The Masuda Affair (2 page)

They returned to the room in short robes provided by the inn. The child’s was much too large for him and dragged behind as he walked, clutching Akitada’s hand. Their bedding had been spread out, and a hot meal of rice and vegetables awaited them. At the sight of the food, the boy smiled for the first time. They ate, and when the boy’s eyes began to close and the bowl slipped from his hands, Akitada tucked him into the bedding and went to sleep himself.

He awoke to the boy’s earnest scrutiny. In daylight and after the bath and night’s rest, the child looked almost handsome. His hair was soft, he had thick, straight brows, a well-shaped nose and good chin, and his eyes were almost as large and luminous as Yori’s. Akitada smiled and said, ‘Good morning.’

Stretching out a small hand, the boy tweaked Akitada’s nose gently and gave a little gurgle of laughter.

But there were no miracles. The boy did not find his speech or hearing, and his poor body had not filled out overnight. He still looked more like a hungry ghost than a child.

And he was not Yori.

Yet in that moment of intimacy Akitada decided that, for however long they would have each other’s company, he would surrender to emotions he had buried with the ashes of his first-born. He would be a father again.

Someone had brought in Akitada’s saddlebags and the boy’s new clothes. They dressed and went for a walk about town. Because of the holiday, the vendors were setting out their wares early in the market.

Near the Temple of the War God they breakfasted on noodles. Then Akitada had himself shaved by a barber, while the boy sat on the temple steps and watched an old storyteller, who was regaling a small group of children and their mothers with the tale of how the rabbit got into the moon. His face was expressionless. Akitada’s heart contracted with pity, and he looked away.

Beyond the busy market street, roofs of houses stretched towards the green hills: brown thatched roofs, grey wooden roofs weighted down with large stones, blue-tiled roofs of temples, and black-gabled pitched roofs of shrines. But, on the hillside behind the temple, a complex of elegantly curving tiled roofs rose above the trees and overlooked the town below and the lake and distant mountains beyond. Akitada idly asked the barber about its owner.

‘Oh, that would be the Masudas. Very rich, but cursed.’

‘Cursed?’

‘All the men die mysteriously.’ The barber finished and wiped Akitada’s face with a hot towel. ‘There’s only the old lord left now, and he’s mad. That family’s ruled by women. Pshaw!’ He spat in disgust.

Even without curses, there was no shortage of death in the world.

Akitada paid and they strolled on. The way the boy clung to his hand as they passed among the stands and vendors filled Akitada’s heart with half-forgotten gentleness. He watched the boy’s delight in the sights of the market and wondered where his parents were and if they were in despair by now. Perhaps they lived far away and had become separated from their son while traveling along the highway.

Or – a dreadful but reasonable thought – perhaps they had abandoned him in the forest because he was not perfect and a burden to them. The irony that this living child might have been discarded like so much garbage, while Yori, beloved and treasured by his parents, had been snatched away by death was not lost on Akitada, and he spoiled the silent boy with treats – a pair of red slippers for his bare feet, a carved horse to play with, and sweets.

No one recognized the child; neither did the boy show
interest in anyone. Not even the odd figure of a mendicant monk, his entire head swallowed by a large basket hat made from straw, got more that a casual glance. The monk was playing a vertical flute with great skill, and Akitada, who played the horizontal flute, would have liked to linger a little, but the boy pulled him away to watch some acrobats tumbling in the street.

Only one odd thing happened later in the day. After having clung to Akitada’s hand all morning and afternoon, the boy suddenly tore himself loose and dashed into the crowd just as Akitada was thinking of taking him to a nice dinner in one of the restaurants.

He felt a sharp panic that he had lost him forever.

But the boy had not gone far. Akitada glimpsed his bright-red shoes between the legs of passers-by, and there he was, sitting in a doorway, clutching a filthy brown-and-white cat in his arms. Akitada’s relief was as instant as his irritation. The animal was thin, covered with dirt and scars, and looked half wild. When Akitada reached for it, it hissed and jumped from the boy’s arms.

The child gave a choking cry, too garbled to be called speech. He struggled in Akitada’s arms, sobbing and repeating the strangled sounds, his hands stretching after the cat. Akitada felt the wild heartbeat in the small chest against his own and soothed the sobs by murmuring softly to him. After a long time, the boy calmed down, but even after Akitada bought him a toy drum, he kept looking about for the stray cat.

