Sano Ichiro 7 The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria (2002)

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “It’s so lonely when you’re gone,” I would say.

  “Partings are necessary,” he would say with a mischievous smile. “Without them there would be no joyous reunions.”

  “How I’d like to see Edo Castle,” I would say.

  “Someday you shall,” he would say.

  Autumn came, then winter. The passing seasons made me too desperate to be subtle any longer. One night, as we lay together, I blurted, “When are we going to marry?”

  Sano-san looked surprised. “Marry? You and me?” He laughed and shook his head. “We’re not.”

  I was shocked. “I thought you loved me,” I said. “I thought you freed me so we could be together.”

  “I do love you,” Sano-san said, “and I’m sorry you got the wrong idea. But a man of my class can’t marry a woman of yours. I thought you understood.”

  He meant I would always be a whore, good enough for bed, but not for matrimony. I was crushed!

  “Besides, I’m engaged,” Sano-san said with a sheepish grin.

  “Engaged?” I gasped. “You never told me.”

  “I didn’t want to upset you,” he said. “And it didn’t seem that important.”

  Not important! His news hurt as if he’d stabbed me in the heart.

  “Who is she?” I demanded.

  “Magistrate Ueda’s daughter.” ,

  To hear more about her would worsen my pain, but I had to ask: “Is she beautiful?”

  Sano-san gave me that flirtatious look of his. “Not as beautiful as you. She’s nobody special. But her father is an important man. It’s a good match for me. The wedding will be sometime in the New Year.”

  I rose and staggered backward, clutching my chest. “You’re going to take this girl into your home, into your bed.” Tears filled my eyes. “Oh, I can’t bear it!”

  Now Sano-san seemed puzzled. “Why are you so upset? My marriage needn’t change anything between us.” He stood up and put his arms around me. “I’ll come and see you as often as ever.”

  He meant that I must share him with the magistrate’s daughter, and he would enjoy us both! I felt chilled by his callousness, then hot with rage.

  “If you marry her, you’ll never touch me again!” I cried, pushing him away.

  Sano-san laughed. “Don’t be silly,” he said.

  He grabbed my arm, pulled me close, and pressed his mouth to mine. I bit his lip. He shouted and reared back. Blood ran down his chin, and I tasted it on my own tongue.

  “Witch!” he yelled. He slapped my cheek so hard I fell to the floor. “Don’t you ever hurt me again. And don’t ever tell me what I can do or not.”

  I hated him then as much as I loved him. “I’ll leave you,” I sobbed.

  “Really?” he jeered. “Where will you go? How will you live without the money I give you?”

  “I’ll get another man,” I said.

  His face turned dark and terrible with rage. “Oh, no, you won’t,” he said. “You’re mine. I paid for you. And I’ll have you however I want.”

  Then he was upon me, yanking up my skirts, weighing down my body under his. “Stop!” I screamed, furious that he would treat me so.

  I tried to push him off. I beat my hands at him, I tried to squirm away, in vain. Finally I gave up and surrendered. His organ was hard against my loins. He shoved it into me, and oh, the hurt!

  “Please have mercy,” I sobbed.

  But Sano-san laughed and groaned and thrust and enjoyed my suffering. When at last he finished, he climbed off me. As I lay sore and weeping and humiliated, he wiped himself on my kimono.

  “That should teach you your place,” he said.

  Revulsion halted Reiko’s reading. She uttered a sound of indignant denial. This wasn’t her husband described in the pillow book. The Sano she knew was good and kind, not mean nor violent as the story portrayed him. He would never mistreat a helpless woman nor take pleasure in forcing himself on her. But doubt eroded Reiko’s disbelief.

  She realized how little she knew about Sano’s relations with other people. His personality might have a different side that he kept hidden while at home. Nor did Reiko know anything about women in his past. She’d never wanted to find out and shatter her fancy that Sano had never loved a woman until her. Now her ignorance left her defenseless against suspicion, and her inexperience with men made her a poor judge of male character.

  Had Sano really spoken so disparagingly of her to Lady Wisteria?

  Had he indeed loved Wisteria and meant to keep her as his mistress after he married?

  Reiko swallowed the sickness that rose in her throat. Bracing herself, she resumed reading.

  We quarreled again and again. My rage annoyed Sano-san, but I couldn’t give up trying to convince him to break his engagement, even though nagging would drive him away.

  The day before his wedding, I made such a scene that he left in disgust. And he didn’t come back. A month passed. I thought my heart would break from missing him. Another month went by, and the landlord threatened to evict me because Sano-san hadn’t paid the rent. The servants left because they hadn’t received their wages, and I had to feed myself on tea and noodles from a nearby stall. The little money Sano-san had left me was running out. I wrote his name on a paper and hid it, but the old charm didn’t work. Sano-san didn’t come. I would starve to death in the streets!

  Then one night three months after his marriage, as I huddled over a fire made from the last of my coal, the door opened, and there he was. I was so overjoyed that I threw myself into his arms and wept.

