The Crane Pavilion (2 page)

So quickly can a man’s fortune turn from happiness to despair. All was lost. Nothing would ever be well again.

At that moment, Koshiro hated Lady Ogata as he had never hated anyone before.

2
The Sadness of Autumn

Less than a mile from the site of Lady Ogata’s death, Tora also sat in the sunshine on his small veranda. He, too, had eaten his morning gruel and contemplated the day ahead. Behind him, he could hear the voices of his wife Hanae and son Yuki. He, too, felt a sense of contentment.

But unlike Koshiro, Tora was fully aware that not all was well. It was autumn again, and they were home, and there were the shouts and laughter of children again, but the gloom of death hung heavy over this house.

The master had returned, a shadow of his former self, to his motherless children.

Lady Tamako had died in childbirth in the spring while her husband served as governor in distant Kyushu. Tora and Saburo had been with him, and they had feared for his sanity when he learned what had happened, knowing that his lady had been dead and buried weeks before he got the news and that it would be more weeks before he would set foot in his house again.

Tora got up and went inside where Hanae was putting away the bedding and tidying their main room. She was small and agile, his pretty Hanae, a former dancer and still as graceful and desirable as when they had first met. These days there was a new fear in his heart that he might give her a child again and she might die like Lady Tamako. After his return, he had hesitated to take her in his arms and make love to her, and she had wept until he explained. Now, they lay together again, but still he was afraid. All their lives had changed.

Yuki put his head in. “I put the firewood next to the fireplace, Mother,” he announced. When he saw his father, his eyes lit up. “Will you give me another stick fighting lesson today, Father?”

Tora was proud of his sturdy son, but the mention of stick fighting reminded him of his master. He had taught Lord Sugawara the moves and strategies of combat with a fighting stick many years ago when they had both been young and full of energy and laughter. Oh, how sadly things had changed!

“Another day perhaps,” he said vaguely and saw Yuki’s face fall. “Perhaps you and I can exercise the horses later,” he added.

Yuki clapped his hands. “I’ll go brush them now, Father,” he cried and disappeared.

Tora and Hanae looked at each other.

“I feel ashamed,” he said. “I have so much, and the master …” His voice trailed off.

She nodded. “He hardly eats and spends all his time sitting in his dark room. And the children have become so quiet. It’s bad for all of them. What should we do?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. We have all tried. His family and his friends. We’re still trying. I’d better look in on him, but the gods know I hate seeing him like this.”

She nodded. “Stay with him. Talk to him. Mention the children. It may help.”

“I’ll try, but he always sends me away when I remind him of them.”

*

Saburo had spent the night with Shokichi, a prostitute he had met a year ago while investigating the murder of a brothel owner. He was very fond of Shokichi, the first and only woman to treat him as a normal man. The disfigurement of his face that made him look like a goblin had frightened both children and adults.

These days he no longer looked quite so terrifying. He had grown a mustache and beard that hid most of the worst scars and deformities, and he used a paste concocted by Lady Tamako to conceal the rest. Except for one eye that he had trouble controlling he looked almost normal. But Shokichi had liked him even when he was a monster. She almost had not recognized him when he returned from Kyushu and went to visit her.

In the beginning, he had been shy and very careful not to expect anything beyond friendship. In fact, he had kept his distance, merely taking her to a restaurant now and then, or to a temple fair, or for a walk by the river under the late-flowering cherry trees. And there she had finally burst into tears.

Dismayed, he had begged her forgiveness for whatever he had done.

“It’s what you haven’t done,” sobbed Shokichi.

“I’ll do it,” he cried. “Right away. Just tell me what it is.”

That had made her chuckle through her tears. “Oh, Saburo, How could you be so dense? I want you to make love to me.”

He had gaped at her.

“I want you to lie with me,” she had said more insistently. “A man should want to lie with a woman if he likes her. Don’t you want to? Ever?”

He had been speechless with delighted surprise. “Yes, of course, but … but—.” How to explain that he did not want her “services” but rather her love?

