Though built hugely at waist and shoulders, his face was almost gaunt, cheeks high-boned and rough-hewn. She oughtn’t trust him, considering his professed alliance with Kuro. But she had known too many warriors in her life not to be able to judge one fairly.
He had come back into the shrine-grounds to say something to the nun, but looked at her a long time before doing so. She saw in his gaze an unaccountable nostalgia and melancholy, as though he were a man who chanced to sight a lover from his youth standing far away.
“I remember you,” he said at last.
She could not say the same, so did not speak.
“I fought with Kiso Yoshinake’s armies at Heian-kyo a number of years ago.”
There were thousands upon thousands involved in that terrible war. She still could not recall him.
“Since that time,” he said, “I have been unemployable, stigmatized as a supporter of a fallen general. Not that I blame anyone. It was a chance worth taking at the time. There are few wars nowadays, and sometimes it is hard for me to eat. I see you’ve become a mendicant nun, but I’m too proud to get my meals in that way. I trained warhorses for Yoshinake, but recently I was barely able to live by selling my services to carry goods through these mountain passes on some horses which were my last treasures. One of them died recently, and one of my remaining three isn’t strong. I was resigned to a quick death by my own shortsword rather than live another year in such poverty.” He punctuated this last remark by running his little finger across the front of his stomach. “Priest Kuro discovered me as I prepared to die. He berated me for my weakness. I don’t like him in the least, but he offered me a chance to be a retainer once again, to regain my samurai dignity. It is said, ‘Who serves a cruel master well is the best retainer in Naipon.’ I am obedient in my humble station. I’m Kuro’s only direct retainer, though somehow he gets Lord Sato’s men to obey him and trusts them more than me. He trusts no one really, but I don’t mind that he thinks I could turn against him. It’s enough that I know in my own heart that I’m a samurai capable of fealty under severest conditions, not a beggar or a packhorse driver.”
“I understand,” said the nun.
“You think you do?” He sounded as though he doubted it were so. “He tests me with repulsive labor, but I don’t complain. He pays me well enough. I save what I can and may one day be freed of Kuro, with enough funds to purchase a better retainership in some city. It galls me, but gifts, not skills, pave a man’s way in this corrupt world. Don’t look down on me for it!”
“I don’t,” she said.
“I admired you a lot in those days,” he said, the source of his nostalgia finally understandable. “Now you are nobody, like myself. Maybe from now on, you’ll remember me. My name is Ittosai Kumasaku.”
“I will remember,” she promised.
The man turned to go. Soon, she heard his horses trotting at a slow pace into the deeper woods, going along back routes. Bundori, who had listened to their cryptic dialogue, was somewhat subdued from his previous overexcitement. Still he could not stand long in one place. “He knew you at the Battle of Awazu and other places like that, is it so? You are Tomoe Gozen, like I thought you were!”
“Don’t be too certain,” she said, passing him and starting back toward the compound. She added, “Everybody changes a lot. If I was such a famous warrior as that, it doesn’t mean that’s who I am today.”
Bundori clapped his hands and hopped happily, feeling adulation for his famous visitor. But she stopped on the path and wheeled to face him so swiftly that he was frightened of her for that moment, and he stopped in his tracks as well. She said, “I must see a pawnbroker in the village and sell my vest. Can you recommend someone? It’ll be a hard winter, but I must give up my vest for the sake of a little money to get my shakuhachi. An old, dying samurai of low rank promised me he would live two or three more days until I could play for him. The artisan must be finished now.”
“That’s been taken care of!” said Bundori, waving a hand. “He decided to fix your shakuhachi as an offering to this shrine.”
She looked at him evenly. “How did he decide that?”
“It was only his idea,” said the priest innocently.
“Since you’ve meddled about that,” said the nun, “I needn’t feel guilty where I meddle from now on.”
Bundori knew her meaning at once. She had promised him not to meddle where Kuro the Darkness was concerned. Her retraction caused him to look distraught. “How was I meddling to help you out?” he said defensively. “You won’t have to sell your vest!”
