Iinuma-sama’s faded wife had wiped her hands on her apron, pressed a few coins into Nobu’s hand and stood waving from the doorway as he set off into the labyrinth of alleys. He’d turned a few corners then, at a loss for what to do, had gone in search of Hiromichi Nagakura, the ex-vice governor of the northern province of Aomori and an old friend of his father’s. Nagakura, a thin man with a gentle face and permanently bemused expression, still dressed like a samurai and did his best to live as though nothing had changed. He had fallen on hard times too but he’d helped Nobu out in the past. He’d given him a letter for a man called Tsukamoto who he said might have an opening for an errand boy.
Nobu had walked halfway across the city, tramping through piles of fallen leaves, but when he finally found the house, Tsukamoto, a heavy-browed man with a sour expression, had taken one look at him and said, ‘Be on your way. There’s nothing for a scarecrow like you here.’
‘A scarecrow like you …’ Nobu felt the blood rush to his face and clenched his fists at the affront. The words thundered in his ears as he stumbled off, barely aware of where his feet were taking him. He was pushing his way through a crowd of people, hearing voices and laughter roaring around him, when a wild-eyed man with his face half hidden in a scarf and a couple of sword hilts poking from his sash barged past, shoving him roughly aside. Nobu recognized him straight away – a southerner, a member of the Satsuma clan, the source of all Nobu’s woes.
Nobu was sure of one thing: his enemy’s enemy was his friend. Whoever this fellow was out to attack, he would defend them and land a few punches on an enemy jaw at the very least. He’d dashed after him blindly, barely aware of the antechamber full of panicking servants and the diners pushing back their tables and fighting to get out of the intruder’s way.
And now it seemed he’d won himself a job.
‘Quite the hero,’ said a nasal voice. A scrawny fellow with watchful, close-set eyes and the sun-baked pate and sinewy calves of a rickshaw puller prodded him in the ribs. He’d thrown his indigo-blue happi coat wide open to show off the splendid tattoo adorning his bony chest.
‘Just charged in without thinking,’ Nobu muttered, staring at the scuffed wooden floor. It wouldn’t do to incur this fellow’s enmity, which he might if the man thought he was trying to show him up.
‘You’re the lucky one, aren’t you?’ said the rickshaw puller, tapping out his pipe in the ash box. He narrowed his eyes and peered at him, then gave a gap-toothed grin. ‘Gonsuké’s the name. No belongings to fetch, I can see that.’
If he had he wouldn’t have been wearing a girl’s kimono jacket, Nobu thought ruefully. Gonsuké’s splendid livery made him feel self-conscious. The plump lady in the grey dress had told the restaurant owner to give him clothes and a meal, then offered him a job instead. At that moment he wished he could have had the clothes and food. The apprentices and grooms lounging around the antechamber were all staring at his outlandish costume and he could feel hunger gnawing at his stomach.
He’d been lucky, he reminded himself. If he hadn’t met these ladies he’d have been sleeping out that night and it was turning very cold.
‘Live round here, do they?’ he asked, as casually as he could. He didn’t want this man to guess how desperate he was for a job.
‘Shinagawa, on the edge of the bay, by the execution grounds. Where the Eastern Sea Road starts. You know it?’
‘You mean … the Satsuma mansions?’ Nobu stared at him wildly. It had never occurred to him that these people could have anything to do with the southerners. After all, Gonsuké spoke with a low city accent and as for the ladies, Nobu knew a geisha when he saw one. In the rough neighbourhoods where he usually spent his days and nights they were everywhere, though these ladies were obviously geishas of a much higher rank. They carried themselves with all the airs and graces of the Kyoto entertainment district. The large plump one with the pearly complexion and classic geisha features had been wearing one of those modern western-style dresses, puffed out like a temple bell, as many geishas did. As for the smaller one, it was obvious what she was by her shiny green-tinged lips and the provocative way she tugged her kimono collar down at the nape of her neck and swept her hair up to show off the skin there.
The two young girls had certainly looked a little classy for geishas’ daughters. But Satsuma …? The women could be the concubines of one of the Satsuma leaders, he supposed. But still it made no sense. Why was a Satsuma ronin attacking Satsuma ladies?
