Shinju (10 page)

Sano smiled. Laws forbade samurai to visit the pleasure quarter, but since the laws were seldom enforced, members of their class frequented Yoshiwara openly, in droves. Disguise was unnecessary, except to add a touch of intrigue to the fun.

“We're on official business, Tsunehiko,” he said.

“Official business,” Tsunehiko agreed. He grinned, showing a mouthful of partially chewed food.

Sano ate his own lunch more slowly. He'd chosen to travel by boat, sacrificing speed for the opportunity to study the river that had claimed the bodies of Noriyoshi and Yukiko. Now he gazed at the line of warehouses on his left. The pair could have been thrown into the river anywhere: From one of the piers or docks or boathouses at the foot of the stone embankment; from the Ryōgoku Bridge, under whose great arch the boat was carrying him now; or even from the marshes on the opposite bank. If he didn't learn anything in Yoshiwara, he would have to search up and down the river for witnesses, a task that might take days to finish.

At last the ferry drew up beside the dock. Sano paid the boatmen. Then he and Tsunehiko climbed out, stretching their cramped muscles as they mounted the steps that led up the embankment. They followed the road inland, past shops and restaurants that served the river trade. Servant girls smiled invitingly at
them from the curtained doorways, then turned sullen when they didn't stop. Passing through the rice fields and marshes outside Asakusa, they could see the tiled roof of the Sensū Temple rising in the distance above the smaller houses and temples surrounding it. A gong tolled; the wind brought with it the faint smell of incense. A few priests, their heads shaved, called out from the roadside, extending their begging bowls for offerings.

A short walk brought them within sight of the moat and high earthen walls that encircled Yoshiwara. Two samurai clad in helmets and armor vests guarded the gate: the day shift of the continuous watch maintained over people passing through the gate's roofed and ornamented portals.

Questioning the guards, Sano experienced anew the difficulty of carrying out an unofficial murder investigation.

“Yes, we knew Noriyoshi,” one of them said. But when Sano asked if he'd seen Noriyoshi the day of his death, the guard replied, “He went in and out all the time. How am I supposed to remember exactly when? Anyway, he's dead, so what does it matter?”

Having no ready answer to this, Sano asked, “Did anyone come out carrying a large box or package two nights ago?” One large enough to hold a dead body, he wished he could add. He was conscious of Tsunehiko wheezing beside him, hanging on every word. The secretary probably thought he was learning how a
yoriki
conducted business. Hopefully he wouldn't understand what was going on—or at least not enough for it to matter if he told anyone about this trip.

The other guard snorted. Unlike the Edo Jail guards, he and his partner, who wore the triple-hollyhock-leaf Tokugawa crest on their sleeves, evidently saw no need to act subservient toward a city official. “Probably.” In a condescending voice, he added, “But we have plenty to do besides keeping track of all the porters,
yoriki
.”

Like making sure no women escaped, Sano thought. Virtually all the
yūjo
—courtesans—had been sold into prostitution by impoverished
families, or sentenced to Yoshiwara as punishment for crimes. While some reigned over the quarter like princesses, enjoying their luxurious surroundings while tolerating men's attentions, others, mistreated by cruel masters, led miserable lives. These often tried to flee through the gates disguised as servants or boys. The guards would naturally pay less attention to the comings and goings of porters, or of a man they knew.

“No disrespect intended,” the guard went on in a tone that implied otherwise, “but you're blocking the gate. Are you going in or not?”

“Thank you for your assistance,” Sano said. As he and Tsunehiko entered Naka-no-cho, the main street, he gazed around with interest. He'd seen Yoshiwara many times: during childhood summers, when he and his parents had joined other Edo families to watch the beautiful pageants of the
yūjo
. Later, as a student wandering the streets with his friends, gawking at the women. But years had passed since his last visit. The price of food, drink, and female companionship was far too high for him, and the necessity of earning a living left no time for the long trip there and back, or the hours of drunken revelry in between. Now he saw that while some things matched his memories, others did not.

