This was not merely a confirmation of the honorary Junior Sixth, Lower Grade, but a whole step beyond that. He finally held administrative rank. Not only did this provide considerable protection against his enemies in the administration, but it promised another challenging assignment.
Akitada let the document fall back on the desk—whence Seimei took it tenderly—and walked out into his garden. It was still chilly, but the sun was rising, its first rays gilding the rocks and warming his shoulders through the silk gown. In the pond, golden shapes moved about the muddy bottom, no longer winter-sluggish. When Akitada’s shadow fell across the water, one—a large, spotted carp—rose to the surface to greet him.
Akitada regarded it sadly. His satisfaction was tempered by guilt. What would Tamako say if he was dispatched again to some distant province? They had just returned, and she had expressed her deep happiness about being home only a short while ago as they drank to each other’s health on the New Year. Was it fair to his family to drag them away again to some uncertain or dangerous place? Was it fair to himself to leave them behind?
He stood in his garden and turned slowly to look about him. He would miss his home, the fish in his pond, the twisted cherry in the corner of the garden. The sharp pang of anticipated loss reminded him that only a short time had passed since he had taken possession of this, his patrimony. Much had happened, much had changed, he himself most of all. The woman he had thought his mother was gone forever, but he had somehow regained his father, a shadowy but benevolent presence.
What was it the old abbot of the Eastern Mountain Temple had said to him? That which seems real in the world of men is but a dream and a deception. There was certainly truth in that. He had discovered that his mother was not his real mother and that she had deceived him all his life about his father’s love. And the words applied as well to the murder cases he had finally solved. The corpse at the temple had not been Mrs. Nagaoka but the girl Ohisa. And on that deception had hung a series of others. Kojiro was not as he had seemed, and neither were Yasaburo and Yugao. And the slasher Noami had seemed a mere talented painter, one who was thought his neighbors’ benefactor.
The old abbot himself had seemed senile, irrational, and his words mere gibberish, but Akitada was no longer sure of that, either. Had Genshin not made certain that Akitada would be shown Noami’s hell screen? What was it Genshin had said after the line about deception? The reverse is also true. So as truth is deception, deception may be truth. The hell screen, of course.
The painted suffering was real. Each picture showed a human being, tortured and wounded by a man who had become a monster in the service of his art.
Akitada shivered. What chance had brought him to the Eastern Mountain Temple on that night? What tasks lay still ahead? And in the general scheme of things, was not everything arranged for a purpose?
Deeply moved, he turned toward the eastern mountains and bowed to the rising sun.
Historical Note
In the eleventh century, Heian Kyo (Kyoto) was the capital of Japan and its largest city. Patterned after the capital of China, it was laid out in a rectangle of two and a half by three and a half miles, with an even grid of avenues and streets which ran due north and south and east and west. Its population was about two hundred thousand. The Imperial Palace, a separate walled and gated city encompassing the emperor’s residence and the ministries and bureaus of the government, occupied the northernmost center. From it the broad, willow-lined Suzaku Avenue led south, bisecting Heian Kyo into a western and eastern half and ending at the famous gate called Rashomon. The city was said to have been quite beautiful, with its broad avenues, parks, canals, rivers, palaces, and temples. (For details on the city and its buildings during the Heian period, see R. A. B. Ponsonby-Fane, Kyoto: The Old Capital of Japan.)
Law enforcement in eleventh-century Japan followed the Chinese pattern to some extent, in that each of more than sixty-eight city quarters had its own warden who was responsible for keeping peace. The government offices and the palace were protected by divisions of the Imperial Guard. In addition, a separate police force, the kebiishi, investigated crimes and made arrests and judges pronounced sentence. The most serious crimes, as defined by the Taiho code a.d. 701) were (I) rebellion against the emperor, (2) damage to the Imperial Palace or royal tombs, (3) treason, (4) murder of one’s kin, (5) murder of one’s wife or of more than three members of a family, (6) theft or damage of imperial or religious property, (7) unfilial acts toward parents or senior relatives, and (8) murder of a superior or teacher. There were two prisons in the capital, but imperial pardons were common and sweeping. Convictions required confession by the accused, but these could be encouraged by the interrogating officers. The death penalty was rare because the Buddhist faith opposed the taking of life, but exile under severe and often fatal conditions was often substituted.
The two state religions, Shinto and Buddhism, coexisted peacefully, sometimes in the same temple complex and during the same religious festival. Shinto, the native faith, is tied to Japanese gods and agricultural observances. Buddhism, which entered Japan from China via Korea, exerted enormous influence over the aristocracy and the government through numerous monasteries. Most emperors and many powerful nobles ended their careers by taking the tonsure. The Buddhist hell inflicts on sinners a variety of physical sufferings: in addition to the fiery torment associated with the Christian hell, it offers slashing with swords and knives, freezing, starvation, and other unpleasant fates. Paintings of such scenes were common in Buddhist monasteries in China and Japan. The story of the demented artist of the hell screen in the present novel was inspired by Akutagawa’s short story “The Hell Screen,” in which a painter immolates his own daughter in order to achieve verisimilitude.
Japanese customs in connection with death partook of both faiths. Taboos prohibiting contact with the dead were based on Shinto beliefs, while funeral ceremonies (cremations) were in the hands of Buddhist monks. It was thought that the spirit of the deceased resided for forty-nine days in its home and that angry spirits could haunt the living.
As far as eleventh-century popular entertainment (later known as the “floating world”) is concerned, historical evidence is skimpy. Prostitution was certainly known, but as far as we know Kyoto’s two famous pleasure quarters did not exist until two centuries later. However, in the centuries before the shoguns, there was no prohibition against female entertainers who earned a living by dancing, singing, and playing instruments. The great age of Noh and Kabuki theater came later, but the precursors were the bards who recited famous tales, the sacred dances of bugaku which mimed stories, short farces called kyogen, and acrobatics. All of these are well attested to before and during the eleventh century.
Finally, the plot of the Nagaoka case is based on case 64A of the twelfth-century Chinese collection of criminal cases Tang~ yin~pi~ski (translated by Robert Van Gulik), a text which was imported to Japan during the Ming dynasty.
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