“Yes, Father,” Hirata said dejectedly. He left the house with his hope of marrying Midori seeming as futile as locating Lady Wisteria’s lover.
17
Be very quiet, Kikuko-chan,” Lady Yanagisawa whispered.
Crouching beneath low, sloped rafters, mother and daughter crept across the floor joists in the attic between the second story and the roof of the chamberlain’s mansion. This attic, which ran above all the interconnected wings of the house, was a dim, unfurnished labyrinth. Cobwebs festooned the rafters; dust, mouse droppings, and dead insects littered the floors. The only light came from grills set in the peaked gables.
Kikuko tiptoed, a finger pressed to her lips, her eyes dancing in enjoyment of what she thought was a game. They lay down on a futon set upon a tatami mat, and Lady Yanagisawa covered them with a quilt to protect them from the damp cold in this place where they alone ever came. She positioned herself on her stomach, chin propped on her folded arms, and peered through a palm-sized hole in the floor.
This hole, bored through the ceiling below and concealed by intricately carved and painted woodwork, gave Lady Yanagisawa a view of the chamberlain’s office. Years ago she’d discovered the hidden route from her wing of the house to his. She’d cut the hole at night while everyone else slept, so that she would have this window into the life of her husband.
He never told her about his business; he rarely spoke to her at all, and if she wanted to hear his voice or learn what he did, she had to eavesdrop. And because he spent virtually no time with her, when she wanted to lay eyes on him, she watched him in secret. Perhaps he was unaware of what she did; probably he knew and didn’t care.
Now she saw him at the desk, smoking his pipe while he wrote. His oiled hair and silk robes gleamed. He sat alone, though bodyguards lurked in the adjacent rooms, behind the moveable wall panels. As Lady Yanagisawa beheld him, a profound, familiar adoration clenched her heart.
He was as beautiful as on the day they’d met. She had wondered then how she could deserve a husband like him. She should have known that their marriage would turn out to be exactly what a woman like her should have expected.
The knowledge that she was ugly seemed to have always been with her. Born the middle of three children, she’d grown up in Kai Province, in a mansion owned by her parents, who were both distant relatives of the Tokugawa. Her household had been lively and gregarious, and she a shy, retiring outcast. Mocked by her pretty sisters, criticized by her mother and the servants, and ignored by her father, she’d spent most of her days alone. Her only companion was a doll with a chipped porcelain head, whom she loved all the more for its imperfection.
When she reached a marriageable age, her parents took her to many miai. She couldn’t look at the prospective bridegrooms because she feared to see disgust in their eyes. No proposals came of those meetings. She resigned herself to spinsterhood… until that fateful miai with the shogun’s young chamberlain.
It had taken place ten springs ago. As the party strolled through the grounds of Kannei Temple, she kept her head bowed and eyes downcast, listening to the conversation. The smooth, vibrant voice of Chamberlain Yanagisawa stirred something in her. Curiosity overcame her shyness. She risked a glance at him, and their gazes met. He dazzled her. It was like looking at the sun after living in darkness. Heat flushed her body as though his image had burned her. Then he smiled, and she experienced the giddy, heart-pounding sensation of first love.
That he agreed to marry her seemed a joyous miracle. Exchanging ritual cups of sake at their wedding, she dared to dream of happiness. But their first night together at his mansion showed her the cruel reality of her marriage.
“These are your chambers,” Yanagisawa said in a cold, impersonal manner. “I’ll leave while you undress and get in bed.”
Trembling in fearful anticipation, she obeyed. Soon Yanagisawa returned. Without a glance at her, he extinguished the lantern, and his garments rustled in the dark as he shed them. He slipped under the quilt with her. She felt a welling of desire, but after a few perfunctory caresses, it was over. He rose and departed. She lay alone, weeping as the soreness between her legs oozed blood. She and her husband hadn’t exchanged a single word during their union; she’d not even seen his body. And she knew he’d put out the light so he wouldn’t have to see her.
In the months that followed, the chamberlain paid her hardly more attention. She felt like a ghost haunting his house. She saw few people besides the servants and made no friends at Edo Castle; she uttered hardly a word. His absence increased her love and longing for Yanagisawa. Every few nights he came to her bed, and she always hoped that this time he would treat her with affection and she would experience fulfillment. But he always behaved as he had that first time.
A need to understand her husband had initiated her habit of watching him and listening to the servants gossip about him. She learned that he’d attained his position by seducing the shogun, with whom he had a longtime sexual liaison. She learned that he’d only married her because he wanted a wife with family connections to the Tokugawa. He had many lovers, both male and female, whom he discarded so fast that she considered them meaningless entertainment, unworthy of her jealousy. She fantasized that someday the chamberlain would love her.
The arrival of Kikuko had at first fueled her hope.
After their daughter’s birth, Chamberlain Yanagisawa would stand in the nursery door, watching her tend the baby, and although she was too shy to talk to him, she thought surely he must value her as the mother of his child. But soon Kikuko’s defects became apparent.
“Why doesn’t she walk? Why doesn’t she speak?” the chamberlain had demanded when Kikuko reached the age at which other children could do those things.
He’d stopped visiting Lady Yanagisawa’s bed when she got pregnant, and he never came again. She heard the servants say he blamed her for breeding an idiot and didn’t want another. He ignored Kikuko.
Now, lying in the attic above the chamberlain’s office, Lady Yanagisawa hugged the little girl close. Kikuko was so good and obedient; she would lie quietly here in the attic for as long as necessary, instead of squirming and complaining the way other children would. Kikuko, beautiful on the outside and flawed within, was all Lady Yanagisawa had. Her affection would compensate Kikuko for her father’s cruel rejection. Despite it, Lady Yanagisawa had continued in love with her husband. For almost six more years she’d believed that he would come to care for her, until two events shattered her faith.;
The first was the marriage of Sosakan Sano. She’d heard of Sano when he’d come to Edo Castle and her husband had deemed him a rival and begun spying on him and plotting against him. But Sano hadn’t interested Lady Yanagisawa until the day when she and Kikuko had gone riding in their palanquin and returned to the castle to find a procession lined up outside the gate.
“It’s Ueda Reiko, the sosakan-sama’s bride,” said someone in the crowd of spectators.
Curious, Lady Yanagisawa had peered at the bridal palanquin. Its window opened, and Reiko lifted her white head drape to look outside. Her beautiful face caused Lady Yanagisawa a piercing stab of envy. Reiko was everything that she herself was not. Seeing Reiko showed her the only kind of woman who might win her husband, and the futility of her love for him.
Envy fostered in Lady Yanagisawa an obsessive desire to know more about Reiko. She listened to the chamberlain’s spies report that Reiko helped her husband with his investigations. She ordered the servants to find out from Reiko’s servants what Reiko did and when she went out. Following Reiko at a distance, Lady Yanagisawa learned that Reiko led an active, interesting life. She herself had only the bitter pleasure of vicarious experience. Her envy had turned to hatred two summers ago when the sosakan-sama took his wife to Miyako.
Lady Yanagisawa had hidden in the crowd that watched the procession exit the castle, and seen Sano riding alongside Reiko’s palanquin. Reiko spoke to him; he smiled at her. This brief glimpse of them together had told Lady Yanagisawa they shared a love that her own marriage lacked. Lady Yanagisawa gazed after them while her fingernails gouged bloody crescents in the palms of her hands. This seemed the culmination of her woes, for she couldn’t have known that the Miyako investigation heralded the second calamity to befall her.
A knock at the door broke the silence in the office below. Chamberlain Yanagisawa called, “Enter!”
