He was badly out of practice but found some old scores and soon became immersed in the intricacies of fingering and timing the notes.
He was not aware of his wife until she walked up quickly and took the flute from his lips.
“What is the matter?” he asked blankly. “It was not all that bad, was it?”
Tamako looked down at him sadly. “No, Akitada. But you must not play anymore just now. It is your mother.”
He rose abruptly. “Heavens! Am I not even permitted such a small pleasure in my own house? That is intolerable, and I shall not allow her to dictate my life any longer.”
Tamako looked at him with tragic eyes and sighed. “Yes, I know. Your mother is dead.”
He gaped at her. Dead? His first reaction was relief that it was finally over, the long dying, the dreadful pall which had lain over this house so long. The relief immediately made way for shame, and then depression. Perversely, the event, so long expected, now seemed sudden, badly timed, too soon. “When?” he asked, and felt his heart contracting.
Tamako put a hand on his arm. He had not realized that his fists were clenched at his sides. His right hand hurt and when he raised it, he saw that it still held the antique flute, broken now; a splinter of bamboo had cut one of his fingers. Tamako gave a soft cry and took the pieces, laying them on his desk. Pulling the splinter from his hand, she said, “A short while ago. Another hemorrhage. Your sister was feeding her the morning gruel. I found Yoshiko covered with blood and incoherent with shock and took her away. The doctor has already seen your mother, and the maid and I have tended to her.” She hesitated. “Do you want to go to her now?”
So Tamako had spared him the sight of his mother’s blood-covered corpse. With a shudder he recalled the terrible scene when his mother had cursed him, the gaunt, distorted face, the sunken eyes blazing with hate, heard again the hoarse voice spitting out her vilifications until the words had drowned in a flood of gore.
Tamako gently stroked his arm. “Don’t look so. You knew it was going to happen. It was time.”
Akitada turned away from her sympathy. How could she understand that he felt mostly hatred for his own mother? Anger, regret, hopelessness, pain, but above all hatred. “Yes. I knew,” he said harshly. “I even wished it. And, oh, yes, it was time! She poisoned everything she touched. My life, Yoshiko’s, Akiko’s also! She would have poisoned yours, too, and our son’s! I am glad it is over!” He laughed. “Finally it is over!” Looking around at his father’s room, he shouted, “They are both gone! Gone! The house is ours! Our lives are our own! We can finally find peace and happiness….” He collapsed on his cushion and covered his face with his hands.
“Shh! Akitada!” Tamako came to kneel beside him and touched his arm. “Don’t! The servants will hear you! Please, you must not!” She saw that his face was wet with tears and, with a small moan of pity, took him into her arms.
“My own mother hated me so much,” he sobbed into her hair, allowing her to hold him, rocking back and forth with the pain, “that she died without taking back her curses. What have I done to deserve that? Tell me, what have I done?”
“Shh!” Tamako crooned, patting him as if he were little Yori, “Shh, she could not help it. Death came too quickly.”
Eventually he calmed himself and straightened up. “I suppose,” he said, drying his face with his sleeve, “I had better go pay my respects.”
Akitada had seen death often. It had never been a casual encounter, even when the dead person had been a stranger. But he had never hesitated or flinched as he did now at the door to his mother’s room. He had stood here many times in his life, never eagerly, always wishing himself elsewhere. But always he had faced up to the encounter, because it was expected of him. With a sigh, he opened the door.
His mother’s room was brighter than it had been in her lifetime. Many candles shone on the thin figure of the old woman as she lay, surrounded by the figures of the chanting monks. She was wrapped in the voluminous folds of a heavy white silk gown. Someone (Tamako?) had cut her hair like a nun’s, suggesting a deathbed devotion which Lady Sugawara had never felt in life. It made her look younger, and her features seemed peaceful.
Akitada forced himself to study the face which, when alive, had regarded him with irritation, dislike, cold fury, and indifference, but never with love. He thought it ironic that those who had led blameless lives and whom he had loved had often died with contorted features. There was great perversity in death.
For the benefit of the chanting monks he knelt and bowed, staying in this reverent pose for an adequate time before rising and withdrawing. It was done!
The next days were taken up with funeral preparations. He concentrated on his duties, putting aside his bitterness for a calmer time. Both the house and its inhabitants wore willow-wood tablets with the “taboo” character inscribed on them, to warn outsiders of the ritual contamination of death. The taboo did not, of course, discourage the Buddhist monks, who seemed to take over the house and the lives of its inhabitants and would until after the funeral. But theirs was a different faith from the old religion, which abhorred the very thought of death.
No business of any type could be transacted during this period, and no visitors appeared, though Akitada received many messages of condolence from friends and from his mother’s and father’s acquaintances. It was all very proper and expected, except for one incident.
The day after his mother’s death, Yoshiko came to see him. She was still very pale and looked frail in her rough white hemp gown. Kneeling in front of his desk, she looked with a sigh down at her folded hands. “There is something I have to tell you,” she said. “I have thought about it a long time, for it may be painful for you.” She looked up at him then, her eyes large and serious. “You know, I would not hurt you for the whole world, Akitada.”
Akitada’s heart fell. He had been worried for a while now that she was in some sort of trouble, and Tamako had suspected the same. Hiding his fear behind a smile, he said warmly, “I know. And there is nothing you could tell me that would make any difference in the way I feel about you, Little Sister. Please speak!”
She did not return his smile, saying bluntly, “I am afraid I caused Mother’s death.”
Her tone was so flat that Akitada stared at her. This lack of emotion was quite unlike Yoshiko, who had always had a soft heart. For a moment he wondered whether her presence during the final paroxysms had perhaps deranged her mind. To reassure her, he said briskly, “Nonsense! She was dying. What could you have done that would have made any difference in that certainty?”
Yoshiko shook her head stubbornly.
He searched his memory for Tamako’s report, regretting for the first time that he had not seen his mother’s body immediately. A hemorrhage, Tamako had said. Probably just like the one he had witnessed himself. But Yoshiko had not been with him then. He tried again, “Mother died of a hemorrhage. How could that be your doing?”
“Oh, Akitada. Can’t you guess what happened? I quarreled with her. I knew how she felt about you, knew that one more provocation could bring on a final attack, but I could not keep still any longer.”
Half-afraid of the answer, he asked, “What did you say?”
“I asked her why she would not see you, why she treated you so badly when you had rushed all that way to be at her side. She got very angry and said it was none of my business, but I would not leave it alone. I argued with her and accused her of lacking a mother’s feeling for her son. That was when she started screaming at me.”