11. The ex-emperor speaks to the void and plays hell’s biwa.
手元に帰ってきた源氏の巻を前に、御息所の霊を弔う院と明子。本が救われたのだからもう亡霊が現れることはないと語る彼女に、院は静かに首を振ります。
夜が更け、一陣の春風とともに訪れたのは地獄から這い出した亡者たちか、それとも・・・・・・
法皇、ともしびと語りて地獄の琵琶を弾じたまふ事
After other people had gone to bed, Kazuhito went to his room. He took up the urn bag and put it into his futokoro, near his heart.
“You let the doctor sleep in his bed. Are you OK?” Akiko asked him.
“It’s OK. It’s my own issue, and he couldn’t interfere with it,” he said.
“It’s also mine. My youth’s unconscious obsession with you may have remained in the bookmarks. It powered the ghost. I think that she will never come again because you saved the books. Madam Kusunoki promised me she would try to negotiate better treatment for the other Akiko with Lady Sanmi.”
“At least she will not appear in the gown with maple leaves.” The monk smiled but continued his words. “However, women’s hearts are still unreadable for me, especially in when it comes to dead women.”
Then, he and Akiko began to chant for the books in the box on the sheet under the eaves. The soaked book was put on the top of the writing desk, and thick paper was slipped between every page to absorb water. The torn pages peeked out from the cover.
When the slightly gibbous moon rose from the ridge of the mountains, the courtyard was slowly filled with wan light. Akiko’s chanting faded out. At last, Kazuhito felt the weight of her head on his lap.
The oil lamp set for chanting went out, and a screen between the courtyard and the eave fell over without wind or noise. He looked up at the serene moon. Small stones and leaves reflected the moonlight.
He lowered his eyes to Akiko’s sleeping portrait and caressed her hair to smell it. It reminded him of the first time she stayed with him overnight.
Kazuhito looked forward again. A bluish-white fire was floating above the torn book in the darkness. It was no longer a woman’s figure and burned calmly without heat or smell.
“What do you want to say to me?” He gazed at it. “Your book has been saved, but you came here again. Why don’t you stay with your own daughter for a good sleep? She was angry and alone. Do you prefer stories rather than your real love? She needs your help, not mine,” he said.
The ghost fire was still staying there without any words. Kazuhito had also been staring at it calmly for a long time.
“What is needed to salvage your soul from your obsession of stories? Tell me.” When he asked the fire, other fires lit in the courtyard.
“Stories are not fake. They tell the truth.”
She whispered near his ear. Cold sweat began to stream down his back.
“Tell me your truth. I need the truth of you.”
It was as sweet as the pillow talk of a charming woman, but a shiver ran through his bones. From Iga’s words, Otogi had relations to a group of mysterious monks who had used a strange incense for their secret ceremonies. She might have told stories with her sweet voice by every pillow of the degraded monks and Takaharu.
The additional ghost lights in the courtyard were multiplying. Kazuhito thought they might be torches of the monks, who had been standing by Takaharu in the background. Takaharu had supported several Buddhist cult groups, and people called all of them “tengu.”
In general, tengu were dark spirits and monsters, looking like birds pecking at carrion. People believed that degraded noblemen, priests, and monks, by their too-excessive pride, would reincarnate as them.
The midnight air had brought adorable fragrances of spring flowers, not that of rotten meats, strange incense, or the soot of pine trees.
“Why do you need my truth?”
“You said the moon is the mirror of the sky. Every mortal should tell the truth in front of Enma’s mirror.”[1]
He breathed deeply. “So, listen.”
“This is the story of my responsibility to make peace in Japan,” he began to tell.
“Since the civil war started in Japan, the national governance hasn’t worked well. Warlords of the western coastal prefectures ignore any orders of the shogunate and the imperial government. They organize pirates, or sometimes they become pirates themselves. They have been invading and destroying coastal towns in China and Korea to rob everything.”
Kazuhito looked around the courtyard. The ghost fires were multiplying more and more. He couldn’t count the numbers.
“The victims’ anger and bitterness are increasing today. The present Yuan Dynasty of China, which once invaded our islands, is weakened by internal conflict. Therefore, it doesn’t seem to be planning revenge against Japanese pirates. However, once their forces and government are organized by a great leader again, they might begin to attempt a war against Japan on the pretext of suppressing the pirates.” He gazed at the fire in front of him.
“This is not the time to be fighting within our small nation. It is not a problem who governs Japan, the imperial or the shogunate. We should think about preventing and organizing ourselves from being invaded by foreign powers again!”
