ONE DAY IN THIS WORLD
Cat and Hanshiro and Kasane stopped only to visit the wayside privies, change hostlers in Ishiyakushi and Kameyama, and buy food to eat as they rode. High in her rocking pannier, Kasane read her new manual of love.
Cat and Hanshiro rode in silence. They had no need for words. They were experiencing yoin, resonance. Pulses from their lovemaking still reverberated through them like the aftertones of a temple bell. A glance, a sigh, a wisp of a smile, began the sweet throbbing again.
A cold rain began to fall after they passed the government checkpoint in Seki early in the afternoon. The postboy put on his straw raincoat and hat. Kasane made a tent of her oiled-paper cloak and a straw mat and went on reading under it. She had progressed to the “Instruments” section, and only a typhoon could have distracted her. Cat and Hanshiro rode with their thighs touching so they could share Hanshiro’s big red umbrella.
The road wound upward into steep green mountains. At Sakanoshita they had to turn in the horses and proceed on foot. Beyond there, an avalanche had covered a section of the Tõkaidõ, and travelers had to take a detour. The new route included a bridge suspended over the deepest gorge. It was a swaying, precarious affair of bamboo poles and hawsers. Horses could not cross it.
While Hanshiro returned the mounts, Kasane read under the wide eaves of Sakanoshita’s transport office. She had come to the part of the manual that described types of vaginas. She was wondering if hers was one of those “moist and snug and lined with bumps like herring roe.”
When Hanshiro returned she reluctantly wrapped the book in paper treated with persimmon juice. She put the package in a bag and looped
the long cord around her neck. Then she stuck the bag and its contents into her jacket. She shouldered the carrying pole and travel box and set out behind Hanshiro and Cat.
By midafternoon they were well into the highest of the mountains, the upper fringes of the wild Kinki region to the south. Far below, muddy rivers, pale as liquid plaster, filled the sharp clefts of the gorges. Mist from them snaked among the trees and undergrowth. Silver waterfalls plunged into the layers of mist, only to reappear farther down the slopes. Hanshiro took the travel box to ease Kasane’s burden.
By the time they were nearing Suzuka Pass, the day was as dark as late twilight and the rain was still falling. The gloominess was heightened by the overhanging cedars. The road went from precipitous to perilous. Torrents of water and slick gray mud cascaded down the slope.
At a narrow defile Kasane strayed too near the edge of the road, and the saturated ground gave way under her feet. She screamed and plummeted straight down.
“Kasane!” Cat flung herself onto her stomach at the rim of the gaping hole. “Kasane!” She was oblivious to the water rushing past her and into the funnel formed by the cave-in. Kasane clawed at the rocky slope as she slid down it. Cat could see the terror on her receding face. She came to a stop with a jolt, her feet hitting a small outcropping of rock. She grabbed the stem of a stunted bush and barely saved herself from falling over backward and onto the boulders in the river below. Her face looked small and pale and indistinct in the mist.
Hanshiro always carried a hempen rope. In his profession ropes and the tying of specialized knots often came in handy. But when he threw one end to Kasane, it fell far short. He retrieved it and knotted both his and Cat’s sashes and then their loincloths. It still dangled just above Kasane’s outstretched hand. She tried to scramble to it and almost fell again.
Cat and Hanshiro looked around for another traveler who might have a rope. The road was empty, the rain relentless.
Hanshiro was in a quandary. He could reach Kasane if he were lowered down, but Cat couldn’t pull both of them back up.
“I’ll go.” Cat tried to take the rope from Hanshiro’s hand, but he held it tightly. She stared up at him as the rain pelted her face. “If she dies while we argue”—she had to shout to be heard over the roar of a sudden gust of wind—“I shall throw myself after her.”
Hanshiro had no doubt she meant it. Cat could see the flash of despair in his eyes.
“Sleeve touches sleeve,” she said. She did not have to finish the
saying: Because it was fated in a former life. If they were meant to be together, nothing would part them.
Hanshiro tied the rope around her chest above her breasts and under her arms. He tugged on it to check the knot. “Wrap it around your arm and hold it like this.” He pulled on it again to test her grip, then he helped her coil the trailing end. “I’ll hold your ankles.”
