A Scandal in Edo

In the chill grey light of another spring morning, the events of the previous night seemed like a very strange dream indeed. Luluko had barely remembered getting back home. It had been so late that even her aunt had turned in rather than wait for her return.

Aunt Kaede did not rouse her even when the sun was high in the sky. It was abnormal. And it made her realise that something had changed.

When Nanari had asked, Luluko muttered something about feeling ill.

“She did stay out rather late last night,” Kaguya said to Nanari. “She probably not used to it.”

“Poor Nee-san. Shall I ask Aunt Kaede if you can have porridge for lunch?”

From the narrow doorway, Oshiitsu and Kallen looked on.

This was the problem with a female-dominated household, Luluko thought as she tried to block out the presence of the others. Everyone except her uncle and sister would be curious. Aunt Kaede because she would want to know if her liaison would be more than just a single night’s transaction. Kallen, Kaguya and Oshiitsu because they had been there last night and knew something was different.

Her sister’s presence was the only thing preventing a barrage of questions from coming her way.

She had to get out of bed eventually to take care of certain necessary body functions. Pushing back the door ever so gently so as not to make a noise, Luluko made a run for it.

And almost ran into Kallen, Kaguya and Oshiitsu as she reached the backyard. Swallowing a shriek of surprise, she nervously wondered why the three of them were lurking behind the back door.

“We should be asking the questions here!” Kallen said.

“Are you all right?” Oshiitsu asked.

“I-I can’t say!” Luluko said, backing away in the direction of the toilet.

“All right, we’ll hold back . . . for now,” Kaguya said, holding up her arms as though she could stop Oshiitsu and Kallen from physically following her to the privy. “Maybe you need time to settle yourself.”

“Eh? I thought you were dying to know,” Kallen said in surprise when they had backed off.

“She means that we should wait. I give her until tomorrow before she cracks,” Oshiitsu said.

“My cousin . . . is not a bad man,” Kaguya said carefully. “Though he can get remarkably stubborn if it involves his honour. I will have to see about this . . .”

Oshiitsu’s prediction was a little off. Luluko was waiting up for them later that night, having ensured that Nanari was asleep and her aunt and uncle were doing the same.

There were plenty of interruptions as Kallen and Kaguya cut in a various points. A muttered swear-word was heard from Oshiitsu when she told her about telling Naruse.

“What? So nothing happened?” Kallen sat back on her heels, a befuddled look on her face. “So all that running around last night was the only trouble?”

“You told Naruse first?” Oshiitsu asked. “I cannot believe that you’d tell a boy-fancier first.”

Kaguya looked more relieved than anything else.

“He still owes you. You’re . . . well, you know,” Kallen said. “It’s not like you weren’t affected.”

And Luluko did know. Her aunt had got her in private that evening and demanded to know her likely prospects. She had got away with a vague answer about potential future communications.

“It’s not like she’s going to parade down the street like courtesan,” Kaguya said. “Or change the length of her sleeves to advertise.”

“It’s all right. Like this, I mean,” Luluko said. “As long as I can be here with Nanari, it’s all right. Aunt Kaede didn’t even tell me to do the laundry tomorrow.”

“You’re too easily satisfied,” Kallen said, but she let it be. It was hard enough making a living as performer, much less a female dependent on the goodwill of relatives.

Her aunt did drag her out to the shrine the next day to pray for better fortune. Luluko was not entirely certain one was supposed to ask the gods for that kind of thing, so she prayed instead for her sister’s health.

While she was spared the laundry, Aunt Kaede was still not willing to let her hands go idle. Luluko was pushed out to the front of the shop in a presentable kimono to help her uncle, a job she had done sometimes when they were short-handed. It was boring work, fetching materials to and fro for customers who wanted clothes made.

“Luluko, help me get that bolt of material on the back shelf--yes, that brocade--”

Her uncle was probably only guilty of not standing up to his wife. Then again the shop and its related interests had been inherited from her aunt’s side of the family, so his attitude was understandable. Other than that, he was a largely inoffensive character who just happened to be married to her aunt.

“Luluko, take food to the workshop--”

At noon, she took lunch to the workers at the shop a few houses away. They were about a dozen weavers and tailors in her uncle’s employ and she was fairly familiar with them.

“It smells like your cooking today! Thank goodness!” Harada-san, the nominal foreman of the small workshop, took charge of the baskets. “Not to speak badly of others, but your aunt does skimp on the seasonings . . .”

“I know,” Luluko said, embarrassed on behalf of her relatives. “I’ll take back the baskets now and come back for the pots later, Harada-san.”

“All right--” Harada’s distribution of food was interrupted by the appearance of men at the door of the workshop.

“What is happening? This is private property, sir!”

The men who pushed Harada out of the way were doushin by the look of their dress and the swords they carried.

“Sir, I must ask your business!” Harada was putting on a brave front, but there was little he could do when the doushin were involved.

“Vice raid. Illegal activities have been reported in the area,” said the man who looked like the one in charge. “We are in the process of rounding up illegal prostitutes--”

“That’s the bathhouse across the street and the teahouse next door!” Harada pointed out.

“Nevertheless, all women on these premises are to be detained,” the officious doushin said, waving the official warrant. “Stand aside.”

“You’ve made a mistake--” However, Harada and the other men were helpless as the doushin herded Luluko and the three women who worked as weavers out the door.

What in the world did one do in a situation like this? Emiko, who had been an apprentice until a month ago, looked ready to go into hysterics as the women were pushed together with others from the surrounding buildings. She had a death grip on Luluko’s arm, but as there was nothing to be done, the older girl bore up with it as they were jostled together with some women who did, in truth, look rather slatternly from the sloppy way their kimono were tied.