And supposing they were connected to the Satsuma, how could he possibly take a job with them? No matter how desperate he was, he’d never in his life sunk so low as to work for the enemy, the ‘potato samurai’ who’d come swarming up from their sweet potato fields in the deep south to snatch control over the country. There was not a government position now that they didn’t monopolize.
It was bad enough being a servant but at least he’d always managed to find work among his own people. Even impoverished northerners needed servants. Usually they couldn’t pay him, they just gave him his meals and somewhere to sleep in exchange for cleaning and tidying, and after not very long they’d realize they couldn’t afford even that. He’d always ended up back on the streets, knocking on the door of the next person he’d been recommended to, begging for work or at least somewhere to lay his head.
‘I tell you, the gods were smiling on you. Don’t you know who our master is?’ Gonsuké swivelled round importantly to show Nobu the crest emblazoned in white across the back of his happi coat. It was a feather in a circle. Nobu stared uncomprehendingly and Gonsuké raised a scraggy eyebrow. ‘Don’t you recognize it? Kitaoka – our master is General Kitaoka, the greatest man in the whole of Japan. Even a beggar like you must have heard of him.’
Nobu recoiled in horror.
‘General Kitaoka …?’ Kitaoka – the most hated southerner of them all, commander-in-chief of the southern forces, who’d persuaded the shogun’s men to hand over Edo Castle to the enemy without even a fight, the murderer who’d been responsible for the deaths of half Nobu’s family, the destruction of his domain and the dispersal of his whole clan. The very thought of Kitaoka made him shudder. He hated him from the very depths of his soul. Every Aizu knew his name. He had Aizu blood on his hands.
Gonsuké grinned. ‘No need to look so worried. You’re wondering why such a great family would look twice at a scarecrow like you. I wonder that myself. All they had to do was give you some money, not offer you a job. You must have done something in one of your previous lives to have had such good luck.’
A chill ran down Nobu’s spine. He’d been about to walk blithely right into the enemy’s grasp. He needed work, but not so badly that he’d grovel in front of the Satsuma butcher. He’d rather starve than that.
Panting in horror, he shoved his pipe in his sash, leapt to his feet and barged through the mob of men in their medley of ill-fitting western clothes and Japanese garments, grinning and gabbling like monkeys. He’d reached the doorway and was breathing fresh air and was about to rush into the street when there was an explosion of shouts and laughter and swirling smoke behind him as the door to the dining room slid open. A girl appeared, the one who’d asked her mother to give him a job.
She glanced around the room, frowning as if she was looking for someone. As she darted through the crowd who leapt aside to let her pass, he realized with a shock that it was him. She grabbed his sleeve and held it tight. ‘Don’t go,’ she pleaded. ‘Please don’t go. Come with us. It’s a good house, you’ll be happy there.’
Nobu stopped in his tracks. He’d seen plenty of women in his young life – the samurai matriarchs of his childhood, the geishas, courtesans, musicians and foul-mouthed whores who populated the East End and the wives and concubines of the impoverished northerners he’d been in service with – but never anyone like her. Halfway between a child and a woman, she had the sweetest face he’d ever seen, with skin like porcelain and wide brown eyes with a fleck of gold and an air of innocence that was ir
resistibly appealing. He realized that he was staring but it was hard to turn his eyes away. He forgot his urge to flee. It was unimaginable that such a girl could be related to the monstrous General Kitaoka.
She seemed blithely unaware of the fears and misgivings clamouring in his mind. Her face lit up. ‘So you’ll stay then. I’m so happy.’
The rickshaw pullers and grooms leapt to their feet, bowing deferentially, as her mother, large and regal, swept into the antechamber, her skirts rustling, followed by the lady in the kimono and the older girl in the pale yellow dress.
Nobu had been so determined never to work for them but now he saw them he thought it couldn’t be that bad. They seemed kind and the girl in the pink dress smiled at him so winningly, as if he was the one doing them a favour. He was intrigued by them. He knew if he went with them he’d have to watch his step. It was sheer folly going to live in the house of the enemy. But he had nothing left to lose, and at least it was a job.
