Lest Our Passage Be Forgotten & Other Stories Page 7

  There was almost no change in Asuhiko’s bearing, but Yasuo got the distinct sense that he was relieved. “I will speak with her. Return in the morning, and I’m sure you’ll be able to make good progress.”

  “Of course, of course.”

  Yasuo left, though he was not at all as confident as Asuhiko that progress could be made. He was not sure that it could ever be made.

  The next morning, Yasuo was staring at the game board, his mind everywhere but on the latest move the spirit had made, when he heard the sounds of a drum and of many paddles cutting the water. He went outside thinking Asuhiko had come to speak with him, but he was shocked to find the Daimyo himself sitting atop the platform. Asuhiko stood just behind him while eight men rowed and a ninth beat a drum to guide the timing of their strokes. The Daimyo strode along Yasuo’s dock in full regalia, his face painted in stark white makeup except for his lips and the pits of his eyes, which were a flaming red.

  The colors of mourning.

  Yasuo lowered his eyes and bowed deeply.

  “You may look upon me, Osokura-san,” the Daimyo said after a healthy pause.

  Yasuo did so, knowing in his heart why the Daimyo had come.

  “My mother passed in the night, smokeman, and her celebration will be in two days.”

  “Forgive me, O-dono, but I didn’t think she was in such poor health. She seemed to have plenty of life in her yet.”

  The Daimyo stared down at Yasuo, perhaps considering how to phrase his next words. “She took her own life early this morning. The pain was too great, I believe, and she wished to rejoin my father in the lands of Shiri-kin.”

  Yasuo bowed his head. “Of-of course, O-dono.”

  “Asuhiko-san doubts that you are ready. He doesn’t think you have enough memories for a proper display. Tell me he is false, Osokura-san. Tell me you have enough to send my mother across in the way she deserves.”

  Yasuo swallowed, hoping dearly his nerves wouldn’t be noticed by the Daimyo. “She will have a grand display, O-dono. There can be no doubt.” They were the only words he could speak at a time like this.

  The Daimyo paused, perhaps reading him, and then he smiled. “Good. That is good.” And with that he returned to the boat.

  Asuhiko didn’t have a chance to say a word, but Yasuo could tell he was nervous.

  Yasuo was as well, probably more so than Asuhiko. Asuhiko might escape this with his life. Yasuo almost assuredly would not. He had just lied to the Daimyo. And two days from now, when the display was revealed, everyone would know it.

  Yasuo brought all the jars containing Fuyoko’s memories to his sitting room and played them over and over, hoping some surge of inspiration would strike him. Perhaps it was resignation to his fate, perhaps it was Fuyoko’s words on their final meeting, but his mind kept swinging toward Harune, and nothing he did could swing it back.

  He did have feelings for Harune. And he was glad he could finally voice it, if only to himself. He had wanted, for so long, to talk with her, to ask her on a walk, to prepare for her one of the meager meals he had learned to cook since his wife’s death. He wondered what Harune would say. She was angry with him, and justifiably so. Yasuo had dishonored her and the memory of her husband. And it made it doubly painful for her since he was all she’d worried about since his death.

  Yasuo remembered Fuyoko’s questions, how horribly uncomfortable they had made him. But all that had changed. It felt like a weight had been lifted. His direction, at least in this one small part of his life, was now clear.

  Yasuo waited until the next day to visit the Fujumoto farm. They had a sizeable plot, but like most of the land in Taishyoko Valley, it hugged a steep slope. The terraced rice paddies were full with tall stalks of rice, nearly ready for harvest.

  Yasuo called out for long minutes, but no one seemed to be home. But then, just as he was ready to head into the rice fields to search for her, Harune stepped out from the nearest paddy along with her daughter. Rika smiled; Harune did not. Harune shooed her daughter off toward their modest home, after which she removed her straw sandals and met Yasuo at the gate.

  “Why are you here?” She dipped her feet in a large bucket of water and began scrubbing the mud from them as if Yasuo wasn’t even there.

  “I’ve come to apologize.”