Akiko moved slightly on his lap, looking like she was having a bad dream. He softly tapped her shoulder with his left hand like a mother helps her child sleep.
“General Kō, his true name was Moronao of Takashina. He burned Yoshino and has been blamed because of his brutal attacks toward the shrines and temples there, even after his death at Tadayoshi’s hand. He was surely an iron-hearted warlord, but he was strongly anxious about the anger of the gods and the ancient spirits in truth. As you know, there are no atheists in the real battlefield. Although I was a titular king, warriors needed my advice as the son of the sun goddess to suppress their worries about the gods’ wrath. Moronao was hesitant about the plan to raid sacred Yoshino, and he asked me in private about what he should be...”
Kazuhito kept his eyes open at the ghost fire. The monarch could not cry over his own decisions.
“We talked freely about an ancestor of Moronao and I. Hundreds of years ago, a Takashina family ancestor, Prince Nagaya,[2] was killed by a false accusation because his rivals feared the prince’s popularity and his ability to negotiate with foreign countries. The prince might have been near the crown if he hadn’t been killed. I asked Moronao if he were in my place, what he would decide about ending the war.”
Were the ghost fires listening to him? Anyway, he spoke to the darkness behind the nearest fire.
“I knew that his family hadn’t forgotten their history, although the Takashina were stewards of the Ashikaga then. They studied hard about Chinese classics and wanted a chance to marry into a higher-class noble family of royal bloodlines. I tried to move his pride for his ancestors, who made a part of our nation in ancient times. ‘Go,’ I said. ‘As soon as possible, we should end this unfruitful domestic conflict. If there were anything to disrupt that, they aren’t our gods, who would save and protect Japan.’”
Kazuhito took his breath and said in a low voice,
“Burn them completely!”
All the fires wove dramatically without any wind.
“Listen, I told my story. Even now, I haven’t regretted my words. I just regret that someone leaked that. Except for you, all the Southern Court were able to run away to the village because a courtier sent a messenger to save his betraying son in Yoshino. Moronao accomplished his assault on the opposite base without any remarkable resistance. After the victory, Moronao began disrespecting the old authorities, including the priests and the royals. Tadayoshi suspected his steward had planned to be a new emperor as a long-term revenge for Prince Nagaya…”
Kazuhito said, “That’s all.”
“Doubts decomposed the unity of the Ashikaga shogunate, each other. This situation has benefited the Southern Court in recent years. In your turn, tell me your story. If you came from hell, could you find the people? Where are Moronao, Tadayoshi, or Takaharu? Are they waiting for me? Did Buddha salvage them?”
The woman’s laughing voice sounded near his ears. She didn’t answer his questions.
“I’m now just a prisoner. I may come to your place soon. Are you here to bring me to hell? I have not believed in hell for a long time. Please show me the evidence that you’re real. Why don’t you bring a burning iron carriage to me?”[3] he asked. “I was once an emperor of Japan, so I’d like you to assign them to take me on a sedan at least.”
It sounded like voices laughing around him. They were high and low, or women’s and men’s voices, and the waves of laughing moved the ghost lights.
“Tell us. Tell us your truth!”
Clapping of palms began, and someone started quick-picking the strings of the biwa. That was an incredible technique to play. That was familiar to him.
“Kin-mune?”[4]
No, he shouldn’t be here. Kin-mune, Young Lord Saionji, was Kazuhito’s best friend. He had cut off his head by Takaharu’s order because of an accusation of attempted rebellion to support the Kamakura’s successors twenty years ago.
“Why are you here?”
The light knocking on the biwa body was the only reply. The sounds of clapping became louder.
“Here?”
Somebody chuckled in his vicinity. He looked back at the farmhouse. His biwa was in his bedroom. He wished that it had been here.
Suddenly, a beautiful instrument appeared in front of him, where the wet book was on the desk, from the darkness. It hovered in the air, brightening with a ghost fire.
“Here you are.”
It looked like it was made of ebony, as dark as charcoal in the burnt ruins of Yoshino. The sun and the crescent moon were painted with red lacquer and were arranged on the body. Both were floating on the bloody lacquered sea containing fine gold and silver particles.
The biwa from hell was there.
The fastest playing by strings sounded from somewhere, enticing him to play together. No one could follow Kin-mune’s quickest sound in those days. When he was killed, he had left his pregnant wife. Some elder nobles said to each other that his abnormal playing skill led to his unfortunate fate, although none blamed Takaharu directly for executing an imperial councilor without a judge. Fuck them.
