Shinju (9 page)

Her brave resolve almost crumbled. Touching Yukiko's kimonos, she could feel her sister's presence. She could smell the elusive flowery scent of her bath oil. Midori's eyes blurred again, and a tear dropped onto the clothing. But she forced herself to move on to a large chest that sat on the floor beneath the shelves.
There, under a stack of summer kimonos, she found what she'd been looking for: A pile of volumes, each a thick sheaf of cream-colored mulberry paper bound with a black silk cord.

Yukiko's diaries.

Midori snatched up the top volume. Carrying it over to the window where the light was best, she opened it, heart pounding. Now she would—or at least she hoped she would—learn why Yukiko had died. Despite her bold declaration to the handsome
yoriki
, she wasn't all that sure that Yukiko hadn't committed suicide. Lately her sunny, tranquil sister had seemed moody and withdrawn. All Midori did know was that Yukiko always recorded her thoughts, as well as her daily activities, in her diary. Now the diary would tell Midori whether Yukiko had really had a lover and grown desperate enough to take her own life—or whether something else had led to her death. Midori scrabbled impatiently through the soft pages, looking for the last entry. But halfway through, a passage caught her eye. With the tip of her tongue caught between her front teeth, she began to read.

Midori smiled despite her grief. Yukiko's words brought back the enchantment of that evening. As long as she read, she felt as though her sister were still with her.

No one could ever be angry with Yukiko, Midori thought, as grief seized her again. As eldest sister, she had disciplined Midori and the seven other girls firmly, but always with such love and gentleness that they were eager to obey, just to please her.…

Soft footsteps sounded in the corridor: stockinged feet making the thin wooden floor creak. Midori's head snapped up. Guiltily she clapped the diary shut and looked for a place to hide. She mustn't get caught here; her stepmother would punish her. The footsteps passed. Midori opened the diary at a different place, near the end. She began to read again, this time resisting the temptation to relive happy times, searching in earnest for clues.

The next passage she chose disappointed her. A description of an event that had taken place six years ago could have no bearing on Yukiko's death. Here Yukiko's tone grew troubled, her prose choppy as if she had written reluctantly, without her usual pleasure.

Midori puzzled over this passage. Yukiko and Masahito had been very close for a half-sister and -brother, but lately she'd noticed
a certain coldness between them. She turned the page, hoping to learn the cause of their estrangement. But the passage didn't continue. Instead she found a shopping list: embroidery thread, hairpins, face powder. Remembering that she had no time to lose, she hastily thumbed the remaining pages, looking for Noriyoshi's name. She almost laughed aloud in triumph when she didn't find it. Just as she'd thought: Yukiko hadn't known the man. She ignored the nagging suspicion that perhaps Yukiko had not written about her lover because she was afraid someone would read her diary. Midori turned to the last entry, written the day before Yukiko's death.

Chewing her fingernail, Midori read the passage again. She ran her finger over the characters, which were shaky and irregular, unlike the beautiful calligraphy of the earlier entries. Yukiko's agitation had expressed itself in her writing.
Destroy
…
betray
…
sin
. Such extreme language convinced Midori that here was proof that someone had killed Yukiko, because of something she knew. But what? What decision had caused her such anguish on the last day of her life? Midori flipped to the previous page. She began to read with growing dismay and fascination. So absorbed was she that she didn't notice the door sliding open until it clicked to a stop.

Midori shrieked and dropped the diary. She spun around. Surprise turned to horror when she saw her stepmother silhouetted in the doorway. The light from the corridor left Lady Niu's face in shadow. Behind her loomed the unmistakable bulk of Eii-
chan
, whose silence and ugliness had always frightened Midori. Now she darted a frantic gaze around the room, desperately seeking a hiding place. The cabinet? The chest? But it was too late. Lady Niu was
advancing on her. Whimpering, Midori waited for her stepmother's outburst and inevitable stinging slaps.

But Lady Niu stopped a few paces from her. Her serene gaze flickered over Midori, down to the diary on the floor, to the disarranged cabinets.

“You have entered this room against my orders.” Although she didn't shout like she had in the garden, her hushed tone was somehow more frightening. “You have spoken to a police official without my permission, and no doubt told him foolish lies about our family. And now you have dishonored your sister's memory by abusing her possessions.”

Midori began to tremble. Her lips moved in a soundless plea. “Please … no …” She sensed that what happened to her next would be far worse than a beating. She stepped backward and felt her elbow tear through the paper windowpane.

“For this you must be punished,” Lady Niu went on in the same tone. She paused, her lovely eyes narrowing. Midori could almost hear her turning over the possibilities: no play, no company, no good food or favorite possessions for several days? She'd used all of these before. Then Lady Niu nodded, apparently reaching a decision.

“Go to your room until arrangements can be made,” she ordered. To Eii-
chan
, who had come to stand at her side, she said, “See that Miss Midori gets to her room—and stays there.”

