Rashomon Gate (19 page)

A scenario not so different from that of the student who had committed suicide. But there was little point in resenting Hirata's hypocrisy or his relief that Akitada would be trapped into staying on after all. He could not refuse the student's appeal. Akitada sighed. "Very well. I shall go to see him."

"What about me?" asked Tora. "You will need me to investigate, but the young lord is waiting to go buy paper and bamboo sticks for our kites."

Akitada turned to Tora with amazement. "You mean you have already won the boy's confidence?" he asked.

"Oh, it was easy enough. For all he's a lord, he was dying for someone to talk to. When I told him about the kite I won my first district contest with, he couldn't wait to try to build one like it."

Akitada clapped Tora on the shoulder. "Excellent!" he cried. "You did better than any of us! I have been trying for many days now to talk to the boy and failed miserably. You must have a special touch with children." Tora preened a little. "Under the circumstances," continued Akitada, "you must keep your promise to Lord Minamoto. But later today, when you are done with the kites, go to see the girl's family. Professor Sato tells me that Omaki was the daughter of an umbrella maker called Hishiya. They live in the sixth ward. She was unmarried and pregnant, as you know, but apparently not particularly worried about her future. Perhaps you can find out something about the men in her life."

When Akitada got to the municipal police headquarters, he discovered to his relief that Kobe was out. Even better, one of Kobe's men recognized him and took him to see the student Nagai.

He found him sitting on the dirt floor of a small, damp cell, lit by a single slit of a window near the ceiling. When the door opened with a rattle of locks and keys, Nagai raised red-rimmed eyes. Akitada was startled anew by the pathetic ugliness of the boy's features, wet and swollen with weeping. Akitada, ashamed of his reaction, greeted the boy with a smile.

The young man stumbled to his feet, but the chains which bound his wrists and ankles made this difficult.

"Please sit down!" Akitada said quickly and seated himself on the bare floor. "I received your note. Exactly what sort of trouble are you in?"

"I am accused of having killed Omaki." The youngster swallowed hard, a prominent Adam's apple bobbing disconcertingly in his long neck. "As if I could!" he cried. "I worshipped her! But things look very bad for me. Only you can help me, sir! They say you have solved many difficult cases. Please, for the sake of my family, clear my name! I don't care anything about myself, but my poor parents and sisters . . ."Tears started down his cheeks. He sniffled, and wiped ineffectually at a running nose with a sleeve already wet with tears.

Akitada regarded him with pity. Tora's estimation had been cruel but correct. The homely face, now red-splotched, the dripping nose and lax mouth made him a most unlikely romantic hero. Such a young man must feel deeply the hurt of rejection by the one person he idolizes. And a girl like Omaki, pretty, pert, ambitious, would have considered the adoration of this youngster, with neither looks nor fortune, a tedious joke. Had she taunted him, tried his patience and devotion too far until he had killed her? Was he the student she had been in the habit of meeting in the park? Or had he followed her and, finding her with another student, lashed out in anger at her betrayal?

"What made the police fix on you as a suspect?" Akitada asked.

"They talked to some of the students and my name came up." Nagai hung his head again. "One of them found a poem of mine and told the others. I was angry at the time, but perhaps it was very foolish of me to think that such a pretty girl could like me. When we first met, she was really nice to me. And she seemed to enjoy going for walks in the park. She told me all about her music, and I told her about my family."

Akitada's heart went out to the poor infatuated youngster. But pity would not clear Nagai of the charges against him. He said, "Your name being mentioned by the other students explains why the police talked to you, but it does not account for your arrest. What else happened?"

Nagai sighed and gave Akitada an imploring look. "We quarrelled, Omaki and I. The day she . . . before she was found. Someone overheard us. And then, when the police searched my room, they found the poems and my diary." He hung his head, twisting his red, bony hands.

"You quarrelled in the park?"

Nagai looked up. "Oh, no!" he cried. "We did not go to the park that day. We talked in the university, just inside the dormitory enclosure. She had finished her lute lesson. I usually waited for her there."

"What did you quarrel about?"

