The Fire Kimono

by Laura Joh Rowland

  The next morning found Sano and Hirata in the forest where Tokugawa Tadatoshi’s skeleton had been discovered. They stood gazing down at the closest thing they had to a crime scene.

  The grave had been filled in. All Sano could see of it was bare dirt with white salt crystals sprinkled on top to purify it. The tree knocked over by the wind had been removed. The forest was peaceful, enlivened by birdsong. A gentle breeze swayed boughs green with new foliage. Patches of sunlight and shadow formed a moving tapestry on the leaf-covered earth. Sano breathed air that was fresh and clean in these hills far above the city and the fires.

  “There’s nothing here related to Tadatoshi, his death, or whoever killed him,” Hirata said.

  Sano knew that Hirata had trained his senses to perceive the energy that every living thing gave off and any disturbance to the world of nature. Hirata had employed this unique talent to help solve the murder case they’d investigated in Ezogashima, and if he said there was no evidence here, Sano believed him. But Sano wasn’t discouraged.

  “Fortunately, there are other kinds of evidence besides physical clues.” Sano turned to the man waiting on the path, who’d shown Sano and Hirata to the graveside. It was the priest who’d discovered Tadatoshi’s skeleton. “Were you here during the Great Fire?”

  “No,” said the priest. He wore a dark blue kimono over gray trousers instead of his ceremonial white robe and black cap. His placid face, oval in shape and speckled with age, reminded Sano of a quail’s egg. “I came here three years after.”

  “Are there any people around who were?” Sano said.

  “Many, all over Edo, I suppose,” the priest said. “These hills were a refuge for people escaping from the fire. The shrine gave shelter to hundreds.”

  “Too many witnesses are better than too few,” Hirata said.

  “But searching the whole city for them will take more time than I have left to solve the murder,” Sano said.

  “Perhaps I can save you some trouble,” said the priest. “If you will please come with me?”

  He led Sano and Hirata out of the forest to the shrine, which embodied Shinto religious architecture in its simplest form. They walked through a torii gate to a small, plain wooden building that waited ready for the spirits to occupy. Outside stood a gong for summoning the spirits and a basin of water for visitors to wash their hands. The shrine was off the main routes, visited mostly in the summer by people who flocked to the hillside villas to escape the city heat. Today the shrine was deserted except for an old man who sat on a stone bench, his hands propped on a cane, eyes closed, face lifted to the sun.

  The man turned as Sano and his companions approached. The priest said, “This is Rintayu. He was the priest here before me. Now he’s a pilgrim who travels from shrine to shrine. He returns here every year. He just arrived yesterday.”

  Rintayu nodded and smiled. He was over eighty, his face tanned and wrinkled, his mouth toothless, his hands gnarled. His expression was benign and sunny. The priest introduced Sano and Hirata to him, and Rintayu bowed. He said in a quavering but clear voice, “It’s an honor to meet you.”

  “They need your assistance,” the priest told him.

  “Whatever I can do for you, just ask,” Rintayu said, without opening his eyes.

  “He’s blind,” the priest explained.

  Sano regarded the old man with concern. “How long have you been blind?”

  “Since I was five years old,” Rintayu said.

  “It’s amazing how well he manages,” the priest said. “He can do almost everything a normal person can.”

  “But you won’t be able to help me,” Sano said, disappointed.

  “We’re looking for a witness to something that happened here when you were the priest,” Hirata said. “You couldn’t have seen it.”

  “Begging your pardon, but a man can see without eyesight,” Rintayu said in a tone of gentle rebuke. “When he’s blind, the other senses take over.”

  He trained his attention on Sano. “You’re about forty years old, and you just came from the city—there’s smoke on your clothes. You’re taller than your retainer, who’s about ten years younger.” Rintayu turned to Hirata. “You limp on your left leg, and you ate fleece flower stems in your morning meal.”

  Sano and Hirata exchanged glances. The priest smiled at their surprise. “He’s good, isn’t he?”

  Rintayu cocked his head, listened, and said, “There’s a squirrel in the tree about twenty paces behind you.”

