Autumn Bridge Page 4

  “My lord?”

  The housemaid who was preparing his bed stopped and looked at him. He had laughed out loud thinking of his motives.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  She bowed and resumed her task. The other two housemaids continued to help him undress. When they were done, the three young women knelt at the doorway and bowed. They remained just inside the room, awaiting his further instructions. Like all the women of the inner chamber, they were very pretty. Genji was set apart from other men by being a lord of high rank and great power. But he was still a man. In addition to their mundane duties, they were to provide more intimate attention if he desired it. Tonight, he did not. His thoughts were too much with Heiko.

  “Thank you,” Genji said.

  “Good night, Lord Genji,” the senior housemaid said. The women backed out of the room on their knees. The door slid silently shut after them.

  Genji went to the other side of his room and opened a door facing the inner garden. Dawn was less than an hour away. He enjoyed watching the rays of the rising sun cast their first light onto the carefully manicured foliage, produce intricate shadows in the raked patterns of the stone pool, inspire the birds into song. He sat on his knees in the seiza posture, placed his hands in a meditative Zen mudra, and allowed his eyes to narrow nearly to closing. He would let go of all thoughts and concerns as best he could. The sun would bring him out of meditation when it rose enough to light him.

  If anyone had occasion to observe him now, they would see someone far different from the drunken idler of just a few minutes earlier. His posture was straight and firm and steady. That he was a samurai was beyond doubt. He could have been preparing for battle, or for his own ritual suicide. Such was his appearance.

  Within, it was quite different. As always when beginning meditation, Genji found himself indulging in fancy and conjecture, instead of letting go of them.

  His first thoughts were of Heiko, then of her present unobtainability, and quickly shifted to the three housemaids who had just departed. Umé, the chubbiest and most playful of the three, had been quite a diversion in previous encounters. Perhaps he had dismissed her too hastily.

  That thought brought to mind a discussion he had recently had with a Christian missionary. The missionary had very gravely emphasized the importance of what he called “fidelity.” He claimed that once married, a Christian man slept with no one but his wife. Genji was utterly astonished. It was not that he believed the missionary, for what he said was impossible. Such behavior was so unnatural, not even outsiders, strange as they were, could adhere to it. What shocked him was that the man so seriously made the claim. All men lied, of course, but only fools told lies no one would believe. What had been the missionary’s motive? Genji wondered.

  Guessing at motives did not trouble his grandfather. Prescient from the age of fifteen, and gifted with an amazing stream of accurate visions over the years, Kiyori was one man who knew, and did not wonder. Genji had been told by Kiyori that he himself would have three visions, and only three, during his entire life. He was also assured that these three would be enough. How three visions could enlighten an entire lifetime Genji could not imagine. But his grandfather was never wrong, so he must believe, even if he could not help being concerned. He was already twenty-four and had not yet seen a single glimpse of the future.

  Ah, he was thinking, not letting go. Fortunately he had caught himself before he had gone on too long. He took a deep breath, exhaled fully, and began letting go.

  An hour or a minute passed. Time had different dimensions in meditation. Genji felt the warmth of sunlight on his face. He opened his eyes. And instead of seeing the garden—

  —Genji finds himself among a vast crowd of screaming men, all dressed in the graceless clothing of the outsiders. They wear no topknots. Instead, their hair is in the unruly confusion of madmen and prisoners. Out of habit, Genji immediately looks for weapons against which he may have to defend himself, and sees none. No one is armed. That must mean there are no samurai present. He tries to check for his own swords. But he cannot voluntarily move his head, his eyes, his hands, his feet, or any other part of his body. He walks inexorably down the long aisle, no more than a passenger in his own body. At least, he assumes he is in his own body, for he cannot see any of it except an occasional peripheral glimpse of his hands as he walks toward the podium.

  There, an elderly white-haired man strikes the tabletop with a small wooden hammer.