Midori helplessly preceded Eii-
chan
to the door. Fear for herself drove from her mind all thought of what she had read in Yukiko's diary. Then a ripping noise made her look over her shoulder at her stepmother. She cried out in dismay.

Lady Niu had picked up Yukiko's diary. She was tearing the pages into little pieces and dropping them into the charcoal brazier.

U
pon returning to his office, Sano found an uncharacteristically glum Tsunehiko waiting for him. The young secretary mumbled a reply to his greeting and barely looked up from his desk to bow.

“What's wrong, Tsunehiko?” Sano asked.

“Nothing,” Tsunehiko replied, his eyes downcast, his lower lip outthrust.

Sighing, Sano knelt beside his secretary. Something was obviously troubling Tsunehiko; he'd had enough experience with young boys to read the signs. Resigned, he prepared to listen and sympathize.

Tsunehiko fidgeted with his sash, a bright blue one that matched the pattern of blue waves on his kimono, which gaped at the collar to show a section of plump chest. The chest heaved with each noisy breath. Just when Sano thought he would refuse to speak, he muttered, “The other
yoriki
take their secretaries with them when they go out on business. You never take me anywhere.”

Now that his tongue had loosened, he rushed on, not giving Sano a chance to reply. “Yesterday you gave me a lot of orders, then walked out. Today you did the same thing. My father says I'm here to learn a profession. But how can I learn if you don't teach me anything?”

He lifted a pink, earnest face to Sano. His serious mood had caused his eyes to cross, giving him a comically dazed expression. Sano suppressed an urge to smile as Tsunehiko continued sadly:

“Besides, I get lonely by myself. I have no friends here. Nobody likes me.”

Sano's mirth almost erupted into laughter at this mingling of adult and childish concerns. But he realized that he had so far proven a poor mentor for his secretary, offering little instruction and tolerating laziness and mistakes. The teacher in him still felt responsible for the nurturing of a young mind placed in his charge. He felt ashamed of neglecting that responsibility.

“From now on, we'll work more closely together, Tsunehiko,” he said. “Whatever I can teach you, I will.” At whatever aggravation to himself, he promised silently.

Tsunehiko bobbed his head, giving a wavery smile.

Sano returned it, both amused and irritated at the picture of the two of them—misfit
yoriki
and melodramatic young whiner—yoked together in ludicrous partnership. Then he changed the subject to the matter that had been foremost in his mind when he entered the office.

“Did you get the addresses I asked you for?” he said.

Before he'd left for the Niu estate this morning, he'd asked Tsunehiko to look up Noriyoshi's places of residence and work in the Temple Registry and Artists' Guild records. Now that he'd failed to learn anything about the murder from the Nius, interviewing Noriyoshi's associates was of prime importance. He fervently hoped that Tsunehiko had managed to perform this simple task.

“Yes,
Yoriki
Sano-
san
!” Tsunehiko beamed, completely restored to his usual cheerful self. Snatching up a paper from his desk, he presented it to Sano with a flourish.

Sano read the characters written in Tsunehiko's large, awkward script:

“Yoshiwara.” Sano lingered over the name of the district. Yoshiwara, the walled pleasure quarter near the river on Edo's northern outskirts, where prostitution of all kinds was legal. Where food, drink, and myriad entertainments—theater, music, gambling, shopping, and others less innocuous—were available in abundance for those with money to pay for them. The district had originally been called “reedy plain” after the land it occupied. Then some clever promoter had modified the characters of the name to mean “lucky plain,” a euphemism that had endured. Still another name for it was the Nightless City: Yoshiwara never slept.

“He lived and worked at the same place,” Tsunehiko added. “Both records gave the same address. Okubata was his employer.”

“I see.” In keeping with the rules that governed traditional teacher-pupil relationships, Sano did not praise Tsunehiko for work well done. But he could offer a reward. And there was no time like the present for keeping promises. Tsunehiko's participation would be a hindrance, but one he thought he could manage.… “How would you like to go with me to Yoshiwara and help investigate Noriyoshi?”

“Yes! Oh, yes! Thank you,
Yoriki
Sano-
san
!” Tsunehiko leaped eagerly to his feet. He toppled his desk, spilling papers, brushes, and ink all over the floor.

A short while later, they were on a slow, rocking ferry headed upriver toward Yoshiwara. The open boat, which could seat a row of five men along either side, would have been full in summer. But today, Sano and Tsunehiko were the only passengers. In their heavy cloaks and wide wicker hats, they huddled under the flapping
canopy that provided scant shelter from the cold, damp river breeze. Behind them the two muscular boatmen sang in rhythm with their splashing oars, occasionally interrupting their song to shout greetings to men on passing fishing boats and cargo vessels. The brown water swirled around them, rank and murky, reflecting no light from the low gray sky.

Tsunehiko was opening the box lunch they'd brought to fortify themselves for the two-hour trip. “We should really be riding to Yoshiwara on white horses,” he said. “That's the fashionable way. And in disguise, so no one will know we're samurai.” He began to consume rice balls, pickles, and salted fish with great zest and speed.