The Pillow Book of the Flower Samurai (3 page)

O Goddess of Mercy, let me be on my best behaviour. I must please my father and mother. I cannot fail with the buckets, too.

Head down, I studied the flowers on my smock, inside out, almost as pretty. I wriggled my toes in my sandals and made tiny puffs of dust escape through their worn straw. I hoped he would hurry. I could not be late to the fields.

‘Girl. What is your name?’

Shrill as a buzzard-hawk, his voice prickled over my skin. I held the yoke firmly, ready to run. ‘Honourable sir, I am Fifth Daughter.’

‘You will do. Better than your sister.’

Better than my sister?

‘Walk beside my horse,’ he said. ‘I will take you to your father’s fields.’

My sister had met the priest. Which sister? Fourth Daughter? Or Second? Why had she not told us? Father might wonder why Fourth Daughter had not brought the water.

I imagined Father’s praise for bringing a divine person to our field. Had Fourth Daughter already brought him? The priest could bless our crops this dry spring. Would that be better than my sister? Today I would make Father proud. I shifted and balanced the yoke between my fingers and palms, and gazed ahead at the priest’s back.

What a fortunate day.

II. The Negotiation

As we reached our field, men and horses approached from behind a nearby hill, the one with the mulberry grove. Four sweaty men in loincloths held up a palanquin. Horses and samurai surrounded them as they strained to set it on the ground. Only one person in the world had such a transport.

The richly dressed man who stepped out had to be – could only be – Proprietor Chiba no Tashiyori, the Above-the-Clouds person who owned all the fields and was as rich as anyone in the world. Father said important people, the people Above-the-Clouds, had servants to carry them. They did not walk on the ground like us.

With care I trudged next to Father. My shoulders burned. My neck throbbed, despite the cloth and Mother’s kiss. My eyes begged him for permission to take the yoke off.

He glanced down and the ends of his mouth lifted. His big crooked tooth laughed outside his lower lip. With one fingertip he tapped the end of my nose. Father gestured to my brothers. First Son came over and escorted me to the far corner of our plot. There, he relieved me of my heavy burden. We watched. No one spoke.

The priest left his black horse and strolled over to my father. His small eyes glistened in the near midday sun. When he opened his mouth, his black teeth made his face look like a skull. I trembled. First Son stepped closer to me, placed his big hand on top of my head, drumming his fingers in the gentle, playful way he always did.

Rubbing my stinging neck, I watched. This priest spoke to Father, but I could not hear their words. Proprietor Chiba motioned to the priest and next placed his forearms across his belly. The priest nodded, then laid his open hand on my father’s back, pushing him towards the proprietor. When Father reached the proprietor, he bowed until his knees, hands and forehead touched the ground.

When he rose, he stood with his hands at his sides. Proprietor Chiba pointed to our fields and to each of my brothers. Father’s shoulders slumped, and he stared at the ground. He and Proprietor Chiba spoke back and forth. I was still too far away to hear the words. This priest, his thin lips moulded into an odd smile, spoke to my father.

My father turned and waved for me to come. I did so and bowed. ‘Stand. The honourable proprietor wishes to see you.’

Looking down, I rubbed the dirt off my smock and trousers and wiped my face.

I bowed like my father. Proprietor Chiba told me to rise. One of his fingers pressed under my chin, pushing my face up. With two fingers of his other hand he rubbed my cheek.

‘Yes, Goro. Very good.’ Proprietor Chiba nodded and spoke to the priest. ‘In fact, perfect.’ He released my face. ‘Now, Fifth Daughter, off to your brothers.’

The priest and Proprietor Chiba thought I was perfect. I left, imagining what kind of reward my family would receive because of my good work.

My father, the priest and Proprietor Chiba continued to talk. The exchange took longer than the finishing touches to a meal when I was hungry. What were they doing? Perhaps they were going to reward me for carrying the buckets.

Father motioned to me again, and I hurried over.

I studied him, noticing his colourless face, his lowered eyes. There would be no reward.

‘I can hardly believe I must say this to you, my child.’ He gulped. ‘Proprietor Chiba has offered me . . . us . . . our family . . . the extra land we have talked about so often. In good harvest years, we would not need to sell sewing for our winter food or charcoal.’

I heard such longing in his voice.

Father’s throat bobbed. His fingers caressed my sore shoulders, and tears pooled in his eyes. ‘But, Fifth Daughter, Proprietor Chiba wants you in exchange for the land.’

‘The proprietor wants
me
? To do what?’

‘I do not know, but in exchange for the land he wishes you to live with him on his
sh
ō
en
.’

‘For how long?’

My father stood silent. He hung his head.

‘Days? How many days?’ My ears buzzed like a swarm of summer mosquitoes.

‘A lifetime.’

A fist smashed deep into my core. He was talking about selling me. I would go away for ever. Never to return. Disgrace strangled me, like a rope around my neck.

No! Not me! Carrying the pails was Fourth Daughter’s task. I could do other work, not the sewing but other things . . .

‘No, Father! Not see you again?’ The world spun. I seized his thigh to steady myself. Sweat dampened my pink smock.

‘My little Fifth Daughter.’

‘Not me!’

He placed both hands on my back.

‘Do we really need the land?’ Fourth Daughter should have been here. Why was this happening to me?

‘You are my baby, my beloved daughter. How can I sell you?’ he mumbled, as if he were speaking to someone far away, combing my hair with his fingers.