  “It’s Rika you should apologize to, Osokura-san, not me.”

  Yasuo set down his leather bag and took a deep breath, trying to summon Fuyoko’s forward nature. “It’s not about the coins. I would do that again in a heartbeat.”

  Harune stood, her gaze piercing.

  “I’ve come to apologize about something else,” he said before she could speak. “I’ve been thinking about the memories you’ve asked me to harvest. They were for your husband as much as your children.”

  “I told you. His story must be told.”

  “And I’ve explained that it won’t matter. Not any more. He is well on his way to his new life in Shiri-kin. Time passes differently there, and different things are important. Bringing up his past will not help him.”

  Harune crossed her arms. She was trying to portray strength, but he could see the look of guilt in the tightness of her shoulders, in the sadness that touched her eyes.

  “But,” Yasuo said, “the veil that separates us from Shiri-kin has two sides. There are those in the living world to consider.”

  Harune’s face grew angry. “Which is why I want the children to honor their father.”

  Yasuo shook his head. “No, you want to honor him. I should have said this to you in the beginning, but I was too worried about how that might hurt you. I was too worried that you would never want to see me again. So you see, I wish to apologize for my weakness, Fujumoto Harune. I should have been stronger for the sake of you and your family. But I won’t make that mistake any longer. You need to tell him what’s burning a hole inside you. Stop wasting your money and your children’s feelings. It won’t relieve your grief, not in the long run.”

  “I’ve hidden nothing from my husband,” Harune said.

  “Hide, no. But there are words you wish to share with him, are there not?”

  Harune stared at Yasuo, her eyes beginning to glisten. Her nostrils flared and she took several deep breaths, perhaps considering his words. But then she stabbed her finger toward the village. “Go.”

  Yasuo motioned to his bag. “I can help, today if you wish. I can capture the message you wish to send him and send it into the night sky so he’ll see.”

  “Go!” she shouted. And when he didn’t, she picked up her sandals and stalked into her house, slamming the door behind her.

  Yasuo stared at the house for several long breaths. He had hoped that she would agree, of course, but a part of him had known that she would react this way. She was a proud woman, and speaking of shame, even to a smokeman, would be a very difficult thing for her. Still, he didn’t regret trying; she might, at the very least, summon another smokeman to help her.

  As Yasuo trekked back toward the village, it struck him how similar Harune and Fuyoko were. Why hadn’t he noticed it before? Both women were extremely strong-willed, and weren’t afraid to show it—at least to him. Both of them were hiding something and neither was willing to admit it. Both were using their children, though in admittedly different ways.

  There was one strong difference, though. Harune was making choices because of pride—her own, her husband’s, her family’s. But with Fuyoko it was something else. Not to protect herself, certainly; whether it was her nature or the disease, she didn’t seem to care much what happened to her or what others thought. But if not herself, then who?

  The image of Asuhiko pulling himself taller as he asked Yasuo about the memories played through his mind. As did the three strong memories that Fuyoko had chosen before taking her life. And lastly the way Asukhiko had seemed relieved when Yasuo had told him the memories from the poems wouldn’t be used.

  After several more faltering steps, Yasuo stopped in the middle of the road
, dumbfounded.

  The poems, how beautiful they’d been, how personal. Given their age, she must have kept them for some time, decades perhaps. Asuhiko had known immediately which memories Yasuo had gathered. And he had just as quickly dissuaded him from using them. And the telltale signs of another person in the memory: the smell of ink and the tap of the brush.

  The poet could be no other than Asuhiko.

  It made perfect sense now. The access he had to her, the ease with which he seemed to convince her of things, the constraints he’d placed on Yasuo for her memories. He had been trying to suppress her memories of their relationship, their affair, just as vigorously as Fuyoko had been trying to release them. They were at opposite ends of a private tug-of-war: Asuhiko trying to protect their secrecy while Fuyoko searched for a way to declare her love.

