The Last Concubine (42 page)

‘Big Sister,’ she began urgently. ‘I beg you to tell me: who is my father? How did he . . . meet my mother?’

The light was beginning to fade. Flies buzzed. A shiny black cockroach skittered across a wall. Taki too was staring into space. Sachi could see she was thinking hard, trying to fit together the pieces of the puzzle.

Haru was gazing at the brocade. She picked it up reverently and held it to her cheek. As she touched it the rich dark scent swirled about the room, ebbing and flowing like a tide.

‘Your father,’ she said softly. ‘If only you could have seen him, perhaps then you would have understood. I can see him too in your face.’

Sachi’s father . . . The man who had carried her to the village when she was a baby; the man who was now the enemy.

‘But Haru, how could you possibly have known my lady’s father?’ demanded Taki, voicing Sachi’s thought. ‘You’ve never once left the palace!’

‘I will tell you,’ Haru said slowly. ‘I have kept my secret for so long. But now everything is coming to an end. Nothing makes any difference any more.

‘It was . . . the year of the rooster, the second year of Kaei. The year before you were born. Some master builders had come to draw up an estimate for the annual repairs.’

Her eyes disappeared in the folds of her pink cheeks as a wicked smile crinkled her face. For a moment she was the old Haru again.

‘There was always such a fuss whenever men turned up. We women would all be peeking through the lattices at them. Of course my lady, your mother, never took part in such nonsense. After all, she was His Majesty’s concubine, she had her dignity to maintain. By then His Majesty . . . What can I say? He needed an heir. He was the shogun, after all. In short, he never summoned her any more. My lady tried hard to endure. She had always been so full of life but now she grew pale and sad.

‘That summer the ladies were all a-twitter, like a forest full of birds, spying on these men with their belts laden with tools. They were ugly fellows, most of them, not like samurai at all. They crept around looking scared half out of their wits. After all, they only had to offend someone and they’d get their heads lopped off. Normally we wouldn’t have paid the remotest attention to such creatures. But what other chance did we get to see men?

‘My lady was in her room, along with her ladies-in-waiting, when the door slid open and some builders came in to examine
the ceiling. Some of the bamboo slats were fraying and falling apart. We shouldn’t have been there at all, but no one had told us they were coming. My lady stood up immediately and out we all swept. But I couldn’t help noticing that she glanced at one of the carpenters and he glanced at her. Just for a moment, nothing inappropriate.’

Haru closed her eyes. She was far away, back in that distant time. The room was utterly silent. Sachi sat mesmerized, trying to catch every word. Taki was holding her hand tightly.

‘My, was he handsome!’ Haru said softly. ‘He wasn’t anything like the other carpenters, not one bit. He looked like one of those kabuki actors we all admired so much. We weren’t allowed to go to the theatre but some of the ladies had managed to sneak out. There was a really famous actor we all adored – Sojiro Sawamura. He looked just like him. That was Daisuké-
sama
. Your father.

‘Afterwards we were chattering away about him. But not my lady. She didn’t say a word. She was far too grand. But as the days passed she started to get paler and paler. She couldn’t eat. She grew gaunt and black around the eyes, as if she’d taken opium or absinthe. I was afraid she was coming down with consumption. People always said it was a disease of the rich. But then I began to wonder if someone had sneaked powder of roasted lizard into her food. That was what it looked like, that faraway look in her eyes, as if she wasn’t really there in her body at all any more.

‘Then one day she said, “Haru. Haru, I think I’ve fallen under a spell. It’s like a spiritual starvation.” Spiritual starvation, that’s what she said. “Day and night I can’t think of anything else. I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve become a hungry ghost. I shall die unless . . . Somehow I have to see this man again.”

‘We all yearn for the company of men, but what can you do except endure it? Endure the loneliness, endure the solitude, live without our bodies ever being set alight. But she never cared what anyone thought. She always had to have what she wanted. I asked a priest I knew to help us. We found out the name of the man and the priest sent a message. I knew Daisuké-
sama
would come. I could tell from that single look I had seen pass between them.

