The Tokaido Road (1991)(528p) (23 page)

The procurer planned to collect the rest of the fee when the merchant finished his business with the woman. Then he would sneak her out the rear gate and continue on to Edo where he would sell her to a bathhouse.

“Stop sniveling!” he muttered. “The customer is a rich man. If he weren’t afflicted with a slight problem, he wouldn’t have settled for the likes of you. And his cock is not so badly diseased. You won’t notice in the dark, anyway.”

As soon as Cat realized the conversation didn’t concern her, she ceased hearing it. She finished writing the poem.

If I could do as I wish,

I would acknowledge more profoundly

the sorrow of departing in winter.

She knew that at any moment Musui might send a servant to look for her. She hurriedly changed into the tattered leggings and the old black jacket that once had been her priest’s robe. She folded the borrowed page’s clothes neatly and laid them on top of a camphorwood chest, along with her travel papers.

They were useless to her now. The inn’s steward wouldn’t interrupt his master during the linked verse contest, but the innkeeper would see Masanobu’s album of courtesans eventually. When he did he would certainly notify the authorities. They would be on the alert for someone wearing Cat’s clothes and carrying her papers.

Cat prayed to Kannon-sama that Musui wouldn’t get into serious trouble; but after spending a few days with him, she was rather sure he wouldn’t. Trouble seemed to wash off Musui like water off a frog’s face, as the old saying went.

Cat stuck her few possessions into her sleeves and the front of her jacket. Carrying only what she had had when Musui found her, she turned to go.

As she headed for the door, she brushed against Musui’s flute, which jutted out over the edge of the wall shelf. It was inside its brocade bag, but it hit the floor with a thud that coincided with a silence in the other room. Cat was bending to pick it up when the procurer shoved aside the dividing panel and rushed in.

“What did you hear, boy?” He grabbed for her. As though making a graceful, sweeping dance movement, Cat swung the bamboo flute up and back in both hands and then slammed it into his head. The flute was designed to double as a club. Its dense, thick wall made a sharp cracking sound even through its cloth bag. The procurer slumped at Cat’s feet.

She hissed in exasperation. She didn’t have time for this. She snuffed out the lantern, grabbed the procurer’s ankles, and dragged him into the other room, closing the panel behind her. She hardly noticed the young peasant woman huddled in her tawdry finery against the far wall.

Cat untied the procurer’s loincloth and trussed him up quite artistically with it. She had learned the art of knot tying at the Perfumed Lotus. There were customers who fancied being helpless for the “trembling silk” of foreplay and the “bursting fruit” of orgasm.

This particular pattern of binding would strangle the procurer if he tried to struggle. There was a system of knots for each social class. The one Cat tied now was reserved for beggars.

Cat used one of the inn’s thin cotton towels to gag him. She opened the bedding cupboard and heaved his torso, then his legs, inside. She closed the sliding door and turned to her next problem.

The peasant was still crouched against the wall. She was about sixteen, two or three years younger than Cat. Her eyes were wide with terror, and she looked even younger.

She clutched a torn wicker pack to her chest. She had been through terrible troubles, and the pack had become her only link with the past, with herself. Cat was strong, but it would have taken someone even stronger to wrest it from her.

Irritated, Cat considered her. The homely piece of white goods would almost certainly spread the alarm. She would have to come along.

“Put on your sandals.” Cat grabbed the young woman’s arm in a hard, tight grip and yanked her to her feet.   “If you make a noise, I’ll gut you like a herring.”

She dragged the peasant behind her, out the room’s rear exit and into the dark passageway. Cat had already located the rear exit. She was learning to plan for escape.

By the light of the moon Cat dragged her captive, stumbling in her long, confining robes, through the inn’s rear yard. They felt their way among stacks of roofing tiles, bamboo scaffolding poles, and big wooden tubs. Cat rolled several of the tubs up to the wall and made the peasant help her stack them into a pyramid. She could see the dark triangles of iron spikes set into the top of the wall, but she would get over them somehow. The problem would be hauling the peasant baggage over them.

