Blind Love

by Sedonia Guillone

  ALONG THE way, Hirata stopped in every one of the fifty-three post stations to inquire about Sho. He looked into every inn and restaurant where an anma might possibly be providing his services to weary travelers along the busy route to Kyoto. At first, nobody he asked had heard of an anma called Ichi, but then one older man asked Hirata how Ichi had introduced himself.

  Hirata thought hard. He forced himself to relive that moment when the anma had first approached him and Sho—I am Zato no Ichi.

  “Ah,” the elderly anma replied. “Ichi-san. Yes, I crossed his path seven years ago. He had a little boy with him. He was taking the boy to Kyoto to register him at the Guild and then to apprentice him.” The anma had gone on to explain that Ichi was in the lowest order of the Todoza, the Guild for Blind Men. Sho would have been apprenticed to Ichi for a period of nine years, during which Sho would be taught the skills of therapeutic massage and acupuncture. At the end of his apprenticeship, he would be released and allowed to practice on his own. Because he was of the zato order of the Guild, he would most likely practice as an itinerant masseur, plying his trade at inns and clinics all over any of the provinces under the rule of the Tokugawa Shogunate. “I haven’t encountered Ichi-san since then so I could not tell you where they have gone,” the anma said at the end of his explanation. “But I can promise you that your friend is in good hands.”

  Hirata tried to ignore the desperate feeling that threatened to overtake him. The information provided by the anma was helpful in that Hirata had a sense of the kinds of places he needed to look for Sho. However, the very expanse of territory was overwhelming. He might need to search the entire country before finding Sho. And what if they missed each other? Hirata put that fear out of his mind. It would do him no good to fall into despair. If he must spend the rest of his life searching for Sho, that’s what he’d do.

  It took Hirata all of spring and part of the summer to reach Kyoto. Entering the city that housed the Imperial family, Hirata wondered at the beautiful multi-tiered roofs that rose toward the sky above whitewashed walls. A few inquiries sent him in the direction of the Guild headquarters.

  Hirata’s heartbeat rose as he turned onto the street where the Guild was situated. The anma he’d spoken to months before told him that the Guild had rooms for the members to lodge in when they needed shelter. Perhaps Sho was even staying there!

  Ahead of him was the sign that read Blind Men’s Guild. Hirata quickened his steps and halted in front of the three-story building. He took a deep breath and stepped up onto the front platform, passed between the long noren curtains hanging from the eaves, and went through the front door.

  A small bell hung just inside the door with a sign to ring for service. Hirata rang the clapper and waited. In moments, an elderly man emerged from the first room in the long dark hall. Hirata immediately recognized the traditional dress of an anma at the same level as Ichi and as the anma with whom he’d spoken on his journey. The elderly man approached him and in the soft light filtering in from outside, Hirata could see the clouded pupils of blindness staring back at him.

  The anma bowed. “I am Zato no Hoshi. How may I be of service?”

  Hirata explained who he was and why he had come.

  The anma’s eyebrows went up. “Ah. Yes. I remember that. Ichi-san arrived here with a young boy who’d been blinded by a fever. He took the boy as an apprentice.” Hoshi shook his head. “Ichi-san refused to release the boy into anyone else’s care but his own. And good thing. The young one has been in good hands with Ichi-san.”

  Hirata’s insides jumped. This anma was the second to say the same thing about Zatoichi. What was so special about Zatoichi? And why had the anma been so insistent on training Sho himself?

  “Well,” Hoshi said, “I will try to help you as much as I can. Unfortunately, there was a fire in the records office a few years ago. Many of the records were destroyed.” He motioned for Hirata to follow him. “We have managed to recreate some of them,” the elderly man went on as they made their way down the shadowy hallway, “but sadly, many have not been reproduced.” He stopped in front of a rice paper shoji door and slid it open, motioning with a bow for Hirata to precede him.

