Fish of the Seto Inland Sea

The next morning, Haruko found that all the white hagi flowers had gone from the garden, blown away by the wind.

‘He was blessed with too much,’ people said. ‘He was intelligent, handsome and rich. He had a lovely wife and children. He was so lucky that the devil was jealous of him.’

The coffin was taken back home and there was a quiet family funeral that night. The public Buddhist ceremony was held at home, three days later. Ayako wore a black kimono and the children were all in white. Shuichi was sitting nearest to the altar as chief mourner. Ayako sat next to him and then the girls in order of age.

Baron Kida, a close friend of Shobei, was the senior member of the funeral committee. Led by the head priest of the family temple, the ceremony was impressive and well attended. The house was filled with wreaths sent by the famous. They spilled out from the house through the gate into the street.

The mourners were struck by Ayako’s loveliness. At twenty-eight, she seemed to be at the height of refined beauty. The black kimono enhanced her classical features. It was customary to include a black mourning kimono in a trousseau, and Kei had bought the most expensive black silk. Kei had always been frugal and Tei-ichi had been shocked at its price.

‘It is not necessary to have such good quality,’ he protested.

Kei was undaunted on this occasion.

‘Black silk is very revealing,’ she said. ‘If the material is cheap, the colour is muddy and it will stand out when everybody is in black. The young wife of the Miwas cannot look unstylish.’

Pale-faced but composed, Ayako sat between Shuichi and Takeko. The expensive black silk was almost luminous. The edge of her collar against the dark kimono was so white that it almost hurt her eyes. The guests forgot for a moment the rites and incense when they saw her.

Shintaro had prepared her for the day. During his long illness, he had often talked about her life after he had gone.

‘I have loved you from the moment I saw you,’ he said. Ayako was unaccustomed to this kind of expression and at first she looked at him blankly. He took her hand. ‘I will always love you wherever I am.’

It was Shintaro who told her to become a Christian. He thought that her simple adoration of him could find an outlet in the worship of Christ. The teachings would comfort her.

The funeral went on for a long time. Many people came from all over the area. The thick white smoke of incense and the incessant chanting of sutras continued. Shuichi stayed still all through the funeral and people talked about how good he was.

Shobei sat squarely right behind Shuichi. He kept repeating to himself, as though to convince fate, that he had to live for twenty more years. ‘I have to see to Shuichi until he finishes university.’

The next day, an ox cart made a slow journey to the temple through winding village streets carrying the coffin. The villagers came out to pay their last respects to Shintaro. Most women cried, but their tears were for the four-year-old Shuichi in a white kimono, carrying his father’s name tablet and walking behind the coffin. Haruko walked with him. It was either Ayako or Takeko’s place to be nearest to Shuichi, but no one protested. In the family, Haruko was beginning to be regarded as trustworthy.

4 (#ulink_3f5c7411-3269-5de8-a089-cc904e7320be)

Shobei’s Garden (#ulink_3f5c7411-3269-5de8-a089-cc904e7320be)

Shobei was sitting in his study. It was a room connected to the main house by a covered corridor and faced a garden of its own. The day was fine and all the sliding doors were open. He was at a desk under the window on which were a large abacus, a lacquered box with brush and ink stone, and a wooden box containing a substantial number of documents.

The chrysanthemums in the garden were vivid yellow. He had forgotten that their season had returned. After the funeral, courtesy visits to and from relatives and friends had kept them busy for several weeks. A carp jumped out of the water of a large pond.

He remembered the day when he waded into the pond in a formal hakama and kimono with family crests to catch a carp for a member of the imperial family. That year, on the plain nearby, the Emperor had held grand military manoeuvres over three days and the Miwas were chosen to accommodate a prince. A special cook was hired from the town and the carp was duly presented to the imperial table.

Shobei and Shintaro were invited to sit at the table with the prince and allowed to share the dishes. Ayako, in her specially prepared dark blue kimono with painted and embroidered chrysanthemums, attended the table.

When the prince left, having thanked the host and his son for their hospitality, he fixed his eyes on Shintaro and said, ‘You are a lucky fellow to have such a beautiful wife.’

After he had gone, Shintaro remarked, ‘Thank goodness, we aren’t living in the barbaric feudal period. He might have tried to take Ayako with him.’