She unwrapped the long cord from the woman’s sash and knotted it around her wrist. She would take her to the outskirts of town, tie her up, and leave her for someone to find in the morning.

“Master.”

“I’ll go over the wall first.” Cat ignored the peasant’s timid murmur. “Tuck your skirts into your sash and follow me. If you even squeak, it will be your last.”

“Master, the procurer left the gate unlocked.” The young woman cringed, expecting a blow for her insolence.

The peasant knew that one master had been exchanged for another; but she had been thrown into the company of such scoundrels that, for all his threats, this one didn’t seem so bad. At least he was young and handsome.

She doubted she was meeting a Buddha in hell, as the saying went. She hadn’t found a protector. But the wretch who had mistreated her was now tied up in a closet. She didn’t believe her fortune had taken a turn for the better. It had just taken a turn.

Halfway through the hour of the Boar, Musui reached for his pipe and realized that his disciple hadn’t returned.

“Dear friends,” he murmured, “forgive my rudeness.” He knew they would assume he was visiting the place-for-business.

As the tea and wine took effect, there had been many such interruptions. The only exception was the cloud dweller. He followed the custom of those who had participated in interminable court rituals. When his bladder filled, he signaled his equally ancient servant, who held a bamboo container so the old man could relieve himself in place.

Musui visited the privy. Then he went to see if his disciple was in their room. He lit the lantern and saw the clothes folded as a woman would fold them. He knelt by the tray and read the poem.

If I could do as I wish,

I would acknowledge more profoundly

the sorrow of departing in winter.

May the Lord Buddha protect you, Lady Asano,
he thought. /
shall do my best to mislead them.

A LANTERN ON A MOONLIGHT NIGHT

The first-story eaves of Totsuka’s shops and tea houses almost met over the narrow roadway brightly lit with hundreds of lanterns. They formed a tunnel of light and color and smells in the cold night. The market booths were set one up against the other, with no space between them. The street swarmed with people who had to duck and weave among the bird cages and baskets, hair ornaments and fans and toys, hung up for display.

“What is your name?” Cat muttered.

“Kasane, Your Honor. Gillyflower.”

“Dig out your earholes and listen well, Kasane,” Cat growled. “Try to escape and I’ll gut you.”

Kasane was too frightened to answer. She hurried after Cat, trying to maintain the customary three steps’ distance of a wife who dared not step on her husband’s shadow. She walked far enough behind to appear respectful, but not too far to get herself killed for trying to run away.

“Here’s your fine bream!”

“Come along. Don’t be nervous. Have your fortune told.”

“Hokkori! Hokkori!”
The sweet-potato vendor stood behind his portable brazier and juggled three steaming samples of his wares.  “Eat ‘em while they’re hot!” He had to shout to be heard in the confusion of the night market. Without missing a beat in his performance, he caught the paper-wrapped coppers a customer threw him and tossed a potato in exchange.

All around Cat and Kasane, silver and copper coins rattled in the money changers’ scales. The din of hand drums was constant as touts tried to entice customers.

Bands of men wore their inns’ identical hempen robes and quilted jackets. Some had draped the inns’ small patterned towels rakishly on their heads. Others had rolled them and wore them as headbands. The tall slats on the bottoms of their
geta
supplied by the inns allowed the wooden platforms to tip forward and hit the ground with each step. The resulting tattoo sounded like the fire watchman’s clappers as the men clattered from tea house to tea house.

“Stop here! Stop here!” The waitresses tugged at their sleeves.

Cat slowed her headlong flight and stared at a bookseller’s inventory in the wooden box on his back. On top of the box sat a large model of an assignation house. The model was so detailed, it included the curtain across the top of the door and, on the roof, the big barrel of water for fires. Cat recognized it as the Spring House near the Yoshiwara’s Great Gate.

For a moment Cat had a vivid memory of the broad avenue awash in light from the lanterns strung along the second-story eaves. She remembered herself promenading in silks and satins and brocades and flanked by maids and servants from the Perfumed Lotus. Was it possible that that world existed and that she had left it only a handful of days ago?

