The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn (17 page)

Seikei suddenly snapped awake. He
had not realized that he had been sleeping, but he saw that the
night was even darker now. The moon had slipped behind a cloud.
Something had awakened him, though. He remembered it intruding on
his dream.

What was it? A footstep? The sound
of rustling silk? He held his breath, straining to hear the sound
again. Nothing.

But someone had passed by him as
he dozed. He was sure of it. It must have been Tomomi. Who else
could have emerged from Lord Hakuseki’s yashiki?

Seikei rose and ran down the
street the way he had come, trying to keep his sandals from
slapping against the stones. At the first cross street, he peered
in both directions, trying to pierce the inky black shadows. Which
way? Which way? There! He had heard the sound again. He rushed on
blindly through the darkness in pursuit of it.

All at once, he was grabbed from
behind. He felt his face enveloped in silk. Seikei opened his mouth
to cry out, but could not. A sweet-smelling perfume filled his
nostrils, and his muscles grew weak. He clawed at the silk,
desperately trying to pull it away from his face. But the arm
beneath the silk was too strong.

Then he remembered his sword. With
the last of his strength, Seikei drew it from his obi and flailed
upward, feeling it strike something hard. He heard a gasp, and felt
the attacker’s hold loosen.

Seikei wrenched free, turning to
face his assailant. Both hands on the hilt of the sword, legs apart
in the fighting stance, he prepared for another attack.

A high-pitched giggle echoed
through the street. “You again,” came a woman’s voice, which Seikei
recognized. “I taught you too well, didn’t I?”

“Why are you talking like that?”
said Seikei. “I know who you are.”

“Really? Then you know me better
than I do,” replied the silky voice. “Especially on this night,
when the spirits return.” Tomomi leaned close; his white-painted
face shone like the moon itself. “Have you seen them?” he
whispered.

The question sent a shiver through
Seikei’s body.

Tomomi noticed. Nothing ever
escaped his piercing eyes. “There’s no reason to fear them,” he
said. “They return to see what we have done to honor them. Through
us, they can enter the land of the living once more. It is a time
to be happy.”

He put his hand on Seikei’s
shoulder. “Put your sword away,” he said, in a voice more like a
man’s now. “There is no need for it. I heard you following—you
should learn more about the art of silence, by the way—and I
thought you were one of Lord Hakuseki’s men.”

“But you came from there,” Seikei
blurted out.

“So you
did
follow me,” Tomomi said. “Well, no matter. You
remember the line I taught you?”

“I swear that I will see you
disgraced,” Seikei replied dutifully.

“You hear?” Tomomi cried joyfully,
whirling around and raising his voice into the darkness around
them. “Mother? Father? Tomorrow I will keep my promise to
you.”

Seikei looked nervously around,
feeling the presence of the spirits he could not see. Tomomi
started down the street. “Come then,” he said. “Let us return to
the others and begin work on the play. We have only a day to
rehearse. And the performance must be perfect, for the shogun
himself will be present.”

Seikei rushed to keep up with him.
“The shogun? How can that be?”

“Through the generosity—and
vanity—of Lord Hakuseki,” Tomomi explained. “The shogun, you see,
has a secret fondness for the kabuki plays, but of course he cannot
go to a public theater, even in disguise as so many samurai do. So
Lord Hakuseki has employed our troupe to give a special performance
in his yashiki. The lord wishes to impress the shogun. Now that he
cannot make him a present of that marvelous rare jewel, which has
mysteriously disappeared, he will surprise him with a kabuki
performance. And indeed it will be an unforgettable
evening.”

The sound of Tomomi’s laughter
rose into the sky like a flock of geese. And it was true—Seikei
felt the spirits respond. Perhaps it was only Tomomi’s voice
echoing down the deserted streets, but it sounded to Seikei like
the dead speaking. What were they saying? He strained to hear, but
he could not make out the words.