The rows of wooden buildings were familiar, as were the bold signs advertising the teahouses—which sold not tea, but sake—shops, restaurants, and brothels, or pleasure houses. A familiar smell of stale wine and urine lingered in the air. But the quarter had grown. Although the walls limited outward expansion, new businesses had filled in the spaces between the older ones that Sano recognized. His last visit had taken place in evening, when glowing paper lanterns hung from the eaves and beautiful courtesans solicited customers from within the barred, cagelike windows that fronted the pleasure houses. Now, in the afternoon, the lanterns were unlit and the cages empty, with bamboo screens pulled down behind the bars to hide the interiors of the buildings, which showed the inevitable signs of age: yellowed plaster, worn stone
doorsteps, darkened wooden pillars. The season made a difference, too. The branches of the potted flowering cherry trees along the street, pink with blossoms in spring or lushly green in summer, were bare. Fun-seeking samurai and commoners, though numerous, walked quickly instead of strolling, bundled against the cold in their heavy garments. Even their laughter seemed subdued. The glamour that Sano remembered had faded.

Yoshiwara's winter drabness didn't faze Tsunehiko. “Isn't this terrific?” he enthused, goggling at the signs. “I don't understand why Yoshiwara has to be way out here in the middle of nowhere. If it weren't so far from town, we could come every day!”

“The government wanted it away from the city to protect public morals,” Sano answered, taking the opportunity to instruct his protégé. “And it's easier for the police to control what goes on in a centralized quarter than in a lot of scattered areas. They can reduce the number of little girls kidnapped and sold to brothels by procurers.”

He would have added that the
metsuke
—government spies—found Yoshiwara a convenient place to keep tabs on citizens of dubious character. But Tsunehiko wasn't listening. He'd ducked beneath the curtain covering the doorway of a teahouse. A sign above it proclaimed, “WOMEN'S SUMO HERE! See the famous wrestlers Holder-of-the-Balls, Big Boobs, Deep Crevice, and Where-the-Clam-Lives compete!” On a smaller sign: “Tonight's special: Blind search for a dark spot. Women wrestlers versus blind samurai!” Guttural cries and loud cheers issued from inside the teahouse, indicating that the matches, illegal elsewhere in the city, had already begun.

Sano shook his head. Bringing Tsunehiko had been a mistake. Now he would have to waste time keeping track of the boy. One more worry, added to a puzzling murder case and the perils associated with conducting a forbidden investigation.

“Come on, Tsunehiko,” he said. “Let's find Gallery Street.”

Then he found reason to be glad of Tsunehiko's company.
Backing out of the teahouse, Tsunehiko said, “Oh, I know where that is. Follow me, I know a shortcut.”

He bounced off down Naka-no-cho, leading Sano around a corner and along a street where high walls hid the back gardens of the brothels from view. They plunged into a maze of narrow alleys lined with closed doors, barred windows, and overflowing wooden trash containers. Stray dogs rooted through the maladorous debris. Sano was relieved when they emerged into the clean brightness of a wide street.

“Here we are,” Tsunehiko announced proudly. “See?”

All up and down Gallery Street, open storefronts displayed racks and walls covered with colorful woodblock prints. Browsers strolled past, many of them samurai defying the laws that prohibited them from possessing these supposedly immoral works of art. Hawkers stood outside the galleries, chanting prices and extolling the quality of their merchandise. Inside, the proprietors haggled with their customers in strident tones. Sano studied the signs above the galleries. The Okubata Fine Arts Company lay halfway down the block. Now to get rid of Tsunehiko so that he could conduct the interview in private.…

To his delight, Tsunehiko's flightiness came to his aid. The secretary immediately wandered into one of the other shops and began pawing through a stack of pictures. Smiling, Sano headed down the street alone.

He'd no sooner reached the shop than the hawker accosted him, crying, “Good day, sir! Looking for fine prints at the best prices? Well, you've come to the right place!”

He was a man of quite astonishing ugliness. His most prominent feature, a large purplish-red birthmark, spilled across his upper lip, over his mouth, and down his chin. Hair sprouted from his nostrils. Smallpox scars pitted his skin. Protuberant eyes gave him the appearance of an insect, perhaps a mantis. This resemblance was strengthened by his stooped shoulders and by the way he rubbed his bony hands together as he hovered close to Sano.

