The Red Chrysanthemum

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Blighted rows of buildings looked ready to tumble into canals that stank of raw sewage. Gulls, rats, and stray dogs foraged in trash piles. Cesspools overflowed into the narrow, twisting lanes. Smoke from too many stoves blackened the air. Haggard mothers nursed babies in doorways; children and crippled beggars swarmed around Reiko’s palanquin, begging for coins, and her escorts chased them away.

  The Persimmon Teahouse occupied the ground floor of a ramshackle building. Tattered blue curtains were fastened back from posts that surrounded a raised floor on which tough-looking male customers lounged. Slatternly maids served drinks. A man beat a drum while three women danced. The dancers wore garish cotton robes; their faces were masks of white rice powder and red rouge. They postured and gesticulated in a lewd manner. The customers laughed and groped under the dancers’ skirts. Reiko climbed out of her palanquin and peered at the women. She couldn’t recognize Lily, whom she’d only met once.

  The proprietor greeted Reiko’s escorts with a broad smile. “Welcome, gentlemen. Join the fun!”

  “My mistress is here to see a dancer named Lily,” said Lieutenant Asukai, who was Reiko’s chief bodyguard.

  Surprise showed on the proprietor’s face as he beheld Reiko: Ladies of her class didn’t frequent places such as this. “Who’s your mistress?”

  “Lady Reiko, wife of the Honorable Chamberlain Sano.”

  Now the proprietor looked dumbfounded by a visit from such an exalted personage. Before he could reply, one of the dancers rushed out of the teahouse.

  “Merciful gods! You came!” She dropped to her knees before Reiko. “I’ve waited for nine days since I sent the letter to you. I’d given up hoping. I can’t believe you’re really here.” Lily gazed up at Reiko as if entranced by a celestial visitation. “A thousand thanks!”

  “Yes, I’m here to help you,” Reiko said, moved by her gratitude. As Lily stood up, Reiko remembered her. She was perhaps forty years old, thin and gaunt under her bright robes. She had once been pretty, but the bones of her face were sharp, the skin sagging on them, her hair limp. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

  “Lily, get back to work,” the proprietor interrupted. “You know you’re not allowed to entertain personal company.” The customers called and motioned for Lily to rejoin them.

  Lieutenant Asukai rattled coins in the pouch that hung from his sash. “Our business in exchange for a moment of her time.”

  The man relented. “All right,” he told Lily, “but make it short.”

  As her escorts entered the teahouse, Reiko noticed a food stall across the street. “Let’s go over there.” Lily looked as if she could use a meal.

  The food stall was a narrow storefront equipped with a ceramic hearth on which the cook boiled two big pots. Reiko and Lily sat on the raised floor. When their meal was served, Reiko dubiously eyed the scummy tea and the soup that contained noodles, withered bean sprouts, and gray, rancid bits of fish. But Lily wolfed down hers.

  “In your letter you said your son was stolen,” Reiko said. “When did this happen?”

  Lily paused between bites; tears spilled into her bowl. “Two months ago. I haven’t seen him since.”

  “What is his name?”

  “Jiro.”

  “I have a son a bit older,” Reiko said. She and Lily smiled at each other; their common experience as mothers transcended their class differences. “In order for me to get Jiro back, first I need to find out who stole him.”

  “I already know,” said Lily. “It was Lord Mori.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I gave Jiro to him. He was supposed to give him back. That was the deal. But he didn’t.”

  There was obviously more to this case than the kidnapping it had seemed when Reiko had read the letter. “What kind of deal are you talking about?”

  Lily resumed eating. Between gulps of broth, she said, “I heard that Lord Mori likes little boys. So I took Jiro to his house. Lord Mori paid me to have him for the night.”

  Reiko couldn’t believe what she’d heard. “Do you mean for sex?”

  “Yes.” Lily eyed Reiko as if she were daft. “What else?”

  Shocked, Reiko blurted out, “You rented Jiro as a prostitute to Lord Mori?” Although she knew that child prostitution was legal and common, she’d never come face to face with an example. Now she remembered hearing of the cruelty, moral degradation, and physical pain suffered by the children at the hands of the men. “How could you do that to your own son?” Her sympathy for Lily was rapidly turning to revulsion.

