawa’s house or grounds again.

  I lingered late into the night by the spring and the abalone shell mosaic. On impulse, I dropped my robe and waded into the water. My breath hissed through my teeth as the frigid water lapped my navel, but I dropped deeper into the spring. I wanted to feel this alone—the icy cold enveloping me, blunting pain, and eclipsing memories. When numbness overwhelmed me, I finally withdrew and pulled my woolen robe around me without a shiver. Then I froze—paralyzed by what I saw, or imagined I saw.

  Shin stood by the garden wall, silent and still.

  There was a time not long before when I would have run to him, but at that moment, uncertainty bound me motionless behind the broad leaves of the palm plant. In a short space of time, everything had changed. I had altered. I had watched people die. Had killed them myself. My mind had yielded to a new and powerful influence I could neither understand, nor control.

  I wanted to call out to him, to throw my arms around him. For one moment, I imagined the force of my want alone could project us both far away to safety. But I couldn’t move…couldn’t unhinge my jaw to speak a voluntary word. And when I reached within and found strength to move, I discovered it was propelled by fear.

  I ran like I hadn’t since childhood, straight out of the garden gate, down a public street and up an abandoned mountain road. My feet bare of protection, pounding the cold earth and numbing to senselessness with every impact. My lungs heaved for breath, but not for rest. Nervous energy propelled me upward, and I couldn’t think—couldn’t even see through the blur of wind and tears, nor hear through the rumination clattering between my ears.

  Miles from town, I collapsed over an abandoned grave, marked with a half buried stone stele. There I retreated into the recesses of my haunted mind, mingling with the dead spirits beneath me for the duration of the night.

  By noon the following day, I was lucid again, filthy and ragged, but I could walk. By early afternoon, I had returned again to Madame’s garden, where Madame Sato had waited for me.

  19

  Madame Sato’s promised farmhouse was a rustic, drafty affair with a grass roof and an infestation of praying mantis. I was well satisfied with it.

  The surrounding wall was sturdy and high, closed by a heavy steel lock impossible to force. Madame had kept her promise, and I believed that wall would protect both me, and others from me. I was prepared to stay there for a very long time, and the rest of my life if necessary.

  Madame Sato also provided me with reel upon reel of raw silk. It filled the largest room in the house and I began work at once. Looking back, it was a mistake to do so, but with a room filled with silk, I didn’t know how to work gradually. I wove through the night and the succeeding day. I slept in short stretches, as had been my former habit.

  I was surprised with my work. It wasn’t the silk of sunshine and flora I had worked under Shin’s protection. The shadows of my past had combined to produce a new quality in my weaving. The work yielded emotion of a type I had never produced before. So visceral was the effect, I withheld much of it from Madame Sato for shame and embarrassment.

  When I did show a piece to her, she viewed it silently. I couldn’t tell what she thought of it, but she took it all away without complaint.

  Then she resupplied my thread—this time with a fortune in raw silk. I worked quickly and steadily. The product would not dress brides, perhaps, but it was filled with emotion and my execution was perfect. At last, I was resolved. I would show Madame everything.

  As it happened, I showed her much more than I had anticipated.

  * * *

  The eve off Madame’s scheduled arrival, I descended into dreams. I had no memory of having done it, but I awakened to a ruin of creation. The silk was strewn about me, sliced to brilliant ribbons. I had destroyed it. All of it.

  Fear clutched the pit of my stomach. I had ruined a fortune. Madame would know, and once knowing the truth of my madness, she would cast me out. She would be well justified in making an accusation. I would be tried. The evidence was abundant and a judge would certainly be sympathetic to a noble woman. At last, I would be executed.

  Madame’s knock resounded like the crash of judgment I anticipated, and I ran to hide, but couldn’t prevent her entry. She had a key, and at last she used it.

  Madame’s shocked gasp for air hissed through the hall as she entered and viewed the silk strewn in ruined heaps up to her knees. I believe she examined every piece before she began her search for me. The minutes lengthened to hours.

  At last, she found me where I crouched, within the futon closet, fists clenched and jaw trembling. “I’m mad, Madame. Now kill me.”

  Madame Sato was not young, but she was yet strong. She grabbed me hard by the wrists and pulled me from the closet. “Get out of there!”

  I collapsed at her feet and sobbed.

  She stood silently above me for a seemingly interminable interval. Finally, she
spoke. “Don’t you have a drop of tea anywhere? I cannot think without tea.”

  Madame brewed a pot in the kitchen while I lay, still tearful and confused under a heap of silk threads. She emerged from the kitchen with a steaming pot, and served me a cup. She took tea in silence for ten minutes. Then she asked, “Have you a comb?”

  “A comb?”

  She combed my hair, and composed my robe. When I was neat and seated in polite seiza, she finally spoke to me. “I think we must re evaluate our strategy.”

  “Madame, I—”

  She made an impatient gesture with one hand. “Anyone can see what you have done here. Destruction is the obverse of a creative mind. You have great creativity. But you must find your center again, or you will ruin me.”

  I couldn’t believe what I heard her say.

  “The loss here is quite extensive. I will not supply you with so much temptation forthwith. Take a week and rest. Try to recuperate your strength. Work with something besides silk for a while. I can send you something. Busy yourself with that. Take time in your garden. When you feel quite well, then I will supply more raw silk.” She paused. “How does that sound?”

  I managed a groveling expression of gratitude.

  “I cannot get my money back by punishing you. And it is obvious you did not destroy it purposefully. I need you to be well so that I can make back my losses. In the meantime, I will take some pieces of what you have done and see if they might be salvaged somehow. Goodbye, Furi.”

  * * *

  I requested seeds from Madame, and started them in small pots. And in the early spring, I planted the garden, which was then uncultivated outside of two lonely plum trees. I pruned the plum trees and planted an additional persimmon. Finally, I began turning over a piece of ground for a vegetable garden.