Shinju

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “A great life, don’t you think?” Raiden said, downing another cup of sake. A certain wistfulness in his voice told Sano that the wrestler was bragging just as much to bolster his ego as to impress. Sano could pity him, even as he remembered Raiden assaulting the merchant.

  Raiden emptied his bowl and signaled the proprietor to bring him another. Sano reached in his cash pouch for more money. “But Lord Torii dismissed me because I picked up the master-of-arms and threw him against the wall. Unfair, don’t you think? After all, I didn’t really hurt the man. He lived. And I didn’t mean to do it. Ever since I hurt my head in a match a while back, there’s been a demon living inside it, making me do awful things.” He touched his temple and added sadly, “That’s how I got my name: ‘Thunder and Lightning.’ I strike anywhere, anytime, and when I do, everybody had better get out of the way.”

  Raiden, apparently a man used to dominating the conversation, showed no interest in Sano. Other than his habitual “don’t you think?” he asked no questions. Sano ate in silence and let him ramble on. Identifying himself would only inhibit the careless flow of confidences, and Raiden was telling him plenty without the least urging. Already he’d learned that the wrestler was short on funds and had a consistently volatile temper. Both these qualities would make him dangerous prey for a blackmailer like Noriyoshi.

  Now Raiden launched a tirade about the hardships of his life: poor food, greedy landlord, disrespect from other wrestlers. Sano decided it was time to guide the conversation to a more relevant subject.

  “Did you hear about the artist who committed shinjū?” he asked. “Noriyoshi, I think his name was.”

  Raiden stopped eating long enough to give Sano a wary glance. “Maybe,” he said casually. He sucked a noodle into his mouth and wiped his lips on his sleeve. But a sudden jerk of his body at the mention of Noriyoshi had already belied his nonchalance.

  “You knew him?” Sano prodded.

  “Maybe.” Raiden’s tone remained casual, but he began to chew with a savage intensity.

  “You didn’t like him?”

  Raiden said nothing. Sano waited. He didn’t think the garrulous wrestler could remain quiet for long. And he was right. Raiden hurled his empty bowl out the door and shouted, “I hated the miserable scum!”

  His body tensed, and his flaccid hands balled into fists. His face darkened the way it had just before he’d attacked the merchant.

  Sano saw the other diners staring at them. A few got up and ran out of the restaurant. Surreptiously moving his hand to his sword, he said, “Easy now, it’s all right,” in what he hoped was a soothing tone. Even after such a brief acquaintance, he could recognize the signs of an impending rampage. Could he stop the wrestler before he hurt someone?

  Then, to Sano’s amazement, the tension left Raiden’s body, and his face went blank. He blinked, shaking his head as if to clear it, and gaped at Sano without apparent recognition.

  “I’m sorry,” he said in a fuzzy voice. “Were we talking? Did you just ask me something?” He looked down. “Where’s my bowl?”

  Sano allowed himself to relax tentatively, relieved that Raiden’s dangerous mood had passed. “We were talking about Noriyoshi,” he said, hoping the name wouldn’t provoke another outburst. “Why did you hate him?”

  Raiden frowned in bewilderment. “Did I hate him? Oh, yes, I guess I did. Because he got me thrown out of Lord Torii’s stable. The master-of-arms wouldn’t have told Lord Torii that I broke discipline and almost killed him. He didn’t want to lose face. But Noriyoshi was there that day, delivering some paintings. He saw the whole thing. Told me that if I didn’t pay him a thousand zeni a week, he would tell Lord Torii. I didn’t have the money. He talked; Lord Torii dismissed me. Terrible, don’t you think?”

  Sano felt less satisfaction at learning Raiden’s motive than he’d anticipated. Raiden seemed to have no control over his demon. He was capable of killing on a moment’s impulse during one of his sudden rages, but had he the wits to arrange a double murder that looked like suicide?