I gazed into his eyes. He had always resolved my troubles. ‘Since it is spring, could I stay at the
sh
ō
en
until after the harvest, then come home? Would that pay for the new field?’

‘There is no other way. For the family, I must sell you.’ His voice embraced a final sorrow.

Tears hit my head. I touched them with my fingers. Father choked a little and placed a large hand on his throat. We stood in our field holding each other. A bush warbler flew over us, singing its beautiful ‘
ho-hoh hokekky
ō
’.

‘I love you, Fifth Daughter, but he . . . he is the proprietor.’ He pulled away and ruffled my hair. ‘The priest says this . . . change . . . will be easier for you because you are younger.’ He laid one hand on mine and rested the other on my head. He swallowed. ‘We have often talked about our family honour. You know how important it is.’

I tried to listen to what he said above the noise in my ears.

‘This you must do so that we keep our honour.’ He squatted. We were face to face, and he narrowed his eyes. ‘You know that our souls belong to our family’s spirit. That is our honour. You must go with Proprietor Chiba. Mantain the family honour.’

I nodded. My lips were too stiff to make words.

My father enclosed me in his arms, put his head against my middle and sobbed with no sounds. I held him. He smelt of dry soil and sweat. When he was calm, he placed a hand on each of my shoulders. ‘Always remember,’ his voice cracked, ‘each day of my life I will love you. Your family loves you. Do your duty by going with Proprietor Chiba and following his orders.’ His large hands encircled my face. ‘I am sad to send you away, but I do so with great honour.’

I wrote his words into my spirit.

Father did not want me to go. I did not want to go. Yet I, Fifth Daughter, would provide my family with a complete new piece of land. I, Fifth Daughter, not Fourth Daughter, would permit my family to have food and charcoal – even in bad-harvest winters. They would never eat soil, as we did two winters ago.

‘Father, I will do my duty. Please tell Mother and my sisters I will bring honour.’ I, Fifth Daughter, had granted my family a gift none of the other daughters could: land. Precious land.

My eyes watered. With clenched hands, I turned and made a low bow to Father and smaller bows to each brother, even to Third Son. Looking up, I saw tears tumbling down Father’s face.

He placed one hand on top of my head and the other on my back. Then he turned and led me to Proprietor Chiba.

I had never heard of a child, once sold, returning to their family. Perhaps I could. If I worked hard at Proprietor Chiba’s, he would have to let me go because I had done my duty so well. I hoped to go home soon. With honour. My family’s honour.

The proprietor grabbed my sore neck and twisted me in the direction of the palanquin, the samurai, the horses, his
sh
ō
en
and a new life.

A large samurai dismounted and strode to Proprietor Chiba and bowed low. ‘Permission to speak? Permission to oversee this one on the walk, my lord?’ He spoke with a quiet growl.

Proprietor Chiba replied in a voice as dark as a winter thundercloud: ‘If you must, Akio. Yes, yes, as usual.’

Proprietor Chiba had spoken differently before. He had changed into another person. The samurai Akio boosted the grunting proprietor into his palanquin and mounted his own chestnut horse.

I surveyed the land to say goodbye and to remember. On my right was a small hill. A large mulberry thicket with little leaf buds grew on its west side. The priest had disappeared and a chill surged up my spine.

Later, I wrote this poem:

Suddenly cold as

The spring’s Solstice Holy Day

My family gone

No one to scatter soybeans

To cast out all my demons

III. New World

Ahead – an endless wall. The
sh
ō
en
. My new home. Without my family.

A man shouted, and five men pushed open the gate, bigger than my house. Was everything going to be so huge?

Inside the gate, the sweating men with sly grimaces and muffled grunts set down the palanquin. The priest dismounted and waited for Proprietor Chiba to stand.

After a small bow, the priest said, ‘If she is satisfactory, I hope you will send word of my accomplishments to the Taira City or, dare I say it, to Governor Taira no Michimori, or his annoying emissaries.’

‘Understood. Word of our actual arrangement to the commander would harm both of us. He would not favour either of us rising any higher.’

‘Chiba, this one is so much more beautiful than the older sister.’ The priest raised one eyebrow and smiled, showing his blackened teeth. ‘The local temple here is, as I have said, becoming quite boring, except for our . . . business.’

More beautiful? Older sister? Fourth Daughter and me?

‘Yes.’ Proprietor Chiba smiled a toothy smile.

‘Proprietor, this is the sixth girl I have directed to you.’

‘Goro . . .’ Proprietor Chiba lifted his palm to the priest.

‘All the girls have been satisfactory. For both of us.’

‘Yes – yes, Tashiko dances well.’ Proprietor Chiba nodded, and his chins jiggled.

Tashiko? Another girl?

‘She is a pretty child, is she not?’ The priest tilted his face down to Proprietor Chiba’s.

‘Not as handsome as this one.’ Proprietor Chiba pointed a pudgy finger at me.

I was handsome? Was I beautiful, too?

‘It is an honour to perform at your temple here on your
sh
ō
en
, but as one is pulled up the ladder . . . so will another. And I must be invited to the Third Day Third Month Doll Festival.’

‘Or what? I have the girl now.’ Proprietor Chiba stuffed his fists on top of his hips.

Did he mean me? I looked about for other girls, yet saw none.

‘Or what? There are so many possibilities, Chiba no Tashiyori. Revoke your tax-exempt status. Remove your samurai or . . .’ The priest counted, one finger, two fingers, three. ‘You may run this
sh
ō
en
but I control some Taira temples. I have influence over the commander, and he owns you. All I desire is a coloured hat.’