Death of a Doll Maker (13 page)

As he strolled into the salesroom, a young shop attendant rushed forward to wait on him. Saburo asked about mirrors. Shown several very elegant items well beyond his means, he picked the best, a bright silver mirror, and checked the looks of his beard and mustache, going so far as to carry it to the door to admire his appearance by daylight.

He was secretly amazed and excited by the change the facial hair made. The horrible, deep and disfiguring scars around his mouth and left cheek were completely hidden. What still showed was nearly unnoticeable under the make-up paste Lady Sugawara had shown him how to mix. Only his left eye still had the disturbing cast in it, and it rolled uncontrollably unless he concentrated really hard. But he was no longer an ogre.

His hand trembled with emotion as he returned the mirror to the shop attendant and left. It took a while before he was calm enough to concentrate on his job.

The Hayashi house was unremarkable except for its large size. Saburo walked all around the property, noting possible means of ingress, then located a small restaurant a few houses away but within sight of Hayashi’s gate. There he took a seat outside and ordered a bowl of soup. The sun was setting, and people were going home from work. At the Hayashi house, the small gate in the wall opened, and a middle-aged woman walked out, carrying a small bundle in one hand. Saburo decided she was probably Suyin, the cleaning woman.

A short while later, a familiar figure came down the street. The portly gentleman in a green silk robe and neat black cap walked up to the Hayashi gate and announced himself. He was admitted.

Saburo’s memory was excellent. This was the shrine priest Kuroda. There was, of course, nothing suspicious about his visit to the chief of the merchants’ guild. Perhaps he was collecting contributions for his shrine.

But Saburo had barely time to consider this when two porters deposited a sedan chair at the gate. Another familiar figure emerged: the stocky person of Merchant Feng with his pointed chin beard, wearing his Chinese robe, narrow black silk pants, and the peculiar low, square hat worn by Chinese men of means or position. Feng paid the porters and also went through the gate.

Saburo pursed his lips. This was beginning to look like a meeting. He wondered who else would show up. For a very long time, nothing happened. Saburo was forced to pay for another bowl of soup. He had barely tasted this, when other men began to arrive and enter the Hayashi compound. He did not know any of them, but by their ages, clothes, and demeanor they appeared to be merchants or shopkeepers. This was then a regular meeting of the guild members. To prove the matter, the shrine priest soon emerged and walked off.

By then, the sun had set, and dusk was rapidly turning into night. Saburo left his soup partially eaten and walked to the harbor. A nearly full moon shone on a sea like mottled silver. The dark land and the black outlines of distant islands seemed to float upon the water. Now and then a cloud obscured the moon, but along the harbor, lanterns and torches attached to walls of buildings shed yellow pools of light. More lanterns suspended on the boats tied up on shore cast dancing beams across the landing as they rocked with the tide. Farther out in the bay, larger ships were at anchor, and there, too, lights gleamed and disappeared, then gleamed again with the motion of the waves. It was almost like looking at a reflection of the stars, Saburo thought. The bay was beautiful even at night.

Saburo had not shared his master’s uneasiness about Kyushu, but he had also been well aware of a sense of lurking danger. Perhaps nerves were more refined among the nobility. Or else it was the fact that his master had a lot to lose. He had a family he clearly adored and who adored him. Saburo had no such attachments. He could not recall a time when he had ever been afraid of death.

The torture he had suffered at the hands of the enemy he had accepted as well deserved for having been careless. A spy must never be careless. And whatever had happened to his mind later as the result of having his face permanently and cruelly altered with a sharp knife had not instilled fear in him either. But it had done other things to him that he was only dimly aware of. People’s disgust when they looked at him had filled him with anger and disdain for his fellow man. This was doubly true for the women he had met.

Beside the anger there was something else, a weakness he hated to acknowledge. He longed for the sort of human closeness his master had with his family. Tora had it also, and even clumsy, fat Genba had found it.

Saburo would never have it, but he was not afraid.

