A Note from Ichiyo
Smashwords edition
Text by
Rei Kimura
eISBN 978-616-222-013-5
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CHAPTER: 1
22nd November, 1896
The comforting rays of late afternoon sunshine had started to fade, plunging the whole room into a kind of hushed and melancholic deference to the young woman inside who lay dying on a white futon that had obviously seen better times. The windows in the room were tightly sealed against the cold November air outside even as burning fevers by day and deadly chills by night assaulted her ravaged body mercilessly.
“Ichiyo..Ichiyo…,” someone kept calling her name. It was her sister, Kuniko who was trying desperately to keep the dying young woman alive. Even when her coughing threw up more blood, Kuniko forced chicken soup down her sister’s throat, no longer bothered to stop the flow of tears that ran down her face and fell into the soup in tiny splashes which both fascinated and horrified her.
“Germs..I will pass more germs to Natsu…,” she thought, as if that mattered any more.
It was no use, Ichiyo’s fever kept climbing up and her incessant coughing had turned raspy and labored within the last few hours. That night, Kuniko sat by her sister’s futon, calm and composed for the first time in days because she had accepted at last that Ichiyo was dying and was prepared for the worst.
A couple of the Bungakkai writers, Baba Kocho and Hirata Tokuboku, Ichiyo’s favorite young followers from the nearby university, were still hanging around, reluctant to leave her side. Kuniko told them to go home because it was late and there was really nothing more they could do for their beloved mentor that night.
“All right, we’ll leave now if you’re very sure we’re not needed for anything. Good night, oya suminasai!” they agreed eventually, bowing themselves somberly out of the house. The opening of the front door let in a crisply cold November breeze and it refreshed and cleansed the stale air in the room. Kuniko breathed deeply and let the power of the invigorating fresh air flow into her.
“Oh God,” she thought. “I’d almost forgotten how good the air outside is!”
“Go inside and don’t catch a chill, it’s freezing out here,” Baba shouted out to her. “We’ll be back first thing tomorrow!”
Kuniko didn’t know how long she stood at the door, watching the brilliant half moon moving slowly across the sky, carrying with it a whole galaxy of glittering stars. The night was so calm and full of happy stars it was hard to remember that just a few yards away, the end was near for her famous sister and a dark, heavy cloud hung like a shroud over the whole house. A light breeze sprang up, running through the leaves of the solitary bamboo plant in the tiny garden and its little whispers raised the hairs at the back of Kuniko’s neck.
“What am I to do without Natsu to live for, to care for and to hope for?” she moaned and shivered violently as a sudden bone chilling weariness washed over her and the bitter cold of the frosty air outside seeped into her body. With a deep, ragged sigh, Kuniko closed the door and hurried inside, Ichiyo needed her now more than ever and it wouldn’t do for her to catch a chill.
She made herself a cup of piping hot green tea and luxuriated for a moment in its cleansing and soothing effect and a while later, feeling much better, Kuniko looked in on Ichiyo. Her spirits lifted a little because for the first time in days, her sister was sleeping peacefully, no tortured coughing or labored breathing, just a quiet heaving of the chest. Kuniko touched Ichiyo’s brow, it was dry and cool and the fever seemed to have subsided! Did she dare hope that perhaps the blast of cold fresh air from outside had done Ichiyo a world of good?
“I wish there is someone other than Mother with whom I can share this hope that maybe, just maybe, Ichiyo will wake up tomorrow with that small watery smile on her dear face and there will be another bout of remission,” Kuniko cried softly. “Even a week, a month, it’s enough if that’s all we can ask for!”
But there was no one that she could lean on for comfort, she was all alone and the only sound in the room was the old clock ticking in the genkan. Kuniko drew the futon up to Ichiyo’s chin and tucked it firmly in, that night promised to be more peaceful and she just might be able to catch some sleep. It had been so many nights of making do with a few minutes of dozing off here and there and Kuniko was so exhausted and drained that she was fast asleep even before her head touched the pillow of rustling beans on the small thin futon next to Ichiyo.
The front door was vibrating and someone seemed to be outside trying to get in, probably one of the bungakkai writers because the publishers never came so early. Kuniko groaned, the front door didn’t have any locks, like almost every house in the neighborhood, surely their visitor knew that and could let himself in! But of course, what was she thinking of, no one in Japan would dream of entering someone else’s house without permission, even if it was unlocked.
Reluctant to leave the warmth of her futon, Kuniko lingered for a while, but as the soft, increasingly insistent knocking continued, she knew that their visitor wasn’t going to leave till she opened the door for him. With a start, Kuniko saw the first slivers of light lightening up the sky and she sat up in a great panic.
“What time is it? Oh, Lord Buddha, did I sleep right through the night?” she moaned. “I have to see how Ichiyo is!”
With the effort of a body still heavy with sleep, Kuniko pushed the futon cover aside and scrambled over to where Ichiyo lay, sleeping quietly, and in the first light of dawn that was streaming into the room, her face looked peaceful, beautiful and relaxed.
“The coughing has stopped and after such a good sleep, Ichiyo will wake up soon with more energy and feeling much better,” Kuniko told herself as she hurried out to open the door to their insistent visitor.
As she had predicted, it was a writer, Goro, another one of her sister’s ardent protégées and he tiptoed over the worn tatami mats to Ichiyo’s side. He had been in the northern city of Aomori when he heard the news of his adored mentor’s illness and had traveled all night to be with her. Travel worn and bone weary, there were tears in Goro’s eyes as he reached out to take Ichiyo’s limp, lifeless hand. Then his face turned a pasty white and he wailed, “Kuniko! Kuniko, come quick! Higuchi san has no pulse, I think she’s passed on!”