  “Do you think I wanted to? Do you think I liked for some man to maul my little boy? I only did it because I had no choice.”

  Lily glared at the teahouse. “The boss pays me two coppers a day. That, and whatever tips I can wring out of the customers, is all I have to keep myself and Jiro alive. This year the landlord raised my rent. I couldn’t afford to buy food.” Envy and contempt filled the stare she gave Reiko. “I bet you don’t know what it’s like to hear your boy cry because he’s hungry.”

  Reiko felt doubt restraining her compassion toward Lily. “Couldn’t you get another job?”

  “I’ve tried. But no one will hire me for any more money than I’m paid now. I’ve tried selling myself to men, but I’ve been sick, and just look at me.” She spread her arms and lifted her face to the sunlight, which showed her to brutal disadvantage. “Men won’t pay much for a scrawny whore like me. But some of them will pay a lot for a boy as beautiful as Jiro.”

  Lily stiffened her posture as her gaze held Reiko’s. “Lord Mori paid enough that I could have fed Jiro for a month. Judge me if you will, but you really don’t know how things are for the likes of us.”

  Reiko realized that she was in no position to criticize. “I’m sorry.” She’d never lacked for anything, and neither had Masahiro. The blessing of her rich father and husband had ensured their good fortune. “My life is so different that I have a hard time understanding yours.”

  “Does this mean you won’t help me get Jiro back?” Sudden panic flared in Lily’s eyes.

  “No, of course I will,” Reiko assured her. The boy was innocent and deserved aid no matter what. Lord Mori shouldn’t be allowed to get away with stealing him. And Reiko pitied Lily in spite of her disapproval.

  Lily expelled a shaky sigh of relief. She gazed at the empty bowl she’d been clutching. “I know I’m a bad mother. I know I don’t deserve your help,” she said in a humble, shamed tone. “But I really appreciate it.” She cast a covetous glance at Reiko’s untouched meal. When Reiko passed the bowls to her, she seized on them. “A million thanks!”

  “Tell me what happened,” Reiko said. “You left your son with Lord Mori. Then what?”

  “The next morning, I went back to the estate,” Lily said, chewing noodles. “I asked the guards for Jiro. They acted as if they didn’t know anything about him. They said Lord Mori didn’t have him.” Indignation suffused Lily’s face. “They were lying. I demanded that they give me my son. But they said that if I didn’t go away, they would kill me.” She sobbed, choked on her food, and coughed. “So I had to leave without Jiro.”

  Reiko’s pity melted her disapproval, as she imagined losing Masahiro. She couldn’t help wondering if the boy was dead. “Was that the end of it?”

  “No. I went to the doshin who patrols this neighborhood. I told him what happened and asked him to go to the Mori estate with me and get Jiro back. But he wouldn’t. He said Lord Mori was an important man, and there was nothing he could do.”

  Reiko knew that the police didn’t dare bother a daimyo who was an ally of Lord Matsudaira. They wouldn’t risk themselves for a peasant like Lily.

  “I heard that you help people in trouble. I got the idea to write to you.” Lily finished off her meal and set down the empty bowl. “You’re my last hope.”

  “I’ll do everything in my power to save Jiro for you,” Reiko promised.

  Lily’s face crumpled into tears of joy. “A million thanks! I’ll re
pay you someday, I swear!”

  The proprietor shouted from the teahouse: “Lily! You’ve been gone long enough. Get back to work!”

  Lily bowed to Reiko, gave her a final, trusting look, then scurried off. As Reiko climbed into her palanquin and her escorts bore her down the street, she began planning how to go about reclaiming the stolen child.

  “I could take some of my husband’s troops over to the Mori estate and ask for the boy,” she said to Lieutenant Asukai, who rode beside her.

  “Lord Mori won’t be able to refuse,” Asukai said.

  “But on second thought, I’d rather not bring my husband into this.” Reiko tried to keep her work far removed from Sano because she didn’t want to cause trouble for him. Her actions had sometimes jeopardized him in the past, and to involve him in a clash with Lord Mori would be politically risky. “I had better try something less obvious.”

