The Samurai's Daughter

  His father was with some of the Satsuma elders. He was wearing coarse leggings and several thick cotton robes under a padded haori jacket. Small wiry dogs, twelve or thirteen of them, ran around at his feet, tails wagging. He must have returned that same morning from his hunting trip and couldn’t have helped but hear the commotion as the youths marched through the city. Some of the imperial guards were behind him, forming a bodyguard. When Eijiro had seen them around the Tokyo mansion they’d always seemed a bit zealous for his taste, but now he’d spent time in Kagoshima he had a grudging respect for these dedicated soldiers.

  There was someone else with the general too, tall, slender and handsome with a clear open face, the very embodiment of upright samurai youth. Eijiro gritted his teeth. He could guess who this was – his younger half-brother, Kazuo, his father’s son by his wife. He didn’t have to have met him to know that he thoroughly hated him.

  The general’s voice was ominously quiet. ‘This has been a busy night. What a monstrous affair!’ Then his face blackened. ‘Fools!’

  Eijiro nearly fell over. He’d never heard such a shout. It was louder than the most fearsome war cry, louder than the loudest belly shout his sword instructor could make. It shook the air and made his stomach churn. The other youths started, scuttling backwards like crabs. Someone would have to pay for the night’s work.

  Eijiro straightened his back and frowned. As Kitaoka’s son he should take responsibility for their terrible deed. If need be he would commit ritual suicide to atone for their crime. He raised his head. ‘It was me, Father. It was my stupid idea. I take responsibility.’

  Other youths shouted out. ‘No, sir, it was me.’ ‘No, me. I claim responsibility.’

  ‘I know we acted without orders, Father,’ Eijiro persisted. ‘I’m sorry.’ He bowed to the ground. ‘I will atone for my fault immediately by cutting my belly.’

  There was silence. His father stared at him, then threw back his head and let out a roar of laughter. ‘There’s no need for that, dear boy. You’re a pleasure-loving fellow. I can assure you, there’d be no pleasure in that at all. In fact I’m afraid you’d find it rather painful.’

  Eijiro scowled. He was about to protest that he was a samurai through and through when there was a shout.

  ‘Kitaoka-don.’ ‘-don’ was the affectionate abbreviation of the respectful title ‘-dono’ that everyone used to address their beloved general.

  A group of uniformed men was hurrying into the grounds. At the head was the burly figure of Chief Inspector Makihara. For a moment his sharp brown eyes met Eijiro’s.

  Eijiro’s heart sank. As the inspector bowed to his father, he studied his shaven pate and gleaming topknot, wondering nervously what he was going to say.

  ‘Grave news, sir. We captured the leader of the government agents. A man called Nakahara.’ Eijiro’s cheeks blazed. He’d almost forgotten the events of the previous night in the excitement of storming the arsenal. Perhaps the inspector would reveal his shame to his father in front of everyone. But he was a decent man; it would do him no good to make Eijiro lose face. He listened in an agony of suspense as the chief inspector continued. ‘He was a hard man to break, sir. It took all night to make him talk but we got a confession out of him in the end.’

  ‘He won’t be walking again for quite a while,’ said one of the other men, baring a mouthful of crooked teeth in a grin. ‘You can be sure of that.’

  Eijiro breathed a sigh of relief. So they weren’t going to talk about how and where they had found Nakahara.

  ‘A lot of the new police recruits have turned out to be spies,’ said the chief inspector in clipped official tones. ‘They’ve infiltrated half the schools. We were suspicious of them from the start, then my men apprehended them sending messages. They were reporting on what we were doing here and receiving instructions back from Tokyo. One confessed that there was a government transport due to arrive this very night, camouflaged as a commercial vessel with a civilian crew. Their mission was to remove arms from the government arsenals. Luckily our men got there first.’

  The general nodded. The chief inspector waited, head bowed respectfully, for him to speak.

  ‘And this Nakahara, what did he tell you?’

  ‘He made a written confession, sir. They were sent by the government to destroy our movement by any means possible. His orders were to assassinate you, sir, if that was what it took.’