Kuniko rushed out from the kitchen where she was about to make a pot of green tea for them and sank down on her sister’s futon next to Goro. She too began to wail and cry in loud choking sobs, frantically shaking the cold, lifeless body that was beginning to turn stiff.
“Wake up, Ichiyo, wake up,” she screamed. “You can’t go just like this! We didn’t even have the chance to say good bye to you! Natsu…Natsu…..” she wailed reverting to Ichiyo’s old given birth name instinctively.
But it was no use, she was gone, her sister, the brilliant and feisty writer who had calmly taken in her stride all the challenges of gender prejudice, extreme poverty, ill health, rejection and humiliation and continue to write with such great passion, depth and honesty that in the end, she touched the hearts and minds of even the most critical member of the bunggakai. And now, at just 24 years old, that brilliant flame had been cruelly extinguished and Ichiyo Higuchi would never write again.
“Oh God, why didn’t you take me instead?” Kuniko cried. “Ichiyo had so much to offer to the world, why didn’t you spare her and take me instead?”
She didn’t know how long she sat there, holding her sister’s cold lifeless hand and massaging those fingers which, until they were defeated by her punishing sickness, had filled page after page with beautiful words and poems which had struck a chord in the hearts, minds and conscience of her many readers.
As soon as he had recovered some composure, Goro rushed out to break the news to Ichiyo’s inner circle of writers, poets and publishers and they started arriving in solemn groups to crowd round her futon and grieve for her. Despite her own grief, Kuniko was glad to see her sister surrounded by all the people she loved, giving her respect and recognition for the years of struggle against poverty and a system that did not value the talent of a woman. She was sure Ichiyo’s spirit was hovering over them, smiling benevolently and pleased with the way she was being honored.
The past few weeks had taken their toll on Kuniko and she lost the usual calm efficiency which had seen her through years of organizing her eccentric sister’s life and work and putting some order into her chaotic work table at the end of each day. Kuniko could not bring herself to undertake all the arrangements and rituals that had to be done when someone passed away, neither could she bear to organize Ichiyo’s funeral. She just stayed frozen in the immediate days after Ichiyo’s death, as if in a trance.
Someone must have called the doctor because he arrived to examine Ichiyo and certify her death. Even though he was a doctor and death was a natural event for him, Kuniko could see that this time, he too was affected by the untimely and wasteful passing of such a young and talented woman.
Some of the writers wanted an elaborate send off for Ichiyo, suggesting that her coffin be accompanied by horseback as befitting a writer of such standing, but eventually, Kuniko and the rest of the family declined this offer.
“We’re too poor to afford anything more than a very simple funeral for Ichiyo,” Kuniko said. “Anyway, an inexpensive and uncluttered funeral is what Ichiyo would have wanted, you know how frugal and simple my sister was and she would never have wanted us or anyone of you to spend beyond our means.”
Ichiyo Higuchi’s funeral finally took place on 25th November, 1896. The day dawned rainy and bitterly cold for that time of year as if the skies were weeping for her. The night before they had performed the enconfining rituals and Kuniko had cried her eyes out as she watched her sister being lowered into the coffin that was going to be her home for all eternity.
“Ichiyo, you always hated any form of confinement and darkness, you wanted always to be free and unrestrained,” she cried softly over sister’s body, for once clad in a white silk kimono instead of her trademark dark, masculine colors. “Oh, Ichiyo, please forgive us for putting you into this dark, narrow box!”
In the end, only a small crowd attended the funeral and with the drizzle sprinkling its melancholia over the mourners, it was a lonely end to a woman of great talent who had literally worked herself to death. Most of her admirers stayed away because they could not bear to witness the burial of a great writer they still did not want to believe was gone forever.
Kuniko carried Ichiyo’s faded photo in a black frame as she led the small funeral procession to the cemetery at the Honganji Buddhist temple. It was the same face that would be immortalized in Japan’s 5,000 yen notes, more than 200 years later and Ichiyo became the only woman in Japan to be ever accorded such a great honor.
Suddenly there was a rush and an errand boy delivered a big bunch of flowers and half a dozen lanterns from Ichiyo’s publishers, Hakubunkan. Their bright yellow glow added some color and warmth to the whole atmosphere of heaviness and Kuniko felt her spirits lift a little. It was a celebration of Ichiyo’s life, grey and heavy with responsibilities, poverty and struggling always to be accepted in a man’s world and then sudden bursts of joy and passion in the way Ichiyo crafted and produced beautiful pieces of literary work that no one could ignore.
That cold November morning, Ichiyo was laid to rest under the big spreading trees of the Honganji Temple where her father and his brothers were also buried.
After the funeral, as they were returning home, a piece of paper fell out of the book Kuniko was holding, the last novel Ichiyo had struggled to complete even as she battled with her illness. The note fluttered to the ground, to land on a dark, murky pool of rainwater but it stood out, white, pure and undaunted, as Ichiyo had been.
“Look,” Kuniko whispered. “It’s a note from Ichiyo!”
CHAPTER: 2
It was unusually hot and the young Noriyoshi Higuchi decided that morning to take a short cut across a bamboo field on his way to the temple school. He knew he shouldn’t because it was private property but the shade of the bamboo trees looked so cool and it would definitely cut his walking distance by almost half, so the teenage boy turned a deaf ear to his mother’s constant reminders to respect other people’s private space and plunged right into the cool, inviting bamboo clusters.