  Sano turned, looked up, and saw a bushy tail twitch on a branch and heard the squirrel’s faint scolds. Hirata said, “Let’s try a test.” He reached for his sword.

  Rintayu flicked out his cane, swatted Hirata’s hand, and cackled while Hirata and Sano gaped. “I’ve surprised quite a few louts who think a blind man is an easy target.”

  “All right. I stand corrected,” Sano said. “How’s your memory?”

  “Don’t ask me what I did yesterday, but I can remember everything that happened thirty or forty years ago. That’s a blessing or a curse of old age, depending on how you look at it.”

  “It may be a blessing in this case,” Sano said. “I’m investigating a murder that took place in these woods around the time of the Great Fire. I need a witness, and you’re my best hope.”

  “A murder?” Rintayu apparently hadn’t heard of the discovery of the skeleton. His face underwent a sudden change, as if a cloud had passed across his features, eclipsing their sunshine. “Who was killed?”

  “The shogun’s cousin,” Sano said. “His name was Tokugawa Tadatoshi. He was fourteen years old.”

  “So that’s who the boy was.” Rintayu’s voice was hushed with impressed enlightenment. “I’ve thought of him many times. I’ve always wondered.”

  An accelerating current of excitement coursed through Sano. This seemed too good to be true. “You mean you know something about his death?”

  Rintayu nodded. “I was there.”

  Sano caught Hirata’s eye, and they shared the elation born of running across unexpected treasure. Sano said, “Tell me what happened.”

  “It was two nights after the fire had burned out,” Rintayu said. “The smell of the smoke had faded and the alarm bells had stopped ringing. The hills were full of people who’d run away from the city. Dogs, too—hundreds of them that had escaped. All day I could hear movement through the woods. At night I could hear the dogs howling and the people crying.”

  Sano imagined the aftermath of the fire as perceived by a blind man. It must have seemed a black netherworld that echoed with the sounds of suffering.

  “They came to the shrine for help,” Rintayu continued. “I gave them the food I’d stored for the winter. I sheltered as many as I could in my cottage. When the food ran out, when I had nothing to offer them except prayers, they grew desperate. Some tried to break into the shrine to look for a warm place to sleep. I had to guard it. That night, I was standing outside the shrine when someone ran past me into the woods. He was panting and crying. It was the boy.”

  Rintayu lifted his head as if at a sudden disturbance, as he must have done that night. His ears pricked backward like an animal’s; his nostrils flared. “More footsteps came after him, running. It was two young men. One of them shouted, ‘Don’t lose him!’ The other one shouted, ‘Where did he go?’”

  Two young men. Sano felt a tentative relief. Whoever they were, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they, not his mother, had apparently chased Tadatoshi with intent to harm, into the forest where his grave had been found.

  “I knew he was in danger,” Rintayu said, “and I wanted to help, so I followed the men. It was dark, so they didn’t see me. I could hear them crashing through the woods, tripping and falling and yelling. But the sounds were echoing off the trees, and I couldn’t tell where they were. Then I heard a thud. The boy screamed. One of the men shouted, ‘I’ve got him!’”

  Sano pictured a figure hurtling out of the dark woods, tackling Tadatoshi, b
ringing him down. Rintayu said, “There were more screams, and sounds of struggling and hitting. The man said, ‘Hold him still.’ The other said, ‘What are we going to do?’ The first said, ‘We have to kill him. What choice do we have?’

  “The boy was crying. There were more fighting noises. Then I heard a thump, and the first man swore. I could tell by the sound, and his voice, that the boy had hit or kicked him in a bad spot. He shouted, ‘Come back here!’

  “There was more running, more struggling. And more blows, and the boy screaming louder and crying. They were killing him.” Rintayu’s face showed the memory of his horror. “I hurried toward the noises.” He pantomimed running, the cane raised, his free hand groping his way. “But the boy stopped screaming. I was too late.”

