The Fire Kimono (20 page)

The guard led Sano and his men to the dungeon, whose grimy plaster walls rose from a high stone foundation. Sano braced himself for the sight of his mother locked in a filthy cell with thieves and prostitutes, abused by cruel wardens. But the guard took Sano’s party through a side door and down a passage where the wails and groans of the prisoners were but faintly audible. They arrived at a chamber that contained only two people.

Sano’s mother lay on a bed of clean straw on a wooden pallet. A ragged but clean blanket covered her. Her eyes were closed, her face slack. Kneeling beside her was Dr. Ito.

“Greetings,” Dr. Ito said.

Near him sat his medicine chest of herbs and potions in jars, and a tray that held cups, a teapot, and spoons. He gave no sign that he recognized Sano. Neither did Sano address Dr. Ito as his friend: They weren’t supposed to know each other. After dismissing the guard, Sano stationed his troops outside the door to keep everyone away.

“I heard they’d brought your mother to the jail,” Dr. Ito said when he was alone with Sano. “This is the sickroom, where I treat prisoners who have contagious diseases. I persuaded the chief warden to put her here instead of in a cell.”

“A thousand thanks,” Sano said. The stench of urine, excrement, and rot in the dungeon was faint here. He knelt and studied his mother. She didn’t react to his presence. “Is she asleep?”

“Yes. I gave her a sedative. She was very upset when she arrived. I thought it best to calm her and relieve her suffering.”

“I must speak with her,” Sano said. “Can you wake her up?”

“She may become agitated again.”

“It’s urgent.”

“Very well, then.” Dr. Ito opened a jar from his medicine chest, poured a dose into a cup, and diluted it with water from the teapot. “This is a stimulant.” He spooned the potion into her mouth. She grimaced at the taste as she swallowed. After some moments passed, her eyes opened, the pupils hugely dilated.

“Mother?” Sano said, bending over her. “Can you hear me?”

Her gaze fixed blearily on him. Her lips formed his name.

“Yes, it’s me,” Sano said. “We have to talk, about the murder of Tadatoshi.”

She mewled in protest. Even though Sano hated pressuring her in her condition, he said, “I can’t let you put me off any longer. Things have gone from bad to worse. Lady Ateki and Oigimi say you were involved with Tadatoshi’s kidnapping and murder. They said they saw you spying on him before he disappeared.”

Fear welled in her black, drugged gaze.

“That’s not all.” Sano couldn’t keep the anger out of his voice. “Hana told me she lost you during the Great Fire. She told me that when she found you afterward, you had blood all over your clothes. Was it Tadatoshi’s?”

“… Hana wouldn’t,” she whispered.

Sano pitied his mother, betrayed by her lifelong companion. He loved her as much as ever, but at that moment he hated her more than any criminal who’d ever deceived him. Her actions had put not only her own life at risk, but his family’s, his friends’. “Did you kill Tadatoshi?” he demanded.

“No!”

Her voice was weak yet vehement. Sano couldn’t tell whether she was denying the accusation or expressing her horror that Sano had found her out. “If you weren’t involved in kidnapping him, why did you spy on him? If you didn’t kill him, why have you lied to me?”

Impatient, he prodded her shoulder. She convulsed; her breath rasped. Dr. Ito said, “Be careful.”

Forcing himself to speak gently, Sano said, “Mother, you have to tell me the truth. No matter how bad it is, at least I’ll know what I have to do to save us.”

An internal struggle waged within her, twitching her muscles. Then she went limp and closed her eyes. Sano thought she’d fallen asleep, but she murmured, “All right.”

Sano was amazed that she’d finally capitulated. Dr. Ito said, “The sedative has the effect of breaking down resistance.”

That it could achieve what talk, pleading, and threats hadn’t! Sano listened as his mother began to speak.

A sharp-edged silver moon illuminated the garden of the estate. As Etsuko crept through the shadows, her heart raced. All day she’d waited impatiently for her tryst with Egen. She reached the tea ceremony cottage, a small wooden house secluded in a grove of pine trees, unused in the winter. Egen was already there.

He caught her in his embrace. Their desire was so great that they couldn’t wait to get inside the cottage. She pressed her body against his and felt the hardness at his loins. He fumbled the door open. They fell into the cottage, onto the mattress they’d sneaked inside. Egen kicked the door shut. Etsuko flung the quilt over them. In the warm, musty darkness under it, legs intertwined with legs. Hands tore open clothes. Flesh met hot, ardent flesh.