  Both Kikunojo and Raiden had readily admitted that they’d been Noriyoshi’s blackmail victims. But if Kikunojo’s link with Niu Yukiko seemed weak, Raiden’s was weaker still. Upper-class samurai women never attended public sumo tournaments, let alone the street-corner matches. Even if social events had brought Yukiko into contact with the Toriis, Raiden’s association with them had ended almost two years ago. What circumstance could have linked Noriyoshi and Yukiko and united them with Raiden the night of the murder? Intuition told Sano that a direct connection between Noriyoshi and the Niu clan must exist, that it provided the motive for the murders. So far, however, he saw nothing.

  “Have you ever fought a match against Lord Niu’s men?” he asked.

  The proprietor had brought Raiden a third bowl of noodles without being asked, perhaps to forestall another violent episode. “Sure,” Raiden said as he dug into it. “The tournament at Muenji.” The Temple of Helplessness, built on the burial site of the Great Fire’s victims, was a popular site for public spectacles. “Three years ago.”

  “Have you met his daughters? The eldest one, in particular—Yukiko?”

  “Heh, heh, heh.” Raiden ground his huge elbow into Sano’s side. “Know what you’re thinking. But no. The daimyo never let us near their women. They don’t trust us. A pity, because some of them …” He began describing the charms of the women, whom he’d only seen from a distance.

  Sano thought he was telling the truth. He had none of Kikunojo’s intelligence or acting talent to help him lie easily and convincingly. That he did have a careless mouth and little instinct for self-preservation was obvious. He hadn’t bothered to find out who Sano was or why he was asking questions, and his lewd remarks about Lord Torii’s women would earn him a harsh punishment if they reached the wrong ears. Sano finally had to interrupt his rambling discourse.

  “Are you glad Noriyoshi is dead?” he asked.

  Raiden emptied the last of the sake into his cup. “I’m not sorry. But there’s at least one person even less sorry than I. I wasn’t the only one he blackmailed, and from what I hear, he got a lot more money out of the other fellow.”

  “You mean Kikunojo, the Kabuki actor?” Sano asked.

  The wrestler gave him a puzzled look. “Him, too? Didn’t know that. No, I was thinking of someone else.”

  “And who is that?”

  “A member of a very powerful clan,” Raiden answered. For the first time, he looked around furtively and lowered his voice. “I don’t know which member, and I won’t say the family name, but—”

  Bending over, he drew on the dusty ground with his chopstick. He produced a picture far less skillful than any of Noriyoshi’s, but Sano easily recognized its subject.

  It was a dragonfly crest, insignia of the Niu clan. Here at last was the connection between Noriyoshi and the Nius.

  Lady Niu hesitated outside her son’s door, holding a tray that contained a lacquer box, matches, a few long wood splinters, and a bay-bark candle. Anxious to see Masahito, yet dreading their encounter, she balanced the tray on her hip and knocked. No answer came. She heard only the distant chanting from the family Buddhist chapel, where the priests were holding a vigil over Yukiko’s body. But Lady Niu could sense Masahito’s presence, as strongly as if she could see him through the translucent paper windows set in the wall. She slid the door open and entered.

  An icy gust of wind assaulted her, and she uttered an exclamation of dismay.

  Masahito knelt, his back to her, facing the open window. Although the chamber was almost as cold as the garden outside, he wore only a thin white silk kimono. His feet were bare. When Lady Niu crossed the floor to stand beside him, she saw that his face wore the rapt expression of deep meditation—eyes half closed, lips parted, he seemed unaware of his shivering body, or that the cold had raised bumps on his bare arms. His chamber reflected the austerity and lack of comfort he preferred in his surroundings. Plain white plaster covered the walls; a
frayed tatami with its edges bound in common black cotton lay on the floor. He wouldn’t allow her to supply him with furnishings more in keeping with the rest of the house. He slept on the same worn and flattened futon he’d had for years, and he used charcoal braziers only in the coldest weather. Despite his father’s wealth, Masahito lived like a monk, as if he wanted to see how much suffering he could withstand. Fearful for his health, Lady Niu walked over to the window and closed it.

  “Mother!”

  She whirled at the sound of his voice, almost dropping the tray. “Masahito. I’ve come to give you your moxa treatment. We’ll have to hurry; it’s almost time for Yukiko’s funeral.” She and the other women had already put on their white mourning kimonos for the procession to the temple, but he still needed to change into his black ceremonial robes. She added, “I wish you wouldn’t leave the window open. The draft will give you a chill.”

