Shinju (12 page)

A
little before the dinner hour, Sano arrived in the district where his parents lived on the edge of Nihonbashi nearest the castle, among other samurai families who had gone into trade and merged with the townspeople.

He rode through the gate that led to their street, nodding a greeting to the two guards stationed there. A short bridge took him over the willow-edged canal. At its opposite side, the road ran through a strip of debris-strewn ground where a recent fire had destroyed two houses on either side of the road. Sano looked upon the sight with sorrow. His father's last letter had told him about the fire, which had killed members of all four families and destroyed their businesses. As he continued down the street, he wondered what other changes had come about since he'd moved away. He passed the grocer's, the stationer's and several food stalls, coming to a stop at the corner, outside the Sano Martial Arts Academy.

The academy occupied a long, low wooden building that stood flush with the street. Dingy brown tiles, the same color as the walls, covered the roof. Plain wooden bars screened the windows. A faded sign announced the academy's name. The place seemed both older and smaller than when he'd last seen it only a month ago. He dismounted in the gathering dusk, tied his horse's reins
to the railing that bordered the narrow veranda, then entered. A wave of nostalgia swept over him.

In the practice room, oil lamps mounted on the wall lit the winter darkness. Two rows of young men dressed in loose cotton jackets and trousers faced each other in simulated combat. One row wielded wooden blades that substituted for actual steel swords, while the others parried the sword thrusts with a variety of weapons—staffs, spears, chains, iron fans. Their shouts and stamps echoed against the walls in a deafening roar. Sano breathed in the familiar combination of smells—sweat, hair oil, damp plaster, and old wood—feeling at once comforted and sad. He couldn't remember a time when the place had not been home to him. As a boy, he'd learned his fighting skills under his father's strict tutelage, beginning as soon as he was big enough to hold a child-sized sword. Later, as a young man, he'd instructed his own pupils. He'd planned to manage the school himself someday, in the way that any oldest or only son would take over the family business upon his father's retirement.

But the school had not prospered. This was partly because many samurai no longer bothered perfecting their military skills or having their sons trained. However, the main cause lay with the academy itself. Unaffiliated with a major clan, it received no stipend, and Sano's father had to pay the authorities for permission to operate. Lacking wealthy patrons and a prestigious location, and using teaching techniques learned from an obscure master with a small following, the academy attracted fewer pupils every year. Soon there weren't enough to occupy both Sano and his father. Sano had begun tutoring to earn his keep and contribute to his family's support. This year Sano's father had announced that upon his death the school would be turned over to his apprentice, Aoki Koemon—the
sensei
leading this class. Shortly afterward, he had taken Sano to see Katsuragawa Shundai about a government position.

“Sano-
san
!” Koemon came toward him, smiling. Bowing low, he said, “Good evening.”

Sano greeted his old friend. They'd grown up together, but as adults Koemon always addressed Sano with the respect due him as the master's son. Now, seeing Koemon looking relaxed and confident in the world he himself had left behind, Sano experienced a twinge of envy. His past was closed to him; he couldn't go back. The present, with its greater financial rewards and troubling conflicts, was all he had.

“So what do you think?” Koemon asked, gesturing toward the class.

Contemplating the students, whose faces were familiar, and the array of weapons, which was not, Sano nodded. “Times have changed,” he said.

He and his father and Koemon had debated for several years whether to include nontraditional weapons in the school's curriculum. His father, a strict devotee of
kenjutsu
, had wanted to limit instruction to the art of swordsmanship.

“Nowadays a samurai must be prepared to face opponents armed with a variety of weapons, and besides, the school must offer something new to attract pupils.” Sano repeated the arguments that he and Koemon had used to counter the old man's opposition. But seeing that the change had been made in his absence gave him an inexplicable touch of uneasiness that he forgot when he noticed the weapon that Koemon held.

“You teach the art of the
jitte
?” he asked.

Koemon shrugged. “The basics. I'm no expert at it.”