There was a pause. Then Nagai said, "I asked her to marry me. I know I should not have asked her without my father's permission. My family counts on me to do well in the examination. But I was afraid they would forbid it, and I couldn't wait. Well, I thought Omaki needed someone . . . and I thought if I could take the next examination instead of waiting my turn, I might pass. Even if I did not do very well, I could still become a schoolmaster back home. And Omaki and I could live with my parents. She could help my mother, while my father and I could run the school." He shook his head sadly. "I should have known I was being foolish."

Akitada said dryly, "I take it she was not overjoyed by your offer."

An expression of acute pain passed over the young man's face. "She laughed at me! She wanted to know how we would live until I passed the examination. When I suggested that she might give lute lessons or play for guests just a little while longer, she got angry and called me names. She called me r . . . rabbit because of my ears and teeth, and . . . ugly toad and worse things." He flushed and looked at Akitada earnestly. "She was not herself. You see, she was expecting a child. I am told women become very high-strung in that condition."

"Was it your child?"

Nagai hesitated, then shook his head. "No. We didn't . . . it must have happened before we met. I never asked. Some unprincipled person must have taken advantage of her and then deserted her. When she first confided in me, I got the idea that she might consider being married to someone like me."

He looked so completely humiliated that Akitada's heart contracted with pity and he felt increasingly angry with the dead girl. Finding herself pregnant, she meant to marry the infatuated student, but later decided he was not good enough. This change of heart, if you could call it that, confirmed Sato's impression that she had seemed untroubled by her pregnancy and even pleasantly excited. Something had happened to make Hiroshi Nagai dispensable, so that she had felt free to mock and revile his unselfish and sincere devotion before sending him on his way. Her behavior gave him a strong motive to kill her. But Akitada wondered what had happened to change her expectations so drastically.

He told Nagai, "I will try to help you, but you must tell me all you know about her private life, her friends and her family."

The student bowed deeply and expressed his gratitude. Then he said, "I am afraid I don't know much." Looking a little uneasy, he confessed, "I met Omaki in the Willow Quarter. I know it is against the rules for students to visit there, but some of the others took me along one night. We climbed the wall. I was very nervous."

Akitada nodded understandingly. No doubt the lonely, unpopular youngster had accepted the invitation eagerly, even against his better judgment.

"Omaki had a job playing the lute in one of the wine houses we went to. She played as beautifully as she looked." He smiled a little at the memory. "I kept going back there as much as I could, and one day she noticed me and smiled. After her performance I got up the nerve to talk to her. We took a walk by the river. I thought she was wonderful. She talked about herself, how poor her family was and how very unhappy she was. Her stepmother beat her and made her rise before dawn to do all the work, even when she didn't get home from her job in the wine house until very late. She told me many times she wanted to run away or kill herself." Nagai sighed deeply.

"What about the people where she worked? Did she tell you about them?"

"Not much. The auntie at the Willow was always wanting her to sell herself, but Omaki wanted to be an entertainer. I know some people have said bad things about her, but that proves she was a decent girl, doesn't it, sir?"

Akitada did not share this conviction, but nodded. "Who said what about her?" he asked.

"Oh, some of the fellows I went out with. But they were lying. They were always making fun of me." With a bashful glance at Akitada, he said, "I thought maybe they were jealous of me."

"I see. Was there anyone else who knew her well?"

"She was taking lute lessons from Professor Sato. Professor Fujiwara and Professor Sato often go to the Willow. The first time I saw them I was frightened, thinking they would turn us in, but the others told me that I had nothing to worry about. Anyway, Professor Sato being an instructor of the lute, I pointed him out to Omaki. She managed to get him to take her as a private student. That was wonderful, because then I got to see her during the day. We'd always meet after her lesson and sometimes we'd stroll over to the park. Until that last day." He sighed and wiped his eyes again.

"What about other people? Friends, coworkers, regular patrons?"

"There is another lute player at the Willow, but they did not get along. Omaki said the woman was too proud. And the girls were silly and common."

"What about men friends?"

"Omaki had no men friends!" He was emphatic. "She was not a loose woman. I don't care what they say! There were no other men after we met."

