"I know. I want you to take this to Miss Hirata," Akitada said, extending a branch of flowering wisteria with a twist of paper attached to it.
Tora received this with a look of consternation. "Wisteria? And in bloom. Where did you find that? We don't have any."
"I walked to the Hirata garden this morning. The vine survived the fire and I found this single late blossom."
Slowly understanding dawned in Tora's eyes. "Well done, sir!" he cried. "My heartiest congratulations to both of you."
"Thank you," Akitada said stiffly, and turned to go back to his room.
There he waited anxiously for her reply. His experience with composing next-morning poems was minimal, and his skill at composition fragmentary at best, but he had left her, fast asleep in the darkness, knowing what he wished to say. All the way to her garden and back he had rehearsed the words in his head:
Little did I think,
Under the blooming wisteria vine,
That its fragrance would so deeply
Move my soul.
Tora returned quickly, still grinning broadly. He extended the wisteria branch, now without its bloom, but with a bit of paper, tinted a delicate shade of purple, tied into a bow around it.
"Thank you. You may go," Akitada said, already eagerly undoing the paper as Tora walked out the door whistling a popular love song.
She had written:
Wisteria blossoms fade,
Their season all too short,
But their fragrance lingers
In my soul forever.
He read her words several times, then tucked the slip of paper carefully inside his gown where it rested against his bare skin. A moment later Seimei stuck his head in. He entered smiling, carrying a tray.
"I have brought your morning rice," he said. "It is a great day for the house of Sugawara, sir."
Akitada felt himself flush. "Er, thank you, Seimei. I see you have spoken to Tora." He drank his tea thirstily. "I think we shall plant some wisteria in the garden," he remarked, turning to the boiled rice and pickled radish. "Remind Tora to see to it."
Twenty-two. Storm Warning
The following day passed with dreary slowness. Akitada chafed under his teaching duties, his mind distracted by thoughts of Tamako and the extraordinary way in which another human being had suddenly become his, closer than any sister ever could be, or any parent, and more necessary to him, in a way, than food, water or air. His skin warmed at the thought of holding her in his arms again.
However, he owed it to her and to her dead father to catch his murderer, and he was determined to do so this very night, before returning home. The risk, he hoped, would be negligible. He had guarded against surprises. Now that he had new responsibilities, he could not afford to play the hero.
These thoughts preoccupied him, causing him to forget to set the students a topic for their next lesson, and made him stare blankly at Ushimatsu when he asked permission to go to the latrine. Even after the students finally left, he sat looking dreamily into space.
"Sugawara? May I come in?"
Akitada blinked and saw to his astonishment the burly music master in his doorway. "Yes, of course, Sato."
"I took a chance." Sato bowed briefly and cast a glance at the papers scattered over Akitada's desk. "Am I interrupting?"
"Not at all. Please sit down. A cup of wine?"
In the slanting light of the setting sun, Sato's large eyes looked like black pools under his heavy brow. He seemed ill at ease. "I won't stay long. No, no wine, thank you. I came to see you on a personal matter." He sat.
Akitada asked, "What is it?"
"It's about Oe's murder. That police captain stopped by this afternoon to ask more questions. He sounded… I don't know… it seemed like a veiled threat. He said the case was about to be solved and that you were assisting the police. Is that true?"
Akitada felt a flash of irritation with Kobe. He had expected more discretion from the man. He said, " Kobe may have exaggerated. It is true that I have shared some of my conclusions."
Now Sato looked distinctly frightened. "I knew it. You told him about me, and now he thinks I did it! Please, you must believe me when I say that I had nothing to do with Oe's death."
Akitada raised his eyebrows. "What makes you think I suspect you?"
"Don't pretend!" cried Sato. "You saw me with Omaki, and I could tell what you thought of me. Then, as my lousy luck would have it, you walked in when my wife was visiting. When I could not explain the situation, you assumed I was entertaining another female, and that Oe was about to dismiss me with good cause. I'm the one with the perfect motive. Believe me, I often fantasized about killing the bastard, but I did not do it."
"That talented lady was your wife? In the Willow Quarter, I am told, she goes by the name Madame Sakaki."
Sato bit his lip. "Her professional name. She could hardly work there under my name."
"I see the problem. But surely you put your wife into an impossible situation? She is a true artist. Could she not have found a more respectable setting for her performances?"
A look of acute misery passed over Sato's face. "I know she deserves much better, but we are poor and have six small children and two sets of parents to support. My salary here does not begin to feed all those mouths. And I am afraid we are not in the class of those who are invited to the parties of the great."
Embarrassed by the naked shame in the other man's face, Akitada looked out at the deserted courtyard. The heat shimmered on the gravel, and there was a strange sulphurous hue to the green of the trees. A hot wind was rustling through the dry weeds outside the veranda. "I think," he said, turning back to Sato, "you should tell your story to the president of the university. I have found Bishop Sesshin a very understanding man, and he may be able to help your wife. He has many friends among the great.
"I wish I could be more reassuring about Kobe. Though I did not discuss your situation with him, he has other sources, and I am afraid he knows that Oe was not the kind of man who would have accepted your wife's occupation calmly."
Sato looked down at his clenched hands. "That was the main reason for all the subterfuge. But the more we tried to cover up, the more gossip we created. Because I went to the Willow Quarter regularly to watch over my wife, I soon had a reputation of being a drunkard and womanizer. I got Omaki as a student on one of my visits. My wife was against the private lessons, but we needed the money. Oh, that pompous devil Oe would not begin to know what it is to have a family and be poor." He gave Akitada a beseeching look. "But you, Sugawara, you have a mother and sisters to support, I'm told. You must know that I would never do anything so desperate as kill a man. If I were caught, my family would starve to death. Please speak to Kobe for me, will you?"
They looked at each other. Akitada tried to reassure the man. "I know exactly what you mean and I believe you. Do not worry about Kobe! Go home to your wife and children, and tomorrow speak to Sesshin."
Tears of gratitude welled up in Sato's eyes. Too overcome to speak, he bowed very deeply and left. His footsteps receded quickly, and silence fell over the courtyard again.
Akitada sat, thinking of the devotion of those two people to each other and their family. He had himself only just come to understand fully the sacrifice a man made to the one he loved. He, too, would gladly accept any hardship and humiliation to secure Tamako's happiness.
It was then that the sound of distant thunder startled him. He rose to walk outside. The sun, bright as molten gold, was disappearing over the tiled rooftops of the student dormitories, but the sky northward and to the east was filling rapidly with heavy, roiling black clouds. A storm was moving in, and the long heat wave was finally about to break. Akitada thought worriedly that the weather might keep his visitor away.