The Samurai's Daughter (51 page)

‘If it’s the end for them, it’s the end for us!’ declared Aunt Fuchi, her thin, pretty face alight. Taka admired her aunts. They must be only a few years older than her, they hadn’t been married for long, and they couldn’t have expected to lose their husbands so soon. They hadn’t seen them for more than half a year, they had no idea what had become of them, but they never revealed a hint of despair. They were proud of them. They worked hard, quiet and uncomplaining, always ready with a smile.

‘We’ll mark the occasion,’ added Aunt Kiyo, nodding. Of the two she was the more aware of her rank. She was as weather-beaten as a farmer’s wife but she still carried herself proudly like a samurai.

Taka couldn’t believe she was the only one who saw the folly of it. She glanced desperately at Uncle Seppo but he was leaning on his stick, his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep, as if to shut out the women’s shrill voices.

‘We must start right away,’ urged Madame Kitaoka. They all – women, children, even Uncle Seppo – lined up at the woodpile at the side of the house and picked up as much firewood as they could carry. Okatsu staggered under a huge bundle, Uncle Seppo carried a few sticks, and even the children, laughing as if it was a game, dragged branches manfully up the slope.

‘Okatsu, Taka, take that log up,’ said Madame Kitaoka. ‘It’ll burn for a good while.’ It was as big as a small tree trunk. The two of them found stubs of branches at the sides to take hold of, gritted their teeth and heaved it to the bottom of the path then dragged it up the hill together. Their hands were raw and torn by the time they got it to the top.

Taka ran back down to the farmhouse. Madame Kitaoka was holding a large shapeless bundle. ‘Taka, carry this up for me.’ Her eyes gleamed in the darkness. Taka took it in both arms. It was soft and bulky and heavy, as if it contained clothes of some sort.

It was many journeys before the precious firewood they’d collected with such effort was piled at the top of the hill. They gathered brushwood for kindling and heaped it into a huge pyre.

Madame Kitaoka went to the edge of the clearing and stood, a thin commanding figure against the black sky, gazing across to the dot of light on Castle Hill that was blazing out like a beacon. ‘Our men.’ Her voice was choked. ‘Our brave men.’ She lowered her head and Taka heard her swallow.

Gunfire shook the air. Taka buried her face in her hands. They were on a boat spinning along a roaring river, rushing towards the rapids, disaster coming up to hit them, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. Hoping and praying made no difference. The gods were indifferent to their fates.

When she looked up Madame Kitaoka was still gazing across to the distant hill. The wind blew her hair and rippled her baggy
trousers
. Clouds rushed by as the world revolved beneath them.

With slow deliberate movements, as if performing a tea ceremony rather than lighting a fire, Madame Kitaoka knelt beside the pile of wood and struck a flint. It took a few attempts before one branch, then another smouldered and took light until the whole pyre was ablaze. Taka wondered if her father on Castle Hill was looking across and seeing it too.

‘Let it spread,’ said Madame Kitaoka. ‘It will make it brighter.’

She brought out the last flasks of shochu. When they drank in the evenings, Taka’s mother and Aunt Kiharu always led the singing and dancing. They were geishas, experts at making people laugh and forget their troubles. But tonight Madame Kitaoka led the revels.

Taka’s mother and Aunt Kiharu covertly tipped their drink on the ground and Taka did the same. Their men were going to die and nothing they could do would stop it. Rather than bewailing their fates, it was better by far to see them off in style. Nevertheless there was something about the reckless burning of the firewood that made her uneasy. She wanted to keep her wits about her.

The seven women, seven children and Uncle Seppo raised their cups. ‘To victory! To Masa, our beloved master! To the beautiful land of Satsuma!’

‘To Father,’ Taka whispered.

‘To the next world,’ Madame Kitaoka added softly.

‘The next world!’

A chill ran down Taka’s spine. She wished there was somewhere she could run but she couldn’t think of anywhere. She could hardly remember the world outside their little hill any more, but she knew there was no help to be found there. She thought of Nobu and wished he would come. But if he was alive at all he was with the enemy forces, preparing to close in on her father. She shuddered. There was nothing for it but to stay and go through with whatever Madame Kitaoka had planned for them.

