Teito Monogatari:
The Tale of the Imperial Capital
Part 2: Supernatural Babylon
Author: Hiroshi Aramata
Part 5: Destruction in the Year of the Boar
Chapter 25: Awakening at Midnight
A rickshaw went down the brick-paved road, its wheels making a dry rattling sound. It passed through Kōjimachi and reached a corner of Hirakawachō. The neighborhood was dotted with brick Western-style buildings fenced in by black-painted wood. Despite the modern architecture, the feel of the place was like something out of the Edo period. Perhaps this was because of Tōkyō’s hilly landscape.
Yōichirō Tatsumiya, dozing in the rickshaw, felt every bump in the road. He must be getting close to home now. He’d traveled this road for more than thirty years. He did not know the Edo of the Tokugawa era, but his parents spoke nostalgically of old Edo. He had spent his childhood listening to their stories while looking up at the portrait of his grandfather, a former retainer of the shogunate who had long since died. Throughout his life he continued, with a sensation that could almost be called instinctive, to discover the invisible thread between old Edo and new Tōkyō.
Thus, for Yōichirō, the appearance of Edo was included among the impressions he’d gained from direct experience. Edo and Tōkyō appeared different on the surface, but the qualitative tradition handed down from Edo remained precisely the same in Tōkyō. Children born in the Meiji era with Tōkyō as their home sensed this automatically.
There was an awful clatter as the rickshaw swayed sideways and came to a stop. The surroundings were deathly still. It was late at night.
“Sir, we’ve arrived.”
Startled by the rickshaw driver’s voice, Yōichirō lifted his heavy eyelids. He could see the gate of his house.
“Thanks for your trouble.” He carelessly pulled a banknote from his inner pocket. “Keep the change, please. Go have a drink.”
“Oh, thank you, sir. Take care. It’s very dark.”
Yōichirō pushed open the side wicket gate and headed for the entrance, which was lined by low flowering shrubs. There were no lights on inside the house. His elderly parents and their maid and gardener were certainly in bed by now. Yōichirō spent most of his time at work; no one waited for him to return at night.
He gave a faint scornful laugh. He was about to unlock the door and enter the residence when he noticed that a yellow light was lit in the detached building beyond the shrubs.
Why was the light on in there?
Yōichirō stroked his mustache, deep in thought. He forgot when he’d decided to grow it, but now that it was grown in, he believed that it suited him perfectly. He approached the detached building with careful steps.
“What’s going on at this hour?” he muttered. As he walked, he reflected that he had not been home in five days. He was always very busy with his duties, of course. This week, the problem of selecting a new mayor of Tōkyō had added complication to his already complicated job. The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Internal Affairs were both under a great deal of pressure. The next mayor of the imperial capital needed to be selected with great care. Yōichirō had been tasked with finding a person that the Ministry of Finance could exert some measure of control over. Selecting the wrong person for the position could be financially ruinous for the city.
A powerful faction emerged with backing from Gotō Shinpei, which put a wrench in all of Yōichirō’s plans. Gotō was an idealistic politician of remarkable ability who had first served in the Taiwan Governor-General’s Office. By the end of the Meiji period, he had become president of the South Manchuria Railway. He had only just recently stepped down from that position and entered the cabinet. If he installed a mayor who was of the same mind as himself, then surely another grandiose plan for rebuilding the imperial capital would be foisted upon the Ministry of Finance.
Additionally, during the Meiji period there had been conflict between the city and the government over the issue of reforming Tōkyō’s urban districts.
For the city, the ideal may have been the construction of a great commercial metropolis, but Tōkyō was the nation’s capital. It was not enough for it to be simply a commercial powerhouse. Tōkyō must be economically important, yes, but also militarily defensible and politically significant. Baron Shibusawa Eiichi had advanced these aims during his own secret planning for the Imperial Capital Renovation Plan.
By installing that Shibusawa as head of the secret conference on plans for reforming the imperial capital, the Ministry of Finance had somehow succeeded in getting the government’s reform proposal through.
Gotō Shinpei would almost certainly ruin all of that careful planning.
Gotō was the man who had built in Dalian, and then in Changchun, new Paris-style cities with radial streets the likes of which East Asia had never before seen. This man had laid the groundwork for realizing a city of dreams in distant Manchuria. He had been summoned back to Tōkyō, but no one expected him to give up city-building easily. In time, he was sure to thrust a grand plan for rebuilding Tōkyō yet again upon the imperial government.
