Wrought with so much disgust at myself, I was tempted to spring from my bed to take her stockings deep into the woods at this very late hour and fling them into the creek. But I didn’t do that. I couldn’t bring myself to. Instead, I kept my lady’s soiled stockings pressed against my cheeks and I wallowed myself to sleep, my heart aching with the knowledge that tomorrow I would have to face her having committed my transgression.
***There is never a moment of tranquillity. In the heart that loves the blossoms, the wind is already blowing – Izumi ShikibuLady Evelyn was a terrible woman. I was sure of it. It was not that she acted out in terrible ways, nor was it necessarily in the way she treated the servants. It was more that her husband, Lord Sasaki, was a terrible man who did cruel things to his servants and it was her indifference to his display of cruelty – her complicity – that convinced me that she was terrible. Once, Lord Sasaki forced poor Takumi, our head gardener, to strangle a stray kitten that Takumi’s son, Hiroto, had taken in as a secret pet. He forced Hiroto to watch, as well as the rest of the household. I will never forget the unsympathetic face Lady Evelyn made as she watched Takumi strangle the kitten in the courtyard that day. No emotion came to her save for a languid boredom as if to watch a maple tree shed its leaves. Yes, she was surely terrible. But she was also beautiful. Her long golden hair shimmered like a halo whenever the sun touched it. When she walked, she walked with a floating grace, like a swan carried by a calm river, and of course her feet, oh her lovely feet, that could have been shaped by the most talented porcelain artisan, were the most beautiful I have ever seen. How strange for God to meld such beauty with terribleness. But perhaps not so strange… Consider the oleander blossom, its delicate beauty, its heavenly fragrance, and its lethality as a poison.
The morning that followed my shameful tryst with her stockings, to my great relief, when I had woken her for her breakfast and dressed her, she said nothing to me. And of course I said nothing to her.
She was not so magnanimous with silence later that morning, when I found myself alone with her in a private part of her garden.
I had been given the task of sweeping the flat stones that made the walking path to the koi pond. She strolled the path. I moved aside and bowed and said, “good morning, madame,” to which she responded by returning a small bow. I, feigning not being affected by her presence, continued sweeping the wet leaves on the stepping stones as she went to sit at the bench beside the pond. Sunbeams that broke through the leaves of the gingko and sakura, softened by the morning mist, bounced off the pond to paint her with playful dancing light. She wore a lovely sky-blue dress, the latest in fashion from Paris according to Fumiko, madame’s personal couturière, the hem of which came up enough to reveal her feet nestled in French slippers. I did my very best to keep my eyes averted, or if I did look, only to keep my glances quick.
“Niko, can’t you see that I’m trying to enjoy a peaceful morning? Stop that horrid scraping,” she said.
I stopped abruptly, bowed apologetically, then turned to leave the garden as quickly as I could.
“I did not say leave,” she said, and so I stopped, and I turned to her and said, “I’m sorry madame,” then, awkwardly, found a corner of the garden to stand in where I could be the least disturbing.
She watched my awkwardness with amusement, then laughed when I finally found my spot to stand. Flustered that I did not know the right way to act, and fearful that she might lose her patience with me and thus let her husband loose on me, my face grew hot, my cheeks surely blushing as bright as the mottles on a kohaku koi.
“Niko, you do well as a garden ornament, but you are my handmaiden. Come here and give me company.”
Disoriented, I hesitated, but she extended her hand implying me to take it, so I went to her and took it, then she stood, and weaved her arm with mine.
“Let’s stroll,” she said, and she took me along for a stroll.
***The estate of Lord Sasaki, said to have once belonged to the feudal lord Date Matsamune, is situated on a high plateau by the sea. Much of the original castle is still there, appearing like a snowcap on a hill from a distance. On its seaward side, emerging from the ruins of centuries of earthquakes, were scattered a few stone grey cottages constructed in the style of a small English village of the region from where Lady Evelyn hailed. The cottage village was a wedding gift to her by Lord Sasaki. There were as many cottages as in a real village, but all were empty, their windows black like sunken eyes. I could not see how they could possibly make Evelyn happy. Their emptiness could only punctuate the loneliness here. A village, even an English one, I’m sure, should be filled with the laughter of children, the clucking of chickens, the sound of grinding mills, and of village gossip. The only sounds here were the cold winds that came from the sea, which howled as they carved a path through the grey, lifeless stone.
We strolled quickly through the ghost village and took a path flanked by English flowers to the sea cliff, then off the path to stroll along the cliff through the tall grass that waved in long sweeps of breeze that persistently came in from the sea and where when there was no wind in the summer evenings, provided a playground for the fireflies to dance in. She kept me close, clinging to my arm, swaying as she strolled, while I stayed as stiff as a reed.
We arrived at the tip of a bluff and peered over the edge together to watch the sea churn and boil there, and above the boil, the seagulls floating like a dozen kites, some catching an updraft to dart up high into the sky. Then we sat in the tall grass and Lady Evelyn spotted a cloud of faint black smoke that billowed from an unseen ship.
“That ship must be from San Francisco,” she said as she stared, cupping her hand to shield her eyes from the rising morning sun. “How long do you suppose it took to get here?”
“I’m not sure, madame,” I replied.
“Mmm, I see,” she replied in a tone to suggest she was not surprised by my ignorance.
“What is your guess, madame?” I asked timidly, asking not because I cared, but because I would rather speak on this matter than allow conversation to drift into more perilous waters.
“Two weeks perhaps,” she said.
“And why do you suppose they come?”
“That is a good question,” she said and pondered it for a moment before answering, “To bring a naive young girl to Japan perhaps.”
“I do hope she likes it here,” I answered, careful to keep my answer light, but nonetheless somewhat surprised by the unexpected bitterness in her tone. I was surprised not by the bitterness, but that she would convey it to me, even so subtly.
“I hope she does too,” she replied. Her voice was listless and barely audible beneath the sound of the whispering grass as if she were speaking in a dream. There wasn’t despair in the voice, but it was something similar. A sombre anger. Anger with herself perhaps. Again, I was careful to not touch a nerve, saying nothing in response, but seeing my discomfort she smiled at me. She folded her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees. “So tell me something about yourself, Niko. How did you come to be here? How were you so fortunate?”