More out of curiosity than need, Sano had experimented with the
jitte
in the practice hall at the barracks. “Let's try it now,” he said, shedding his cloak and hat and rolling up his sleeves.

With Koemon using a wooden sword in deliberate slow motion, Sano demonstrated how to deflect its blade, and how to deliver counterblows with the
jitte
.

“Parry like this,” he said, raising the
jitte
to block a cut to
his shoulder. “Counterstrike before your opponent recovers—quickly, because his reach is longer than yours.”

He swung the weapon around to tap its slender shaft against Koemon's arm. After blocking another cut, he thrust the blunt end at his friend's neck.

“And when the time is right—” He arrested Koemon's next slice by catching the blade in the
jitte
's prongs. One sharp twist, and he'd wrenched the weapon from his friend's hand. “With enough force, you can break your opponent's sword in two.”

Then they exchanged weapons so he could demonstrate how to keep one's blade free of the
jitte
's prongs and the footwork necessary to avoid getting thrown or hit once the blade was caught. Soon he was hot and sweaty, his energy flowing with the welcome exercise. It felt good to be back in the familiar practice room. He could almost believe he still belonged there.

When they'd finished, Koemon turned to the class, raising his voice over the din:

“That's all for today!”

At his command, the pupils froze. Silence fell over the room. They bowed to their opponents and to Sano and their
sensei
, then filed toward the dressing-room door.

“Where is my father?” Sano asked when he and Koemon were alone. “Out on business?”

Koemon hesitated. “He didn't come in today.”

Sano's uneasiness returned. His father never missed a day of work. “What's wrong?” he asked.

“I don't know.” Koemon avoided Sano's eyes, indicating that he did know what was wrong, but either didn't want to say or had been told not to.

Sano bid a hasty good-bye to his friend. Now the change in the school's curriculum took on an ominous significance. Why had his father finally consented to it? With a knot of worry tightening in his stomach, Sano left the practice room. He led his horse around the corner, down the narrow side lane. There high fences shielded
the rear lots of the businesses, where the proprietors' living quarters were located. Through chinks in the fences, he could see the yellow flicker of lamps burning in gardens and hear the customary evening sounds: servants chattering, wooden buckets thunking their way up from wells, horses whinnying in stables behind the houses. The pungent odors of miso soup and garlic drifted from kitchens. But food was the farthest thing from Sano's mind as he pushed open his parents' gate.

He backed his horse into its space in the stable in the garden. Seeing the other stall empty increased his anxiety. His father had been predicting his own death for several years now. But the old man's failure to replace his horse when it died a few months ago was a more eloquent and sobering statement that his life was nearing its end.

Sano went into the house, leaving his shoes and swords in the entryway. In the large, earth-floored kitchen to his right, the elderly maid Hana knelt before the stove, stirring soup. Beside it, a pot of rice simmered. Vegetables lay on a wooden table beside the stone washbasin. Two black lacquer
ozen
stood near the wall, already set with bowls, chopsticks, and saucers. Sano nodded in response to Hana's smiling bow. She'd worked for the family since before his birth; normally he would have paused to chat with her, but a deep, barking cough sounded from inside the main room. Sano slid open the door.

His father sat huddled beneath a voluminous quilt. Bent over double, he coughed wrackingly into the cloth that Sano's mother held to his mouth. Then he drew a shallow, gasping breath and began to cough again. Sano's mother made soothing noises. With her free hand, she pulled the end of the quilt over the brazier, so that its warmth might reach her husband. An oil lamp on the floor beside them cast their shadows against the walls of the small room and highlighted the lines of suffering on the old man's emaciated face.

“
Otōsan!
” Sano cried in dismay.

For a long time now, his father's health had been poor without ever seeming to get worse. Now Sano was shocked to see how much his father had deteriorated in just one month.

Both parents turned simultaneously to look at him, his father's cough subsiding.