  “Order! Order! The Diet will come to order!”

  His voice is lost in the torrent of warring words that come at Genji from both sides of the aisle.

  “Damn you to hell!”

  “Banzai! You’ve saved the nation!”

  “Show honor and kill yourself!”

  “May all the gods and all the Buddhas bless and protect you!”

  The voices tell him he is hated and revered with almost equal ardor. The cheers come from his left, the curses from his right. He raises his hand to acknowledge the cheers. When he does, Genji the passenger can see that the hand is indeed his own, though perhaps showing more signs of the passage of time.

  An instant later, a shout comes from the right.

  “Long live the Emperor!”

  Rushing at him from that direction is a young man. He wears a plain dark blue uniform with no emblems or insignias. His hair is cut close to the scalp. In his hands is a short-bladed wakizashi sword.

  Genji tries to move defensively. His body doesn’t budge. As he watches, the young man drives his sword deep into Genji’s chest. Passenger or not, he feels the sudden jolt of contact and a sharp stinging sensation as if a huge venomous creature has stung him. Blood explodes into his assailant’s face. It is a moment before Genji realizes the blood is his. His muscles suddenly relax and he falls to the ground.

  Among the faces peering down at him is that of an unusually beautiful young woman—unusual both in the degree and quality of her beauty. Her eyes are hazel, her hair is light brown, her features are exaggerated and dramatic and reminiscent of the outsiders. She reminds him of someone he can’t quite place. She kneels down and, oblivious of the blood, cradles him in her arms.

  She smiles at him through her tears and says, “You will always be my Shining Prince.” It is a play on his name, Genji, the same name as an ancient fictional hero.

  Genji feels his body trying to speak, but no words come. He sees something sparkling at her long, smooth throat. A locket marked with a fleur-de-lis. Then he sees nothing, hears nothing, feels nothing—

  “Lord Genji! Lord Genji!”

  He opened his eyes. The housemaid Umé knelt beside him, a worried look on her face. He raised himself up on one elbow. While unconscious, he had fallen out of his room and into the garden.

  “Are you well, my lord? Forgive me for entering without permission. I was on duty outside and heard a thud, and when I called, you did not answer.”

  “I am well,” Genji said. He leaned on her and sat down on the veranda.

  “Perhaps it would be best to summon Dr. Ozawa,” Umé said. “Just to be safe.”

  “Yes, perhaps. Send one of the others for him.”

  “Yes, Lord Genji.” She hurried to the doorway, whispered to another maid who waited there, and hurried back.

  “May I have tea brought to you, my lord?”

  “No, just sit with me.”

  Had he had a seizure? Or was that, at last, one of the visions he had been promised? It couldn’t be, could it? It made no sense. If it was a vision, it was a vision of his own death. What use was that? He felt a kind of deep, cold fear he had never experienced before. Perhaps instead of becoming a visionary, he was destined for early madness. That had happened often enough in his family. Still dizzy from the fall and the vision or dream or hallucination, he lost his balance.

  Umé caught him softly with her body.

  Genji leaned against her, still very afraid. He would send a message to his grandfather today asking him to hurry to Edo without delay. Only Kiyori could explain what he had experienced. Only Kiyori could find the sense in it, if sense there was.

  But before his messenger left, another arrived from Cloud of Sparrows Castle.

  Okumichi no kami Kiyori, warrior and prophet, the revered Great Lord of Akaoka for sixty-four years, was dead.

  2

  American Beauty Rose

  A favorite samurai saying proclaims, “First thought on waking—death. Last thought before sleep—death.” This is the wisdom of fools who have never given birth.

  Instead of accepting a weakling who sees only death in blood, find someone who sees life therein.

  First thought on waking—life!

  Last thought before sleep—life!

  Only such a one knows that death comes soon enough.

  Only such a one is truly capable of understanding a woman’s heart.

