The Iris Fan (26 page)

His gut clenched.

The moment he’d been dreading was here. Just when he’d hoped things between him and Reiko were improving, now this.

He knew he’d done a terrible thing by bringing her here. The sick pallor of her face told him how terrible. This was exactly the wrong place and time to tell her about his deal with Yanagisawa.

Masahiro dumped his own baggage on the floor. “What did Yanagisawa mean?”

Sano faced his wife and son. His stomach felt sick, his heart heavy as lead. “Sit down.”

Reiko ran to him. “You’re scaring me. Out with it!”

This was the hardest thing Sano had ever had to do. He would rather disembowel himself. “Yanagisawa wanted assurance that I wouldn’t betray him. He demanded that we cement our alliance with—” Sano swallowed. He forced himself to go on. “A marriage between his daughter and Masahiro.”

Reiko and Masahiro smiled and frowned as if he’d made a bad joke. Their smiles vanished; their frowns deepened. “You didn’t agree?” Reiko asked. Sano swallowed again. Her eyes and Masahiro’s widened in alarm. “Did you?”

Sano wished that one of the many people who’d tried to kill him during the past twenty years had succeeded. “I agreed.” He watched his wife’s and son’s stricken faces. He forced himself not to run away like a coward. “After the wedding, Masahiro and Kikuko will live with Yanagisawa.”

Masahiro shouted, “No!”

“How could you?” Reiko turned from side to side, caught between puzzlement and horror. “You and Yanagisawa are enemies, and you know Kikuko tried to kill Masahiro when he was little.”

“I won’t do it!” Masahiro cried.

Reiko pointed to the door. “Go tell Yanagisawa that Masahiro isn’t going to marry Kikuko. Offer him anything else but that!”

“That’s what he wants.” More wretched than ever, Sano said, “It’s settled.”

Masahiro shouted, “I’m not marrying anyone but Taeko!”

“Why are you giving in so easily?” Reiko demanded.

“What did Yanagisawa say he’ll do unless I marry Kikuko?” Masahiro asked.

They were too perceptive and too strong-willed. Sano couldn’t put anything over on them or make them accept his decision without argument. “He knows about Dr. Ito.”

Reiko and Masahiro stared at him with appalled enlightenment. Sano didn’t need to say more. They were among the few people who knew about his illegal business at Edo Morgue. They also knew what would happen to them should Yanagisawa make the secret public.

Reiko snatched up her baggage. “Masahiro, we’re leaving.”

“Where are we going?”

“Someplace else.” Reiko glared at Sano. “You let Yanagisawa find out about Dr. Ito, and I’m not letting our son pay the price!”

Sano knew she was angry at him for more than this fiasco, which was only the latest in the series of troubles he’d brought upon his family. “You can’t go. We’re surrounded by the army. If you leave the estate, they’ll arrest you and deliver you straight to Lord Ienobu.”

Reiko groaned in agony and frustration. “This is all because of your bullheaded honor! You’ve sold our son to it!” She flung her bundles at Sano. He didn’t try to dodge. They hit his chest; he welcomed the punishment he deserved.

“You betrayed us! I’ll never forgive you!” Reiko screamed. “If we get out of this alive, I’m leaving you. I don’t want to be your wife anymore!”

She knelt and moaned into her hands. Masahiro’s face was a tragic mask. Nobody needed to tell him it was his duty to honor his father’s agreement, marry Kikuko, and protect his family. Masahiro knew that Bushido demanded filial piety. Sano had often struggled with Bushido’s harsh dictates, and now he’d used them to bind his son.

“All right,” Masahiro said in a hard voice fissured with pain. “I’ll marry her. When is the wedding?”

“Tomorrow.” Sano stood in the ruins of his marriage and his relationship with his son. Knowing he’d destroyed all chance of reconciliation was a desolate, lonely feeling.

He heard a sob and looked toward the open door. There stood Taeko, biting the back of her hand, her eyes filled with tears. She’d overheard the conversation. She turned and fled.

*   *   *

TAEKO RAN DOWN
the corridor, crying so hard she couldn’t see where she was going. Her worst fear had come true: Masahiro was going to marry someone else.

He called her name. She ran faster, blindly, outside to a cold garden of boulders, snow, and twisted, leafless shrubs. She fell to her knees by a boulder, leaned against it, and wept. Masahiro knelt beside her and awkwardly patted her shoulder.

“Go away!” Taeko could barely speak through the sobs that erupted deep within her and tore at her stomach, lungs, and throat on their way up. It seemed that her body, in its agony, was trying to expel her broken heart through her mouth.