“Come in, come in,” he urged, plucking at Sano's sleeve.

Sano stepped up onto the raised wooden floor of the shop and passed under the curtain that partially shielded it from the street. The shop was small, a single room with racks of prints crowding its floor and walls, which were hidden by more prints. It was also deserted.

“Now what can I show you?” the ugly man asked. Evidently he was both hawker and proprietor. “Some nice landscape scenes?”

He pointed to a set of pictures mounted on the wall: Mount Fuji during each of the four seasons. Sano could see why the shop had no customers. The prints were poorly drawn, with garish colors slightly out of register so that each picture was a blurred multiple image. He wondered how the shop managed to stay in business.

“Are you Okubata?” he asked the man.

“Yes, yes, that's me. But everyone calls me Cherry Eater.” With a self-deprecating laugh, the proprietor touched his birthmark.

Sano thought the name had a second, lewder meaning, as the man's sly glance seemed to suggest.

Cherry Eater pulled a print from the nearest rack. “Perhaps you prefer classical art, sir?”

Sano winced when he saw the print, a crude copy of the ancient painting
He-gassen
, “Fart Battle.” In it, two samurai on horseback blew farts at each other from bared buttocks. The artist had rendered the farts as huge, colored clouds of fumes.

“A fine tribute to your heroic ancestors,” Cherry Eater suggested.

“No, thank you.” Sano, nettled by the implied insult, eyed the proprietor for signs of irony or deliberate malice, but met with only a polite, bland gaze. “Actually, I've come to talk to you about your employee, Noriyoshi.”

Before he could introduce himself, Cherry Eater exclaimed, “Ahhh! Why didn't you say so?” With a knowing nod, he ushered Sano to a display rack at the rear of the shop. “Sadly the great artist
Noriyoshi has departed from this world. But I have here his most recent work. His best work, I might add. You like it? Yes?”

Looking at the prints, Sano immediately understood how the Okubata Fine Arts Company made its money: by selling
shunga
—erotic art—to a select clientele. The other prints were nothing but window dressing. Noriyoshi's work showed amorous couples in every possible position and setting: In a bedchamber, with the man on top of the woman; in a garden, with the spread-legged woman seated in the fork of a tree and a standing man thrusting into her. Some pictures included third parties, such as maids assisting the couples, or voyeurs peeping through windows at them. Noriyoshi had depicted costumes, surroundings, and genitalia in great detail. A large print showed a reclining samurai, his swords on the floor next to him, his robes parted to expose a huge erection. With one hand he fondled the crotch of the nude maiden lying beside him; with the other, he drew her hand toward his organ. The caption read:

All the prints were technically superior to the works at the front of the shop. The colors were clear and harmonious, the drawing masterful. In addition, they had a sensuous grace not usually found in common
shunga
. Sano felt himself growing aroused against his will.

“Perhaps Noriyoshi's pictures can assist you in your romantic endeavors,” Cherry Eater said helpfully.

This jab at his sexual prowess, whether or not intentional, jolted Sano out of his reverie. The proprietor was either a very subtle
wag, or too thoughtless to realize how his remarks might affect his customers. Turning away from the prints, Sano said sharply, “That's none of your business. And I'm not here to buy.”

When he introduced himself, he watched with some satisfaction as Cherry Eater's face blanched so that the birthmark stood out like a fiery rash. The proprietor's eyes flew toward the pictures. The absence of round red censors' seals clearly identified them as contraband, their sale or possession illegal.

“I'm not concerned about your merchandise, either,” Sano hastened to add. “I'd like you to answer some questions about Noriyoshi.”

Color flooded back into Cherry Eater's face. “If I can, sir. Ask me anything at all.” He grinned, expansive in his relief.

To put the man at ease and avoid provoking his suspicion, Sano began with an innocuous question. “How long did Noriyoshi work for you?”

“Oh, not long enough.”

Despite Cherry Eater's innocent smile, Sano began to understand that the proprietor's jabs and wisecracks were indeed intentional, delivered in an apparent earnestness that would fool most people. Annoyed, he frowned a warning.