  Eijiro shuddered with horror. So that was why Nakahara had been so eager to befriend him, that was why he had taken such an interest in his father and where he was. He’d planned to use Eijiro to get close to him – close enough to stab a sword into him or shoot him. And Eijiro had been about to introduce him. He breathed out hard. He would kill Nakahara with his bare hands, given half a chance.

  The young men had leapt to their feet, gripping their swords. They gazed at Eijiro’s father as if he was a god. Eijiro could see that any of them would happily die for him.

  ‘I’m not so attached to this body of mine,’ said General Kitaoka. ‘They can kill me if they want.’ He grimaced as he studied the document the inspector had handed him. ‘My old friend, Okubo,’ he said. ‘We grew up together, we fought side by side – and now he signs my death warrant.’

  Eijiro noticed that he looked older, more careworn, than he had three years earlier when he saw him last. His jowls sagged a little and there were streaks of grey in his oiled hair.

  ‘We’ll execute these men forthwith, sir. We’re just waiting for your authorization.’

  ‘Execute policemen? They were just doing their jobs. Lock them up and leave them be. We have bigger things to think about. The real criminals are the politicians in Tokyo who are out to destroy us and our way of life and everything we stand for.’ He looked around at the youths. For a moment there was a slightly bemused look on his face. Then he frowned as if he’d reached a decision. ‘I built these schools, I encouraged you to train as warriors. And I will lead you now. The die is cast. There’s no turning back.’

  26

  THE ANCIENT STEPS creaked as Taka picked up her skirts and raced up the steep staircase two at a time. She darted across the upper-floor room, sending dust smelling of rice straw puffing from the ancient tatami mats, pushed back the screens and leaned out over the rickety balcony.

  Below her, geishas swished along the lamp-lit alley in elaborate festive kimonos, long sleeves swinging, trailing musky perfume and bintsuke oil, the pomade they slathered their hair with to keep it in place. They looked up and bowed and smiled, calling out greetings in bird-like coos, every bit as glamorous as the Kyoto geishas she’d known. Taka’s new geisha friend, sixteen-year-old Toshimi, with her perfect oval face and wide-eyed air of innocence, dipped her head as she passed, tossing the frilled skirts of her western gown. Boys pushed by balancing stacks of lacquered food boxes, their breath puffing out like steam in the icy air.

  From behind closed doors and shuttered windows came the plucking of shamisens and women’s thin voices, plaintively singing. Smoke wafted out, heavy with the tang of grilling eel, roasting beef and stewing pork, and Taka thought of her father and how he used to enjoy tucking into his meat.

  The chatter grew louder as the first customers started to arrive, handsome young samurai with swords thrust in their belts and ponytails or hair cropped short. There were shouts of welcome as they strutted through the crowds and disappeared into the teahouses. The geishas loved these gallant young men. The only ones who could afford the geishas’ fees were the merchants and money brokers and businessmen, and being down-to-earth working girls they made their living entertaining them. But they all took impoverished young samurai as their lovers. And now, with their men setting off for war the very next day, they wanted to be sure they had the best possible time before they left.

  It was the third night of celebrations. The first battalions had marched out of town two days earlier, the second the following day and many of the men had spent the night in the geisha quarter before they left. The
last would bring up the rear tomorrow.

  Even Taka felt her heart quicken at the sight of these fine youths. Before she’d come to Kagoshima she hadn’t thought of any man other than Nobu. Back in Tokyo everything had reminded her of him – the polished veranda where they’d sat when she used to help him with his reading, the glade where he’d taken her hand that last fateful night. But time and his long silence had dulled the pain.

  Besides, in this exciting new city it was impossible to stay miserable for long. She was seventeen now. Most girls of her age were married and had had their first children, or had settled into careers as geishas, depending on which world they moved in. It was high time she put Nobu and the foolish events of the previous summer out of her mind.

  She and her mother had certainly come down in the world since the days when they’d had their own rickshaws and rumbled grandly along the Ginza. Taka had forbidden herself to think of the great mansion with its servants and rooms full of beautiful things and landscaped gardens and woods. Their small house in the Kagoshima geisha district was home now.