Her face fell. “Oh, Saburo. I’m sorry. I didn’t think. Is it that you cannot? Is it some wound? Something else those monsters did to you?”

Grinning foolishly, he had shaken his head. His arms had reached for her. And then he had kissed her so passionately that she had gasped, “Come, let’s go to my room now.”

And so Saburo had allowed himself to be seduced under the cherry trees and had made love to Shokichi ever since, as often as he could manage, to make up for years of near-celibacy.

His mind being thus occupied with love and being frequently away from home, he had been less affected than the others by the sadness which hung over the Sugawara compound. But he too had seen what his master had become. Most mornings, Saburo worked at estate matters by himself. On the few occasions when Akitada wandered into his study, he had merely stood for a moment, murmuring “Good Morning,” and then wandered out again. Saburo began to realize that his presence was what drove his master away. So he hurried with his work and left the place to the man who spent most of his time sitting there or on the veranda, brooding.

It was all very upsetting, and Saburo knew that Tora and Genba and the women were becoming frantic with worry. He felt guilty for escaping into the arms of Shokichi. And when he remembered Lady Tamako’s kindness to him and how she had mixed her pastes and paints until she achieved just the right shade for his skin, how she had understood his embarrassment, yet had been firm about teaching him her skill, then he felt most deeply ashamed. He had wept when the news had come to Kyushu. It pained him that they were probably thinking he did not care, that he, the most recent to join the Sugawara family, had not formed the bonds of loyalty and family they had. And so he fled whenever he could.

*

Genba’s wife was expecting a child. She had been afraid to hope. Her life as a prostitute had meant so many forced abortions that she had been certain she could no longer bear children. Or, what was even worse, she feared she might bear a deformed child. She watched him as he played with the master’s children, and tears rose to her eyes to think that she might disappoint him, this gentle mountain of a man who doted on children and animals and all things weak.

She pitied the master’s children, as did Genba. He spent too much time with them while chores were left undone. They should be more with their father, but he was so changed that he frightened them, and they much preferred Genba or Tora to keep them company.

Yasuko was getting to be a handful these days. She was seven now and lorded it over her little brother Yoshitada, Yoshi for short. Yoshi was five and timid. Tora frequently shook his head when Yoshi was fearful of the rough games his son Yuki played with Yasuko. To Ohiro’s mind, this was all backwards. Yasuko should be calm and ladylike, and her brother should be the one to play boys’ games. She had pointed this out to her husband, but he had simply laughed and said, “Children have their own ways. Just so long as they’re happy.”

But the master’s children were not really happy. They had cried and cried after their mother and their new brother had died. They had cried again when their father returned and had barely smiled at them. And now they stayed away from him, and he from them.

*

Akitada was unaware of the concern he caused his household. He was unaware of life around him in general. He ate what they brought him, answered their questions vaguely, stared at his children when they came to make their morning bows to him and murmured a greeting and the admonition to be good children and run along.

He was preoccupied with thoughts about the emptiness of his world. Not about the emptiness the Buddhist priests talked about when they meant the various human pursuits like lust, ambition, greed, desire, jealousy, and anger, but rather a very specific state affecting him alone, a man suddenly bereft of all that made his efforts meaningful. He no longer took pleasure in the beauty of the garden, the graceful movements of the
koi
in his pond, the challenge of tricky legal cases, or the discovery of a killer, and even—may the gods forgive him—the laughter of his children.

The swallows had returned to his house and had nested as before under the eaves outside his study. This had pained him, because the continuance of life was only a few steps from death. And there had been another death: the wisteria outside Tamako’s pavilion had died during the summer.

He read doom in this. Doom for himself and the rest of his life, which seemed to him to have begun with his marriage to Tamako, marked by his presenting her with a flowering branch from this very plant. The wisteria had been near death once before. That time they had drifted apart in mutual recriminations over Yori’s death. It had revived, as had their love. They had both become stronger. And now there was no more hope. What was he to do with himself?