  The anma followed him into the room and closed it behind them. “The higher levels of the records were easily reproduced. It is not difficult to locate anma who are in residence at a lord’s estate or in a clinic.” He shook his head and hobbled over to a set of open cupboards against the back wall. “But the zato, the lowest level, of which Ichi-san is a member, has not been completed by far.” He felt his way along the small cubbies in which rolled-up parchments were stored. “Ah, here is what’s been recovered.” He pulled out several scrolls and brought them over to a low table. Kneeling, he gestured for Hirata to kneel on the other side of the table and then unrolled the parchments.

  Hirata looked down at the paper but could see no writing, only a series of bumps punched into the parchment. He watched the old anma’s fingertips run over the bumps. “You can imagine,” the anma continued, his sightless gaze fixed on some invisible point over Hirata’s head while his hands ran over the scrolls, “how difficult it would be to keep exact records on the whereabouts of the zato-level anma. They are mostly itinerant, often treated as beggars. We have found it nearly impossible to keep good track of their whereabouts, unless they return to give a report.”

  Hirata sat up straighter, staring down at the strange writing for the blind that he couldn’t decipher. “Has Ichi-san returned at all to report?”

  Hoshi shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. Ichi-san has not been back since he first brought the boy here. I’m here all the time and so I would have been present if they’d returned. Zato no Sho has two years left on his apprenticeship. Perhaps he’ll come in himself at that time and give a report on his travels to replace the lost records.” Hoshi-san’s hands moved over the entire length of both parchments before he shook his head again. “I’m sorry. There are several anma by the name of Sho listed here, but none of them is of the age that your friend would be now. They are older and already well past their apprenticeships.” His hands stilled on the paper and he sighed. “I do apologize. I wish I could be of more help to you.”

  “Did Ichi-san say at all where he would be going with the boy?” Hirata’s heart pounded as he waited for Hoshi-san to respond.

  Hoshi-san pursed his lips in concentration. “Hmm. I’m trying to remember if he said anything.” Several moments passed. “No. All he said, if I remember correctly, was he would take the boy to a quiet place to train him.” He shook his head. “He didn’t say where that was. I’m so sorry.”

  Hirata sighed and stared down at the parchment. His chest felt tight, and sudden pain bloomed in his temples. Until this moment, he hadn’t realized how much hope he’d pinned on visiting the Guild. In his heart, he’d been sure somehow that he’d get the information he needed to find Sho.

  It was not to be.

  “Please do not apologize, Hoshi-san.” He fought back the emotions that threatened to burst out. “You have been most kind. If I do not find them in the next two years, I shall return and see if he has reported in.”

  Hoshi nodded. “I will certainly inform them of your search in case they return before that time. I wish you the best of fortune, Morimasa-san.”

  Hirata bowed, thanked Hoshi-san for his help, and left the building.

  A quiet place. The words rang in Hirata’s mind. Such a place could be anywhere, most likely not in a town. But where? In the forest? The mountains? Where in the world would he begin to look for Sho?

  Hirata stood in front of the Blind Men’s Guild, feeling completely lost. The answers he’d hoped to gain had not only been unavailable, but his visit to the Guild headquarters had left him with more questions.

  Why had Zatoichi been so insistent on taking Sho for his apprentice? And what was this quiet place the anma took Sho to?

  He sighed and started back down the middle of the dirt road. The late afternoon sun slanted over t
he curved eaves of the buildings, casting shadows over the tiles. He’d need to find somewhere outside the city to spend the night, in a wooded spot where he could make a fire. Not wanting to spend all the money his father gave him too soon, he’d decided to avoid staying at inns except in the coldest weather and poached game here and there instead of purchasing food in the towns he passed through.

  THE MAIN problem Hirata had as he made his way back along the Tokaidō Road was that even though quite a few of the anma he met knew of Zatoichi and remembered that he took a young boy as his apprentice, no one knew the boy’s name or knew of a young anma named Sho who would have two years left of his apprenticeship. It seemed as if Zatoichi and Sho had simply vanished.

  When Hirata reached Edo once again, he searched the theater district and Yoshiwara, the pleasure quarter, the areas of the city where many anma plied their trade. Yet again, no one he spoke to knew of Zatoichi’s whereabouts or of the existence of an anma-in-training named Sho.

