The Tokaido Road

by Lucia St. Clair Robson

  When Cat looked up she saw a lovely white mask with a high arched nose, rouged cheeks, and a poppy-red pucker of a mouth painted in complete disregard of the actual contour of the lips. The teeth were blackened. The eyebrows had been shaved, and new ones, thin as a three-day moon, had been drawn halfway up on the forehead. The onnagata, the female impersonator, was wearing black-lacquered geta a foot high.

  He also wore a heavy unbelted silk brocade coat that looked black until sunlight revealed it to be the deep purple color of the black dragonfly. It was embroidered with huge gold-and-silver dragonflies. The iridescent green-gold lining of the rolled, padded, and weighted hem would have trailed in the dust if not for the geta. The tabi, white as a crane’s down, fit like a second skin.

  A lavender scarf was tied to two of the long, jade-tipped hairpins in the actor’s elaborate coiffure. The scarf covered the top of his head and dipped onto his brow. It hid the fact that a large circle on the crown of his head was shaved as the government required of actors who impersonated women. The onnagata was flanked by a box bearer, an attendant for his pipe and tobacco, five servants, almost invisible behind their loads of parcels, and a boy apprentice also made up and dressed as a maid in bright scarlet.

  A flock of adoring women had gathered behind them. Out here in the provinces people rarely saw the fashionable elite of the Eastern and the Western capitals. They had to make do with books of theater news and pleasure district gossip. They studied the cheap woodcut prints of famous actors and courtesans. And they lamented the fact that styles changed so quickly in the capitals, the prints were usually out of date by the time they saw them.

  So these women clutched their writing boxes in hopes the exquisite onnagata would inscribe a poem on their fans or their copies of the theater guide, Three Cups of Sake on a Rainy Night. They discussed in earnest whispers the latest convolutions of his hairdo. They calculated the exact width of the brocade sash that covered his chest from his groin almost to his chin under the long, trailing coat. They speculated about the subtle messages in the enormous, superimposed folds of the bow tied in front in the style of the courtesans.

  “What kind of employment?” Cat asked suspiciously. She didn’t intend to encourage someone who was shopping for a catamite.

  “Ah.” The actor flipped open his fan and tittered behind it. “I was so entranced by your performance I forgot my manners entirely. My name is Hashikawa Hatsuse. But I prefer to be called by my art name, Dragonfly.” With his fan, Dragonfly brushed nonexistent dust from the enormous insects embroidered into the front of his coat. “Our troupe is touring, and we have need of strong lads to help with scenery and costumes. What is your name, if I may be so rude as to ask?”

  “Hachibei,” Cat mumbled. “From Kazusa province.”

  “Well, you are the mysterious one, Sir Hachibei, with your horrid little mask.” Dragonfly used his fan to lift the bottom corner of the long paper cloth that covered Cat’s face and chest. Cat drew back and turned her head just enough to disengage the fan.

  “Ah, the bashful rustic.” Dragonfly peered impishly over the fan. “I shall tell the theater chief to expect you. We’re staying at the reception rooms next to the priests’ quarters.”

  He made a slight gesture, and the box bearer produced ink and a brush. Using the box as a desk, Dragonfly wrote a poem on his fan and presented it. A wistful sigh rose from the women.

  That the season has begun

  Is decided by the appearance of

  The red dragonfly.

  “Show this to the stage manager. He’ll admit you.” Dragonfly adjusted the six collars of his layered robes to expose more of the shaved, white nape of his neck while his apprentice hastened to open the parasol. Dragonfly was tall, and the geta raised him well above the crowd. His young page had to wear very high geta to hold the umbrella over his huge hairdo.

  Walking in foot-high pattens was difficult even for the practiced. For balance, Dragonfly kept a languorous hand on his page’s shoulder as he swept off through the press, his slender hips undulating in the “floating step” of the courtesan on promenade. And like a courtesan, he gave way to no one.

  His entourage of admirers parted to let him pass, then closed in and trailed behind him. The sunlight on his dark silk robes sent off shimmers of subtle yet intense color. Long, sinuous, and radiant, he did indeed look like a dragonfly among crickets.