‘We made up a story. My lady said she was going to Zojoji Temple to pray at the tombs of His Majesty’s ancestors. What
other reason could there be to leave the palace? We boarded palanquins and set off with a party of ladies-in-waiting and foot attendants. We’d taken a couple of ladies into our confidence. They stayed with the palanquins at Zojoji while we crept away. The priest I knew had had affairs with palace ladies himself. He had a secret room in his temple for that very purpose. Your father was waiting for us.’

Sachi put her hands over her mouth. So that was what she was, that was where she came from. A spiritual starvation . . . She knew that feeling. That same madness surged in her veins. But at least . . . At least she had not gone as far as her mother. She had not thrown duty and honour away.

‘Afterwards she didn’t say a word. But it didn’t quench the hunger. In fact her hunger grew fiercer and fiercer until I thought it would eat her up. Again and again we visited the tombs of the shoguns’ ancestors. His Majesty must have thought she’d become very pious all of a sudden – except that he never thought of her at all any more. That was the pity of it. I kept telling her she must stop. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t stop seeing Daisuké.

‘I used to sit in attendance serving sake while they talked. After a while it didn’t seem to matter any more that he was handsome or she was beautiful. They just had to be together.

‘My lady grew plump again. She bloomed like a flower. Her eyes shone, she had colour in her cheeks, she laughed and chattered. When we were alone, she talked and talked about him. I was afraid the palace women would notice how different she was. Soon I started to hear murmurs and gossip. The other concubines were jealous of her because she had been the shogun’s favourite. She had plenty of enemies.

‘The next thing we knew she was with child. But His Majesty hadn’t summoned her for months. It was obvious she’d have to get rid of it – but she couldn’t bear to. It was wintertime. My lady put on layers and layers of kimonos to hide her belly. She took to staying in her room all the time except when she went to the temple to meet your father.

‘She had the baby in the temple. I helped her. I brought you out into the daylight. I remember you still – such a tiny little wizened thing.’

Haru looked at Sachi and smiled a motherly smile. Reaching out, she laid her plump hand softly on Sachi’s cheek, as if to reassure herself that she hadn’t disappeared.

‘At first they were so happy, your mother and father. They held you, they looked at you, they couldn’t stop looking at you and at each other. But then my lady began to panic. “We must get back to the castle,” she said. “They’re going to come after us and kill my baby.” “You must rest,” I told her, but she was too afraid.

‘My lady began to weep. She couldn’t bear to leave you, even for a short time. She knew she’d gone too far, that she’d committed an unpardonable crime. She was wearing that brocade you have. She wrapped you up in it and tucked her comb into the folds. “There, little one,” she said. “With this you’ll be able to find me some day.” And it worked, you see? In a strange way it worked.’

Haru pressed her sleeves to her face. She clasped her arms to her bosom, rocked back and forth, then took a deep breath.

‘Then . . . she put you into your father’s arms. We carried her to the palanquin, she couldn’t walk. So . . . So that was how we got back to the castle.’

A large grey rat scuttled into a corner. The shadows in the room were growing longer and the candles glimmered with a bright yellow light. It was nearly nightfall.

‘When we got back there was news. My lady’s brother was ill. Desperately ill.’

Sachi started. Her mother’s brother – Lord Mizuno; perhaps the very Lord Mizuno she had seen crossing the river. Taki frowned at her, warning her to say nothing.

‘She was to go to the family’s Edo residence right away,’ Haru continued. ‘I thought I’d go with her, but she told me to stay. “If I’m not back tomorrow,” she said, “tell Daisuké not to wait. Nothing matters, only my baby. She must be kept safe.” She swore me to secrecy. “Never tell this tale to anyone except my child,” she said. She didn’t come back the next day or the next day either. I sneaked out and went to the temple. Daisuké had already left and had taken you with him. The priest didn’t know where he’d gone.

‘That was the last time I ever left the palace. I couldn’t even
weep, nor could I tell anyone what had happened. My life was over. I just stayed here, doing my work. I concentrated on teaching the new girls.

‘And then . . . you came. You were just a child but there was something about you that made me think of that baby. If she had lived, I thought, she would have been exactly your age. And then I saw that comb of yours. Such a fine comb for a little country girl. It was exactly like the one I used to comb my lady’s hair with, hour after hour. I told myself some merchant must have left it in your village – but all the same I couldn’t help wondering. And now – now it’s as if she’s come back. She’s here again, my dear mistress, in you.’

