The Tokaido Road (1991)(528p) Read Free Page B

Butterfly nodded toward the dark doorway of the storeroom.
    “I’m going to pickle him like an eggplant.”
     
     

 
CHAPTER 2
     
     
    A STATE OF CONFUSION
     
    Cat slid the quilt sling and its stiff cargo along the cherry planks of the hallway. The wood was smooth, with a satiny patina buffed by forty years of daily rubbing with damp cloths. A single candle on an iron stand shed a dim light. The body bumped over the threshhold and onto the raised wooden walkway across the dirt floor of the storeroom. Cat let her breath out slowly and waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom.
    The storeroom was a wild disorder of goods and tools stacked as high as the dusty rafters. Five hulking cedar barrels bound with hoops of twisted bamboo splints were stacked in a far corner. Old Jug Face transferred sake from the distilleries’ smaller casks into them so she could water it. The barrels were almost as tall as Cat was. This wouldn’t be easy.
    Cat knew she would have to put the body into the top rear barrel, which should be about half-full. The servants regularly siphoned off the sake from that one, figuring Old Jug Face wouldn’t notice. Cat was sure the mistress of the Perfumed Lotus charged the customers extra to cover the loss. That was easier than trying to stop the larceny.
    When Butterfly returned, Cat set the candle holder on a small shelf. Then she boosted the child onto the first row of barrels. “I’ll push while you pull.”
    Cat and Butterfly hauled the body up the side until the customer’s waist was balanced on the rim. Cat grasped each foot and shoved the corpse the rest of the way. She put the wooden pry bar on top of the casks, then climbed up a stack of bales of rice and onto them herself.
    She pried open the rear lid and slid it off. She and Butterfly wrestled the body into position and eased the customer headfirst into his last bath. Cat had to lean on his feet to crumple him enough to fit.
    The sake covered the guest’s soles. He wouldn’t begin to smell until the servants drained off enough wine to uncover him. Cat set the lid back on. She climbed down, scooped up a handful of fine dust from the dirt floor, and sifted it onto the cask lids to cover the evidence of activity. With a small broom Butterfly swept away their tracks in the dust behind them as they and the quilt retreated to Cat’s dressing room.
    The guest’s clothes hung on a wooden rack in the small reception room that led into the sleeping chamber. Cat regarded them with distaste. The shMgun, Tokugawa Tsunayoshi [i] , banned his officials from frequenting the pleasure districts. The ban was ignored, of course, but those affected by it generally wore disguises. Cat’s guest had favored the clothing of a common laborer.
    Cat left the long strip of cloth the guest wore as underwear in his travel box sitting behind a low screen in her dressing room. She found another length of cotton cloth in her own big cedar chest. She stripped off her robes, folded them neatly, and put them in the chest.
    She stood perfectly still while Butterfly wound the cloth around her hips, pulled the end into the cleft of her buttocks, passed it between her legs, and tucked it into the front of the belt. When she finished, Cat was wearing the loincloth sported by men of the laboring class.
    Next Cat held one end of another long piece of cloth against her abdomen while Butterfly walked around her, pulling it taut as she wrapped it around Cat’s abdomen and chest.
    “Tighter,” Cat whispered.
    The cloth was called a haramaki, and commoners wore it around their stomachs for warmth and to protect their navels, the seat of their emotions, from the mischief of the Thunder god. Her uptilted breasts were small, but they were taut, and the nipples were large and firm. The haramaki, wrapped higher than usual, would flatten and hide them.
    Cat pulled on the blue drawers with their tight legs and baggy seat and tied them at the waist. Then she slipped into the light