“Can that be true? Can finding enlightenment be as simple as the difference between man and woman? How can that be done?”
“Show me to your hermit’s hut and I will demonstrate the process,” the maiden said. “I have been fleeing from an unhappy love affair, but I see now that the Gods have guided me to this remote spot so I can do charity work! It will be a blessing to enlighten this innocent monk in the ways of men and women.”
The monk helped the maiden up. Taking his hand, the maiden led the befuddled monk off, stopping to give the audience a sly and knowing look before continuing offstage. The laughing audience gave the performers a hearty round of applause.
Despite his headache, the captain was laughing as hard as the rest of the audience. Pulling himself together, he gruffly shouted to his men, “Come on! We don’t have time for this foolishness!” He turned and stomped out of the theater. Reluctantly, the men followed.
CHAPTER 16
Five silent shadows
cross the flat gray, nighttime street.
Death blends with blackness.
Momoko looked at Kaze with bright eyes.
Kaze was removing the outlandish makeup he had put on to disguise his face. He had decided that the best place to hide was in plain sight, and the best way to do that was to call attention to himself in a way that actually hid his identity. Like many warriors, Kaze had been trained in the classical Noh drama, often taking part in Noh performances. It was the mark of a civilized man. Before he became Shogun, Ieyasu had often danced Noh, even taking roles where his paunch had been put to good use for comic effect, inviting the assembled audience to laugh at him. Of course, this buffoonery had another purpose. By acting the clown on the Noh platform, Ieyasu had put more than one potential enemy at ease, diffusing suspicion and causing foes to underestimate the shrewd man scampering and clowning on the stage.
He had done this for the Hojos, the clan that Ieyasu and Hideyoshi eventually deposed from Edo and the rich Kanto plain, and he had also done this for Hideyoshi, whose house he eventually defeated. When Ieyasu acted the clown, it sometimes preceded serious business.
Kaze had acted a scene from the Noh play Dojoji, although the risqué actions and words had been added extemporaneously. Momoko had picked up on Kaze’s intent immediately, playing the scene to great effect. She had been surprised that the ronin had wanted to act in the Kabuki, and even more surprised at his talent for it. She did not know Kaze’s desire to act in Kabuki was motivated by the need to elude the searchers, and that his comic flare came from the same core of icy intelligence he had when he was under pressure.
As Kaze finished removing his makeup, he looked over at Momoko, who had been looking at him the entire time. “Well?” he said.
Momoko still had her white makeup on. It emphasized her pug nose and plain face, but Kaze thought her lack of physical beauty was reduced by the force of her sparkling personality. Momoko meant peach and, filled with happiness tonight, she certainly was as sweet and luscious as her namesake.
“Saburo, this is the best night of my life,” she said.
Kaze raised an eyebrow, a bit nonplussed by her declaration, especially since she used the false name he had given her. Seeing his surprise, Momoko explained.
“I’ve always wanted to be someone special; that’s why I wanted to try this Kabuki,” she said. “I know I’m not a beauty, and I don’t have any special skills with musical instruments or the brush. My poetry is embarrassingly bad.” She looked down. With her white makeup on, Kaze couldn’t tell for sure, but he thought she might even be blushing. “Even my cooking and my, ah, my other, ah, womanly skills, aren’t very good. I’ve never even really had a boyfriend. But tonight I did feel special. It was glorious. When I heard those people laughing so loud at you, I decided to see if I could make them laugh, too. And I can! Each of those laughs was like a shower of sakè. It made me drunk with happiness. It was all because of you.” She bowed a deep, formal bow. “Thank you!”
Kaze was about to say it was nothing, in true Japanese fashion, but he realized that if he said that, it might diminish the importance of the moment for Momoko. So, instead of saying anything, he simply returned the bow, just as deep, and just as formally.
The ninja was surprised. He thought the search of Ningyo-cho by Yoshida’s men would end the possibility of completing his contract that night. Not that he thought Yoshida’s men would catch the target, of course. He knew Yoshida’s men and he had a good idea of the capabilities of the target, and he was confident that in any game of cat and mouse, it was the target who would be the neko and Yoshida’s men who would be playing the part of the nezumi. It did not surprise him when his spies reported that Yoshida’s search of Ningyo-cho had been a failure.
Now that Yoshida’s men had gone, the target, this Matsuyama Kaze, had left the theater and was walking about the streets of Ningyo-cho. What surprised the ninja was that Matsuyama was being followed by a young woman. She left the theater moments after Matsuyama and was making a clandestine effort to track him. The ninja signaled to his partner, who was hiding down the street, to gather the rest. The partner, like all of them, was dressed in the black pants, shirt, and hood that allowed him to blend into the night. Then the ninja started following the target and the girl.
As he followed, he decided that this unusual development could be an advantage. The girl trailing the target would act as an effective shield. The ninja was confident of his ability to follow someone unnoticed, but when there were five of them, it would be impossible for that many men, even ninja, to follow a man of Matsuyama’s capabilities without drawing attention to themselves. With the woman between them, he was sure Matsuyama’s attention would be drawn to her clumsy attempts to stay hidden, and he would not notice the gathering of death forming behind him.
Matsuyama seemed to be wandering the streets, seeing if the woman would get tired of following him. A hand was placed on his arm, and the ninja knew his four companions had arrived. He placed his fingers into the palm of one of them, and used his fingers in a silent code, instructing his companion to take two others and get ahead of Matsuyama, so they could trap him in a side street. With a scratch and tap of his finger in the palm of the other, he also instructed him to make the call of the tsugumi, the thrush, as a signal they were ready.
The other ninja touched two of his companions on the arm, and the three of them ran off down a side street to circle around and get ahead of the target.
He and the other ninja continued following a short distance more, when the target stopped and looked pointedly behind him. Perhaps he was tired of being followed and decided to confront the girl. Regardless, the ninja froze and blended into a shadow, just in case the target realized there were others on his trail. The ninja’s companion, who was relatively young and unseasoned, continued moving forward, much to the ninja’s annoyance. His young companion was too distant to touch, and he didn’t dare make a sound, so all he could do was watch his young charge continue to creep forward.
Suddenly, there was the call of the thrush from ahead. Instantly, the target drew his sword and stood sideways in the street, so he could see both before and behind him, his weapon at the ready. The ninja cursed at the bad position he found himself in, with his companion too far ahead, but at the same time he had to admire the alertness of the target, sensing that the bird’s call in the midst of a city like Edo might be the harbinger of something dangerous.