“I’m sorry you had to find out this way.” Masahiro’s voice shook. “I wish I could have told you myself.”

As if that were the only thing wrong! She turned to him and cried, “You broke your promise!”

“Let me explain.” Masahiro’s face was blurred by her tears, filled with his own sorrow.

“There’s nothing to explain! You’re dumping me to marry Yanagisawa’s daughter!”

“I’m not. I love you. I want to marry you, but I have to marry Kikuko or my family will die. So will yours.”

Taeko understood that. She knew he was trapped and he was unhappy about it, but she said, “I don’t care! You said we would marry, and now we aren’t going to.” And the baby was due in a few months. She sobbed harder. “What am I supposed to do?”

Masahiro grabbed her hand. “Listen.” Taeko tried to pull away, but he held tight. “After I’m married, you can be my concubine.”

Married men often had concubines; it was the custom. If she were Masahiro’s concubine, she could live with him and the baby would be recognized as his and supported by him, and his wife would have no right to object. But the very idea revolted Taeko.

“No!” she cried.

“It will be all right,” Masahiro tried to soothe her. “Our parents will be upset, but they can’t stop us.”

“I don’t care about them,” Taeko said, angry because he’d misunderstood her objection. “I won’t share you with your wife!” His wife would have all the privileges of marriage. Her children would be legitimate, his official heirs. Taeko and her child would be second-class members of his household. And her heart sickened at the thought of Masahiro making love to another girl.

“Yanagisawa’s daughter will be my wife in name only,” Masahiro said. “I won’t touch her. I won’t even look at her.”

Taeko’s resistance started to crumble. She wanted so much to be with Masahiro, and this awful compromise was better than nothing. “Do you promise?”

“I promise.” Masahiro’s eyes overflowed with sincerity. “It’s you I love. My being married to somebody else won’t change anything between us.” He clasped her hands to his chest. “I’ll never love anyone but you as long as I live.”

She had to trust him. She had no choice. She nodded and whispered, “All right.”

Masahiro dropped her hands. “Here comes your mother. I’d better get lost.”

He ran off. Confused and forlorn, Taeko leaned against the boulder, shivering in the cold. Footsteps crunched the snow. Warm, soft fabric draped her. Her mother was wrapping her in a padded cloak.

Midori put her arms around Taeko and said, “I’m so sorry.” Her voice was gentler than Taeko had heard in a long time. “I know you thought I was being mean when I separated you from Masahiro, but I was just trying to protect you from something like this.” She’d apparently heard about his engagement to Yanagisawa’s daughter. “I didn’t want you to be hurt.”

Her unexpected sympathy made Taeko cry again. Midori rocked her like a baby. “I know what it’s like being in love with the wrong man,” Midori said. “It happened to me when I was about your age.”

Taeko was surprised. Her mother never talked about her youth.

“My father didn’t want me to marry your father,” Midori went on. “My father is a
daimyo
. Yours was only a police patrol officer. But your father and I fell in love, and I was desperate for us to marry.” She sighed. “I was pregnant, with you.”

Shocked, Taeko pulled back and stared up at her mother.

“Yes.” Midori smiled sadly, shamefaced. “We were so much in love that we couldn’t help ourselves.”

Not only was it hard for Taeko to imagine her parents having sex, but they’d been so at odds for so many years that Taeko couldn’t believe they’d ever loved each other.

“I don’t want the same thing to happen to you,” Midori said.

Now would be the time to confess that it already had. Taeko longed to unburden herself, but her mother’s moods changed so fast. She kept quiet rather than set off a fit of temper.

“Things worked out,” Midori said, “or so I thought at the time. Now I’m not so sure.”

Taeko felt a pang of hurt. “Are you sorry you had me?”

“No, no.” Midori tightened her arms around Taeko. “You and your brother and sister are the best things that ever happened to me.” She sighed again. “But your father has been so much trouble.” Her manner turned hard and brisk. “Masahiro is trouble for you. Try to forget him. Be glad that after the wedding tomorrow he’ll be his wife’s problem.”

Now wasn’t the time for Taeko to tell her mother that she was going to be Masahiro’s concubine. “Yes, Mother,” she said unhappily. “I’ll try.”

*   *   *

IN THE SECTION
of the guest quarters on the other side of the garden, Lady Yanagisawa unpacked her baggage. Kikuko said, “Mama, where are my dolls?”

