Black Lotus

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Stupid, clumsy girl!” he shouted.

  “I’m sorry!” Terrified, Midori fell to her knees and scooted backward. “Please forgive me!”

  Embarrassing herself in front of so many people mortified her. Surely they would throw her out.

  “Never mind. Go back to your place,” Kumashiro said. “We’ll ask you questions, and you must answer honestly.”

  More nervous than ever, Midori knelt under the lantern. During childhood lessons, she’d never been much good at recitation. What if she didn’t know the right answers?

  “Suppose you were walking alone in Edo and you lost your way,” Kumashiro said. “What would you do?”

  Such a situation was unfamiliar to Midori, who never walked alone in the city because that was not done by young women of her class. She had never gotten lost or bothered to think what she should do if that calamity befell her. Panic gripped Midori. Quick, quick, what to say?

  “I—I guess I would ask someone to help me,” she ventured.

  As soon as she spoke, it occurred to her that she should have said she would retrace her steps or use landmarks to help her find her way. Inwardly, Midori cursed her stupidity. The watching faces showed no reaction to her answer, but surely they thought she lacked common sense and depended on others to think for her. She clenched her fists, praying to do better on the next question.

  “How would you divide three gold coins between yourself and another person?” Kumashiro said.

  A resurgence of panic rattled Midori’s wits, but she knew she couldn’t divide three items evenly between two people. She also knew that courtesy required self-sacrifice.

  “I would give two coins to the other person and keep one for myself,” she said.

  Then she realized that she could exchange the gold coins for coppers and divide those. She would never get into the nunnery this way!

  “If a person who was older, wiser, and stronger than you and superior to you in rank gave you an order, what would you do?” Kumashiro asked.

  Relief flooded Midori. This was an easy question for a girl conditioned to respect authority. “I would obey.”

  “What if you were ordered to do something you didn’t want to do?”

  “It would be my duty to obey anyway,” Midori replied promptly.

  “What if it meant doing something you thought was wrong?”

  Frowning, Midori hesitated while she tried to figure out what answer he wanted. Anxiety knotted her stomach. “I’d obey because I would think that my superior knew what was right or wrong better than I.”

  “Even if what you were ordered to do was against the law?”

  Midori was perspiring, although her hands and feet felt like lumps of ice. She didn’t think she should say she would break the law; nor did she want the sect to believe she would rebel against authority.

  “Answer,” commanded Abbess Junketsu-in.

  “I would obey,” Midori said, hoping she’d chosen the lesser of two evils.

  “Would you obey even if it meant hurting someone?” Kumashiro said.

  Hurting them how? Midori wondered in frantic confusion, but she was afraid to ask. Maybe saying no now would make her earlier replies seem untruthful. “Yes,” she said uncertainly.

  She longed for some indication of how well she’d done so far, but none came. Junketsu-in took up the questioning. “Are you close to your parents?”

  Filial piety required that Midori profess loving devotion to the parents she’d supposedly left, and regret for refusing to marry the man they’d chosen for her. She thought that was the correct response. But her real mother had died long ago; her father, Lord Niu, spent most of his time on his provincial estate, and Midori rarely saw him. If she lied, her interrogators might guess.

  “No,” she said, reluctantly opting for the truth.

  The expressions of the assembly remained neutral. “If your parents should need your assistance, would you feel obliged to return home?” Abbess Junketsu-in said.

  Lord Niu suffered from madness, and Midori couldn’t imagine anything she could do for him. She said, “No,” ashamed to appear such an undutiful daughter.

  “Have you any brothers or sisters you would miss if you entered the nunnery?” Junketsu-in said.

  Midori thought sadly of the older sister murdered, the brother slain after committing treason, and other sisters married and living far away. She couldn’t miss them any more than she already did. “No,” she said.

  “What about friends?”

  “No,” Midori said. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be away from Hirata and Reiko long enough to miss them.

  “Suppose that you were all alone, with no place to live and no way to earn your rice,” Junketsu-in said. “Then suppose that someone rescued you, sheltered and fed you. How would you feel toward them?”