They had a fine dinner of sea bream, melon pickle, rice, and sweet millet cakes with honey, and Akitada was happy that the boy ate well and with pleasure. When night fell, they followed the crowd back to the temple, where a stage had been set up for the O-bon dancers. The dancers, both men and women, wore brightly colored robes and gyrated in the light of colored lanterns to the music of a small orchestra of drums, lutes, and flutes. Akitada lifted the boy to his shoulders so he could see. His eyes were wide with wonder at the sight of the fearful masks and brilliant silk costumes. Once, when a great lion-headed creature came
close, its glaring eyes and lolling tongue swinging their way, he gave a small cry and clasped Akitada’s neck.

For a moment the colorful scene blurred as Akitada felt the small arms and hands against his skin. It was shameful for a grown man to weep in public, and he brushed the tears away, knowing that he could not part with this child.

He lost the boy almost immediately.

While thinking how to introduce this foundling to his wife, he became aware of shouting. The boy’s arms tightened convulsively around Akitada’s neck, and a sharp-faced, poorly-dressed woman pushed to his side.

‘It
is
you, Jiro!’ She glared at Akitada and demanded shrilly, ‘What are you doing with our boy? Give him back.’

Akitada could not answer immediately because the child’s thin arms had wrapped around his neck with a stranglehold.

A rough character in the shirt and loincloth of a peasant joined the woman. ‘Hey,’ he cried, ‘let go of him. He’s ours.’ When Akitada did not react, he bellowed at the bystanders, ‘Here. He’s stolen our boy. Someone call the constables.’

Akitada loosened the boy’s grip and saw the sheer terror on his face.

It was over quickly. Two constables pushed through the crowd. The couple burst into angry speech, confusing the two guardians of the peace and distracting the audience from the dance performance as a more exciting entertainment played out in their midst.

Akitada listened to the storm of accusations and demands, holding the trembling child against him, murmuring that it would be all right. But it was not all right.

The man’s name was Mimura. The boy was his son. He was a fisherman on the lake and lived with his wife about a mile from Otsu, near the forest where Akitada had found the boy.

The constables turned their attention to Akitada.

‘Do you know this boy, sir?’ the first constable asked politely.

‘No. I found him yesterday, abandoned in the forest. In the rain. I brought him to Otsu to find his family.’

The constables looked at each other, nodded, and the first
constable said contentedly, ‘Well, you’ve found them, sir. Just give the boy to these people. I’m sure they’re much obliged to you.’

Akitada looked at the Mimuras and frowned. ‘He doesn’t seem to want to go with them,’ he said. The child’s fear of the couple was palpable and obvious to anyone. Moreover, they did not act like loving parents. The man’s low brow, mean eyes, and angry expression did not promise well, and nobody could find any maternal love in the coarse-featured female’s manner. They did not look relieved to have their child back, safe and sound; they looked furious – and greedy. The crowd muttered.

Mimura caught their mood and put on an ingratiating smile. ‘The kid’s crying his eyes out ‘cause his treat’s over,’ he explained. ‘The rich gentleman has bought him pretty clothes and presents. And sweets, too, I suppose. I’m sure he likes it much better here than at home.’ His voice took on a whining quality. ‘We’re just poor people, sir. Desperately poor. The child’s gone hungry along with his parents. Why, I wager he thought he’d found paradise with you, sir. But he belongs to us. I lost a day’s work, looking for him. I don’t know how we’re going to manage.’

Akitada looked at the constables and snapped, ‘Before I turn this child over to these people, I should like to see some proof that they are indeed his parents.’ But he had little hope of disproving their claim. The boy had recognized them. And the fact that he had picked up the child in the forest near their home had already convinced the constables.

Since he was clearly a gentleman and the claimants were a ragged fisherman and his wife, the two constables decided to turn the matter over to the local warden. They all walked to the warden’s office, Akitada still carrying the child.

The warden was a middle-aged man with an enormous mustache which he kept stroking as he listened to the constable’s report. He looked them over, then took down everyone’s name and dwelling place. When informed that Akitada was a senior secretary in the Ministry of Justice, he bowed respectfully.