  Yasuo hurried the rest of the way to his island and immediately went to his workroom at the rear of his home. Upon a set of pine shelves, Fuyoko’s memories sat in jars, waiting to be folded into the firework mixture. He had seventeen from their earlier sessions together, most of them rubbish. One shelf lower were the three most recent memories, the ones she’d granted him just before taking her own life.

  A shiver charged up Yasuo’s frame. Fuyoko had wanted to leave a message as well, just like Harune, and he realized how truly, eerily similar the two women were. Similar, he thought to himself ironically, but now on opposite sides of the veil.

  Well, he told himself as he strode toward the shelves, one of them, at least, could no longer refuse his help.

  The following night, with the weather unseasonably warm, the whole of Taishyoko gathered on the parade grounds by the lake wearing their best suits and their finest dresses. The men were freshly shaved and groomed; the women wore new ribbons of green in their hair. They were uncommonly silent.

  Yasuo was asked by the Daimyo to attend him near his dais, and Yasuo did so, though it was with no small amount of nervousness. He caught himself again and again glancing at the Daimyo in attempts at gauging his mood, but doing so was foolish and rude, and the last thing he needed now, he reminded himself, was added scrutiny. He scanned the crowd instead for Harune, but she had not yet come, probably would not because of his presence here.

  After an interminable wait, made doubly worse by the largest crowd Yasuo could ever remember seeing on the parade grounds, the first firework burst bright and beautiful over the clear night sky.

  It swallowed him immediately.

  Dawn. Golden clouds lit from below by the sun that had yet to rise. A warm breeze. Crickets play their song among the pine trees. A feeling of deep comfort, of immense satisfaction, of satiation, as the sun kisses the horizon.

  The firework had long ended, and the crowd was still, savoring the memory that had just been granted them. As Yasuo had instructed, the second streaked upward some time later.

  A mountaintop, covered with short, scrubby grass. Taishyoko far below, nestled and protected by the arms of the valley. A dark storm blows in from the west. Lightning dances among the clouds, and the smell of a dread rain stands strong in the air.

  When it had finished, Yasuo could not help but look at the Daimyo. His face held a deep frown, and with good reason; it was the least positive of the three memories, and would be the most difficult to explain.

  The next firework rose and released its memory upon the crowd.

  A lush river bank. Water gurgles over nearby rocks. Dragonflies swoop over the slick surface as a fragrant breeze tugs at the cattails. A heron crawls through the shallows, just beneath a willow tree that reaches with tender longing toward the darkness of the water.

  It was the strongest memory, the one that would pull the Daimyo in the deepest. It had been the right one to end with.

  Much time passed in silence until eventually everyone realized the proclamation was over. Murmurs traveled among the crowd until a servant struck the huge brass gong on the Daimyo’s dais three times, and then silence reigned.

  Yasuo was summoned to stand before the Daimyo. He had chosen to wear the ornate headdress and robes but had deigned to use makeup so that his mother could see his face as it truly was one last time. Several guards stood upon the dais well behind his carved wooden throne. Asuhiko stood nearby, watching Yasuo with a keen eye.

  “Explain yourself, smokeman,” the Daimyo said, his tone dangerous.

  “Excellency?”

  The Daimyo’s face reddened. Yasuo’s heart sped up, but he had to keep it in check. This would only work if the Daimyo were convinced beyond any doubt that Yasuo had chosen correctly.

  “There were only three fireworks, three memories.”

  “If I may be so bold,” Yasuo said, gazing out over the crowd before eyeing the Daimyo once more, “the common folk need many memories. They create but little in their time, and so must barrage the sky with their accomplishments in hopes of convincing those on the other side that they have been worthy.”

  A low hum began to rise in the crowd until the Daimyo stood and stepped forward. The bells on his robe jingled until he came to a rest.

  His face... By the spirits beyond, could no one see the stunning resemblance to Asuhiko?

  The Daimyo studied Yasuo’s eyes, judging his sincerity. “And the memories you chose?”

  Yasuo bowed his head once. “A willow, as beautiful as she was for all of her days. The daybreak, a memory of the birth of her son.” He said the words with strong conviction, for they were words of truth.

