Thoughts from Episode 64: What shall I call you?

The gradual denouement continues in this chapter, with Sara’s marriage to the Emperor being confirmed, to (almost) everyone’s delight. Elsewhere, Yoshino no Miya recovers and has an awkward and ambiguous reconciliation with Suzakuin, while Suiren is implied to tell Mitsuko… something about the two men’s past. As time goes by, the Emperor ponders who could’ve got Sara pregnant before – ruling out several options including the person we know to be responsible – but seemingly stops worrying about it following the exciting news that Sara is pregnant again!

So far, the Emperor and all the court officials have still been at the temporary palace of Marumitsu’s residence, but after several months there, they return to the rebuilt palace. The court ladies make their return too, including Umetsubo, whom everyone views with suspicion. Indeed, she is acting pretty suspicious, and she recalls a previously unshown moment where Genkaku gave her some creepy rosary beads. Right after we see this – presumably after a few more months at the new palace – Sara falls unconscious in the maternity room and finds himself standing in the Sanzunokawa…

Something you might reasonably wonder in this post-the-Emperor-learning-the-truth-about-the-siblings era is what people are actually calling these characters. I hinted at the potential confusion a bit by referring to “Sara 1” and “Sara 2” when I talked about the events of Episode 62, but since then I’ve gone back to calling them what I’ve always called them. In the story itself, it is – as is so often the case – more complicated than that.

Though the Emperor knows that Sara and Suiren are not the same Sara and Suiren who joined the court back in the first two volumes, this is and will remain a secret from the rest of the world. That means that in practice, the only people still calling them by their names from back then (apart from me) are each other, in private. The one I call Suiren is consistently referred to as “Sarasoju” or by her rank of general.

But what about our Sara? Face-to-face, the Emperor calls him Suzushiko, the name that Sara “lent” to Suiren ahead of his first day of work. However, most people are not using the personal name of the Emperor’s new wife. At that point in history, it just wasn’t considered appropriate for others to know such personal information about an aristocratic lady. You may also be sadly unsurprised to hear that the true names of real-life Heian period women were not normally recorded, and so even the most famous (say, Murasaki Shikibu or Sei Shonagon) are known to us not by confirmed actual names but by conventional appellations. Examples that appear in Torikae baya include the Emperor’s existing wives Umetsubo, Kokiden, Raimeiden and Fujitsubo, each of whom is associated with the pavilion she lives in.

The question of what to call Sara is addressed in one scene in Episode 64. Court officials are meeting to discuss a report on the palace fire, and one mentions “Naishi no kami Suiren”. This is what they had been calling Sara until recently, but as he is no longer a naishi no kami, another butts in with two potential corrections. The first is “Lady Kanpaku” (関白の女御さま), which we could see as following the (obviously unfortunate) tendency to speak of women by reference to the men in their lives – kanpaku being one of Marumitsu’s official roles. In the same vein, “shikibu" is the ministry where our fictional friends Shikibu-kyo no Miya and Tachibana no Akimasa work, as did the real-life Murasaki’s father, and “shonagon” is a government position (one below chunagon, Sara’s longest-running position during his time living as a man) once occupied by Sei’s father or husband. Another interpretation, however, is that this name actually follows the pattern of Umetsubo, Kokiden, etc, given that during the relocation of the court, the kanpaku’s residence is where Sara lives.

The other name suggested is “Lady Amasogi” (尼そぎの女御さま), which is presented as a less serious option, but is used at least by Torako later in the chapter. This is a nickname based on Sara’s unusual haircut, which was always shorter than most women’s and is therefore said to resemble a nun’s or child’s hairstyle (that wasn’t an issue while he was naishi no kami because he had a hairpiece made of Suiren’s cut hair, but he lost this in the fight with Genkaku). Other notable nicknames that appear in Torikae baya include Tsuwabuki, coming from the flower he initially adorns his cap with (unless it’s nickname first, flower second?), and Gosechi, which people often use for San no Hime after her outstanding dance performance.

Even without Sara and Suiren switching places and taking on each other’s best-known names – remember that these are still not the same as their personal names, Suzushiko and Tsukimitsu! – being known by a variety of different names in quick succession or even simultaneously wouldn’t have been that strange for the time period. This is all worth bearing in mind when thinking about the elaborate aspects of identity in Torikae baya.