That was why the mid-level officials of the Ministry of Finance had been tossed about for the past week. It was late August now, the heat burrowing like creepy-crawlies beneath the skin. Yōichirō was completely exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to sleep in his own bed.
“Who’s there?” Yukari asked softly. She must have heard his footsteps.
Yōichirō opened the screen door of the detached building and saw his sister’s face limned in dirty yellow light.
“Yukari,” he whispered.
Yukari brought a hand to her chest and frowned.
“What have you come here for, you bitch?” he hissed at her.
“My brother…” There was faint hostility in her gaze as her fingers slipped beneath the collar of her shirt.
Yōichirō let his anger show on his face as he stepped inside the building. Yukari stepped back, away from him. The yellow candlelight swayed, casting exaggerated shadows.
He had her cornered and she knew it. Yukari didn’t struggle when he seized her by the collar and hauled her up. His breath stank of liquor.
“Brother,” Yukari said.
“Go back to the clinic where you belong,” Yōichirō said. “Did you come to see Yukiko again?”
Intimidated by her brother’s ferocity, Yukari lowered her eyes.
“You fool. That child is being looked after by our parents. You are not to visit the house again, understand? You’re a nuisance. You’re a plague.”
“Brother…”
“Why are you talking back? I won’t allow it.”
Carried away by his anger, Yōichirō struck his sister hard across the face. She collapsed onto the rice mat floor, clutching her cheek in dismay.
Yōichirō followed her down, kicking her chest and stomach as he went. The violence of their actions made the candlelight flicker and then go out, leaving them both in the dark.
Breathing roughly, Yōichirō looked down at his sister lying collapsed on the floor.
“I had the dream again,” Yukari said softly.
“What dream?”
“A deep red sunset. The dead floating in a pool of blood. That dream I once saw long ago at Mitarashi Pond on the Ministry of Finance’s grounds.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Dreams are just dreams.”
“This one isn’t. Every night, I see ominous signs. Something terrible is going to happen. I know it.”
“Don’t bring a curse down on us by speaking such things aloud,” Yōichirō snapped.
“I had the dream again just now,” Yukari said. “That’s why the candle was lit. I was so frightened, I was shaking.”
“Be quiet, Yukari!” Yōichirō made no attempt to suppress his rage. He straddled Yukari, grabbed her by the collar, and squeezed with all his strength.
His sister caught her breath with a gasp. She didn’t resist him at all. That only made him angrier. He clutched at her throat like a madman.
“Die. Die!”
There was power in Yōichirō’s fingertips: so much of it that he could scarcely believe it. Yukari was so weak compared to him. She had been unwell for most of her life. He half-believed that his hands were capable of piercing through her pale skin.
Yukari closed her eyes and lay limp. Her hands trembled violently. Yōichirō remembered them doing that before, a long time ago. Startled by the memory, he released his grip and stood up.
Yukari wept silently, her tears falling to the floor.
From the next room, separated only by a sliding door, the faint sound of sobbing reached Yōichirō’s ears.
Yukari slowly stood up, opened the sliding door, and disappeared into the next room. Two sets of bedding had been laid out inside it. On the small bed to the left was a little girl sitting half upright as tears streamed down her cheeks.
Yōichirō left the detached building and closed the screen door behind him. He went to the garden, hoping the walk would cool his head, and looked up at the moon. Its edges were tinged red.
“Katō,” he said. He had not said that name for a long time. Years, at least. He’d been trying to escape the nightmare of that time by forgetting and forcing the memories down, but he’d never forgotten what had happened. His feelings and memories from years ago crashed over him like a wave. Yukari had disappeared. She’d been rescued, but she was insane. And then… Yukiko.
The Meiji era was done and over. They’d been in the Taishō era for a decade. And yet…
It was past midnight, but the lingering heat made Yōichirō feel like he was standing under the noonday sun. He felt insane, himself. His eyes kept finding the red moon. He bit his lips and forced himself to look away.
The muffled sobs coming from the detached building gradually died away as Yōichirō stood in the garden and tried not to remember. But he remembered everything.
So did Yukari.
Translator's Note:
The Tokugawa era (1603–1868) and the Edo period are synonymous. It was Japan’s final era of traditional feudal rule. Established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after the Battle of Sekigahara, this 250-year period brought unprecedented peace, urbanization, and economic growth under the strict rule of the Tokugawa shogunate.
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