As he explored the waterfront, Saburo noticed two men, perhaps sailors, meeting with another man beside one of the docked ships. There was a brief argument, then money changed hands and disappeared into the shirt of one of the sailors. Both walked away, heading into town while the other man climbed back on board.

He thought this a promising beginning and followed the sailors. They entered a large wine shop. By the light from lanterns, Saburo saw they were not sailors but thugs, probably Chinese, or of Chinese descent. He deduced this from their tall, muscular build and their flat, broad faces. They wore colorful and new-looking pants and jackets and leather boots on their feet, but they were scum.

Well-paid scum with neatly trimmed hair and beards.

Saburo touched his own facial hair. It itched quite badly, but he didn’t dare scratch for fear of losing patches of his painfully glued and trimmed beard. He had confiscated the hair from the stable boy’s head, and hoped he did not have to maintain his disguise for very long.

The two thugs entered a large wine shop with the impressive name The Dragon’s Lair. Inside, they joined three others, similar types but Japanese.

Saburo was still standing inside the door when the biggest of the Chinese looked up and their eyes met. Saburo had observed before that people could sometimes feel someone staring at them. He let his eyes slide on to another man and so around the room. A waiter appeared by his side, and he sat down and ordered a flask of wine.

Sometime later, he cast another cautious glance at the group and saw the big Chinese reaching for a wine flask. Two of the fingers on his right hand were missing.

It could be coincidence, but Saburo recalled his master’s description of the man in Feng’s shop. He debated whether to stay where he was and incur further expenses for wine, or go outside to hide in some doorway and wait for the big Chinese to come out.

The door opened again, and two children came in, a slight girl and a much younger boy. They were poorly dressed and each carried a birdcage. Passing among the customers, they were offering to sell their songbirds. When they reached the five toughs, a discussion took place, accompanied by raucous laughter. The girl shook her head violently and retreated, pulling the boy with her. One of the men reached for her, causing the boy to shout something at him. The waiter ran over and pointed the children to the door. When the girl did not move quickly enough, the waiter gave her a rough push that made her fall down and drop her cage. A wild fluttering and twittering came from the cage.

Saburo half rose, cursing the incident, which escalated before his eyes when the boy kicked the waiter’s shin and got a loud slap.

The girl scrambled up, snatched the cage, grasped the little boy’s arm, and pulled him away. The outraged waiter followed them to the door, shouting after them.

Saburo subsided in his seat and decided not to leave a tip.

Two poor children.

Trying to earn a few coppers by selling birds.

The girl had not been much older than twelve, he thought, and the boy perhaps nine. He wondered what sort of life they led at home. Why did their parents send them out at night into dangerous places to sell their birds?

In the corner, the Chinese suddenly burst into laughter again. Still grinning, they got up, tossed some coins to the waiter, and walked out.

Saburo would have followed in any case, but there was something troubling about their sudden departure after the two children. He paid a few coppers for his wine and went out into the street.

It was still busy, with lanterns bobbing in the slight breeze from the water and men searching for wine, women, or games. At the end of the street, three of the thugs headed toward the dense warren of streets beyond the wine shops and brothels. They were walking fast. Two of them had disappeared. So had the children. The three abruptly turned a corner.

Saburo sped up to the corner and saw a dark tunnel between the walls of two-story houses. The alley was so narrow not even the fitful moonlight penetrated. There was no sign of the Chinese, but he heard a sudden laugh up ahead, and then a shout. Then sounds of running footsteps receded.

Saburo wished he had dressed for spying. Not only were those clothes black and made for climbing and scaling roofs, but they had a series of clever pockets holding assorted weapons of his former trade. He bent to touch the thin blade he carried in his right boot and plunged into the darkness.

When his eyes adjusted, he knew he was in a poor quarter of tenements for sailors and porters. He quickly became disoriented by the way the alley turned this way and that. Dead ends and switchbacks filled with heaps of refuse or discarded building materials slowed him down. Finally he stopped and listened.

In the distance, he heard laughter again, and a moment later the thin high cry of a woman or child. He ran in that direction, stumbled over something and fell, picked himself up, and came to another dead end.

