The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn (14 page)

For his son’s bride, Toshio’s
father had chosen the daughter of another merchant. The father
described the benefits of two great merchant houses uniting through
this marriage. Toshio protested, but to no avail. His father’s
word, like the shogun’s, was law. His children had to obey his
wishes in all things.

The bride’s father and brother
came to meet Toshio. The audience laughed as they sternly
questioned the young man. He tried to make himself appear stupid,
but they were pleased by his modesty. He confessed that he did not
have a great liking for girls, but the relatives reassured him—the
bride didn’t like men either.

From the standpoint of Toshio’s
family, the important thing was that the bride was obedient. When
the marriage took place, she would come to live in Toshio’s
parents’ house. She would serve his parents as if she were their
own daughter. The happiness of the bride and groom was of little
importance. In time, they would have children to carry on the
family name—and the business. The relatives departed, bowing deeply
to Toshio and his father, who returned the gesture. The prospective
groom had been accepted. No one except the audience saw Toshio’s
misery.

Toshio’s family unfolded their
tatami mats and set- tied in for the night. But after everyone else
was asleep, Toshio sneaked away. The stage darkened, and the stage
crew swiftly set up a new scene. As the lanterns lit up again, the
audience saw a teahouse in the “floating world.” The silhouette of
a beautiful geisha was reflected onto a paper screen. Softly she
played the samisen and sang a mournful song, lamenting her lover
who had failed to come to her tonight.

Seikei sat up abruptly, mouth
open, staring at the screen with the shadow-image of the geisha.
That was exactly what he had seen on the screen of his room in the
Tokaido Inn. What he had imagined were the horns of the jikininki
were actually the pins that the geisha stuck in her thick hair.
This was the ghost.

Toshio appeared out of the
darkness and came tiptoeing up to the teahouse. He tapped twice on
the screen. A high voice—exactly like a woman’s—called out, “Who is
there?”

“It is Toshio. I have come.
Please, I must see you.” Fascinated, Seikei could not tear his eyes
away as the screen slowly slid open, revealing a beautiful geisha
clad in a blue kimono covered with embroidered white
chrysanthemums. The audience broke into applause. They knew it must
be a man, and appreciated the illusion he created.

It was impossible to tell that the
actor was not a woman. It was not just the kimono, the makeup, and
the wig. Every step and gesture was delicate and alluring. Seikei
half fell in love with her himself, till he reminded himself that
this was in fact the man he knew as a thief—Tomomi. Or was he
really Genji, the son of a samurai? Clearly, he could be anyone he
wished to be. For a second, Seikei envied him, understanding why a
man would wish to be something he was not.

But why would anyone give up being
a samurai? That would be the greatest disgrace of all.

Seikei sat mulling over his
thoughts as the play continued. On stage, Toshio pledged his love
to the geisha, whose name was Motoko. As he told her of the
marriage his father had arranged, she knelt before him and grasped
his hands. “Will you still think of me when you are married?” she
asked.

“Think of you?” Toshio cried. “It
would be impossible for me to live without you. I cannot think, I
cannot eat, I cannot sleep in my distress. Tonight I came here
because I want you to run away with me.”

Motoko’s hands fluttered like
swans. “There is no place where we can go,” she said.

“There is! There is! ” Toshio
insisted. “We can travel to the north, find some place where no one
knows us.”

Motoko shook her head and turned
away from him. “I cannot go,” she said with a sob. “I am bound here
for twenty years, obliged to serve the teahouse until the end of
that time.”

“That doesn’t matter!” cried
Toshio. The teahouse owner will never find us, I promise you. We
will go to the other side of Fujiyama, to a fishing village on the
coast.”

“And how will we live?” asked
Motoko, turning toward him with a sad smile.

“I will become a fisherman,” he
said, nodding earnestly. “Every day I will cast my nets into the
sea and bring up so many fish”—Toshio spread his arms wide, trying
to carry all the imaginary fish—“that we will soon become
rich.”

