A Tale of False Fortunes (20 page)

“Do such things really happen?” The empress consort muttered to herself, half in doubt.

Rumors of the malignant spirit increased daily.

One day the emperor said to Ò Myòbu, the daughter of Tò Sanmi, “Myòbu, I can’t persuade the regent to take me to the Fujitsubo Pavilion. But, besides paying a get-well visit to the empress, I’d like to see this malignant spirit without anyone knowing about it. I hear the empress consort at Sanjò is in a pre-carious physical condition, too, and if she should happen to hear of these rumors, one can only imagine how painful it would be to her. . . . Others might not be certain, but if I see this with my own eyes, I’ll know at a glance whether or not it is the empress consort’s spirit. If it is the spirit of another woman—

or some other evil spirit possessing her—efforts to exorcise it could possibly harm the empress consort, who is with child. I understand that it would be complicated for me to go there officially and openly, but couldn’t you and your mother somehow devise a way to get me into the Fujitsubo Pavilion in secret?”

“With all due respect, your majesty.” Myòbu, who was a personal servant to the emperor, answered with the familiarity of a foster sister. “Allow me to remind you what would be prudent here, just as my mother would do. If the lord regent were to learn of such an indiscretion, it would not matter that it was at your majesty’s command; the blame would be laid upon us.

Therefore . . .”

Myòbu answered as if she had no idea how to arrange such a thing, but in reality this command of the emperor’s was exactly what she and her mother, Tò Sanmi, wanted to hear. It was not that they felt the least disrespect toward the emperor, but ever since Empress Shòshi’s presentation at court, Michinaga had particularly kept his eye on the old nurse and her daughter, and they fervently hoped that somehow or other the
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emperor’s affections would shift from Empress Consort Teishi to the empress alone. For Tò Sanmi, who had raised the emperor from infancy as his nurse, perhaps there was also a touch of jealousy of the emperor’s devotion to the empress consort.

At any rate, the emperor’s scheme was whispered in detail to Michinaga, who smiled broadly and began ingenious preparations to facilitate the emperor’s secret visit.

Two or three days after that, Tò Sanmi presented herself before the Emperor. “This evening, his lordship the regent will return to the Tsuchimikado Palace and will not be staying at the Fujitsubo Pavilion. If your majesty would steal in undetected, you would do well to go there after the first watch. From what I hear from the ladies-in-waiting there, it is precisely at that time that the empress is harassed by the spirit. In the main hall on the east side of the dais priests perform in turns the five altar rites, burning cedar sticks and intoning incantations. No one will notice if you go along the wall curtains from the side door on the west and place yourself outside the main hall. I shall have lady chamberlains and other servants stationed about casually, and if anyone should become suspicious, you could simply say that you were so anxious about the empress’ illness that you had come in secret. After you have retired to your bedchamber, I shall come and call for you, so please remain in your court robes.”

After the hour of the boar [10:00 p.m.], at the slight raising of the bedchamber curtains as a signal, the emperor slipped out, dressed in a full robe of white patterned cloth and trailing long sleeves. Myòbu, who was waiting there, gently veiled his head with a light garment. They then proceeded from the roofed corridor of the Seiryòden Palace toward the Fujitsubo Pavilion. The emperor was slight, but Tò Sanmi was a large, portly woman.

Walking between her and Myòbu, he seemed not to know where he was.

In the front garden swept by the chilly evening winds of autumn, the colors of the flowers had faded. Michinaga had ordered that bell crickets and pine crickets be collected from fields and mountains round about and presented to the empress
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as an amusement, and these were filling the garden with their chirping. Ordinarily many courtiers would be making their way to the women’s quarters to court someone, but now, considering the empress’ afflictions, everyone remained on night watch at his own station.

“Kiyonori reporting for night watch!”

As he was walking along the corridor, such distant voices struck the emperor as novel.

