The Hell Screen Read Online Free PDF Page B

toothless gums. “Missed me, has she? Ho, ho. And she’s bringing the young master. Ho, ho, ha! What a time we’ll have!” He clapped his hands, a tear of joy spilling over, and said again, “What a time we’ll have, yes. It’s been sadly quiet here all these years.”
     
    Akitada patted his shoulder and went to the house. As Saburo helped him off with his boots, Akitada asked, “Are my sisters here?”
     
    “Only Miss Yoshiko. Lady Toshikage resides in her husband’s home.”
     
    The elder of Akitada’s sisters had married in his absence, a match arranged by his mother. Toshikage was in his early fifties, and Akitada had wondered how the headstrong Akiko had fared. He had hoped for a younger man for her, but she had been in her twenty-fifth year by then, well past her first youth or a time when she could expect many offers. And it had been his mother’s wish. Toshikage was, by all accounts, a respectable civil servant, holding a senior secretaryship in the Bureau of Palace Storehouses. His first wife had died, and Akiko had taken her place, apparently content.
     
    Yoshiko, two years younger than her sister and ten years Akitada’s junior, had been left to take care of their bitter and sharp-tongued mother.
     
    Akitada walked through dark hallways and rooms. All the shutters were closed because of his mother’s illness. Yoshiko must have heard his step, for she suddenly appeared in the doorway to his mother’s room, looking wan and worried. When she recognized Akitada, her face lit up with joy. She gave a little cry and ran to throw her arms around him.
     
    “You came.” She laughed and cried, hugging him. “And how well you look. But you must be tired. Have you eaten? Oh, Akitada, how I have wished for you!”
     
    “I know,” he said, holding her away a little. “You have had a hard time of it, Little Sister. Are you well?”
     
    She brushed tears and a strand of hair away and nodded, smiling. “I am well. You know how healthy I am.”
     
    “And Mother?”
     
    She shook her head. “She has been ill for three weeks now. It started with an ache in her belly. We have tried everything: gruels made from herbs, powdered thistle, parsley, red clover, and teas of barberry bark and catmint. The pharmacist walks in and out of our house as if it were his own.”
     
    Akitada glanced toward the closed shutters which could not shut out the chanting of the monks. “So you finally resorted to spiritual remedies?” he asked, raising his brows.
     
    “Not for that reason,” Yoshiko said, shaking her head impatiently. “I know how you feel about it, but how would it look if we did not? Besides, it was Mother herself who made the arrangements. I don’t think she believes in the chanting, but she likes people to think that we do things properly. Oh, Akitada, she has changed so much, you will be shocked. She cannot keep her food down and is too weak to stand up. I do not know how she has lived this long, except to wait for you and her grandson to come home. You did bring Tamako and the boy?”
     
    “When I got your letter, I rushed ahead. The others won’t be here for a while. I did not want to risk their health.”
     
    Yoshiko’s face fell. “She will be disappointed. But never mind. Come in!”
     
    She led the way into the gloom of his mother’s room. A large, rawboned maidservant quietly rose from her cushion beside the sick woman and moved aside. The elder Lady Sugawara lay on her bedding on the floor, her head propped on a porcelain headrest, her pitifully thin body covered by a silk quilt. The room was dimly lit by a single candle on a stand, and the air was thick with incense, which did little to disguise the smells of sickness and decay.
     
    Akitada almost did not recognize his mother. The long beautiful hair, her special pride, was gone, cut off short just below the ears. What was left was thin and snow-white. The strong handsome face had shrunk and her skin was bluish gray, the pale lips