“My meddling will help you out, too. But that’s not the point, is it? It was rude of you to interfere without permission. Now I will do as I please, just like you. Don’t think it’s for your sake! Those men who died outside your shrine—I didn’t kill them, though you may have thought I did. Somehow Kuro learned of my presence here; someone with a loose tongue must have said he thought I was someone famous while he was in the village, and Kuro’s spies overheard the gossip, so he sent nine men to kill me.” Bundori looked at the ground when the nun made her speculation. She continued, “But someone else killed them before the nine men could try to use my blood to despoil your shrine. I promised them revenge, and I can’t evade it. I will find out what is going on in this mountain fief, so that I will know how best to avenge those men, or if indeed I was misled about the need for vengeance.”
When she walked on, the priest stood crookedly, turning his head sideways and saying to himself, “Shikata-ga-nai,” it’s too late to be helped now.
No one greeted her at the back entrance to Kahei Todawa’s house. It was so quiet that the nun feared death had proceeded her, that she was too late to play her newly repaired shakuhachi for the household’s patriarch. Then she realized the family might well be shy two members, presuming Otane and Shinji had acted on their plan to flee the fief. They might have had a good chance of getting away undetected during the previous night’s bad weather. If they did happen to make their way to another part of the country, and settled somewhere without anyone betraying them, then it could be rumored in Kanno that Otane must have fallen into the gorge or met with some similar mishap. As for Shinji, it would take longer for any authority to miss a farmer’s son; by the time it was investigated, some excuse could be invented to infer a pitiable fate separate from Otane’s. If some evidence were uncovered to prove they had actually left Kanno illegally, it would mean trouble for their families, and possible pursuit of the couple themselves.
There was no wooden bell at the back entry, and no watchful daughter to see the bikuni’s arrival. Yet it would be rude to enter unbidden, and uncouth to shout. For this reason the nun stood at the open gate a long while, fretting about things. At length the kitchen door slid open and an old, withered face peered out. It was the Todawa matriarch, whose widowhood approached swiftly, if her husband were not already dead.
The old face was like crinkled parchment on which nothing had been written. She turned away as though unconcerned with a nun at the gate. But in a few moments, Kahei Todawa came personally, for his impoverished house could afford no servant.
Formal greetings were exchanged. Then Kahei Todawa led the nun along an inner garden wall, until she saw the opened sidedoors to a certain room. From that room wafted the scent of old man’s flesh, hair, nail clippings, urine, and nearness to death.
The doors had been opened in spite of the chill, for the old man wished to view the world from his bed. As Kahei Todawa and the nun approached, she could not be certain that the patriarch in his bedding really did look worse than he had looked before; but each step rendered the situation more certain. With his sallow complexion, bony cheeks, pain-creased expression, and the palsied hand clinging to a rosary, he looked as close to death as any living man may come.
His eyes were open and glistened black. He watched the nun weakly. She came to the step leading from the garden to his private chamber. She left her wooden footgear on the stone step as she place
d one foot, then the other, upon the deck outside his door. Then, upon her knees on the platform, she bowed fully.
With her hat and longsword to one side of the doorway, where they could not be seen from the inside, she seemed a common nun and not a warrior. But it was an uncommon instrument she bore, the shakuhachi being considered a somewhat masculine instrument, and the side-blown flute more appropriate for women. Her shoulder-length hair framed an ageless face, so that she seemed a boyish apparition, a ghost-page come for an old man’s spirit.
Kahei entered the room, leaving the bowing nun upon the deck, framed in the doorway, the garden behind her. About the same time, the elderly wife of the dying man came into the room by a different entry. She led foolish Iyo by the hand, sitting him near the bed and bidding him be very still. He lacked solemnity, but was an obedient boy, and did not move. His anile grandmother knelt beside him.
