Kiku's Prayer Part 8

"I'm sure that's what he said."

"Why do you think he lied to you?"

An inexplicable disappointment gripped Kiku. She felt all the more betrayed because Seikichi was someone she had respected and trusted until now.

"I have no idea," she said angrily, quickly turning her face away. But before long she stole another glance at Seikichi.

Just then a Southern Barbarian wearing a long white robe emerged from one of the side doors of the Nambanji, accompanied by a man who appeared to be one of the magistrate's officers.

"I completely understand, Lord It," the foreigner said in surprisingly fluent j.a.panese.

"I just ask for your cooperation, Father Furet." In one hand the officer named It carried a bottle of foreign wine, apparently a gift from the priest, and he nodded with exaggerated affability, as though he were conscious of the presence of spectators.

The Southern Barbarian gave one more polite bow and disappeared back through the door. When It came down the stone steps, the observers instinctively retreated a step or two.

"Now, now ... it's fine for you to look at this place, but you must never go inside. Only foreigners are allowed into this Nambanji. It remains strictly off-limits to j.a.panese." He looked condescendingly at the group and then started down the slope with tottering steps. Apparently he had been served some wine while he was inside the Nambanji.

The main door of the church opened.

This time a different young foreigner emerged, cradling something in his arms.

One woman in the crowd whispered to a friend, "That foreigner is the one who takes long walks around Nagasaki."

Her friend boasted, "I know. He once asked for some water from the well next to our place. His name is Pet.i.tjean, and evidently he's practicing to compete in the kite contest."

As the foreigner called Pet.i.tjean climbed down the stone steps, he suddenly displayed the object he was carrying, as though by accident.

It was a crucifix, the symbol of the Kiris.h.i.+tans, just like the one that decorated the steeple of the church. The gold cross caught the rays of the sun and shone brilliantly in Pet.i.tjean's hands.

At that moment- Kiku realized that Seikichi and a couple of other men and women standing beside him were making some strange sort of gesture. They first placed the thumb of their right hands on their foreheads, then touched their chests, their left shoulders, and finally their right shoulders.

It happened so quickly that no one but Kiku noticed. Only she had seen their peculiar movements.

As soon as they finished their strange gestures, Seikichi gave a signal to his comrades. They nodded to one another, swiveled away from Kiku, and quickly separated themselves from the crowd of spectators.

Kiku's eyes followed them closely as they disappeared down the sloping path that knit its way between the terraced fields.

"Miss Kiku, what are you gawking at?" Tome asked. "Do you have a headache? You look pale."

"It's nothing," Kiku shook her head.

Seikichi's lie to her had wounded Kiku's pride. Even more painful for her, today Seikichi seemed like a totally different person, one she couldn't connect with. He seemed to Kiku like someone who harbored a secret in which she had no part.

I'm not having anything more to do with the likes of him. She scowled as if to dispel the image of his face that was still vividly imprinted onto her eyelids.

Then suddenly she remembered something from her girlhood. It was the scornful manner in which Ichijir and Granny had talked about the people of Nakano where Seikichi lived. They had spat out the words, "They're Kuros, you know." But neither of them had explained what a Kuro was.

She went over to Ichijir and asked, "Say, what's a Kuro?"

"Kuro."

"Yeah."

"A Kuro is ... well, I'm not really sure. But from what I hear, they're creepy."

"So why do they call people from Nakano Kuros? I don't think there's anything creepy about them."

"Listen." Ichijir suddenly grew suspicious of the reasons for his cousin's question and said, "The folks in Nakano ... they're just different from us.... People say they do strange things there."

"What do you mean by 'strange'?"

"Well, for instance, so a baby's born. I hear they do some kind of secret thing to the baby, and when they do, they absolutely won't allow anybody from a different village to be there. And they totally refuse to marry someone from another village. And there's other things, too."

"They won't marry a person from outside their village?" Kiku's voice rose in volume again.

"That's what I hear."

"Why not?"

"Cause they're Kuros. That's what it means to be a Kuro."

Kiku bit her lips and said nothing. Ichijir's words had struck her another blow.

So does that mean Seikichi won't marry anybody except a girl from Nakano? She wondered to herself. It was a question she couldn't bring herself to ask Ichijir.

Midday was approaching.

The four sat with their legs stretched out on the sh.o.r.e where the ura River flowed into the bay and ate the lunches Ichijir had brought from Magome.

Each bento box contained only black rice b.a.l.l.s and some pickled vegetables, but since Granny had made it, as they ate they could almost smell their home back in Magome.

"Kiku." As Ichijir sucked up a rice kernel that had stuck to his finger, he asked with concern, "Why are you so quiet?"

"No reason." With her palm she scooped up some sand from the sh.o.r.e and s.h.i.+fted her gaze toward the spring ocean. The waves that softly drifted in, then softly broke against the sh.o.r.e with a melancholy sound, were the color of mother-of-pearl. Kiku's heart, too, felt melancholy. It was a feeling she had hardly ever experienced before today.

Does every girl feel this miserable when she starts to care about a boy? She asked herself as she played with a pink seash.e.l.l. Suddenly Mitsu and Tome, who had always seemed so much like her, looked more like younger children to her.

"Miss Kiku, let's go find some pretty sh.e.l.ls!" Mitsu and Tome stood up and ran barefoot to the edge of the waves. Ichijir was lying on his back stretched out on the sand, enjoying an after-lunch nap. Mount Inasa was visible through the spring haze, and white sea birds flitted over the surface of the water.