Noriyoshi had taken just a few steps when a sharp female voice coming from his left stopped him in his tracks.
“You know of course you are trespassing on our land?” it said. “Don’t you know what private property is?”
He spun round, red faced to be confronted by a girl and he could tell by her clothes, the disapproving curl in her mouth and her confident demeanor that she was no servant girl but probably a daughter of the owners of the bamboo field.
Noriyoshi was a smart, good looking young man and quite the toast among the young girls of the village and he was usually a confident and smooth talking ladies’ man but for some reason, he found himself tongue tied and awkward under the sharp, accusing scrutiny of this strange girl.
Then he resorted to what he always did when embarrassed, Noriyoshi pulled himself to his full height which was an impressive 5 feet 11 inches, very tall by Meiji era Japanese standards, and said loftily, “I’m sorry if I’ve done that but there is no sign or anything to suggest that this bamboo field belongs to anyone so can I be pardoned for making a mistake?”
The corners of the girl’s lips quivered as she struggled to control her smile and stay indignant at the sheer audacity of this young man, then she shrugged and replied, “All right, I’ll let you through this time but don’t trespass on our land again.”
Noriyoshi bowed, thanked her and hurried off but he was curious enough to turn round and found that she was still standing there, watching him and that put him into a strange flutter.
Later, at the temple school, he sought out Taki, his friend and known among the young men to have an unchallengeable knowledge and data base of almost every girl between the ages of 14 to 18 in the village. He had made it his business to track down and accumulate information of as many girls of marriageable age in the village as he could and that made him very popular with the young men and aspiring suitors around town.
“I met or rather, was accosted by a girl in that bamboo field down the road, do you know who she is? She seems to be living around the area,” Noriyoshi asked. “Looks to be about 16 or 17 years old, nice looking but with a really sharp tongue!”
“Oh, you must mean Furuya Ayame! Her father owns the bamboo field and the adjoining farm,” Taki replied. “They are a strange lot, you know, aloof and uppity, think they are better than us but I personally think they are really not much better, just farming folk like everyone around here, that is all! And she is certainly not 16 or 17, more like 18 to 19.”
“Furuya Ayame, what an unusual name!” Noriyoshi thought, no longer paying attention to what Taki was saying.
To his own surprise, Noriyoshi could not stop thinking about the girl called Furuya Ayame and for the next few days, he deliberately went through the bamboo field several times hoping to catch her or be caught by her, but she did not appear.
On the fifth day, he told himself he would try one more day and if she didn’t appear, he would forget about her. After all, there were many pretty girls in the village who were crazy about him and there was absolutely no need for him to be hanging around a bamboo field like a lovesick puppy. He nearly jumped out of his skin when a familiar voice behind him said, “It’s you again! I thought I told you not to trespass on our land?”
Noriyoshi recovered himself and replied smoothly, “I know but to be honest, I have been doing that for the past few days in the hope of seeing you!”
His frank and open admission of attraction to her in conservative and inhibited Meiji era Japan threw Furuya off balance because she wasn’t used to anyone, especially the bashful village boys, saying what he really thought, felt and wanted, especially when she herself appeared to be the subject of that declaration. She blushed a bright red and it was her turn to be tongue tied and that day, whether they liked it or not, the seeds of attraction were sown.
This development didn’t suit Noriyoshi’s ambitions at all, he hadn’t planned on being tied down by any woman because he hated his family’s lives as farmers in the village and dreamed about moving to the big city. Being involved at such a young age and held back by a woman from the village wasn’t part of that plan at all. In fact, Noriyoshi would much rather have found a woman from the city who could help further his ambitions.
But the pull of this powerful and irresistible emotion called love proved to be too strong and it was just a matter of time before they were meeting secretly in the bamboo grove, a decision that would eventually produce one of the greatest women in the history of Japan.
They tried to be discreet but in a small village without much to do, it was difficult to keep anything private for long and their secret trysts were soon discovered, bringing down the wrath and displeasure of Furuya’s parents on her.
“We forbid you to see Noriyoshi Higuchi again,” her mother said in that icy tone of hers that could bring the chills to anyone’s bones. “He’s not good enough for you.”
“But why, mother, why?” Furuya cried. “Noriyoshi’s family is not any worse than ours so why is he not good enough to court me? Besides, I’m already 18 years old and you are always saying I should be getting married and settling down.”
“Yes, that’s true but not with Noriyoshi Higuchi! Your young man’s father, Hachizaemon, is a disgraced man, that is why,” her father replied. “He is always fighting the authorities and has been thrown into prison for that, your mother and I don’t want you to be associated with that family.”
But Noriyoshi and Furuya continued to meet, their passion and need for each other growing with each passing month and it was inevitable that they eventually drifted into a physical relationship. It reached a point when it was impossible to hold back and Furuya was surprised at her own audacity to break all the rules of society as it was then and that of her family when she allowed Noriyoshi to make love to her.
She lived to regret it a few months later when she found herself, a young woman in Meiji Japan, pregnant and unmarried.
“My parents will kill me for disgracing them,” she sobbed when Noriyoshi met her to discuss the situation.
“We have to get married right away,” Noriyoshi said firmly, he was still reeling from the shock of having fatherhood thrust on him to further complicate and maybe stall his plans to move to the big city but he loved Furuya and had to stand by her.