21: The Rehearsal

Seikei and Tomomi made their way
back to the inn where the rest of the troupe was staying. Seikei
lay down on a mat and immediately fell asleep. But his rest was
brief, for as soon as the sun was up, Tomomi— now in his own
clothing—awakened everyone. It was time to rehearse, he announced.
Tonight they would perform for the shogun.

The play he had written was an
elaborate one. Kazuo emptied the trunks, looking for costumes and
props. “Find the rosaries and crucifixes,” Tomomi commanded.
Everyone knew that meant there were going to be Kirishitans in the
play.

The Kirishitan religion had
arrived in Japan almost two hundred years before, brought by
foreign devils from a distant country beyond China. A powerful
daimyo named Oda Nobunaga allowed Kirishitan priests to preach
their religion within his domains. Some Japanese became
Kirishitans, and for a time it was popular to wear Kirishitan
symbols as jewelry.

After Nobunaga’s death, his ally
Ieyasu Tokugawa was named shogun, or military commander of Japan.
His descendants had held the post ever since. Because the Tokugawas
feared that the Kirishitans were plotting a rebellion, they banned
the religion and executed any Kirishitans who clung to their
faith.

Even so, it was rumored that some
Japanese continued to practice the religion, though they risked the
death penalty for doing so. Seikei, growing up in Osaka, had
sometimes heard that people kept shrines to Kirishitan saints
hidden inside their houses. Seikei’s father had always told him to
pay no attention to these stories.

Tomomi’s play began in the
household of a daimyo whose family had, in fact, secretly kept the
Kirishitan religion during all the years when it had been banned.
The hair on the back of Seikei’s neck tingled when he heard the
family name: Takezaki. The play would be the story of Tomomi’s own
family.

And now Tomomi pointed to him,
saying, “You will play the eldest son.” The actor locked his eyes
on Seikei’s, and added, ‘Your name is Genji.”

Seikei nodded, knowing that it was
a kind of honor: he was to be Tomomi’s younger self.

Kazuo could not keep from showing
his disappointment. “How can you let him play a role? He is no
actor.”

“A better one than you suspect,”
Tomomi shot back.

“You promised that I could go on
stage someday,” Kazuo persisted.

Tomomi shrugged. “Very well. We’ll
let you appear as a servant, then. But you’ll die horribly when the
play is only half over.”

Kazuo looked pleased. “Very
horribly?” he asked.

“As dreadful a death as we can
imagine for you,” Tomomi muttered.

The excitement shone on Kazuo’s
face.

The other actors expected Tomomi
himself to take the role of Lord Takezaki, the head of the family,
but he assigned it to another actor. “I will play his wife,” Tomomi
announced. “Faithful to her husband, devoted to her son, beautiful,
wise, and courageous—as a true samurai woman should be, for her
family too was a noble one.”

“In addition to these qualities,
does she have a name?” someone asked sarcastically.

Tomomi gave the man a look that
made Seikei shiver. “Nanaho, daughter of a branch of the Fujiwaras,
the most noble family in Japan,” he replied coldly.

Seikei wished that Tomomi was
playing another role, for he had not forgotten how strange the
actor became when he donned women’s clothes. But the others
approved, for they knew that Tomomi’s appearance on stage as a
female was popular with audiences.

It seemed to Seikei that no one
else suspected that there was a deeper meaning to the play. Even
Kazuo, who had heard Tomomi proclaim himself as Genji, son of
Takezaki Kita, was too caught up in the excitement of his first
stage appearance to let that bother him.

The first scenes of the play were
happy ones, showing a family lovingly devoted to each other. For
the audience, the interest would be the strange Kirishitan rituals
that the Takezakis practiced in secret rooms known only to their
servants—who were Kirishitans as well. Portraying Kirishitans on
stage was acceptable, as long as they eventually came to an unhappy
end.

