The Memory Painter: A Novel (12 page)

At Kira’s words, unbounded rage overcame Asano and he drew his sword.

Everyone gasped in shock. Such an act inside the Shogun’s castle equaled treason and was punishable by death, and Asano’s rational mind screamed at him to stop—to kill this man would destroy his clan and his name. Kira wanted nothing more than to witness his ruin. By drawing his sword, Asano had granted his wish.

Reason deserted him. He raised the sword high into the air and with a shaking arm brought it down on Kira’s head. Shogun Tsunayoshi entered the hall just as the blade struck. The sword glanced off of Kira’s forehead, drawing blood, and Kira fell to the ground. A great commotion erupted as attendants rushed to help the victim. Everyone could see that the cut was not deep—that Asano hadn’t had the strength to kill him. Kira would live.

Asano blindly raised his sword to strike again, but the other lords and their assistants rushed him and they held him back as they screamed for help from the guards outside.

Shogun Tsunayoshi backed away in horror. Asano’s sword was wrenched away from him, and now that it was gone, his sanity returned. His head was pounding; he couldn’t think. He could only stand there frozen, held back by the arms of his fellow lords. What had just happened?

The Shogun’s
Rojyu
, his second-in-command, roared. “You disrespect the Shogun’s house! His laws!”

Asano dropped to his knees and bowed low in deep remorse.

No one spoke. Seventeen years ago, the Shogun’s prime minister had been struck down in this very room. Rumors of the Shogun’s involvement had surrounded the assassination, so he took Asano’s actions as a personal offense.

Asano remained kneeling, his forehead touching the floor. “I beg forgiveness. There is no excuse for what I have done.”

The Shogun did not acknowledge his plea and stormed toward the door. The Rojyu followed as he bellowed, “The ceremony is ruined. Send everyone home!”

Stripped of his swords, Asano remained on his knees with a rigid back for hours, waiting for his captors to decide what to do. He tried to make sense of his absolute loss of control. Did he hate one man so much that he would throw away his life? He found no answer, only anguish.

A troupe of guards arrived to secrete him away from the castle to Lord Tamura’s mansion, where Asano would await his sentence. Once there, he was allowed to write his wife a letter. He described the day’s occurrence and could only hope that she would pass his message on to his head
kerai
and chief retainer, Oishi Kuranosuke Yoshio, whom he trusted more than his own brother. The fate of his house now rested in Oishi’s hands, and Asano prayed that his kerai would somehow help to repair the damage he had inflicted.

Just as he finished the letter, the Shogun’s officer arrived to deliver the sentence. The Shogun’s decision had come more rapidly than usual. His envoy read it aloud: “By the command of Shogun Tsunayoshi, Lord Asano is to commit seppuku on this day.”

Asano was stunned. He had prepared himself for the possibility of a death sentence, but for it to come so quickly was inconceivable for a lord of his standing. He would have no time to put his house in order.

“The Lady Asano is to suffer permanent exile, and all the property belonging to the Asano clan will be put under the Shogun’s protection.”

Every word was a venomous sting. All three hundred samurai under the House of Asano and their families would be stripped of their homes, their livelihood. Asano forced himself to focus on what the envoy was saying. The worst had been saved for last.

“… The Asano name and its lineage will be struck from the Book of Records.”

On hearing those words, Asano felt the odd bodily sensation of drifting—the anchor to his world had just been cut away. His clan’s entire history was to be forgotten. Only in one way had the Shogun demonstrated mercy: by granting Asano the privilege to die with honor by seppuku.

Seppuku was the ultimate test and sacrifice a samurai could make, and it gave Asano the chance to atone for his actions. Like many others, he believed that if his karma had brought him to the brink of death, it was better to die by his own hand, so that it would not follow him into the next life.

*   *   *

The Shogun’s men led Asano into the garden, where several layers of white cotton cloth had been laid. A small stand holding a dagger had been placed in its center. His Second, his
Kaishakunin
, stood at stoic attention behind him with a sword, prepared to sever his head at the end.

