Instead, Oishi turned his attention to his next duty. One day he walked to Kira’s estate. He was so consumed by murderous rage that he could feel his heart burning black. Kira had brought about Lord Asano’s destruction. Oishi must make Kira pay.
But Kira evidently expected the Asano ronin to try to kill him. Guards ringed the estate. Oishi saw Kira come out, accompanied by fifty soldiers. Oishi kept surveillance on Kira long enough to know that he never let down his guard. Revenge seemed impossible.
Oishi fell into a state of deep despair. He began drinking because wine eased his pain. He frequented teahouses and stayed out all night. The change in him infuriated his wife.
“You’re disgusting! What’s the matter with you?” Ukihashi demanded. She’d once been a pretty, sedate woman, but losing her home, her social status, and her servants had made her wretched and shrill. “I know you’re upset, but what about us?” She waved her hand at their two little daughters and their fourteen-year-old son. The children sat by a cold hearth, eating millet, the food of poor people. “Have you forgotten that you have a family to support?”
“Shut up!” Oishi couldn’t bear her criticism. “Leave me alone.”
They quarreled every day until Oishi said, “I’ve had enough. I’m leaving.”
“Good riddance,” Ukihashi said bitterly.
Oishi made Chikara go with him. He divorced his wife before he left Edo. It was summer, more than a year after Lord Asano’s death. He and Chikara went to Miyako. They earned their rice by working as bodyguards for a merchant, living behind the shop. Oishi continued drinking. At the Ichiriki teahouse he met a beautiful young prostitute named Okaru. With her he found the first pleasure he’d experienced since Lord Asano’s death.
After too many drunken binges, his employer threw him out. Oishi couldn’t afford to pay Okaru. He couldn’t ask his son for the money, because Chikara hated Okaru, hated that Oishi had broken up their family. Father and son became estranged.
Okaru said, “You needn’t pay me anymore. I love you. I’ll take care of you.”
Oishi loved her, too; she made him feel young and hopeful again. He moved into her lodgings. Okaru continued to entertain her customers. Oishi lived on her. She pampered him, but he couldn’t make peace with his circumstances. One day he got so drunk that he collapsed on the street. Passersby jeered. A man stood over him and said, “Oishi-san? Is that you?”
His square, pugnacious face was vaguely familiar. Oishi couldn’t recall his name but recognized him as a merchant from Satsuma.
“Why are you lying in the gutter? What happened?” Catching a whiff of liquor, the Satsuma man recoiled in disgust. “The rumors are true, then. You’ve become a bum.”
He announced, “This is Oishi Kuranosuke, former retainer of Lord Asano. He doesn’t have the courage to avenge his master’s death. Faithless beast!” He trampled on Oishi and spat in his face. “You are unworthy of the name of samurai!”
A crowd joined in the taunting, kicking, and spitting. The pain brought Oishi to his senses. Something within him shifted, like fractured ground settling back into place after an earthquake. That day was the last time he ever drank. That day he vowed to fulfill the promise he’d made to Lord Asano. That day he began his journey toward vengeance and redemption.
* * *
“You know the rest,” Oishi said to Sano.
They gazed at each other across Lord Hosokawa’s desk, like two generals across a battlefield. “Not quite,” Sano said. “It’s a long way from a gutter in Miyako to a slaughter in Edo.”
Once more he’d become thoroughly engaged in Oishi’s tale, against his will because it had taken him to places he didn’t want to go. He’d always wondered how he would handle the most extreme situations a samurai could face. What would it be like to assist in the ritual suicide of someone he loved as much as Oishi had apparently loved Lord Asano?
Sano didn’t know whether he could do it.
How would it be to feel such love for his lord that he would give up his family and dedicate his life to revenge?
In his deepest heart Sano admitted that he didn’t love the shogun. He didn’t know whether he could follow the Way of the Warrior that far. He felt caught between admiration for Oishi, who had proved himself truer to Bushido than most samurai ever did, and antagonism toward Oishi for exposing his own fears and self-doubts.
“Fill in the gaps in your story,” Sano ordered.
“In the summer of the year after Lord Asano died, I went looking for his other retainers,” Oishi said. “I gathered forty-six of them together, including my son.”
Could Sano lead his own son down the same dangerous path that Oishi had led Chikara? That hardly bore imagining. But it was a son’s duty to follow his father. Sano and Masahiro came from a long line of fathers and sons who’d marched into battle together. But would Sano bring Masahiro in on an illegal vendetta, a crime? Shouldn’t a father protect his child?
“I told my comrades that it was time to avenge Lord Asano,” Oishi went on. “We formed a conspiracy. It took almost six months to set our plans. Then we walked to Edo, which took us another two months. When we got here, we rested for a few days. Then we went after Kira.”
Sano saw a battle raging during a snowstorm, as if Oishi’s memory had brought the scene into the room. He blinked to dispel the vision. He got a firm grip on his objectivity. “You left something out.”
An annoyed frown crossed Oishi’s face. “What?”
“Your mistress. Okaru. She loved you and cared for you and bedded other men to support you. You left her behind in Miyako. Or so you thought. She’s here in town.”
Oishi’s slanted eyebrows flew up in alarm. “No. She can’t be.”
“Why aren’t you happy to hear that the woman you love is near?” Sano asked.
Oishi massaged his jaw with his fingers. Sano sensed that Oishi wanted time to think about how this development might affect him.
“She followed you to Edo,” Sano said.
“How do you know?” Oishi asked.
“She wrote a letter to my wife.” Sano explained what the letter had said, then mentioned Reiko’s visit with Okaru.
Oishi spat out his breath, shook his head. “She thought she could save me. She’s so naive, and so wrong.”
“Maybe not wrong. As you must have guessed by now, there’s some confusion about what to do with you and your comrades.” Sano told Oishi about the controversy in the government, the formation of the supreme court. He watched Oishi massage his jaw harder. “Whether you live or die depends on whether I find evidence to prove that your actions were justified even though you broke the law.”
“What does this have to do with Okaru?” Oishi asked.
“Okaru is a witness in my investigation. She’s offered the first evidence in your favor.”
Distrust narrowed Oishi’s eyes. “What evidence?”
“She told my wife that the vendetta isn’t as simple as it appears.” Sano had a distinct, puzzling impression that this prospect of a reprieve disturbed Oishi although it should please him. “She said you told her so.”
Oishi sat perfectly still and calm, but Sano perceived shock reverberating through him like a gunshot in a tunnel. “What else did Okaru say I said?”
“Nothing else.” Was that relief Sano saw in Oishi’s hooded eyes? “She claims you refused to explain what you meant. Perhaps you would explain it to me now.”
“I can’t.”
Sano was incredulous because Oishi didn’t jump at the chance to put his actions in a better light. “Not even to save yourself and your comrades?”
“I actually don’t remember saying that to Okaru.” A crestfallen grin flexed Oishi’s thick mouth. “I was drunk most of the time I was with her. I did a lot of incoherent rambling. She must be mistaken.”
“My wife says Okaru seemed sure of what she’d heard.”
Oishi thrust out his jaw; belligerence flared his nostrils wider. “The vendetta is exactly what it seems: Kira destroyed Lord Asano. My comrades and I destroyed Kira. We abided by the samurai code of honor. It’s as straightforward as that.”