The Concubine’s Tattoo

26

As midnight approached, the fog dispersed over the banchō, the district west of Edo Castle where Tokugawa hereditary vassals lived. Stars glittered in ragged patches of indigo sky. The moon’s radiance turned the fleeing mist to a silvery haze that lit the labyrinth of deserted streets. In the dense bamboo thickets surrounding hundreds of tiny, rundown yashiki, nocturnal life seethed. Foraging rats rustled the wet leaves; stray dogs fought; crickets chirped. But most of the human population slumbered within dark houses. Sentries dozed in gatehouses, enduring the tedium of a quiet watch. All was peaceful-except the Kushida estate: There torches burned above the gate and around the bamboo thicket. Tokugawa troops patrolled the perimeter and perched on the thatched roof, preventing the escape of the criminal under house arrest.

In a small, dark storage chamber converted to a jail cell, Lieutenant Kushida lay on his futon. The alchemy of sleep carried him out of imprisonment, into the Large Interior. Down empty corridors he followed the sound of Lady Harume’s singing:

“Summer’s green bamboo shoots grow tall and bold,

The lotus spreads its pink petals…”

Kushida’s heart filled with joyous anticipation. This time she would accept his love. She would satisfy the terrible lust that gnawed at him.

“Rain showers the roofs,

A cuckoo calls-

Come to me, my love…”

At last Kushida arrived at Lady Harume’s door. He pushed it open and saw Harume lying dead on the floor. Blood drenched her nude body and long, tangled hair. The fatal tattoo branded her shaven pubis like ink on ivory. As Kushida stared in horror, Lady Harume’s eyes opened. Her hand beckoned. In a strangled croak, she sang:

“Come to me, my love!”

Jerking awake, Kushida lurched upright in bed. His chest heaved as though he’d been running. And his manhood was erect, painfully engorged with the lust he still felt for Lady Harume. She had haunted his dreams ever since they’d first met. After her death, the dreams had become nightmares. Yet love and desire persisted. And within his spirit, like underground steam seeking a fissure through which to explode, swelled his anger toward the woman who had humiliated and ruined him.

Clambering to his feet, Kushida cursed himself for succumbing to sleep and allowing the dreams to come. But he’d needed a reprieve from the harsh reality of his situation. Now he paced the floor, trying to bring his emotions under control.

At first he’d attempted to resign himself to his imprisonment with samurai stoicism. He’d spent the day in quiet meditation, eating the meals brought to him, depositing his urine and feces into the waste-bucket. But soon he could hold his peace no more. The room had grown dark and steadily colder since nightfall because his captors would give him no lamp or charcoal brazier, lest he try to burn his way out. The shame of being caged like an animal tormented his spirit. And the internal pressure of anger and need expanded within him, fueling his desperate craving for freedom.

Ten steps along one blank wall, then Kushida turned the corner and marched eight steps along another, and ten more past the door outside which a soldier stood guard. Having memorized the room’s dimensions, he needed no light to direct him. The fourth wall of the room boasted a high, barred window that had once overlooked the garden but now faced a corridor-the house had expanded over the years, with new wings added to accommodate the family’s growth. Now the wavering glow of a candle moved across the window, casting dim light into Kushida’s cell. An old, white-haired samurai appeared in the corridor.

“Can’t sleep, young master?” It was Yohei, a retainer whose family had served Kushida’s clan for generations. As he smiled, sorrow deepened the wrinkles in his round face. “Well, neither could I, so I came to keep you company.”

The rest of the household, including Kushida’s parents, had avoided him all day. They believed him guilty of murder and wanted no share of his disgrace. But Yohei had adored Kushida since his birth, always giving him special treats, caring for him like a doting uncle. He alone had braved social censure to visit Kushida periodically. Now he said, “Are you bearing up all right? Anything I can do for you?”

The old man’s kindness brought tears to Kushida’s eyes. “How did this happen, Yohei?” he lamented.

“Fate often does strange things. Perhaps it is punishing you for the sins of your ancestors.”

After hours of soul-searching, Kushida could blame neither fate nor his ancestors for the ills that his own actions, his own history, had created. Across the distance of twenty-five years, he saw the school where he’d learned the art of the spear. He heard the voice of his teacher.

“All your energy must be channeled into the development of combat skill,” Sensei Saigo lectured the class. “Don’t dissipate your strength in wasteful self-indulgence. At meals, stop eating before you’ve had your fill; let hunger sharpen your awareness. Abstain from liquor and frivolous recreation, which dull the mind and weaken the body. Above all, resist the temptation to gratify your carnal desires. The spear is your manhood. Through it, you shall find true fulfillment.”