“Here, darling.” Lady Yanagisawa found the dolls in a trunk. Her daughter’s childishness always provoked mixed feelings in her. She was distressed because Kikuko would always remain a five-year-old girl in a woman’s body but glad that Kikuko would always need her, unlike other children who eventually left their mothers.

Kikuko chattered to the dolls as she changed their kimonos. Lady Yanagisawa smiled fondly at her, thankful that she’d inherited her father’s looks. Putting away clothes, Lady Yanagisawa listened for her husband. She always thrilled to the sight and sound and smell of him, his slightest attention. She loved him with a passion that persisted regardless of his indifference toward her and his revulsion toward their daughter. She often wished she didn’t love him, but nothing could change her feelings—not even the fact that he’d just moved her and her daughter into the same house as her worst enemy.

She’d admired, envied, and hated Reiko since the day they’d met fifteen years ago. Reiko had everything she didn’t. Reiko was beautiful; Reiko had a loving husband; Reiko had two normal children whom their father loved. Lady Yanagisawa wished with all her heart that she’d managed to kill Reiko when she’d had the chance. She wished Kikuko had managed to drown Masahiro. That would have taught Reiko that she couldn’t be lucky all the time! When Lady Yanagisawa had seen Reiko today, it had been like acid thrown in her face.

Reiko was as beautiful as ever. Her daughter looked just like her. Masahiro was a man, as tall and handsome as his father. Reiko’s children had grown up, but Kikuko never would. Lady Yanagisawa’s envy was as corrosive as poison.

A familiar step at the door set her pulse racing. She looked up to see Yanagisawa. A shiver of joy rippled through her. Her body ached with desire. He’d made love to her only a few times, and she couldn’t honestly call it making love; he’d taken his pleasure so fast, with no care for hers. She breathed a sigh that expressed all her hopeless love and yearning. She lived for two things—her beautiful, childlike daughter and her beautiful, cruel husband.

He spoke to the air above her head. “I’ve arranged for Kikuko to marry Sano’s son, Masahiro, tomorrow. Get her ready.” Then he left.

A loud, wild howling racketed in Lady Yanagisawa’s ears. She covered them to block out the noise. She didn’t realize it was coming from her until Kikuko ran to her and cried, “Mama, what’s wrong!”

My daughter is to marry Reiko’s son!

Lady Yanagisawa clapped her hand over her mouth to suppress the howling. She wheezed, coughed, and retched so hard that the pressure behind her eyes caused a dark tangle, like a scrawl of red-tinged ink, to swim across her vision—blood from ruptured veins. Dizzy and breathless, she collapsed to the floor.

Kikuko knelt beside her, patting her back. Lady Yanagisawa moaned and writhed, caught in the throes of a savage anguish.
Reiko already has everything, and now her son is going to take my only child, the only person in the world who loves me!

“What did Papa mean?” Kikuko asked in her babyish voice. “Who’s Masahiro?”

26

LEGIONS OF ARMY
foot soldiers and mounted troops occupied the streets of the
daimyo
district all night. Concentrated outside the estates of the clans that opposed Lord Ienobu, they prevented anyone from leaving and deliveries of food, coal, and other necessities from entering. They burned bonfires to keep warm. In the guest quarters of the Mori estate, Reiko lay rigid and sleepless in bed. She smelled the smoke from the bonfires, watched the orange light from the flames flicker through the window shutters, and listened to the
daimyos
’ watchdogs barking. Once during this long night she’d fallen asleep and dreamed that her naked body was drenched in the blood of the man she’d been accused of murdering eleven years ago. She’d not dared to close her eyes again. And the evils weren’t only in her dreams or memory.

Yanagisawa and his wife and daughter were under the same roof, separated from her only by corridors and paper walls. Reiko felt Lady Yanagisawa’s animosity like a deer scents a wolf’s meaty breath. In the adjacent chamber Masahiro stirred and muttered in his sleep. Reiko heard muffled sobs from Taeko. Her heart ached for the poor girl who was suffering the pain of lost love.

Reiko looked at Sano, asleep beside her. He thrashed his arms, kicked, then lay still, as if disturbed by intermittent bad dreams. They hadn’t spoken since he’d told her and Masahiro about his deal with Yanagisawa. Whenever she tried to see it through his eyes, she understood that he’d done the best he could in an impossible situation, but understanding didn’t negate the fact that he’d not only pitted himself against Lord Ienobu, he’d inadequately hidden his collaboration with Dr. Ito, and that secret had put him under Yanagisawa’s power. His actions had been based on honor, and their son was paying the price. What Reiko could understand, but not forgive, was that their family would always lose out to Sano’s honor.