The fisherman, Mimura, whispered to his wife. They looked like people whose fortune was about to be made, if only they played their game carefully.

When the warden had written down his last note with painstaking brush strokes, he turned to the child in Akitada’s arms. ‘Boy,’ he said, not unkindly, ‘Are these your parents?’

Mimura’s wife cried, ‘No point asking him. He’s an idiot. Deaf and dumb as a stone. He’s ours all right. Who else would want him?’

‘He is not an idiot,’ snapped Akitada. ‘And if you were his mother, you wouldn’t call him that.’

The man came to his wife’s aid. ‘It’s true, begging your pardon, sir,’ he said. ‘He’s been a great burden to us, poor little cripple. But he’s ours, and we take care of him as best we can.’

The warden sighed. ‘Do you have any proof that he’s yours?’ he asked the Mimuras.

They looked at each other. The man said, ‘We didn’t know we’d need his papers. We just went searching for our lost boy. It’s a fine thing when a father can’t have his own child without carrying papers around with him.’

The warden sighed again. He turned to Akitada. ‘You won’t deny that you found the boy near the Mimuras’ home, will you, sir?’

‘No. But what parent would leave a child out in such weather in nothing but a thin ragged shirt? No real parent would treat a child in that fashion. And he’s been beaten and starved.’

The warden heaved a third sigh. His expression spoke volumes about the naivete of the wealthy when it came to how the poor lived their ramshackle lives. ‘Can you find someone to testify that the boy is yours?’ he asked the fisherman.

Mimura blustered, ‘What? Now? This time of night? On a holiday? You don’t mean I should go all the way home and walk back here with one of my neighbors, do you?’

But his wife was pulling his sleeve and pointing to the street outside. ‘There’s that monk again,’ she said. ‘He saw the boy at our place.’

The warden sent for the mendicant monk, perhaps the same one Akitada had seen earlier. He was still wearing his basket hat. The warden explained the situation and the monk turned to peer through a slit in the basket at the Mimuras and the boy in Akitada’s arms. He spread his hands. ‘I don’t recognize the child, though I remember the woman very well.’ He had a fine, deep voice and spoke like an educated man. His tone implied that their meeting had not been a pleasant one.

The woman bit her lip. ‘Jiro’s wearing new clothes and is clean. You’ve got to remember him. I was telling you what a terrible thing it is to raise a child that’s not right. Can’t say a word, can’t hear, and isn’t right in the head, I said. We work and work to feed him, and there’s never any money in the house.’

The monk inclined his head. ‘I recall that conversation, and it is true there was a child there. It may be the same boy.’

It was good enough for the warden. Since Akitada made no move to turn over the child, one of the constables took him from his arms and handed him to the woman. The warden pronounced a warning to the Mimuras to keep a better eye on him in the future, the monk departed, and that was that.

But Mimura was not quite done. He now bobbed Akitada a bow. ‘We’re much obliged, sir,’ he said. ‘He’s been treated like a prince. Just look at him weeping his eyes out, sir. He knows he’s going home to a cold house and an empty bowl.’ He paused expectantly.

Akitada looked at Mimura in disgust, but he reached into his sash and gave the man most of the silver he carried. It was enough to feed a large family for a month. The boy looked at Akitada despairingly.

‘Be a good boy,’ Akitada told him, tousling his hair. ‘I shall come to visit you and make sure all is well.’ He gave the Mimuras a sharp look and then turned away, unable to meet the child’s eyes.

The woman snorted. ‘He can’t hear a word. No need to bother yourself.’ The Mimuras left.

Akitada followed them out, then stopped to watch them walk away. When they had gone a little way, the woman put the child down roughly. The father’s broad back blocked Akitada’s view, but he heard the boy cry out in pain and he clenched his fists. Both parents took the child’s hands and disappeared into the crowd.

It had been foolish to give his affection so quickly and deeply to a strange child. Akitada’s heart ached to see him dragged away, whimpering. The brutes had abused him and would do so again, but he had no right to interfere between parent and child. He hated this helplessness. He hated seeing the boy’s hope crushed so suddenly and completely. And he ached because he had failed the child just as he had failed his own son.