The Cloud Pavilion

9

The rain turned into a downpour while Reiko and her escorts traveled to Asakusa. By the time they reached Major Kumazawa's estate, the roof of her palanquin was leaking and her cloak was damp. She alighted in the courtyard, under a roof that was supported on pillars and covered a path leading up the steps of the mansion. She'd been curious to see Sano's clan's ancestral home, but the streaming rain obscured the buildings.

An old woman met her on the veranda, bowed, and said, "Welcome, Honorable Lady Reiko. We've been expecting you." She was in her sixties, gray-haired, modestly dressed. Her plain, somber face was shadowed under the eyes, as if from a sleepless night. "My name is Yasuko. I am Chiyo's mother." She ushered Reiko into the mansion's entryway, where Reiko removed her shoes and cloak. "I'm sorry you had to make such a long journey in this weather." She seemed genuinely regretful. "It would have been easier for you to see Chiyo at her home in town, but she is unable to return there. Her husband has cast her off."

Reiko was shocked, although she realized she shouldn't be. Society viewed a woman who'd been violated as disgraced and contaminated. Rape was considered akin to adultery, even though the victim wasn't to blame.

"When he came last night to fetch Chiyo, he found out what had happened to her," Yasuko explained. "He no longer wants her as his wife. He means to get a divorce."

"How terrible," Reiko said as the woman escorted her through the mansion's dim, dank corridors.

Her husband could divorce Chiyo by simply picking up a brush and inking three and a half straight lines on a piece of paper. And that was a mild punishment. He could have sent her to work in a brothel if he so chose.

"What is worse, her husband has kept their children, and he won't even let her see them," Yasuko said. "She is very upset."

She slid open a door, called inside, "Lady Reiko is here," and stood aside for Reiko to enter.

Chiyo was sitting up in bed, propped by pillows. A quilt covered her from bosom to toes, even though the room was warm and stuffy. Her lank hair spilled from the bandage that swathed her head. Her features were so swollen from crying that Reiko couldn't tell what she looked like under normal circumstances. Chiyo's mouth quivered and her chest heaved with sobs.

Reiko knew that state of profound grief that possesses mind and body like an uncontrollable force. She'd experienced it once in Miyako, when she'd thought Sano had been killed, and again when she'd gone north to rescue Masahiro and found evidence that he was dead. Now Reiko faced a woman who'd lost her husband and children even though they were still alive. She forgot that she'd once been ready to dislike Sano's relatives because they cared more for social customs than for their blood kin. Her heart went out to Chiyo.

She knelt beside Chiyo, bowed, and said, "I am so sorry about what happened." She felt inadequate, unable to think of anything else to say but, "Please accept my sympathy."

"Many thanks." Chiyo's voice broke on a sob. "You're very kind."

Her mother offered Reiko refreshments. Reiko politely refused, was pressed, then accepted. The social routine gave Chiyo time to compose herself. Yasuko went off to see about the food. Reiko sensed that she didn't want to listen while Reiko questioned Chiyo and hear disturbing answers.

"Honorable Lady Reiko, I appreciate your coming to talk to me," Chiyo said humbly.

"There's no need to call me by my title," Reiko said. "My name will do."

"Very well, Reiko-san. A thousand apologies for causing you so much trouble."

Reiko liked Chiyo for caring about other people's feelings even after her terrible ordeal. "I'm sorry we had to meet under such circumstances."

Chiyo's face crumpled.

Reiko had to force herself to say, "My husband wants me to ask you about what happened. Can you bear it?"

Chiyo nodded meekly. A tremulous sigh issued from her. "But what good will it do?"

"It will help my husband catch the man who hurt you."

Tears trickled down Chiyo's drenched face. Her eyes were so red that she looked as if she were weeping blood. "Suppose he does. Nothing will change. My husband won't take me back. Last night he told me I was dead to him, dead to our children. Once he loved me, but he doesn't anymore. He looked so stern, so hateful." She wailed, "I'll never see my babies again!"

Reiko could hardly bear to imagine her own children ripped away from her. Alarmed at Chiyo's suffering, she urged, "Wait a while. Your husband may feel differently."

"No, he won't," Chiyo insisted. Reiko's sympathy and family connection made Chiyo speak more frankly than she might have with another stranger. "He's a good man, but once he makes up his mind, he never changes it."

How Reiko deplored male obstinacy and pride!

"He thinks I've dishonored our family." Chiyo sobbed. "I think maybe he's right."

"Why?"

"Because I brought it on myself."

"No, you didn't," Reiko said firmly. "My husband told me what you said happened at the shrine. You left your group because your baby was upset. You got kidnapped. That wasn't your fault."

"That isn't all that happened. I remember more than I told your husband. It's coming back to me in bits and pieces."

Controlling her eagerness for information, Reiko spoke gently: "What else do you remember?"

