Rashomon Gate (45 page)

Akitada smiled at her. "No. Of course not. Come in, Yoshiko!" How pretty she was getting! He had spent too little time with his sisters lately.

She slipped in, in her night clothes, and sat down decorously next to his bedding. "I came to report on our guests, but I see you were going to sleep."

"Never mind! I was still awake, and it was very kind of you. Please go ahead!"

"The young lord is very nice and polite for his age. Our mother has provided him with books, games and musical instruments. He spends much time with Tora, but Akiko and I have paid him visits and played some games with him. We also performed on the zither for him. He made very flattering speeches to us."

"I am gratified to hear that my family is so conscientious in entertaining a guest," Akitada said, suppressing a smile.

"Our other guest is also very pleasant, but sad."

Akitada's smile vanished. "That is natural under the circumstances. Tamako has lost her father and her home. Besides it cannot be a very happy prospect to become a nun at her age." He added in a tone of finality, "And now, if you are finished, I had better try to get some sleep. I have a full day tomorrow."

But his sister did not budge. "It is my belief," she said stubbornly, "that Tamako does not wish to become a nun at all."

"Neither you nor I can interfere in the matter," Akitada said curtly, "and I forbid you to speak to her about it."

"Why don't
you
speak to her? We are all so very fond of her, and even Mother hoped you two would marry. Tamako has been massaging Mother's neck when she gets those headaches and steaming herbs for her to inhale. Now Mother thinks Tamako can cure anything. If you could just bring yourself to tell her how you feel, I know she would change her mind."

"Enough!" thundered Akitada. "This is none of your business!"

Frightened by his fury, his sister jumped up and retreated to the door. There she stopped, tears welling over, and cried in a trembling voice, "I don't care if you hate me, but it seems to me that you should stop telling her that you think of her as your sister. It would confuse any girl who was hoping to marry you." She gulped and slipped out.

Akitada's anger turned to blank astonishment. Then he started to laugh. It was probably just some female foolishness. Surely Tamako would not have rejected his offer for such a childish reason, but . . . Suddenly resolute, he rose. He had to make certain.

The gallery and courtyard between his room and the women's quarters were dark and silent. He was glad he had sent Hitomaro and Genba to bed. Walking softly on bare feet toTamako's room, he seated himself on the veranda outside her door and cleared his throat. At first there was no response. He repeated the sound, somewhat louder this time.

From inside the closed shutters came the rustling of bedclothes. "Who is there?" a soft voice asked.

"Akitada."

Another rustling and Tamako slid open the door. "Akitada! What is it?"

Akitada looked at her in the dim light. Her long, thick hair was loose and streamed over the thin white silk of her under-robe. She looked anxious. With her face slightly flushed from sleep, she was very beautiful. He was overcome with longing, and realized that he had no idea how to broach the matter of a possible misunderstanding.

"I wanted to see you," he said lamely.

"Oh! I thought . . . what about?"

He frantically searched his mind. This surely was not the time to discuss his suspicions about her father's death. Neither could he tell her about his sister's visit. "To apologize," he finally muttered, "for this morning. I was rude. I should not have spoken to you that way."

She smiled a little sadly. "No need to apologize. I know you were upset out of concern for me. It is quite natural and I thank you for caring."

Akitada shifted uncomfortably. "I . . . I cared for myself more, I think. The thought of . . ."He took a deep breath and plunged. "It has occurred to me that you might think that I wished to marry you because we have always been very close; that is, like brother and sister, and because I owed your father a debt of gratitude. But that was not it at all."

Her eyes were very bright in the moonlight. "No?"

Akitada gave a her a beseeching look. "You must understand that our relationship in the past has tended to obscure my true feelings." He stopped, flushing with embarrassment at his stilted language. "What I mean is that I never realized until I saw you again how much I really loved and needed you."

She gave a soft sigh. "I did not know," she whispered. Suddenly she extended her hand. "Let me see your hands, please!"