Kazuhito had missed his amazing performance for a long time. He had been waiting to play the biwa with him again!
“Tell us. Tell us your truth.”
Kazuhito felt the audience was waiting for him. War dead, hell’s residents, or tengu were sitting there. They loved the art, the music, and something to excite hearts, like living humans. He gently let Akiko’s head down from his lap to the sheet. He took off his cloth cap and placed it under her head as a soft pillow.
His arms caught the biwa from the underworld and picked up the plectrum like bone-white from the body. The strings were already in tune. He was satisfied with their rich sound.
“It is like a dream...” he said.
Some scattered sounds rang in his head, but he ignored them. He started playing under the moonlight.
The strings fitted his left fingers. The colors were moon silver. Kazuhito looked around the ghost lights again but couldn’t find his friend’s figure. All of them looked like just anonymous fires. The voices of nobles, warriors, monks, farmers, merchants, peasants, and other people were speaking and singing, accompanied by clapping. No differences could be found among them.
Hell may treat all humans as equal.
He followed the extremely quick playing with deep chords. The dead player slowed his speed down to make harmonies as a reply. Suddenly, someone cut in on them with the flute. The blows were strong and arrogant. It seemed to try to take the initiative of the ensemble.
Kazuhito snorted. “Hah! Ex-Emperor Go-Daigo! After all, your main weapon was the flute, not the biwa, right? Poor dead, even in death, you want to be an absolute leader.”
Takaharu was obsessed with getting the biwa’s playing license. He had Minister Saionji, the grandfather of Kin-mune, give him the license. However, after winning the power game with real violence, he forgot his passion to play the biwa. The emperor’s interest changed to direct political power, like horses or treasures imported from China. Dust accumulated on the strings. When he ran away to Yoshino, the loyal biwas, including Genjō, had left the empty palace in Kyoto. Court ladies remaining in the palace noticed and saved them from the fire.
The sound of the flute was powerful and emotional. It was not so bad.
“Sorry, but I can play the biwa better than you. I prefer your flute.” Kazuhito smiled and added some chords to it.
Soon after, harps, percussion, and shengs[5] joined in. The flute became part of the harmony. The audience’s admiration increased as the clapping continued.
Kazuhito didn’t consider what kind of music he was playing. His fingers moved automatically along the excitement of his heart.
She began to sing a song.
The voice was sweeter than all other singers he had ever heard. It was sung in an unknown language, but he felt it was a love song.
Kazuhito forgot his other obsessions.
He forgot his young son, Iyahito, who was alone without his parents. He also forgot the existence of his wives, family members, loyal retainers, samurai in the shogunate, and the national people—all living humans. His cheeks were soaked with tears, and he couldn’t stop playing. It was like an eternal orgasm. There was peace and equality on the four strings of hell’s instrument. He wanted to become an anonymous ghost fire, playing the never-ending music.
“Kazuhito.”
Someone called him from the closest place in his heart. It wasn’t very pleasant.
He noticed that Akiko’s hair was getting longer and longer. She was still sleeping, but her hair strands, like tendrils of vines, tangled in his fingers and plectrum. He tried to break them, but they grew up in succession and twined his body again to attempt to stop his playing.
“Get off me!” he shouted. “Everyone is waiting for me to play!”
The audience booed, and Kazuhito tried to follow the harmony again.
“Kazuhito!”
An arm of bones appeared from his futokoro and poked through the biwa. The bone’s hand grabbed his right wrist.
“No!”
Kazuhito screamed as if the arm had also pierced him. It was a real pain. He felt extreme sadness—the plectrum swung in the air several times. Suddenly, by his struggling, the strings were cut.
“……!”
The dead in the courtyard were screaming, too.
At the same time, the rooster crowed. Although the moon remained on the border of the western mountains, the sunshine began to leak from the east.
The biwa and the plectrum melted and vanished as rotten meat on his lap. Kazuhito grabbed the urn in his chest with his left hand and lay down in front of the books.
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1. Enma is the king of the Buddhists’ hell. In hell’s court, dead humans must stand before Jōhari Mirror, which reflects their doings in life.
2. (684?–729) The grandson of the 40th emperor, Tenmu.
3. People believed that hell’s carriage took very sinful humans away, even if they were still alive.
4. (1310–1335) The politician of the Saionji family. He secretly supported a brother of the last shogun of the Kamakura shogunate and attempted a coup d’etat against Go-Daigo.
5. A wind instrument with bamboo pipes.
Continued in Chapter 12, "Days in Green."
第十二章「みどりの日々の事」に続きます。
