TAIKO: AN EPIC NOVEL OF WAR AND GLORY IN FEUDAL JAPAN

hard, as if he had come back a different person. On those occasions when his mother unwisely tried to shield him, Chikuami's rough hands and voice lashed out with severity. It was better, she decided, to pretend to ignore her son. Now Chikuami rarely went into the fields, but he was often away from the house. He would go into town, return drunk, and yell at his wife and children.

'No matter how much I work, the poverty of this house won't ever be eased,' he complained. 'There are too many parasites, and the land tax keeps going up. If it weren't for these kids, I'd become a masterless samurai—a ronin! And I'd drink delicious sake. Ah, these chains on my hands and feet!'

After one of these fits of abusiveness, he would make his wife count out what little money they had, then send Otsumi or Hiyoshi out to buy sake, even in the middle of the night.

If his stepfather wasn't around, Hiyoshi would sometimes give vent to his feelings.

Onaka hugged him close and comforted him.

'Mother, I want to go out and work again,' he said one day.

'Please stay here. If it weren't for your being around…' The rest of what she said was unintelligible through her tears. As each tear appeared, she turned her head to the side and wiped her eyes. Seeing his mother's tears, Hiyoshi couldn't say anything. He wanted o run away, but he knew he would have to stay where he was and bear the unhappiness and bitterness. When he felt sorry for his mother, the natural desires of youth—to play, to eat, to learn, to run away—would grow within him like so many weeds. All these were fitted against the angry words Chikuami hurled at his mother and the fists that rained iown on his own head.

'Eat shit!' he muttered, his defiant soul a flame within his small body. Finally he pushed himself to the point of confronting his fearsome stepfather.

'Send me out to work again,' he said. 'I'd rather be in service than stay in this house.'

Chikuami didn't argue. 'Fine,' he said. 'Go wherever you like, and eat someone else's rice. But the next time you get driven away, don't come back to this house.' He meant what he said, and although he realized Hiyoshi was only an eleven-year-old boy, he found limself arguing with him as an equal, which made him even madder.

Hiyoshi's next job was at the village dyer's shop.

'He's all mouth, and sassy to boot. Just looking for a sunny place to pick the dirt from his navel,' said one of the workmen operating the dye press.

Soon after that, word came from the go-between: 'I'm afraid he's of no use.' And back home he went.

Chikuami glared at him. 'Well, how about it, Monkey? Is society going to feed an idler like you? Don't you yet understand the value of parents?'

He wanted to say, I'm not bad! but instead he said, 'You're the one who no longer farms, and it'd be better if you didn't just gamble and drink at the horse market. Everybody's sorry for my mother.'

'How dare you talk that way to your father!' Chikuami's thundering roar shut the boy up, but now he was beginning to see Hiyoshi in a different light. He thought, Bit by bit, he's growing up. Each time Hiyoshi went out into the world and came back again, he was noticeably bigger. The eyes that judged his parents and his home were maturing quickly. And the fact that Hiyoshi was looking at him with the eyes of an adult deeply an­noyed, frightened, and displeased the errant stepfather.

'Go on, hurry and find work,' he ordered.

The following day, Hiyoshi went to his next employer, the village cooper. He was back home within a month, the mistress of the shop having complained, 'I can't have a dis­turbing child like this in my house.'

Hiyoshi's mother could not understand what she meant by 'disturbing.' Other places where Hiyoshi began apprenticeships were the plasterer's shop, the lunch counter at the horse market, and the blacksmith's. Each time he stayed no longer than three to six months. His comings and goings gradually became known, and his reputation got so bad that no one would act as his go-between.

'Ah, that boy at Chikuami's house. He's a foulmouthed good-for-nothing.'

Naturally, Hiyoshi's mother felt embarrassed around people. She felt awkward about her son, and in response to the gossip she would quickly deprecate him, as if his growing delinquency were incurable. 'I don't know what can be done with him,' she'd say. 'He hates farming, and he just won't settle down at home.'

In the spring of his fourteenth year, Hiyoshi's mother told him, 'This time you absolutely must stick with it. If the same thing happens one more time, my sister isn't going be able to look Master Kato in the face, and everybody's going to laugh and say, 'Again?’ Mind you, if you fail this time, I won't forgive you.'

The next day his aunt took him to Shinkawa for an interview. The large, imposing mansion they went to belonged to Sutejiro, the pottery merchant. Ofuku was now a pale youth of sixteen; from helping his adoptive father, the boy had learned the pottery business himself.

In the pottery store, the distinction between superior and subordinate was rigidly applied. During his first interview, Hiyoshi knelt respectfully on the wooden veranda while Ofuku sat inside, eating cakes, chatting happily with his parents.

'Well, it's Yaemon's little monkey. Your father died, and Chikuami from the village became your stepfather. And now you want to serve in this house? You'll have to work hard.' This was said in such a grown-up tone of voice that no one who had known the younger Ofuku would have believed it was the same person speaking.

'Yes, sir,' Hiyoshi replied.

He was taken to the servants' quarters, from which he could hear the laughter of the master's family in the living room. That his friend had not shown him the least bit friendliness made him feel even lonelier.

'Hey, Monkey!' Ofuku did not mince his words. 'Tomorrow, get up early and go to Kiyosu. Since you'll be taking goods to an official, load the packages onto the regular handcart. On your way back, stop in at the shipping agent's and check whether the pottery has arrived from Hizen. If you loiter along the way or get back too late, as you did the other day, you won't be let into the house.'

Hiyoshi's answer was not a simple 'yes' or 'yes, sir.' Like the clerks who had served much longer in the shop, he said, 'Most certainly, sir, and with the greatest respect, sir.”

Hiyoshi was often sent on errands to Nagoya and Kiyosu. That day he took note the white walls and high stone ramparts of Kiyosu Castle and mused, What kind of pe people live inside? How can I get to live there myself?

Feeling as small and wretched as a worm, he was frustrated. As he made his way through town, pushing the heavy handcart piled high with pottery wrapped in straw, he heard the familiar words:

'Well, well, there goes a monkey!'

'A monkey pushing a handcart!'

Veiled courtesans, fashionably dressed townswomen, and the pretty young wives good families all whispered, pointed, and stared at him as he went by. He himself had already become proficient at spotting the pretty ones. What annoyed him most was the staring, as though he were some kind of freak.

The governor of Kiyosu Castle was Shiba Yoshimune, and one of his principal retainers was Oda Nobutomo. At the spot where the castle moat and the Gojo River met, one still sensed the presence of the declining grandeur of the old Ashikaga shogunate, and the

prosperity that lingered here, even in the midst of the many disturbances going on in the

world, upheld Kiyosu's reputation as the most glamorous town in any of the provinces.

For sake, go to the sake shop.

For good tea, go to the tea shop.

But for courtesans, it's Sugaguchi in Kiyosu.

In the pleasure quarter of Sugaguchi, the eaves of brothels and teahouses lined the streets. In the daytime, the young girls who served in the brothels sang as they played catch. Hiyoshi pushed his handcart through their game, dreaming, How can I become great? Unable to come up with an answer, he kept thinking, Someday…someday…He spun out one fantasy after another as he walked along. The town was full of all the things that were denied to him: delicious food, opulent houses, gaudy military gear and saddlery, rich clothing and precious stones.

Thinking of his skinny sister with her pale face in Nakamura, he watched the steam rising from dumpling steamers in the sweet shops and wished he could buy some for her. Or passing an old apothecary, he would gaze in ecstasy at the bags of medicinal herbs and say to himself, Mother, if I could give you medicine like that, I bet