  The next morning found Reiko seated in her palanquin in a street near the daimyo district. Her bearers lounged against the wall of a shop while her guards sat astride their horses, near the neighborhood gate. Reiko peered out her window through the flow of pedestrians, looking for Lieutenant Asukai.

  The clever young samurai had become her chief assistant. Soon she saw him coming down the street, escorting a middle-aged woman, dressed in a plain indigo robe and white head cloth, who carried a large basket. Reiko had sent him to loiter outside the Mori estate, follow the first servant who came out, and nab him or her. Had Reiko herself tried it, she would have been too conspicuous, but one more samurai among the thousands in the daimyo district was barely noticeable. Now Asukai brought Reiko the woman, a maid headed for the market. Her face showed both curiosity and wariness as he marched her up to the palanquin.

  “I’m looking for a little boy who was at the Mori estate two months ago,” Reiko said. “His name is Jiro. He’s five years old. Have you seen him?”

  “No. I don’t know anything about any boy.” Shoulders hunched in fear, the maid backed away. “I have to go now.”

  Lieutenant Asukai made a move to detain her, but Reiko said, “Go fetch another servant. Maybe we’ll have better luck.”

  During the next hour, Lieutenant Asukai brought a valet and another maid, but their reaction was the same, fearful disclaimer of knowledge about Jiro. As Reiko watched the valet hurry off, Lieutenant Asukai said, “I think they’re lying.”

  “So do I,” Reiko said. “They’re afraid they’ll be punished for talking about Lord Mori’s business. Let’s try someone from an estate near his.”

  Lieutenant Asukai went off and soon brought back a groom from the stable of Lord Mori’s neighbor daimyo. When Reiko asked him about Jiro, he said, “I see lots of boys going into Lord Mori’s estate. Funny thing, though. Some of them never seem to come out.” Then he took on the expression of a man who’d suddenly stepped into a hole. “Forget I said anything.”

  After he’d absconded, Lieutenant Asukai fetched more witnesses, from whom Reiko heard similar dark, vague rumors followed by abrupt silence. “Fear of Lord Mori extends outside his household,” Lieutenant Asukai remarked.

  “Yes,” Reiko said, “and something sinister is going on inside.” Again she wondered if Jiro was still alive.

  “Now that we can’t get anyone to talk, what are we going to do?”

  “We should make discreet inquiries elsewhere.”

  More than a month passed while Reiko and Lieutenant Asukai questioned their acquaintances among upper-class society. But they gleaned no information about Lord Mori, whose clan and retainers kept to themselves. Hence, Reiko formulated another plan.

  A cool, early summer dusk descended upon Edo. The setting sun gilded the rooftops while temple bells rang in the clear air. The tall framework structures of fire-watch towers stood out against the pearlescent sky like ink lines painted on sheer silk. From the base of a tower in an alley in the daimyo district, Lieutenant Asukai called, “Hey, you up there!”

  The peasant man seated on the platform, beneath the bell suspended from the roof, peered over the rail.

  “Come down,” Lieutenant Asukai ordered.

  Reluctant, yet afraid to disobey a samurai, the man descended the ladder. Reiko climbed up. She wore a padded cloak to keep her warm and a wicker hat that hid her face. Kneeling on the high, windswept platform, she hoped that people who happened to glance at the tower wouldn’t notice that it was occupied by someone other than the usual watchman. She gazed around her.

  The panorama of Edo spread in every direction. Lights glimmered in windows and reflected from boats on the river. A crescent moon adorned the sky. Roofs, trees, and shadows hid the activity within the Mori estate, but she had a good view of the main gate. Lanterns burned outside it. She could see the guards stationed in front and anyone who came or went.

  At first she observed only Lord Mori’s retainers arriving home. Later she noticed men crouched on roofs of the estate next door. They must be metsuke agents, spying as part of the routine surveillance on prominent citizens. The moon ascended over the hills; stars appeared while night extinguished the city’s lights and traffic thinned. Temple bells signaled the passage of two hours when a woman trudged up the street, leading a small child by the hand. They stopped by Lord Mori’s gate. Reiko watched the woman speak with the guards, heard their distant, unintelligible words. The guards let the pair in the gate. Soon the woman came out alone. She trudged away.