A frigid breeze passed over the nun’s shoulder and entered the room, but the dying man did not seem to wish his door slid shut, having as he did such little time to see even so small a portion of the world. Though the garden was bleak due to the winterlike qualities of highland autumns, it was yet a soothing sight, well cared for by Kahei, who knew much of trees and flowers.
Kahei Todawa, who also was not a young man, knelt close to his father’s head, then lifted him by the shoulders until the old man was in a sitting position, leaning against his son. It was a sorrowful picture, an aged son serving to prop up his exceedingly old father, striving to keep his father’s frightful shaking from negating their mutual sense of dignity and earnestness. In a moment, the shock to his body—caused by being lifted, however gently—had passed, and the withered samurai tried to speak, possibly in greeting to the nun. He was unable to squeak forth even one word. To save his face, the nun bowed anew, with head to floor, so that she would not appear to witness his infirmity and embarrassment.
It was hard for a samurai to die slowly and of old age. Some old men were ashamed to do so. It must have been an imposition to live these extra days, at the bikuni’s request, that she might uphold her own duty.
When she lifted her face, she said, “Please pardon my lack of skill,” and raised the shakuhachi to her lips. The patriarch let his head roll against his son’s shoulder. He closed his eyes to listen.
The bikuni had been unnecessarily shy about her skill with the instrument; and the household soon believed her efforts were a fine substitute for a recitation of one or another sutra. The instrument had only four holes on top, one on the back, but by half-holing there were many variations to the notes. The sound of an end-blown flute, particularly a large one such as the nun held, was unequaled in its mournfulness and expression of tranquility—most appropriate for so funereal an occasion.
As she began, the sound swelled at once and enclosed the listeners as in a fog risen from the mountain’s valleys—a muted, melancholy bass, which broke at last into a metallic forte, then fell anew to an almost inaudible, quavering note. Her intake of breath was a note in itself, followed by the swell again, this time cut short and, as an artful afterthought, a grace-note was added. The loose tune changed dramatically, becoming a fluttery whisper, conveying vague reassurance, before lifting sharply into a shout or a knell—then, that same grace-note as before.
She was playing not merely for the dying patriarch, but also for the spirit of her instructor, who had taught her all she could learn of the instrument, who had loved her as his most sincere if not always his most gifted pupil. The shakuhachi had been his present to her on the day he died. That she had allowed it to be damaged in a foolish battle had caused her guilt and grief. She made amends for her error by duplicating the very melodies and rhythms of nature, in the manner she had been taught, creating songs in harmony with the universe, in apology for and admission of her personal insignificance, inadequacy, and obeisance.
Her music became a wind passing through the last crisp leaves of autumn’s maples, then going up, up among the crags and dwarf pines of the highest peaks of Kanno province. The listeners felt the coldness of their world increase, due to the altitude at which their spirits soared. Everyone felt alone in the cosmos, alone on the edge of an icy precipice, certain they would be thrown down by the frightful wind, dashed into darkness and annihilation.
They felt they would die for the terror of that music, except that it changed by subtle stages, until they were certain they had already died, but of the music’s beauty.
The mood and sentiment began its change, notes descending the further side of the mountains, striving for a place and time of greater kindness regarding its vastness and intentions. The rapt listeners, and the player as well, were carried gently first upon the sweet wind, then upon a quick river, for the sound was now swift and wet. And they came unexpectedly to a placid lake in summer!
The musical wind hung quietly, quavering upon the infinitesimal waves of the huge, supreme ocean.
The world was warm and comforting. It would not be surprising if a peony burst into blossom, in the very garden behind the performing bikuni. She held everyone in the spell of kinder days, gentler dramas, and the dream of dreams fulfilled. She took each of them along paths of mercy and oblivion, taking especially a dying man, who wished to know, more than did the others, that life had had some meaning and reward, and some regard for him.
All felt poised no longer on the brink of disaster, but on the brink of ecstasy, pinned to a climactic moment until it was unbearable and each craved release from beauty.