Cat looked through the prints of courtesans and actors the vendor carried hanging from a slender pole. She was relieved to see that her own picture wasn’t among them. The rest of his stock consisted of books stacked in the wooden box. There were bawdy novels, guides to the pleasure districts, and ghost stories luridly illustrated on flimsy sheets of paper folded, then sewn between heavy paper covers. Among them Cat saw one she wanted. She held it up.

“How much is this one?”

“A good choice!” The bookseller swiveled to see which one she was holding up. “Our guidebook is indispensable, Your Honor. It lists the sights and savors of the great TMkaidM.”

“How much?” asked Cat.

‘”One hundred
man.
A bargain at twice the price. It also tells you where to find the most accomplished women and the best-looking boys.”                      ...

Cat took the short, knotted cord of coppers from her sleeve and counted them. There were forty-five. She replaced the book and started to move on.

She felt a shy tug at her sleeve and whirled around. She had almost forgotten about her hostage. Kasane held out a square brocade purse on a long cord. It clinked.

Cat grabbed it from her, dragged her into a dark alleyway, and pulled her down behind a big two-wheeled cart. “Don’t wave money around, you rice bale.”

“I’m sorry, master.”

“Where did you get this?”

“My last master stole it from a gambler in Hiratsuka.”

“And you stole it from him?”

“He’s a black-bellied man, master. He’s evil.”

Cat smiled to herself as she emptied the lumpy silver coins and the strings of a hundred
man
into the tail of her jacket. The peasant wasn’t as stupid as she looked. Cat counted the coins. She tucked the silver under her sash and the copper into her sleeve. She stuffed the purse into her other sleeve. The coins were anonymous, but such an ornate purse embroidered with its owner’s crest would be recognized.

When the procurer was discovered in the closet, someone would come looking for his trollop, if only to recover the gaudy rented robes. Cat had to get rid of them.

“Have you other clothes in that pack?”

“Yes, master.”

“Put them on. Be quick. I’ll keep a lookout.”

“Here?”

“Where do you think?” Cat was so exasperated with her unwanted captive and her harsh country accent, full of extra syllables, she wanted to pull the child’s ears.

Sniffing back tears, Kasane stooped so the cart hid her body from the nearby street. Fear and the unfamiliar complication of the clothing made her clumsy. She wasn’t used to intricately tied sashes and sleeves that dangled past her hips.

With trembling fingers she tore at the knot in the long, wide ornamental sash, then the undersash and the tightly tied cord beneath that. She pulled off the lined
kimono
and the loose undershirt and shivered. Bare-chested, the hard tips of her dark brown nipples taut from the cold, Kasane struggled with the cord holding the scarlet crepe cloth wrapped around her as an underskirt. Cat forced herself to wait patiently. The sooner she was rid of this country simpleton, the better.

Cat was surprised to see that Kasane’s own clothes consisted of a white pilgrim’s robe. Even though the robe was torn and stained, Cat could tell it was new.

While Kasane was tying the cheap sash around her, Cat folded the rented clothes and stuffed them behind the cart. Then she wet her towel in a nearby water barrel and scrubbed off most of the white powder and the rouge.

“Do you remember what I said about trying to escape?”

“Yes, master.”

But Cat still kept a suspicious eye on her as she returned to the book vendor.

“I’ll give you forty coppers and this fine purse for the guidebook. “

“Stolen?” He held the purse up to the light of the street lantern.

“Do I look like a thief?”

“Yes.” The vendor handed her the guidebook and gave a perfunctory nod of a bow.

For some reason being mistaken for a miscreant pleased Cat. She felt free and independent and dangerous. She had watched Musui in his dealings with innkeepers and tea shop owners, and she had gotten the hang of it. She was elated by the sound of silver and copper jingling in her sleeve. The prospect of asking the price of things, of counting out the coins and handing them over, excited her.