The wistful look on Motoko’s face
showed that she knew it was only a dream. “I cannot leave the
teahouse,” she said softly. “My parents, who are old and frail,
received a payment for sending me to work here. In return, I
promised to stay for twenty years. If I left, my family would be
dishonored.”

Seikei, and everyone in the
audience, knew that this was a powerful reason. From their earliest
childhood, everyone was taught the importance of family. Just as it
was unthinkable for Toshio to refuse his father’s choice of a
bride, so it was impossible for Motoko to disgrace her parents by
breaking her contract.

Toshio and Motoko danced and sang
to express their love and pain. They yearned for nothing more than
to remain together, but as the sun rose, Toshio tore himself away
while Motoko sank to the floor in tears.

Toshio walked along the narrow
runway that extended out into the audience. Lamenting his fate, he
cried, “What to do, what to do? I must find a way to rescue Motoko
so that we can be happy. But how?” Just as he asked this question,
there was a jangling sound offstage. The musicians added the sounds
of their instruments to it, and as the jangling grew louder,
Toshio’s eyes opened wide. Everyone in the audience could see that
he was struck by a great idea. The jangling was the sound of
money.

As Toshio crept closer to the
stage, a screen slid aside so that the audience could see his
father counting his money. Seikei’s face burned at the sight. The
grossly fat merchant was sitting at a table that held endless
stacks of glittering coins—silver, gold, copper. The old man’s face
showed the delight he felt in his wealth. But as his son Toshio
walked slowly around the table, the audience had the same thought
Seikei did—he had so much, he wouldn’t miss some of it.

17: The Double Suicide

It made Seikei feel uneasy to
watch Toshio carefully lay plans to steal his father’s money.
Seikei could not help recalling the strongbox at home where his own
father kept the profits from his business. The play’s message
seemed to be that disgracing one’s family was forbidden, but
stealing from one’s father was all right—as long as he was only a
merchant.

Unhappy, Seikei got up and walked
backstage. Most of the actors were preparing for the next scene,
which was to be Toshio’s wedding to the merchant’s daughter. Seikei
looked around for Tomomi, wanting to see the actor up close in his
female costume. He seemed to have disappeared, and Seikei
cautiously approached the screen behind which the actor had
prepared for his role.

Tomomi wasn’t there either, but
Seikei noticed that

a large trunk had been left open.
It was overflowing with costumes—gorgeous silk kimonos of crimson,
sky blue and forest green. Seikei lifted one of them carefully,
letting the silk run through his fingers like water. As he placed
it back in the trunk, his fingers touched something hard underneath
the costumes.

Curious, he reached down and felt
the hilt of a sword. Seikei looked over his shoulder, checking to
see if anyone was watching. Slowly, he lifted the sword. It was
sheathed inside a scabbard made of black lacquer that shone so
brightly Seikei could see the shadow of his hand pass over it. Set
into the surface of the lacquer were silver crosses—the Kirishitan
kind, with one arm longer than the other three. Seikei was certain
that this was not a prop—it was a real sword.

The voices from the room on the
other side of the screen had died down. The cast had gone on stage
for the big wedding scene, and Seikei could hear the muffled sounds
of the music starting. Cautiously, he wrapped his hand around the
hilt, which was wrapped with silver threads to make it easier to
grasp. The sword slid out noiselessly, with just the slightest
resistance—as it should, for it was meant to serve its owner as
easily as if it were a part of his body.

Respectfully, Seikei exposed only
a few inches of the blade. His heart pounded when he saw its
polished surface, which gleamed like a mirror. There was no doubt
that this was a sword that a master craftsman had forged, perhaps
centuries ago. Such objects were passed down from samurai to
samurai for generations. Seikei knew that if he touched the edge
with his thumb, it would draw blood. The men who made such swords
tested them on the bodies of executed criminals—if a blade could
not cut through a corpse with a single blow, it was melted
down.