  “I would feel most grateful,” Midori said honestly. When her stepmother had banished her from Edo, other members of the family had lacked the power or inclination to help Midori, but Sosakan Sano had brought her back and gotten her a position in Lady Keisho-in’s retinue. She would be forever thankful to him, and to Reiko for befriending her.

  “How would you repay the favor?”

  “I would do whatever I could for them when they needed me.” After all, helping Reiko was one reason Midori had come here.

  “Would you love them?” Junketsu-in said.

  “Yes,” Midori said. Sano and Reiko were like family, and she did love them.

  “If you’d come to love someone, would you give your life for them?”

  “Yes,” Midori said with conviction. Honor required such loyal self-sacrifice. And Midori had often dreamed of dying heroically for Hirata.

  The impassive façades of the people around her didn’t alter, but she sensed moods shifting and the faint draft of breaths simultaneously expelled, as if they’d reached some decision. Hope and dread leapt in Midori. Had she passed or failed the test?

  Oh, she knew she’d failed! They were going to say they didn’t want her. Now she couldn’t even hang around the temple and watch what happened, because the Black Lotus would wonder why she’d stayed. Midori was dying to go home, but she couldn’t bear to have Reiko learn that she’d broken a promise and hadn’t even learned anything about the sect. She couldn’t face Hirata without hope of winning his heart.

  “Come with me,” said Abbess Junketsu-in. “You shall begin training as a novice in the convent immediately.”

  Midori gaped in stunned delight. She was in! She bowed to Kumashiro, Junketsu-in, and Dr. Miwa, exclaiming, “Thank you, thank you!”

  As Junketsu-in led her away, Midori eagerly anticipated spying on the sect and impressing Reiko and Hirata. She hoped her new friend Toshiko had also been accepted as a novice.

  23

  He who denounces the Black Lotus

  Will be buried beneath stones,

  And spend an eternity in hell.

  —FROM THE BLACK LOTUS SUTRA

  Seated in his office, Sano planned out Haru’s trial. He had begun drafting the speech he would make to explain the evidence against the girl, and meant to work until it was time for him to meet with Minister Fugatami and the Council of Elders, when Hirata entered.

  “There’s a disturbance in Nihonbashi,” Hirata said. “A mob of citizens is at war with the Black Lotus sect.”

  Alarmed, Sano rode to Nihonbashi immediately with Hirata and a squadron of detectives. Crashing noises and angry shouts rang out over the rooftops. Peasants fled the area, while mounted troops galloped toward the site of the unrest. Smoke billowed into the blue sky. Arriving in a neighborhood of carpentry workshops, Sano watched from astride his horse as male commoners wielded clubs, iron poles, and shafts of lumber against saffron-robed priests. The priests defended themselves with staffs or bare hands. Shrieking housewives beat brooms on the backs of nuns.

  “Down with the Black Lotus!” shouted the commoners.

  An answering refrain arose from the priests, nuns, and an army of peasant f
ollowers who fought back: “Praise the glory of the Black Lotus! Stop the persecution of innocents!”

  Cries of, “Thugs! Criminals! Murderers!” came from both sides.

  The narrow streets were a dense maelstrom of darting, swinging figures. Children and old folk stood on balconies, hurling rocks on priests. Doshin waded through the mob, separating combatants and herding them away. Flames and smoke poured from a storefront. The fire brigade threw buckets of water on the blaze.

  “Merciful gods,” Hirata said. “This will destroy the city if it doesn’t stop soon.”

  Near Sano, a mounted, armor-clad police commander yelled orders to his men. Sano recognized him as a former colleague. “Yoriki Fukida,” he called. “How did this happen?”

  The commander turned, shouting, “When the nuns and priests came begging in the neighborhood this morning, some carpenters attacked them. The fight turned into a mass brawl. The crowd set fire to the Black Lotus’s building.”

  “Where are the carpenters now?”

  “Over there.” The commander pointed down the street.