And as the play
developed, that fate soon seemed inevitable. For a neighboring
daimyo learned the secret of the Takezakis. The role was assigned
to Yukio, the actor who had played the father of the tragic lover
in the troupe’s previous play. This time, he was outfitted in a
grand and spectacular costume. His clothing was padded and
stiffened at the shoulders to make him seem a giant of a man. His
helmet was crowned with a golden sunburst that added a full two
feet to his height. But the effect was spoiled because Yukio was
barely able to walk in the costume. As he waddled
across the floor, the helmet slipped over his
eyes and the elaborate garments constantly threatened to trip him
up.

“I need someone to help me walk,”
Yukio complained to Tomomi.

“No, you’re perfect,” Tomomi
replied. “Lord Shakuheki must be an immense figure, showing his
ambition to be great.”

Lord Shakuheki? When Seikei heard
the name, he knew who the enemy of the Takezaki family really was.
Tomomi had barely attempted to disguise it. But what could the
actor be thinking of? To put on this play, to mock Lord Hakuseki in
this manner—in his own house! It was madness.

Yet Seikei could do nothing about
it. The other members of the troupe trusted Tomomi’s promise that
they would perform before the shogun himself. It was a great
opportunity for them. During breaks in the rehearsal, it was all
anyone talked about. Perhaps, some said, the shogun would reward
them if the performance pleased him.

The plot continued to unfold. Lord
Shakuheki had once wished to marry Nanaho, but she persuaded her
parents to accept the offer of another man—Takezaki Kita. Lord
Shakuheki’s pride was wounded, but he concealed his bitterness,
pretending to be a friend, until he discovered that Takezaki was a
Kirishitan and his wife had adopted the religion.

Lord Shakuheki hatched his plans
to destroy the Takezaki family. He sent a messenger to the shogun,
asking permission to search for Kirishitans and execute them. Then
he visited Nanaho to warn her. “My samurai are as many as the
grains of sand on the beach,” he bragged. “Your husband, who has
violated the decree of the shogun, cannot resist me. I will have
his head. But I offer you a chance to save your life. If you
renounce your religion, I will spare you and your son.”

Tomomi, in his role as Nanaho,
faced the lord with contempt. Though he wore no makeup, Tomomi
easily became a woman again. “You are a man without honor,” she
replied. “You have treacherously used our friendship to betray my
trust in you. Who could accept such an offer and live?” With that,
she turned and left.

Nanaho told her husband of the
danger, and the Takezakis prepared to fight. Calling their servants
and samurai together, they prayed to the Kirishitan god. Kazuo, as
one of the servants, raised his voice loudly in the words that
Tomomi had written. And then, Tomomi brought an object from his
kimono, holding it high before the assembled company.

Seikei saw with shock that it was
a large golden crucifix—with a red jewel at the top of the cross!
He could hardly believe it. He had seen Judge Ooka smash one such
ruby at the inn, and witnessed Tomomi leave another at the shrine
of Amaterasu. Yet now there was a third. Could it be the real
one?

Tomomi, as Nanaho, prayed to the
strange god who hung on the cross. “All who follow the Lord
Kirist,” she said, “know that a paradise awaits those who die in
his name. And as samurai, we know that honor demands
it.”

The next scene was the battle in
which Lord Shakuheki’s men attacked the Takezaki castle. It was
bloody enough to please any audience, for the loyal Takezaki
retainers fought furiously. Yet one by one, they died before the
swords of the invaders. Kazuo, playing the faithful servant, had
his head cut off (a false one, tossed onto the stage as Kazuo hid
his real head under his costume). But Kazuo continued his loud
cries of agony until he was sharply informed that without a head,
he must silently accept his death.

Takezaki Kita, Genji’s father, was
among the last to die. As he fell, his wife rushed forward to grasp
his sword. She fought off Lord Shakuheki’s men and escaped, taking
her son with her. At the edge of the stage, she handed him the
sword in its scabbard. “Take this,” she said, “and flee. Lord
Shakuheki will not pursue you, for my death is all that he
desires.”

Seikei, playing the role of Genji,
accepted the sword. He saw that it was the one he had found in
Tomomi’s trunk, and now understood its secret.

With that, Nanaho stabbed herself,
choosing the honorable death of seppuku.