The rustle of a silk kimono made
Seikei jump. As he turned his head, he found himself staring into
the face of the geisha Motoko. The illusion was so complete that it
took a second before Seikei realized who it really was—and then he
remembered to be afraid.

Seikei stammered an apology as he
slid the sword carefully back in the scabbard, but Motoko seemed
not to notice. Her eyes remained as gentle and sad as they had been
on stage. “What do you think of my son’s sword?” she
said.

Seikei was wary. The voice was
that of a young woman’s, not of a man’s. He knew this was really
Tomomi, but Tomomi refused to step out of his role.

“I didn’t—I didn’t know you had a
son,” Seikei replied to the geisha’s question.

Swift as a cat, she reached out
and cupped Seikei’s chin before he could draw away. He could feel
her long nails press into the flesh of his neck. “Oh yes, yes, I
have a son,” she said with a sad smile. “You look a bit like him,
in fact. His name was Genji, but now he calls himself Tomomi.” Her
dreamlike eyes probed into his, and Seikei felt that he was looking
into a woman’s soul. “Do you know why he had to change his name?”
Motoko asked.

The question, and the eerie voice
in which it was asked, made Seikei very uncomfortable. It seemed
almost as if she really thought they were talking about someone
else. “No, I don’t,” said Seikei. “Why?”

“Because of me,” she
replied.

Seikei twisted his head to slip
out of her grasp. Just at that moment, Kazuo put his head around
the corner of the screen. “Oh, there you are. It’s time for your
suicide, Tomomi.”

The actor’s eyes cleared briefly,
and he nodded, waving Kazuo away. Then he became Motoko again,
softly placing an arm around Seikei’s shoulders. “Come watch,” she
said. “I want you to see, to remember how it is done.”

Reluctantly, Seikei followed and
took his place with the musicians again. As the play unfolded to
its tragic climax, the audience saw Toshio’s plans unravel. Though
he had bought Motoko’s freedom from the teahouse with the stolen
money, his theft had been discovered. Toshio’s father, enraged when
his son did not show up for the wedding to the merchant’s daughter,
reported his son’s crime to the local judge, who sent samurai to
find the fleeing couple.

The play’s final scene took place
on a cliff overlooking a rushing river. Toshio and Motoko were
trapped, but they sang to each other, describing how they would
meet again in another world, reborn into new bodies in a place
where they could find happiness. They turned toward the audience
one last time, begging them to remember the story of two people
whose only crime was that they loved each other. Linking arms, they
leaped over the cliff together as the music swelled to a
crescendo.

The audience applauded wildly.
Seikei looked across the stage at Kazuo, who was standing behind
the scenery with bamboo whisks that imitated the sound of flowing
water. Kazuo shrugged, as if to say, “Who knows why people like
suicides so much?”

But Seikei understood. It was the
only honorable thing to do. By choosing to die, Toshio and Motoko
showed that their love for each other was stronger than the fear of
death.

As Seikei was meditating on this,
he felt a hand grasp his arm, and turned to see once more the face
of the geisha, who had risen from her watery grave to come up
behind him. But now, even with her makeup, she was again Tomomi.
“You remind me of myself when I was your age,” he whispered. “You
must stay with me. I have much to teach you.”

That very night, Seikei’s training
began. Tomomi kept him at the theater after the other actors had
removed their makeup and costumes and departed. Tomomi seemed to
have completely forgotten finding Seikei searching through his
trunk. “In Edo,” he said while removing his makeup and costume, “I
am going to present a new play. You will have a role in
it.”

“But I am not an actor,” Seikei
protested. “Use Kazuo. He wants to appear on stage.”

Tomomi waved the suggestion away.
“The role is that of a son of a samurai. Kazuo has no talent for
it.” He pointed at Seikei’s wooden sword. “Why are you wearing
that? What does it signify?”

Seikei took a deep breath. “I am
not really a samurai. I am only a merchant’s son.”

Tomomi shrugged. “So you are
playing a role already. Continuing it on stage will not be
difficult.” He smiled. “I told you I could teach you to use a
sword. Are you ready?”