“No, it’s not that simple,” Furuya continued sobbing. “My parents have forbidden me to even see you, let alone contemplate marriage! If they know I not only defied their orders but compromised my virtues and now I am with child, they will kill me!”
But Noriyoshi had made up his mind in those few minutes what they were going to do and now he outlined his plans to the distraught Furuya, calmly and methodically
“Listen, you know that I’ve always wanted to leave this godforsaken little village and find my fortunes in the big city right?” he said. “Well, why don’t we just run away from this place, get married and move to the city? I’ll find a job there and with some money I’ve saved up, we will be able to get by.”
There was a long silence as Furuya absorbed this bold and daring proposal, oh God, she was sure no woman had ever done such a thing before. Could they really pull it off and survive on their own? What would life be like? Her family would disown her for sure and she would be totally dependent on Noriyoshi but what choice did she have now? She was a fallen woman and no man would ever marry her and it was a choice between trusting Noriyoshi or spending a lifetime unmarried, with a child born out of wedlock and having to endure the chastisements of her parents for the stain to their family name and possibly ostracism from their community.
Furuya shuddered as she thought of the imminently unbearable consequences of staying on in the village, unmarried, with the evidence of her folly becoming more visible every day. Then she steeled herself and made her choice.
“Yes, you’re right, Noriyoshi, in view of the fact that I am now with child, I think it’s the best thing to do. You realize, of course, that this will mean severing ties with my family and putting my life and that of our child in your hands?”
“This is a responsibility I cannot run away from, Furuya,” Noriyoshi replied quietly.
“I will be a father soon and it’s a man’s duty to care for his wife and child,” he continued with more courage and conviction than he really felt. Deep inside, Noriyoshi was almost as frightened as his young bride to be but he was a man and her protector now so he could not show it.
“We have the deepest love for each other and there will be plenty of work in the city so we’ll be all right,” he told himself firmly as they made plans for their run away trip together.
On the 6th of April, 1857, the young couple crept out of their homes at the crack of dawn while the rest of their two families were still fast asleep and started their long journey to Edo. Furuya had a moment of misgiving as she peeped in on her sleeping parents in their room and placed a letter she had written for them on a low table in the kitchen where her mother had, the night before, stacked the bowls and little plates for their breakfast in a couple of hours.
Although her parents had always been strict with her, Furuya loved them and the warmth and security of the home they provided for her. She had repaid their love by disgracing them like this and disappearing with nothing but a hastily written note and she was almost blinded by tears of sadness and shame as she stumbled softly out of the house.
“Someday I will repay you and make you both proud of me although I don’t know right now how this is going to happen,” Furuya whispered as she turned for one last look at the humble farmer’s house she had lived in all her life. She was filled with so much remorse and shame that she could not have imagined that someday in a future she would never know, a child of her body would honor that promise she made to her parents that morning.
Then she saw Noriyoshi in the carriage that would take them to Edo and the love that shone in his eyes ignited a rush of emotions in her. Furuya put aside everything else but the fact that they were going on a journey to start a new life together in an exciting city she wanted to believe would be better for them and their unborn child.
CHAPTER: 3
The journey was long and laborious, they had to travel slowly because of Furuya’s condition and frequent need to stop and relief herself. In the end it took them almost six days to arrive in Edo.
Noriyoshi would never forget their first sight of the city he had been dreaming of moving to for as long as he could remember. They arrived in the late afternoon at a post which guarded the entrance to the Shogun’s capital and the spread of the huge sprawling city rolling away from their entry point of Shinagawa literally took their breaths away.
“Look at the city and the people, Noriyoshi!” Furuya breathed. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this before!”
“Me neither,” Noriyoshi replied. “I can already feel the pulse of this city like a very big heart beating!”
They walked down a narrow street in search of a restaurant to have a quick meal and take in the sights and sounds of the rows of shops, street vendors and a story teller surrounded by a large crowd of people. A tranquil teahouse rubbed shoulders with a row of three bustling book stalls, completely oblivious to the human traffic around it as kimono clad waitresses glided round the packed tables, serving customers with tea and sweet mochi and red bean cakes.
On the sidewalk, a slightly tipsy male customer tried to grab the hand of a pretty young waitress and Furuya waited for her outraged objections. Instead, the waitress merely smiled sweetly and very discreetly disengaged herself without letting the errant customer feel rejected at all and from a few doors away, floated the distinct sounds of singing to the strumming of a koto. Everything pieced together to complete the whole picture of a vibrant city life that captivated and awed the young couple straight out of their conservative and uninspiring village.
“Let’s go to one of the tea houses for a drink, I’m so thirsty,” Furuya suggested, intrigued by the row of little tea stalls crowded with travelers like them, sipping tea and exchanging stories about their travels and their plans.
Still bemused, Noriyoshi ordered hot tea and sweet red bean cakes for them but his eyes seemed fixated on something in the distance.
“What are you looking at?” Furuya asked, snapping her fingers in front of Noriyoshi to bring him back to earth. Then she saw where his eyes were fixed and it was her turn to gasp as she took in the magnificent sight of a whole sprawling metropolis bathed in the orange light of a beautiful sunset. Everything was dominated by an imposing castle built on top of a hill which overlooked the whole city and demanded its allegiance.
The castle was like a sentinel standing guard over Edo and at its feet, they were all like a train of sweeping humanity scraping and bowing in submission to its authority and control. In the late afternoon sunshine, the castle shimmered with great power and strength and it sent little chills down their spines.