Lord Asano had now changed into a ceremonial white kimono. He took the proper stance and sat on his heels. As part of the ritual suicide, he picked up the sake cup from the wooden table and drank it in four sips. Then he wrote his death poem on a sheet of
washi
, paper made from mulberry leaves. He did not know what to write but somehow, his brush moved across the page.

Wind makes the flower fall

I too am falling

Not knowing what to do

With the Remaining Spring

It would be remembered as a poor death poem, he thought, and he felt ashamed. He slipped off his outer garment and tucked the sleeves under his knees. He grasped the cold dagger in his hands and thought about his dream of the strange Egyptian woman upon the mountain. Had she known this day would be his last?

As he prepared to end his life, Asano remembered the rest of what she had said to him.

“
Between the beginning and the end, this life is but one moment.
”

Asano grabbed onto her words as the blade pierced his skin. He did not feel the Second’s sword on his neck.

He was already gone.

SIXTEEN

DAY 20—FEBRUARY 25, 1982

The memories come without warning. This is the second time this week I have suffered a recall. Today, I was working in my office when my sight began to blur and the dream took me. I have stopped the medication, but that hasn’t slowed the visions. It is as if Renovo has opened Pandora’s box.

I have shared what I have recalled with the team, but only to a certain point, and have taken to locking myself in this office, searching for some kind of answer. My mind keeps going back to the Egyptian woman in Asano’s dream. I have seen her appear in the dreams of other lives I have recalled as well, and I cannot help but feel she is a key to understanding all of this. Who is she? A goddess? An ancient priestess? A traveler from another time and place with a message for a dying man?

None of this makes sense and I am afraid to voice these thoughts. I have limited my interactions with the team to the tests Finn is conducting. I have even sworn to keep Diana away until I can sort out what is happening.

I am now fluent in over ten languages and have knowledge of historical events and written texts that cannot be found in books. It is a persuasive argument for reincarnation to be sure, but the scientist in me is still not convinced these are memories of past lives. Even so, it is hard to deny these recollections feel like my own.

Now I have relived the life of a Japanese lord from the seventeenth century. I first heard about Lord Asano years ago when I took an Asian Studies course as an elective my freshman year of college. My professor, Mr. Yamamoto, loved to entertain us with stories from his homeland. The account of Lord Asano’s death and the bloodshed that followed became one of the greatest sagas of Japan.

His tale gripped me, but I told myself I was no more enthralled than any other student. Strange to think I might have been the one who caused the story.

Diana played an instrumental part too. Just as she did in Pushkin’s life. I am certain she was my wife, Natalia. Natalia who had raged about how she wanted to be a man in order to avenge her husband’s death. When I look into Diana’s eyes, I cannot help but feel that she did come back as a man in the next life. And what a war she waged.

I don’t know what will happen when Diana remembers her life in Japan, but I pray she never will. The whole team has taken Renovo now. God help us.

*   *   *

Bryan put the journal down. He couldn’t bring himself to read anymore.

He was sitting on his living room floor. Michael and Diana’s boxes littered the space. Earlier at the restaurant, after going through the wedding album, he had hurried home to open the rest of the boxes. He had found Michael’s journal almost immediately and had been reading for hours.

Bryan had remembered Lord Asano Naganori’s life ten years ago and had spent months afterward painting it—he had even attempted to paint Asano’s dream. He went to the storage closet and pulled out the life-size portrait of the Egyptian woman. Her face was uplifted to the sky, her feline eyes half open. She was shrouded in the mountain’s mist—Bryan had been unable to get her features right and had used the mist to his advantage. But she was still exquisite, and the portrait gave him goose bumps every time he saw it. No one had ever seen this painting.

He wondered if he should show it to Linz the next time he saw her, knowing he would see her soon, even though they hadn’t spoken since the night of the library. He had wanted to give her space to come to terms with all that she had discovered. And he was also hoping she would forgive him for his quick departure. At some point he would have to explain his problem. He could just imagine it:
You see, I have this habit of reliving lifetimes when I’m with you.
That conversation would be a winner. With a sigh, he put the Egyptian woman back in the closet. Maybe Linz shouldn’t see this yet.

