Chapter 5
They reached the intersection in silence. Yuwa needed to collect her thoughts. Or maybe she was giving him time to collect his. Kenshin couldn't to tell. None of this new information was having the impact he had believed it would. Knowing that he had been wanted had been a greater shock. The story the woman was telling was more hers than his. He felt a pang of guilt.
"What did she look like?" he asked, softly.
Yuwa turned to him as if coming out from a dream
"Your mother? She was short, I'd say about your height. She had long silky black hair and dark skin from working in the sun. In the winter, however, her skin would be as pure as snow. She had a scar above her right eye."
Yuwa touched her own eyebrow.
"She used to tell me that she'd gotten it fighting a kappa. Yumi told me it was actually from their father beating her after Yuki had stood up to him. She wasn't one to sugarcoat things."
Kenshin tried to picture his mother. A blurred image of Tomoe came to mind. He pushed it away.
"Let's go up," said Yuwa. "The road is strewn with rocks and branches so watch where your step."
The woman didn't wait for him. He hurried after her.
After a while, it became clear that Yuwa wasn't going to continue her story. At least not for now. He hesitated a moment, then decided that he should offer her a tale in return.
"I should probably tell you why I call myself Kenshin and not Shinta…" He paused, waiting to see if she would react. She didn't. He continued.
"I don't quite remember how it happened or how long it had been since I had left the village, but I ended up with a group of slavers."
This time, if only for a split second, it seemed like she would stop walking. She didn't. It didn't escape him.
"There were two nice girls in the group. They immediately took me under their wings."
Kenshin then proceeded to tell Yuwa about Hiko Seijuro and how his master had renamed him. He told her of his training and of the Bakumatsu. He told her of his involvement in the revolution. He couldn't see her face and the sound of her breath didn't give anything away but he was certain that she was listening attentively. When he reached the part about Tomoe, a part of his history of which even his friends weren't aware, he didn't hesitate even for a moment. There was something freeing about telling a stranger about his life.
"And this is how I got my scar," he concluded.
They had reach a small plateau. Yuwa had slowed down and finally stopped. He could see slivers of moonlight fall on her silouhette ahead of him. She didn't say a word.
"I haven't talked about this to anyone in years," he confessed. "I realise this isn't the most appropriate of stories. I'm sorry if I upset you."
She shook her head.
"We're almost there," she said without turning around. Her voice was emotionless. They resumed their walk.
About twenty minutes later, the trees parted and they found themselves in a moonlit field. The air was cooler and cleaner. Kenshin welcomed the refreshing breeze. On the right, he spied a small dilapidated temple, its wooden planks a silvery grey. Unkempt tall grass surrounded it and continued unbroken for a long distance. It appeared to stop right next to a simple but large wooden house which almost leaned against the hill at its back. Kenshin took a few steps in the cleaning. On the left, it ended abruptly with a sheer cliff. Far below, the village lay asleep in the valley. The view was simply breathtaking.
"The entire village used to be up here?" he asked.
Yuwa stood next to him, looking down. She seemed to have regained her composure.
"Yes. The river used to flood a lot so it was safer up here. Until the landslide, that is. Come, I will show you."
Kenshin's eyes lingered on the village for a moment. He wondered if Kaoru-dono was asleep. He followed Yuwa. As they advanced, he noticed the ruins of many wooden houses. It looked as though they had been carefully dismantled; what remained must have been deemed unusable. They passed the large wooden house he had noticed earlier. It looked solid. He wondered why only this house had been left intact. He had just had this thought when he noticed a smaller house fairly close to the first one. No one had tried to reuse its material. It was hard to say for sure in the darkness, but the roof appeared to have rotted and caved in. The door was gone. The gaping hole made him shiver.
Distracted, he almost collided with Yuwa. She didn't notice.
"About ten years ago, the rainy season got particularly bad. The crops rotted in the field. Mold crept everywhere and one morning, the god of the forest decided that they'd had enough. This entire part of the mountain slid down."
She pointed at the steep slope in front of them.
"It was horrible. The trees, the houses, everything came crashing down the mountain in a gigantic mud wave. Luckily, most people were at the temple; the chief had called an assembly to assess the state of our crops."
Kenshin remembered that rainy season. He'd been on the road, sleeping in barns, getting food where he could. It had been a difficult time.
"Still, some people died. The elderly who'd stayed home. The young mothers and their infants. It was a sad day."
He voice trembled. She wiped her face with the back of her hand.
"I'm sorry," he said.
She shook her head and smiled weakly at him.
"It's ok. Come. Let's sit over there. I should finish our story."
They sat on the roots of an old tree. They had a gorgeous view if the village below. Yuwa stared in the distance, wringing her hands. Her cheeks still bore traces of her tears. She cleared her throat.