It took a while for them to realize, one by one, that the music had ended; it took a while for each to return from far-off places. Even foolish Iyo had been caused to ponder things profound, although already these were fading, as do all dreams of enlightenment.
They opened their eyes to the world as it actually exists, but were not disappointed. The illusions of terror and of beauty lingered just enough that everything was sharper and more thrilling—though paradoxically there had grown within them a vacuum where once reposed their hearts. No one in the world could truly recognize the empty corners of their spirits, unless once those corners were filled by some kind of magic; and the music was, above all, a kind of magic.
Each sighed unobtrusive sighs as their attention returned to the patriarch, who had a fierce, strong light in his dark eyes, and a peaceful look that had not been there before. Death no longer mattered; it held no fear, and no regret. He was made calmer and more powerful by the dream of deadly heights and gentle summers, and thus was able to speak, though in a voice as quavery and faint as the bikuni’s subtlest note.
“Just now,” he said quietly, “I was walking in a summer field, and friends I used to know were calling out to me. Or was it only the sound of cicada? I would like to know.”
Then he was no longer shaking with palsy, for he no longer lived. The tearful old son laid his father back upon the quilt; and then the son hid his face behind a sleeve of his kimono, lest someone see the tracks upon his cheeks or the sadness of his expression. Iyo, rendered momentarily wiser by the spell of the flute, knew at last that his grandfather was gone; and he wailed a heart-piercing lament such as some would say only a shakuhachi could convey, and threw himself upon the old man’s corpse in disbelief and sorrow.
The decrepit widow sat very still, her expression the same as always, the music not enough to unburden her of life’s tumult, or to free her from pent-up emotion. That she was sorrowed could not be doubted. But her will was like a sword, her face a tarnished mirror, reflecting nothing.
The bikuni placed her shakuhachi on the platform and bowed to the instrument, keeping her eyes upon the grain of the deck’s wood, so as not to impose upon the family’s mourning.
She chose not to tarry in the house of Todawa. Their mournful disposition combined with her own sense of inadequacy as Buddha’s servant; and this made her uncomfortable in their presence. She accepted from the aged widow a portion of uncooked rice for the alms-bag; then she set out into the gray afternoon.
The silent old woman had also given the bikuni a letter. It was addressed by Otane to the nameless nun, and was intended to be read after Otane and her peasant lover had fled the fief.
The day grew colder, though not so bad as the past night. Judging by the dismal sky, the weather would certainly worsen. For the moment, the chill was bothersome, but sufferable.
Her breath came out from under her hat in small steaming clouds, which she left behind like fading and unwanted memories. Dampness made her clothing hang heavily from her shoulders. She walked as though burdened with woe, each step hard and careful, her arms folded inside her kimono to embrace her own slight warmth. The colorless and foreboding sky matched her mood. It was not possible to tell where, behind the clouds, the sun might be.
Along a seldom-used path, she came upon a neglected drum-tower, in the woods east of the Todawa family’s small estate. She sat on a step of this secluded structure, her amigasa and longsword at her side and Otane’s letter on her knees. The bikuni sighed deeply and turned her head from one side then the other, a motion of despair.
Though she had been reluctant to read the missive, it turned out to contain little more than idle praise and gratitude. Otane’s choice of words came close to endearments. The letter increased the nun’s sad feelings, for she did not think she had betrayed sympathy for the lovers, and certainly had not helped them regarding their pitiable situation. Otane’s letter suggested she had seen the heart of the bikuni and knew what was hidden there.
Otane’s quiet wisdom did not lessen the bikuni’s sense that a generous appraisal remained unearned.
“Maybe we will meet again in Shigeno Valley,” the nun said to the letter, moved despite herself by Otane’s poetic calligraphy. She hoped the couple would find happiness and live long lives of devotion to one another. As she refolded the letter and touched it to her forehead, she said, “I will try to merit your high estimations.” She looked about, half in embarrassment, then sniffed to clear her nose.
The Golden Naginata Page 41
