Autumn Bridge (53 page)

He knelt before the ashes of his ancestors and contemplated the ambiguous nature of his recent conversation with Emily. Why had he told her about his parents? He should not have felt any need to justify himself to her. Soon, Charles Smith would return and renew his proposal of marriage. Emily would be more inclined toward Smith if she believed Genji did not know the meaning of love. She would leave Japan. They would never see each other again. There was no reason for him to care how much, or how little, she thought of him. Yet he had told her about his mother and father. Worse, he had emphasized the details that tended to exaggerate the tragic aspects of his childhood, the excruciating depths to which his father had fallen, and the restorative and redemptive power of his child-bride mother’s love. By doing so, he had brought tears to Emily’s eyes, as he had known he would. A woman who would weep for you was a woman who could not help but love you. His words were therefore excellently suited for seduction. But seduction was the opposite of his purpose, was it not?

If he truly wanted her to leave, he should have told her nothing.

Or everything.

He looked at the two ceramic urns directly in front of him. The larger, squarish one in dark gray contained his father’s ashes; the smaller, more softly curved one in a lighter, earthen hue held his mother’s. Genji had come here to look at them for most of his life, at first out of duty and obligation, later in the hope that what remained of their earthly presence would inspire a guiding thought, or lift his spirits when he was discouraged. Even as a child, he had been aware of his status as a lord. He could not permit himself to show weakness in front of vassals and servants. In times of greatest need, only his parents could help him. Since they were dead, they never told him anything. But here they were. Somehow he felt reassured in the presence of their ashes. Why, he couldn’t say.

Perhaps, after all, he was as superstitious as the next person and, instead of fearing the spirits of the departed, relied on them in some vague way.

Or perhaps it was as he told those who asked him why he spent so much time in the tower.

He liked the silence.

Genji sat with his father before the ashes of his mother. He did his best to appear calm, though he was very excited. Next week, he would be five years old. Four was a borderline age. Many people, especially women, still treated him as if he were a baby. Five was not a baby. Five was a little boy. There was no doubt about that. If he became a little boy and not a baby, then next he would become a youth, and after that, not so very many years later, he would be a man. He was very eager to be a man. Then when vassals and servants said “Lord Genji,” that touch of condescension and humor would be gone. They would say it the way they said his grandfather’s name, or his uncle’s. When anyone said “Lord Kiyori” or “Lord Shigeru,” whether addressing them or mentioning them in their absence, it was always with a voice full of respect. He wanted very much to be the kind of samurai they were.

He didn’t want to be like his father. People spoke of Lord Yorimasa with sorrow, or sympathy, or contempt, never with respect. What kind of samurai was that? Not the kind he wanted to be.

“Do you remember your mother?” Yorimasa said.

“Yes, Father,” Genji said. His father always asked him the same question every time he saw him, which since his mother’s death was not often.

“Good,” Yorimasa said. “Always remember her. She was the kindest, loveliest woman in the world.”

“Yes, Father.” In truth, Genji’s memory of her had faded substantially. A year might not be very long to adults, but for him, a year was a very long time. He remembered that she was very beautiful, and smelled wonderful, and smiled at him often, and never ever scolded him for anything he ever did wrong.

She would say, You must not do that again, Genji.

Yes, Mother, he would answer.

You are a good boy, she would say, and hug him.

He remembered these things, but her voice was faint, and when he pictured her, the light was weak, and her face was like a face seen in twilight.

“Before I knew her,” Yorimasa said, “my life was full of bitterness. I was not to become lord of this domain. I was not to pronounce the prophecies of our clan. So I thought my life was utterly without meaning.”

Genji hoped his father was not angry with him. Grandfather had told him he would follow him as lord, not his father, and not Uncle Shigeru. He hoped Uncle Shigeru wasn’t mad at him, either. Uncle Shigeru was a great swordsman, the greatest since Miyamoto Mushashi, everyone said. If Uncle Shigeru decided to challenge him to a duel for the lordship of the domain, he was sure he would lose. A samurai was always supposed to be certain of his own victory, no matter what the odds. But Genji knew he had no chance against Uncle Shigeru. Against his father, it was not quite so hopeless, even though his father was a man and he was a little boy. His father was always intoxicated. An intoxicated samurai was not a complete samurai. His grandfather had said so many times.