He hesitated, then held them out, palm down. She turned them over gently and peered at the scarred skin. "Oh," she sighed. "I did not know it was so very bad." Her eyes sought his. "Seimei came to me for herbs. I see they are healing. Do they still pain you very much?"

He hid his hands in his sleeves, and shook his head. Her concern had filled him with hope. "You will change your mind then? We will be married after all?"

"I don't know," she faltered. "I am so confused."

"Ah! Yoshiko was right then! It was all a silly mistake. She said that you were confused because I had been treating you like a sister. Was that it? Was that the reason you rejected my offer?"

"Yoshiko told you this?" Tamako cried, moving even farther away from him. "Oh, how embarrassing!" She hid her face in her hands.

Akitada saw her withdrawal and began to feel foolish. He had hoped in vain and now he had made her uncomfortable when she had told him plainly that she did not wish the subject to be mentioned again. He sighed.

Tamako lowered her hands. "That was not the only reason," she said softly. "Father told me that he had proposed the match to you and that you seemed surprised, but had agreed to think about it. Oh, Akitada! I could only think how Father had taken advantage of your good nature to force you into an unwanted marriage. Of course I could not agree to that. I was angry with him for a long time, but in the end I saw that he acted out of love for me. Father was not well and wanted to see me settled before his death."

"Oh!" said Akitada. "But . . ."He stopped, for he remembered how bitterly he had resented Hirata's manipulation. How to explain that he had come to want her and love her for her own sake?

At his hesitation, Tamako withdrew a little further into herself. "And now," she said in a brittle voice, "you offer again, but this time out of pity and obligation or whatever foolish notion you may have. I simply cannot accept such a sacrifice."

"Sacrifice?" he cried. "What sacrifice, when I have spent the past weeks agonizing over losing you? When I have worried about your reason for rejecting me until I could not concentrate on my work or on the murders! I thought of my poverty and of my mother's difficult temperament, of my plain face and my dull conversation, my lack of poetic talent and my undistinguished career, and, driven to the point of insanity, even of another man."

"Oh!"Tamako gasped and hid her face again.

Ashamed, he prepared to leave, saying in a choking voice, "Forgive this rude visit, please! It is late and I have disturbed your sleep."

She took her hands from her face and touched his arm. "Please, don't go!" she murmured. He saw that her cheeks were wet with tears, but in her eyes shone a deep happiness.

For a moment he was confused. Then the confusion changed to amazement and joy. He was up in an instant with an incoherent cry of endearment. Sweeping her into his arms, he carried her inside.

The sun was just rising over the gabled roofs of his home when Akitada stepped down into the main courtyard. Tora was at the well, drinking water from the ladle and then sluicing off his head and arms.

"Tora," Akitada called.

"Just coming, sir. It's still early,"Tora cried cheerfully, drying himself with the skirt of his cotton gown.

"I know. I want you to take this to Miss Hirata," Akitada said, extending a branch of flowering wisteria with a twist of paper attached to it.

Tora received this with a look of consternation. "Wisteria? And in bloom. Where did you find that? We don't have any."

"I walked to the Hirata garden this morning. The vine survived the fire and I found this single late blossom."

Slowly understanding dawned in Tora's eyes. "Well done, sir!" he cried. "My heartiest congratulations to both of you."

"Thank you," Akitada said stiffly, and turned to go back to his room.

There he waited anxiously for her reply. His experience with composing next-morning poems was minimal, and his skill at composition fragmentary at best, but he had left her, fast asleep in the darkness, knowing what he wished to say. All the way to her garden and back he had rehearsed the words in his head:

Tora returned quickly, still grinning broadly. He extended the wisteria branch, now without its bloom, but with a bit of paper, tinted a delicate shade of purple, tied into a bow around it.

"Thank you. You may go," Akitada said, already eagerly undoing the paper as Tora walked out the door whistling a popular love song.