  Openmouthed, Kasane watched him go.

  “Do you plan to make a living like that fraud over there?” Cat nodded toward the magician.

  “What?” Kasane transferred her attention to Cat.

  “Do you intend to belch bees through that ugly gap under your nose?”

  Kasane closed her mouth and blushed.

  “If you want to attract a husband, you’ll have to learn refinement.”

  Kasane hung her head and sighed. “You can’t make a crow white, even if you wash it for a year,” she said sadly.

  “Maybe not. But we can dip you in white paint. By the time your suitor finds out you’re not a crane, he’ll love you for your inner virtues.”

  “He’s nearby.” Kasane blushed. “At the stall of the comic gentleman selling tea.”

  Kasane was afraid the young man would leave before she could have her letter delivered to him. She was more terrified that he wouldn’t. She laid the brush, the paper, her ladle filled with water, and the small bamboo container of liquid ink on the plank.

  “Pick those things up and lay them down again, elder sister,” Cat said. “Hold them as though they were a hummingbird’s eggs in the palm of your hand. Set them down as gently as a leaf landing on a windless day. A person’s breeding shows in how she handles objects.”

  Cat’s interest in improving Kasane’s market value wasn’t exactly selfless. If Kasane’s allegiance were to be transferred to a worthy man, Cat could travel on alone. She could act unencumbered by the fear of exposing an innocent to peril.

  Kasane kept glancing over at the tea stall while Cat wrote out the poem.

  A pale moon waning,

  Wisp of cloud shadow passing

  It is. Then is not.

  When the ink had dried Cat folded the paper in a simple, slightly dated, but tasteful style. The fold’s message was that the sender was a thrifty, wholesome virgin of traditional values. Cat put the letter inside the second sheet, which she folded lengthwise until both formed a narrow strip. She looped one end around the other until she had tied a flat knot in the middle. She dry-brushed ink along the creases.

  “Why are you doing that, younger brother?” Kasane asked.

  “To ensure secrecy. If someone undoes the knot, they won’t be able to tie it exactly as it was. The brush strokes will not match.”

  “Ma!” Kasane despaired of ever learning the tricks of love.

  “Bring a piece of kudzu vine from the wall,” Cat said.

  Cat used her scissors to trim the vine, then twined it around the letter. Her deliberate motions were maddeningly slow.

  “At a time now past,” Cat said as she worked. “A princess fell in love with a lord, and he loved her in return. Their passion was deep, but they kept the affair secret so the lady’s reputation would not be eaten by worms.”

  Cat frapped the ends of the vine to hold it in place. “When the princess died, the lord’s love became a kudzu vine and clung to her grave. So the tale’s been handed down.”

  She studied the effect of her handiwork. Sending a first poem wrapped in a vine with such an erotic history was a brazen move. Shame is thrown aside when one travels, Cat thought. And the sooner Kasane eloped with her lover, the better for everybody.

  “Now what do we do?” Kasane asked.

  With the knife Cat slit the end of a slender bamboo pole and held the cleft open with the blade while she wedged the letter into it. “What is he wearing today?”

  “The same white pilgrim’s robe and black leggings. And a short cloak of blue-and-white-striped pongee. And he has a mole at the outer corner of his left e
ye.”

  Cat studied her choice of messengers in the throng of fair-goers. The one who delivered the poem must set the correct tone. She beckoned to a girl of about seven carrying her baby brother in a sling on her back. She would strike the right note of innocence, a delicate contrast to the kudzu vine.

  The girl could tell from the letter wedged into the cleft bamboo cane what was wanted of her. It was the usual way to carry messages.

  “Five coppers to deliver this to the young gentleman in the pilgrim’s robe sitting at the tea stall. But wait until we’re gone before you do it.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Come along, elder sister.” Cat held up the paper-wrapped coins Dragonfly had given her. “As soon as I see a riverbed beggar about work, we’re going to the used-clothing dealer. You can’t attract a suitor dressed like that.”

