Akitada's Holiday: Akitada Mysteries

AKITADA’S HOLIDAY

Three Tales of Crime

by

I. J. Parker

Contents

Copyright

Pronunciation of Japanese Words

Introduction

The New Year’s Gift

The O-bon Cat

The Tanabata Magpie

BONUS: Sample Chapter From RASHOMON GATE

About the Author

Also by I. J. Parker:

Copyright 2012 by I. J. Parker

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission of the author or publisher.

Cover design: I.J.Parker. The background image is Ando Hiroshige’s Kinryuzan Temple at Asakusa.

Pronunciation of Japanese Words

Unlike English, Japanese is pronounced phonetically. Therefore vowel sounds are approximately as follows:

a as in father

e as in let

i as in kin

o as in more

u as in would.

Double consonants (ai or ei) are pronounced separately, and o or u are doubled or lengthened.

As for the consonants:

g as in game

j as in join

ch as in chat.

Introduction

The following stories have appeared previously in ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, but have since gone out of print. They were written in no particular order, but are also in the collection AKITADA AND THE WAY OF JUSTICE where they are given their proper place in Akitada’s life. Here they are brought together to illustrate particular customs in eleventh century Japan, those observed on special holidays.

Single stories, or short collections like this one are meant for readers unfamiliar with the Akitada novels and who only want to sample a few examples of his exploits. I hope you’ll enjoy these three, as well as a sample chapter from the novel RASHOMON GATE, where Akitada attends some of the celebrations of the Kamo festival.

I. J. Parker

The New Year’s Gift

Japanese customs for the New Year

OF all the celebrations of the year, its beginning was the most significant for the people of early Japan. At court, the festivities, rituals, and observances spread over an entire month and were centered on the religious significance of the emperor. At dawn on the first day of the new year, His Majesty performed the obeisances to the four directions and prayed to the gods and his ancestors for a prosperous year. Later all the nobles paid their respects to the emperor, and a series of banquets took place over the next few days. On the third day, the emperor was served especially beneficial foods, like spiced wine, melons, radishes, and round rice cakes, to strengthen and lengthen his life. On the seventh day, His Majesty and his subjects consumed a seven-herb gruel to ward off evil spirits and diseases. At court, the month continued with ceremonial outings, dance performances, and contests of skill.

But ordinary people also marked the new year with special festivities. It was important to pay all debts before the new year started. Everyone celebrated another birthday on the first day of the year and was a year older. People paid courtesy visits to their patrons or superiors. They exchanged gifts and wished each other an auspicious year. They made offerings to the gods and presented gifts to temples. And they celebrated with their families and good food.

And now the story:

Heian-kyo (Kyoto): during the New Year of the First or Sprouting Month.

THE dark figure crossed the street and paused in front of the rice merchant’s shop. A sliver of light from inside briefly lit his young face; then he melted into the shadow of the doorway.

Only a few doors away a middle-aged couple, huddling together against the freezing drizzle under an oilpaper umbrella, stopped on their homeward walk. Their name was Otogawa, and they were returning from New Year’s dinner at their son-in-law’s house.

Did you see that? the woman hissed. Wasn’t that Kinjiro sneaking into Itto’s place?

Curse that Itto! mumbled her husband, swaying on his feet and nearly dropping the lantern. Hope the fellow kills him. The old miser’s got us like rats in a bag, rot him!

If you stayed away from wine and dice, we wouldn’t be in this shape, she scolded. And you’re drunk again! As if we had anything to celebrate when you’re about to lose the shop.

Shut up! he muttered and gave her a push that made the umbrella tilt crazily and drench them both with icy water. He cursed and staggered toward the door of his shop.

His wife followed him inside, muttering angrily. He collapsed on the raised flooring and began to snore. She lit an oil lamp from the lantern he had carried, put away the wet umbrella, took off her outer wrap, and removed her husband’s muddy wooden sandals. Then she scurried to the front of the small shop where a narrow window opening high up in the wall looked out over the street. It was covered with oil paper which was translucent in the daytime. Climbing on a small wooden chest, she peered through a rent in the paper at the rain-glistening street outside.

She was just in time, for the dark figure emerged from the shop next door, and the young man rushed past her window.

It was him, she cried triumphantly. Her husband’s comment was a loud snore. Jumping down, she ran to shake him awake. Get up! Something’s happened next door. You must go over right away.

Wha . . .?

