Shinju

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 Senso 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 yujo- 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 yujo. 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 protege. “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 special: 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.

Sano shook his head. Bringing Tsunehiko had been a mistake. Now he would have to waste time keeping track of the boy. One more worry, added to a puzzling murder case and the perils associated with conducting a forbidden investigation.

“Come on, Tsunehiko,” he said. “Let’s find Gallery Street.”

Then he found reason to be glad of Tsunehiko’s company.

Backing out of the teahouse, Tsunehiko said, “Oh, I know where that is. Follow me, I know a shortcut.”

He bounced off down Naka-no-cho, leading Sano around a corner and along a street where high walls hid the back gardens of the brothels from view. They plunged into a maze of narrow alleys lined with closed doors, barred windows, and overflowing wooden trash containers. Stray dogs rooted through the maladorous debris. Sano was relieved when they emerged into the clean brightness of a wide street.

“Here we are,” Tsunehiko announced proudly. “See?”

All up and down Gallery Street, open storefronts displayed racks and walls covered with colorful woodblock prints. Browsers strolled past, many of them samurai defying the laws that prohibited them from possessing these supposedly immoral works of art. Hawkers stood outside the galleries, chanting prices and extolling the quality of their merchandise. Inside, the proprietors haggled with their customers in strident tones. Sano studied the signs above the galleries. The Okubata Fine Arts Company lay halfway down the block. Now to get rid of Tsunehiko so that he could conduct the interview in private…

To his delight, Tsunehiko’s flightiness came to his aid. The secretary immediately wandered into one of the other shops and began pawing through a stack of pictures. Smiling, Sano headed down the street alone.

He’d no sooner reached the shop than the hawker accosted him, crying, “Good day, sir! Looking for fine prints at the best prices? Well, you’ve come to the right place!”

He was a man of quite astonishing ugliness. His most prominent feature, a large purplish-red birthmark, spilled across his upper lip, over his mouth, and down his chin. Hair sprouted from his nostrils. Smallpox scars pitted his skin. Protuberant eyes gave him the appearance of an insect, perhaps a mantis. This resemblance was strengthened by his stooped shoulders and by the way he rubbed his bony hands together as he hovered close to Sano.

“Come in, come in,” he urged, plucking at Sano’s sleeve.

Sano stepped up onto the raised wooden floor of the shop and passed under the curtain that partially shielded it from the street. The shop was small, a single room with racks of prints crowding its floor and walls, which were hidden by more prints. It was also deserted.

“Now what can I show you?” the ugly man asked. Evidently he was both hawker and proprietor. “Some nice landscape scenes?”

He pointed to a set of pictures mounted on the wall: Mount Fuji during each of the four seasons. Sano could see why the shop had no customers. The prints were poorly drawn, with garish colors slightly out of register so that each picture was a blurred multiple image. He wondered how the shop managed to stay in business.

“Are you Okubata?” he asked the man.