Suddenly the room felt too close. It seemed to be pressing in on him, worsening his headache. He opened the shutters and walked down into the garden. The snow had melted, and he could see the shapes of the fish moving sluggishly beneath the surface of the small pond. As he leaned down to scoop a handful of dead leaves from the surface, the carp rose to his hand. Sorry that he had no food for them, he let them probe his fingers with gentle inquisitive mouths. Their touch resembled caresses. Had his father ever stood like this, alone and alienated from those around him?
When he returned to his study, his head still aching, he found Tora and Genba waiting. Caught up in his private thoughts, he did not notice right away that they sat as far away from each other as possible.
“We came to report, sir,” announced Tora stiffly.
“Oh, yes, the actors. Did you find them?”
“Yes, sir,” they answered in unison. Genba added, “They use a riverside training hall to practice. I was lucky enough to meet the lady proprietor in one of the restaurants.”
Tora made an impolite noise. “Never mind that obnoxious moon cake of a female! She knows nothing, but one of Uemon’s girls has promised to meet me tonight.”Tora smiled, stroking his mustache. “I’ll try to get the goods on their lead actor Danjuro. He’s a very suspicious character.”
Akitada’s eyes had moved from one to the other, trying to make sense of their words. Slowly he realized that something was wrong. They pointedly avoided looking at each other. Tora and Genba had always been on the easiest, friendliest terms with each other. What could have happened? He saw Tora looking at him expectantly and tried to recall his words. “Er, what do you mean, ‘suspicious’?”
Tora gave a succinct account of events as they led up to and followed his clash with Danjuro, skipping only over his stick-fighting ordeal and the cuddle in the alley. “So you see,” he summed up, “they all turned into clams when I tried to ask questions. And all because he thought I was a constable. Which naturally made me think he’s got something to hide.”
Akitada stared at him. “He thought you were a constable? Whatever gave him that idea?”
Tora reddened. “Can’t imagine. Must’ve been something I said.”
“What?” Akitada persisted.
“Well, he was giving himself airs about being the great Danjuro and told me that I was some lowlife who had insulted his lady wife.”
Genba muttered, “Which naturally he had.”
“Shut up, you,” snarled Tora. “You weren’t there. You were too busy ogling that fat cow to keep your mind on work.”
Genba glared. “I found the place first. And I get results without getting into fights and quarrels and abusing every poor girl in sight.”
Akitada had enough. “Stop this ridiculous bickering this instant! You can settle your differences later. What facts have either of you found out that links these people to the murder of Mrs. Nagaoka?”
They shook their heads.
“Nothing at all?”
“Well,” said Tora, “they were at the temple, and Danjuro is afraid of the police. Surely that—”
Akitada snapped, “You wasted my time for that? Actors do not have to be involved in a murder to fear the police.”
“Hah,” cried Tora triumphantly. “That’s exactly what I told the fellow! With my experience as an investigator, I told him, I know better than to believe actors and acrobats are law-abiding citizens. Nine out of ten times they’re nothing but thieves and harlots.”
Genba growled, “That’s a lie! And you’re a fool to give yourself away like that! Of course they wouldn’t talk to you after that. I’ve lived longer than you and met more entertainers. They don’t like the police because they’re harassed by them. Most of them are as decent as you and me. No, more decent than you, for most of them would never look down on a man just because he’s only a peasant or a sandal maker. Miss Plumblossom didn’t look down on you for being a deserter. She knew that the minute you opened your big mouth and told her you used to be a soldier like that fellow who sent you there. Only a low-class person mocks his fellow beings, and Miss Plumblossom is not a low-class person.”
Tora sneered. “Because she once slept with some fat bastard with a title? So have half the sluts in the Willow Quarter. Besides, the woman probably lies. Look at her! Who’d want to sleep with that? She’s as big as a bear and as bald as an egg. A man would be afraid she’d smother him if she got on top for the rain and the clouds.”
Akitada had raised both hands to his head, which pounded viciously, and covered his ears.
“You filthy-mouthed bastard!” Genba shouted, purple with fury. He rose with clenched fists.
Tora shot up and bared his teeth in a snarl. “You call me that again and you’re a dead man.”
“Enough!” roared Akitada, stepping between them. He winced at an excruciating stab of pain, closed his eyes, and waited until the throbbing abated. When he opened them, he saw Tora and Genba staring at him openmouthed. He said more quietly, “Sit down, both of you!” and gingerly returned to his cushion.
They obeyed, and after regarding them bleakly, he said, “Tora, if your manners are as bad in public as they were here today, you are useless to me. Worse than useless, for your behavior reflects on me.”
Tora blanched.
“And you, Genba, seem to have allowed a casual acquaintance with a female of dubious background to get in the way of an investigation.”
Genba flushed and hung his head.
“Since neither of you can be trusted any longer, you will henceforth confine yourselves to duties around the house.”
“Sir!” they both protested.
“Please, sir. I promised to meet the little acrobat tonight,” Tora added.
It was the last straw. “Get out!” Akitada ground out between clenched teeth, fixing Tora with such a look that he flinched back. “Get out of my sight! All you’re good for is chasing women. Go clean the stable. Perhaps that will remind you of your place in this household.”
They trooped out with hanging heads, and Akitada sagged on his cushion, staring at his clenched hands. He slowly opened them and watched his fingers tremble. His heart pounded, and every heartbeat throbbed in his skull. He had lost control. The fact that he had passed a miserable day was no excuse.
Reaching for some paperwork, long postponed, he tried to distract himself with figures and accounts, but he could not shed his sense of failure.
Tora’s disparagement of actors resembled his own disdain for merchants and their kin. Tora’s attitude had severed the bond of friendship between himself and Genba, as he, Akitada, had destroyed the affection his younger sister had for him. The silent, pale young woman who had submitted to his commands today no longer looked at him with trust and fondness. He had seen resignation and fear in her eyes.
The hours passed. Seimei crept in with the evening rice and replenished the coals in the brazier. But neither warmth nor food cheered Akitada. He pushed his tray aside untouched, unrolled his bedding, and tried to forget the onerous and painful responsibilities of being a husband and family head.
FIFTEEN
The Empty Storehouse
Akitada woke up feeling exhausted and depressed. Nothing in his household seemed to be going right. They had barely returned from the long assignment up north when the very foundations of his life started crumbling. First Yoshiko got entangled with a commoner who was in jail on a murder charge. Then she rebelled against her brother’s authority and caused Tamako to take her side, the first rift in Akitada’s marriage. And now the quarrel between Genba and Tora further destroyed the peace and harmony he had hoped to feel after years of struggle and hardship.