Young Kushida had yearned to be a great spear fighter. Hence, he zealously followed Saigo’s teachings. Then one day when Kushida was twelve, he discovered in his father’s study a book of shunga. The frontispiece was a painting of a beautiful naked woman coupling with a samurai lover. A dark, unfamiliar excitement filled Kushida. Instinctively he reached under his kimono. His hands began a motion they’d never been taught. Excitement culminated in blinding ecstasy-followed by anguish and guilt. He’d committed the self-indulgence that Saigo had warned him against, sacrificing discipline to pleasure.

When he confessed his misdeed, the sensei had assigned him extra combat practice and meditation sessions. At first Kushida yielded to his physical urges often, but eventually he overcame his bad habit. He immersed himself in naginatajutsu, attaining impressive skill, and remained celibate. Even while working near the shogun’s women, he could go days, even months, without thinking about sex.

Then Lady Harume came to Edo Castle.

He’d been on duty the day she arrived. When Madam Chizuru introduced her to Kushida, a jolt of recognition rocked him. With her pert face and voluptuous figure, she resembled the girl in the shunga that had provoked Kushida’s first orgasm. Repressed desire exploded in him, and the desire focused on Lady Harume, who’d reawakened it.

Confused by lust, Kushida hadn’t perceived the danger. He decided there was no harm in merely looking at a woman. Thus he’d begun spying on Harume. Soon he stopped combat practice. At night he would stimulate himself to climax while fantasizing about her. He became aware of the loneliness of a life dedicated solely to Bushido. True fulfillment, he discovered, also required union with a woman.

Gathering his courage, he’d confessed his feelings in letters to Lady Harume. When she ignored them and began avoiding him, he persuaded himself that she was just shy, or afraid. He had something precious to offer her: a heart that had never belonged to another woman; a body unsullied by past amorous adventures. How could she not welcome such a gift? So he took the drastic step of speaking his love. But Lady Harume had repulsed him. Her words still hurt like a deep, festering scratch across Kushida’s mind.

“Why do you keep bothering me? When I didn’t answer your silly letters, it should have been clear that I don’t want anything to do with you.” Repugnance distorted Harume’s pretty face. “You must be as stupid as you are ugly. You want me to run away with you? Die in a love suicide with you so we can spend eternity together?” Harume laughed. “You’re not even fit to breathe the same air as me. Now go away and leave me alone. I never want to see you again!”

Humiliated and furious, Kushida hadn’t just shaken Harume and threatened to kill her, as he’d admitted to the sōsakan-sama. He’d twisted her arm behind her, covered her mouth when she tried to scream for help, and thrust her into a vacant room. There he’d torn her kimono and forced her to the floor. He meant to kill her, then and there-but first he would have her.

Harume fought back. She bit his hand, and when he loosened his grip, she kicked him in the groin. While he doubled over in speechless agony, Harume laughed. As if to increase his pain, she said, “I already have a lover. I belong to him forever. Soon I shall wear a tattoo that proclaims my love for him, on this body that you want so much.” Then she escaped.

In the terrible days that followed, Kushida realized what had happened. He’d thrown away everything-discipline, self-respect, and the serenity of the pure life of Bushido-for a cheap, shallow girl who didn’t recognize his worth. A girl who would tattoo herself, like a common whore! Out of love grew hatred. Kushida blamed Harume for his misery. He plotted revenge. He would sneak into her room while she slept and drive his spear through her. He would strangle her with his bare hands, while having his pleasure from her. These violent fantasies aroused him as much as his dreams of love once had. But never had he foreseen that her death would fail to ease either his desire or his jealous anger. He hadn’t expected to feel such awful guilt over hurting Harume. He’d tried to steal her diary because he feared she’d recorded his attack on her, but he hadn’t anticipated his current sorry predicament.

Now a new sense of purpose grew in him. He didn’t want to live without his beloved Harume, but he didn’t want to die for her murder, either. The disgrace of a public execution would forever taint his clan’s honor. Somehow he must appease Lady Harume’s spirit and bring peace to his own, while restoring the honor of his family name.

However, he could accomplish nothing while locked in this cell. Restlessness tormented Kushida like spiders writhing in his muscles; the pressure inside him mounted.

Yohei said, “How about a game of go? It will soothe your mind, young master.”

Let me out of here! Kushida almost screamed. He wanted to beat on the walls in rage, yet he forced himself to say calmly, “Thank you for coming, but how can we play go, with you out there and me in here?”

Yohei beamed. “Two boards and two sets of counters. We’ll call out our moves and make them for each other.”

