Through My Eyes
By: Stealiana

The morning sky was a deep gray when I awoke, due to the early hour and the clouds that hung low. I saw another futon rolled up beside me. So he had come in, and had let me sleep, defenseless and open. How was it that I had been able to drift off after washing the red off the white, while he still roamed about? No, I told myself, I have married a good man! My father would not mislead me…

Hoping it had been conjured in my dreams and was nothing more, I made my way around the house searching for him. The rain began almost immediately after I arose, one of those warm downpours that make the earth smell fresh and clean. Despite the weather, I found him outside, sitting against the wall underneath the overhang. He had a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and he was shuffling through papers, of what I was not sure.

"Good morning…" I said, barely audible above the rain. Did he ever sleep? He seemed to show no signs of fatigue, as he sat fully dressed, awake for quite some time.

"Good morning, Tokio." He replied, his deep voice the only thing directed at me, as his eyes and mind remained firmly attached to whatever it was he was reading. I felt extremely awkward, standing in the doorway, as I struggled for something to say. I wanted to ask about the night before, where he had been, why the blood… but as I vainly tried to think, he sighed.

"Damn it." He crumpled up the paper with his thin fingers. "The bastards will never learn." Tossing it to the side, he picked the cigarette out of his mouth and knocked the ash off in a graceful tap.

"Are you going out today?" I found myself asking, thinking that the people he was referring to had something to do with his work. He slowly put his cigarette back between his lips.

"No." My heart sank. How would I survive a day with his silence? Knowing he was there, soundless and watchful, made me feel so self-conscious, like I could not make one mistake without his noticing. The patter of the raindrops sounded to me as if the sky mourned my fate.

"I'll go make you some breakfast." I said at last, rather hurriedly. "You must be hungry…" Without waiting for a reply, and not really expecting one, I made my way to the kitchen to escape my confusion. My attempts to focus solely on building a fire and measuring the ingredients were in vain, my mind simply refused to stay on the task.

The blood on my husband's uniform plagued me, as I tried to justify what my father had told me. My father was an important official, would he not know? Good men did not leer at young girls and rape them, good men did not come home to their new wives bathed in blood!

"Do you know what I am? …You have married a killer, Tokio. Or so they will say." I blinked, as a sudden revelation dawned upon me. He had not told me what he thought he was, only what other people would believe. He had warned me; he had challenged me. But… if he was not a killer, then what was he?

Aku. Soku. Zan. Was that the Shinsengumi motto, then? Kill Evil Instantly. But who were they to determine what was good and what was evil? When members of their own group attacked innocent people, how could they judge others? Granted, these were unsettled times, even the stupid among us knew. The purpose behind the Shinsengumi seemed reasonable enough on the surface, but how many of the rumors were true? How many Fuyuko's had not been able to escape from them? Whenever my mother mentioned one of these rumors coming to light, my father had always shook his head, saying: 'These are difficult times.' I always knew he championed the Shinsengumi, but… even so I felt betrayed, as if he had left me to be devoured by a pack of wild animals.

All men to some degree desire power. Ironically, it is the women who bear the brunt of man's lust for power. For if nowhere else, the man asserts himself over his home and his wife. Ishinshishi, Shinsengumi, noble and peasant alike. The common thread that ties all humanity together is the greed for this power over one another. In such volatile times, the possibility of attaining such power seemed to be merely an arms length away, carrying so many to the brink of an insanity they never would have reached otherwise. I could see it clearly, as if I was looking at the world in a mirror, and all the people had turned to monsters with their lust. What I did not know was whether or not he saw it, and whether or not he was one of them.

Without a word, I carried my husband his food and bowed low. He reciprocated the silence, and there were no sounds but that of his methodically devouring the meal. I stood watching him, finding that the more I looked at him, the less hatred I felt. I recalled yet again everything he had and had not done, thinking less and less of the incident with Fuyuko. He could easily have taken me by force - some husbands would argue it was his right. But he had not. Nor had he tried the previous night, I realized. How could I accuse such a man of committing the crimes founded only in gossip?

I felt better by the time he had finished eating. Simply because my husband was a member of the Shinsengumi did not mean he was a horrible man, although the blood on the uniform still perturbed me. But was that not his job? Aku. Soku. Zan. Was that not what he was trying to explain to me that very first night? As a dutiful wife, I decided I must trust him unless I found reason to do otherwise. I resigned myself to the thought of washing his bloody uniforms for many nights to come.

I was glad the morning was so uneventful. He stayed outside, smoking his horrible cigarettes, no doubt, and reading the stack of papers he had with him. I meant to take one to look at, my curiosity almost unbearable. But he was watching me, and I could not bring myself to ask. Instead, I busied myself with scrubbing the floors of our home diligently, convinced they had not been touched in quite some time. I almost began to feel like a normal housewife taking care of my daily duties.

Towards the evening hours, without saying a word, he made his way past me to the front of the house and departed. I moved quietly to a window and watched him slowly walk through the rain, his feet carrying him steadily towards an unnamed destination. Even I knew what awaited him - what would continue to await him for those long, violent months to come. After he disappeared about the corner, I remained standing there, feeling rather pitiful and neglected, wishing he had spoken. The rain continued in its unfaltering path towards the earth, softly hitting the stone pathway and pooling in rivulets. I turned away and tried not to worry.