“No. He mustn’t,” Tamako cried. “We must do as the doctor said. Nothing to drink. It’s our only hope.” And she pushed her husband aside and leaned protectively over the child.
Akitada felt helpless and frightened. Instinct made him shift the burden of responsibility. “Why was I not told?” he demanded.
“I tried to tell you twice, both yesterday and today. You were too busy.” Tamako’s voice was matter-of-fact, but he knew from her averted face and stiffly held back how deep her anger against him was.
“You certainly did not make yourself very plain in that case,” Akitada snapped. “You should have known that I expect to be informed of the illness of my only son.”
Tamako rose. She was white-faced and looked exhausted. It occurred to Akitada that she had probably sat up day and night with Yori. He recalled now that he had heard her reading to him earlier and was ashamed that he had blamed her for pampering the boy. Rising also, he extended a conciliatory hand, but she pushed it away. “You care nothing for your son or me,” she cried fiercely. “You only care for your work, and for solving your cursed crimes, and for other men’s women. Time and again I’ve begged you to protect us from the illness, and each time you’ve mocked my fears and reproved me. Now see what you have done!” She burst into tears and ran from the enclosure.
“Tamako!” Akitada started after her, but Yori began to cry and he went back to his son, knelt, and took him into his arms. “It isn’t true, Yori,” he murmured. “I do care very much for you. Are you feeling very bad?”
“Yes,” whispered Yori, putting his arms around his neck. “I love you.”
Akitada could not speak for a moment. Then he said, “Thank you. I love you, too. I’m sorry I’ve been so busy lately, but I’m here now. What do you want me to do?”
“Take the covers off again.”
“But the doctor said…”
“I don’t like the doctor,” wailed Yori. “I’m hot. And thirsty.”
So Akitada laid him back down and peeled back the quilts and the boy’s robe, and the silk floss wrapping until he lay quite naked. Yori closed his eyes then, but he held on to his father’s hand. Akitada gazed fearfully at the small body, so beautifully made, so sturdy and smooth, as yet unmarked by the red spots and pustules of the disease. He allowed himself to hope.
Seimei touched his shoulder and whispered, “Sir? He must be covered up. The doctor was quite specific about that.”
Akitada whispered back, “Oh, Seimei, he’s terribly hot. What’s wrong with giving him a little relief? And how about some cool tea or water? He’s thirsty.”
“The idea is to make him hot to raise a sweat and break the fever. And he must not have any liquids. They will cause dysentery.”
Yori started to shiver and cry again.
“But he’ll burn up or die from thirst,” Akitada protested. Yori’s crying turned into a wail.
“Sir, you’re not being very helpful,” said Seimei sharply. “He must be kept quiet. Perhaps you had better come back a little later.”
Tamako reappeared and fell to her knees beside the sobbing child. She covered him and held him, rocking him in her arms like an infant until he stopped crying.
Akitada left quietly.
For the next ten days life stood still for Akitada. Very little intruded on his self-absorption, or rather, his total absorption in events over which he had no control. He sent a note to Nakatoshi to tell him that smallpox had struck his family and that he would not be able to come in. He did not contact Kobe and abandoned all thought of Haseo’s past and the murder of the blind woman. He stayed at home but did not exchange more than the barest civilities with those around him.
There was nothing for him to say or do. Decisions about Yori’s care were in the hands of others. Tamako was white-faced and determined, her comments to Akitada brief and cold. Seimei worked silently. Neither seemed to need any sleep. They remained with Yori day and night, while Akitada roamed the house and the garden, periodically passing through the sick-room to gaze helplessly at his writhing child. He kept hoping for a private moment when he might touch and hold Yori, perhaps to make him more comfortable, or to ease his misery by telling him stories, but Tamako’s hostile back seemed forever to interpose itself between him and his son.
Later, much later, he would blame himself for not ordering everyone out of the room, for not easing the boy’s fever and his agonizing thirst, but at the time he was so torn with guilt and uncertainty that his will had become paralyzed. Mostly he kept fear at bay with restless and pointless activities. He rearranged his books. He inspected the storehouse. He got out some tools and trimmed overgrown shrubs in the garden.
