The Samurai's Daughter (18 page)

There was a fizz and a bang and a lone firework exploded in
the
sky. In the momentary flash, she saw his face clearly lit in the garish light. He looked hungry, haunted.

‘So this is the only chance I’ll have to see you, my weaver princess,’ he said abruptly, in tones of yearning. She started. It was not at all what she had expected him to say. The waves lapping on the shore of the bay made a lonely sound. The hugeness of the sea, the black sky sprinkled with stars, spreading to infinity, made her feel tiny and lost and desolate.

‘When are you going back to the barracks?’ she asked, her voice shaking. She felt the weight of the amulet in her sleeve. ‘Will you come and see me once more?’

A familiar pair of clogs clattered towards them across the graveyard – Okatsu, come to summon her home.

Nobu took her hand in both of his and held it firmly.

‘I’ll find a way. I promise,’ he said.

12

NOBU WATCHED AS
the two slight figures in their cotton yukatas pattered down the road, looking back again and again to bow. He waited until they merged into darkness, then turned slowly and set off on the long hike back to Mori’s house.

Nobu was used to running after his master’s horse or behind his rickshaw; for him, walking was no hardship. Striding along the Eastern Sea Road beneath the Tanabata lanterns with their paper tails hanging limp in the humid air, he had time to think. Usually he rushed about incessantly while Bunkichi and Zenkichi kept up a non-stop flow of banter. It was a rare luxury to be on his own.

There was something niggling at him, something that refused to be pushed to the back of his mind. Again and again his thoughts returned to the forty-eight tombstones, laid out in tidy rows in their enclosure, lit by pale strands of moonlight. They seemed to loom over him, gazing down in silent reproof, reminding him that he had committed an inexcusable offence: he had neglected his duty.

He had told the thugs who had attacked Eijiro that the war was over, that talk of north and south was irrelevant now, but he had known very well that that was not the case. The Satsuma and their allies had taken all the government positions and all the good jobs while the men of Aizu and the northern clans were reduced to the lives of servants and rickshaw pullers. Truly, the men of the south had harnessed the eel of prosperity while the northerners – his people – had slithered off its tail. Even if he
failed
to avenge his clan and his family, at the very least he should not be consorting with a daughter of the enemy.

The thought of Taka made him grimace in pain. He could still smell the perfume that scented her glossy hair. His thoughts lingered on the smooth oval of her face, her skin, soft and pale as pear blossom, her large solemn eyes that seemed to have grown darker and more fascinating since he’d seen her last, the graceful way she put her hands over her mouth and looked up shyly when she smiled.

When he’d known her before they’d been children. She’d been a bashful fourteen-year-old, by turns boisterous and confident then blushing with embarrassment, living in a world of wealth and beauty while he, the poor servant, could only watch and admire from a distance. But then this sweet young girl had taken him under her wing, become his stern teacher while he was her gawky pupil. How could he not have become totally devoted to her? At the time he’d hardly understood his own feelings.

Over the years they’d been apart, the devotion she had inspired had lessened to a dull ache. Her memory had lingered like a daydream, comforting him when life became unbearable. Seeing her had reawakened his yearning and turned it into a fever.

There were so many reasons why he should forget her. She was beautiful and wealthy, that in itself put her out of his reach. Worst of all, she was Kitaoka’s daughter – Kitaoka, who had marched at the head of the southern armies and wrested Edo Castle out of northern hands by trickery, fooled the gullible northern leaders into handing it over without even a fight. She was not just unattainable; to desire her was to betray everything he believed in and cared for – his family, his clan, his honour. She’d bewitched him, he thought fiercely. He had to free himself.

Suddenly enraged, he shook his head as if trying to shake off the spell she’d cast over him and punched his fist into his palm, shouting ‘Fool!’ at the top of his voice, oblivious to whoever might hear him. Breaking into a run, he sprinted towards the centre of the city, legs pumping, throat tight, furious at himself for
his
stupid infatuation and at her for trapping him like this, thinking he might be able to put her out of his mind if he ran fast enough.