The feel of Egen’s strong, muscled young body thrilled Etsuko. She climbed atop him and sighed as he caressed her breasts, her hips. Together, in this private place, they could forget the world. They didn’t care that it was wrong for them to make love, that she was violating social custom and he his oath of celibacy. Nor did Etsuko care about Doi, her fianca. Nothing mattered except satisfying this need.

Egen rolled, throwing Etsuko onto the mattress. She pulled him down on her. When he entered her, they moaned at the sensation. The first time, three months ago, had hurt so much that Etsuko had screamed; afterward, she’d bled. But now, as Egen moved inside her, it was pure, astounding pleasure. She arched her back to meet his thrusts. As he shuddered and groaned out his release, she rode waves of ecstasy.

Later, they lay side by side, holding hands, in the moonlight that seeped through the window shutters. Unhappiness filled Etsuko as cold, harsh reality intruded.

“I wish we could run away together and marry,” she said.

“So do I.” Egen exhaled. The chains of society’s rules and their prior commitments shackled them. “But even if we did, what would we live on?”

“You could sell your poetry.”

He laughed, a gloomy chuckle. “Who would buy it?”

“Everybody,” Etsuko said, wanting to cheer him up, fervent in her belief in his talent. “We’ll be rich.” She turned over, hugged him. “And happy together forever!”

They embraced in desperate, doomed love. Suddenly Egen raised his head and sniffed the air. “I smell smoke.”

Now Etsuko smelled it, too. “Look-it’s coming in the windows.”

She and Egen threw back the quilt. This fire season was a dangerous one, and as much as they hated to cut short their time together, they couldn’t lie abed while a fire burned in the estate. Straightening their clothes, they hurried outside. The smoke billowed from a far corner of the garden, behind trees that raised bare, skeletal branches against the fire’s crackling orange light.

“Come on,” Egen said, running toward the fire. “We have to put it out.”

Etsuko ran after him. The smoke stung her eyes and made her cough. She and Egen halted near the fire-a bush piled with dead leaves, burning like a giant torch. Tadatoshi stood close by it. His face wore an intense, gloating expression; his eyes were huge and round and bright with the flames. Under his kimono, his hands worked at his loins.

“Tadatoshi! What are you doing?” Egen said.

The boy took no notice of Egen or Etsuko. His hands worked faster. He seemed in a trance.

Egen raced to the well. He filled a bucket, ran with it, and threw water on the bush. Etsuko filled the spare buckets for Egen, who lugged water and dowsed the fire until it was out. Egen and Etsuko stood, panting and relieved, by the smoking ruins of the bush. Tadatoshi blinked as if he’d just awakened. His hands dangled. His eyes glowed with reflections of the cold moonlight.

“Why didn’t you put it out?” Egen said.

“Why did you?” Tadatoshi sounded oddly disappointed.

Egen looked as puzzled as Etsuko felt. “How did it start?”

A sly expression came over Tadatoshi’s face. Etsuko noticed a kerosene jar and a lamp on the ground near the boy. Egen said to him, “You started it?”

As Etsuko and Egen gazed at him in shock, Tadatoshi smiled, a private, satisfied smile.

“Why would you do such a thing?” Egen said. “If we hadn’t come along, you might have burned down the estate!”

Tadatoshi shrugged. Etsuko felt a ripple of revulsion tinged with fear. He was as strange as Egen had said, but she’d thought him harmless-until now.

“I’m going to tell your father,” Egen said.

The boy kept smiling, but his gaze turned hostile. “You’d better not.”

“It’s my duty,” Egen said. “Your father will want to know. He’ll teach you not to set fires. You deserve to be punished.”

“If you tell anyone, I’ll tell everybody what you do in the tea cottage with her.” Tadatoshi pointed at Etsuko.

Etsuko gasped. Egen demanded, “Have you been spying on us?”

Tadatoshi giggled.

A guard burst upon the scene. “I smelled smoke. Is there a fire?” He looked at Etsuko, Egen, Tadatoshi, and the burned bush. “What happened?”

Etsuko held her breath. Tadatoshi’s gaze threatened Egen, who paused before he said, “There was a fire. We put it out. That’s all.”

The next day, Etsuko waylaid Egen in the corridor. “What are we going to do about Tadatoshi?” she whispered.

Egen was somber, worried. “We can’t just do nothing. He might set more fires.”

“But if we report him, and he tells everyone about us, his father will dismiss you. Lady Ateki will dismiss me. You’ll have to go back to the temple. I’ll go back to my parents, who’ll never let me out of the house until I’m married.” Panic seized Etsuko. “We’ll never see each other again!”