Even if fate meant for them to be together, he couldn’t bear to test it by lowering her over a cliff on the end of a rope. He had to keep her in his grasp. He lay on his stomach and gripped her ankles as she inched over the precipice. She braced herself with her elbows to keep from scraping her face on the rocks. Gravel and larger stones hit her on their way to the bottom of the gorge. The water rushing over the edge flowed into her eyes, making it impossible to see. Perhaps that was just as well.
Even with Hanshiro’s fingers digging painfully hard into her ankles, she felt as though she were falling already. She concentrated on Kasane and not on the dizziness that swept over her. She didn’t see the young man, hidden under a sodden straw hood and cape, who kneeled to help Hanshiro. Hanshiro saw that the man was Traveler, but he was too preoccupied to acknowledge it.
“Drop the rope directly beneath you,” Hanshiro called.
“I have it,” Kasane shouted. She tied it around one wrist and held on with the other.
Cat braced the rope against the palm of her hand as Hanshiro and Traveler began pulling her back. Even though Kasame tried to help, pushing off with her feet where she could, her weight made Cat’s arms feel as though they were being wrenched from the sockets. The rough hemp and the rocks of the slope bloodied her hands.
As soon as they had Cat safely back on the road, Hanshiro and Traveler grabbed the rope and heaved while Cat tried to wipe the mud and water from her eyes. When Kasane was close to the edge, her young suitor backed away and trotted off without waiting for thanks or recognition. He was too embarrassed about missing his meeting with her that morning to face her now.
Cat and Hanshiro each took one of Kasane’s hands and hauled her up. Hanshiro didn’t know how things stood between Kasane and Traveler and decided not to mention him. Panting and laughing, he and Cat and Kasane sat in the mud and the rain. Then, on trembling legs, they walked the half a ri to the dank hamlet of Tsuchiyama and stopped to warm themselves at the thatched hovel that served as its only tea house. Kasane’s blue fingers shook as she sipped the hot cup of pale mushroom tea and watched the rain pour off the eaves.
Cat wiggled her bare toes, tingling with cold, even after the maid had washed them in scalding water. The owner of the tea house claimed to have a room where they could sleep, but Cat could see it would be tiny and roach-infested. “We can spend the night here.”
“Please don’t stop on my account, young master.” Kasane had long since made Cat’s mission her own. “I can walk all night.”
“Just don’t try to fly again, Hachibei.” Hanshiro grinned at Kasane through the steam rising from his teacup. “The rest of us can’t keep up with you.”
“Yes, master.” Kasane smiled shyly into her own cup. She had to agree with the old saying. Truly, one day in this world was more pleasurable than a thousand in the next.
Minakuchi’s night market was noisy and reckless as a country fair. Groups of town lads strolled among the booths. They flirted with the young peasant women selling produce and loudly discussed the best ways to win favor with courtesans.
A gang of them brushed by Cat, who had stopped to look over the display of dildos. The itinerant peddler was the same one she had seen in the yard of Yokkaichi’s transport office. Now he had turned his big wooden traveling case into a makeshift kiosk by spreading a square of black silk over the top of it. He had arranged his wood and lacquered papier-mâché phalluses on the cloth.
“Something for your wife, governor?” The man caught Cat’s eye. “I have a wide assortment of finely crafted instruments to console her when business compels you to be absent from her bed.”
“Fate has not plagued me with a wife.” Cat had paused here to see if the man following her would pass on by. He didn’t. Instead, he pretended to inspect the bunches of straw horseshoes, hanging like shaggy fruit from the pole of a vendor nearby.
He had been behaving suspiciously. He wore a towel tied to cover most of his face, and he kept his head down except for furtive glances at her.
Hanshiro had wandered off mysteriously, and Cat suspected he was looking for a present for her. She considered setting out to find him. Hanshiro’s strength and skill tempted her to let him do everything for her. But this, she decided, was something she could do for herself.
The man seemed to be alone and inept at knavery. He was probably some small-time hireling who hadn’t read or heard of Hanshiro’s letter, signed with Kira’s crest, countermanding the order for Cat’s capture.
His hands were empty. His only likely weapon would be a knife or truncheon hidden in his sleeve or legging or jacket.
From the corner of her eye Cat watched him sneak up on her. When he reached out to grab her sleeve, she picked up the biggest dildo from those on display. She had been hefting them on the pretext of shopping, and she knew this one was of dense, hard ebony.
Cat whirled with it and hit the man just above his ear. His eyes flew open in surprise, then closed as he pitched forward. Cat knelt and pulled back the towel covering his face.
“Traveler!”