  A murmur of approval spread through the crowd.

  “And the storm?”

  Yasuo smiled and breathed deeply of the warm night air. “The wind of the Daimyo,” he lied, “mighty and strong against his enemies. All three, in their own way, are professions of love and pride.”

  Heads were nodding now, and though the Daimyo tried to hide his emotions, he was clearly pleased. He crossed his arms and closed his eyes, perhaps wishing his mother goodbye now that he was confident her passing had been honored. He turned without another word and left, and the crowd broke soon thereafter.

  Asuhiko lingered, waiting for enough people to leave that he could take Yasuo by the arm and lead him away from prying ears. They walked along the lakeshore until they were finally alone.

  “Thank you for keeping our secret.”

  “The secret was as plain as day, Asuhiko-sama.”

  “And thank you for passing the memories she left me. I had no idea she held them so dear.”

  After an uncomfortable silence, Asuhiko turned and left.

  Yasuo waited until Asuhiko was out of earshot. “It was so tender,” he said to Asuhiko’s retreating form, “so rarely seen. Only the poorest of men would have withheld such a beautiful thing.”

  Several weeks passed, and Yasuo was lonelier than he had ever been. He hadn’t realized how much he would miss Fuyoko and her strange ways. And for some reason his game board remained unchanged; the spirit had not visited his house since before the funeral.

  One morning Yasuo was making tea over his hearth when a knock at his door made him shiver. He turned and found Harune standing outside his doorway.

  “Fujumoto-san.” He stood and stepped toward her, suddenly very self-conscious.

  There was an awkward silence, and then Harune cleared her throat. “I’ve thought about what you said.”

  Yasuo waited in silence, not wanting to break the spell.

  “You were right. There were things I hadn’t admitted to myself, about my husband.”

  “Yes, of course.” Yasuo motioned her inside. “We can begin now if you’d like.”

  She smiled, the friendliest smile he could ever remember upon her face. “No, I’ve told him over the fires, like the ancients used to do.”

  Yasuo frowned, confused.

  “I don’t want you to take my memories, Osokura-san. I’ve given all of them I wish to give. It’s time to leave that behind.”

  “Then forgive me, but why have you come?”

  Harune ducked her head so their e
yes no longer met. Her cheeks reddened. Realization came as they stood together in silence. As far as she’d come, as clear as her intentions now were, she could not bring herself to speak the question out loud.

  “The lake is beautiful today,” Yasuo said. “Perhaps we could row upon it.”

  And just then, as if sent from the land beyond, a gentle breeze brought the fresh scent of the lake with it. Despite the butterflies in his stomach, Yasuo allowed himself a deep, satisfying breath. At the edge of his senses, he could hear Harune doing the same.

  “I would like that, Osokura-san,” Harune said as she exhaled. “I would like that very much.”

  “Please,” he said as they walked toward the lake, “call me Yasuo.”

  Prima

  Within a darkened theater, Mika waited as patiently as her nerves would allow as the Duchess Mileva Vostroma, leading not only her five-year-old granddaughter but a dozen other royals as well, stepped carefully up to the stage. Klara, the ballet company’s choreographer, wearing her light blue leotard and tights, bowed and led the duchess to the center of the stage where Yuri and Anzhelika, the pride of the ballet, their premier and prima, stood.

  “Stop fidgeting,” Inga whispered, grabbing the fingers of Mika’s left hand, which had been picking at the skin of her raw thumb. “There’s nothing to do about it now.”

  Mika squeezed Inga’s delicate fingers back and then clasped her own hands fiercely to keep them still. Inga was right, of course. This was an honor. Truly it was. And yet Mika also knew they needed more time to practice. It was too soon to show off the production, even a part of it, to anyone. “Another week,” she’d told Klara yesterday when the news had broke.

  Klara had merely smiled and shaken her head. “Let them come and see the work you and everyone else have been putting in. Besides,” she’d said, gripping Mika’s shoulder stiffly, “it will be like opening night. We could use practice for that as well.”