But his father didn’t seem angry. He was smiling and he kept talking about Genji’s mother.

“The point of life,” Yorimasa said, “is to love. I learned that from your mother. There is no need to be special beyond that.”

When his father said such things, Genji felt great embarrassment. He was talking like a woman, not a samurai. Victory, honor, glorious death, these were what mattered to a samurai. Love? That was for women.

“I am not a strong man. For this, I apologize to you. All my life, I thought I was strong. Then I met your mother and discovered strength was not as strong as weakness. Love has many blessings. That is its one curse. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Father.” Genji did not understand a word. How could weakness be stronger than strength? But if he said he didn’t understand, his father would say more embarrassing things, and Genji didn’t want that. He wanted his father to stop talking and go away.

“If she had lived…” Yorimasa’s words faded away. He continued to smile. He said, “If we had not met, perhaps she would have lived — would be alive still. I would never have known her, never have loved her, never have been loved by her. My life would be the horror it was before we met. But I would have it that way if she could be alive, somewhere, and happy.”

His father was making less and less sense the more he spoke. If he had never met her, what use would it be to him that she would be alive rather than dead? He would receive no benefit; he wouldn’t even know she existed.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes, Father.”

Yorimasa laughed. He put his hand on Genji’s shoulder and squeezed it affectionately.

“You don’t. How can you? But if you are very lucky, and very unlucky, one day you will.”

There, he was doing it again. Talking nonsense.

“Yes, Father,” Genji said. When would he leave?

Later, Genji always regretted wishing his father gone that day, because when he was gone, he was gone forever. The next month, he was found dead. With him was a gift for Genji, neatly wrapped in a silk cloth and accompanied by a short letter.

The letter said,
My dear son, forgive me for missing your birthday. Here is your belated present. I hope you will treasure it as I have.
There was no commemorative poem. A proper samurai would have written one.

The gift was a fine chain of silver strung with tiny white stones fashioned into perfectly shaped miniature apples. It had belonged to his mother. Genji remembered often seeing it attached to her sash.

Genji kept the letter and gift, not because he treasured them as the last mementos of his father — he did not — but because that was the proper thing to do. Samurai did what was proper, no matter what they felt. He put them away and forgot about them, as he promised himself he would forget his shameful failure of a father.

Genji looked at the chain of tiny white apples he held in his hand.

Did they symbolize love, or death, or both? In his clan, at least, the two seemed inextricably entwined. In fulfillment of the prophecy that led to Genji’s birth, his mother and his father had died. Far from saving them, love had doomed them both.

For years, he had disdained his father’s weakness and cowardice. He understood his mother’s death. Childbirth was a grave risk. But what kind of a samurai dies for love? Once, he thought he knew the answer. Now he was not so sure. Was it weakness that led to his father’s death, or was it strength after all? The strength in weakness Genji the boy didn’t understand made complete sense to Genji the man. Did his ability to understand mean he was strong, or weak?

Alone in the tower, Genji laughed out loud.

He looked at the tiny stone apples in his palm. With his other hand, he touched them. He had held them so long and clutched them so tightly, they were not cold, like stone, but as warm as his own flesh and blood.

Okumichi no kami Genji, Great Lord of Akaoka Domain, sat in the keep of Cloud of Sparrows Castle well into the night, alone with the ashes of his beloved mother and his revered father.

Lord Kiyori felt a slight giddiness. He thought at first that he had drunk too much sake. Then he noticed his tongue growing numb, and his throat, and a tingling in the extremities of his hands and feet, and a brightening of his vision accompanied by a faint halo of light, as of a distant rainbow, appearing around Lady Shizuka. Because her image itself was transparent, the entire effect was doubly dizzying.

He said, “When you told me we would meet no more after tonight, I did not accurately take your meaning. You meant that I would die.”