“Do you know that is the Shogun’s castle?” Noriyoshi said. “And can you believe it, we are in Edo and the Shogun’s castle which we only heard about but never thought to see is right there in front of us! We are looking at something that many in our village might never see in their lifetime, Furuya, just think what we can do with our lives in this great place!”
His young wife nodded, too overcome with a euphoric sense of well being to say anything. She didn’t know what the future had in store for them but she was very sure they would never leave Edo and for better or for worse, they would live and die here.
By the time the young couple finished their tea and a bowl of ramen each, the shadows were lengthening and they found a small inexpensive ryokan to spend the night. Both Noriyoshi and Furuya were so dusty from their long trip that they decided to pay for a good bath at one of the many public bath houses at the end of the street.
The hot, mildly scented water of the huge communal bath tub swirled around Furuya’s tired body like swathes of silk untying all the knots of weeks of stress and tension and gently stroking her slightly distended abdomen.
Her mind wandered back to her home in the village and she felt a moment of guilt to be so relaxed and carefree when her family, especially her mother, must still be in a state of shock over what she had done. Furuya knew she would miss them in the coming weeks and months but for now she just wanted to snuggle into a warm clean futon with Noriyoshi and their baby inside her.
That night, for the first time in days, the young couple fell asleep in a clean soft futon while outside the ryokan, the noise of late night city life and revelers cavorting with the colorful women of the night, continued till the small hours.
As she drifted into a deep sleep with her husband’s arm thrown protectively over her, Furuya thought she felt the baby move.
CHAPTER: 4
The Higuchis stayed in the ryokan for four days while they contemplated how Noriyoshi was going to find work and set up a home in Edo. He had sold his beloved books, all 150 of them, and the proceeds had been enough to pay for their passage and tide them over for a while till they were on their feet. They could afford a few days of absorbing and getting used to the colorful and faster pace of life in Edo before getting into the serious business of searching for work and a permanent foothold in the city.
On the fourth day, Noriyoshi left Furuya in the ryokan to seek out the man who had inspired his dream to move to Edo, Mashimo Senosuke, who had himself left their village to become a successful businessman in the city. On a rare visit back to his native roots, Senosuke had given Noriyoshi his address with a generous invitation to look him up anytime in Edo, an invitation Noriyoshi now intended to take up.
“Good luck, Noriyoshi, I hope Senosuke san can find you a job so that we can stay on here in Edo, I think I’m beginning to like this place and all its endless possibilities!” Furuya said as she helped her husband into his outer kimono in case the unpredictable early spring weather turned chilly. Her heart was swelling with pride because he looked so handsome and distinguished with the morning sunlight picking out the blue black glints in his abundant hair and the golden tan of his chiseled face. One of the things her family held against Noriyoshi had been his skin which was a shade darker than it should be for a thoroughbred Japanese and so they concluded there had to be questionable foreign blood in his family!
For a long time after Noriyoshi left, Furuya continued to sit by the window, watching the small pockets of people already assembling in the street outside and admitted that she was getting worried at how fast their money was going because life in the city was decidedly more expensive than their simple lives in the village had been.
“Noriyoshi must find suitable employment fast before we are down to pawning the few pieces of jewellery we brought along,” Furuya thought, automatically smoothing out a tear in the paper shoji screen of the window.
Towards late afternoon as the shadows were lengthening once again, Furuya saw Noriyoshi hurrying up the street at last and she strained her eyes to see the expression on his face as an indication of whether his mission had been a success. She let out a sigh of relief as her husband burst into the room, his face shining with good news to tell her. He was so excited that he forgot to take off his sandals at the genkan, considered extremely rude in Japan, and instinctively, Furuya cried out, “Your sandals, Noriyoshi, you still have them on!”
With the haste and repentance of someone who had breached a grave social etiquette, Noriyoshi gasped and rushed out to the genkan to take off the offending sandals. But he could not stop smiling as he thought of the way Mashimo san had embraced him warmly, immediately allaying all his initial fears that he would not receive a warm welcome from his former mentor in the village.
Noriyoshi gazed around the big, impressive house with awe, it was obvious Mashimo san had done well in the city and his own heart started thumping at all the possibilities he saw emerging before him as the ambitions he had pushed aside for the sake of Furuya and their unborn child came surging back with renewed ferocity. He vowed that he would make it as good as his mentor even if he had to break his back to do so.
“Mashimo san gave me a job, Furuya,” he announced. “Tomorrow we move to his house in Kudan and I will work for our food and board. It’s not much but at least I have a job and we have food and comfortable lodging for the time being!”
“Oh, Noriyoshi, what do you mean it’s not much?” Furuya cried. “As you said, we have a roof over our head and you have a job, what more can we ask for, finding this opportunity just four days after our arrival in Edo! We couldn’t have done it ourselves without help!”
But their stay in Mashimo’s house was to be short lived because within a few days, Noriyoshi found himself seconded to working for a doctor called Kitamura Yasumasa who was publishing a whole series of medical journals and had approached Mashimo san to recommend a capable apprentice.
“We have to move to a house nearer Dr Yasumasa’s place in Koishikawa, it’s only logical since I am to work for him, you don’t mind moving again, do you?”
“No, Noriyoshi, as long as we are together, it doesn’t matter where we move,” Furuya replied simply, shivering a little because everything seemed to be going so smoothly for them that it seemed unreal. Thankfully, at that point, she was not to know that this would be the first of many moves of house and town she would be forced by painful circumstances to face throughout her life in Edo.