To Itto’s! That young hellion Kinjiro just came out again. And he was running. He’s done something.

Why should I care? Serves the tight-fisted villain right if the kid robbed him.

You fool! If you offer your help, the old man may wait for the money. She slipped the sandals back on his feet and gave him a push toward the door.

With a grunt, her husband staggered out into the icy rain.

The festive New Year’s season began badly in the Sugawara household. On the first day of the year, the weather was so abysmal that the emperor could not pay homage to the lodestar, a bad omen for the nation, and apparently also for the Sugawara family. Akitada was passed over in the annual promotions. On the second, the diviner came to cast his divining rods. When he read the resulting hexagrams, he looked glum and shook his head. Young Yori came down with a fever that night. On the third, the so-called tooth-hardening day, Akitada’s elderly secretary Seimei bit too heartily into one of the tooth-hardening and life-prolonging rice cakes and broke a front tooth, throwing the whole family into gloomy anticipation of his death. Then Akitada caught a cold.

By the morning of the seventh day, the day of the seven herbs rice gruel, he woke with a vile headache and sore throat. His misery grew when no gruel appeared. In fact, there was no breakfast at all—not even a soothing cup of hot tea, though Seimei was usually obsessively punctual and reliable.

Shivering, Akitada dressed and went across the chilly courtyard to the kitchen. There he found to his irritation his entire staff—Seimei, the cook, his wife’s maid, and Saburo who swept the courtyard and answered the gate—clustered around a seated beggar woman.

What is going on? And where is my rice gruel? Akitada croaked, glaring at everybody accusingly. This was no time to gossip with stray beggars! It was the busiest time of the year and he had a cold.

Most of the kitchen surfaces were covered with trays and baskets of New Year’s delicacies: melons, radishes, and huge platters of round flat rice cakes, along with salted trout, and roasted venison and boar, all auspicious foods for the coming year. Among the foodstuffs Akitada saw his bowl of seven herbs gruel—so beneficial for all sorts of ailments, sore throats for example—left to grow cold because of the shabby visitor.

They immediately scattered and knelt, touching their heads to the floor. Seimei, senior retainer and family friend, performed this obeisance in a perfunctory manner, sitting up quickly to say, It’s Sumiko, sir. She’s in trouble.

Sumiko? Akitada blankly eyed the kneeling beggar woman. She was wet and dirty. On second glance, she looked younger than he had thought, but sickly and misshapen.

"You do remember Sumiko, sir? urged Seimei. Lady Sugawara’s maid? She left us last summer to marry Kinjiro."

Oh!

Akitada was shocked. This sickly, worn, and slatternly looking woman was their Sumiko? His wife’s little maid had sparkled with health, prettiness, and laughter. In fact, they had fully expected her to run off with some wealthy merchant’s son. Sumiko had certainly had enough admirers and turned down several good offers of marriage, perhaps because she was attached to Akitada’s wife. She had even accompanied them to the north country. For eight years Sumiko was a part of their family, and then, a year ago, out of the blue, she had announced that she wished to marry a penniless good-for-nothing.

The young man was not only poor, eking out a miserable wage as a messenger between post stations, taking and bringing horses as they were needed, but he had been in trouble with the law. Sumiko defended him, claiming he was a changed man and would be adopted by a generous relative, but Akitada and his wife did not take this seriously; they attempted to talk her out of it. Sumiko had ignored all warnings and married her man.

The police have arrested her husband for the murder of his adoptive father, said Seimei now, justifying all of Akitada’s misgivings about the match.

Sumiko burst into violent sobs.

She says Kinjiro did not do it, Seimei continued, but they have no money, sir, and Sumiko is not well. She expects her first child any day. Not knowing where to turn, she has come to you.

Akitada looked again and saw that the pitifully thin woman in her loose faded garment was indeed in the last stages of pregnancy. Akitada was not as a rule a superstitious man, but now he thought of the diviner and wondered what new calamity had just befallen them. This, however, he did not say. Instead he exclaimed with false heartiness, And quite right, too. We’ll soon have you smiling again.

When the young woman raised herself with difficulty, supporting her grotesquely swollen belly with both hands, Akitada marveled that she could have walked this far in her condition. Her face had a translucent bluish pallor, and her lips were colorless. As he searched for more soothing words, she gave him a trembling smile, and for a brief moment he recognized the old Sumiko.

You are cold and wet, he said.