The Satsuma section of town was right at the edge of the city, in the no-man’s-land where the shoguns had had their execution grounds. It was at the Tokyo end of the Eastern Sea Road, along which the Satsuma delegations used to march when they came up from their home at the tip of the island of Kyushu way down in the south-west. The powerful Satsuma clan had been among the chief of the shogun’s enemies and it was there that they had been ordered to build their mansions, a good distance from Edo Castle, where they could cause the least trouble. It was also where the foreign legations had been located when the barbarians arrived, for the same reason.
Nobu ran with the grooms in the cloud of dust kicked up by the rickshaws rattling along ahead of them. When he looked around he saw that they were on a broad road lined with shadowy temples separated by dried-out rice fields and dusty mulberry plantations. Trees rustled and swayed and the last of the leaves floated down, russet, orange, dark red and gold, as they had on the meadows and mountains of his childhood home. The sudden memory brought tears to his eyes and he slowed his pace, kicking the leaves aside, as he thought of Aizu’s gracious streets and thick-walled black-painted houses and the jagged peaks glistening on the horizon. He wished life didn’t have to be so harsh, that his home still existed and he could go back there, instead of wandering this hostile city, watching out for any chance to survive.
He had had to grow up so quickly. One moment he had been a child, running to school with his satchel full of books, the next the city had been in flames and he’d been tramping along in a line of refugees, barefoot in the snow. Sometimes he felt so tired he wished he could curl up somewhere and never wake again.
He thought of his brothers – the oldest, Yasutaro, badly wounded in battle; Kenjiro, the second son, the brilliant one of the four, but always sickly; and Gosaburo, the third son, who had given up his own future prospects to take care of their father – their brave, proud father, exiled from their domain, forced to live a life of poverty on the salt flats of the far north. He shook his head, filled with shame at his own self-pity.
Concerned for his schooling, Yasutaro and Kenjiro had brought him with them when they came south to Tokyo to look for work. But they had quickly discovered that northerners of an age to have fought in the war were treated with suspicion. It was easier for a child like Nobu to make a living than for them. Kenjiro, who’d mastered English, found the odd job interpreting for westerners in obscure parts of the country, but Yasutaro had ended up drifting north again.
Nobu was the lucky one. He hadn’t acquired an education but he had at least succeeded in surviving here in Tokyo, where there was a chance of work; he had food in his stomach or he would have soon; and now he had a job, though he could never confess to his family who his employers were. He might even manage to earn a little money to send to them.
It was dark by the time the line of rickshaws and grooms rounded a corner. A stiff breeze brushed Nobu’s cheeks and he smelt salty air and saw the glitter of water, bobbing with sails and ships. Squares of yellow light fell from a row of open-fronted stalls. The moon was rising pale over the sea. Seagulls flapped their wings and shrieked. Nobu stopped, panting, and wiped his brow. ‘Tokyo Bay,’ said one of the grooms. ‘We’re nearly there.’
Nobu’s heart sank as he wondered what sort of place this would be.
They followed alongside a high wall that seemed to go on for ever, with a ditch at the foot overflowing with leaves, then came to a gateway as big as an East End tenement with carved lintels and a heavy tiled roof. Nobu followed the grooms through the gate and across an expanse of raked gravel, along pathways between moss-covered gardens with pine trees swaddled in straw for the winter. He turned a corner and saw in front of him a cluster of buildings looming in the darkness, with sweeping roofs, verandas and porches, linked with bridges. Threads of light glimmered through the cracks in the rain doors. At the front was a huge main entrance where palanquins and rickshaws could pull up, with gold screens faintly visible inside. Uniformed guards paced to and fro, rifles resting on their shoulders.
Nobu stared in consternation. It was too grand, too huge. He didn’t belong here. He should leave while he still had the chance. But the gates had closed and the rickshaws were trundling around to the side of the house. The servants were lined up already, bowing, to greet the ladies and help them down.
‘Gonsuké, show Nobu to the servants’ section.’ The leading rickshaw creaked as the large lady put one pale silk-shod foot, then the other, on the step which one of the servants had set in place. ‘Make sure he gets a good meal and a decent set of clothes.’
