Island of Exiles (17 page)

Inside, every surface seemed carved and painted in glorious reds, greens, blacks, oranges, and golds. Even the floor was painted, and in its center stood a gilded altar table on its own carved and lacquered dais. A wooden Buddha statue rested on the altar, and a number of gilded vessels with offerings stood before it. Behind the Buddha figure, a richly embroidered silk cloth was suspended, depicting swirling golden clouds, em-blems of Kumo’s family name, on a deep blue background. A faint haze of intensely fragrant incense curled and spiraled lazily from a golden censer, perfuming the air and veiling the gilded tablets inscribed with the names and titles of Kumo ancestors. This was the Kumo family’s ancestral altar.

Akitada read some of the tablets and saw the names of two emperors among the distant forebears of the present Kumo.

Only the most recent tablets lacked titles. Kumo’s great-grandfather had been stripped of his rank and sent here into exile.

Akitada reflected that few families survived such punishment in the style of this one. His own family, though they had retained their titles, barely subsisted since his famous ancestor had died in exile.

He made a perfunctory bow to the Buddha. No larger than a child of three or four, the figure was an unskilled carving from some dull wood. It seemed out of place among all the gold and lacquer work, yet somehow for that reason more numi-nous, as if it somehow symbolized what the Kumos had become. Perhaps a local artisan had carved it or, more likely, the first Kumo exile had done so in order to find solace in religious devotion.

Stepping closer, Akitada found that the surface was astonishingly smooth for an artless carving, but the Buddha’s face repelled him. It was quite ugly and the god’s expression was more like a demon’s snarl than the gentle, peaceful smile of ordinary representations. The figure had golden eyes, but they shone almost shockingly bright from that dark, distorted visage. Odd. The Buddha’s shining eyes reminded Akitada of Kumo’s pale eyes and he wondered about his ancestry.

A faint and unearthly music came from the garden. Akitada stepped out on the veranda to listen. Somewhere someone was playing a flute, and he felt a great longing for his own instrument. The melody was both entrancing and beautifully played.

Like a bee scenting nectar, Akitada followed the music on paths which wound and twisted, leading him away as soon as he seemed to get closer until he lost all sense of direction. Shrubbery and trees hid and revealed views. He heard the splash of running water and passed a miniature waterfall somewhere along the way; he heard the cries of birds and waterfowl, then caught a glimpse of a pond, or miniature lake with its own small island. The flute seemed to parody the sounds of the garden until he wondered which was real.

The artist was playing a very old tune with consummate skill. It was called “Land of the Rice Ears,” and Akitada stopped, following each sequence of notes, paying particular attention to the second part, for it contained a passage he had never mastered himself. There! So that was the way it was supposed to be.

He smiled, raising his hands to finger imaginary stops, wishing he could play as well.

Just after the last note faded, he reached the lake. The sky above was still faintly rosy, almost iridescent, like the inside of a shell. All was silent. A butterfly rose from one of the lilies that nodded at the water’s rim. Then a pair of ducks paddled around the island and lifted into the evening air with a soft flapping of wings and a shower of sparkling drops. Akitada wondered if he had strayed into a dream.

With a sigh, he followed the lakeshore. His stomach growled, reminding him that food was more useful than this longing for a flute he had been forced to leave behind. Then his eye caught a movement on the small island. He could see the curved roof of another small pavilion rising behind the trees.

Two spots of color shimmered through a gap between the trees, a patch of white and another of deep lilac.

A dainty bridge connected the island to the path he was on.

He crossed it and heard the sound of women’s voices. Two ladies in white and wisteria blue sat behind the brilliant red balustrade and under the gilded bells that hung from the eaves of the pavilion. Thinking them Kumo’s wives, Akitada stopped and prepared to retreat. But then he saw that both women were quite old. The one in purple silk had very long white hair which she wore loose, like young noblewomen, so that it draped over her shoulders and back and spread across the wide skirts of her gown. She was tiny, seemingly shrunken with age, but her skin was as white as her hair, and the rich purple silk of her outer robe was lined with many layers of other gowns in four or five different costly colors. Such a costume might have been worn by a young princess in times gone by. On this frail old woman it mocked the vanity of youth.