  Hirata continued his search along the other four of Edo’s five great routes. He traveled the entire length of the Nakasendō, the Kōshu Kaidō, the Ōshu Kaidō, and the Nikkō Kaidō. He traveled through one season after the next, his passage marked only by the thickening of the muscles in his body and of the beard on his cheeks and jaw.

  When the last of his father’s money had been spent, Hirata relied either on the kindness of monks in temples to allow him shelter and a bowl of rice, or on brief periods of employment that enabled him to buy food and then shelter when the weather turned too cold to sleep outside. He did any odd job he could find, chopping and piling wood in exchange for bowls of rice and a place to sleep, thatching roofs, repairing tools, anything that was available. In this manner, Hirata worked his way along each route, finishing one then returning to the next, and so on.

  Until he once again reached the Kōshu Kaidō, which ran through the province of Kai. The winter had just passed and there had not been as much work and food. Hirata rubbed his neck as he trudged toward the post-station up ahead. His beard, heavy and thick, needed shaving. His body ached, grown thin from not enough food. His clothing was ragged, and his soul was as parched as his throat. He was a few months’ shy of his twenty-seventh year. He’d left his home in Edo nearly ten years earlier and was no closer to finding Sho than he was at the beginning.

  Let Sho find me.

  The thought echoed through his mind from an unseen source. He stopped in the road, barely aware of the peasants passing him with an oxcart full of baskets on one side and a samurai entering the post town on his other side. All this looking, all this searching and traveling had not led him to Sho.

  He needed to rest. He needed to wait. He needed not to give up, but to give up this forceful quest that was doing nothing but laying waste to his body and soul. The seventeen years since Sho had been taken from him were robbing him of his will to live.

  Had Sho even given him a thought? The way he’d disappeared from existence? Had Sho told Zatoichi about his friend or asked Zatoichi if he could pay a visit?

  It didn’t seem so.

  Hirata gritted his teeth in frustration and resumed his walk toward the town.

  A small crowd gathered around the announcement post at the town’s entrance. In spite of his exhaustion, Hirata found his curiosity roused. There were always people reading the shogun’s announcements, but the greater number of folk staring at one of the sheets on the post drew him.

  Wanted. Gang of five ronin. Last seen in Kai Province. Dangerous! The announcement gave the names of the five men who were believed to have murdered more than ten people in their homes and shops after robbing them.

  Hirata’s insides clenched. Why were there such people in the world? No doubt that meant there would be plenty of work for someone like him as a yojimbo, bodyguard. He had only a few coins left, enough for food and shelter for a night.

  At an inn, Hirata took a room, had a bath, and washed his clothes. He ate and slept, planning to head into the castle town of Kai the following morning. He took care with his dress so he would look acceptable to prospective employers. He’d heard on his travels that the castle town of Kai had developed in recent times into a thriving little city, and no doubt the competition for employment would be fierce. He abandoned his gaiters for wide-legged hakama, topped by his matching short kimono and outer jacket. An extra coin hired a valet to give him a shave and to wash and comb his hair, after which the valet applied wintergreen oil, gathered his shoulder-length tresses up to the crown of his head, and wrapped a tie around it so that the end stuck out like a tea whisk. Only then was he ready to head into the castle town.

  He spent the early part of the day wandering around, familiarizing himself with the streets. There was the merchant district that sold rice, saké, paper, and other such goods. Inns and guesthouses lined one street near a tiny theater district flanked by teahouses and geisha houses. And of course, around the corner, in the area where the saké merchant brewed and stored the barrels of rice wine sold to the inns, and the other merchants stored their wares, lay the telltale dark gambling parlor, its timbered entrance marked by wide noren curtains.

  The town was ripe for employment, even in these times when the swelling population of unemployed ronin made gainful work ever scarcer. He could probably even procure several employers all at once, shopkeepers and other private citizens who would want him to stay on their property, guarding them against this current threat. He would have food, shelter, and steady work all at once. A welcome rest from endless roaming.