Lady Shizuka said, “No, my lord, I did not mean that. I meant no more than what I said, that after tonight we would not see each other again. I have never spoken to you in riddles, or with any intention to deceive.”

“Do you deny that you knew I would be poisoned?” Kiyori looked at the empty soup bowl. “It was in the soup, wasn’t it? Who is my assassin?”

“I know many things. I have shared only a small part of my knowledge with you. Would you rather I had told you of every event of your life to come, of your triumphs, tragedies, accomplishments, disappointments? Of the time, the place, and the manner of your demise?”

Kiyori shook his head. “You are right, as always. I have already known more than I have wanted to know. To know even more would have made a heavy burden unbearable.”

“You have borne it well, Lord Kiyori. Nobly, with courage and with dignity.”

“Have I?” He leaned heavily to one side. He still breathed without difficulty. His muscles, however, were beginning to weaken. He would not remain upright much longer. “Who has killed me? The Shogun’s viper, Kawakami the Sticky Eye?”

Shizuka moved gracefully to his side without rising from her knees. She made as if to rest her hands gently on his shoulder and arm. She could not really touch him, no more than he could touch her.

She said, “Do not trouble yourself. Be at peace. Follow the tide of your breathing.”

“If it’s Kawakami,” Kiyori said, stubbornly staying on the subject, “then he has placed a traitor in our midst. Genji will be in danger. I must warn him.” He could no longer rise to his feet. He crawled toward the alcove where paper, ink, and brush were kept.

“Kawakami is not involved,” Shizuka said, “and Genji is not in danger. The one who has poisoned you will himself be struck down before the New Year grows old.” She did not tell him his son Shigeru was responsible, or that he had gone mad and that Kiyori’s death was only the first of many terrible murders he would commit this very night. The prophecy she had conveyed to him, which he had shared so many years ago with Lord Nao, would reach almost complete fulfillment. After this night’s blood was spilled, the only Okumichi left alive would be Genji and Shigeru, and soon it would be Genji alone.

Kiyori had only crawled a few feet before he could go no farther. He rolled over on his back and stared at the ceiling. Even blinking was difficult.

Shizuka went to him and knelt by his side.

He looked up at her and said, “Genji will be safe—”

“Yes.”

“The clan will endure—”

“Yes.”

“We will overthrow the Tokugawa Shogun—”

“Yes.”

“You are not just saying that to trick a dying man into happiness?”

“No, my lord. I would not do such a thing.”

Kiyori began to gasp. The weight of his own body was starting to collapse the increasingly unresponsive muscles of his diaphragm.

“Tell me. The last thing. Who are you?”

“Your loyal friend, my lord, as you have been mine.”

“I meant to ask—” Every breath he took was now a great victory. He could not say what he meant to ask.

She leaned close to him. If she could, she would cradle him in her arms and comfort him with a parting embrace.

He tried to speak, and could not. He exhaled, and did not inhale again.

Tears came to Shizuka’s eyes. How foolish she was to weep for Lord Kiyori, a man whose death she had witnessed, but who would not be born for nearly five hundred years.

What else could she do? She was a woman who had seen the entire arc of a man’s life. How could she not weep?

Shizuka struggled to forget in the same way others struggled to remember. Born knowing everything at once, only by freeing herself of simultaneity and omniscience could she hope to make sense of her existence. Others had a tendency to remember too little. Hers was to forget too much. She had known there was a rose garden in the castle. She had forgotten when. No one had ever heard of Lord Narihira, who would plant it. He was as yet unborn. And now, in the tower, she was unable to ascend to the level she sought.

She came to a halt in the stairwell and stared at the ceiling above her.

“What is it?” Hironobu said.

“Nothing.” As casually as she could, she went to the window facing south and looked out on the curve of the Shikoku coastline, forest dark against the ocean bright of the Pacific. Hironobu was already worried after her tearful reaction to the absence of the rose garden. He would only worry more if she asked him where the seventh floor was. She knew there would be one in her lifetime because that was where she would die, and where her daughter would be born.