  AKI-NO-HASHI

  (1311)

  1867, QUIET CRANE PALACE, EDO

  EMILY GIBSON’S YEARNING was so great, she awoke every morning to the scent of apple blossoms borne on the wind. It was no longer the memory of the Apple Valley of her childhood that caused the painful emptiness in her breast, nor did the imaginary wind bear that lost fragrance from an orchard on the banks of the Hudson River. She missed the other Apple Valley, the dell that sheltered barely a hundred trees a little more than an arrow’s flight from Cloud of Sparrows Castle.

  That she was able to feel nostalgic about a place in Japan was indicative of how long she had been away from America. It had been more than six years since she had left, and almost as long since she had last thought of it as home. She had been sixteen then. She was twenty-three now, and felt much older. In the years between, she had lost her fiancé, her best friend, and, perhaps most significantly, her sense of propriety. Knowing what was right and doing what was right were two very different things. Emotions were not as easily controlled as logic would dictate. She was in love, and she should not have been.

  Emily rose from her bed, a canopied four-poster in what Robert Farrington, the American embassy’s naval attaché, assured her was the latest style in the United States. It was on his advice that she had ordered it. Her discomfiture with discussing such an intimate article of furniture with a man not related to her was overcome by necessity. There was no one else to advise her on such matters. The wives and daughters of the few Americans in Edo avoided her company. This time, it was not because of her beauty, or, more accurately, not primarily because of it, but because of her excessively close association with an Oriental, which, Lieutenant Farrington told her, was something of a scandal in Western ambassadorial circles.

  “What is there to be scandalized about?” Emily had asked. “I am a Christian missionary doing Christ’s work under the protection of Lord Genji. There is nothing improper in the slightest about our relationship.”

  “That is one way to look at it.”

  “I beg your pardon, Lieutenant Farrington,” Emily said, her shoulders stiffening. “I fail to see any other way.”

  “Please. We have agreed, have we not, that you will be Emily and I will be Robert. Lieutenant Farrington sounds so distant and, well, military.”

  They were in the drawing room overlooking one of the inner courtyards of Quiet Crane Palace. It had been converted to the Western style, at first to accommodate Emily, and more recently to receive Western guests.

  “Is that wise, sir? Would I not expose myself to further scandal?”

  “I do not give an iota of credence to the rumors,” he said, “but you must admit the circumstances make such conjecture inevitable.”

  “What circumstances?”

  “Do you not see?” Robert’s handsome face squinched up in that boyish way he had of unconsciously showing anxiety.

  She wanted to laugh, but of course she did not. While it was something of a struggle to maintain her serious expression, she managed to do so.

  She said, “No, I do not see.”

  Robert stood and went to the doorway overlooking the garden. He walked with the slightest of limps. He had dismissed it as the result of an accident during the war. The ambassador, however, had told her that Robert had received the wound during naval actions on the Mississippi River, actions for which he had been awarded numerous commendations for valor. She found Robert’s modesty endearing. Indeed, she found many things about him endearing, not the least of which was his ability to speak English. That was perhaps what Emily had missed most during these long years in Japan—the sound of an American voice.

  Once at the doorway, Robert turned to face her. Apparently, he felt the need to stand at some remove in order to say what he had to say. His face still displayed a squinch. “You are a young unmarried woman, without the protection of father, husband, or brother, living in the palace of an Oriental despot.”

  “I would hardly call Lord Genji a despot, Robert. He is a nobleman, rather like a duke in European countries.”

  “Please. Let me continue while I have the courage to do so. As I was saying, you are a young woman, and, moreover, a very beautiful young woman. That alone would be enough to ignite gossip in any circumstance. To make matters worse, the ‘duke,’ as you style him, whose roof you share—”

  Emily said, “I would not phrase it that way.”

  “—is one notorious for debauchery even among his own debauched peers. For God’s sake, Emily—”

  “I must ask you not to use the Lord’s name in vain.”