"Your father was devastated by your mother's death. It left him alone in a village that was not his own. I feared for a while that he would leave and take you with him. In tears, I confided in him. To this day, I wonder if I didn't affect his decision. I have spent many sleepless nights feeling guilty for my selfishness."
She sighed.
Kenshin only knew too well the pain his father had gone through. However he and Tomoe hadn't had a child. He wondered how things would have turned out had a constant reminder of his first wife been around.
"Whether it was in part my doing or not, Shin-chan and you stayed in the village. He worked really hard on the farm and I helped whenever I could. In the beginning, you cried a lot, asking for your mother. Then, one day, you stopped. You became the happiest child I had ever seen. I was relieved not to have to console you non-stop but I just couldn't understand what had triggered that change. You were around two by then. Your father later told me that you'd walked in on him crying one afternoon. He believed it had traumatised you and that in your young mind, you'd decided to be happy for us."
Kenshin had no recollection of this. However he couldn't deny that this tendency had stayed with him.
"The four years that followed were uneventful for the village. The civil war raged outside, but our little haven was spared. You grew up to be a vivacious little boy. Although it took you a while to start talking properly, once you did, you never stopped. You were curious and adventurous. You got us both in trouble countless times. You slept in my futon. You ate everything I prepared without complaints. And you smiled, always. I held your hand in mine and felt like the luckiest girl in the world At time you called me onee-san, at others Yuwa-chan but never Okan. I always feared that you would and that your father would hear. But you never did."
Yuwa's hands were clenched on her yukata. He waited for her to continue. She took a deep breath.
"You would have turned six in the fall when it came. The fever. It came with the heavy tsuyu rain and devastated the village. Some blamed the merchants that had passed through with their dubious wares most likely stolen from corpses. Other said that the gods were displeased with this war where brothers killed brothers. I didn't have time to consider why people were dying or why our crops were failing; I had to take care of you. Although you didn't get sick, your father did. Against my will, I moved back with my family with you in tow. I felt like a stranger in that house but Shin-chan was adamant that we leave lest we get sick, too."
She paused and in the silence, Kenshin noticed that the sounds of the night had died down. On the horizon, a dim light contoured the curves of the mountains bordering the other side of the valley.
"Not long after we moved in with my father, Shinichiro fell sick. He had always been a sickly child and so the fever took hold. He was gone within a week. Your aunt went crazy with grief. The death of your mother had already shaken her but this truly destroyed her. My father said that we had brought the sickness with us, that it was all Shin-chan's fault. I did my best to defend him but I soon fell sick, too. For some reason, you remained perfectly healthy."
Suddenly, she turned to him and took his hands in hers. He started.
"I should have protected you better, Shinta. I mean… Kenshin. I'm so, so sorry."
She hung her head and raised their hands to her forehead. He could feel her tremble.
"A doctor came. No woman in the village trusted him; they hid their children from him. He had a reputation... He met with my father and, just like that, you were gone. I was hysterical when I realised what had happened."
She looked up to him. The words rushed out of her like a river in spring.
"I should have been there. I should have protected you. And now I know that because I failed you you had a horrible life…"
He squeezed her hands. Her distress broke his heart.
"You were only a child. How could you possible have prevented your father from selling me? This is not your fault."
She shook her head and sighed.
"A few days later, through my fever, I witness Shin-chan burst into our house in search of my father. The rumours of my dad's nefarious sale had reached him. He kept yelling your name, asking where you were. When my father finally confronted him, I feared that one of them would die. I hoped it would be my father. But nobody died then. Your father eventually went back home but not without breaking my father's nose. Yumi saw the whole thing in a daze. I'm not sure if she even remembered it afterwards. When I was finally able to walk again, I went to your house. I was terrified of what Shin-chan would say but my love and my grief were stronger."
She bit her lower lip.
"I found Shin-chan hanging from the rafters," she said. "I had nightmares for years. Sometimes I still see his face, Shinta."
As if relieved of a heavy burden, her shoulders slumped. She turned away from him, covered her face with her hand and cried. Kenshin stared off in the distance. The night had paled, leaving in its wake a burst of pinks and yellows. It seemed as if the mountains were ablazed.
"I think I remember that doctor you talk about now. The slavers killed him somewhere outside Ostu. He was too old. But I would have sold for a nice sum."
His voice was but a whisper. He wondered if she had even heard it.
So had his life been. A series of misfortunes from which he had miraculously escaped mostly unscathed, at least physically. He wondered if his life would have been as hard had he remained in the village. He looked at Yuwa. He wanted to comfort her. He didn't know how he possibly could. How did one comfort a stranger?
He didn't have time to ponder the question. From behind them, a voice called out.
"Yuu-chan, is that you?"