They looked at each other. Hiroshi held the gaze defiantly, but Akitada did not know whether the agony so eloquent on the homely face was due to better knowledge, to grief, or to rejection. He sighed and rose. "Very well. It is not much to go on, but I shall try to find out more. Meanwhile, if you can recall anything else, something she said or any gossip about her which might point to other relationships, send me a message."

"This useless person is deeply grateful, sir," said Hiroshi fervently, prostrating himself with a great clatter of chains and knocking his forehead on the ground.

Akitada stood for a moment longer, staring down at the ungainly figure. The deep sadness which filled his own heart seemed to spill over, flooding the small cell and drowning its unhappy occupant and himself. With a shudder, he turned and walked out.

Tora collected the young lord, and together they walked companionably into the city to buy paper and string. The boy's drawn face brightened and his eyes went everywhere when they reached the shopping district. Only his sense of his own importance kept him from stopping in front of every shop to gape at all the goods on display. Eventually, to cover up his unseemly curiosity, he began a conversation with Tora.

"They certainly have a lot of fans in this shop," he would say, and pause to look.

Tora would shoot a careless glance towards the fans, agree, and walk on.

"Do people really eat all those rice cakes that the baker has stacked up on that shelf?"

"Mostly," said Tora. "What he can't sell, he eats himself or donates to a temple for gifts to the deities."

The boy stopped to eye the cakes hungrily. "Isn't that a big waste?" he asked. "Especially when they are jam-filled cakes? Surely the gods don't care much about jam-filled cakes. Do you suppose the monks eat them and pretend the gods have done so?"

Tora, who had perforce stopped also, looked down at the young lord in surprise. "Don't you believe in the gods?" he asked.

The boy turned away after giving the cakes another longing look. "I don't know. I have never seen one eat, or do anything useful." They walked on. "How much do those jam-filled cakes cost?"

"Three coppers. And you can't see gods, because they are spirits." A thought struck Tora. "It's really strange to hear you talk that way about the gods. Is it because they took your grandfather away from you?"

The boy flung around and glared at him. "It was not the gods who took my grandfather!" he cried.

Tora raised his hands. "Sorry! Forget I asked." He did not know what to make of this outburst, but felt guilty for having touched on a painful subject. Belatedly he realized why the boy had asked about the cakes. "Come," he said. "Let's go back to that baker's shop. I'm hungry all of a sudden, and those cakes did smell real good. I like the ones with jam myself. How about you?"

The boy put on an indifferent face and said, "I don't care. You may suit yourself."

Tora went inside, purchased two fragrant cakes, and returned, offering one to the boy.

The little lord accepted the offering without comment or thanks, and bit into it with a good appetite.

"Mmm," muttered Tora through rice crumbs and bean jam. "They
are
good. That jam . . ." he took another huge bite, making the jam spurt out and dribble down his chin, "is delicious."

The boy stared at him and began to giggle. "It's on your nose!" he pointed out, almost choking on his next bite.

Tora cleaned his face. "It's delicious anyplace," he said firmly, licking his fingers. But the boy's eyes had already become fixed on a display of painted paper umbrellas.

"Look," he said. "Aren't they colorful? I have never seen paper parasols before. The only ones I have seen were made of silk. The emperor is carried under a very large one. And they have them in the temples for the abbots. Sometimes my great-uncle gets to walk under one. But these have flowers and birds painted on them. Could we make kites out of them? They are made of paper and wood ribs. All we would need is some silk cord."

"Silk cord?" Tora looked down at the boy with raised brows. "Hemp will do much better and is cheaper. Unless you plan to pay for our stuff, we'll make do with plain paper and hempen cord. We'll pick up the bamboo sticks on the way back. I know where there's a bunch on an empty lot." He shook his head. "The very idea! To make a kite from an umbrella! Why, there's not a whole sheet of paper in the whole thing. It would rip apart in a moment. And think of the money! Don't you know anything?" Seeing the sudden hurt in the boy's eyes, Tora reached out and squeezed the small shoulder gently. "Never mind. You'll learn in no time!"