  “Excuse me,” he said, “I forgot myself. But surely, you can see the problem now.”

  “And is that how you see it?”

  “I know you are a woman of impeccable virtue and utterly steadfast morality. My concern is not with your behavior. Rather, I fear for your safety in such a place. It borders on the miraculous that you have remained here unmolested for so long. Isolated this way, at the mercy of a man whose every whim is an ironclad command to his fanatic followers, anything could happen, anything, and no one could help you.”

  Emily smiled kindly. “I appreciate your concern. But really, your fear is entirely without foundation. Your generous characterization of my appearance is not shared by the Japanese. I am considered quite hideous, not unlike the demons that periodically appear in their fairy tales, breathing fire. No person is less likely to excite ungovernable passions in the Japanese than I, I assure you.”

  “It is not the generality of Japanese that concerns me,” Robert said, “just one person in particular.”

  “Lord Genji is a true friend,” Emily said, “and a gentleman who conforms to the highest standards of decency. I am safer within these walls than I would be anywhere else in Edo.”

  “The highest standards of decency? He consorts with prostitutes on a regular basis.”

  “Geisha are not prostitutes. I’ve explained that to you many times. You willfully refuse to understand.”

  “He worships golden idols.”

  “He does not. He expresses reverence for his teachers and ancestors by bowing to the images of Buddhas. I’ve explained this also.”

  Robert went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “He has murdered dozens of innocent men, women, and children, and caused many others to be killed. He has not only condoned suicide, which is sin enough, but he has actually ordered others to commit the act. He has decapitated, or caused to be decapitated, more than a few of his political enemies, and has compounded those atrocities by actually delivering the severed heads of those unfortunates to their families and loved ones. Such cruelty is beyond belief. My God, do you call this conforming to the highest standards of decency?”

  “Calm yourself. Here. Have some tea.” Emily needed the pause. All of the issues he had raised were easily answerable, if not completely defensible, save one. The murder of the villagers. Perhaps if she left that aside and addressed the other issues, he would not notice.

  Robert seated himself. He was breathing rather heavily, overexcited as he had been by his recitation of Genji’s sins.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, “but is coffee available by any chance?”

  “I’m afraid not. Do you really prefer it to tea?” Coffee was apparently one of the more recent postwar fads in the United States. “I find it rather acidic, and it tends to upset my stomach.”

  “It’s an aquired taste, I suppose. During the war, when Brazilian coffee was more readily available than English tea, I found coffee to have one great advantage. It supplies a tremendous burst of energy completely lacking in tea.”

  “You seem, if anything, to have an excess of energy rather than a dearth,” Emily said. “Perhaps you should reduce your coffee consumption in any case.”

  Robert took the offered tea and smiled. “Perhaps,” he said, and continued to smile at her in such a way that she knew she could lead the conversation in another direction with little effort. That direction, which Robert had attempted in several previous conversations, had dangers of its own, however, so Emily stayed with the subject at hand.

  “Must I cover the subjects of geisha and Buddhism again, Robert?”

  “I concede that your explanations, if true, would be valid.” He held up a hand to stop the protest he knew was coming. “And further, I concede, for the sake of argument at least, that they are valid.”

  “Thank you. Now, as a military man yourself, you surely know that martial tradition is what sometimes compels samurai to take their own lives. By our Christian standards, this is a mortal sin. There is no question of that. But until they are converted to the true faith, we can hardly hold them to standards that are, at present, utterly repugnant to them.”

  “That seems an excessively flexible viewpoint for a Christian missionary, Emily.”

  “I do not consent. I simply understand, which is all I ask of you.”

  “Very well. Go on.”

  “As for the delivery of heads”—Emily took a deep breath and tried, without complete success, to avoid visualization. She had seen too many of them herself—“that is considered the honorable thing to do. If Lord Genji had not done so, it would have been a breach of the samurai’s equivalent of the code of chivalry.”