  Sano led his party in the direction indicated. Outside the gate at the intersection, a doshin and assistants stood guard over four dirty, bruised men who lay on the ground, their wrists and ankles shackled. Sano and Hirata dismounted. As Hirata looked the prisoners over, his gaze settled on one with down-turned eyes and mouth.

  “Jiro-san,” he said in surprised recognition. “You started the brawl?” The man groaned. Hirata said to Sano, “He’s the husband of the murdered woman Chie.”

  Walking up to the carpenter, Sano smelled a strong odor of alcohol: Jiro was drunk. “Why did you attack the nuns and priests?” Sano said.

  “Took my wife,” Jiro mumbled. “Killed her.”

  “What about the rest of you?” Hirata asked the other prisoners.

  “The Black Lotus took my wife, too!”

  “They kidnapped my son!”

  “And my daughter!”

  More interrogation revealed that hostility toward the sect had been growing worse in the area, and Jiro’s attack had ignited a volatile situation.

  “I understand your problems, but you shouldn’t have taken the law into your own hands,” Sano said.

  “Jiro-san, your wife’s death will be avenged,” Hirata said, “as soon as we determine who’s responsible.”

  Sano believed he already had. If he’d arrested Haru sooner, she might have already been punished, and perhaps the riot wouldn’t have occurred. He accepted a measure of culpability for the violence. However, new doubt shook Sano’s certainty that Haru was guilty. That so many people hated the Black Lotus suggested that the sect could indeed be responsible for the murders and arson, as well as kidnappings and torture. For the first time, Sano wondered if Reiko might possibly be right. Hearing Minister Fugatami’s report on the Black Lotus might prove crucial to his investigation and not just a favor to Reiko. However, the meeting was several hours away, and he must address the problem caused by his failure to solve the case quickly enough.

  “Let’s go help break up the riot,” he told Hirata and the detectives.

  By the time the riot was quelled and Sano reached Edo Castle, the Council of Elders had already convened. He entered the chamber where the five officials sat on the dais and their secretaries knelt at desks by the window.

  “My apologies for arriving late,” Sano said. Kneeling on the floor before the dais, he bowed.

  “This is a private session. You were not scheduled to attend.” Senior Elder Makino frowned in disapproval from his place at the center of the dais. “Why are you here?”

  “The Honorable Minister of Temples and Shrines invited me,” Sano said. Minister Fugatami must have neglected to tell the elders, so they thought Sano was intruding on their meeting. He deplored the gross impropriety he’d inadvertently committed. Where was the minister, anyway? Sano felt extreme annoyance at Fugatami, and at Reiko for getting him into this situation.

  “So you are now a comrade of the honorable minister?” Disdain wrinkled Makino’s emaciated face. The other elders looked concerned.

  “He’s a potential witness in my investigation,” Sano clarified. Just as he’d feared, his presence signaled that he’d allied himself with a man of shaky reputation, a disadvantage that Makino meant to use against him. “I’ve come to hear his report on the Black Lotus.”

  “Are you joining his crusade against the sect?” asked Elder Ohgami Kaoru, usually a supporter of Sano. His manner was cool, as though he wished everyone to forget about their alliance.

  “Not at all,” Sano said, grimly aware that his name was now linked with Minister Fugatami’s, and relationships within the bakufu weren’t so easily dissolved as Ohgami hoped. “I only want to collect facts from him that may be relevant to my case.”

  “Well, I fear that you shall be disappointed,” Makino said. “We granted Minister Fugatami this meeting he requested, and he has failed to appear.”

  Dismay struck Sano. Standing up the Council of Elders was a serious breach of courtesy and protocol. “Has the honorable minister sent an explanation?” Sano said.

  “He has not,” said Makino, and his colleagues fixed disapproving stares on Sano.

  “This is an inconvenience to us all,” Sano said, vexed at Fugatami for leaving him to take the brunt of the council’s ire. The next time Sano asked cooperation from the elders, they would remember this.

  “Since you’re here, you might as well report on the progress of your investigation,” said Makino.

  The last thing Sano wanted was to offer up his work for judgment while the elders were in a bad temper, yet he had no choice but to obey. He described his findings, then said, “Yesterday I arrested the girl Haru.”