Nobu was following Gonsuké towards the house when the door slid open and a tall, heavyset young man strode out. The servants bowed and stepped back, falling over each other to let him pass. His hair was cropped short and he was wearing expensive western-style clothes. Nobu’s heart sank as he saw his supercilious air and the arrogant way he held his shoulders, and he shrank back and tried to lose himself among the grooms and rickshaw pullers. He had heard that General Kitaoka was a giant and this fellow was huge; his son, he guessed. The young man barked at the grooms then swung round and fixed Nobu with his large black eyes, hands on his hips. Nobu stared stubbornly at the ground.
‘What have we here? Who’s this surly character? Not taken on a new servant, have you, Mother? What would Father say? We can’t even afford the ones we have.’ The young man stepped closer and poked Nobu in the chest. ‘You. What do you have to say for yourself?’
Nobu scowled and clenched his fists. He was panting with rage. It was all he could do to hold back and not do anything foolish. He hated the way the potato samurai had not only defeated his people but turned them into slaves, made them creep abjectly while they ground them under their heels. His fortunes might have fallen and this jumped-up peasant’s risen but Nobu was not one whit inferior to him. But this was not downtown Tokyo and besides, this man was twice as big as he was and burly too. He wouldn’t stand a chance if he tried to fight him. He’d have to bide his time. That had become the lot of the Aizu. One day their moment would come and they’d avenge themselves. He took a breath, got a grip on himself and bowed his head.
‘Don’t be a bully, Eijiro. Leave him alone!’ The girl in the pink dress had jumped down from her rickshaw and raced over to them, holding her skirts high, her small feet crunching on the gravel. ‘He can do plenty, a lot more than you.’
‘We had some trouble at the Black Peony,’ said the large lady calmly. ‘Someone tried to attack us – a mad ronin, waving his sword around. He could have killed us. This lad appeared out of nowhere and helped us, so I offered him a job. It was the least I could do.’
‘He saved our lives,’ said the girl. ‘He’s going to carry my books for me when I go to school.’
The young man drew himself up and his face darkened. He should have followed his instincts, he thought. He was going to have problems if he stayed. Then he stole a glance at the girl, who was glaring defiantly at the young man. No one had ever stood up for him before, certainly not
someone as pretty as her. He wouldn’t leave just yet, he told himself.
3
ONE AFTERNOON, A month or so after the new servant arrived, Fujino summoned Taka, Haru and a few of the maids and they trooped out to the storehouse in the grounds of the mansion. It was cold inside the whitewashed earthen walls and Taka’s breath puffed out like steam. She had swathed herself in layers of kimonos and put a padded haori jacket over the top but she still rubbed her hands together and pulled them into her sleeves to keep them warm. The tatami was like ice under her feet.
She wrinkled her nose. The storehouse smelt of age and damp and mouldy plaster. It was full of dark corners that no amount of lantern light ever reached, where all sorts of monsters and ghostly presences seemed to lurk. Family heirlooms, priceless antiques, things no one would ever use were stored within these fireproof walls. Even if the great house burnt to the ground and the whole family perished, these mouldering treasures would survive.
As they stepped further in, the trunks and chests cast enormous shadows that swayed menacingly in the light of the swinging lanterns. They brushed the cobwebs off some of the chests and started to open them up. Fujino pulled out kimonos in paper wrappers, boxes of porcelain, dolls and ancient books, lacquerware, scrolls and tea-ceremony utensils, shaking her head distractedly and groaning, ‘This won’t do. No, not this either.’ She was supposed to be planning Haru’s trousseau, but she seemed quite overwhelmed by the task.
Okatsu, with her round face and pretty smile, was on her knees, putting things away as quickly as Fujino pulled them out. She was Taka’s special maid and had been ever since they’d come to Tokyo five years earlier. She was ten years older than her. When Taka’s brother’s friends came to visit they teased her relentlessly and Taka often had to rescue her as they chased her around the house, grabbing at her and trying to tickle her. Once one of them had knocked over a lamp while he was grappling with her and broken the paper shade and soaked the tatami mats with oil. She put up with it all with cheerful good humour. Good humour was her speciality. Whatever chaos might be going on around her, Okatsu could always be relied upon to sort it out.