The time for her delivery was approaching and she could feel the baby turning and moving as if he were fighting for his right to be born and it made Furuya nostalgic for her home in the village and the warm reassuring arms of her mother who always knew what to do.
Just as she had feared, the birth was difficult and it took almost a whole day for Furuya’s first daughter, Fuji, to be born.
“So much for struggling to come out, when the time came, why did you take so long?” Furruya whispered against the fuzzy head of her baby. But her eyes were shining with love as she gazed at her daughter’s red wizened face with awe at this miracle of life both she and Noriyoshi had created.
Only one thing was missing and a large tear rolled down Furuya’s cheek as she said softly, “I wish you were here, mother, to see your grand daughter…”
A few weeks after Fuji‘s birth, Noriyoshi came home and sat through a whole dinner, avoiding Furuya’s eye and after enduring it until their second cup of after dinner green tea, Furuya could not take it any more and burst out,” Is anything up? You’re trying to hide something from me, aren’t you, Noriyoshi? I can tell when your eyes twitch nervously like that.”
“I’ve been approached for a most unusual proposal for you, Furuya,” her husband replied.
Furuya waited, her heart in her mouth because she already knew instinctively that the news was not going to be good.
“Lord Inaba Daizen, the grand samurai’s wife just gave birth and she is unable to nurse her baby, she has asked that you be her baby’s wet nurse,” Noriyoshi said in a rush.
There was a stunned silence as Furuya tried to take in what her husband had just said, he had to be joking! Did everyone not remember she had her own four week old baby to nurse as well?
“The wife of Lord Inaba?” she said aloud. “But she lives in Yushima, a long distance from here, if I am to be wet nurse to the baby of Lord Inaba, that means I have to move there to live with them and what will happen to you and Fuji chan?”
Noriyoshi was quiet for a long time then he said, “When the wife of the grand samurai, Lord Inaba Daizen makes a polite request, it’s in fact an order, and people like us don’t say no and cross a samurai of that standing. You know that, don’t you? ”
Then he leaned across and held Furuya tightly, there was a far away look in his eyes and a new ambitious hardness in his voice as he continued, “Besides, think of it, this is our chance to get close to the samurai family and eventually buy our way into the samurai class ourselves!”
Furuya’s heart was heavy as she looked at her husband, Noriyoshi had changed since they moved to Edo as he became increasingly obsessed with the ambition of buying himself and his family into the samurai class. Didn’t he care that their little family was about to be torn apart?
But, of course, this time her husband was right, there was no way they could disobey the orders of a powerful samurai like Inaba Daizen and Furuya knew with a heavy heart that she would have to leave her baby behind to be wet nursed by a stranger while she herself moved to Yushima to nurse someone else’s child.
A few days later, a carriage came to pick her up and Furuya bade a tearful farewell to her husband and barely one month old daughter. She was crying because her young family was breaking up even before it had a chance to grow, Noriyoshi’s whispered promise of a better future for them didn’t mean a thing to her for how could they have a future when they didn’t even have the present?
But it was bad luck to leave with such ill feelings so Furuya forced a smile to her lips and kissed her sleeping baby farewell before climbing into the carriage and turning back to look at the forlorn figure of Noriyoshi holding their daughter becoming smaller and smaller and eventually disappearing into the distance.
The road to Yushima was rough and soggy from the previous day’s rain and the carriage stumbled and bounced over every hole it encountered along the way. Furuya’s eyes filled with tears, her breasts were hard from her post natal milk and she hurt so badly from their turgid fullness and the reminder that it should have been time to nurse her own baby, Fuji….
CHAPTER: 5
Furuya didn’t know how the weeks became months and the months became years and she continued to stay in Yushima, graduating from wet nurse to personal maid for the Princess Ko who had grown from a puny wheezy baby to a chubby little girl filled with life and smiles. In all those years, Furuya had seen her own daughter, Fuji, only four times and, although she had grown to love Princess Ko, she longed for the daughter she had borne but never been allowed to care for.
The samurai, Inaba Daizen’s residence was palatial and like nothing she had ever seen before, one of the maids told her that the massive silk screens that hung in almost every room were painted with real gold and the kimonos of the ladies of the house were so exquisite that they literally dazzled her with their splendor. Furuya tried to take in every detail of the grandeur at Lord Inaba’s establishment so that she could regale Noriyoshi with her stories whenever she was allowed to go home for a rare reunion with her family. Her husband soaked in every detail of her accounts of life in the samurai’s residence and the long list of great warriors and nobles who were entertained there regularly.
The accounts renewed Noriyoshi’s own longing for the prestige and glamour of a samurai’s life and although so far his bids to buy into one had not been successful, he viewed his wife’s privileged position in Inaba Daizen’s household as the wet nurse and substitute mother of the Princess Ko an infiltration into that elite samurai class that always managed to move just a little out of his reach. Furuya did not have the heart to destroy his illusions by telling him that her association with Princess Ko’s family was no glamour position. In actual fact, she was regarded by the household as merely one of the samurai’s many retainers and had even been ordered to cover her mouth with a tissue when feeding Princess Ko.
Then one day, without warning, things began to change. That year, 1863, they celebrated a grand osho gatsu, the most lavish one since Furuya arrived in Yushima and she had just started to teach Princess Ko simple embroidery. Life was just going through a peaceful and idyllic stretch when she was summoned to tea with Lord Inaba Daizen’s wife.