Bells boomed from the shadowy temples behind the trees. He pounded across New Bridge and along narrow streets lit with softly glowing lanterns in front of shuttered geisha houses, hearing ghostly singing and laughter and the clinking of sake cups from the pleasure boats that plied the canal. Pausing to catch his breath and wipe off the sweat that dripped into his eyes, he heard the harsh tones of southern brogue and scowled, remembering that the country’s overlords whiled away their nights in this part of town. He had been here once before with Mori and sat hugging his knees in the antechamber of one of the teahouses, watching the swaggering yokels grabbing at geishas’ skirts.

Across another bridge gas lamps flared, lighting the sky. Even at this hour throngs of people ambled up and down, gawping at the garish brick and stone buildings that lined the Ginza. Nobu passed the sign outside the Black Peony restaurant and swung away abruptly, remembering that fateful day when he had burst in and met Taka and her family. They belonged to this harshly lit new world; but it was closed to him and he wanted no part of it.

By the time he reached Mori’s house, he was soaked in sweat. The moon was high in the sky. He’d been away for hours. ‘Fool!’ he muttered again. Mori would be furious, he might even dismiss him, and Nobu badly needed the money to support his brothers.

As he slid open the door, a wave of rancid air washed out, dank and sweaty. Bunkichi’s snores reverberated like a temple bell. Creeping in on tiptoe, Nobu stumbled over a large body. The man grunted and started to his feet.

Even in the dark, Nobu knew him – Jubei, his brother Yasutaro’s ex-servant, a bluff giant who had been champion sumo wrestler of his village. Yasutaro had long since dismissed him – these days he couldn’t afford even one servant – but Jubei continued to visit and check on him and on Kenjiro.

‘
Usss
,’ Jubei grunted. Nobu grabbed his sleeve and pulled him
into
the street. It was good to hear the rough northern greeting but the sight of him filled Nobu with alarm. Something must have happened to one of Nobu’s brothers and Jubei had come to fetch him but Nobu hadn’t been here. He’d been too caught up in his foolish adventure with this girl.

‘Your brother Kenjiro.’ Jubei crinkled his fleshy brow. ‘Seems poorly. Master Yasu is away so I came to look for you, sir.’

Nobu grimaced. He would have to beg Mori for more time off. His only hope was that Shige, Mori’s mistress, would speak up on his behalf. He brushed a quick note to her, promising to be back by midday.

They snatched a couple of hours’ sleep and set off before dawn, following the outer moat of the castle. The ramparts had been torn down, leaving an open expanse dotted with trees and clumps of tumbledown wall. The outer walls of the castle, visible now across the empty land, rose desolate against the sky.

‘Every day that passes, there’s more gone,’ said Jubei, shaking his large head. It was true. The high walls that had lined the lanes, the mansions with their latticed windows where women used to peek out, the guardhouses, the tenements for the samurai guards, had all vanished. The new regime was set on demolishing everything Nobu had ever known or valued or cared for.

Nobu’s brothers lived in a run-down district near the gate at Kanda Bridge, in a rented house. At one time it must have been part of a tenement where samurai lived, in the grounds of a daimyo’s palace, but the lacquered gates and splendid mansion had been destroyed in the civil war or torn down shortly afterwards. A rank smell of wood ash, sewage and rotting food tickled his nostrils. As they picked their way across the rubble, Nobu spotted the big iron cooking pot he’d bought for them, tucked under the eaves on a mound of rocks and tiles.

Pushing the door back in its grooves, he nearly fell over Kenjiro, huddled on a thin futon in the middle of the room. The sweet musty smell of sickness hung about the place. Yasu was nowhere to be seen.

Nobu crouched down and put his hand on Kenjiro’s brow. His brother’s eyes were jaundiced and his skin sallow and he was clammy and covered in sweat. He stared up at Nobu, his breath rasping noisily.

‘
Usss
,’ he croaked. ‘Younger Brother is it, and at this hour? You’ll be out of a job if you’re not careful.’ He tried to sit up and fell back, scowling in exasperation. ‘I need to get back to work myself.’

‘I’ll fetch you a drink.’ Nobu looked around for a water flask. The small room was neat and tidy, the thin rush mats on the wooden floor well swept. Kenjiro’s spectacles lay alongside brushes, ink stone, ink stick and paper on the low table where he did his writing, and there were books piled in heaps on the floor – Chinese classics, neatly bound, works by Saikaku, Bakin and other Japanese authors and even a couple of volumes in western languages. Nobu made out the titles:
On the Origin of Species
and
Das Kapital
. He wondered how Kenjiro had managed to acquire them when he had so little money. He probably saved his last
mon
to spend on books, or perhaps the barbarians he interpreted for gave them to him.