  Hirata stood a few moments, staring at the noren curtains hanging in front of the entryway to the dice hall. He had no desire to offer protection services to a bunch of bakuto throwing dice. He’d even heard that Shogunate officials sometimes hired the dice players to win back laborers’ earnings from them. What the laborer broke his back earning all day, he ended up losing at night. Best to go back into town, get something to eat, and then see who was hiring protection.

  Shaking his head, Hirata started to turn.

  And froze.

  An anma had just rounded the corner and walked in measured steps, using his cane to guide him, right toward the entrance of the dice hall.

  Hirata stared at him. The anma was young. But not very young. Old enough to have reached his twenty-seventh year.

  Heartbeat rising, Hirata took a few steps. The anma had nearly reached the front platform. Up this close, Hirata could see his face quite clearly. His breath hitched. His heart lurched.

  It was Sho.

  Hirata was certain of it. Seventeen years had not erased the delicately chiseled structure of Sho’s face, his high forehead, arched brows, and aristocratically rounded cheekbones and lips. Even though Sho’s hair was shaved to a mere shadow over his scalp, Hirata could envision him with the long sleek hair of his childhood and see his long lost friend.

  Before Hirata could speak, the anma halted. He tilted his head first one way and then the other, just the way he used to do when they were children and he was listening to a sound far away. Hirata’s breath caught. He stood frozen, as if Sho were a deer he’d been hunting and was afraid to frighten off by the slightest movement.

  The anma turned slowly in Hirata’s direction. “Who’s there?” he asked in a low tone. Suspicion emanated from him.

  Hirata approached him cautiously. “Sho, is that you?” Suppressed joy made his voice tremble. “It’s Hirata. I’ve… been searching for you.” He watched Sho’s face for signs of recognition, for the joy of reunion to sweep over his beautiful features.

  None did.

  The anma stood, his head still cocked. His brow furrowed and then he straightened his posture. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, “You must be mistaken. I don’t know anyone named Hirata.” Tapping his cane in front of him, he found the step up onto the porch of the building, passed between the hanging curtains, and disappeared into the shadows of the dice hall.

  Chapter Three

  HIRATA NEARLY dropped to his knees. The emotion
al blow was as painful as a sword through his middle. Panting, he stared in the direction the anma—no, Sho—had just gone. That man was Sho. Hirata knew it. Even after such a long separation, Sho was so deeply a part of him, he could have been blind himself and known that man was his dear childhood friend.

  And yet, for a moment, he doubted his own perceptions. Was it possible he was wrong? That his desperation to find Sho would actually fool his mind into believing that anma was Sho? Would Sho have become a gambler?

  His need renewed, Hirata steeled himself and strode toward the entrance of the dice hall. Dark coolness met him as soon as he passed through the divide in the curtain and stepped under the eaves.

  The gambling was already in progress. An assortment of samurai, laborers, and merchants knelt on one side of the hall, the bakuto running the dice game on the other. The dealer, a skinny man wearing only a loincloth and wrist-to-ankle body tattoos, shook a bamboo cup with the dice clattering inside. He slapped the cup down and held it, waiting for the gamblers to make their calls.

  Hirata studied the assembled gamblers. And spotted his friend immediately.

  Sho knelt right in the center, his cane on the floor at his side, a small stack of coins pushed forward on the tatami-covered floor in front of him. Hirata’s insides jumped. He still couldn’t imagine Sho gambling.

  The dealer pointed to Sho. “Your bet,” he barked.

  “Even,” Sho said.

  The dealer lifted the cup. “Even.”

  Excitement trilled through Hirata as he watched Sho put out another stack of coins. A murmur rippled through the hall, a sound that conveyed disbelief at a blind man placing a winning bet.

  The dealer tossed the dice back in his cup, shook, and slapped it down again.

  Hirata watched Sho, whose head was tilted in the direction of the cup. When it was his turn to call, he said, “Odd.”

  The dealer lifted the cup. “Odd.”