“I know, but we have to stop him before he hurts somebody.”

Although her relationship with Egen had been her first priority, Etsuko felt the stirrings of conscience. That strange, evil boy could kill innocent people. A sense of responsibility sprang from some hitherto unknown place inside Etsuko. With it came inspiration.

“I have an idea,” she said. “We’ll keep a watch on Tadatoshi. If he tries to start another fire, we’ll stop him. He can’t hurt anybody as long as we’re on guard.”

This was the first original, unselfish idea she’d had in her life. Etsuko was proud of herself, and Egen looked at her with new respect.

So began their spying on Tadatoshi. Daytime was easy. Egen supervised the boy during his lessons. Etsuko helped keep an eye on him during meals and recreation. The nights proved more difficult. While the rest of the household slept, Egen and Etsuko took turns sitting in the hall by Tadatoshi’s door. But after six nights with little sleep, Etsuko awakened one morning to realize that she’d missed her shift.

“Why didn’t you come?” Egen demanded later.

“I didn’t wake up,” Etsuko said. “I was so tired.”

Egen’s eyes were red, with dark circles underneath. “So was I. I fell asleep. But it’s all right-Tadatoshi was in his bed when I woke up and looked in on him.”

That afternoon, Egen brought Tadatoshi to visit his mother. While she fussed over the boy, and Etsuko and Egen stole glances at each other, one of the maids said, “I heard there was a fire in town last night.”

Tadatoshi smirked at Etsuko and Egen. Horror filled Etsuko. Not only had he escaped them; he’d set a fire.

“We can’t go on like this,” Egen said later, while he and Etsuko watched Tadatoshi practice sword fighting with his bodyguards. “We’ll slip up again.”

“You’re right,” Etsuko said. “It’s impossible for the two of us to watch him all the time. We need help.”

They gazed at Doi, demonstrating sword techniques. He was the only person they could trust. When he stopped for a drink of water, they approached him. Etsuko said, “Doi-san, may we speak with you a moment?”

“About what?”

Etsuko explained that Tadatoshi had set a fire last night.

“I don’t believe it,” Doi said in astonishment.

“It’s true,” Egen said. “We caught him once before.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“We’re telling you,” Etsuko said, then fibbed: “We were afraid no one else would believe us. We’ve been watching him, trying to keep him from setting another fire. But last night he got away from us. He set the fire in town. We can’t control him by ourselves. Will you help us?”

His expression said Doi thought they’d gone mad. Suspicion crept into his eyes. “What were you two doing outside in the middle of the night?”

“We couldn’t sleep. We went out for a walk, and we happened to meet,” Egen said quickly. “That’s when we saw the bush on fire.”

Etsuko flushed under Doi’s dubious gaze; Egen fidgeted with his rosary. Doi said, “This is nonsense,” and stalked off.

“I guess we’ll just have to carry on alone,” Egen said.

“Tonight we’ll sit watch on Tadatoshi together,” Etsuko decided. “We’ll keep each other awake.”

By the time night came, they were so exhausted that they both fell asleep by Tadatoshi’s door. They were jarred awake at dawn, by shouts. They rushed outside and saw Doi dragging Tadatoshi across the courtyard.

“Let go of me!” Tadatoshi yelled, kicking and struggling.

“Not until I’m ready.” Doi was panting with exertion, angrier than Etsuko had ever seen him.

Servants came running to see what the fuss was all about, Hana among them. Doi grabbed Tadatoshi by the front of his robe and shouted, “If you ever do that again, I’ll kill you!”

He shoved Tadatoshi. “Go to your room.” The boy ran off. Doi turned on the servants. “What are you gawking at? Get out of here.”

They fled. Etsuko asked Doi, “What happened?”

The anger drained from him; he looked miserable. “I didn’t believe what you said about Tadatoshi, but last night I thought I’d better check on him. I went to his room. You were both asleep outside it. I stood outside the building, and pretty soon he came out. He was carrying a pack on his back. I went after him. He had a ladder hidden in the bushes along the back wall. We climbed over. He sneaked into town, I trailed him. He stopped at a market in Nihonbashi. And then-”

Doi exhaled mournfully. “He took a jar of kerosene from his pack and splashed it on a stall. He lit it before I could stop him. The stall went up in flames. He set a fire. I saw him with my own eyes.”

Etsuko was horrified yet glad. She and Egen were no longer alone in the secret.