Ansei had made no attempt to speak to me since the night he had given me that apple. Even when he had seen me bury my weaving deep inside the furthest reaches of the garden, he hadn’t spoken a word. There might be nothing to gain by speaking to him now, and something to lose. Because of the weavers’ conspiracy against me, I couldn’t openly befriend him without bringing us both under suspicion and probable punishment.
I considered entering the garden after nightfall, but this created other problems. I couldn’t bring myself to awaken Ansei out of sleep. A visit from a woman at midnight would have a particular look to a lone man. This troubled me, but I don’t know if it would have deterred me. The weather resolved the conflict.
* * *
I awakened, as was my former habit, in the early morning hours, and went to my loom by moonlight. But the night was so dark, and no matter how wide I opened the doors, the room was too dim, even for my sharp eyes.
I didn’t dare burn anything. Oil was too precious, and Madame would notice if I burned it all night long. So, I went to the veranda, sat down and watched the garden. In the distance, I could perceive the linear exterior of the shed where Ansei slept.
A slight breeze carried the scent of an approaching storm. Not long later, the darkness deepened, and heavy clouds opened up in a torrential rainfall. If Ansei had not awakened yet, he would soon.
Within minutes, the shed door opened and an indistinct figure raced across the gravel path toward me. He leapt up under the deep eaves of the mill, and paused. For a moment, we stared at each other.
Finally, I spoke.
“I won’t say anything to Madame. Sleep under the eaves.”
He nodded a slight bow.
“Thank you.”
His simple cotton robe clung to his broad frame, and dripped rainwater to the floor.
“You can’t sleep in that, I whispered. “Tatsuo may have a spare dry robe hung by the wash basin.”
Ansei shook his head sharply and then I noticed he carried a small, neat bundle in one hand. He carefully unfolded a clean, dry robe and though I looked away, I stole a quick glance over my right shoulder and suppressed a gasp at his exposed back, innocent of all traces of Tatsuo’s recent beating.
After tying his robe, he approached an increment closer to me, though too distant for a whispered exchange. I closed the further distance, and asked, “You come and go within the house and somehow no one ever notices. How do you do it?”
A shy smile just touched the corners of his mouth.
“I anticipate telling you my secrets someday, but you don’t really expect to have them now, all at once, do you?”
I started at his strange answer and felt the heat travel across my face.
“Granting that you have secrets I am unready to learn, why should you promise to tell me any of them?”
“It seems only fair that I share mine someday.” He paused for a breath. “After all, I know yours.”
My eyes snapped wide in surprise. Surprise, yes, but not doubt.
“Mine?” I snatched a quick breath. “Do you…do you know where I came from?”
He gave a curt nod.
“Your mother and mine were…acquainted.”
I let go of a long breath and felt the warm rush of blood to my cheeks.
“Were acquainted. Is she dead, then?”
“Shortly after she left you, I was told.”
“Do you know whether I have any other family?”
Stolen novel; please report.
“A few, yes…but your people were different: roamers, artists, political dissidents. They’re not well integrated with larger society, and they couldn’t keep you.”
I knew what this meant. They were eta…the burakumin, or outcasts. I had long suspected I was from this rank-less class of Ottoponese society. Who else abandoned their child on a genkan?
“Is my father alive?”
“No. He passed with your honored mother.”
“Also of illness?”
Ansei hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
I sensed Ansei’s discomfort as he spoke, and I didn’t know whether I fully believed his story, though I wanted to, badly.
“What were they like—my parents?”
“Your mother was also a brilliant weaver. Her work was truly fine. Better even than yours.”
My brow arched.
“What do you know about my weaving?”
I thought I saw him flinch, as if I had caught him in a mistake, but only barely, and he wouldn’t answer. And by this, I knew he had more secrets he might tell, and wouldn’t.
“What about my father?”
“He was a warrior…”
I gasped, “My father?”
“Once, yes…but he displeased a ranking official and lost his title. Later, he took care of cattle.”
That alone would explain my family’s outcast status.
Ansei sent me a nervous smile.
“But your father was a great and loyal man. You would have been proud of him. He and your mother share quite a love story.”