As she browsed she kept her eyes open for weapons but found none for sale. Only members of the noble and military classes were allowed to carry long-swords and
naginata
and spears. The makers would be situated discreetly on a back alley somewhere. Cat dared not attract attention by asking about them.

Her first purchases were a large, dark blue cloth to use as a
furoshiki,
a stout walking staff, and a wide-brimmed bamboo hat. To hide her face, she wore the new hat instead of carrying it slung on her back. Musui’s writing on her old one made it too distinctive, and she had left it at the inn. She regretted having to abandon the calligraphy “We two, pilgrims together” that he had painted on it for her. It would have been a valuable keepsake.

From the clusters of sturdy straw sandals dangling about an old woman’s person, Cat selected eight at ten coppers each. She started to put them onto the
furoshiki,
but Kasane held her hand out to take them and the cloth bundle, too. The world was back to normal. Someone else was carrying Cat’s burdens.

Next Cat shopped for food for the journey. She hadn’t the least notion how to cook anything, but she had learned that the kitchen staffs of inns would prepare food supplied by the guests, thereby cutting down on lodging expenses. The variety of food for sale here was bewildering.

“Our confections were celebrated by the august tea master Sen no Rikyu himself, Your Honor.”

“Here, here. The renowned prawns of Totsuka. Take them back to the folks at home.”

Kasane was even more bewildered than Cat. She had never seen so much food. She couldn’t read, so she didn’t know what was in the artistically wrapped and labeled packages of local delicacies, the “Name-things” for which Totsuka was famous. She did know that they were expensive. She watched in amazement as her new master bought pickled ginger and Totsuka’s prawns, as well as small dried flying fish plaited horizontally into a straw cord and rice dumplings stuffed with sweetened bean jam and wrapped in the papery sheaths of bamboo shoots. Cat did buy tea and raw rice, but only the most expensive type of each.

When she bought tooth powder and a willow twig toothbrush, the woman selling them bowed low and presented her with a tiny packet of toothpicks as
omake,
a bonus.

“Luck to the seller,” the woman said. Cat was as pleased by the modest gift as by any expensive present she had ever received.

Next she bought an ink stick and stone in a plain wooden writing case and brushes in bamboo tubes. She added a flint, a tortoiseshell comb, and a crisp, dark blue loincloth.

She bought four coppers’ worth of Willow brand tobacco, a packet of cheap paper handkerchiefs, and a heavy paper folding wallet in which to put them. She chose a hempen travel cloak and a paper raincoat permeated with persimmon juice to make it water-repellent. She smiled when the merchant threw in a small towel for
omake.

Cat tied her final purchases, two sleeping straw mats, on top of Kasane’s pack. By the time Cat finished, the
furoshiki
had grown so big that Kasane could hardly be seen behind it. Kasane was astonished. She had never seen such extravagance. Her new master was the sort to carry a lantern on a moonlit night.

Vendors and merchants were packing their stock into bags and baskets and extinguishing their lanterns. Cat heard the squeal of wooden axles as farmers wheeled their unsold goods away in their cumbersome barrows. The market was taking on an abandoned air.

The crowd was thinning. The beggars were leaving with their straw cushions under their arms. Street entertainers were gathering up their instruments and props. Soon all the stands would be screened with mats or boarded up or dismantled. Not enough people would be left to provide cover for Cat and her silent, unwelcome companion.

Cat knew she dared not stay at an inn. Kira’s men and the book with her picture in it had probably visited them all. Kira’s son Lord Uesugi had enough retainers to send one or two to each of the fifty-three government post stations between Edo and KyMto. And he would still have men left to maintain his father’s bodyguards at home.

The black ribbon of sky between the eaves of the buildings was spangled with stars. No rain likely. Cat and the peasant could sleep somewhere on the grounds of the local temple, in an abandoned building or chapel or under a roof sheltering a bell.

Cat glanced at Kasane. She looked young and tired and frightened. Cat could tell from her callused hands and her new pilgrim’s robe that she hadn’t been whoring long. “You didn’t sell yourself to the flesh broker, did you?” Cat asked.