The telltale spots appeared and spread. Akitada reminded himself that many people survived, and that Yori had always been a strong and healthy boy, but the ice-cold lump in his stomach did not melt. That day he did an extraordinary thing and knelt in front of the household altar to pray to the small Buddha figurine. Since he did not believe, this effort came particularly hard, but by then his fear had grown too great, and he prostrated himself before the Buddha with the fervor of an ascetic. He offered his own for Yori’s life. The next morning Yori seemed better. The fever subsided and he rested more quietly for the first time in many days. But the rash festered and spread, from his face to his arms and chest, and then over his whole body. The child was in agony, unable to speak or swallow because the blisters and sores had invaded his mouth and throat. Akitada’s beautiful son became a swollen, suppurating monstrosity, and Akitada took the small Buddha statue from the altar and smashed it.
During this period, Akitada felt a great need to be with his son, yet could not bear to look at him. And so he would come, cast furtive glances in hopes of improvement, then sit miserably by for a few minutes as Seimei and Tamako, and sometimes the doctor, tended to the moaning child, only to leave again when his stomach twisted at the suffering. He was afraid now to touch his son, for even the small hands were grotesquely swollen and disfigured. The slightest contact caused him pain. He looked at Tamako and was ashamed. Her face was a weary mask, her lower lip swollen and bloodied from biting it whenever she had to handle the screaming Yori, yet she persisted. He marveled at her strength and his own weakness.
His inadequacy made him very humble. He asked Tamako if he might read to Yori. She nodded without looking at him. They had exchanged so few words since Yori’s illness began that they were like ill-met strangers. Akitada read to Yori without comprehending the stories and without response from the child. When Yori was awake, he stared with glazed eyes at the ceiling and whimpered a little now and then, but most of the time he seemed asleep or semicomatose. Akitada would pause and gaze at him, wondering if he was seeing death, and drop the book to rush from the room. Later it occurred to him that music might be more soothing. He brought his flute and sat, playing tune after tune, always ending with a lullaby Yori used to love as an infant, convincing himself that the sound eased the pain and put him to sleep.
The moments of hope were particularly dreadful: If the child had a more restful night, or took a few sips of rice gruel, or if the doctor did not express any unease, Akitada was filled with irrational joy. In fact, the doctor was a ceaselessly optimistic fellow whose many visits Akitada gladly paid for because they made him think-however briefly-that Yori was improving. But each hope was crushed, and each time death was closer and more certain, until even the most credulous father must abandon false expectations-and Akitada was not a credulous man.
Yori died quietly. He stopped crying, moaning, even whimpering, and became very still. Akitada and Tamako were in the room but did not know when he stopped breathing, having convinced themselves that he was only asleep. When Seimei told them, Akitada felt the pain slice through him so sharply that he gasped. He looked at Tamako and extended his hand-to comfort her or to be comforted, he did not know which. But Tamako flung herself across the small corpse and burst into a long wail. “Oh, oh, oh…”-just that, without cease-“oh, oh, oh. ..” Akitada lifted her from the dead child. He held her tightly, hoping that by holding on to each other they might find relief, but she fought free and ran from the room, still wailing in her grief.
Akitada neither wailed nor wept. He knew what must be done. He had arranged funerals before. Because of the epidemic, he could get only two elderly monks for the sutra readings and chants. The temple was apologetic: They had too many funerals to attend, and a number of their younger members had succumbed to the disease themselves. The yin-yang master designated the proper day, and casket, bearers, and materials for the pyre were purchased at enormous expense.
The family accompanied the small casket to Toribeno. The cremation ground lay on a wide plain southeast of the capital at the foot of the eastern mountains. They left the Sugawara residence at dawn and walked into the rising sun. Only Tamako rode in a sedan chair, borne by two villainous-looking men who had demanded a ransom in
