‘Hey,’ he called out. The carpenter did not turn; he appeared sunk in despair. When Tora touched his shoulder, he stopped and looked up. On closer inspection, the man did not look very promising. Tora took in his emaciated frame, the rheumy eyes, the toothless mouth, and wondered if he had darkened his thin hair to appear younger. He bit his lip, no longer sure what to do.
‘Sorry to rush after you, uncle,’ he said, ‘but I heard what just happened. You got fired, didn’t you?’
The old man nodded. He ran the back of his hand across moist eyes. ‘I’m a good carpenter,’ he said sadly. ‘The best. And I work fast. But my back’s bad, and I can’t lift heavy beams. So I’m no good anymore.’ He looked sorrowfully at his wooden toolbox and sighed. ‘I’ll have to sell my tools for a few coppers.’
‘Don’t do that. I know where there’s some work.’
The carpenter looked up, hope in his eyes. ‘Where?’ he asked. ‘I’ll do anything. May the Buddha reward you! We’ve almost no food left at home.’
‘I’ll tell you, if you’ll tell me about Sadanori and Ishikawa.’
The old man blinked. ‘The great live above the clouds. I’m only a simple man.’
Tora had never been troubled by his own lowly status and had little respect for men who behaved like Sadanori – or Ishikawa. ‘If you keep your eyes and ears open, you learn things,’ he pointed out. ‘What did Ishikawa and your supervisor talk about before you got fired?’
‘The hall. Mr Ishikawa complained about the money and how long it was taking. As if the great lord didn’t have all the money in the world!’
‘What’s the hall for?’
‘They say it was meant for a favorite, but was never finished. Now he wants to live in it himself. Calls it the Lake Hermitage.’
Nothing in that. Nobles were always pretending that the world wearied them and they only wanted a simple life. ‘Did Ishikawa say where he was off to in such a hurry?’
‘He’s riding to Otsu.’
‘Otsu? Why?’
The carpenter did not know. Tora decided that Ishikawa had gone to visit his mother. ‘You hear any talk about Sadanori’s affairs?’ The carpenter looked blank. ‘I mean with women. Courtesans, entertainers?’
The old man grinned. ‘The great lord spends time in the pleasure quarter. Is that what you mean?’
It was hot, and the sun was already high. Tora felt lightheaded with exhaustion and lack of food. He was frustrated that he was not getting anywhere, but some remnant of pity for the old man kept him from shouting at him. ‘You were there yesterday. Did you see a sedan chair delivering a young woman? About the middle of the morning?’
‘No. I think the ladies come and go by the north gate.’
So much for that. Tora did not really believe that Sadanori would bring Hanae to his home, anyway. ‘What about Ishikawa?’
‘Ishikawa’s the betto. He runs everything. Him and the lord are like this.’ The carpenter put two fingers together. ‘He’s the lord’s eyes and ears.’
Tora sighed. ‘All right. Go to Oimikado Avenue and ask for the Sugawara residence. When a big man opens the gate, tell him Tora sent you to do some work on the house.’
The carpenter bowed deeply. ‘You are a saint,’ he said. ‘I bless you. My wife blesses you. My sons, who are soldiers, bless you also, wherever they are. And so do my grandchildren and their mothers.’ He grasped Tora’s hand and kissed it.
Tora snatched his hand back. ‘Go on,’ he growled. ‘And make sure you do good work for them. They’re my people.’
He crossed Sanjo Avenue before the old man could embarrass him further. While the relationship between Ishikawa and Sadanori was something to keep in the back of his mind – Tora believed the worst of both of them – he still did not know how to find Hanae.
Worse. He was at the end of his tether. He had no patience left. Only sheer dull willpower kept his legs moving. The linings in his torn boots had shifted, and his bare soles were again scuffing the dirt in the road. Tora sat down on the other side of Sanjo, took off both boots, and examined them and his feet. One foot was bleeding through a crust of dirt and gravel; the other had developed a large blister. He had lost the straw inserts. No matter. He must go on. Rewrapping his feet, he put the torn boots back on and limped towards the pleasure quarter.