People had been cleared out of the way without making their absence appear contrived. Free of the worry of being questioned by anyone, the emperor took his place in the spot prepared for him behind the curtained dais. The room was partitioned by several screens and curtains, with a walled room at the rear. His position offered an optimal vantage: no obstacle in seeing both the main hall and the side room, yet shielded from the opposite view.

The air was thick with the scent of cedar sticks and poppy constantly burning at the altar. Dense smoke was drifting through the room where only the incense fires were blazing red.

Mixed with the sounds of the rubbing of rosary beads, of the altar bell, and of exorcists’ incantations were the curses and shrieks of the mediums. All of this was radically different from the usual elegant appearance of the palace. The entire hall appeared to be swept in a maelstrom, as if in the fires of hell.

At first the emperor was horrified to see such a scene, but when he peeked inside the curtains he recognized the still child-like face of the empress as she dozed there, her brows slightly drawn together and her splendid black hair laid out on a pillow of Chinese patterned cloth. Tò Sanmi whispered into the Emperor’s ear, “The one they are now exorcising is the ghost of Michikane, but this ghost has not been too great an obstruction to the empress’ recovery.”

Just then, like a tide surging from the main hall toward the side room, a commotion erupted from among the ladies-in-waiting huddled together chanting a mystical Sanskrit formula.

From among the long skirts and black hair—which in the dark appeared almost like waves surging against the shore—a dim
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white figure emerged and stood up as if hoisted. With her cypress-ribbed fan held up against her face, she drew up close to the curtained dais.

“Look! That’s it, the way she tilts her head with her neck bent slightly. . . . Doesn’t she look like that to you?” Myòbu tugged lightly at the emperor’s robe. He did not reply, but appeared to nod deeply within his heart.

There not being two emperors in the land, neither should
there be two empresses. Neither will the gods and buddhas allow such a contravention of the laws of society, no
matter how much you flaunt your authority. You do not
realize that the perverse mind of my father will requite
you. . . . Woe, woe!

The lady-in-waiting possessed by the malignant spirit spoke slowly, as if she were chanting a sutra, and then laughed in a resonant, beautiful voice. Jolted awake by that voice the empress raised her head from the pillow, moaned in agony, and threw her head back. “Are you in pain?” “It always strikes at this same time.” Her nurse and the senior ladies-in-waiting all spoke at once. They held her in their arms as they pressed down on her chest and rubbed her back. The sight was pathetic to the emperor.

The empress was writhing in pain as if something had seized her at the breast and were pulling her down. The lady-in-waiting possessed by the malignant spirit walked in a swaying manner around the curtained dais with a triumphant look on her face. She continued her cursing in a monotone, as if chanting a sutra, saying this young woman would lose her life in the near future if she remained in the position of empress. When the medium finished her maledictions, a priest whose white brow bespoke much merit accumulated through ascetic practices stepped forward from the altar and stood before the medium.

“What perverse person’s spirit is it that comes to curse the empress’ future happiness while the entire realm is lamenting her distress?”

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“Even if I do not announce myself, it is obvious. . . .”

“No, if you do not announce yourself, there can be no means to placate your enmity.”

“Establish the first prince as crown prince. . . . Then this vengeful apparition will disappear.”

“Is this the spirit of the departed former regent?”

“No, I am not a man.”

“Then are you the ghost of his wife, Kishi?”

“No, no. Why give my mother an undeserved reputation?

Don’t you realize that this is the living ghost of a pitiful woman, empress in name only, whose makeshift palace is a hut over-grown with dewy weeds, who has been separated from her lord and is passing through a world not quite real, who in spite of herself traverses the distance to this place through darkness and moonlit night?”

Though the voice was not clear, there could be no doubt that it was exactly like Teishi’s, tinged with a sorrow like the lingering resonance of a bell cricket’s chirp. Watching her as she covered her mouth and drew her black hair into a collar, seeming to avert her face in bashfulness, was like looking at Teishi herself. It gave the emperor gooseflesh in spite of himself.

