“So what do you think?” Koemon asked, gesturing toward the class.
Contemplating the students, whose faces were familiar, and the array of weapons, which was not, Sano nodded. “Times have changed,” he said.
He and his father and Koemon had debated for several years whether to include nontraditional weapons in the school’s curriculum. His father, a strict devotee of kenjutsu, had wanted to limit instruction to the art of swordsmanship.
“Nowadays a samurai must be prepared to face opponents armed with a variety of weapons, and besides, the school must offer something new to attract pupils.” Sano repeated the arguments that he and Koemon had used to counter the old man’s opposition. But seeing that the change had been made in his absence gave him an inexplicable touch of uneasiness that he forgot when he noticed the weapon that Koemon held.
“You teach the art of the jitte?” he asked.
Koemon shrugged. “The basics. I’m no expert at it.”
More out of curiosity than need, Sano had experimented with the jitte in the practice hall at the barracks. “Let’s try it now,” he said, shedding his cloak and hat and rolling up his sleeves.
With Koemon using a wooden sword in deliberate slow motion, Sano demonstrated how to deflect its blade, and how to deliver counterblows with the jitte.
“Parry like this,” he said, raising the jitte to block a cut to his shoulder. “Counterstrike before your opponent recovers- quickly, because his reach is longer than yours.”
He swung the weapon around to tap its slender shaft against Koemon’s arm. After blocking another cut, he thrust the blunt end at his friend’s neck.
“And when the time is right-” He arrested Koemon’s next slice by catching the blade in the jitte’s prongs. One sharp twist, and he’d wrenched the weapon from his friend’s hand. “With enough force, you can break your opponent’s sword in two.”
Then they exchanged weapons so he could demonstrate how to keep one’s blade free of the jitte‘s prongs and the footwork necessary to avoid getting thrown or hit once the blade was caught. Soon he was hot and sweaty, his energy flowing with the welcome exercise. It felt good to be back in the familiar practice room. He could almost believe he still belonged there.
When they’d finished, Koemon turned to the class, raising his voice over the din:
“That’s all for today!”
At his command, the pupils froze. Silence fell over the room. They bowed to their opponents and to Sano and their sensei, then filed toward the dressing-room door.
“Where is my father?” Sano asked when he and Koemon were alone. “Out on business?”
Koemon hesitated. “He didn’t come in today.”
Sano’s uneasiness returned. His father never missed a day of work. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” Koemon avoided Sano’s eyes, indicating that he did know what was wrong, but either didn’t want to say or had been told not to.
Sano bid a hasty good-bye to his friend. Now the change in the school’s curriculum took on an ominous significance. Why had his father finally consented to it? With a knot of worry tightening in his stomach, Sano left the practice room. He led his horse around the corner, down the narrow side lane. There high fences shielded the rear lots of the businesses, where the proprietors’ living quarters were located. Through chinks in the fences, he could see the yellow flicker of lamps burning in gardens and hear the customary evening sounds: servants chattering, wooden buckets thunking their way up from wells, horses whinnying in stables behind the houses. The pungent odors of miso soup and garlic drifted from kitchens. But food was the farthest thing from Sano’s mind as he pushed open his parents’ gate.
He backed his horse into its space in the stable in the garden. Seeing the other stall empty increased his anxiety. His father had been predicting his own death for several years now. But the old man’s failure to replace his horse when it died a few months ago was a more eloquent and sobering statement that his life was nearing its end.
Sano went into the house, leaving his shoes and swords in the entry way. In the large, earth-floored kitchen to his right, the elderly maid Hana knelt before the stove, stirring soup. Beside it, a pot of rice simmered. Vegetables lay on a wooden table beside the stone washbasin. Two black lacquer ozen stood near the wall, already set with bowls, chopsticks, and saucers. Sano nodded in response to Hana’s smiling bow. She’d worked for the family since before his birth; normally he would have paused to chat with her, but a deep, barking cough sounded from inside the main room. Sano slid open the door.
His father sat huddled beneath a voluminous quilt. Bent over double, he coughed wrackingly into the cloth that Sano’s mother held to his mouth. Then he drew a shallow, gasping breath and began to cough again. Sano’s mother made soothing noises. With her free hand, she pulled the end of the quilt over the brazier, so that its warmth might reach her husband. An oil lamp on the floor beside them cast their shadows against the walls of the small room and highlighted the lines of suffering on the old man’s emaciated face.
“Otōsan!” Sano cried in dismay.
For a long time now, his father’s health had been poor without ever seeming to get worse. Now Sano was shocked to see how much his father had deteriorated in just one month.
Both parents turned simultaneously to look at him, his father’s cough subsiding.
“Otōsan, why didn’t you tell me you were ill?” Sano demanded, kneeling beside his father.
Spent, eyes closed, the old man shook his head. One thin hand came out from under the quilt and feebly waved away Sano’s question.
Sano’s mother answered for her husband. “He didn’t want to worry you, Ichirō-chan,” she said. “And anyway, he’s much better today. He’ll be fine soon.” Her voice and smile were bright, but her careworn face told the truth. She looked down at the cloth she held. Seeing the bloodstains, she hastily hid it in her lap.
“Has he seen the doctor?” Sano asked her, trying not to show impatience with her self-delusion. She had always denied the existence of problems, both because she hoped that to do so would make them go away, and because her upbringing had taught her to always present an untroubled facade to the world. He couldn’t force her to confront the gravity of his father’s illness; time and nature would do that. Pity for her nearly overshadowed his own grief.
“No doctor,” Sano’s father rasped. He coughed again-a mercifully short spell this time-then said, “It grows late. We will eat now. Omae, bring the food. Our son must not go hungry.”
Sano’s mother rose obediently and left the room.
With an aching heart, Sano noted another ominous change in his father. The old man had never liked to talk about his symptoms- the cough, the pains, the fever, the difficulty in breathing. Still, he’d willingly consulted doctors and tried their remedies; he’d visited fortune tellers to find out how long he had to live; he’d gone to both Shinto and Buddhist priests for prayers that might convince the gods to spare his life. Now, though, he was accepting his illness and its inevitable result with stoic resignation. Sano’s eyes burned with unshed tears. Not wanting his parents to see them, he bent his head over the damp washcloth that his mother brought him. He could not meet her eyes as she gave his hand a brief caress.
Hana placed food-laden ozen before Sano and his father. They ate in silence, as usual strictly observing the custom of no conversation during meals. With nothing to distract him, Sano couldn’t help noticing how little his father ate, and how slowly. A few spoonfuls of miso soup, a fragment of pickled white radish, and a sliver of fish, with tiny sips of tea between bites. His mother, who usually plied Sano with more food than he could eat, instead devoted her whole attention to constantly refilling her husband’s dishes in a futile effort to make him eat more. Sano resolved to bring up the subject of doctors again when the meal ended.