Laura Rowland - The Perfumed Sleeve

“You’re not to go in there without permission,” Yasue said. “Come along now.”

Reiko had no choice but to let the woman hurry her away. They went to the kitchen, a vast den where hearths blazed and smoke and steam filled the air. Male cooks labored over boiling pots and sliced raw fish. They shouted orders to boys who stoked the fires and maids who flung dishes onto trays and ladled food into the dishes.

“There’s a banquet for the important people in Senior Elder Makino’s funeral procession,” Yasue said. “You can help out.”

She sat Reiko at a table where maids furiously chopped vegetables. She handed Reiko a knife, then left. Reiko was dismayed, for she’d not expected to do kitchen labor. A manservant hurled a bunch of huge white radishes at her. Never having learned much about cooking, she clumsily sliced a radish. The knife slipped and cut her finger; her blood stained the radish. The maids working beside Reiko ignored her. They were both older women, their faces hardened by toil.

“I heard that the master of this house was murdered,” Reiko said. “Did you see or hear anything?”

They frowned, skillfully wielding their knives. One woman said, “We’ve been ordered not to talk about that. Don’t mention it again-you’ll get somebody in trouble.”

More rules to thwart her aims! Reiko sighed in frustration. She wiped sweat off her face and grimly hacked the radishes. After what seemed like hours, Yasue reappeared.

“The ladies have ordered meals,” she told Reiko. “You can help serve them.”

Reiko was delighted to leave the kitchen with two other maids also assigned to the task. Carrying trays laden with covered dishes, they filed across the walkway to the private chambers. The guards let them inside. Excitement tingled through Reiko. Here she might discover the truth about Senior Elder Makino’s death.

“You go to Lady Agemaki,” one of the other maids told Reiko. “Her room is that way.”

They turned a corner, vanishing from sight. Reiko carried her tray along the corridor and came to an open door. Through it she saw the widow sitting alone. Reiko started to walk in, but suddenly a hand seized her arm in a fierce, startling grip.

“Kneel when you enter a room!” Yasue hissed in her ear.

She cuffed Reiko’s head, then withdrew. Reiko stood, her ears ringing from the blow, shaken because she’d forgotten the protocol for maids and she’d not known Yasue had followed her. The old woman moved as stealthily as a cat. Reiko knelt and hobbled across the threshold of the chamber. Agemaki stared into space, absorbed in her own musings. Thrilled to get close to the object of her interest, Reiko rose, crept toward Agemaki, and set the tray beside her.

Agemaki remained silent; she didn’t look at Reiko or the food. Reiko wondered if she should dare initiate an acquaintance. Was Yasue loitering about, watching to make sure she obeyed the rules? Reiko began removing the covers from the dishes on the tray while she awaited some cue from Agemaki.

“You can go now,” Agemaki said in a remote voice.

Reiko’s hands faltered.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Agemaki said. “Get out.”

Although Reiko hated losing a chance to spy, she meekly obeyed. She hesitated outside the door, reluctant to leave without accomplishing anything. From somewhere came the sound of samisen music, a man’s voice singing, and women giggling. Reiko crept down the corridor and peeked into a room where the actor Koheiji was entertaining the concubine Okitsu and the maids. Reiko told herself that no one would miss her if she took a moment to examine the scene of the murder. Maybe she would find something that Sano and his detectives had overlooked.

She hurried down the corridor to the room she identified as Senior Elder Makino’s. She eased open the door, slipped inside, then slid the door shut and appraised her surroundings. Cold and bare of furniture, they had the eerie atmosphere of a place in which death has recently occurred. A shiver passed over Reiko as she gazed at the platform where Makino’s body had lain. She opened the cabinets along the wall only to find empty compartments: Someone had cleared out the dead man’s possessions. Then she noticed a narrow, vertical gap between two sections of shelves.

Alerted by quickening instinct, Reiko inserted her finger into the gap. She found an indentation on the side of one section of shelves. She pressed, and the section pivoted, one half swinging outward, the other into a dim space beyond the room. She’d found a secret chamber! Eagerly she peered inside.

Human figures stared back at her. Reiko stifled a scream. But the figures didn’t move or make a sound. A second look showed her that their heads lolled at unnatural angles, and their limbs dangled inside their robes. They were life-sized dolls, suspended from hooks. Puzzled, Reiko ventured into the chamber, which smelled of sweat and stale breath. Now she counted ten dolls, all female. They had beautiful faces made of skillfully carved and painted wood; they all wore elaborate wigs and expensive patterned silk kimonos. Reiko noticed characters written on the wall above each figure. She read, “Takao of the Great Miura,” “Otowa of the Matsuba”… They represented courtesans from the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter.

Comprehension banished Reiko’s puzzlement. She’d heard stories about men who owned “shapes”-effigies of women with whom they’d enjoyed sexual relations. They relived their pleasures by making love to the shapes. A rolled futon in the corner, and a look under the robes of one doll, confirmed Reiko’s belief that Senior Elder Makino had practiced this strange habit. The doll’s body, fashioned from stuffed leather, had an opening at the crotch that was filled with boiled, mashed radish used to simulate the texture of female genitalia.

Reiko wrinkled her nose at the sour smell of the radish as she imagined Makino coupling with a shape on the futon. She noticed a shelf filled with numerous scrolls. Opening some, she found that they were pictures of couples engaged in erotic acts. Stains discolored the pictures.

Below the shelf stood two lacquer chests. Reiko looked inside them. One contained wooden clubs padded with leather, atop coiled ropes. Makino’s habits must have included ritual violence during sex. The other chest contained nine phalluses of different sizes, each realistically carved from jade and resting in a slot in the chest’s padded lining. A tenth, empty slot had once contained a huge phallus. Reiko recalled what Sano had told her about the examination of Senior Elder Makino’s corpse. Could the missing phallus have inflicted the anal injury-and the fatal beating? If so, then somebody who’d known about this chamber had killed Makino.

Perhaps that somebody was one of the women upon whom Reiko had come to spy.

Suddenly Reiko heard stealthy footsteps approaching along the corridor. She froze in alarm. The door of Makino’s room slid open. She mustn’t let anyone find her here! She yanked on the shelves, closing the entrance to the secret chamber, sealing herself inside. The footsteps padded across the floor. Reiko saw a finger protrude between the shelves and press the indentation. Her heart lurched as the secret door swung open. Quickly she stepped behind it.

A samurai strode into the chamber, carrying a long bundle. Reiko held her breath, peered cautiously around the door, and watched him kneel before the chest that contained the jade phalluses. He lifted the lid, then unwrapped his bundle. It was a quilt folded around a cylindrical object. This he set inside the empty slot in the chest. Then he shut the lid and rose. Leaving the room, he passed very near Reiko. She recognized him from Sano’s description of Tamura, chief retainer to Senior Elder Makino. The shelves pivoted shut. Reiko breathed a sigh of fervent relief as she listened to Tamura leave the room.