“Sneaking unseen into a small village is worse than entering a lord’s castle,” Kaze remarked as he walked over to the cooking fire and sat down.
“What are you doing here? I was told you left.”
“I did leave. Now I’m back. I want to spend a few days with you.”
“Why?”
“I want to watch the village, and the best place to watch the village is from inside it.”
“What for?”
Kaze sighed. “Something is not right here. It destroys my ki, my harmony and balance. I’m upset by it and want to restore that harmony.”
“What are you talking about?”
Kaze smiled. “Let’s just say I need a favor. I want to watch the village and the Magistrate and the headman Ichiro and maybe that prostitute, Aoi, too. If I’m caught here, it may mean trouble for you. I walked out on Lord Manase, and I’m sure he was upset. The fact that Lord Manase was undoubtedly upset about my leaving is why I slipped in here unseen. So the most powerful man in the District will not be pleased if he learns I’m back spying on the people in the District. He may also not be pleased with you if he learns I’m doing this spying from your house. It may be dangerous, and you could end up back in that tiny cage. If you say no, I’ll understand.”
Jiro turned back to his cooking. “You’ll have to wait a few minutes for dinner. I wasn’t expecting company, so I only cooked enough for one.”
“Good.”
The next morning, Jiro woke at his habitual time. The familiar darkness of his farmhouse wrapped around him. On the other side of the platform he could hear the breathing of the samurai, slow and regular.
Jiro got up from the platform, shrugging off the sleeping quilt. He stood on his feet, listening for the samurai once more, and moved toward the door, reassured that his guest was oblivious to his nightly sojourn.
Sliding back the door of his hut with exaggerated caution, Jiro slipped out into the cold night as soon as the door opening was large enough. He carefully slid the door back into place.
The velvet night nipped at his flesh with surprising sharpness. He thought briefly of slipping back into his hut to get a jacket but decided against it. He didn’t want the samurai to know what he was doing any more than he wanted the rest of the village to know what he was up to. He felt ashamed by his nightly ritual, knowing that the others in the village would view it as a sign of weakness and something a real man wouldn’t do, but he couldn’t help himself.
The moon was a quarter full, so coming from the complete blackness of the hut, Jiro found it almost light enough to make out details on the ground. But Jiro didn’t need to see his path. He knew it from countless repetition, over nine thousand journeys to the same destination.
He skirted the village and made his way up a nearby hillside. The pine trees gathered round him, but he knew the placement of every trunk and made his way rapidly up the path to the top of the hill. There, in a natural clearing, was the village graveyard.
Jiro went directly to a large stone flanked by a small stone. When he first started making this journey to the graveyard, he would worry about ghosts, but now it was as if the ghosts of all the past people in the village approved of what he was doing, and he felt safer in this place of the dead than in any other place on earth.
In front of the two stones, he squatted down.
“Anata,” he said tenderly, “Dear.”
He reached out and touched the stone that memorialized his wife, now dead over twenty-five years. Then he tenderly stroked the stone that marked his dead son, who outlived his mother by only two days.
“How are you, Dear?” Jiro whispered. “The samurai has come back to stay with me. He’s a strange one, but he has a good heart and I like him. I don’t have much news to report to you. Things are more quiet in the village now that Boss Kuemon is gone, but I don’t understand what the samurai is doing.” Jiro shook his head. “Samurai! Always starting wars that kill peasants. Such a bother, neh?”
He stopped talking and felt the tears welling up in his eyes. The same tears that came every day for over twenty-five years, grieving over the loss of his wife and son. It was a weakness, Jiro knew. A man was supposed to bear it, showing strength in adversity. But Jiro couldn’t help it. When his wife died, some part of him died, too. He felt incomplete without her, and the only time he felt whole again was when he was once more in her presence.
A rich man might have an altar in his house, to call the spirits of the dead to him with a fine brass bell. Jiro just had the stars and the pine trees and the two roughly hewn rocks to represent his wife and infant son. Yet somehow visiting his wife every day made him feel content and whole and ready to bear another unbearable day, until it was his karma to join her.
In the darkest shadow of the trees, Kaze stood watching Jiro. He was close enough to hear Jiro’s conversation with the dead and knew what the two rocks meant immediately. He slipped back deeper into the forest, silently making his way back to Jiro’s hut so he could seem to be sleeping when Jiro came back.
So the mystery of where the charcoal seller went every night was solved. Kaze didn’t know if the dear one was a wife, mother, or mistress, but it was plain that Jiro was still linked to her in spirit. Kaze couldn’t see Jiro’s tears, but he could tell from the charcoal seller’s ragged breathing that there were tears.
Kaze thought of his wife, killed along with his son and daughter when his castle fell to the Tokugawa forces. She died a samurai’s death, killing her own children before they could be captured and tortured and then driving the blade of a dagger up under her chin and into her throat. The servants who escaped said she never hesitated when she realized all was lost. She retired to the castle’s keep and did what she had to do, ordering the servants to set fire to the keep in a clear voice that never once wavered, according to the old family retainer who was instructed to report on her death to others, instead of joining her in death.
It was a fine death and a brave one. But Kaze wished she had been less the samurai’s daughter and wife and more the woman. He wished she could have found a way to survive the destruction of their castle while Kaze was out fighting the Tokugawas. He felt tears forming in his own eyes, especially when he thought of the shining eyes of his children. Now, years later, Kaze found himself agreeing with the charcoal seller. Samurai were always starting wars, and peasants and other innocents were always dying in them. At one time it seemed so logical and sensible to him that bushido, the way of the warrior, was the natural way for a man to live. Now he wondered, especially when he dwelt on the losses that way had brought.
When Jiro returned to the hut, he found the samurai still sleeping soundly, breathing in a slow, gentle rhythm. Jiro didn’t know that the samurai’s breathing masked a sorrow as deep as his own and tears as bitter and salty as the ones the peasant shed every night in the forest. He drifted into a dreamless sleep.
Jiro woke early and stretched his stiff bones. When he sat up he was surprised to see the samurai already awake. Jiro nodded to the samurai and hoisted his heavy charcoal basket on his back. With another dip to say goodbye, Jiro left his hut to make his rounds, selling charcoal to the people who needed it. The activities in the village were no different from those on any other day, for nature and survival know no holidays, but with the elimination of Boss Kuemon the people had smiles on their faces and a lightness to their step.
Despite the gnawing danger of having the samurai hiding in his hut, Jiro, too, was especially loquacious that morning, actually trading small talk with several customers. By the time he returned to his hut, his basket was considerably lighter.
He entered the gloom of his hut and was surprised to see the samurai sitting in the lotus position, his eyes closed and his hands in his lap. He expected to find him gone or, at the very least, spying through the wooden shutters that covered the windows of the hut, looking at whatever it was that had prompted him to return to the village.