Soon the roaring and crackling of the flames and the spitting
and
banging as the wood split drowned the distant music and even the bursts of gunfire. The heat grew more intense and they moved further and further back until they were pressed up around the edges of the clearing. The firelight sent shadows flickering across their faces, carving dark hollows around their eyes and sharpening their cheekbones, transforming them into demons.

Madame Kitaoka refilled everyone’s cups. ‘Sister,’ she said. ‘Will you dance?’

‘It’s our last night,’ the aunts pleaded. They meant it was their last night at West Beppu, not their last night on earth, Taka told herself. She mustn’t let her imagination run away with her. ‘Won’t you do “Dojoji”?’ they chorused. Taka’s mother bowed gracefully and rose to her feet.

‘Musume Dojoji’ was the most beautiful and dramatic of all the dances in the geisha repertoire and the dance her mother was famous for. Fujino smiled and in the firelight Taka could see the contours of the face her father had loved so much. ‘I’m out of practice,’ she murmured. ‘It’s years since I’ve performed. I don’t have my wide-brimmed scarlet and gold hat or my nine kimonos and snake-scale robe, so you’ll have to imagine them all. We don’t even have a shamisen; but at least we have a
biwa
.’

Kiharu folded her tiny legs under her, picked up the
biwa
and plucked out a melody. Her plaintive warble filled the still air. Fujino was in baggy trousers and a coarse hempen jacket but as she began to move, tilting her head and moving her hands with spellbinding precision, everyone forgot the shapeless clothes. All they saw was a beautiful maiden in love with a temple acolyte.

Kiharu’s voice, soft and seductive, grew strong and dramatic, breaking with emotion as, spurned by the priest, the maiden’s thwarted passion transforms her into a fire-breathing serpent. Fujino’s dance grew wilder and wilder and Taka could almost see her throwing off her nine kimonos one by one, like a serpent shedding its nine skins.

Taka had seen her mother perform ‘Dojoji’ many times but
never
as she danced it that night. She was on fire, whirling and turning, throwing her hands high. She was not dancing for them but for her lover, Taka’s father, imagining him watching from the distant hill. It was her gift to him, the last thing he would see before he died.

At the end of the dance the terrified priest has hidden under a bronze temple bell. The vengeful maiden, now fully transformed into a serpent, coils around it and breathes fire on it, melting it and incinerating him.

As Fujino struck the last dramatic pose, poised atop the imaginary bell, Kiharu took two sticks and beat them on a rock in a drum roll. Taka was startled to see a look of pain cross Madame Kitaoka’s face, as if it was the first time she’d realized the depths of emotion that bound Fujino and her husband.

In the silence that followed, an owl hooted, long and low. Everyone sat transfixed then one by one began to clap.

The moon had reached its zenith. The trees loomed over the clearing like shadowy sentinels. Taka felt as if she had lost control of her limbs. She rose to her feet as if lifted by some force more powerful than she. Everyone else was standing up too, forming a circle around the fire. They started to sing and clap, swaying to the left, then to the right, moving faster and faster. Caught up in the rhythm, Taka forgot who and where she was, even the dreadful events that were to come. She moved in a trance, dancing round and round, feeling only the rhythm, her body turning and the heat of the fire.

She had often danced at seasonal festivals, forgetting everything, losing herself in the crowd of sweating, weaving bodies. But this felt more like loosing the bonds of life.

In the firelight their shadows danced too. Anyone watching would have thought they were not human at all but fox spirits who’d taken the shape of women.

The fire blazed higher and the heat grew more intense. Aunt Kiharu threw off her jacket, then her drawstring trousers, and Taka threw hers off too until they were all dancing naked, a circle
of
whirling skeletons. Samurai, geisha – without clothes there was nothing to show their status, no barriers between them, like people at the bath or at the great naked festivals that filled the streets in summer. Even Uncle Seppo stripped down to his loincloth and joined in. They’d become part of an ancient ritual back at the beginning of time, dancing madly like the Dread Female of Heaven to lure the Sun Goddess out of her cave to bring light back to the world.

