I Parker: The Masuda Affair

‘Is all well, sir?’ he asked.

‘Why shouldn’t it be?’

‘You haven’t said much. We… I’m thinking it’s time you got back to normal, sir.’

Back to normal? A moment’s anger seized Akitada that Tora should think Yori’s death was so easily brushed aside. He scowled ferociously, saw Tora’s face fall and the pity and concern in his eyes, and sighed instead. ‘It’s not so easy, Tora. Let’s go on. I’d like to get home before dark.’

It was his loss that caused him to yearn so desperately for the child. He wanted to buy the boy from the Mimuras, and his greedy parents would sell him gladly, but he was afraid to take him home to Tamako. But that he could not share with Tora.

They descended the mountains in glum silence. The hillsides opened up before them and revealed the great plain, cradled in green mountains and traversed by wide rivers. In its center, like a jewel, lay the capital, the roofs of its palaces and pagodas glittering in the setting sun. Akitada always paused at this point of the journey to drink in the sight and to let his heart fill with pride at the greatness of the nation he served. He did so now, and Tora came up. He looked cast down.

Akitada felt guilty and said, ‘I came across a curious story in Otsu and almost meddled again. You rescued me just in time.’ He forced a smile and saw Tora’s face light up.

Back on the road, Tora asked, ‘But why not meddle, sir? It might take your mind off… things. And I could help.’

Tora’s enthusiasm for prying into the secrets of total strangers made him a valuable assistant and sometimes a nuisance. It would not do to give him false hopes now. ‘I’m afraid not,’ Akitada said. ‘It’s none of our business, and there doesn’t seem to be a case. It’s a matter of a courtesan who drowned herself and may or may not have killed her child at the same time.’

‘There’s more to it than that, sir, if I know you. Why did she kill herself? And her child! Pitiful, that.’ He shot a cautious glance at Akitada’s face. ‘Boy or girl?’

‘A boy. Five years old.’

Tora sucked in his breath. ‘Do you want to tell me about it, sir?’

Akitada told him what he had learned about Peony and the Masuda family. As they passed the Kiyomizu temple, Tora said enthusiastically, That’s some story. I’ll bet there’s more there than meets the eye. That much money, and all the heirs die.’ He paused. ‘What made you go to that empty villa in the first place?’

Akitada shot him a glance and looked away. ‘Oh, nothing much,’ he said vaguely. ‘To have a look at the lake. The view, and a cool breeze. Did I mention that the nurse is Ishikawa’s mother?’

‘Ishikawa?’

‘You remember the student involved in the cheating scandal at the university?’

‘The one who blackmailed his professor and then tied him to a statue so the killer could cut his throat?’

‘Well, he didn’t intend that.’

‘Brings back memories,’ said Tora. ‘That was when you were courting your lady.’

Akitada regretted having raised the subject.

Tora grinned. ‘You even wrote her a poem and had me take it to her.’

Akitada grunted.

‘A morning-after poem!’

‘That’s enough, Tora.’

They reached the Kamo River and crossed it at the Third Street Gate. It was not far from here to Akitada’s house, and Tora had caught the bleak look on his master’s face and subsided.

The Sugawara residence was substantial and rubbed shoulders with the homes of the wealthy, but it was old and had seen better days. Akitada’s poverty during much of his career had made it impossible to do more than keep a roof over their heads, and sometimes not even that. Recalling the Masuda mansion, Akitada looked at his home now and felt the old sense of inadequacy. He had let his family down. The stable was new, thanks to a case that had brought a generous fee, but the mud and wattle wall that surrounded the property had lost most of its whitewash and sections of plaster, and the roof of the main house needed new shingles. He knew the gardens were badly overgrown, and no doubt things were worse inside. Since Yori’s death he had simply not cared.

Genba opened the gate and greeted them with a broad smile. ‘So you found him, brother,’ he said to Tora, and to Akitada, ‘Welcome home, sir. We were worried.’

Akitada reluctantly accepted the fact that his people might be genuinely fond of him and care about his well-being. As he dismounted, he looked at Genba more closely. If he was not much mistaken, the huge man had lost weight. ‘Are you quite well, Genba?’ he asked.

‘Yes, sir. Why?’

‘You look… thinner.’

Tora glanced at Genba and said, ‘His appetite’s gone, sir. He’s been grieving for Yori. We all have.’

Bereft of speech, Akitada turned to go, then managed a choked, ‘Thank you.’

Tamako was not waiting for him. He went to his study and shed his traveling robe, slipping instead into the comfortable old blue one he wore around the house. Then he went looking for his wife. The house seemed to be empty. In the kitchen, he finally found the frowzy cook. He disliked the woman intensely. Not only was she ill-tempered and lazy, but she had deserted them when Yori had become ill. She had returned later and wept with contrition, claiming that she would starve in the streets if he did not take her back. And he had done so. Now she looked up from chopping vegetables and scowled. ‘So you’re back. I’d better get a fish from the market then.’

The woman was impossible, but being in a softened mood after Genba and Tora, Akitada simply nodded and asked, ‘Where is everybody?’

‘Your lady and the old man are in the garden. Don’t know where the silly girl is.’

The ‘silly girl’ was Tamako’s maid. Akitada went outside. The service yard was neat, thanks to his two stalwart retainers. He could hear their voices from the stable, where they were tending to the horses. He entered the main garden through a narrow gate of woven bamboo.

The trees and shrubs must have put on a burst of new growth over the summer. He looked in dismay at a massive tangle of greenery that reminded him of the courtesan’s garden. It was high time something was done or the garden would swallow the house. Hearing voices, he made his way along the narrow path, its flat stones barely visible any longer, and came on Tamako and Seimei. They had not heard him.

Seimei sat on the veranda steps, huddled in a quilted robe. Akitada frowned. Even after sunset, it was too warm to wear such heavy clothes. He saw how frail the old man had become and remembered with a twinge of guilt how, in his raving grief over the loss of his son, he had questioned the justice of a fate that snatched the youngest and let the old survive.

Tamako wore an old blue-and-white patterned cloth robe. She had turned up its sleeves and tucked the skirt into her sash so that he could see her trousers underneath. Her long hair was twisted up under a blue scarf. She was cutting dead wood from the wisteria vine. A large pile lay beside her.

It was a day for uncomfortable memories. Akitada had fallen in love with Tamako when she had worn a similar blue cloth gown. They had been sitting under a wisteria-covered trellis in her father’s garden. Under the ancestor of this very same wisteria. And the poem Tora had carried to her the morning after their first night together had been tied to a wisteria bloom from that plant.

‘Why don’t you let Genba and Tora do that?’ he asked sharply.

They both jumped. Seimei rose shakily to his feet and bowed, crying, ‘Welcome home, sir. We were worried.’

Tamako said nothing. She gave him a searching, earnest look, then turned away.

He stared at her back. ‘There is no need for you to do such heavy work,’ he said. ‘I can still afford to hire people.’