  He regarded her with an unsmiling stare as frigid as the room. “I told you never to enter my chamber without my permission, Mother,” he said.

  His disapproval gripped Lady Niu’s heart like a physical pain. Masahito—her precious only son—had been born after years of hoping and praying for a child. She loved him more than she’d ever loved anyone else, showering gifts and attention upon him throughout his life. But more often than not, he repaid her with hostility. She’d heard the servants whispering that she’d spoiled him because he’d been born with a crippled leg, and now his soul was crippled as well. Yet how else could she compensate him for being the youngest son—and child of a daimyo’s second wife—excluded from the succession by birth and from his father’s favor by his deformity? Even her position as a Tokugawa cousin and member of the Fujiwara family that had dominated the imperial court in ancient times couldn’t give him the status he deserved. She suppressed the urge to fuss over him, to wrap him in warm clothes. To do so would provoke more harsh words.

  She said cautiously, “I am sorry. Does your leg pain you?”

  As soon as the words passed her lips, she regretted them. His leg did hurt. She, who knew him so well, should have seen the signs invisible to anyone else: the tension around his mouth, the faint shadows under his eyes. Even the room’s icy discomfort should have told her. She remembered how, as a child, he would hold his hand dangerously close to a candle flame. When she snatched the hand away and demanded why he would do such a foolish thing, he said, “It makes me forget my leg.” Today other worries pressed in on her, and she hadn’t observed him with her customary care.

  Now Masahito sighed impatiently. “I’m fine, Mother,” he said. But he carefully unfolded his legs and extended them straight before him in preparation for the treatment. Although she knew the effort hurt him, his expression didn’t change. He never betrayed his pain, making himself walk without a limp and without using a cane even when he thought he was alone. He drew his kimono back as far as his groin. The left leg was sturdy and muscular, its flesh smooth and unmarked. The right was brittle and weak-looking, with healed scars and raw sores marring the withered thigh.

  As usual, the sight of her son’s bad leg caused a surge of tender anguish to engulf Lady Niu. She wanted to caress and coddle him, to ease his pain with maternal care. But Masahito’s response to affection had always been unpredictable. During his childhood, he had sometimes returned her embraces, sometimes hit or kicked her. He’d hated to acknowledge his pain or accept comfort. Now he might tolerate her love or rebuke her with his sharp tongue. So instead she knelt, opened the lacquer box, and began to take out the eleven small gray moxa cones. Made of mugwort leaves gathered on the fifth day of the fifth month, ground in a pestle and rolled into shape, they were soft and flaky to the touch. She wet the base of each one with the tip of her tongue, then arranged them on Masahito’s thigh, careful to avoid the unhealed sores left by previous treatments. Unable to resist the temptation, she let her fingertips brush his skin as if by accident. Touching him gave her the most exquisite, heart-breaking pleasure.… She lit the candle and used a wood splinter to transfer flame to the cones. Soon a thin smoke began to rise from them, and the mildly bitter scent of burning leaves mingled with the candle’s fragrance. The priests’ chanting droned on as they prepared Yukiko’s coffin for transport to the temple, lending a mystical atmosphere to the treatment. Masahito seemed a living Buddha and she a worshipper burning incense before him.

  Lady Niu watched her son’s face for a sign that the treatment was draining away the distemperous vapors that caused his pain. She had much to discuss with him, but she didn’t want to speak until relief made him more receptive to advice. The cones smoldered. The smoke thickened. Finally his face relaxed—though whether because the moxa was healing him or because the pain caused by the burning cones distracted him, she couldn’t tell.

  “This is a critical time for our family, Masahito,” she said. “It demands discreet behavior from all of us. Even sacrifices.” She paused, hoping she wouldn’t have to continue. To say exactly what she expected from him would be to voice the unspeakable. The unthinkable.

  He regarded her in silence, his feverish eyes glowing in his handsome face. A faint, malicious smile played at his lips.

