The Heike Story (5 page)

"Silence! When did I send you on such an errand? That was your father's doing!"

"But isn't the money for this penniless family? Don't you have any use for money?"

"No," said Yasuko, shaking her head decidedly, "I need no such miserable help." The flush on her face made her glow, belying her thirty-odd years.

Kiyomori's large ears crimsoned; a threatening look appeared in his eyes; the clenched hands in his lap twitched spasmodically as though he were about to spring up and strike her.

"Then, Mother, you have no need for food from now on—tomorrow?"

"No, Kiyomori, I am not satisfied with mere food. . . . Ah, so you've come, too, Tsunemori? Then listen, the two of you. I am sorry for you, but today I am at long last permitted to leave Tadamori. We are no longer husband and wife. It is customary for the sons to remain with their father. This is the last you will see of me." Laughing lightly, she continued: "Your regrets will vanish more swiftly than the mists. You have always sided with your father, whom you believe to have been wronged."

Kiyomori started. He looked at his mother more closely. She was supposed to be ill, and yet she was fully clothed. As was her custom, she had painted her face carefully; her hair was perfumed; her eyebrows delicately painted in; her outer cloak, gay enough for a girl in her twenties, was draped about her. What was this? Not just another of the usual quarrels. Her habitual threat had been that she would leave them—forever—and both her husband and her sons had grown accustomed to these intimidations of hers, but never before had she appeared so calm and thus dressed for travel.

Tadamori had the air of having acquiesced to her. Kiyomori was overcome with consternation. He hated this mother, yet he was dismayed by the thought that she was his own flesh and blood. Turning to Tadamori, he faltered:

"Father, is this true—what my mother says?"

"It is so. You have all put up with this for so long, but this is true and it is best for you all."

Kiyomori choked. "Why—but why?" He heard his brother strangle back a sob. "But this must not happen, Father, with all these children. . . ."

The childish-sounding appeal seemed to amuse Tadamori, who smiled in spite of himself. "Heita, it is all right and for the best."

"What's 'all right'? What will happen to all of us?"

"Yasuko will be happy. As for all of you—this seems best. There is no need to fuss. Don't be anxious."

"But Tsunemori tells me that I am the reason for all this. If I've been at fault, let me try to make amends." Turning to his mother, Kiyomori pleaded: "What of my poor brothers? I promise, Mother, to do what will please you. Only think this over once more!"

As he spoke, Kiyomori was puzzled and chagrined by the strength of his feeling for his mother. Mokunosukй and Tsunemori were weeping aloud. Bewildered, Kiyomori too broke into tears, though Tadamori and Yasuko sat there cold and unmoved.

Tadamori then broke in sharply: "Stop, enough of your tears! Until now I endured everything for the sake of my sons, but now I have roused myself from my dreams. Fool that I was! These twenty years I, Tadamori of the Heike, let a woman order me about and let the years pass in one agony. I have been a fool! I can hardly blame you, Heita, for your foolishness," and he laughed bitterly.

At this sardonic sound Yasuko, who sat arrogantly erect, flushed deeply and retorted: "What do you mean by laughing? You mock me! Laugh as much as you like, jeer at me. Were his majesty alive today, even you would not dare to humiliate me like this! Remember that his majesty appointed the Nakamikado as my foster parents!"

Tadamori continued to laugh. "One of these days I shall pay my respects to the Nakamikado who honored the humble Tadamori with this lady for these many years."

Yasuko flashed her vindictive eyes on Tadamori and, with a vehemence intended to brand her words on his memory, said: "And did you not see to it that I bore child after child? Has there been a single day when you tried to give me any pleasure? Twenty years—and in spite of my loathing, the love of my children kept me here! These two—Heita and Mokunosukй, were they not gossiping maliciously of me by the stable at dawn? And were they not talking disrespectfully of his late majesty, saying that the Lady of Gion had a secret lover—some evil priest? And this old Mokunosukй, claiming that he saw it all, and the two wondering who of the three men was Heita's real father! I saw and heard them babbling insanely, and I've made up my mind that I will not endure another day in this house! What reason have I to stay here, when even my own son has turned against me?"

"Enough, enough!" cried Tadamori. "Have we not talked of this all morning? Didn't you get Mokunosukй to come here and abuse him to your heart's content? This is all useless—stop!"

"Then testify for me!"

"But didn't I say just awhile ago that Heita Kiyomori was your son and mine?"

"Heita, did you hear that?" Yasuko said, turning her harsh eyes on Mokunosukй. "And did you hear, you with your idle scandals! No one can deny that I was favored by his majesty, but what scoundrel has been telling you an old tale of twenty years ago? Tadamori denies it, and old Mokunosukй pretends innocence. Surely, Heita, you would not lie to your mother?"

"No, it is I and only I, Mother. ... I must know who is my real father."

"Didn't your estimable father just tell you?"

"That was out of pity. Though I'm told who is my father, I will continue to honor this man as my real father. I refuse to let you go until I'm told," Kiyomori cried, seizing the sleeve of Yasuko's robe and pressing it against his tear-swollen eyes, entreating her: "Speak, you know! Whose son am I?"

"He has gone mad, this child!"

"Mad I may be, but because of you this man, my father, has spent these twenty long years in solitude, wasting his youth! You monstrous fox-woman!"

"What do you mean by this—to your mother?"

"You may be my mother, but you enrage me beyond words! You are foul and unclean, and I loathe you!"

"And what do you expect me to do now?"

"Let me strike you! My father won't—he hasn't dared to raise his hand against you these twenty years!"

"The gods will punish you, Heita!"

"How?"