Oh dear, Kiku sighed. Someone like Mitsu isn't going to be able to understand how I feel. She's still so young.

Being as strong willed as she was, Kiku realized that the next time she saw Seikichi, she was going to have to interrogate him about today's events. She knew she wouldn't feel satisfied unless she did.

For the remainder of the day they paid their respects at the Suwa Shrine,1 had a look at the Sf.u.kuji Temple built by the Chinese,2 and then Ichijir escorted the young women back to the Gotya before the sun set. That concluded their Doll Festival3 activities, a day that was enjoyable for Mitsu and depressing for Kiku. Tomorrow they would resume their busy work schedule.

That night after they crawled into their futons, Kiku told Mitsu in a whispered voice about the strange gestures she had seen Seikichi make that day.

"He put his fingers like this up on his head, and then on his chest, and then on both shoulders."

"What in the world could that be?" Mitsu looked puzzled.

But then Tome, who they thought was asleep beside them, suddenly interjected, "I've seen some fishermen secretly doing that on the Got Islands. When I asked them what they were doing, they laughed and said it was some kind of spell to keep the seas calm."

"So it's a spell, is it?"

"Seems to be."

Kiku was all the more eager to see Seikichi again so she could ask him what kind of spell it was.

No sooner had the Doll Festival pa.s.sed than the Kompira Festival was upon them, on the tenth day of the third month. It was the day for the kite compet.i.tion. Nagasaki is, after all, a city of many amus.e.m.e.nts and many celebrations.

Beneath the spring-like sun, men swaggered around s.h.i.+anbas.h.i.+ with rakish looks on their faces. Their swaggering postures were reminiscent of earlier days in Nagasaki when the "Strolling Song" was popular.

Above the bridge at Kyamachi,

Bands of boys scuffle over the banners Flying above their bamboo boats.

Though five or six men come to quiet them down, It may take four or five days.

Strolling, strolling Strolling around Nagasaki.

But the realities of life in j.a.pan were not that carefree. By 1864, the collapse of the shogunate was imminent, and the vast changes of the age were pressing like waves on Nagasaki. The common people basking under this spring sun appeared utterly unconcerned about such matters. The "Strolling Song" was still sung to a samisen accompaniment in the pleasure quarters of Maruyama.

In the seventh year of the Kaei era,

The year of the tiger, the cycle of the tortoise, Russian sailors go sightseeing At the harbor battery on s.h.i.+r Island.

Strolling, strolling Strolling around Nagasaki.

Kiku herself was feeling as unsettled as the times. Every day as she swept the storefront at the Gotya, she fretted that she had still not seen Seikichi go by. Two entire days had pa.s.sed, and though she heard the calls of other street peddlers, there was no sign of Seikichi.

"I wonder if he's still working on the roads at Isahaya?" Gripping the handle of her bamboo broom, she stared incessantly down the long stretch of road. Eventually she was brought to her senses by the scolding cries of either the Mistress or Oyone, "Why are you loitering around? Hurry and start dusting!"

Another two, then three days pa.s.sed with no sign of him, and Kiku said to herself in a huff, "I'm having nothing more to do with him. Even if I do see him, I'm saying nothing. I'll just ignore him." But she knew when push came to shove she couldn't ignore him.

And she was right....

On the morning of the fourth day, the angry girl heard the voice of a tradesman calling out from the distance, "Taro! Bean sprouts! Daikon!" It was the familiar voice of Seikichi.

Tightly clutching the handle of her bamboo broom, Kiku narrowed her almond-shaped eyes and glared in the direction from which the voice came. The expression on her face made the still adolescent woman appear startlingly beautiful.

Seikichi appeared. He recognized Kiku in the morning light and smiled broadly, but Kiku did not so much as grin back at him. She struck a standoffish pose.

Seikichi took the scale that carried taro and bean sprouts from his shoulder and with a grin spoke to Kiku, "It's gotten warmer. I'll bet you've been working hard, haven't you?"

She was still aloof and coldly responded, "Yes." She resumed her sweeping and said nothing further.

At a loss, Seikichi asked, "Need any taro?"

"Nope."

"Well, then." Seikichi hoisted the scale back onto his shoulder and started to leave, but Kiku called out his name and then blurted out, "Seikichi, did you really go to Isahaya to work?"

"Yes, I did."

"Even on the third? The day of the Doll Festival?"

Seikichi looked at her apprehensively, so she pressed him, "Are you sure you weren't having a look at the Nambanji that day?"

A look of surprise brushed across Seikichi's face, "How did you know that?"

"I was there looking at it, too."

"Oh? I didn't know that. Why didn't you say h.e.l.lo?"

Kiku was annoyed by the calmness in his voice. Recalling how depressed she had felt that day, and feeling bitter that Seikichi was so clueless about the feelings of the woman he had lied to, she said, "Even if I'd wanted to say h.e.l.lo to you, Seikichi, you left in such a hurry."

"Yeah, I wanted to get back to Nakano."

"When you were there you made some strange gesture.... What was that?"

"Strange gesture?"

Kiku kept her eyes fixed on him as she took her finger and touched her forehead, chest, and both shoulders. It was exactly what Seikichi had done when the foreigner came out of the Nambanji. "That's what you did, isn't it?"

The blood rushed out of Seikichi's face, and he turned pale. "I don't know what you're talking about. I never did that," he disavowed feebly.

"Liar! I saw you with my own eyes!"

"It wasn't anything in particular. Probably my head just itched."

It was obvious to Kiku that Seikichi was lying. Why did he have to be so dishonest?