She had written:

He read her words several times, then tucked the slip of paper carefully inside his gown where it rested against his bare skin. A moment later Seimei stuck his head in. He entered smiling, carrying a tray.

"I have brought your morning rice," he said. "It is a great day for the house of Sugawara, sir."

Akitada felt himself flush. "Er, thank you, Seimei. I see you have spoken to Tora." He drank his tea thirstily. "I think we shall plant some wisteria in the garden," he remarked, turning to the boiled rice and pickled radish. "Remind Tora to see to it."

The following day passed with dreary slowness. Akitada chafed under his teaching duties, his mind distracted by thoughts of Tamako and the extraordinary way in which another human being had suddenly become his, closer than any sister ever could be, or any parent, and more necessary to him, in a way, than food, water or air. His skin warmed at the thought of holding her in his arms again.

However, he owed it to her and to her dead father to catch his murderer, and he was determined to do so this very night, before returning home. The risk, he hoped, would be negligible. He had guarded against surprises. Now that he had new responsibilities, he could not afford to play the hero.

These thoughts preoccupied him, causing him to forget to set the students a topic for their next lesson, and made him stare blankly at Ushimatsu when he asked permission to go to the latrine. Even after the students finally left, he sat looking dreamily into space.

"Sugawara? May I come in?"

Akitada blinked and saw to his astonishment the burly music master in his doorway. "Yes, of course, Sato."

"I took a chance." Sato bowed briefly and cast a glance at the papers scattered over Akitada's desk. "Am I interrupting?"

"Not at all. Please sit down. A cup of wine?"

In the slanting light of the setting sun, Sato's large eyes looked like black pools under his heavy brow. He seemed ill at ease. "I won't stay long. No, no wine, thank you. I came to see you on a personal matter." He sat.

Akitada asked, "What is it?"

"It's about Oe's murder. That police captain stopped by this afternoon to ask more questions. He sounded . . . I don't know . . . it seemed like a veiled threat. He said the case was about to be solved and that you were assisting the police. Is that true?"

Akitada felt a flash of irritation with Kobe. He had expected more discretion from the man. He said, "Kobe may have exaggerated. It is true that I have shared some of my conclusions."

Now Sato looked distinctly frightened. "I knew it. You told him about me, and now he thinks I did it! Please, you must believe me when I say that I had nothing to do with Oe's death."

Akitada raised his eyebrows. "What makes you think I suspect you?"

"Don't pretend!" cried Sato. "You saw me with Omaki, and I could tell what you thought of me. Then, as my lousy luck would have it, you walked in when my wife was visiting. When I could not explain the situation, you assumed I was entertaining another female, and that Oe was about to dismiss me with good cause. I'm the one with the perfect motive. Believe me, I often fantasized about killing the bastard, but I did not do it."

"That talented lady was your wife? In the Willow Quarter, I am told, she goes by the name Madame Sakaki."

Sato bit his lip. "Her professional name. She could hardly work there under my name."

"I see the problem. But surely you put your wife into an impossible situation? She is a true artist. Could she not have found a more respectable setting for her performances?"

A look of acute misery passed over Sato's face. "I know she deserves much better, but we are poor and have six small children and two sets of parents to support. My salary here does not begin to feed all those mouths. And I am afraid we are not in the class of those who are invited to the parties of the great."

Embarrassed by the naked shame in the other man's face, Akitada looked out at the deserted courtyard. The heat shimmered on the gravel, and there was a strange sulphurous hue to the green of the trees. A hot wind was rustling through the dry weeds outside the veranda. "I think," he said, turning back to Sato, "you should tell your story to the president of the university. I have found Bishop Sesshin a very understanding man, and he may be able to help your wife. He has many friends among the great.

"I wish I could be more reassuring about Kobe. Though I did not discuss your situation with him, he has other sources, and I am afraid he knows that Oe was not the kind of man who would have accepted your wife's occupation calmly."