  She had been here two months and had almost forgotten the horror she’d felt at the thought of being banished to this distant barbarous land. Now, strange though it seemed, she felt as if she’d never lived anywhere else. As they’d steamed round the headland and had their first sight of the great volcano with its plume of black smoke, she’d suddenly noticed how intensely blue the sky was, how green the woods, even in winter, and how steep and craggy the hills, like mountains in an ink painting. Steam spurted out of the ground here and there, smelling of sulphur, staining the rocks yellow, and there were mineral-rich hot springs right at the foot of the volcano, where they went to bathe. Even the people seemed more alive as they shouted and laughed in their rough impenetrable dialect.

  Her brother Eijiro had been at the dock to meet them. He’d grown thinner and browner and his face was less puffy and dissipated. Sticking his chest out importantly, he’d told them they were to live in a farming village in the countryside, somewhere way out of town. That was where new arrivals always went.

  Taka had smiled to herself. Eijiro of all people should have known their mother wouldn’t put up with any such nonsense. Fujino had waited till he was safely gone, then turned to the young men who stood around bowing deferentially and said very firmly in her most fluting tones, ‘We’ve already made our own arrangements, thank you very much.’

  In fact they’d had not the slightest idea where to go. In the end her mother’s geisha instincts had come to the fore. She’d commandeered rickshaws to take them to the townsmen’s district and found a room at the best inn there, the Tawaraya. A few days later they’d moved into a house in Daimonguchi, one of the city’s two pleasure quarters.

  At first Fujino and her old friend Aunt Kiharu, who’d come along with them, had grumbled incessantly about the precipitous fall in their living conditions. But after a few days they’d discovered that most of the courtesans and geishas were from Kyoto or Osaka, shipped in by the clan lords who were eager to populate the quarters of their distant southern city with high-class women. They’d even bumped into a couple of old friends and very soon felt completely at home. The pair of them relished being back in the flower and willow world, as the geisha community called themselves. Among the geishas, even the fifteen-year-olds were experts at flirting and teasing and scrutinizing the ways of men. Fujino and Aunt Kiharu were soon joining in the endless gossip about other geishas and parties they’d been to and men they knew.

  Staring up and down the street, Taka still couldn’t see the face she was looking for. She sighed. She’d been so sure he’d come – that her beloved father would come, tonight of all nights, when he was setting off for war first thing tomorrow. She felt utterly dispirited.

  She noticed a man peeking shyly up at her. It was a young samurai who often lingered outside their house. She’d grown used to these fellows gazing at her with big puppy eyes whenever she went out, though this one was more persistent than most.

  It was obvious, by the closed doors and the fact there was no lantern outside, that theirs was a private residence, not a geisha house, added to which, even though they’d never mentioned their link to General Kitaoka, everyone seemed to have worked it out; news travelled quickly. The fact Taka was the general’s daughter made her all the more desirable but it also put her entirely out of reach.

  Nevertheless today she found herself looking more kindly at the lad who stood gazing up at her. For a moment their eyes met and she flushed and drew back quickly behind the screens.

  When she looked down again there was a group of men coming out of the shadows at the far end of the street, walking purposefully towards the house. Most were armed; she could see their rifles and swords. A pack of hunting dogs padded at their heels. Right in the middle was a giant of a man, towering over the rest. People stood aside respectfully as he passed or stepped forward to bow and greet him. Taka made out a square head with short-cropped hair, a bull-like neck and powerful shoulders and recognized the way he ambled along, chin lowered, as if deep in thought.

  She shouted with joy so loudly that she set the flimsy walls of the house quivering. The next moment she was charging downstairs, tripping over her feet in her haste. She raced to the back of the house, calling, ‘He’s coming! He’s coming!’

  ‘Already? He can’t be!’

