I have seen him often since that night. Three days ago he was standing on a balcony, watching me promenade to the ageya. Two days ago he came to another party where I was entertaining. Yesterday, while I was dressing in my room, I looked out the window and saw him pacing the street in front of the house. But he always vanishes as soon as he knows I’ve seen him! He never speaks to me. No one seems to know who he is, and I’ve asked everyone. What does his strange behavior mean? I fear him, but not as much as I want to know him. I, who have known so many men and never cared about any of them!
Today I was shopping with my yarite in the marketplace, when I sensed him near me. Instead of looking at him, I turned and hurried away through the stalls. I heard him following, but I didn’t look back. I didn’t stop until I reached the alley inside the back wall. I turned around. There he stood, so handsome and strong, his smile so mysterious.
“Who are you?” I said, frightened and out of breath. “Why are you doing this?”
“I am the Herd Boy,” he said in a strange accent. “You are the Weaver Girl. Today we finally meet on the River of Heaven.”
He was referring to the legend about two constellations that are supposed to be lovers. They cross once a year in autumn. Well, I’ve heard a lot of poetic speeches from men, including that one. Usually I just laugh inside because they sound so silly. But there was something about him that made my legs go weak and my heart pound. We stood there gazing into each other’s eyes. Then I heard my yarite calling me.
“I must go,” I said.
He nodded and bowed, and I left.
But we had already fallen in love.
He’s from Hokkaido, in the far north, and that’s why his accent is strange. I won’t write his name, because someone might read this, and I would rather keep him as much to myself as I can. I don’t want every nosy gossip in Yoshiwara chattering about us. Since that day in the alley, we’ve been meeting often, always in secret, because he has no money for appointments with me. I sneak out of parties to the alley where he waits. When my clients fall asleep, I steal downstairs and let him in the back door. We make love behind the screen in my room, careful to be quiet so we won’t wake up my client.
Yesterday, after we’d finished and were lying together in the moonlight, he whispered: “When winter comes to Hokkaido, the snow piles up in deep drifts that almost bury the houses.”
He ran his hand along my hip. “Your body is as white and pure and beautiful as those snowdrifts. I wish I could show them to you. How would you like to see Hokkaido?”
My heart filled with joy, because I knew he was asking me to go away with him.
“In Hokkaido you’ll be my wife,” he said. “You’ll never come back to this place of shame and suffering.”
“But you can’t afford to buy my freedom,” I said. “And there’s no escape from Yoshiwara.”
“Love will find a way,” he said, and he smiled.
Tonight is the night. All our plans are made. I will put the sleeping potion in Lord Mitsuyoshi’s wine. After he’s asleep, I will steal outside to my beloved. We will flee Yoshiwara forever. I know this is a dangerous undertaking. But he’s clever. He has friends to help us. There’s a man who owns a teahouse in Suruga. He’ll let us stay there until I can buy new clothes and my beloved gets money and provisions for the journey. If the teahouse turns out to be unsafe, there’s a noodle shop in Fukagawa that will take us in. But we won’t stay around Edo for long. Soon we’ll be on the northern highway, bound for the snows of Hokkaido.
I tremble with excitement.
How can I bear to wait the long hours until night, when my beloved will come for me?
Ah, freedom!
The excerpt from the pillow book lay in Sano’s office, on the desk where Sano, Reiko, and Hirata had placed it after reading Lady Wisteria’s story. They sat in silence, looking expectantly at each other.
“This could be the key to finding Lady Wisteria and solving the case,” Sano said as his hope vied with caution.
“Just when we need it most,” Hirata said.