It was the other woman who had been playing the flute-

the other woman who, in sharp contrast to her companion, wore a plain white robe and veil, and whose face and hands were darkened from exposure to the sun. The nun Ribata.

“Approach, my lord!”

The old lady’s voice was cracked and dissonant, sharply at odds with the lovely sound of the flute which still spun and wove through Akitada’s memory.

He felt a moment’s panic. Was she someone who had known him in another place and recognized him in spite of his beard?

Surely not.

The old lady in the gorgeous robes waved a painted fan at him. Gold dust sparkled like stars on its delicate blue paper.

“Come, come!” she invited him impatiently. “Do not be shy. You were never shy with me before.”

He felt completely out of his depth and glanced back at the small bridge he had just crossed as if it had led him into an oth-erworldly place, like the Tokutaro of the fairy tale who had ended up among fox spirits.

The nun Ribata put down her flute and gave him an amused smile.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, bowing to both women. “I heard the music and came to meet the artist.”

“Silly man.” The old lady snickered coquettishly behind her fan. “You thought it was I and hoped to find me alone. Come sit beside me. Naka no Kimi won’t give old lovers away.” Old lovers? And Naka no Kimi surely referred to an imperial princess? It dawned on him that the old lady must be demented.

Akitada heaved a sigh of relief and walked up the steps of the pavilion.

Ribata gestured toward the cushion beside her companion.

“Please be seated,” she said, her own voice as warm and resonant as a temple bell. “Lady Saisho is the high constable’s grandmother. We are old friends.”

Whatever her official status, the Lady Saisho had survived the harsh years of early exile to live in luxury again. But to what avail? Close up, she looked incredibly frail, withered, and wrinkled. He saw now that her skin was not abnormally white, but that she had painted her face with white lead. Rouged lips and soot-ringed eyes parodied former beauty, and heavy perfume mingled with the sour smell of old age and rotting gums. Yet she eyed Akitada flirtatiously and batted her eyes at him.

Feeling an overwhelming pity, he bowed deeply and said, “I hope I see your ladyship in good spirits on this lovely evening.”

“Lovely indeed. A poem, Lord Yoriyoshi,” she cried gaily, waving her fan with the studied grace of a court lady. “Make me a poem about the evening so I can respond.”

“A poem?” Apparently she took him for a poet called Yoriyoshi. Poetry was not one of Akitada’s skills. “Er,” he stammered, looking to the nun for help.

“She lives in a happier past,” said Ribata softly. “Humor her, please.”

Hardly helpful. His eyes roamed around for inspiration and fell on the bridge. The last of the sunlight was gone and the brilliant red of its balustrade had turned to a dull brown of withered maple leaves. Akitada recited, “The evening sheds a lonely light upon the bridge suspended between two arms of land.” The old lady hissed behind her fan. “Prince Okisada could have done better, even when his illness was upon him. However, let me see.” She tapped her chin with the fan. “‘Evening,’ ‘lonely,’

‘suspended,’ ‘arms.’ ” She cackled triumphantly, and cried, in a grating singsong, “Waiting, I cradle loneliness in my arms, hoping you will cross the bridge.”

Akitada and Ribata applauded politely, their eyes on the ridiculous old creature who simpered behind her fan and sent inviting glances toward Akitada.

They were unaware that someone had joined them until Kumo spoke.

“I think my honored grandmother must feel the chill of the air. I have come to escort her back to her quarters.” Akitada knelt quickly, his head bowed, hoping he had not broken some rule, but Kumo took no notice of him. He went to his grandmother and bent to lift her to her feet.

“No!” She scrambled back like a small, stubborn child. “I don’t want to go. Lord Yoriyoshi and I are exchanging poems. His are not as good as the prince’s, but . . .” She screwed up her face and began to cry. “The prince died,” she wailed. “All of my friends die. It’s your fault.” And she lashed out with a frail hand like a bird’s claw and slapped her grandson’s face. He stepped back, his expression grim, as she staggered to her feet and faced him with glittering eyes. “I hate you,” she shrieked. “You are a monster! I wish you would die, too.” Then she burst into violent tears and the mask of the court beauty disintegrated into a grotesque mingling of black and white paint. Her thin frame shook in its volu-minous, many-colored silks, and she began to sway alarmingly.