  Sano felt his heart beating as fast and hard as if he’d been at the scene himself. Elation swept through him. “Those two men killed Tadatoshi. No one else was there.” Sano finally had the witness to prove that his mother was innocent.

  “But there was,” Rintayu said. “A woman. Didn’t I say?” He looked sheepish. “I guess I forgot to mention her. She was shouting and running with the men. She screamed while they were beating the boy. Afterward, she started to cry, and the men said, “‘Don’t be upset. It’s over. We did what we had to. It’s all right, Etsuko.’”

  When Sano got home, he ignored the officials in the antechamber and the clerks who besieged him with urgent messages. His secretary ran alongside him, saying, “Honorable Chamberlain, the shogun wants to see you!”

  “That’s too bad.” Sano kept going. He didn’t care if he offended the shogun; he didn’t care that this was a time when he could least afford to tax his lord’s goodwill.

  “But he’s sent four messengers since you’ve been gone,” the secretary protested. “He’s been waiting for you all day. You must go to him immediately.”

  “Let him wait.” Sano had business more important than catering to the shogun. He had to talk to his mother.

  As he stormed down the corridor to the private quarters, he relived the moment when he’d heard Rintayu reveal that his mother had been present during the murder. “That can’t be,” he’d said in a turmoil of horror and astonishment. “Are you sure about her name?”

  “As sure as I am that you want me not to be,” Rintayu had replied.

  “Who were those men?”

  “I don’t know. The woman heard me coming, and they all ran away.”

  Sano’s belief in his mother’s innocence had died along with his hope of proving it. Rintayu’s story was the evidence he’d dreaded discovering, even as he’d pursued the truth about Tadatoshi’s murder. Shattered, he’d listened as Hirata had continued interrogating their witness.

  “What happened then?” Hirata asked.

  “I looked for the boy,” Rintayu said. “I hoped I could save him. But when I found him, he was dead. There was blood all over his body where they’d beaten him and cut him.”

  “And you didn’t do anything?” Censure crept into Hirata’s voice.

  “I did,” the old man insisted. “I couldn’t leave the poor boy out in the open, where the dogs would get him. They were starving; they’d have eaten him in no time. I got a shovel, dug a hole under an oak tree, and buried his body.”

  Sano was stunned to learn that Tadatoshi’s killers hadn’t put him in his grave. He’d been buried by an innocent bystander who hadn’t seen, or had reason to fear, that he could be identified by the characters on his swords.

  “No, I mean, didn’t you report the murder?” Hirata said.

  “Not right away. There was no one to report a murder to. The police who hadn’t died in the fire had their hands full keeping order in the city. Later, when things settled down, I told them what had happened. But they weren’t interested. So many people had died; who cared about one boy? They figured he’d been killed in a fight over food. That happened a lot during those days.”

  The police hadn’t known he was a member of the Tokugawa clan, or they would have investigated his murder, Sano thought. But his mother had known Tadatoshi. She’d known very well who he was. And she’d known that she had taken part in his murder all the while she’d told Sano she was innocent.

  Now fury quickened Sano’s pace along the corridor. He remembered that Hirata had said, on their way back to the castle, “You shouldn’t be too quick to believe Rintayu. He’s a total stranger. Why take his word over your mother’s?”

  “Because he has no reason to lie,” Sano answered, “whereas she obviously does.” And he’d felt certain all along that she had withheld the facts.

  Reiko had been right about his mother’s guilt.

  He arrived, winded and panting, in the guest room. His mother knelt at the dressing table, her profile toward him. She wore a silk kimono, patterned in lavender and forest green, that Reiko must have loaned her. She was brushing her hair. The kimono’s subdued yet rich colors and her long, loose hair gave her a semblance of youth and Sano a glimpse of how beautiful she’d been when she was young—when she’d murdered a boy. His rage at her burned hotter.

  She turned to him and reverted to the old woman she was. Her wrinkled face brightened with the same fond affection as always when she saw Sano. Then she noticed his expression. “What is it?” she asked, her smile fading.

  Sano said, “Tell me what happened to Tadatoshi. This time I want the truth.”

