"You hurt your hand."
He did not understand at first, then snatched it back. Like her foot, his skin was bright red and blistered under the soot. Dimly aware of pain, he realized that he had burned both of his hands pulling at the debris of her pavilion. Before he could deny the discomfort, Tora lifted the frightened maid up behind her mistress, took the bridle of the horse, and led them off. Akitada stood in the street, watching Tamako's slender figure next to the sturdier one of the maid until they disappeared around the corner. For a moment nothing else mattered than that she had been spared.
But his joy was short-lived. The old servant shuffled up to stand beside him sniffling. Akitada tore his eyes from the corner and sighed. "What happened, Saburo?"
"The master must've fallen asleep over his books," the old man said, weeping. "We'd all gone to bed. It was Miss Tamako's screaming that woke me in the middle of the night. And I saw the study was all afire, and the fire was in the trees and on the roof of the main house and the kitchen. Oh! It was dreadful! The poor master. We could see him lying in the fire. I had to pull Miss Tamako back or she would've run into the flames. It was such a long time before the firemen came, and then there was not enough water in the well and not enough buckets, and now all is gone." He burst into wracking sobs. "All gone!" he cried, hugging himself, "all gone! While I was sleeping!"
Akitada touched his shoulder, lightly, because his hands were painful.
They walked back to the ruins, where Akitada spent futile hours trying to find explanations for what had happened. The professor had died, as one of the firefighters explained, because of an accidental spill of lamp oil. Seeing Akitada's disbelief, he added dispassionately that such things happened to scholars who fell asleep over their books. Saburo objected that his master had always used extreme care with fire.
Akitada wanted it to be an accident, but a black fear gnawed at his heart that it was not, and that it might have been prevented if he had spoken to Hirata sooner. Tamako had survived but she had lost everything. She had lost her father, her only support in this world. He cursed himself for the injured pride which had caused him to evade the older man for days. What if he was responsible for Hirata's death?
The twin demons of grief and shame pursued him all the way home, where he asked about Tamako and was told by his mother, unusually subdued for once, that Seimei had tended to her feet and had brewed a special tea for her and that she was now mercifully asleep. Then she completed his wretchedness by reminding him of the dismal future which lay ahead for a beautiful young woman left without a father or male relative to protect her.
The day after the tragic fire Akitada kept to his room. Seimei, who brought his food and removed it untouched, thought that his master had not moved at all, so still seemed his sitting figure, so frozen his face looking down at the folded hands, raw and red where the hot embers had seared the skin.
Lady Sugawara came, as did Akitada's sisters, but he merely listened to their entreaties and sighed. Tora brought young Sadamu, hoping to cheer up his master, and left, shaking his head.
The following day, Akitada emerged from his room, haggard and unshaven, to tend to the most urgent business and to go to Hirata's funeral.
Hirata's colleagues and his students were there, in addition to many people Akitada did not recognize. Their obvious grief added to his burden of guilt, and he shrank more and more into himself. He was intensely aware of a heavily veiled Tamako, seated behind the screens which also hid his mother and sisters. What must she think of him, who had betrayed his sacred duty to the man who had been a father to him, the "elder brother" who had forsaken them in their need, who had ignored her cry for help?
The journey to the cremation grounds, to finish what the fire had started, passed like a dream, as insubstantial as the black smoke which rose from the pyre of the man who had been more of a father to him than his own father. Afterwards he spoke to no one and returned home to disappear again into his room, where he remained for another day and night, his mind caught either in memories of the past or images of the disaster, eating nothing and drinking only water.
On the fourth day after the fire, still in the midst of his paralyzing despair, a messenger arrived from the university. He delivered a note from Bishop Sesshin, which Akitada unfolded with fingers still painful from the burns.
It said simply, "You are needed."
Outraged, Akitada tore it up and reached for a sheet of paper to write his formal resignation from the university. But something, duty perhaps or the remembered faces of his students, or the sheer pain of holding a brush, nagged at him to go in person. He called Seimei and, with his help, washed, shaved and changed into a clean gray robe.
"Please eat some of this rice gruel," Seimei said, his voice low, as if he were addressing an invalid.
Akitada ignored him and left.
When he walked into the main hall of the school of law, he found it filled with students, Hirata's and his own. Only young Lord Minamoto, still residing at Akitada's house for the sake of his safety, was absent. The students sat gathered in a semicircle around the large figure of Sesshin. The bishop wore a gray robe with a black and white stole to signify his mourning. The students were in their usual dark gowns, but their faces were sad and many eyes were red from weeping.
"Welcome, my young friend," Sesshin greeted him, his voice rumbling. "We have been waiting for you. The students have talked to me about their memories of Professor Hirata, and I have told them that you were one of his special students once. Perhaps you will share some of your memories with us?"
Akitada glared at him. It was a dreadful request!
Cursing Sesshin in his heart, Akitada turned to the students. Ushimatsu was leaning forward slightly, his plain face filled with pity. Akitada looked at the others, wondering if his grief was so transparent to them all. There was Nagai, poor ugly Nagai, his eyes swollen with weeping and his mouth blubbering- at his age! He had not been this distraught in prison with a murder charge hanging over his head! But then Hirata had loved Nagai- like a son almost. Perhaps, not having had a son of his own, he had let his students fill that void. A new wave of misery washed over him. Hirata had loved them all, Akitada included! Tears dimmed the faces before him. He swallowed and tried to speak, but his throat closed up, leaving him mute. He made a helpless gesture to Sesshin, but the fat monk placidly nodded encouragement, pointing to a cushion by his side.
Akitada sat and somehow he found his voice, though later he could not recall what he had told the students. In a way, he had carried on a dialogue with himself about his life with Hirata. It had been a strangely purging experience, and he had wept. But he had found a measure of peace.
When he stopped, there was a long period of silence. Then Sesshin began to recite the soothing words of the Pure Land sutra. He closed by saying, "There is a difficult meditation practice in our religion, in which we submerge ourselves completely in nothingness. Only a few achieve success. But when we are successful, the mind is calm as the sea. Passion, hatred, delusion and sorrow fall away. False thoughts vanish completely. There are no pressures. We issue forth from our bonds and separate ourselves from all hindrances and cut off the foundations of our suffering. This is called entering Nirvana. It is a state of blessedness which can be achieved completely only through death. And it is where our dear friend now dwells forever."
There was the sound of soft sighs from the students, and then Sesshin arose, nodded to the students and to Akitada and walked out.
Akitada got up dazedly and followed. The old monk was waiting on the veranda, his hands on the railings and his eyes fixed on the roofs of the distant city. He did not turn as Akitada joined him.