"I took my baby into the garden, and I nursed him." Chiyo's arms crept out from under the quilt and cradled around the infant who should have been there but wasn't. "I heard someone moaning behind a grove of bamboo. He called for help. I went to see what was wrong."

Women were taught from an early age to put themselves at the service of others, and Chiyo had an obliging nature. Reiko understood what must have happened, and she burned with anger at the rapist. "He lured you to him by playing on your kindness."

"But I was stupid!" Chiyo cried. "I fell for the trick. I deserve for my husband to divorce me and take our children."

Women were also taught to be humble and accept responsibility for whatever ills came their way. "No!" Reiko said. "You couldn't have known it was a trick. Neither could anybody else. Don't blame yourself."

Weeping contorted Chiyo's face. "My husband does."

So would most other people, Reiko thought sadly. "Your husband is wrong."

"I'm fortunate that my father hasn't cast me off, too."

Most fathers probably would shun a daughter who'd been violated. The fact that Major Kumazawa hadn't bespoke his love for Chiyo. Perhaps Sano's picture of him as a rigid, tradition-bound samurai wasn't completely accurate.

"Your father has put the blame exactly where it belongs-on the man who hurt you," Reiko said. "He wants to catch him and punish him. So do I." She felt her own taste for vengeance. "Don't you?"

"Oh, I don't know." Chiyo looked worried at the thought of taking direct action against anyone. She probably didn't have a vengeful bone in her body, Reiko thought. "But if that's what everyone else wants…"

"We want justice for you. But we need your help."

"All right." Chiyo was clearly used to obeying authority. "What do you want me to do?"

"Tell me everything you can remember about the kidnapping and the attack. Let's begin with the man who tricked you. What did he look like?"

Chiyo pondered, frowned, then shook her head. "I don't know. I recall walking up to the bamboo grove. After that, everything is a blank until…" A shudder wracked her body. "Until I woke up." Chiyo turned her face into the pillow, as if hiding from the recollection.

Reiko speculated that Chiyo had been grabbed, then forced to drink a potion that rendered her unconscious and erased memories. She leaned forward, bracing herself to hear the awful details of the rape. She spoke quietly, trying not to pressure Chiyo. "Then what happened?"

"He… he touched me where no one but my husband has ever touched." Chiyo drew deep breaths and swallowed hard. "He suckled milk from me. And… he bit me."

She opened her robe. On her breasts, around the nipples, were curved rows of tooth marks, red and bloody. Reiko winced. "Did you see his face?"

"Only for a moment. Everything was misty and blurry. It was like…" Chiyo fumbled for words. "I once read a poem about a pavilion of clouds. It reminded me of that."

Reiko wondered if the clouds had been a hallucination caused by a drug.

"The clouds covered his face, except for his eyes and mouth," Chiyo said.

He'd worn a mask, Reiko deduced.

Chiyo shrank against the cushions, reliving her fear. She whispered, "He was so ugly and cruel. Like a demon."

"Was he someone you recognized? Did he seem familiar?"

"No. At least I don't think so."

"Would you recognize him if you saw him again?"

"Perhaps," Chiyo said uncertainly.

Reiko hid her dismay at the idea that the rapist might get away with his crime because Chiyo had so little memory of it. "Can you remember anything that might help us identify him?"

More shudders convulsed Chiyo. "His voice. While he did it, he muttered, 'Dearest mother. My beloved mother.' "

Reiko felt her own body shiver with disgust at the rapist's perversion. "Did you hear anything besides his voice?"

"The rain and thunder outside."

That didn't help narrow down the location; it had been raining all over Edo for days. And maybe Chiyo had imagined the clouds she'd seen. "Clouds and rain," was the poetic term for sexual release. Maybe the drug had conjured up the clouds and linked them with the rain, and her violation, in her dazed mind.

"Think again. Can you remember anything else at all?" Reiko said hopefully.

"I'm sorry, I cannot." Chiyo sighed, exhausted and weakened from reliving her ordeal. "I went back to sleep."

Then she froze rigid, her muscles locked in a sudden, brief spasm. Her expression alternated among shock, fright, and horror. "No! Oh, no!"

"What's wrong?" Urgency seized Reiko. "What do you remember?"

"Something new. I woke up again. Just for an instant. Because he slapped my face." Chiyo touched her cheek. "And I heard him say that if I told anybody what he'd done to me, he would kill me, and kill my baby, too."

Her voice rose in hysteria. "I told! And I shouldn't have! Now I'll be punished. Now my baby is going to die!"

"That's not going to happen," Reiko assured Chiyo. "You're safe here. Your father will protect you. My husband and I will catch the man before he can make good on his threat." Reiko would do everything in her power to deliver the monster to justice. Even though she knew there was no guarantee that she would succeed, she said, "I promise."