Though he had no wish to play, a plan formed in Kushida’s mind. “All right,” he said.

The retainer fetched the equipment. Through the window bars he passed a lacquer container of flat, round black and white pebbles and a four-legged ebony board with a grid of perpendicular lines incised on its ivory surface.

“You may open the game, young master,” Yohei said.

Kushida placed a black pebble at the intersection of two grid lines. “Eighteen horizontal, sixteen vertical.”

“Four horizontal, seventeen vertical,” Yohei responded.

The pressure grew within Kushida as he set a white pebble in place. Every fiber of him tensed; the need for freedom swelled the blood in his veins. He endured the slow, tedious game, making moves at random. From outside the door came loud snores: The guard had fallen asleep.

“Young master, you’re not concentrating on the game,” Yohei chided. “I’ve captured almost all your pieces, and you haven’t taken any of mine.”

Hating to deceive his friend, Kushida said, “You’re wrong, Yohei. I’m winning.”

Yohei’s puzzled face appeared in the window; he squinted, trying to see Kushida’s board. “One of us has gotten the moves mixed up.”

“It must be me,” Kushida said. “I can’t keep my mind on the game.” Moving close to the window and lowering his voice, he said, “It would be better if we sat together. You could make sure all the pieces are in the right spots.”

Yohei shook his head. “I can’t let you out, young master. You know that.”

“But you can come in here with me.” Seeing indecision pucker the old man’s forehead, Kushida coaxed, “Come on. As long as you leave before the guard wakes up, he won’t care.”

“Well…”

Kushida’s desperation inspired cunning. “You don’t believe I killed Lady Harume, do you, Yohei?”

“Of course not,” the loyal retainer said indignantly. Then his certainty wavered. “But you attacked the sōsakan-sama and his men.”

“I didn’t kill Harume,” said Kushida. “I didn’t even know she was going to tattoo herself, so why would I have poisoned her ink jar? But Sōsakan Sano needs to make an arrest, so he framed me. I never broke into his house; I never attacked anyone. It’s all a lie!”

Sputtering with outrage, Yohei burst out, “How dare the sōsakan-sama falsely accuse my young master? I’ll kill him!”

“And end up convicted for murder yourself? No, Yohei, you mustn’t.” Kushida sighed with feigned resignation. “All we can do is wait for the truth to come out. Then my name will be cleared.” His skin felt tight, his skull ready to explode from the throbbing pressure. “Now open the door and come inside so we can finish our game. I promise I won’t try to escape. You’ve known me all my life, Yohei. You can trust me.” Kushida let his voice quaver: “Besides, I’m lonely. I-I need someone near me.”

Yohei’s eyes brimmed with love and pity. “All right.” He put a finger to his lips and headed toward the door.

Hurriedly, Kushida replaced the go pieces in their container, and tucked it in his kimono. Then came the clank of the door’s iron bar as Yohei pulled it out of the brackets. Kushida lifted the go board by its legs and stood to one side of the door, heart pounding. The guard snored on. Slowly the door slid open. Yohei entered the room on tiptoe, holding the candle.

“Young master…?”

Kushida stuck out his foot. Yohei tripped over it and sprawled on the floor. “What-?!”

In the space of a blink, Kushida leapt over Yohei and into the corridor. “No, young master!” he heard his friend shout. The guard sat against the wall, spear in hand. Hearing the commotion, he stirred. Kushida swung the go board. With the sickening thump of solid wood and ivory against bone, it slammed against the guard’s head; he fell unconscious. Kushida flung aside the board, plucked the spear out of the guard’s limp hand, then ran down the corridor.

“Please come back, young master!” Yohei called, hobbling after him. “You’ll never get away. The yashiki is surrounded. The soldiers will kill you!”

Doors screeched open and cries arose as the noise awakened the household. Troops appeared and began chasing Kushida. “The prisoner is loose!” they cried. “Catch him!”

Legs pumping furiously, Kushida raced for the back door. He glanced over his shoulder and saw two soldiers gaining on him. Pulling the container of go pieces out of his kimono, he tossed it into the soldiers’ path. The container hit the floor and the lid popped off, scattering pebbles. Amid surprised yelps, the soldiers slipped, then crashed to the floor.

Kushida flung open the door and burst out into the lantern-lit courtyard, startling two sentries. Wielding his stolen spear with deadly efficiency, Kushida struck their heads with its shaft. They crumpled to the ground. More soldiers leapt off the roof to join the battle, but Kushida was already through the gate. Two slashes of his spear wounded the guards stationed outside. Patrolling troops rushed to the rescue; archers fired arrows. Running for his life, his love, and his honor, Kushida fled into the night.