A short while later, they were on a slow, rocking ferry headed upriver toward Yoshiwara. The open boat, which could seat a row of five men along either side, would have been full in summer. But today, Sano and Tsunehiko were the only passengers. In their heavy cloaks and wide wicker hats, they huddled under the flapping canopy that provided scant shelter from the cold, damp river breeze. Behind them the two muscular boatmen sang in rhythm with their splashing oars, occasionally interrupting their song to shout greetings to men on passing fishing boats and cargo vessels. The brown water swirled around them, rank and murky, reflecting no light from the low gray sky.
Tsunehiko was opening the box lunch they’d brought to fortify themselves for the two-hour trip. “We should really be riding to Yoshiwara on white horses,” he said. “That’s the fashionable way. And in disguise, so no one will know we’re samurai.” He began to consume rice balls, pickles, and salted fish with great zest and speed.
Sano smiled. Laws forbade samurai to visit the pleasure quarter, but since the laws were seldom enforced, members of their class frequented Yoshiwara openly, in droves. Disguise was unnecessary, except to add a touch of intrigue to the fun.
“We’re on official business, Tsunehiko,” he said.
“Official business,” Tsunehiko agreed. He grinned, showing a mouthful of partially chewed food.
Sano ate his own lunch more slowly. He’d chosen to travel by boat, sacrificing speed for the opportunity to study the river that had claimed the bodies of Noriyoshi and Yukiko. Now he gazed at the line of warehouses on his left. The pair could have been thrown into the river anywhere: From one of the piers or docks or boathouses at the foot of the stone embankment; from the Ryōgoku Bridge, under whose great arch the boat was carrying him now; or even from the marshes on the opposite bank. If he didn’t learn anything in Yoshiwara, he would have to search up and down the river for witnesses, a task that might take days to finish.
At last the ferry drew up beside the dock. Sano paid the boatmen. Then he and Tsunehiko climbed out, stretching their cramped muscles as they mounted the steps that led up the embankment. They followed the road inland, past shops and restaurants that served the river trade. Servant girls smiled invitingly at them from the curtained doorways, then turned sullen when they didn’t stop. Passing through the rice fields and marshes outside Asakusa, they could see the tiled roof of the Sensō Temple rising in the distance above the smaller houses and temples surrounding it. A gong tolled; the wind brought with it the faint smell of incense. A few priests, their heads shaved, called out from the roadside, extending their begging bowls for offerings.
A short walk brought them within sight of the moat and high earthen walls that encircled Yoshiwara. Two samurai clad in helmets and armor vests guarded the gate: the day shift of the continuous watch maintained over people passing through the gate’s roofed and ornamented portals.
Questioning the guards, Sano experienced anew the difficulty of carrying out an unofficial murder investigation.
“Yes, we knew Noriyoshi,” one of them said. But when Sano asked if he’d seen Noriyoshi the day of his death, the guard replied, “He went in and out all the time. How am I supposed to remember exactly when? Anyway, he’s dead, so what does it matter?”
Having no ready answer to this, Sano asked, “Did anyone come out carrying a large box or package two nights ago?” One large enough to hold a dead body, he wished he could add. He was conscious of Tsunehiko wheezing beside him, hanging on every word. The secretary probably thought he was learning how a yoriki conducted business. Hopefully he wouldn’t understand what was going on-or at least not enough for it to matter if he told anyone about this trip.
The other guard snorted. Unlike the Edo Jail guards, he and his partner, who wore the triple-hollyhock-leaf Tokugawa crest on their sleeves, evidently saw no need to act subservient toward a city official. “Probably.” In a condescending voice, he added, “But we have plenty to do besides keeping track of all the porters, yoriki.”
Like making sure no women escaped, Sano thought. Virtually all the yūjo-courtesans-had been sold into prostitution by impoverished families, or sentenced to Yoshiwara as punishment for crimes. While some reigned over the quarter like princesses, enjoying their luxurious surroundings while tolerating men’s attentions, others, mistreated by cruel masters, led miserable lives. These often tried to flee through the gates disguised as servants or boys. The guards would naturally pay less attention to the comings and goings of porters, or of a man they knew.
“No disrespect intended,” the guard went on in a tone that implied otherwise, “but you’re blocking the gate. Are you going in or not?”
“Thank you for your assistance,” Sano said. As he and Tsunehiko entered Naka-no-cho, the main street, he gazed around with interest. He’d seen Yoshiwara many times: during childhood summers, when he and his parents had joined other Edo families to watch the beautiful pageants of the yūjo. Later, as a student wandering the streets with his friends, gawking at the women. But years had passed since his last visit. The price of food, drink, and female companionship was far too high for him, and the necessity of earning a living left no time for the long trip there and back, or the hours of drunken revelry in between. Now he saw that while some things matched his memories, others did not.
The rows of wooden buildings were familiar, as were the bold signs advertising the teahouses-which sold not tea, but sake- shops, restaurants, and brothels, or pleasure houses. A familiar smell of stale wine and urine lingered in the air. But the quarter had grown. Although the walls limited outward expansion, new businesses had filled in the spaces between the older ones that Sano recognized. His last visit had taken place in evening, when glowing paper lanterns hung from the eaves and beautiful courtesans solicited customers from within the barred, cagelike windows that fronted the pleasure houses. Now, in the afternoon, the lanterns were unlit and the cages empty, with bamboo screens pulled down behind the bars to hide the interiors of the buildings, which showed the inevitable signs of age: yellowed plaster, worn stone doorsteps, darkened wooden pillars. The season made a difference, too. The branches of the potted flowering cherry trees along the street, pink with blossoms in spring or lushly green in summer, were bare. Fun-seeking samurai and commoners, though numerous, walked quickly instead of strolling, bundled against the cold in their heavy garments. Even their laughter seemed subdued. The glamour that Sano remembered had faded.
Yoshiwara’s winter drabness didn’t faze Tsunehiko. “Isn’t this terrific?” he enthused, goggling at the signs. “I don’t understand why Yoshiwara has to be way out here in the middle of nowhere. If it weren’t so far from town, we could come every day!”
“The government wanted it away from the city to protect public morals,” Sano answered, taking the opportunity to instruct his protégé. “And it’s easier for the police to control what goes on in a centralized quarter than in a lot of scattered areas. They can reduce the number of little girls kidnapped and sold to brothels by procurers.”
He would have added that the metsuke-government spies- found Yoshiwara a convenient place to keep tabs on citizens of dubious character. But Tsunehiko wasn’t listening. He’d ducked beneath the curtain covering the doorway of a teahouse. A sign above it proclaimed, “WOMEN’S SUMO HERE! See the famous wrestlers Holder-of-the-Balls, Big Boobs, Deep Crevice, and Where-the-Clam-Lives compete!” On a smaller sign: “Tonight’s speciaclass="underline" Blind search for a dark spot. Women wrestlers versus blind samurai!” Guttural cries and loud cheers issued from inside the teahouse, indicating that the matches, illegal elsewhere in the city, had already begun.