‘Don’t be disrespectful to the imperial family,’ Shobei scolded his son, but now he understood Shintaro’s concern for Ayako’s vulnerability.

Until Shintaro’s illness became serious, Shobei thought he had been lucky. They lived in the south along the Seto Inland Sea. The climate was mild. The soil was fertile. The sea was productive. He invested well. And he had an excellent son and grandson to carry on the family name.

Shobei sighed and opened the polished wooden box on his desk and took out an envelope. He began to tear it up.

He could hear his own voice telling Shintaro, ‘I am sure to die before you. All the instructions as regards to our property are kept here when you need them.’ He also remembered that Shintaro hesitated as if to say, ‘No doubt you will live for a long time yet,’ but eventually he just said, ‘I shall carry out your instructions, otohsan.’

Shobei’s reminiscence was broken.

‘Did you want me, otohsan?’ Rinji, Shobei’s younger son, came into the room.

‘Oh, yes, sit down.’ Then Shobei said, ‘It’s very mild for November, isn’t it?’

Rinji, who was not in the habit of being received with such a sociable remark from his father, looked a little surprised. Usually if he was called, his father was ready to go straight to business. Shobei’s loneliness might have made him more gentle than usual. The father and son were looking at the carefully tended garden. Rinji wondered why he had been called.

Although Shobei had never heard directly what the villagers were saying about his second son, he could have made a good guess. They were saying that at the Miwas’, the older son had taken everything good with him when he was born, and left only the dregs behind.

Shintaro was tall, but Rinji was short. They had the same features, yet Shintaro was handsome, and he had a natural grace. Rinji lacked refinement. Shintaro was intelligent, but Rinji had not learnt much at school.

Shobei chose a nearby stonemason’s daughter called Tetsu as Rinji’s wife. It was Shobei’s view that his second son needed a clever wife who could manage his affairs, and not an innocent girl who had been brought up protected in a good family.

At his marriage, Shobei gave Rinji one-third of his property and made him establish his own household independent from the main family.

‘You could give Rinji half the property,’ Shintaro had suggested. ‘You gave me my education and I could support my family.’ But Shobei had been adamant. Rinji was also given land including forests. If managed well, they produced good timber. Rinji had a new house built on the other side of the village. After eight years of marriage, he and Tetsu had no children.

When Shintaro was alive, Shobei felt no pressure to tie the loose knot in the family affairs. Now that he had gone, the bridge he had to build between himself and four-year-old Shuichi was long. Every obstacle had to be removed and the foundations had to be made solid for Shuichi’s sake.

Recently Shobei had been hearing an unsavoury rumour. Tetsu’s nephew, who had run away from his family trade of stonemasonry, had come home and was often at Rinji’s house.

‘People are saying that Tetsu is passing a lot of money to her family. She may eventually adopt her nephew as their heir,’ Shobei’s wife said to him one night. ‘That nephew of hers does not have a good reputation. I think you must have a word with Rinji san.’

When she told Shobei this, his wife felt a sense of retaliation. She had been brought up in an old family which still prided itself on its bygone samurai status. It was beyond her comprehension that her own family should mix socially with people like stonemasons and vendors. Her own son Rinji should not have been treated like a good-for-nothing. She felt rebellious now and again against Shobei’s dogmatic ruling of the family, and she had opposed Rinji’s marriage as strongly as she dared.

Now Shobei turned to Rinji.

‘I hear that Tetsu is passing a lot of money to her family. Is that true?’ he asked without further preliminaries.

‘Oh, well, you know, otohsan, how it is. She might have helped them out once or twice, a little here and there.’

‘You do not have a plan for adopting your wife’s nephew as your successor, do you?’

‘Oh, I don’t think so. Nothing definite yet, anyway.’

‘Good,’ Shobei said. ‘You will adopt your niece Haruko. One day she can take a husband and succeed your family.’

As Rinji did not answer right away, Shobei said, ‘That is the best plan for you.’

‘Yes, otohsan.’

‘When Haruko is a little older, I will explain to her and we will make it public. At the moment, it will suffice to decide among ourselves.’

Haruko and Shuichi. Between the two, the families would continue safely, Shobei thought.