In the close confines of the palanquin, Reiko could smell Fumiko's stench of urine and unwashed hair and body. Fumiko ate and ate until the lunchbox was empty. She washed the food down with water from the jar Reiko had brought. Then she lunged for the door.
Reiko held it closed. "We'll talk first."
"Let me out, or I'll kill you." Fumiko reached for the knife.
Reiko grabbed Fumiko's wrist. It was skin and bone, thin and fragile.
"Let me go!" Fumiko cried.
As she struggled to pull free, their gazes met, and something unspoken passed between them. Maybe it was a sudden realization that they were both women in unusual circumstances-Fumiko the gangster's daughter who'd become a wild, starving street child; Reiko the samurai lady who'd ventured outside her own society to befriend an outcast. Maybe they had more in common than both of them recognized. Fumiko stopped fighting. When Reiko let go of her wrist, she scowled, but she stayed.
"Talk about what?" Fumiko said.
"Your kidnapping," Reiko said.
Now Fumiko looked surprised. "How do you know about that?"
"A friend of mine heard it from the police."
"The police?" Fumiko glanced out the window in sudden fright, as if she suspected a trap. "We don't want them in our business."
"We" meant her father's gangster clan, Reiko supposed. Not all the police were in cahoots with Jirocho, and he undoubtedly steered clear of those who tried to enforce the law.
"Don't worry, I didn't bring the police," Reiko said. "They only knew about the kidnapping because your father reported it to them."
"My father?" Hope appeared on Fumiko's face, breaking through her distrust like the sun through clouds. "Did he send you?" She sounded puzzled but eager.
Reiko realized that Fumiko thought Jirocho had sent the chamberlain's wife to rescue her, as improbable as that would be. Hating to disappoint the girl, she said, "No, I'm sorry," and watched Fumiko's expression turn woeful. "My husband sent me. He and I want to catch the person who kidnapped you."
Fumiko frowned, her suspicion renewed. "Why?"
"Because he hurt you," Reiko said. She didn't mention Sano's cousin and the nun who'd also been kidnapped; she didn't want Fumiko to think she cared only about them. She felt an affection for this savage little girl. "He should be punished."
"If I ever see him again, I'll kill him myself," Fumiko said. "That's the way we do things. We don't wait for other people to get revenge for us."
Reiko began to wonder what kind of life Fumiko had led within the gangster clan. Maybe she'd been wild and violent even before she'd been disowned. "Still, I want to help you," Reiko said. "Tell me about the man who kidnapped you. What did he look like?"
Confusion shadowed Fumiko's face. She pressed her lips together.
"You don't remember, do you?" Reiko said gently. When Fumiko remained silent, Reiko said, "Tell me what happened."
Fumiko bowed her head and mumbled through the tangled hair that fell over her face: "I was at Shinobazu Pond, feeding the fish. After that, it's all mixed up in my head. There was a little monkey…"
Confused, Reiko said, "A monkey? Where?"
"A man had it on a leash. He said that if I came with him, he would let me play with it."
"Who was he?"
"I don't remember." Fumiko sighed.
The kidnapper had used the monkey as bait for the girl, Reiko de-110 110 duced. Fumiko must have gone with him, perhaps to an oxcart in which he'd carried her away. This was a different ploy than Chiyo's kidnapper had used. Reiko considered the disturbing idea that there were two rapists, possibly three.
"I was playing ball with the monkey," Fumiko said. "Then I woke up and it was gone. Everything was gone." The puzzlement she must have felt sounded in her voice. "I was someplace that was filled with clouds."
That did match Chiyo's story. "Was the man there?" Reiko asked.
Fumiko nodded.
"But you didn't see him?"
"No. Because of the clouds."
"What did he do?" Reiko asked.
She expected Fumiko to be so overcome with shame that she couldn't bear to tell the tale. But Fumiko spoke with startling matter-of-factness. "He pawed me all over. He put his thing in my mouth for me to suck."
Reiko remembered that Jirocho ran illegal brothels. Perhaps Fumiko had seen sex there, between the male customers and girls as young as herself.
"I tried to fight him off, but I couldn't move," Fumiko said. "I screamed and cursed at him. He called me a naughty girl. He spanked my behind until I cried. Then he shoved himself into me and did it."
Reiko was disturbed, and not only by what Fumiko had suffered. The man in Fumiko's case seemed to have different tastes in women and sexual practices than the one in Chiyo's. Still, Reiko believed that Chiyo and Fumiko had both been drugged; maybe their minds had been affected, and that explained the discrepancies. But despite the similarities in the stories, Reiko couldn't dismiss the possibility that there was more than one rapist.
"That's all I remember," Fumiko said. "The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground beside Shinobazu Pond."
"The man hit your face, didn't he?" Reiko said. Although loath to make Fumiko dwell on bad experiences, she must probe the girl's memory for information about the criminal.
Fumiko touched her bruised eye. "No. My father did. He said I led the man on. He said I disgraced myself and our clan."
Here was the most tragic similarity between her story and Chiyo's. Both women had suffered insult heaped upon injury.
"I begged him to forgive me," Fumiko said. Tears trembled beneath her gruff, sullen manner. "I offered to cut off my finger." She added, "That's how we make it up to my father when we've done something wrong."
Reiko had known about the gangsters' rule, but the idea that a little girl should take it for granted was shocking.
"But my father wouldn't listen," Fumiko said. "He threw me out."
At that moment Reiko hated Fumiko's father, and Chiyo's husband, as much as she hated the man-or men-who'd assaulted the women. "I'm sorry about what happened to you. It wasn't your fault, no matter what anybody says. You're a brave, good girl. And I want you to know that my husband will catch the man who hurt you."
But even as she spoke, Reiko remembered that Sano's objective was to punish the man who'd kidnapped and raped his cousin. If a different man had kidnapped Fumiko, would Sano avenge her? He had enough else to do. Reiko made a private vow that if Sano didn't deliver Fumiko's rapist to justice, then she herself would. In the meantime, she could offer Fumiko other assistance.
"For now, you're coming with me," she said, then called to her bearers, "Let's go."
They hoisted the beams of the palanquin to their shoulders. As the vehicle began moving, Fumiko looked aghast. "Go where?"
"To my house," Reiko said, "inside Edo Castle."
"I can't!" Fumiko protested.
Reiko thought the girl must be afraid of a strange place. "Yes, you can," she said soothingly. "I'll give you as much food as you want, clean clothes, and a nice place to sleep. You'll be quite comfortable."
"Please stop," Fumiko said as the bearers carried her and Reiko past the market stalls. "I can't leave!"
Bewildered, Reiko said, "Here you have to sleep outdoors; you have to eat garbage. Why do you want to stay?"
"My father knows I'm here." Fumiko was frantic. "His gangsters have seen me. If I go someplace else, he won't be able to find me."