Sano had come home from Yoshiwara late that evening to find Reiko waiting for him. Hirata had arrived moments later, and they’d discussed the other results of their inquiries, which had reached a dead end. Sano had questioned the owner and employees of the Owariya, and they’d confirmed Fujio’s story that he’d left the party for only an instant-not long enough to go upstairs, stab Lord Mitsuyoshi, and abduct Wisteria. Detective Fukida had turned up witnesses who’d seen Treasury Minister Nitta on the street in Yoshiwara, but none besides Fujio who could place Nitta near the Owariya after he’d left the party. Detective Marume had learned that Nitta was patron to many courtesans besides Wisteria. Sano had searched Fujio’s home in Imado and found nothing. He and Hirata had reluctantly agreed that they couldn’t pursue the leads on Lord Mitsuyoshi’s enemies without angering the shogun. And since Reiko’s efforts had failed to produce clues, the discovery of the pillow book was a welcome development.
“It seems almost too good to be true,” Reiko said, voicing the thought on everyone’s mind. “And we’ve encountered false clues in the past.”
“I did think it was too coincidental that I ran into Gorobei and he happened to have the pages,” Hirata said. “But after I bought them, I showed them to people at Wisteria’s brothel. They thought the pages resembled what they’d seen in her book, but she was careful to keep anyone from getting a close look at it. Besides, most of the courtesans there can’t read. Nor can any of the servants. They wouldn’t recognize the text. But there’s no reason to believe the pages aren’t from Wisteria’s book.”
He spoke as if trying to convince himself in spite of the lack of proof, and Sano guessed why Hirata wanted so much for his clue to be genuine. They’d not yet talked about the miai, but Hirata’s careworn face told Sano that the marriage negotiations had gone wrong. Hirata must be anxious to make up for taking time off from his duties, and to succeed at his work even in the midst of a personal crisis.
Reiko held a page closer to the lantern, examining it carefully. “The language is simple. The calligraphy is crude. And look at all the crossed-out mistakes. This is what one would expect of a peasant woman who’d learned a little reading and writing but had no formal education.”
Sano heard uncertainty in her voice. In the past Reiko had been quick to make up her own mind, and he realized how much self-doubt the Black Lotus case had instilled her. During that investigation he’d battled her convictions and wanted her to yield to his; yet he now regretted that she was deferring to his judgment at a time when he needed an independent opinion. Sano wished he could be sure of the pillow book’s authenticity, for he had his own doubts about it.
“Would you please read a page aloud?” he said to Reiko.
She complied. Sano listened, frowning because what he’d noticed while reading the words grew more apparent upon hearing them. They didn’t sound like Wisteria, though he couldn’t define exactly why not.
Reiko ceased reading. “What is it?” she said, looking curiously at Sano.
What he’d omitted telling Reiko about the case now enmeshed him in a thickening tangle of deceit. He couldn’t voice his concerns about the pillow book without admitting he’d known Wisteria. If he did admit he’d known the courtesan, Reiko would ask why he hadn’t said so before. And if she learned the reason now, his evasiveness would hurt her more than honesty would have at the start.
“It’s too bad the pages came without the cover,” he said. “That would have been easily recognized by people who’d seen Lady Wisteria’s pillow book.”
Reiko wore a quizzical expression that told him she knew he hadn’t said what he was really thinking and wondered why. But she didn’t ask. Sano saw Hirata watching him. Hirata had known about Sano’s relationship with Wisteria since Sano had told him on the way home from Yoshiwara that first day, and Sano was glad he could trust Hirata to keep the secret, even from Reiko.
“I searched for the cover,” Hirata said, “but the garbage had been taken away and burned, and the alley swept clean. If the cover was ever there, it’s gone now.”
“That brings us to the question of why the pages were in the alley,” Sano said.
“Wisteria could have thrown them away,” said Hirata. “Maybe she didn’t need to write anymore because she was starting a new life. But she didn’t want anyone to read her private thoughts, so she tore up the book, then put the pages in the garbage as she and her lover were leaving the Owariya.”
“But she was a runaway courtesan,” Reiko said, “and she would know her master would look for her.” Brothel proprietors hired searchers to track down fugitives, and added the cost of the search to the debt of women who got