39

THE GUNFIRE STOPPED
and an eerie silence settled over the clearing. The moon had set and the fire had died down but in the darkness a red dot still glowed on the slopes of Castle Hill. Tiredness descended on Taka like a fog and she was suddenly aware how much her legs hurt. They’d been dancing all night, she hadn’t slept a wink. She dragged herself round in one last twirl then let her arms fall and stumbled to a halt. She stood very still and listened. There was something important she’d forgotten. Feet still churned the charred ground but of the distant music there was not a trace.

One by one the dancers broke off, panting, and looked around for their clothes and pulled them back on. The children had long since left the circle and were huddled under the trees, sleeping. Taka gazed across the valley to the volcano, a vast triangular hulk in the black sky with a plume of fire spurting from the crater, blotting out the stars. She scoured the horizon for traces of light, praying that dawn would never come. She wanted to hold it back, not just for her father but for herself, too.

‘It’s nearly time.’ Madame Kitaoka had been watching the dancing like a priestess at a mysterious rite. She pulled the bundle Taka had brought towards her and untied it. A pile of smooth flat garments gleamed snowy white in the flickering light of the candles. Taka squeezed her fists until her nails dug into her palms and tried to quell the panic that surged in her chest. She felt her heart thumping, her skin prickling with sweat.

She knew what the garments were: burial robes.

‘Our vigil is nearly over,’ said Madame Kitaoka. ‘When the gunfire starts again, it’ll be time.’

Taka’s mother sat up abruptly. ‘Time? For what?’ she demanded, drawing in her breath sharply.

‘For our journey to the other world. It’s what Masa would expect.’

‘Not the Masa I know.’ Fujino’s eyes were huge and her face dark with fury.

‘My dear sister. Please don’t spoil the beauty of the occasion.’ The two glared at each other, then Fujino lowered her eyes. Formidable though she was, Madame Kitaoka was more so.

Starch crackled as Madame Kitaoka unfolded one of the garments, slipped her arms into the wide sleeves and tied the robe in place with a white sash. The two aunts shook the older children awake and they put on robes on top of their clothes, shivering in the pre-dawn chill. Madame Kitaoka glanced enquiringly at Taka. Her eyes bored into her as if she could see right through her and read her innermost thoughts – her shameful desire for an enemy soldier, her cowardly fear of death.

One robe still lay flat and white on the open wrapping cloth. Madame Kitaoka lifted it and held it out to Taka on both hands. It smelt of starch and mildew, as if it had been stored away throughout the hot steamy summer.

Taka stared at it, petrified. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hardly breathe. Her instincts had been right. It had been a terrible mistake for all of them – her mother, Aunt Kiharu, Okatsu and her – to throw in their lot with Madame Kitaoka. She belonged to that world of samurai and swords and death that Taka’s father had gone to war to defend. But Taka didn’t. She’d come to West Beppu to find sanctuary, not death. The war was nearly over. Now if ever was the time when – if her prayers had been answered, if the gods chose to be kind – Nobu would come. The last thing she wanted was to die.

There had to be somewhere she could go, something she could
say
, some argument she could drum up so she wouldn’t have to go through with it. But she couldn’t see any way out. She was like a fox with its foot caught in a trap. Looking around in panic, her eyes went to the red dot on Castle Hill. Her father was there, large and calm. She could feel his presence. He too was facing death.

Suddenly she was filled with shame at allowing such cowardly fears, unbefitting a samurai’s daughter, to enter her mind. She owed it to him to die gladly and with dignity. It would be a small atonement for having betrayed him, for having bound herself in her heart to his deadly enemy, not just a soldier but a member of the Aizu clan.

She saw it all now. This was how it had to end. It was the logical conclusion to the last few months – learning the halberd, getting to know and admire the samurai women, coming to live with Madame Kitaoka. Death was the apotheosis of the samurai way her father was fighting to preserve. She remembered the forty-seven ronin and the way Nobu’s eyes had lit up when he told her their story, and of how they had all gone gladly to their deaths. This was what her father would want and Nobu too – that she should go out in a blaze of glory.

Madame Kitaoka looked at her through narrowed eyes as if to say, ‘I knew you’d do the right thing.’ Taka wriggled one arm, then the other, into the sleeves of the crisp white robe, easing apart the starchy cotton. Her fate was decided, she would accept it with grace. But despite her efforts rebellious thoughts still crowded her mind. There had to be some way she could escape. She took a deep breath. She must not go to her death with her mind in such turmoil.