Furuya had always been in awe of the Lady Minowa who seldom ventured out of her quarters and when she did, she always presented a picture of icy elegance and wore such magnificent kimonos that she cut an intimidating figure and Furuya’s knees would be shaking every time she was summoned to bring the Princess Ko to her mother. But that day, Lady Minowa was wearing a very simple, almost plain blue yukata, the only splash of color was the red informal obi tied loosely round her waist and her hair was unbound and floating in silky tresses right down her back. She looked suddenly fragile and small and even a little lost and it tugged at the soft hearted Furuya’s heart strings to see the normally impeccably coiffed and confident lady of the castle in such a vulnerable state. Her heart started to thud uneasily, was there anything wrong that would reduce the Lady Minowa to such a state of humility?
“You must be wondering why I have summoned you to my chambers today, come sit by me,” Lady Minowa said, breaking through her agitated thoughts as Fururya continued to stand hesitantly by the doorway of the room, not sure what she should do. Her mistress gestured to a magnificently embroidered floor cushion in front of her across the shining black lacquer table, indicating that she should sit there.
Furuya bowed from the waist down as she lowered herself stiffly onto the cushion to sit in the traditional Japanese style, on neatly crossed feet, with her hands folded on her lap, waiting for Lady Minowa to continue. Her heart was racing from the tension of wondering what was coming and whether it was going to be good or bad.
But even she was unprepared for what was to come as Lady Minowa announced flatly, without emotions as if she was reading a text from a piece of paper, “I’m leaving Yushima and going to Lord Inaba’s seat in the extreme north in Hokkaido…”
“What, my Lady? It cannot be because they say you hate the cold and will never go there,” Furuya blurted out before she realized that she had actually interrupted Lady Minowa in mid sentence and she apologized profusely for her misdemeanor in between deep bows befitting a samurai’s wife.
“It’s all right, Furuya san, stop apologizing,” Lady Minowa said and there was a hint of impatience in her voice. “I have been sent to Hokkaido because Lord Inaba wants to take a new wife who may be able to bear him the sons he wants so badly. Princess Ko will be going with me to Hokkaido and I am giving you the choice to return to your family or follow us to Hokkaido.”
Furuya’s heart started racing because she could hardly believe what she was hearing, was Lady Minowa actually offering her a release and giving her the option to return to Noriyoshi and Fuji?
“At Last! Oh Lord Buddha, at last!” she thought and was so overjoyed she could hardly speak.
“Thank you, Lady Minowa, thank you for giving me this release to return to my family. You know I love Princess Ko if I am allowed to say that, but because of my own daughter, Fuji, I choose the first option,” Furuya whispered at last.
The samurai’s wife nodded and when she spoke, her voice was lifeless and heavy, “It’s decided then that you wish to go back to your family, Princess Ko will miss you dearly but like all of us she will have to make adjustments to our new circumstances.”
With that, Lady Minowa inclined her head towards the door and Furuya scrambled hastily to her feet, the conversation was over and she bowed her way out of the room. It was only when she was outside that Furuya started running, her slippered feet making a kind of whistling sound on the shining cypress wood floor. Her heart was singing because she was finally going home for good!
It was only later when she sat down at the little stone garden to calm her bursting lungs outside the servants’ quarters that Furuya was able to feel the full impact of what Lady Minowa had just told her.
“I have been sent to Hokkaido because Lord Inaba wants to take a new wife who may be able to bear him the sons he wants so badly……………”
The words echoed sadly in her ears and Furuya felt a rush of pity for the Lady Minowa whose inability to bear a son to carry on her husband’s lineage had always been a dark shadow lurking uneasily over the whole household. What happened was inevitable but there was not a single dry eye the day Lady Minowa, Princess Ko and their retinue of servants set off for the long trip to a life of seclusion in Hokkaido. Furuya was the most affected because of her attachment to the precocious Princess Ko who was said to be too spirited for her own good and for Lady Minowa herself whom Furuya knew loved her husband to distraction. She could only imagine the pain that the samurai’s wife kept hidden in her heart as she accepted her banishment to the north with grace and dignity.
Lord Inaba could not even be bothered to send them off and Furuya could see the dark shadow of grief crossing Lady Minowa’s face as she inclined her head slightly to see whether he had come to say good bye. But her good breeding and dignity did not allow her to cry or break down in public so she bit her lip till it drew blood to restrain her emotions as the carriage moved slowly away from the castle that had been home to her and Princess Ko.
Furuya felt a twinge of guilt because her own heart was singing with joy and all she could think of was that she was going home and she never wanted to leave again. A new phase of her life was about to begin and little did she know that her return to Noriyoshi would eventually produce a child who would one day, in an age and time none of them could ever be part of, fulfill her father’s social ambitions, far beyond his wildest imagination.
CHAPTER: 6
The Higuchis’ second child was born in April, 1864 and they called him Sentaro. But Furuya’s happiness and sense of completeness at the arrival of a son at last was marred by Noriyoshi’s insatiable ambition to buy his way into the rank of samurai. Nothing else seemed to matter to him any more and Furuya missed the earnest young man who took an interest in everything around him.
“Leave it be, Noriyoshi,” she pleaded. “Lets’ just be happy as we are and stop this life of scrimping and saving just to pursue a hopeless ambition with a bottomless pit! You’ve already managed to buy the rank of jikisan, a direct retainer of the Shogun! Why can’t you be satisfied with that?”
But her husband would not let go, not even when he finally managed in 1867 to buy into samurai status at last. Instead, to Furuya’s horror, he relentlessly went on to get their son, Sentaro adopted by a samurai family so that the boy could acquire that status as well.
