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Schadenfreude

Please don't go, Cho-sensei. Stay a little longer. Play another game with us.

Be good, he tells them, laughing as the giggling children latch onto his arms and legs insistently and let themselves go limp so he can hardly move. I have to go home or Kanan will worry.

Miss Kanan won't mind. Just one more game, please? It won't take very long. Please-please-please? We said please so many times - Four! No, it was five! You said you wouldn't say no if we were nice and polite and said please?

All right, all right, what do you want to play? Just one more game, mind; you have to go in for prayers and dinner, remember?

Yes, Cho-sensei. They pout, mock disappointment to cover their real delight at his acquiescence. The nuns are not much for play; they care for the children's bodies and souls, but laughter is too light and trivial, the wanting of it too dangerous for these orphan children, who will see little enough reason to laugh in their lives. He learnt to smile and play, but he learnt it late, and he's not sure he really knows how to amuse the children. Still, they seem to find him satisfactory, so he is satisfied.

Be good, he tells them again and again. Wouldn't it be so much nicer if everyone was kind and thoughtful to each other? It is a practical virtue he teaches. They cannot afford pride and willful caprice the way the pampered children of the townspeople can, dependent as they are on the kindness of strangers.

Be good or God will punish you, they intone solemnly in return, and he laughs with them furtively in horrified amusement, all of them glancing around to make sure the nuns are not there to see this mockery of their holy teachings. And he doesn't say that there is no waiting punishment; it is too much blasphemy to risk, and they will learn it for themselves soon enough, if they do not already know it.

So be good, he says as he waves goodbye, but doesn't add: for the reason your sensei teaches you, not the other; they already know it.

Be good, children.

I'm back, he calls to Kanan as he arrives on the step. I'm sorry for being late. I was playing with the children and forgot the time. The door swings open readily, unlocked, and he hesitates. Kanan?

He looks upon the shattered vase in which she placed fresh flowers every morning, the simple plates set out for their simple repast broken on the floor, their plain wooden chairs and battered furniture overturned. It looks like the work of brigands, but what do they have worth stealing? They are only poor orphans. It does not make sense. A picture they had taken together that bright spring day, when first they found each other again, lay face down, the glass broken.

There was no other way, the village head tells him later, there was nothing we could do. If we hadn't given them Kanan, I would have had to give them my daughter! His wife wept and gathered the frightened girl into her arms protectively, as if fearing he would take her away from them.

You know of him, that demon king of the Hundred-Eyes Clan they call Predator of Women. He was here.

So you offered Kanan as a substitute, says Gonou, his voice sounding strange and hollow even to himself. He doesn't look at the women, trying to keep his mind focussed on the here and now and hear the man out, though the demons are taking Kanan further and further away from him as they speak.

I couldn't possibly give my precious daughter to those beasts! How can people like you, who never had parents or family, understand how we feel?

Indeed he doesn't understand. Kanan is gone, who was all his world to him. She is dead, as good as dead, or better off dead. He thinks he understands this, but he has no tears for her, and his heart does not clench in pain or sorrow the way it is described in books. All he feels is cold, and an inexplicable lightness inside. He doesn't understand. There is a moment when he sees the knife sheathed across the mantel, when he thinks it should mean something to him, but then the moment passes.

Good night, he wishes them, and excuses himself to put his house back in order and throw out the broken things.

The next morning, he goes back to the school as usual, and it seems that nothing has changed, save for the absence of flowers on the table. He doesn't kiss her goodbye as he leaves, and he no longer calls out to her when he returns.

But everything else remains the same. Be good, children.

And the demons return, demanding another maiden in tribute. It is duly paid, and a servant girl goes weeping to her doom as her impoverished family watch, clutching the recompense that would pay for her sick little brother's medicine. It is the way of the world

Should he feel something? He doesn't know them except in passing; he greets them when he goes into the village for provisions.

And the demons return once more, demanding another maiden in tribute. He feels nothing, watching the same play re-enacted, only with different actors. He doesn't understand.

Be good, children.

And the demons return, time and again. He begins to find himself smiling as the people in the village go on with their lives.

And the demons return. He watches and smiles, as fear erodes away their love for their children, their sisters, their wives. What has he to fear? He will never understand them. He has nothing to lose.

Be good.