"In those bygone days, my body was beloved for a time by his majesty himself. Had I remained at Court, I would have been honored there, yet I lowered myself by coming to this ridiculous house! And to think that you dare to raise your hand against me—this is treason to his majesty himself! I could not forgive even my own son!"

Kiyomori's deafening cry filled the room. "You fool! What if it was his majesty!" With all his strength, he struck a resounding blow on his mother's cheek and saw her fall.

"The young master has taken leave of his senses!"

"Ho, you there! Come, the young master is possessed by a demon!"

"See how he raves! Help!"

"Hurry!"

And a great commotion swept over the household.

Impoverished though he was, Tadamori had once held a governorship in the provinces, and in his own right as a Heike held a post in the Imperial Guards at the Cloister Palace. Though subsisting close to starvation now, he insisted on keeping a retinue of some fifteen or sixteen retainers, one of them Mokunosukй's son, the steward, Heiroku.

Heiroku knew that his father had been called to his master's apartments that morning, and, fearing for his father's safety, had crouched by the hedge near the courtyard. At the sound of screams and loud voices he leaped to his feet, calling loudly for the other retainers, and darted straight across the inner court, realizing as he ran that the uproar had lasted but a few moments.

Yasuko lay face down on the ground as though she had fallen from the porch. Her plum-colored cloak, her white, green, and multicolored robes lay in a tangled heap about her streaming hair, and she made no attempt to rise. Kiyomori stood with his shoulders heaving, while his father held a tight grip on his wrist. Tsunemori and Mokunosukй, with looks of relief and bewilderment, appeared uncertain what they should do next.

At the sound of hurrying feet, Yasuko, who had lain motionless, raised her head, shrieking: "You there, call a carriage! Send a runner to my parents to tell them of this! Oh, shameful deed. . . ."

A servant ran off to fetch a carriage from a near-by stable, and another ran all the way to the Nakamikado mansion on Sixth Avenue. Tadamori watched the scene dispassionately as the servants hastened to carry out her orders.

The carriage was now on its way, and Yasuko half-swooning was carried away by one of the retainers to the gate. For a time her high-pitched, tearful voice mingled with the sound of Tsunemori's and his younger brothers' weeping. Tadamori stood motionless, as though bracing himself against these sounds.

"Heita!" As he spoke, Tadamori loosened his hold on his son's wrist. Freed from the vise-like grip, the swollen artery released a great spurt of blood, which rushed tumultuously through Kiyomori's whole body. The veins in his temples throbbed and he broke into weeping, unashamed, like a forsaken child.

Tadamori drew the tear-streaked face to his breast; rubbing his cheek against his son's rough hair, he said: "I have triumphed at last! I have now won my victory over that woman. Heita, forgive me. I was a coward to let you strike her. I am a failure as a father, but I will see to it that you do not suffer any more. You shall see me restore the name of Tadamori of the Heike. Do not reproach me with your tears. Stop reproaching me with them."

"Father—I understand how you feel."

"You still call me 'Father'?"

"I do. Let me call you 'Father,' my father!"

The crescent moon gleamed sharply. Through the rising purple mist came the faint sound of Mokunosukй singing lullabies.

THE HORSE-RACE

In the spacious grounds of East Third Avenue in Kyoto stood the Cloister Palace, to which the emperors retired upon abdication. Since the time of the ex-Emperor Shirakawa, however, this imperial retreat had become the seat of a Cloister Government whose elaborate administration rivaled the Eight Departments and Twelve Offices of the Court itself. And it was thus that the small capital held two governments. But when May brought the green burgeoning of willow trees and the scent of fresh soil to Kyoto, few remembered that this was the center of the country's political life, for it was transformed into a metropolis of pleasure, the capital of the fashionable and the City of Love, where court nobles and officers of the Cloister Palace surrendered themselves to spring, put aside their duties, and abandoned themselves to gaiety—not that this did not happen at other seasons of the year, but that this was more marked in spring—for what courtier could endure the disgrace of not composing a few verses to the spring?

One morning in late April, each pebble and stone in the Kamo River glinted, burnished by the rains of the past night, and the sun, gleaming on the crest of the Eastern Hills, told of the fullness and richness of spring.

The ex-Emperor's carriage rolled out resplendent through the Cherry Gate, beneath blossoming festoons of a drooping cherry tree. Gentlemen-in-waiting and attendants took their places with noisy excitement, matching their steps to the slow progress of the bullock that drew the royal carriage on its way.

"See, his majesty enjoys these outings," passers-by exclaimed. "Now that it is almost May, he probably goes to Kamo to see the trial races for the horses that have just arrived from the provinces."

An ox, dappled black and white, drew the carriage, whose shafts were wound with bunting. The only occupant of the carriage was a sallow-skinned aristocrat, still in his mid-thirties; flat-cheeked, with small, deep-set eyes and a taciturn look set off by compressed lips, the ex-Emperor Toba.

Men and women in passing paused to peer up at him, while the ex-Emperor gazed back intently as though the street scene interested him.

Only his eyes moved to and fro, and sometimes, as though amused by what he saw, the corners of his eyes drooped in a half-smile. People followed that glance and smiled back at him in understanding.

Near the paddock by the racecourse, the cherry blossoms were at their height. Under the noon sun the sensuous perfume of flowers mingled with the hot fragrance of new grass and was wafted along on each puff of wind.

"So you've seen that jet four-year-old too? Of the forty or fifty colts sent up from the provinces, there's not one to match him! Seeing him, I can hardly contain myself." Wataru of the Genji, his eyes riveted to the paddock rails, kept repeating this. A number of colts were huddled by the rails where they had been tethered.