  Her mother was on her knees, large and buxom in her long under-kimono – not white, like a virtuous samurai wife would wear, but a voluptuous shade of scarlet. Okatsu, Taka’s maid, was holding a bowl of iron-infused tea and gallnut powder – the usual mixture – while Fujino topped up the black polish on her teeth. Taka wrinkled her nose. The smell took her back to her childhood. It was unnerving the way they’d stepped back in time since they’d left Tokyo. Fujino had reverted completely to the mother she remembered from Kyoto days. She’d even started shaving her eyebrows again.

  She had been trying on western gowns, which lay heaped around the room in mounds of lace, silk and satin where she’d tossed them aside. Splendid kimonos hung on kimono stands.

  ‘Quickly, Taka, come and help. What do you think of this one?’ she cried, her large bosom heaving as she let out a noisy sigh.

  Okatsu lifted down a lavish green creation covered in swirling patterns of clouds and birds. Fujino threw it on, turning this way and that in front of the mirror. ‘It won’t do. Too gaudy, it makes me look huge. No, no, we need something more plain and tasteful.’ Her plump hands were shaking.

  It frightened Taka to see her so agitated. She was usually so calm and competent; no matter what happened, she always made everything all right. With her there Taka always felt safe. But whenever General Kitaoka’s name was mentioned, her mother started behaving like a dizzy young girl.

  The general, so they’d heard, had led a simple life since he’d moved back to Kagoshima. He spent most of his time in the countryside, fishing, hunting with his beloved dogs and relaxing in mineral hot springs. He had a wife here too, a woman of impeccable samurai stock, a Kagoshima native, like him, chosen by his family and friends. Taka tried to imagine what sort of person she must be – an unsmiling samurai wife, perhaps, who dressed in severe homespun kimonos.

  But tonight it didn’t matter who or what she was. On his last night in the city before he went to war, he’d decided not to stay at home with his wife but to visit his old love, his geisha. He’d written to Fujino to tell her so. It was more than three years since they’d seen each other. Taka shuddered. Supposing he changed his mind? Supposing he walked straight past and went to another house? She put the thought aside.

  ‘He knows you’re not his wife, Mother. That’s why he wants to see you. Put on the red kimono, the one you used to wear in Kyoto. He liked that one.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Red is for young girls. I’d be embarrassed.’ Fujino heaved another sigh, then took down a simple lavender kimono with a delicate pattern of plum blossoms and held out her arms for Okatsu to help her into it.
r />   Okatsu had barely finished tying the last cord around Fujino’s obi and smoothing her hair when there were voices outside. The outer door slid open, letting in a blast of cold air that sent the candle flames flickering so violently they nearly went out. Taka caught a glimpse of burly figures as a powerfully built middle-aged man ducked his head under the lintel. The door shut behind him.

  Taka and her mother were on their knees to greet him.

  ‘So sorry to bring you to this poor, humble place,’ Fujino babbled, as if desperate to fill the silence. ‘Come in, come in. Where have you been, neglecting us all this time? We’ve been here two months and you wait till now to visit us? I should send you straight home again.’ She gave a high-pitched peal of laughter.

  Taka raised her head. She didn’t care how poor their house was or how reduced their circumstances. She just wanted to see this long-lost father of hers.

  He stood awkwardly, almost filling the narrow vestibule. He was in a thick homespun jacket over several indigo-blue kimonos and wore dark blue leggings like he used to wear in Kyoto. She studied his big eyes and bushy eyebrows, his jowly face and stubbly chin. There were threads of grey in his thick black hair, but he was still her father, as huge, dependable and all-knowing as ever. She recognized that expression of his, thoughtful, calm, yet fiercely stubborn. He’d grown larger, she noticed; it was all the Castella cake he liked to eat.

  ‘Father!’ she said.

  He was gazing at Fujino. A smile spread across his large face.

  ‘You,’ he said softly. Taka thrilled at the sound of the well-loved deep tones.

  ‘Father!’ she cried impatiently. ‘I wanted to see you so badly. I’ve so much to tell you! We’ve had such adventures.’

  But he didn’t seem to hear her. He was looking at her mother still. He shook his head as if he could hardly believe he was awake and said again, ‘You.’