A scratching at the door brought Tora. Akitada wished him away and did not greet him.

Tora glanced at the untouched bowl of rice and vegetables. “You must eat, sir,” he said.

“Leave me alone if you have nothing better to offer,” snarled Akitada.

“I can go to the market.” Tora tried a grin.

Akitada merely glared. “What do you want?”

“They’ve sent again from the ministry. The minister wonders if you’re ill.”

“Then tell him I am. Maybe then they’ll leave me alone.”

Tora sat down uninvited. “I doubt it. I think the minister would hurry over with his personal physician.”

“Send them to the devil if they come. I don’t want to see anyone.”

A heavy silence fell.

“There are the children,” Tora said after a while.

“What about them?”

“You are their father. You owe them something. Her ladyship would be appalled.”

Akitada jumped up. “How dare you? Get out!”

Tora paled, got up, and walked out like a beaten dog.

An hour later he came back to open the door with the words, “Superintendent Kobe, sir.”

Kobe walked in with a smile on his face, but before he could say anything, Akitada cursed.

Kobe stopped in his tracks. “What’s this?” he demanded. “I don’t recall you using such language before. What’s twisted your tail in a knot? And what have I done to get such a greeting?”

Akitada barely glanced at him. “Not you. Tora. I told him I didn’t want to see anyone only a moment ago.”

Kobe glanced at the congealed food and sat down. “Any chance of getting a cup of wine? I had a hot walk over here.

For a moment it looked as though Akitada would get up and leave, but he relaxed again and clapped his hands.

Tora’s face appeared in the door opening.

“Get these dishes out of here and bring some wine,” Akitada snapped, giving him an evil look.

Tora grinned, gathered up the tray with the uneaten food, and murmured, “Right away, sir.”

“He’s grown intolerable,” grumbled Akitada as soon as the door had closed behind him.

“You’re the one who’s grown intolerant. Tora loves you, as does the rest of your household. And your friends as well. It isn’t right to treat us like enemies.”

Akitada looked away. “I have not treated anyone as an enemy,” he protested feebly.

“And your children suffer. Your wife would be shocked, could she see it.”

Akitada clenched his hands. Then he got to his feet, and without a look or word, he left the room and went outside into the garden. It was unforgivably rude, but he could bear no more of this. Kobe had visited regularly, but never had he spoken as harshly as this. He felt tears rise to his eyes, hot and burning, and he bit his lip hard to gain control. He could not bear the thought of Tamako’s anger from beyond the grave, yet, he also could not find the strength to speak to his children. He had tried many times and each time he had run out of words and felt close to tears. He did not want them to see him weep and burst into tears themselves. Better they should play with Genba and Tora or be coddled by the women. They were too young to grieve.

A step crunched on the gravel behind him and Kobe put a hand on his shoulder. “Forgive me,” he said. “I’ve run out of ideas how to help you, and lost my patience.”

Akitada choked back the lump in his throat. “Your patience? You surprise me. I didn’t know you had any,” he said. The smile which was to accompany the comment failed.

But Kobe grip on his shoulder tightened briefly before he took his hand away. “Would you like me to send my children’s tutor over? Or could the children come to my house? My children would like that very much.” Kobe was pleading.

Emotion gripped Akitada again. “Thank you,” he choked out. “Yes, perhaps something like that … I suppose I should have … Time has a way of slipping past.”

“Good. I’ll send the man over. You’ll like him. He did very well at the university but unlike you he failed miserably as a young official and is now forced to earn his living teaching children.”

Akitada thought about his own career. Had he done well? He doubted it. And now? It was probably over. He had left his post in Kyushu without permission, had not reported when he reached the capital, and had not returned to his former position at the ministry. He had done nothing.

Fujiwara Kaneie had sent for him and later called in person, but Akitada had claimed illness so as not to have to deal with him. Would he end up teaching other people’s children? It was ridiculous when he could not even manage to teach his own. For the first time, it struck him that he had no income and that hunger and homelessness might be more unbearable than grief.