The empress’ distress grew intense and her head was in great pain. Cloths were soaked in a pail of water and placed on her forehead. Her mother, Rinshi, entered through the curtains.

The emperor took advantage of the mounting confusion to steal away secretly and return to the Seiryòden Palace along the same route he had come.

He was unable to sleep that entire night. The chilling image never left his eyes: that medium who had wandered in a stupor through the hellish haze of smoke licked by red tongues of fire on the cedar stick altars.

There was something both promising and endearing about
her nature which, though exceedingly soft and yielding on
the surface, had a tenacious pliancy within, like a twig of
green willow that appears easily bent but is difficult to
break. Reflecting on that, His Majesty was about to pro-Chapter Six
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nounce the rumors true, but was somehow unable to put
it into words. Ever since the demise of the late Regent, she
must have often despised him as spineless. In various ways
she would feign the compassion of a substitute mother in
order to keep the world securely in her own grasp, and for
that very reason had always refrained from spiteful
reproaches. But now that she had become the mother of
the First Prince, she showed herself to be like any mother:
endowed with a strong, single-minded devotion that would
lead her even into tiger or wolf dens. It is not to be wondered, therefore, that she should want to have her son
honored as the Lord of All Under Heaven. At any rate, it
was strange that the manners, the choice of words, and
even the voice of the medium that evening were just like
those of the Empress Consort. If such a thing were to
become widely known, society would turn against her. . . .

No matter how he tried to put such thoughts out of his
mind, they continued to vex him, and the night broke
without his having slept at all.

The reader has no doubt guessed that, in the confused atmosphere that evening in the Fujitsubo Pavilion, the practiced acting of Kureha of Miwa had created an illusion convincing the emperor that it was the empress consort.

The emperor experienced a profound shock at having witnessed that evening’s scene. When his majesty refused to listen to matters of government all the following day, Michinaga knew his plan had worked. He felt assured that if he carried his scheme just one step further, he could succeed in wresting the emperor’s heart from its attachment to the empress consort.

The empress consort was growing weaker and was practically bedridden as her pregnancy progressed. This provided Michinaga with a perfect opportunity to spread the rumor that people in semi-invalid states are especially prone to turn into living ghosts and go wandering about.

After several days of studying the expression on the emperor’s face, Michinaga approached him. “I have often disregarded your majesty’s wishes. The end of the empress’ distress is not
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yet in sight, and her mother has summoned her back home to recuperate at ease. I would like to have your majesty pay her a visit before she departs, and see how she has weakened.”

“I, too, had wanted to pay the empress a personal visit and was frustrated because you would not give permission. Well, then, let us visit her at once today.”

“A most gracious command! The empress would no doubt be ashamed of the disordered appearance of the pavilion during the day. I shall arrange for you to visit her after dusk.” Michinaga returned to the Fujitsubo Pavilion, commanded that the altars for the rites be left as they were, and had the priests continue their prayers. Meanwhile, he had the cluttered side room put in order as much as possible, and then waited for the emperor to arrive.

When the emperor made his appearance after dusk, the empress was sitting up, leaning on an armrest. He felt pity as he looked at her face, which had grown thin and small. And yet it was all the more clear to him then that the feeling he was experiencing was what one would have for a younger sister; it was quite different from the sympathetic pains he felt at seeing Teishi’s sufferings.

“I’m happy to see that your color is better than I expected. I should like to visit you every day, but I have restrained myself because your mother is here, and I thought that my presence would only increase her worries. Please get well soon. We have abandoned the
koto
that you started learning with me. You simply must get better so that we can play a game of dice or checkers or something. . . .” The emperor spoke gently as he firmly held the empress’ delicate hand and brushed back locks of hair that had fallen over the sides of her face. For her years, Empress Shòshi was a girl of sound disposition, and she thanked the emperor profusely for his visit. Michinaga added that if she went home for a time she would no doubt recover quickly.