He smiled to himself. Kenjiro was a prime exemplar of the proverb ‘Men of talent are prone to sickness and beautiful women destined to die young.’ Forever coming down with one ailment or another, he passed the time studying and with the help of a fellow Aizu samurai had learned English well enough to act as an interpreter. He’d been working for a couple of foreign technicians setting up a telegraph system in the provinces and had come down to Tokyo when the assignment ended; but, as they had all discovered, there were very few opportunities of any sort for a northerner, even one as bright as he was.

Nobu poured Kenjiro a cup of water and found him a small rice-husk-filled pillow. Kenjiro sat up and seemed to rally a little. ‘
Comment vont les études?
’ he asked in clumsy French.

Nobu grinned. ‘No time for
études
with the fighting dog nipping at my heels.’

Kenjiro chuckled. ‘Ah, Mori, the Tosa fighting dog. Well, you’ll be back at the Military Academy soon enough.’

Nobu nodded, grimacing. ‘Yasu not here?’

‘Must have slipped out while I was asleep.’ Kenjiro leaned forward, his bony forehead damp with sweat, and gripped Nobu’s wrist. ‘You know what? It was Tanabata yesterday – the seventh day of the seventh month. I had to count up the days on my fingers. This new calendar’s just a ploy to make us forget our festivals, our Chinese learning, everything. The old calendar tied us to our roots; this one pitches us into the future. They tell us we have to discard the past and move forward, but they’re wrong. The old ways are part of what we are. Anyway, I’ve chosen my pen name: Wanderer of the Eastern Seas, like the cowherd crossing the magpie bridge.’

‘You’ll have to get well before you start wandering,’ said Nobu. ‘What happened to those clams?’

The last time Nobu had visited he’d gone down to the river behind one of the newly completed brick and stone government buildings and dug up some clams, said to be an excellent remedy for jaundice. He’d boiled them just as his mother used to, with a handful of ash to make the clams separate from their shells, then simmered them in soy sauce and a dash of sweet
mirin
cooking wine. He’d also boiled up batches of beans and wrapped them in bamboo leaves for Kenjiro to eat. There was still some left in a pot under a shelf. He dished up a bowlful and gave it to him.

He was instructing Jubei on how to find and cook the clams when the door creaked open and Yasutaro came in, ducking his head under the lintel.

‘
Usss
. You here too, Younger Brother?’ he said.

He looked tired and his limp was more pronounced than usual, as if he’d walked a long way. He’d never fully recovered from being shot in the leg in the fighting eight years earlier.

Nobu studied his face. He remembered how grey and drawn he’d looked that day Jubei and some other young soldiers had brought him to their uncle’s house on a stretcher. He’d never
uttered
a sound though Nobu could see that his leg was bent at a strange angle and blood was oozing through the bandages. Nobu had been ten at the time. He’d been out playing and had been so excited to see his brother he’d run around the house shouting that he was back. Yasu hadn’t been able to stand. He’d crawled around the tatami using his hands and his good leg.

Nobu remembered the urgent discussions that had gone on. They’d all been worried Yasutaro would be captured if he stayed in the house and had decided to hide him in a ravine in the mountains. Nobu and Jubei had carried him there and made a bed for him out of boards and camouflaged it with a roof of leafy branches. They’d stayed there with him. Jubei had washed Yasu’s wound every day with water from a mountain spring and changed the dressings and Nobu had sneaked out after nightfall to fetch food from the house and bury the soiled bandages.

Yasutaro had been ill for a long time. He had been taciturn even before he was wounded and afterwards had turned even more inwards. Nobu had grown expert at noticing the tiniest sign of joy or grief or anger.

Yasu eased himself down on his knees on the floor, grunting as he manipulated his injured leg. Nobu poured him some water.

‘What news of the great world?’ demanded Kenjiro, his eyes glittering.

Yasu sat for a while, staring at the ground. When he looked up, there was the hint of a twinkle in his eye. ‘They say the government’s going to abolish samurai stipends.’