  “And it took you how long to make this arrest which you should have made immediately? Four days?” Scorn twisted Makino’s voice. “The girl is obviously guilty, yet you’ve dawdled so much that I think you are more interested in favoring criminals than in upholding the law.”

  That Makino thought he favored Haru, whom he disliked and believed to be guilty! “In the case of a serious crime, it’s important to do a thorough investigation before accusing anyone,” Sano said, bristling at the insult to his honor. “And thorough investigations take time.”

  “You’ve taken enough time for civil unrest to arise,” said Makino. Obviously, he knew about the riot, and blamed Sano for it. “When is the girl’s trial?”

  “It will be scheduled as soon as I’ve cleared up a few last details,” Sano said.

  The elders’ faces reflected severe disapproval: The bakufu preferred arrests to be quickly followed by punishment. “I presume that those details include Minister Fugatami’s findings on the Black Lotus sect,” Makino said, disgusted. “Well, that explains the new alliance between you and the honorable minister. He is using you to further his own purposes, while you use him as an excuse to delay justice.”

  “Justice shouldn’t be dispensed without certainty of a suspect’s guilt,” Sano said, avoiding further discussion about Minister Fugatami. The man’s findings had better be genuine and worthwhile to justify the trouble he’d caused Sano. He only hoped Reiko would appreciate his effort to placate her at the expense of his standing with the Council of Elders.

  “Minister Fugatami has repeatedly failed to provide any proof of crimes committed by the Black Lotus,” Makino said. “His fanatical campaign against the sect has angered its followers within the bakufu and offended many other officials. There’s a definite possibility that a new minister of temples will soon be appointed.”

  Makino’s meaningful look at Sano clearly implied that when Fugatami went down, Sano would too.

  “Now I believe that we’ve waited long enough for Minister Fugatami,” said Makino. “This session is adjourned. Sosakan-sama, you are dismissed.” As Sano bowed in farewell, Makino added, “We do not appreciate people who abuse their authority or waste our time.”

  “Throw the ball to me, Masahiro-chan,”
Reiko called.

  The little boy toddled across the garden, holding the stuffed cloth ball over his head. Laughing, he flung it at Reiko. The ball rose in a brief arc, plopped onto the ground, and rolled a short distance.

  “Very good!” Reiko picked up the ball. “Catch!”

  She tossed gently. He snatched at and almost caught the ball, then scrambled after it. Reiko smiled. The sun warmed her face, brightened the grass and red maples and pond. She’d missed playing with Masahiro, and in the few days she’d spent away from him, his strength and coordination seemed to have improved. He was growing up so fast! Yet even while Reiko enjoyed being with her son, she worried about Haru in Edo Jail and waited alertly for Sano to return from his meeting with Minister Fugatami and the Council of Elders.

  Masahiro ran to the house, calling, “Papa!”

  Looking around, Reiko saw Sano standing on the veranda. Anticipation leapt in her. “Oh, good, you’re back.” She hurried to him, but his grim expression halted her at the foot of the steps. “What’s wrong?”

  “The husband of the murdered woman attacked some Black Lotus priests and nuns and started a riot. And Minister Fugatami didn’t show up at the meeting.” Sano lifted Masahiro in his arms, but the smile he gave his son faded as he said to Reiko, “The elders are angry. Makino seized the chance to criticize my handling of the case. Minister Fugatami stands to lose his post, and if Makino exerts his considerable influence with the shogun, I may lose mine, too.”

  “Oh, no,” Reiko said, appalled. “I’m very sorry I got you in trouble.”

  Sano nodded, acknowledging her fault but unappeased by the apology. “Minister Fugatami has had his chance to talk to me, and demonstrated that he has nothing to say. This will be the last time you meddle in bakufu politics.”

  Alarm constricted Reiko’s heart as she realized that Sano had good reason to disregard the minister’s information. “I don’t believe Minister Fugatami would deliberately miss the meeting,” she said. “It was so important to him to report his findings about the Black Lotus to you and the Council of Elders. Something must have prevented him from attending.”