Eventually, Furuya gave up trying to rein him and his ambitions in, she had her hands full with the children who had started to arrive in quick succession. In 1866, a second son, Toranosuke, was born followed by a third son in 1869 who did not survive beyond the first week of life and his death cast a dark cloud over the whole family.
In 1872, after a whole series of pregnancies, Furuya was horrified when she discovered she was pregnant again. She tried all the usual old wives’ methods of natural abortion but none of it worked, the baby was determined to stay inside her and an exasperated Furuya eventually gave up and learned to live with her pregnancy. To her surprise, it was a wonderful pregnancy, the baby was just as determined to give as little trouble as possible and Furuya felt amazingly at peace and tranquil as if the unborn baby was nurturing her instead of the other way round.
There were days when Furuya couldn’t even remember she was pregnant and when the time came, Natsuko, their second daughter, arrived calmly, causing very little trouble and pain to her mother, very much in keeping with her later life of calm resistance to all the obstacles she faced as she relentlessly carved a place for herself in the history of Japan.
The minute her newest baby was placed in her arms, Furuya felt the powerful pull of the umbilical cord that had just been severed between them.
Natsuko was born with her eyes wide open already taking in a world that would be her stage and her mother whispered against her red, wrinkly cheeks, “Oh, child of my heart, I can already feel it in my bones, you will be special!”
Almost right from the start, the baby Natsuko was a joy to the family, chuckling and cooing even before she was able to hold her head steadily up and much of the gloom that had clouded the atmosphere in the Higuchi home was dispelled by this new baby’s sunny disposition and oblivious tolerance of any or all incidents of chaos and distress around her.
Two years later, another daughter and the last child was born to the Higuchi family and they called her Kuniko. Natsuko’s position in the family changed to the middle of three daughters and in the order of social status in Meiji Japan, she should be nothing but a mere middle daughter of no particular consequence. But there was something about this special little girl that captured and held her parents’ attention and they could deny her nothing.
“We are giving too much attention to Natsuko and neglecting the other children, we have to remember there are four other children in this family as well,” Furuya would tell her husband but no sooner were the words out, Natsuko would steal the show again with her sharp intelligence and wit and all their good resolve to be fair to all their children would crumble again.
Although he would never openly admit it, Natsuko was undoubtedly Noriyoshi’s favorite child, it amused Furuya to see him sitting this unusual daughter on his lap and teaching her his classic poems with obvious enjoyment at her eagerness to learn and absorb. If anything, Natsuko was distracting her father from his obsession to attain a social status that his wife felt was honestly beyond his reach. But she started to have concerns when Noriyoshi’s obsession began to shift to Natsuko and what he felt was a very extraordinary intelligence in his daughter that needed nurturing.
“Why do you recite all those poems to Natsuko?” Furuya asked her husband. “I’m sure she doesn’t even know what you are talking about!”
“That’s where you’re wrong!” Noriyoshi retorted. “In fact, I was just thinking how amazing that it is our daughter and not one of the boys who is showing great promise in reading and literature. Just look at the way she responds! How can you say that she doesn’t understand any of the stuff I read to her?”
As she grew older, Natsuko proved her father right by taking the center stage at every gathering with her passionate recitation of poems in a voice that still had a high childish treble because the little girl standing confidently before her audience was, for all her adult ways and talent, only 6 years old!
CHAPTER: 7
Natsuko remembered the first time she stood in her family’s living room facing a sea of expectant faces, her father’s guests from the elite literary world, mostly poets and a smattering of writers and occasionally even a couple of actors from the famous kabuki revue. She was just six years old but her father had put her in front of all those immensely clever and talented people to recite his poems because he knew that she was able to do him proud.
“I can do it, Father believes in me so I can’t disappoint him,” the little girl told herself as she took the shift of papers nervously from Noriyoshi and started reading in a clear, firm voice that did not falter even over the more difficult words that should have been beyond a child her age.
“Birds come calling in the Morning Mist……………..”
As Natsuko continued reading, she could feel the mesmerizing power of her audience’s interest and, encouraged by the impression she was making on these elite men of literature, a strange passion and energy for the written word flowed into the body of the six year old child that day and would remain there, steadfast and strong for the rest of her short life.
“You did well today, Natsuko chan, I’m proud of you!” her father said later, brimming over with pride from the effusive praises of his guests at how amazingly well his six year old daughter could not only read but recite difficult classic poems with such passion and expression.
“How and from where did a child so young acquire this gift?” they asked, amazed.
Natsuko basked in the glory of that approval, after all, being the middle child and a daughter at that, she had always craved for her father’s approval and endorsement and that day, it was clear Noriyoshi was extremely proud of her..
“When I grow up, I want to be a writer, like father’s friends,” Natsuko said firmly as she snuggled into her futon that night.
“You can’t be a writer, Natsuko, because you’re a girl,” her brother, Sentaro replied. “Girls get married and stay at home to cook and have babies, they don’t become writers or anything else!”
“Don’t you say that, Sentaro,” Natsuko shouted. “Girls can be anything they want as long as they have a brain and a pair of hands! They’re just as smart as boys!”
“Well, obviously, society and they themselves don’t think so, “Sentaro retorted. “Did you see any women among Father’s literary crowd today?”
“Be quiet, you don’t know what you are saying,” Natsuko slid over to her brother’s futon and gave him a shove and a scuffle broke out. The commotion brought Furuya to the room and she called out sharply, “That’s quite enough noise, children, it’s late and your father is trying to get some sleep!”