Literature Club Activity Report: Shiratama Riko The Fixer in the Sunless Row House
On the outskirts of Edo Castle, before the great maw of Sujikai Gate, and south along the Yatsukoji, was the Nihonbashi fish market. Far removed from there stood a seedy row house, in which a man wielded a brush with great passion. A concoction of warabi bracken and persimmon tannin coated its hairs, then the sturdy wood of the rib of a bangasa. When he was satisfied with his work, the man did not let out a breath but held it as he aligned the oil-paper to his meticulously crafted frame. He admired this work too, then took up the brush again.
It was then that a bell rang through the quickly darkening sky. The sound of evening. Hongokuchō’s Bell of Time. Oil was getting very expensive. The man, quite literally, could not afford to make mistakes fumbling in the dark. He set his brush back down.
“Yuunosuke-san? I’m coming in.”
Before the man could answer one way or the other, the girl slid open the shoji screen door. She was a very small thing with hair done up neatly in the yuiwata style, of no more than fifteen, perhaps sixteen, years of age. Lips pressed together to a point, she stepped inside and onto the earthen floor.
“O-Rin-chan. Impeccable timing. I’m rather short on funds.”
The girl called O-Rin invited herself in, stepping up from the doma into the room proper before seating herself there. She regarded the umbrellas by the wall to her side, her expression an iron mask, and opened and closed each. “Three bangasa?” She wrapped them in furoshiki cloth. For them, she placed a single silver shu.
“Awfully stingy, no? I have debts to repay.”
“You were given an advance. This is the remainder.” O-Rin was not going to change her mind. But she was weak to the look on Yuunosuke’s face. From her silk, drawstring purse she produced a second silver chip. “Never say I didn’t help you.”
“My sincerest thanks. With this, I can have rice for dinner.” The man stowed the shu into his sleeve, then studied O-Rin’s expression. “Is something the matter?”
“Perhaps not, if you can explain the reason you have not come to teach me arithmetic, as per our arrangement.”
Yuunosuke withered slightly at the girl’s disgruntled tone. “I believe it best if I keep my distance from the Shirota estate.”
“Why? Is it my sister? She’s…” O-Rin bit her lip and hung her head.
It was not so long ago that Yuunosuke was to be married into the Shirota family. They were affluent people in Terifurichō, primarily dealing in the sale of umbrellas and geta. Far better than the fourth-born son of a Sanshū samurai with no hope for inheritance could ever ask for. O-Rin had made herself ready to welcome her new brother-in-law into their home. That was until the loss of Mino, her older sister.
“I have no place among magnates. From the start, it was too good a proposition for somebody like me.”
“Please, ‘magnate’ is hyperbole. We stay afloat merely wholesaling umbrellas to our larger peers.” O-Rin held the bundle of umbrellas close to her chest. She had played the part of an adult well until then. “There’s talk of wedding me. To the third son of the Sakakis.”
Yuunosuke nearly choked on his breath. He was fifteen years apart from the girl. She was but a child to his eyes. And yet she was old enough to be wed.
“I wish you the best,” he said.
The Sakakis earned their fortune through the sale of clothing at Nihonbashi, and rumor had it they had come under the purveyance of the Imperial House. There were certainly worse men to marry from a practical standpoint.
O-Rin stood, unimpressed with the man’s reply. “Expect more materials tomorrow. Do not be late.”
Yuunosuke nodded, and the girl left. She did not shut the door. The man simply stared out it in a daze. For him, Mino was ever in his heart, ever unchanging from the girl she had been three years ago. For him, time had not moved a second since that day.
“O-Rin-chan’s getting married, is she?” A young man entered through the open door, placing a small tobacco box onto the dirt floor, then producing a kiseru from his breast.
“Eavesdropping is rude, Nukuzou.”
“No such thing as privacy in row houses, much less one as shabby as this.” The tobacco merchant lit his pipe, sucked, then blew. His favorite activity. “The Sakaki’s thirdborn. Infamous, that one.”
“Is he?” Yuunosuke was not good at feigning interest. He instead busied himself putting up his tools.
“His folks sent him to study swordplay, in the hopes martial pursuit might hammer the boy into shape, but word is he’s running with an even worse crowd these days. Methinks old man Shirota’s not found himself with a son-in-law but a problem.” Yuunosuke was not moving anymore. Nukuzou shrugged and held out his hand. “Want answers? I’ll make it cheap. For old time’s sake.”
“You’d rob the poor?” Yuunosuke fished inside his sleeve, then handed his shrewd, former colleague a single shu.
“Pleasure doing business. I’ll put the rest on your tab.” Nukuzou collected his things and stood to leave but turned to the umbrella maker one last time. “You can always come back. Blood is not so easily washed from a blade.”
Yuunosuke shook his head, gesturing to the daishō leaning against his wall. “It’s no longer mine to clean. What you see are imitations. The real ones were taken as collateral.”
“I see. Shame that look in your eyes can’t be so easily sheathed.” Nukuzou said no more before taking his leave.
Once certain Nukuzou was gone, he removed a single, old tatami mat. From beneath it, he retrieved the past he once thought long forgotten. Mikawakuni Kanetsugu. A katana that had been left to him by his father upon his departure from his homeland. He gripped the sharkskin hilt, and it gripped him back.
He would never wield this blade again. Or so he had once told himself.
“Suppose you can’t let some things go,” the man said to no one. A theatric soliloquy to an invisible audience.
Time moved once more.