  Sano-san laughed. “This is a nice welcome. Maybe I should have stayed away longer.”

  His mocking hurt, but he made love to me with such ardor that I knew he’d missed me. He also paid the landlord, rehired the servants, and gave me money. His visits resumed, and I realized that unless I wanted to lose him entirely, I shouldn’t nag him. I must use better means of persuading him to divorce his wife and marry me.

  Whenever he was with me, I dedicated myself to his satisfaction. I caressed the nether region between his buttocks with my tongue. I paid a hunter to bring me a live wolf and hold it while I coupled with it and Sano-san watched. Often I would hire young girls to join us in the bedchamber. When we were apart, I worked a charm to make him faithful to me. I drew a picture of his private parts and boiled it with sake, vinegar, soy sauce, tooth-blackening dye, dirt, and lamp wick. But a year passed, and although Sano-san always came back to me, I seemed destined to spend my life on the fringes of his.

  Still, I forced myself to be patient, even on the night when he said his wife had just given birth to their son. This was proof that he bedded his wife even though he said he didn’t love her. How jealous and miserable I was that she had borne him a child, while my love for him was barren!

  And the child bound him more tightly to her, dividing us.

  But I smiled and congratulated Sano-san and hid my feelings. Patience and perseverance were my only hope of winning him, and eventually they paid off. It was in the year that the child was born, during the month of leaves, while Sano-san and I sat on the roof viewing the full moon. He was in a thoughtful frame of mind.

  “I’ve accomplished more in my life than I ever expected,” he said, “but it’s not enough. The shogun treats me like a flunky. That despicable idiot will never give me a higher rank, more wealth, or my own province to rule because he likes keeping me where I am. When he dies and I lose his protection, my enemies will jump at the opportunity to destroy me. My only hope of survival is my son.”

  A cunning look came over his face. “The boy is strong, bright, and handsome. The shogun has no sons of his own, and therefore no one to succeed him. I shall persuade him to adopt my son as his official heir to the regime. It will take time, of course. My son must grow up and earn the shogun’s affection. There are obstacles to clear out of the way. One of them is Lord Mitsuyoshi, the shogun’s current favorite. But I know just how to deal with him. Eventually my son will be dictator, and I,
who raised him to power, will be secure for the rest of my life.”

  I was shocked by Sano-san’s nerve, then delighted at my good luck. Sano-san has put himself under my power! All I need do is play my cards right, and he will give me everything I wish.

  Reiko closed the pillow book. She sat paralyzed, her heart drumming while she envisioned Sano indulging in sexual depravity. Feverish waves of horror assailed her. To think that Sano’s liaison with Lady Wisteria had continued after their marriage! Perhaps it had continued until Wisteria disappeared.

  But this was unthinkable to Reiko. Sano did love her. She recalled their first months together, and their passionate lovemaking. Sano couldn’t have committed adultery, not then, not ever. A unique spiritual bond joined them; they belonged only to each other.

  Then Reiko remembered the many times they’d spent apart. Sano could have visited Wisteria during his absences. And one of those absences had occurred the night Reiko gave birth to their child. Sano had gone away on business for the shogun… or so he’d said. Was their love a sham, and her trust in Sano misplaced?

  A stinging onslaught of tears rushed upon Reiko; she felt like vomiting. Sano had always seemed a loving father, incapable of trading Masahiro for political security. That he would give their son to the shogun, who used young boys as sexual playthings, was beyond belief. Yet Reiko knew how precarious was Sano’s position at court, and what a toll his constant struggle to stay in the shogun’s good graces took upon him. The honorable samurai she knew would never insult his lord nor plot to usurp power, but perhaps Sano had grown desperate and wayward enough to do both.

  She couldn’t know for certain that he hadn’t, because they’d grown apart and he didn’t confide in her. And if he would betray her, then why not Masahiro?

  Clutching the pillow book, Reiko glanced around the room, which looked unfamiliar, as if transformed into an alien place. Her mind went on adding links to a terrible chain of logic.

  Sano had been hiding something from her.

  He didn’t want her to investigate Wisteria.

  He’d behaved strangely after discovering the corpse—as if someone he knew and cared about had died.

  She had already begun to suspect that there had been something between him and the missing courtesan.

  With an anguished cry, Reiko hurled the book across the room. It fell behind a gilded screen; yet she could not ignore the book. Nor could she escape realizing that it was as much of a threat to Sano as Lady Yanagisawa had claimed, and not just because it jeopardized his marriage. She felt helpless in her fear and misery.

  * * *

  24

  Various inquiries took Sano from Edo Morgue to the palace, to the official quarter and daimyo district, and finally to Yoshiwara. Now a sentry at the gate clapped two wooden blocks together to signal midnight and curfew. Lanterns still blazed along the streets; hawkers called customers to teahouses and brothels; samurai and commoners still loitered, flirting with courtesans in the window cages. Gay music spangled the air. A small group of men who didn’t want to spend the whole night in Yoshiwara streamed out a small door in the gate. Among these were Sano, Hirata, and the eight detectives they’d brought. As they rode along the dark causeway toward the city, Sano and Hirata exchanged news.