*   *   *

Linz sat on the couch and stared at the painting for a long time. The image loomed larger than life, its violence captured in incredible detail. She felt a powerful urge to destroy the canvas, but she knew she could never live with herself if she did. For a moment she had thought about returning it to Bryan, but she didn’t want anyone else to look at it either. Finding a temporary solution, she got up and put it in her closet and then sat on the floor with her head in her hands, feeling emotionally drained.

She had broken down when she saw the painting outside her door, and it had taken her hours to calm down. She hadn’t cried like that in years. Seeing the painting had brought back all the memories she had tried so hard to suppress. As a child she had remembered so much more about Juliana than her death—vague feelings and experiences she couldn’t explain that she had never talked to anyone about. Growing up, forgetting the vivid terror of Juliana’s death had seemed most important; all the other memories were gentle and nonthreatening in comparison, like a soft image out of focus. But now that she was older, maybe it was time to revisit them. Because when Linz opened her heart and let go of her fear, her sense of self became eclipsed by the feeling that this Juliana was a part of her. Perhaps it was the same for Bryan.

Bryan.
She needed to hear his voice. She called him without giving her impulse a second thought.

The phone rang. A man with a European accent answered, “
Hallo?
”

Linz hesitated. “Hello, yes, is Bryan there?”

“
Wie noemt alstublieft?
”

The voice sounded similar to Bryan’s yet different. She must have misdialed. But instead of hanging up she asked, “Bryan, is that you?”

“
Ik ben Christiaan. Goede dag.
”

*   *   *

Bryan hung up the phone and got back to work. His mind had shut down after he’d read the journal, and when he saw Christiaan’s clock, he had gotten out his old toolbox and begun to take it apart.

He had promised his mother he would fix it, and the task of disassembling the gears had calmed him. He quickly pinpointed the problem: the escapement mechanism had rusted and the screws were bad. With great care, he had cleaned every piece, losing himself in the work until he was no longer spinning out of control and the life in ancient Japan had receded into the back of his mind.

The intrusive ticking of the restored clock brought him back to reality. Bryan blinked and looked around at Michael and Diana’s boxes. The past had weighed on Bryan all his life, and now it was as if the answers were arriving on a baggage carousel that was moving too fast. He lay back on the floor and stared at the ceiling.

The phone rang. He reached for it. “Hello?”

“Bryan? Hi, it’s Linz.”

His body relaxed at the sound of her voice. She had no idea of her effect on him. His tone became intimate. “Hey, I was hoping you’d call.”

She hesitated. “I actually did before, but some foreign guy answered. He sounded German or something. I couldn’t tell.”

Bryan sat up in surprise. He didn’t remember her calling. He must have answered the phone in Dutch while he was lost in Christiaan’s thoughts.

“I thought I got the number right, and it sounded like your voice…”

Bryan waited, hoping she would let it drop so that he wouldn’t have to explain. Things were strange enough between them as it was.

“I was calling to thank you for the painting,” she continued. Her voice sounded thick with emotion.

He couldn’t believe he had only left it on her doorstep this morning. It seemed like weeks ago—so much had happened since. “I wanted you to have it.”

“I’d like to pay for it,” she said tentatively.

“No. It’s a gift.”

“I still want to.”

“It’s a gift. I insist.”

Linz was silent for a moment. “Thank you.”

Neither said a word for a minute, just listened to the sound of each other breathing. Bryan wanted to hang up the phone and drive over there. He needed to see her soon.

Linz started talking again. She sounded nervous. “So I’ve been reading some more of those library books. I still can’t figure out our dream. I mean, why ancient Rome? Why not some other time?”

Bryan looked around at all his paintings. She had no idea. She was still stuck on that one life. Then it occurred to him, maybe if she saw everything in his studio she would remember more. “Come over tomorrow night?” he offered. “I’ll make dinner.”