Sachi was caught up in Haru’s story – in her own story. But the comb, the comb . . . She had given it to Shinzaemon, with whom she was entwined in a passion nearly as obsessive, as mad – as dangerous – as the one that had bound her mother to her father.

Suddenly she was aware of the guttering candles and the fading light. She shook herself and scrambled to her feet. She felt strangely disembodied, as if she had no control over her limbs.

‘You have your mother in you,’ said Haru. A smile flickered across her face.

For a moment Sachi wondered what she meant, but she had more pressing matters to think of.

‘Go,’ said Haru. ‘Go now, my lady. Go to him.’

IV

Sachi hurried across the palace grounds with as much speed as she could muster. She had flung a townswoman’s cloak over her court robes and wrapped a scarf around her head. Her skirts clung to her legs, making her mince with tiny steps. She was flushed and panting, damp with sweat. She could hear her breath, loud in the silence. Court ladies were supposed to glide at a glacial pace, she told herself, not charge about like peasants. She hardly noticed the mud clinging to her shoes and spattering the bottom of her skirts. All she knew was that she had to get to the Tsubone Gate by dusk.

The gardens were overgrown and cherry blossom floated down
like snow. It clung to her clothes and lay in damp mounds, clogging the path around her feet. It made her think of all those young warriors, doomed to die in their prime. Blindly she hurried by the sprawling palace buildings, the streams and bridges and pavilions and the burned-out ruin of the women’s palace. She could hear Taki’s footsteps, scampering along behind her. The old man too whom they had met when they arrived had appeared from nowhere. When patrols crossed their path he warned them off and sent them on their way.

The grounds were swarming with soldiers. The women might have left but the men were there in force, regiments of them bristling with rifles, marching about, doing all they could to protect the castle.

The Tsubone Gate – the Gate of the Shoguns’ Ladies, the entrance to the women’s palace – was tightly barred and bolted. Escorted by the old man, the two women slipped between the patrols and hurried through the small door beside the outer gates. Taki stayed in the shadows while Sachi went out on to the bridge. She knew there was very little time, that the door would be locked at nightfall. To be trapped outside the castle after dark, at the mercy of southern soldiers, would be too dreadful to imagine.

Standing alone on the bridge, outside the soaring ramparts of the castle, she suddenly felt very small. On the other side was a huge plaza and beyond it, small in the distance, a great wall bordering one of the daimyos’ palaces. Broad boulevards led away in each direction. The waters of the moat sparkled in the last rays of the dying sun. Bats flittered and wheeled against the vast arc of the darkening sky.

She began to realize how reckless she was being. The streets were entirely empty, and if robbers or gangsters or southerners appeared she would have to race back to the gate. From somewhere not far away came rough shouts and running feet and the sound of gunfire. A spasm of fear ran down her spine. She clutched her dagger, hardly daring to breathe.

The moon was rising behind the trees like a huge round lantern, the image of the rabbit pounding rice cakes marked clearly on its surface.

Of course Shinzaemon would not be here. He was a man, a
soldier, and would not be driven by foolish feelings, particularly not something so absurd as weakness for a woman. In any case, to get here he would have to pass through these streets crawling with enemy soldiers. She should leave now, she told herself sternly, not linger like some low-class courtesan.

But no matter how much she upbraided herself she couldn’t help feeling a gaping well of emptiness inside her. She knew now what it was – that spiritual starvation that had been the ruin of her mother. But she didn’t care how mad and reckless and wrong it was – she would wait just a little longer. It was not quite dark yet.

There was a movement in the trees on the other side of the road. A man. In the moonlight she could see the face she had pictured so many times since they had parted – the broad nose, the full-lipped mouth, the glossy hair tugged back. He walked with that lazy cat-like grace she knew so well, his two swords tucked firmly in his belt. She stood like a statue, her heart pounding, gripping the smooth wooden railing of the bridge, as his eyes met hers. She tried to look away, to break the spell. But she couldn’t.