  After a long, cold, uneventful vigil, Reiko thought she’d never been so glad to see the sun rise. She stretched muscles cramped from sitting in the tower the whole night except for brief descents to relieve herself. Now the woman reappeared, a peasant dressed in faded robes. Again she spoke with the guards. They shrugged and shook their heads. She became agitated; she pleaded with them. They shouted at her, and she fled, weeping.

  Reiko had just witnessed a scene identical to the one Lily had described: Another mother had rented her son to Lord Mori and failed to get him back.

  Anger filled Reiko because this kind of thing was allowed to happen. She felt more determined than ever to rescue Jiro. But what had happened to him, and to this other child?

  Lord Mori’s retainers and servants came and went. Two porters carried out an oblong wooden crate. Below the tower, Lieutenant Asukai gestured for Reiko to come down before the day-shift fire-watcher arrived. As she alit on the ground, her mind drew a disturbing connection between the crate and the boy she’d seen last night.

  “Go look for two porters who just carried a big wooden crate out of the Mori estate,” she ordered Lieutenant Asukai. “Hurry! Stop and search the crate for a dead body!”

  He rode off, but after a long time he came back to report that he’d been unable to find the men she’d seen. Edo was full of porters. He’d stopped and searched many, but none of them had come from the Mori estate, and none were carrying anything except groceries. The pair in question had vanished into the crowds.

  “I feel certain that Lord Mori is up to no good,” Reiko told Lieutenant Asukai while she journeyed homeward in her palanquin and he rode his horse alongside her. “I must get inside that estate and find out what’s going on.”

  That afternoon, Reiko rode in her palanquin up the street she’d watched the previous night. She wore silk robes and lacquered clogs instead of the cloak and wicker hat. Her makeup was perfect, her upswept hair studded with floral ornaments. Her bearers set her palanquin down outside Lord Mori’s gate.

  “Lady Reiko, wife of the Honorable Chamberlain Sano, is here to call on Lady Mori,” Lieutenant Asukai told the sentries.

  They summoned servants to notify Lady Mori that she had a visitor. Reiko was glad that her social position entitled her to call on any ladies in Japan, who must see her whether they wanted to or not. Soon Reiko found herself seated in a chamber with Lady Mori.

  “I am so flattered that you have come to see me,” Lady Mori said. She was in her forties, dressed in an expensive but dull green kimono. Her hair, worn in a simple knot, was threaded wit
h silver. She was slim, but heavy cheeks, full lips, sloping shoulders, and a broad bottom gave her an appearance of weightiness. She spoke with delicate, formal precision. “This is an unexpected honor indeed.”

  “It is you who has done me the honor of receiving me,” Reiko said, equally polite and formal. “I thought I would like to make the acquaintance of the important ladies in society.” She couldn’t very well say that she’d come in search of a child that the woman’s husband had stolen and might have harmed.

  “How very gracious of you. Many thanks for choosing my humble self as the object of your attention.” Lady Mori smiled; her eyes sparkled with pleasure. She seemed a nice woman, and Reiko felt a twinge of guilt for exploiting her. “May I offer you refreshments?”

  Tea was served by her maid, an older, gray-haired woman who looked vaguely familiar to Reiko. But Reiko couldn’t think where she’d seen the woman, who showed no sign of recognizing her. Perhaps the maid had once worked for someone Reiko knew.

  “The weather is quite lovely, don’t you think?” Lady Mori said while she and Reiko sipped their tea and nibbled cakes.

  “Yes,” Reiko said. “It’s not too warm yet.”

  This type of trivial conversation was the reason that Reiko usually avoided visits to women of her class. Custom prevented them from saying anything interesting until they’d known one another for a longer time than Reiko wanted to spend. Laboring to make small talk, she looked through the open door at the garden and noticed that the large screen of embroidered silk that stood behind Lady Mori depicted the same landscape of pond, bridge, and trees as outside.

  “What a beautiful screen,” Reiko said.

  “Do you like it?” Lady Mori said eagerly. “I made it myself.”

  “Very much. How impressive,” Reiko said with honest admiration.

  “Do you embroider?” Lady Mori asked.

  “I’m afraid not.” As a child Reiko had taken lessons, but she hated sewing.