  Faltering, she said, “Perhaps … perhaps it would be better for you to … refrain from certain activities.” Her mind recoiled from the thought of those activities.

  Masahito’s smile widened, but not with humor or warmth. He shook his head. “Oh, Mother. For once in your life, why not say what you mean?” he said. “There’s no one here but us. So come. Tell me what you want me to do.” He folded his arms, waiting in exaggerated anticipation. “Well?”

  He was bullying her, Lady Niu thought miserably, just as he’d once bullied his brothers and sisters and playmates. Whether larger or smaller than he, it hadn’t mattered; he could always drive them to tears or rage. The sheer force of his personality kept them from striking back and made them work harder to please him. A sudden vivid memory surfaced: Masahito, aged nine, pitting his sisters, two of his older brothers, and all the retainers’ children against each other in a violent reenactment of the Battle of Dan-no-ura, which had taken place five hundred years ago, and which had ended the emperors’ effective reign and ushered in the era of military rule. The game had resulted in many injuries, some serious, and the destruction of a garden pavilion. Of all the children, only Yukiko had resisted him and tried to stop the debacle.

  Lady Niu could still remember the horror she’d felt when she’d found her small general gloating over the burning pavilion and his sobbing, bloodied troops.

  “Why, Masahito?” she’d cried. “Why?”

  He’d looked straight at her, his face radiant with triumph beneath the cuts and bruises. “I wanted to change history, Mother,” he said, “and I did.” His complete lack of remorse had chilled her. “Tell Father that today the Taira clan have defeated the Minamoto.”

  Tell Father. Those two words had given her the real reason for what he’d done. Her fierce, angry son didn’t care about history. Unloved and ignored by his father since birth, he courted punishment because it was better than no attention at all.

  Loath to discipline him herself, Lady Niu had swallowed her grief and sent him to live with her husband in their provincial castle. Maybe now that Masahito was older and beginning to excel in swordsmanship in spite of his deformity, they could be father and son. Maybe, with masculine guidance, he would grow into an honorable, decent man. But her husband, still repulsed and shamed by his crippled child, didn’t educate or reform Masahito. A loyal servant sent word to her that Lord Niu had simply locked Masahito in a remote chamber to live like a caged animal—alone, unwashed, fed on scraps of garbage. Sick with guilt, Lady Niu had him returned to Edo, where she struggled valiantly to tame his wild spirit. She would never again subject him to his father’s cruelty, despite his excesses, which grew worse over the years. She’d managed to hush up all of them, often at outrageous cost.

  Now Lady Niu whispered, “Please, Masahito.” All her love an
d money and scheming couldn’t save him this time, if he didn’t help himself.

  “What you want, Mother, is that I should forsake my pleasures and my ambitions because Yukiko is dead and the police are nosing around. You think they’ll learn things about me, even if they can’t prove I killed anyone.”

  “Masahito—”

  His sarcastic voice lashed her mercilessly. “You want me to stay away from the summer villa in Ueno. You want me to—”

  “Stop!” Lady Niu shrieked. She clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle more screams. How she hated him when he tormented her like this! And how she loved him. His face seemed even more beautiful suffused with evil mischief than when he was in one of his infrequent kind moods. At times like this, she wished she loved him less. That way she could control herself as she did with everyone else, could prevail as she did in every other situation. Now she prayed for detachment and serenity. Only by putting aside her feelings for him could she bend him to her strong will, which he had inherited.

  Having gotten the desired reaction from her, Masahito relented. He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand and said gently, “Mother, you worry too much. There’s nothing to be afraid of. The police will find plenty of other suspicious individuals in Yukiko’s background. That actor she admired. The suitors whose marriage proposals were rejected. And anyway, with Noriyoshi dead, the danger is gone. In fact, our lives will soon be better than you ever thought possible. Believe me.”

  Lady Niu savored her son’s rare affectionate gesture. She took his hand in both of hers and held it tight. She wanted to beg him to cease his dangerous activities. To do it for her, if not for himself, because her fear for him was tearing her apart. But she knew he would only grow angry at her interference and begin tormenting her again.