Ingrid Parker - Rashomon Gate – A Mystery of Ancient Japan

Tora walked up, stared at the corpse and asked, "Where are the others? There were the professor, his daughter and two servants."

"Three more?"The constable whistled. "I just got here. I guess they haven't found them yet."

Akitada's stomach knotted. No! Oh, no! Please, not Tamako too! Not his slender, graceful girl! Only the smoking ruins of the main house and of the two other pavilions remained. Nothing could have survived under those blackened beams and the burnt thatch of the roofs. Tamako's room used to be in the pavilion farthest from her father's study. Oh, Tamako! He swallowed, gagging at the memory of that twisted black corpse under the cedar, and started towards the steaming mountain of debris, forcing his trembling legs into a run.

"Wait," cried Tora, coming after him and snatching at his arm. "You can't go in there. It's still hot."

Akitada shook him off, and vaulted onto the remnants of a veranda, then flung himself on a piece of roofing and began to tear at charred timbers and kick away sodden thatch. Before he could make much headway, strong arms seized his shoulders and pulled him back. Tora and one of the firemen shouted at him. Struggling against their grasps, Akitada finally took in their words.

"The young lady's at the neighbor's house. The servants, too."

"Tamako?" He stared stupidly at Tora. "Tamako is alive?"

Tora nodded, patting his shoulder reassuringly. "She's all right, Amida be praised! Come along, sir. We'll go see her."

Akitada swayed with the relief. Barely allowing himself to hope, he walked with Tora to the adjoining house. When he knocked, an elderly man opened and looked at them questioningly.

"M-Miss Hirata? She's here?" Akitada stammered.

The man nodded and led them into the main room of the small villa.

Though the room was full of people, Akitada saw only Tamako. She was sitting on a mat, huddled under someone's quilted robe, her skin bluish white under the streaks of soot, her eyes huge and red-rimmed from tears or smoke, and she was shaking so badly she could not speak. Looking at Akitada, she only managed a long-drawn out moan: "O… h!"

"I-I came," he said helplessly.

She nodded.

"Are you hurt?"

She shook her head, but tears welled over and ran down her pale cheeks.

He wished to go to her, to gather her into his arms, to hold her to himself, offering himself for what she had lost. But they were not alone. And even if they had been, she did not want him. Had never wanted him. He gave himself a mental shake. Even so, she would have to accept whatever small comforts he could provide now.

His eyes swept around the room, taking in belatedly the man's wife, a matronly lady, the Hiratas' old servant Saburo and Tamako's young maid, as well as several wide-eyed children. He asked the wife, who was hovering near Tamako, "Is she hurt?"

The woman shook her head. "It's only the shock, sir."

"Tora!" When Tora materialized at his side, Akitada said, "Bring your horse and then take Miss Hirata and her maid to our home. Tell my mother to make her comfortable."

Tamako weakly moaned some objection. The neighbor woman bristled. "Who are you, sir?"

"Sugawara," snapped Akitada, his eyes on Tamako.

"But," persisted the woman, "what are you to Miss Hirata?"

Tearing his eyes from Tamako, Akitada finally understood the woman's concern. "It's all right," he said. "Tamako and I were raised like brother and sister. Professor Hirata took me in when I was young."

The woman's eyes grew large with surprise. "Oh," she cried, "then you must be Akitada. I am so glad you came for her. She has no one else in the world."

He nodded and went to lift the drooping girl into his arms. She sobbed and buried her face against his chest as he carried her out into the street where Tora waited with the horse. Lifting her onto the saddle, he told her, "Go with Tora, my dear. I shall take care of matters here."

She looked down, lost, hopeless, defeated. He wanted to tell her not to worry, to let him take care of her from now on, but those words he could not speak. Reaching up to adjust her robe over a bare foot, he stopped. The slender foot was covered with angry red blisters. His heart contracted at the sight and he raised his eyes to hers. He wanted to ask her again how badly hurt she was, but she spoke first.

"You hurt your hand."

He did not understand at first, then snatched it back. Like her foot, his skin was bright red and blistered under the soot. Dimly aware of pain, he realized that he had burned both of his hands pulling at the debris of her pavilion. Before he could deny the discomfort, Tora lifted the frightened maid up behind her mistress, took the bridle of the horse, and led them off. Akitada stood in the street, watching Tamako's slender figure next to the sturdier one of the maid until they disappeared around the corner. For a moment nothing else mattered than that she had been spared.

But his joy was short-lived. The old servant shuffled up to stand beside him sniffling. Akitada tore his eyes from the corner and sighed. "What happened, Saburo?"

"The master must've fallen asleep over his books," the old man said, weeping. "We'd all gone to bed. It was Miss Tamako's screaming that woke me in the middle of the night. And I saw the study was all afire, and the fire was in the trees and on the roof of the main house and the kitchen. Oh! It was dreadful! The poor master. We could see him lying in the fire. I had to pull Miss Tamako back or she would've run into the flames. It was such a long time before the firemen came, and then there was not enough water in the well and not enough buckets, and now all is gone." He burst into wracking sobs. "All gone!" he cried, hugging himself, "all gone! While I was sleeping!"

Akitada touched his shoulder, lightly, because his hands were painful.

They walked back to the ruins, where Akitada spent futile hours trying to find explanations for what had happened. The professor had died, as one of the firefighters explained, because of an accidental spill of lamp oil. Seeing Akitada's disbelief, he added dispassionately that such things happened to scholars who fell asleep over their books. Saburo objected that his master had always used extreme care with fire.

Akitada wanted it to be an accident, but a black fear gnawed at his heart that it was not, and that it might have been prevented if he had spoken to Hirata sooner. Tamako had survived but she had lost everything. She had lost her father, her only support in this world. He cursed himself for the injured pride which had caused him to evade the older man for days. What if he was responsible for Hirata's death?

The twin demons of grief and shame pursued him all the way home, where he asked about Tamako and was told by his mother, unusually subdued for once, that Seimei had tended to her feet and had brewed a special tea for her and that she was now mercifully asleep. Then she completed his wretchedness by reminding him of the dismal future which lay ahead for a beautiful young woman left without a father or male relative to protect her.

The day after the tragic fire Akitada kept to his room. Seimei, who brought his food and removed it untouched, thought that his master had not moved at all, so still seemed his sitting figure, so frozen his face looking down at the folded hands, raw and red where the hot embers had seared the skin.

Lady Sugawara came, as did Akitada's sisters, but he merely listened to their entreaties and sighed. Tora brought young Sadamu, hoping to cheer up his master, and left, shaking his head.

The following day, Akitada emerged from his room, haggard and unshaven, to tend to the most urgent business and to go to Hirata's funeral.

Hirata's colleagues and his students were there, in addition to many people Akitada did not recognize. Their obvious grief added to his burden of guilt, and he shrank more and more into himself. He was intensely aware of a heavily veiled Tamako, seated behind the screens which also hid his mother and sisters. What must she think of him, who had betrayed his sacred duty to the man who had been a father to him, the "elder brother" who had forsaken them in their need, who had ignored her cry for help?