Both Ribata and Kumo went to her aid. “She is overtired,” muttered Ribata, while he said, “I hate to see her like this.” Lady Saisho clung to the nun, but her tears diminished, and after a moment she allowed her grandson to lift her in his arms and carry her away with tender care. The nun walked with them a little ways, then returned.

Akitada had got to his feet. “What was she talking about?” he asked, puzzled by Lady Saisho’s references to Prince Okisada.

Ribata sighed. “Old age may take away the mind, yet leave the pain behind. She has seen much grief and many horrors in her long life.”

He gave her a sharp look. “I have heard that, in spite of the favor shown the high constable by the government in the capital, her grandson still bears a grudge for what happened three generations ago.”

Ribata looked into the distance, her arms folded into her wide sleeves, and murmured, “They are a proud family.” Following her glance, Akitada said, “Look around you.” His sweeping gesture encompassed the elegant garden with its pavilion, shrine, lake, and lacquered bridge. “The Kumos have not fared badly here. I see power, wealth, and luxury all about me where I least expected it.”

She gazed silently at the scene. The last light was fading in the sky and already the darkness of night seeped forth from the trees and ground. Fireflies glimmered faintly. Only the lake still shimmered, reflecting, like a lady’s polished silver mirror, the dying lavender of the sky. “You play the flute?” Ribata asked softly.

The question startled Akitada. “I used to, poorly, in another life.”

She went back into the pavilion. Picking up her flute, she offered it. “Come. Play for me.”

Ribata was a woman of extraordinary culture, one of the mysteries of this island, and part of him did not want to play, fearing her censure, even if it remained unspoken. But his desire overcame his shyness. He took up the flute with a bow. They seated themselves, and he put the mouthpiece to his lips and blew gently.

The sound the instrument produced was strong and very beautiful. It told him that this flute was of extraordinary, perhaps legendary quality. He looked at it in wonder. At first glance very plain and ordinary, it consisted of a piece of bamboo with seven holes and a mouthpiece-called a cicada because it resembled the carapace of that insect-the whole wrapped in paper-thin cherry bark of a lustrous deep red and then lacquered with the sap of the sumac tree until its patina shimmered like layered gossamer.

The flute was old and must be very precious, a family heir-loom. “What is its name?” he asked reverently.

“Plover’s Cry.”

“Ah.” He raised the flute to his lips again. The name was apt.

High, clear, and full of longing, the notes resembled the melancholy cry of the male bird on the seashore calling for its lost mate. His hands shook a little with awe and pleasure, and he closed his eyes before playing in earnest.

The song he chose was one he knew well, but still he was nervous. He knew he could not do justice to such a flute, even if he tried his best. “Rolling Waves and Flying Clouds” was not his favorite, but it contained a passage he had never quite mastered, and he hoped Ribata would correct him. So he concentrated, paying attention to his fingering, and thought he did not do too badly. But when he opened his eyes and lowered the flute, he saw that the nun had fallen asleep.

It was almost dark. As if to respond to the call of the flute, a cicada began its song nearby, and gradually others joined. He listened for a while, feeling mournful and unhappy.

Then he raised the flute to his lips again and played to the cicadas. He played “Twilight Cicadas” for them, and as they seemed to like that, he also played “Walking Among Cherry Blossoms,” and “Wild Geese Departing,” and “Rain Falling on my Hut.” As he played, he thought of his wife Tamako dancing about the courtyard with their infant son. He had a sudden fear that he might not survive this journey to see them again and resolved if he did, he would try to be a better husband and father.

As always, the music eased his black thoughts, and when the last song was done, he sighed and with a bow, he laid the precious flute on the mat before the sleeping nun. Then he rose.

Ribata’s voice startled him. “You are troubled.” He stood in the dark, waiting.

“I think you play the flute to find the way out of your troubles,” she told him.