  “The woman we found in Fujio’s house was beaten to death,” Sano said. “She may or may not be Lady Wisteria.” But he’d grown more certain that the dead woman was indeed the courtesan.

  “Fujio may not be the killer.” Hirata described how he’d interviewed, then arrested the hokan. “Today I talked to his wife, in-laws, friends, and mistress. They confirmed that he was with them when he says he was. Unless they’re lying, he couldn’t have committed murder in the hills.”

  “Maybe Fujio didn’t kill Lord Mitsuyoshi either. Maybe Treasury Minister Nitta was guilty, and a third party murdered Wisteria.” Sano had difficulty believing that the murders were unconnected. Still, he couldn’t ignore the possibility.

  “I’ve checked the stories I heard from the Council of Elders and other officials,” he said. “It’s been hard to investigate Mitsuyoshi’s background without appearing to do so. But I learned that Lord Dakuemon and several other men mentioned to me were in Yoshiwara the night of Mitsuyoshi’s murder. Some are former clients of Lady Wisteria. The next step is to determine where they were during the time between Wisteria’s disappearance and the discovery of the body.”

  This would be simple if not for the shogun’s orders. Sano regretted that he couldn’t directly interrogate the new suspects instead of working through spies and informants, a laborious, time-consuming process.

  “If the killer isn’t Fujio or a bakufu official, there’s still Lady Wisteria’s Hokkaido lover,” Hirata said. “But no one in Yoshiwara seems to know anything about him, and I haven’t gotten any response to the notices I posted.”

  Sano gripped the reins; the icy wind penetrated his garments as his horse’s hooves pounded the ground under him. The landscape of fields and starlit sky flowed past, so unchanging that he couldn’t gauge the progress of his journey.

  “Things will look more promising after a good night’s rest,” he said.

  Hours later, Sano arrived home, frozen and exhausted, to find that Reiko had waited up for him. She was standing in their bedchamber, and one look at her face told Sano something was amiss. Her jaw was set, her gaze simultaneously frightened and accusing.

  “What’s wrong?” Sano said, afraid that something bad had happened to her or Masahiro.

  She stepped back to avoid the hand he extended to her, and thrust a small book toward him. “Will you please explain this?” Her voice was brittle, stretched between dread and reproach.

  Puzzled, Sano took the book, opened it, and frowned in surprise at the inscription. “The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria? Where did this come from?”

  Reiko didn’t answer. Unnerved by her strange expression, Sano began reading the pages. His surprise turned to alarm, then horror at the mixture of fact and fabrication. Lady Wisteria couldn’t have written such disgusting slander about him! The book must be a forgery. But while he read, it was as if he could hear Wisteria’s voice speaking the words, and who except she could have known intimate details of their relations?

  If only he’d already told Reiko about the affair! How could he now persuade her that most of the story was a lie while he admitted concealing from her the parts that were true?

  Sano read the last passage, which showed him insulting the shogun and plotting to make Masahiro the next dictator. His blood boiled with outrage. Feeling shamed and trapped, he slowly closed the book, delaying the moment when he must face Reiko. When he at last raised his eyes, she regarded him with the brave caution of a warrior encountering a stranger who may be friend or foe.

  “Where did you get this?” Sano asked.

  “From Lady Yanagisawa.” Reiko explained how the anonymous package had arrived for the chamberlain, and her friend had brought it to her. “Is the story true?”

  Nerves raised sweat on Sano’s brow. “Let’s sit down and talk,” he said.

  Reiko didn’t move, but her eyes went round, and Sano saw her pride crumble. “Then it is true,” she whispered. “She was your lover. I thought we were—all the while you—” Abruptly Reiko looked away.

  “It was over before we married,” Sano said.

  “Then why didn’t you tell me about her at the start of the investigation?”

  “I didn’t want to upset you.” Sano ached with guilt. The brief pleasure he’d gotten from Lady Wisteria wasn’t worth this.

  “That’s what you said to her when she was upset to learn you were engaged.” Reiko was afire with hurt, suspicion, and anger. She gestured toward the book that Sano still held. “She was beautiful. You loved her. She did everything for you that a man could want.” Bitterness twisted Reiko’s mouth. “You only married me because I’m from a high-ranking samurai family instead of a brothel.”

  “I didn’t love her,” Sano prot
ested. “There was nothing between us but sex.” He saw Reiko’s eyes narrow. “It was just a brief affair that had no future.”

  “Then why did you free her?” Reiko retorted. "Or didn’t you?” she added in a querulous tone that bespoke her need to believe he hadn’t performed this act that signified deep commitment to a courtesan.

  “I did,” Sano said, though aware that the admission made him look guiltier.