  “I already told you everything. Stop hounding me!”

  Her command momentarily silenced Sano. He flashed back to the time when his mother had been the boss, so long ago he’d almost forgotten. Recovering, he said, “You told me that you and Egen the tutor were lovers, that the two of you spied on Tadatoshi after you caught him setting a fire. But you didn’t tell me everything.”

  Alarm opened her eyes and mouth wide. “When did I tell you that?”

  “When you were in jail,” Sano said. “Dr. Ito gave you a potion that loosened your tongue.”

  “Oh, no.” An ugly blush stained her face, which she covered with her hands. “I never wanted you to know about me and Egen. I’m so ashamed!”

  “What else didn’t you want me to know?” Sano grabbed her wrists and yanked her hands away from her face. “What did you do to Tadatoshi?”

  Her gaze was woeful yet vexed. “I didn’t—”

  “There’s no use denying it.” Sano held her wrists while she strained to pull free. “I went to the shrine today. I met the man who was its priest at the time of the Great Fire. He overheard Tadatoshi’s murder. You were there, with two men. He heard them speak your name.”

  She stiffened, her face a mask of shock. Sano heard her draw in a long, hissing breath. Then she went limp in his grasp as the breath drained out of her. “I remember hearing someone in the woods that night,” she whispered.

  “You might as well tell me what happened,” Sano said, releasing her hands. “Based on what the witness said, it sounds as if you and those men killed Tadatoshi. I want your side of the story.”

  Despite his anger at her, despite the evidence against her that included the blood Hana had seen on her clothes, Sano still hoped that his mother was innocent, that the witness hadn’t heard what he’d thought. Despite his effort to be objective, a part of him believed her incapable of murder.

  “I can’t tell you.” Her voice quavered.

  “You must,” Sano said, “so that I can help you.” He couldn’t help wanting to despite his fury at her deception, her past behavior. “I have to know the truth and minimize the damage before anyone else learns you were at the shrine when Tadatoshi died.”

  He doubted he could keep it quiet even though he’d sworn the old man and the current priest to secrecy. People talked; it was human nature. And Sano’s enemies were good at digging up the most carefully buried information.

  “You told me most of the story. Now tell me the rest,” Sano said.

  An internal struggle beset his mother; her habit of obedience vied with the resolve that had kept her past a secre
t. She bit her lips as though to prevent them from speaking; she sat still, her head cocked and gaze directed inward, as if listening to an argument in her head. Then she let out a sad, defeated sigh.

  “All right,” she said. “But if you don’t like what you hear, please don’t be angry.”

  MEIREKI YEAR THREE (1657)

  They searched all day for Tadatoshi.

  All day the fire burned and spread, flames leaping roofs and canals, consuming the city. Etsuko and Egen roamed deep into the Nihonbashi merchant quarter. When night came, the fires lit the sky more brilliantly red than any sunset. Etsuko and Egen stopped to rest in a doorway in an abandoned neighborhood.

  “We’ll never find him. We might as well give up,” Egen said, wiping sweat off his face. The fire had heated the winter night; the air was as warm as in summer.

  “His father said not to come back without him.” Etsuko opened her cape and fanned herself with her leather helmet.

  They gazed at the terrible red sky. They could hear the fire crackling in the distance, smell the black smoke that billowed to the heavens like gigantic, shape-changing demons.

  “It’s too dangerous to stay out here,” Egen said. “We tried our best. Let’s go home.”

  Tired, hungry, and defeated, Etsuko agreed. She and Egen ran hand in hand past buildings on fire, past fleeing crowds. She struggled to keep up with him as the smoke grew denser. They reached a canal, where hundreds of people blocked the bridge. They were trapped in the mob. Egen’s hand ripped loose from hers. He was lost in the crush. She was alone.

  Then Doi miraculously appeared beside her. He pulled her along through the mob. Etsuko sobbed with gratitude that he cared enough about her to save her, even after she’d betrayed him. She heard Egen shouting her name, saw his frantic face in the crowd, his hand waving.

  “Egen’s over there!” she said.