“
Otōsan
, why didn't you tell me you were ill?” Sano demanded, kneeling beside his father.

Spent, eyes closed, the old man shook his head. One thin hand came out from under the quilt and feebly waved away Sano's question.

Sano's mother answered for her husband. “He didn't want to worry you, Ichirō-
chan
,” she said. “And anyway, he's much better today. He'll be fine soon.” Her voice and smile were bright, but her careworn face told the truth. She looked down at the cloth she held. Seeing the bloodstains, she hastily hid it in her lap.

“Has he seen the doctor?” Sano asked her, trying not to show impatience with her self-delusion. She had always denied the existence of problems, both because she hoped that to do so would make them go away, and because her upbringing had taught her to always present an untroubled facade to the world. He couldn't force her to confront the gravity of his father's illness; time and nature would do that. Pity for her nearly overshadowed his own grief.

“No doctor,” Sano's father rasped. He coughed again—a mercifully short spell this time—then said, “It grows late. We will eat now.
Omae
, bring the food. Our son must not go hungry.”

Sano's mother rose obediently and left the room.

With an aching heart, Sano noted another ominous change in his father. The old man had never liked to talk about his symptoms—the cough, the pains, the fever, the difficulty in breathing. Still, he'd willingly consulted doctors and tried their remedies; he'd visited fortune tellers to find out how long he had to live; he'd gone to both Shinto and Buddhist priests for prayers that might convince the gods to spare his life. Now, though, he was accepting
his illness and its inevitable result with stoic resignation. Sano's eyes burned with unshed tears. Not wanting his parents to see them, he bent his head over the damp washcloth that his mother brought him. He could not meet her eyes as she gave his hand a brief caress.

Hana placed food-laden
ozen
before Sano and his father. They ate in silence, as usual strictly observing the custom of no conversation during meals. With nothing to distract him, Sano couldn't help noticing how little his father ate, and how slowly. A few spoonfuls of miso soup, a fragment of pickled white radish, and a sliver of fish, with tiny sips of tea between bites. His mother, who usually plied Sano with more food than he could eat, instead devoted her whole attention to constantly refilling her husband's dishes in a futile effort to make him eat more. Sano resolved to bring up the subject of doctors again when the meal ended.

But when the
ozen
were removed and the smoking tray brought, his father spoke first.

“I have found a prospective bride for you, Ichirō,” he said. “She is Ikeda Akiko, nineteen years old, with a dowry of four hundred
ryō
.”

Sano kept his face expressionless. His father persisted in making proposals on his behalf only to the daughters of wealthy samurai. This was why Sano remained unhappily single at the advanced age of thirty. He didn't want to contradict his father, but he hated to see him suffer yet another humiliation when, predictably, the proposal was rejected.

He said, “The Ikedas rank far above us,
Otōsan
. I don't think they would want me for a son-in-law.”

“Nonsense!” His father's exclamation set off another coughing fit. “Our go-between will send gifts and contact them to arrange a
miai
. I am sure they will consent. Especially now that you are a
yoriki
.”

Yoriki
or not, the Ikedas would never agree to the
miai
—a formal meeting of him and Akiko and the two families—Sano
knew. They would probably send the gifts back by return messenger.

“Yes,
Otōsan
,” he said, afraid his father would cough again if he disagreed. Surely that frail body could not stand much more strain.

Satisfied, his father changed the subject. “Does your work go well, my son?” he asked, lighting his pipe from the metal basket of embers on the tray. He took a puff, coughed, spat into a napkin, and set the pipe down.

Sano decided to say nothing about Magistrate Ogyu's reprimand or the illicit murder investigation. Instead he described his office, his duties, and his living quarters, presenting each in as favorable a light as possible without boasting. He didn't mention his colleagues' coldness or his own unhappiness.

The gleam of pride in his father's eyes was his reward. The old man sat straighter, and Sano could see the warrior who had once stood against entire classes of samurai in practice sword fights.