As he turned back, he saw a faint seam of light on the wall of a building. It marked a door in the back wall of this tenement. He pounded on it. When nothing happened, he kicked and the door flew open. He burst into a small room where a man and two women sat at their meal, their eyes wide with shock and fear at his intrusion.

“Quick,” he gasped. “Some men are attacking two children. Where’s the next street?”

Open-mouthed, they pointed to another door. Saburo pushed back the bar, opened it, and stood in a narrow street. At its end, moonlight fell on some struggling figures. He heard another shrill cry, pulled the knife from his boot, and rushed toward them.

“Halt!” he shouted. “In the name of the governor!” He added a loud whistle for good measure. “Constables! Over here!”

They fell for it. In a moment, all five men had melted into the shadows, leaving behind the slight figures of the two children and their broken bird cages.

The girl was sobbing as she got up and pulled her skirt down. The boy lay unmoving in the street.

Saburo guessed what the animals had been after and was sickened by it. He slowed down, put his knife away, and asked the girl, “Did they hurt you?”

She shrank away from him.

He bent over the boy and found he was alive and breathing, though unconscious. “Don’t be afraid,” he told the girl, straightening up. “I work for the governor as a sort of constable. I noticed those bullies following you and thought I’d keep an eye on them. Being a stranger in this town, I got lost. I hope I wasn’t too late?”

It was a stupid question. The girl was too young to understand. She ignored him and knelt down beside the boy to take him in her arms.

Saburo said. “He’s alive,” to reassure her, hoping the child was not seriously hurt. He had a bloody nose and would probably have a black eye. He bent and felt the back of the boy’s head. It seemed undamaged. As if to prove it, the boy opened his eyes.

“Oh, Kichiro,” the girl cried, “are you hurt?”

He blinked at her and then stared at Saburo. Freeing himself from her arms, he cried, “Don’t you touch my sister. I’ll kill you,” and lashed out weakly at Saburo with a balled fist.

“Don’t,” she cried, catching the flailing hand in hers. “He came to help us.”

The boy closed his eyes and fell back.

Saburo stood and looked around. He did not like this place. Neither did he trust the hoodlums not to come back to take out their frustration and anger on them.

“Where do you children live?” he asked. “I’ll take you home.”

She gestured vaguely down the street. “We’ll be all right,” she said. “It’s not far.”

“Your brother cannot walk,” Saburo pointed out and scooped him up. The child was not exactly light, and he hoped she had spoken the truth about the distance.

“Thank you,” she murmured and went to gather the cages. One was broken and empty. In the other, the bird lay dead. She gave a small moan, removed the limp body and laid it gently in a patch of grass. Carrying both cages, she started off down the street.

Saburo walked behind, the boy occasionally stirring and muttering in his arms. They took a confusing number of streets and alleys to end up in a shrine garden.

The girl passed through this to the back where a ruined building loomed over the trees below. Here, an assortment of bird cages, much like the ones she carried, hung from tree limbs or were stacked against the wall of the abandoned building. There were birds in the hanging cages. Some chirped sleepily.

Saburo stopped and listened carefully. He was still afraid they might have been followed, but all remained still.

The girl walked around the corner of the building to where an open doorway gaped. Entering, she told Saburo, “Wait here, please. There are some boards missing on the stairs. I’ll bring a light.”

Saburo stood, his arms aching a little, and looked about. It was very dark, but he could see the rickety staircase rising precariously into the darkness above. Below, the blackness was broken here and there by what must be open windows or holes in the roof.

A shimmer of light appeared above, and the girl came down. She carried an oil lamp. Saburo started up the stairs, watching out for missing and broken steps, worrying over whether the stairs would support their weight.

Upstairs, grass mats had been hung from rafters and across windows to make a small space in an empty, open area reminding him of a warehouse. The floor was scrupulously swept. An old trunk, a small bamboo rack with a few chipped dishes, a small pile of bedding, and a bird cage with a bird made up the furnishings.