  Kasane did look shabby. If fate had rowed her far offshore on a sea of troubles the past few days, the pilgrim’s robe had traveled with her. Cat didn’t worry about the ragged condition of her own clothing. The more tattered and stained it was, the safer and more anonymous she felt.

  Still wearing her mask, Cat led the way past the drum tower and the main temple, then through the rear courtyard to the low building housing the reception rooms and the priests’ quarters. A novice intercepted her warily on the veranda. Cat looked as though she harbored fleas, at the very least. And her mask was ominous.

  Cat started to ask to see the kabuki theater chief. Then something in the periphery of her vision registered. She waved Dragonfly’s fan at the huge stack of travel boxes that were being carried into the side door of the building.

  “Where is the troupe from?” Cat recognized the crest, but Hachibei the peasant boy wouldn’t be likely to.

  “This is the famous Nakamura-za, of Edo.”

  “Is that right? What is the theater chief’s name?”

  “The renowned Nakamura Shichisaburo, of course. The greatest of the Eastern Capital’s ‘soft stuff’ actors.”

  CHAPTER 41

  SHARPEN THE TWOFOLD GAZE

  The fact that the theater chief of the Nakamura-za knew Cat required her to change her plan. For an interview with Shichisaburo she would have to see him alone. To do that she would have to look more presentable. With her bamboo hat pulled low and her staff in hand, she took Kasane to the used-clothing dealer just outside the temple gate.

  They took off their sandals, pushed aside the short blue curtains, and stepped up from the street onto the tatami-covered platform of the shop. The owner and clerks all shouted greetings as they sat. Cat smoked while a clerk served them tea. Another employee fanned the coals in the porcelain brazier to warm the chill in the open-fronted shop.

  “I’m not worthy of such kindness, younger brother,” Kasane murmured.

  “Yes, you are.” Cat waved toward the women’s robes that the shopkeeper’s wife held up for Kasane’s approval. “Pick what you like from those.”

  Then Cat considered each of the men’s garments. Since everything was about the same size, fit was no problem. But the shop’s owner sent the stock boys on several trips back to the storeroom before she decided on an outfit.

  Kasane wasn’t used to being waited on. Tears sparkled in her eyes as she whispered behind her sleeve to Cat. “I've never bought anything for myself.”

  Cat could tell that. She could tell that this pathetic collection of peasant castoffs was unimagined luxury to Kasane.

  Cat had thought to save money by renting clothes. She intended to return them the next morning, after her interview with Nakamura Shichisaburo and after Kasane had impressed her young man, even if only briefly. But as she watched Kasane’s face set softly alight by the used-clothing dealer’s meager stock, she changed her mind. She instructed the shop owner’s wife to take away the rentals and bring out the better robes. They were a bit faded and worn at the collars, but they had no patches.

  Dragonfly’s “little drops” bought Kasane a pair of dark indigo peasant’s trousers, gray leggings, black tabi, and a wadded robe of deep blue cotton with huge white chrysanthemums. Cat mentally computed the cost of the clothes plus the loincloth, wadded jacket, trousers, and leggings she had rented for herself. Then she added a sash of orange-and-yellow tile design to Kasane’s things.

  She used the remaining coppers to buy two pair of new straw sandals and two big squares of cotton to use as furoshiki. The shop owner retired to his desk behind a low slatted partition to weigh the coins and enter the items and amount of the sale in his ledger. While he worked, Cat and Kasane changed behind the screen at the back of the shop.

  Cat helped Kasane tie the sash low on her hips and tuck up the back of the hem of the jacket in boyish fashion. She redid Kasane’s hair in a tea whisk style. The effect was charming and all the rage among women of Edo. Cat was sure Kasane’s suitor would approve. And since women were forbidden in kabuki companies and in the reception rooms of the priests’ quarters, Kasane would blend in better.

  They left to shouts of “Thanks for your continued favors!” from the owner, his wife, and every clerk and stock boy. When they entered the temple grounds again carrying their old clothes in one furoshiki, Kasane could hardly contain her delight. She brushed away motes of imagined lint so she could stroke the robe and sash, whose textures had been softened and their colors deepened by wear.

