I Parker - The Masuda Affair

She tucked the coin between her breasts. ‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling again. ‘I owe for my rent.’ Her relief was not very flattering, but she went on, ‘There’s a new dancer called Hanae. She and Kohata perform at the big parties. You could ask Kohata. I heard Hanae’s married.’ She shook her head. ‘If it’s true, she’s a fool. She could be a courtesan of the first rank.’

‘Perhaps she wanted a family.’

Little Wave laughed bitterly. ‘That’s what I thought, and now look at me. He left me with a child, and I’m just scraping by on chance meetings. It used to be that people had my name on their list and I was always busy.’

Akitada stared at her. ‘You have a child?’ He would have judged her to be no more than sixteen.

‘At least she’s a girl. In another five years I can sell her into the trade.’ She was matter-of-fact about it. Women in her profession had little chance to settle down with a decent man, and no place to go but back to the old life. And their children followed them into misery. Akitada thought of the deaf-mute boy, but Little Wave was too young to have known the dead courtesan. The world was full of tragic events and lives that ended in disaster. With a sigh, he took out another silver coin he could ill spare and gave it to her. ‘This is no life for you and your daughter. Leave this business while you are still young.’ Then he rose.

She looked up at him, clutching the money. ‘It’s only because I’m young that men want to lie with me,’ she said sadly. ‘Well, some men. I wish you’d stay. I really like you.’

She looked so forlorn that Akitada blushed. ‘I am sorry,’ he said and turned to walk away.

She ran after him. ‘Will you really be back?’

He shook his head.

She extended her hand and pushed something in his sash.

‘I wasn’t worth this much,’ she said and ran back to the others.

Outside, Akitada found that she had returned one of the silver coins.

The dancer Kohata rented a private pavilion behind one of the better restaurants. Her maid answered his knock and informed him that ‘her lady’ was at work.

‘At this time of day?’ Akitada asked suspiciously.

The maid gave him a pitying look. ‘My lady is much sought after. She is a great dancer and works very hard. She has not yet returned from Lord Sadanori’s party last night.’

And what that meant was pretty clear: someone had requested entertainment of a more private nature. He would never understand the lifestyle of these people. Somewhere he had heard the name Sadanori recently, but he could not recall where. He was one of the Fujiwaras, an important one, though they had never met.

He decided to call on the dancer. Leaving the quarter, he walked southward through streets where merchants, artisans, and the upper servants and retainers of great families lived in small, neat houses with modest gardens. The area gradually became more rural. Here and there he passed a mansion, heavily walled and gated against riffraff. Then the streets became footpaths, and the footpaths mere tracks. The wooden houses shrank in size, and in the surrounding fields people grew vegetables to sell in the market. Children played among chickens and ducks.

In a weedy field beside the road, an ox grazed, tied by a long rope to a post and watched over by a small boy. Instantly, Akitada was reminded of the child he had left behind in Otsu. He asked directions of the boy and turned down another weedy road. A bridge of timbers and boards passed over a canal where ducks and geese splashed and squawked. A woman was washing clothes on the bank, while her children chased each other and a black-and-white puppy. It was a wholesome scene after the Willow Quarter, and Akitada was cheered by it.

The dancer’s house was no more than a one-room shack, but its small veranda was overgrown with a flowering morning glory vine and a white cat sat on the top step. Someone had planted a few vegetables in a plot near the gate. The place looked deserted.

Akitada pushed open the gate and walked along the path. The cat rose and mewed plaintively. He leaned down to stroke its back.

‘Nobody’s home,’ a shrill voice called out to him.

He turned and saw a middle-aged female peering over the fence.

‘I am looking for the dancer Hanae,’ he said. ‘Do you know where she is?’

She scanned him from head to toe before answering. ‘Hanae left yesterday. In the morning. A sedan chair came for her.’

He should have expected it. Like Kohata, this Hanae had also spent the night with a client. ‘When do you expect her back?’

The woman smirked. ‘Couldn’t say. She’s in demand, that one, though she’d better make the most of her time. Noble suitors don’t like being saddled with another man’s child.’

So the famous dancer was pregnant. Like Little Wave, she had been careless or unlucky. Akitada eyed the woman’s sharp face with distaste. His good humor evaporated, he turned to leave, when she said, ‘I told the fool who knocked her up that she had better things to do than wait around for him.’

He walked over to the fence. ‘I was told she was married. Can you describe her husband?’

She was taken aback by the question, then exploded with invective. ‘Married, hah! He’s just another good-looking, good-for-nothing lay-about. Never here when she needs him. I warned her, but she won’t listen. Oh, she says, he works for a great lord and can’t get much time off. A fine husband! He comes for meals and sex, that’s all. The only thing he ever brought her was a mangy dog that kills my chickens, and when I complain he calls me names. Good riddance to such scum.’

Akitada looked at her, then looked back at the little shack, the vine, the cat, and the vegetable plot. Could it be? Was this where Tora had been spending his time? He asked, ‘This sedan chair that picked up the young woman, do you happen to know where it was taking her?’

She was pleased by this question. ‘No, but it was Lord Sadanori himself who sent for her. A sedan chair. Imagine. Hanae may never come back here.’

‘Sadanori? Fujiwara Sadanori?’

‘That’s the one.’

Akitada was appalled. If the dancer had played Tora wrong with Sadanori and Tora had gone after her, he could be getting into big trouble. ‘Who would have information about Hanae’s appointments?’

She gave a little cackle of amusement. ‘If the gentleman is interested, her dancing master Ohiya is the one to talk to.’

Ohiya lived in the Willow Quarter, and Akitada trudged back the way he had come. By now it was well past midday, hotter than ever, and he had not eaten yet. Besides, the unaccustomed walking caused unpleasant spasms to the old wound in his injured leg. By the time he reached the quarter again, he was limping. He decided to rest and fortify himself first and entered a large restaurant called The Crane Grove.

The restaurant was busy, but his clothes marked him as an upper-level official, and he was shown to a seat near the window. His waiter, a thin, eager young man, was chatty in hopes of a fat tip from the important customer. ‘We get many gentlemen during the day, this being the best restaurant in the city,’ he informed Akitada. ‘I particularly recommend the fish soup. And afterwards a dish of eel?’

Akitada nodded and glanced through the latticed window at the willows drooping in the afternoon heat. He felt glum. If the dancer expected his child, Tora’s concern for her was reasonable. But he had chosen to keep everyone in the dark and sneak off in this shameful manner because he was ashamed of the liaison. Finding Tora was not the only problem.

When the waiter returned with wine, Akitada asked him if he had seen anyone resembling Tora.

The waiter had not, but he dashed off to check with the other waiters. He was a helpful young man, but it was hard to get in more than one question at a time. Akitada sipped the wine and looked out at the street. Early customers were arriving in the quarter, well-dressed men in search of a bit of relaxation or dalliance before returning to their families after a day in their offices and bureaus.