“Oh, Harada-san’s running to fetch your uncle!” said Naomi, who had been working for her uncle for over two years. “I hope he can clear this up--before it’s too late--”

“Too late for what?” Luluko craned her neck to see Harada racing down the street. But they were being led away now.

Mai, the eldest and most sensible amongst them, looked pale with fear. “Luluko-chan, we’ll get sent to the Yoshiwara!”

“I mean, surely my uncle would--” She had a mental image of her uncle flailing ineffectually at the doors of the magistrate’s office. Of all the times to wish that her Aunt was her Uncle instead.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

In the kitchen of the house, a pot was on the stove, its contents steaming away in readiness for lunch. A figure stole up to it discreetly, found that its height was lacking and returned with a small stool in order to perch upon it and thrust a sealed missive above the steam.

Like nectar to bees, such activities attracted unwanted attention. Kallen wandered past with a pair of geta in hand, paused and poked her head in.

“What are you up to now?” she asked Kaguya.

“Up to?” Kaguya asked innocently.

“That doesn’t look like it’s addressed to you,” Kallen said, peering at the missive she held.

“Details,” Kaguya began.

“--Are important.” Like a ghost, Oshiitsu had materialised at Kallen’s elbow. “For instance, who might that letter be for?”

“Geh! Don’t sneak up on people like that!”

“It’s for Luluko-chan, from my bone-headed cousin. So it’s my business after all.” Kaguya hopped off the stool nimbly and eased the wax seal open.

“Half the going-ons in Kyoto and Edo are your business,” Oshiitsu said dryly. “So what does it say?”

“My!” Kaguya said after reading it. “I didn’t know my cousin had it in him!”

“What?” Kallen took the letter form Kaguya and scanned it. "I would like to see you again. Apologies for the trouble caused. Suzaku. Eh? What is this?"

"This is as good as a love letter, two full-length poems and a lover's token from my cousin!"

Seeing the doubtful looks from Oshiitsu and Kallen, Kaguya waved her hands irritably. "So the he's a little slow to wake up to the possibilities--it's not all his fault . . . He thinks--he knows that it's all going to arranged for him so he doesn't even try."

"That was why I was wondering where his balls were," Kallen said dryly.

"Slow development is better than no development." Kaguya carefully resealed the letter, examined it and was satisfied that it looked mostly untouched. “Anyhow here’s something for the girl to think about--”

"What's that noise?" Oshiitsu leaned out of the backdoor. The neighbours were gossiping over the fence in the backyard. Something about their movements hinted that this was a lot more exciting than so-and-so buying a new set of chickens or so-and-so having an affair with her-down-the-road.

The neighbour leaned over, almost bursting with the need to share the news with more people. "It's terrible! There's a vice raid going on!"

"Vice raid?"

"Closing down teahouses and bathhouses in the area and rounding up illegal prostitutes," the ever informative neighbour told them.

"They do that often enough in Kyoto, along the riverside. They called it catching nighthawks," Oshiitsu said.

"But how do they know which places are illegal cat-houses?" Kallen asked. She had not seen a vice raid in Edo before. To be sure, the district they resided in had its fair share of bathhouses and teahouses that sold more than baths and tea.

"Mostly by people collaborating with the authorities," Oshiitsu said, giving the neighbour a hard look.

Their neighbour looked defensive. “None of us are sneaks. It’s hard enough to get by without the Shogunate clamping down on everything. Of course, you didn’t hear me say that,” she muttered, looking left and right furtively.

The women turned again as they heard another commotion at the front of the house. Wooden walls carried noise rather well and they made it to the scene just as Harada from the workshop burst in.

“It’s bad, Boss! They’ve taken the women--and your niece!”

Odou looked flummoxed. “Who--”

But Odou’s question as answered a moment later when the doushin came by. There was much panic on the part of the merchant, who assured the enforcers that his was a legitimate clothing and cloth-making business with much hand-waving and cold sweat. The performers housed here were, of course, only singers and dancers--nothing more--

It took some wrangling, some waving of Oshiitsu’s passage token and name-dropping of the very important people who had been her clients before they would leave them alone. Kaguya, having disinherited herself, could not quite pull rank and in the end, they could only get the name of the magistrate to see about redeeming the women.

“This won’t do . . .” Kaguya looked troubled as Odou did a very good impression of a chicken with its head chopped off in the background. He was either worried about how to fix this situation or worried about explaining it to his wife. “That hatamoto is notoriously good at accepting bribes and little else.”

“So do we rustle up some money or what?”

"I don't think we have that kind of money. Not even they do," Kaguya said, gesturing back at the foreman and the merchant. "And it’s not our place to fatten the purses of officials. It's time, I think, to do things in a less orthodox way. And no, Kallen--I don't mean go cut a few throats."

“Oh good, blood is so hard to get out of clothes,” Oshiitsu said sardonically.

“We just need to find someone--”

“Ano, is anything the matter? I heard the noise . . .” Everyone froze as the screen door slid open and Nanari pulled herself out. The walls were very thin and while she was blind, her sense of hearing was very acute. And though she was crippled, it was not as though she was incapable of moving around the house.

“Well, there’s been a bit of a mistake,” Kaguya began. “But you shouldn’t worry about it--we’ll find a way to sort it out--”

“Is this about Nee-san? What happened?” the girl asked anxiously.

“She’s--she’s been detained.” After hesitating for a fraction of a second, Kaguya opted for honesty. “But it’ll be sorted out, I’m sure.”

“Is Uncle going to get her back?”

“He’s going to try,” Kaguya hedged. “Now if I can speak to someone I know, things might move a little faster, all right, Nana-chan?”

* * * * * * * * * * * *