  Cat draped the black paper cloth around her head again and replaced the mask covering her nose and mouth. The mask was hardly noticeable among the other costumed entertainers, and Cat felt safer behind it. Besides, she didn’t want Shichisaburo to recognize her right away. He might turn her away without hearing her out. He had, after all, thoroughly discharged his obligation to her.

  Cat and Kasane sat with their legs dangling off the edge of the veranda of the temple’s reception rooms until the sun was setting. When the novice finally came to fetch Cat, she left Kasane sitting in the twilight and followed the boy inside.

  The austere cherrywood corridors were cool and dark and serene. The distant chanting of priests seemed to cleanse the air of impure thoughts as thoroughly as the novices cleansed the corridor of dust. Each morning a row of them, bent double at the waist, their skirts tucked up and with dampened rags pressed to the floor, ran hip to hip along the corridors’ boards, polishing them until they glowed faintly.

  When Cat entered Shichisaburo’s crowded room, the actor was admiring a severed human head on a round wooden box lid. It was resting on thick paper, between the sheets of which was the usual cushion of rice bran and ashes to absorb blood. The head’s shaven scalp had been colored a livid purple by the blood that had pooled in it. The bulging eyes were fixed in a death stare.

  “What do you think of it?” Shichisaburo gripped the topknot with one hand to steady the head and with the other jovially held the lid up for Cat’s inspection.

  “It resembles you remarkably, Your Honor.”

  “It does indeed!” Shichisaburo rotated the lid so he could study the wooden likeness from all sides.

  He lifted it to look at the bottom of the neck, which had been carved and painted to simulate the sliced skin, sagging muscles, trailing ligaments, and spinal cord and windpipe. He beamed at the young man in formal black hakama and haori coat who knelt with knees slightly spread and hands on his thighs.

  “Your master is a genius,” Shichisaburo said. “It’s so lifelike I hear flies buzzing around it. And he used paulownia instead of persimmon wood.”

  “Only the best for the greatest, most honorable sir.” The young man bowed low. “My master sends his abject apologies for keeping you waiting. I hurried as fast as I could.”

  The young man looked peaked. Riding in a jolting palanquin for two days and a night hadn’t agreed with his digestive system. Sensation was just returning to the hand that had gripped the palanquin’s looped ceiling strap.

  “Your master could hardly be blamed. I left the capital precipitously. The road called.”

  Actually, Shichisaburo had left Edo
just ahead of serious trouble. Kira’s men had returned. They had refrained from applying painful methods of persuasion. Torturing a celebrity like Shichisaburo would have created a scandal, and scandal was what Kira was trying to avoid. But they had mentioned a certain attendant to the shMgun’s wife, the woman with whom Shichisaburo was having a dalliance. Shichisaburo had confessed to discovering a missing priest’s costume but had assured them he hadn’t seen the fugitive.

  The theaters usually closed down for the eleventh and twelfth months anyway. Everyone in Edo was making preparations for the new year and had less time for frivolities. The kabuki companies used the lull to prepare plays for the next season. Shichisaburo had decided it was a good time to disappear for a while.

  He handed the head to the young man, who swaddled it in a large silk cloth. He placed it reverently in the nest of silk floss in a fragrant cylindrical head box emblazoned with the wood-carver’s crest.

  “The likeness arrived at a most propitious time,” Shichisaburo said. “Today we begin rehearsing The Revenge of the Soga Brothers. When this is produced in the last scene, the audience will be stunned.”

  Shichisaburo lifted the lid for one last look before the young man tied the red silk cords around the box. He nodded first to the wood-carver’s employee, then to his own assistant. “This gentleman will show you to the stage manager’s room,” he said. “He’ll see that this masterpiece is properly cared for.”

  When the two men had gone Shichisaburo turned his attention to Cat, who knelt facing at a respectful angle. She bowed low and placed Dragonfly’s fan and poem on the tatami in front of her. If Shichisaburo had been alone, Cat could have revealed her identity then, but of course the theater chief of the Nakamura-za wouldn’t be alone. Attendants hovered around him here just as they did on stage.