“Tell it to me!” I leaned in eagerly and almost took hold of him, before recollecting myself.
Ansei stiffened.
“It isn’t for me to tell. But there are records—not safe to carry. Some would call them seditious. Maybe someday I’ll be able to take you. Let you see them yourself.”
We fell silent for a moment, and I understood then what Ansei had meant about secrets and my readiness to hear. In a short conversation, the telling of my history had forced an intimacy I was unprepared for. What was more, Ansei seemed torn to relate it. I couldn’t be sure why he had even shared it. Still, I took little caution from this insight, and instead, believed him my benefactor.
“You came here for me? To tell me my past?”
He assented with a terse, almost unwilling nod.
“I don’t know what to say. Do you know what that is worth to me? How can I ever show you?” I hungered to know the price, and would have given him almost anything to remove the debt.
Ansei’s mouth smiled, but his eyes saddened. Finally, he shook his head in absolute rejection of my gratitude.
“There is no debt. I came into service here as much for my own reasons—not to put us on unequal ground. Remember, you know nothing about me.”
I could but stare at him. What I already knew of him was hard to comprehend. He had taken my beating for me; had done something to my lashings—healed them in some remarkable, even miraculous way—he had brought me the first knowledge of my mother and father’s identities; then warned me not to trust him?
“Your help will be a burden to me if you say I cannot trust you.”
He exhaled in apparent frustration.
“I don’t forbid you to trust me. I only meant…” he sighed heavily and continued brokenly. “Someday, I may want to ask something of you—some extraordinary something I have no right to expect you to honor. And you are under no obligation for what little I’ve told you about your mother and father.”
I frowned.
“Someday, you will ask me? I don’t understand.”
He whispered in reply, “We shouldn’t talk here.”
I agreed.
“Nor during the day. The weavers watch me, and suspect…” I hesitated to speak the scurrilous words.
“They can’t help themselves. Tomorrow night at midnight, if the rain stops, I’ll meet you at the plum tree.”
“Wait!” I said, and snatched at the neck of my robe. Carefully, I pulled a small piece of red silk from where I kept it hidden always above my heart. “My mother swaddled me in this piece of silk when I was a baby. I want you to keep it. A token of the secrets you have told me, and still promise to tell.”
Ansei pushed my hand away.
“I can’t take it.”
I frowned.
“I didn’t say you could have it. Only keep it for me. I don’t want to lose the right to return to this subject again. If you hold the fabric for me, I won’t be able to help it.”
“No,” he repeated, and frowned a warning, but I was determined and wouldn’t let him discourage me.
Lightning flashed. A clap of thunder followed. I scarcely noticed, but set my jaw and met his gaze unblinking. When he glanced askance, I reached my hand to the neck of his robe, pulled it apart, and tucked the red inside against the visible rise and fall of his naked chest.
Eyes closed, he accepted it with no further resistance. And when I withdrew, he covered the spot where my hand had touched him with his open palm.
* * *
I soaked my futon through that night, mourning for my dead mother and father.
Next day, for reasons I couldn’t fathom, Cook and Kame both awakened ill. Both emptied their stomachs outside over the veranda.
“Since you have miraculously escaped any trace of sickness, Furi, you’ll take care of meals until Cook is well,” Madame said. “When you’ve finished in the kitchen, you can take care of Kame’s chores.”
I could never finish the work in time to meet Ansei, however late, but it didn’t matter. The weather coincided with my emotional flood. It rained torrents for several days.
* * *
During the downpour, I never saw any hint of Ansei—not during all the midnight hours. Not under the eaves during all the storms. I couldn’t discover him anywhere, and his means of disappearing was a secret he intended to keep.
I didn’t care. Whether he wished it or not, I was awed by his mystery, his power of healing, the depth of his knowledge, and his breathtaking generosity to me. I wouldn’t demand to know the source of his power.
I didn’t know what it meant to be an immortal, but I accepted Tatsuo’s theory. And if Ansei were all that, I was sure when he trusted me enough to make his request of me—no matter how great his demand, I was bound to comply.