He should have gone directly to Hanae’s dancing teacher, but Master Ohiya was one person Tora preferred to avoid. They were acquainted, but not on friendly terms, and for very similar reasons. Each despised the other, regarding him as Hanae’s certain doom, as a seducer and destroyer of something precious. Tora thought Ohiya no better than a pimp who trained innocent young girls to become prostitutes. While he had nothing against prostitution in general, he was not so tolerant about his wife’s activities. Ohiya, on the other hand, knew that he had discovered and perfected a fine talent with prospects of a great public career until a low-class yokel had ruined her. Their contest over Hanae had ended with Tora’s victory and Ohiya’s bitter enmity.
Tora trudged through the quarter, from wine house to wine house, asking for Hanae or one of her friends. Nobody had seen his wife recently. He had expected that. But finding and speaking to the girls who might know something because she had worked with them brought him more trouble than he had bargained for.
It was afternoon, and the women were either still asleep or dressing for their nightly engagements. Tora was exhausted, dizzy from heat and hunger, and in pain. His appearance was no longer reassuring. His clothes looked dirty and wrinkled, his boots gaped, revealing dirty toes, he was unshaven, and his hair had come loose. Besides, he had developed a manner of glowering at people from bloodshot eyes. He was not welcome. Doors were slammed in his face. No longer able to draw on his stock of charm and flattery, he resorted to demands and threats. One woman cursed him and emptied a bucket of night soil on him when he turned away. Most of it missed, but enough soaked the back of his blue robe to add a fetid stench to his other unlovely attributes.
When he finally found a girl who knew Hanae, she looked at him askance and suggested that Hanae must have come to her senses and left him. To emphasize the point, she told him that Sadanori had shown a great interest in Hanae. And she said that he should ask Rikiju if he didn’t believe her.
Rikiju took pity on him. Tora found her in a rented room in the back of a disreputable restaurant. She was in her thirties, an example of what happened to women in the pleasure quarter if they did not find a lifelong patron before their youth faded. Her old robe hung open, revealing too much of a bony figure. From a hook hung her only good gown: the silk stained and torn, and the embroidered flowers faded. She wore no make-up, and her face was both haggard and puffy from late nights and too much cheap wine. But she commiserated with him and offered to share the modest meal she was eating.
‘You look terrible,’ she said. ‘Eat just a little.’
Tora thought the same of her and shook his head. He told her what had happened.
‘Well,’ she said dubiously, sucking the last bits of food from her bowl, and then wiping it with one of her fingers, ‘if it’s Sadanori who got her, she won’t be getting back today.’ She licked her finger and wiped it on the sleeve of her robe. ‘He goes to that much trouble only when he’s serious.’
‘He’s done it before?’
‘So they say.’
‘I know he took her, and I’m going to get her back if I have to fight him and a thousand armed guards.’ Tora trembled with rage at the thought of Sadanori raping his Hanae.
She eyed him with concern and shook her head. ‘You won’t find her. He’s probably taken her to a private house. He’s done it before. The best thing is to wait for her to come back. He gets tired after a while. They say he’s one of those men who want what they can’t have. It’s not getting a woman that heats his blood. Until she’s his, his fire burns hot; then he’ll lose interest quickly and send her home. Smart thing to do for Hanae is to let him have his way.’
‘Bite your tongue.’ Tora glared at her. ‘My Hanae will fight the bastard to the death.’
Rikiju looked away. ‘Hanae’s a sensible girl. She’ll be all right. Now I’ve got to get ready for work.’
‘What do you mean, she’s sensible?’
She sighed and got up. ‘Nothing. Don’t worry. Go home, Tora.’
After that, Tora was no longer quite rational. Back on the street, he pushed people out of his way and snarled when he asked for information. Most of those he accosted fled or slammed their doors. He had only one name left before he had to crawl to Master Ohiya.
