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-
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.”
But Sano detected a fissure in Oishi’s conviction. “I don’t believe you. If you were being so straightforward and honorable, you would have all committed
“It seemed like the right thing to do,” Oishi said stubbornly.
Increasingly mystified, Sano said, “What kind of orders were you expecting?”
Silence descended, like a fog that was invisible but nonetheless hid the truth about the case, a truth that Sano suspected was stranger than he could imagine.
“We had no expectations. But maybe we did right to wait,” Oishi said with a glimmer of amusement. “We’re still alive, aren’t we?”
Sano felt irate because Oishi was playing with him and he had no idea what the game was. Vexed by his own conflicted feelings toward the man, he stood. “Very well. Don’t answer my questions if you don’t want to. I can ask your comrades.”
“Go ahead.” Oishi stood, too; he’d regained the composure he’d lost while talking about Okaru. “They’ll corroborate my story. The vendetta is exactly what you see.”
12
