The Mask Carver's Son

by Alyson Richman

  Grandmother went to the corner of the room where the tsuno-kakushi, the bride’s ceremonial horn hider, and the large black wig remained. She had hesitated the night before, when she went to place the decorative combs throughout the wig. She remembered how she had placed four pins underneath the combs during the o’miai. She would be more careful this time, she thought to herself. With all her heart, she hoped the gods had not taken notice of her mistake.

  This time she chose five combs. She selected two adorned with auspicious animals, the tortoise and the crane, and one made of red lacquer, one made of silver, and one made of gold.

  She stood behind my mother and slowly placed the wig on her head. She smoothed down the strands of hair with her palms and then delicately placed the tsuno-kakushi on top.

  Mother felt a dull pain in her neck from the increasing weight being placed on her tiny form.

  “You look beautiful, Etsuko,” Grandmother whispered, as they both stared into the same mirror.

  Mother looked at herself in the small glass frame. She believed she looked identical to Grandmother on her wedding day, as she was dressed in the wedding kimono Grandmother herself had worn. She concentrated on her heavily powdered face, the carefully painted red mouth and finely lined eyes. For the first time she noticed that she had her mother’s cheekbones and softly rounded chin.

  But the weight of the kimono, the tightness of her obi, and the layers of cloth around her neck were suffocating her.

  “I can hardly breathe, Mother,” she said.

  “You will become accustomed to it, Etsuko.” Grandmother smiled as she rested her palm on her daughter’s shoulder. “I felt the same way on my wedding day.”

  But Mother knew that those words were half-truths. Her parents’ story was different from hers. And her life would undoubtedly be different from theirs. She knew in her heart that she did not love her husband-to-be and that he could not possibly love her. Her sense of responsibility and devotion was to her family; her husband’s was to his craft. But if the gods smiled upon their union and gave them a son, both parties would be content. So when she visited the Zuishin shrine before her wedding day, that was what she prayed for. She did not pray for love or for health. She prayed for me.

  Sadly, that was all she ultimately received.

  * * *

  The banquet was the most splendid display the guests had ever seen. Under Grandmother’s careful guidance, each course was fastidiously arranged and artistically decorated. Adhering to tradition, the cucumbers were cut into the shape of pine trees, as the evergreen was a symbol of a long and lasting marriage, and the carrots were cut into the shape of bamboo roots, the symbol of a sturdy union. The dried matsutake mushrooms had been reconstituted in a mixture of sake and rice wine and folded into heaping mounds of rice. Shiso leaves and chrysanthemum petals floated in clear broth like flowers in a palace pond, red caviar roe rolled in seaweed glimmered, and raw jellied quail eggs jiggled their bright yellow yolks in half-open pale blue shells speckled in white. Crisp tempura slices of lotus root and sweet yams were placed on flat basket trays decorated by a spray of winter grasses. The festive o-seki-han—rice pinkened with mashed azuki beans—was served cool on the top shelf of a three-tiered lacquer box also containing a small grilled fish on the second shelf, and a selection of tsukemono pickles on the third. Lastly, and most elegantly, sugar-dusted plums were served for dessert.

  Mother had always been particularly fond of plums. She loved their perfectly round shape, their thin translucent skin, and the sweet succulence of their flesh. As she sat displayed next to her new and unfamiliar husband on the wedding dais, she found herself anxious to try the plum that rested on the tray before her.

  She looked to her husband, who sat squarely at her side dressed handsomely in his black crested kimono and haori coat. With a quick glance she surveyed what he had eaten, as she herself was becoming quite hungry. She noticed that her husband had nearly finished the elaborate meal that had been placed before him in its entirety. He had eaten everything except the sugar-dusted plum.

  Mother, however, had been fearful to eat anything all day. Aside from the normal premarital apprehension, her tightly bound obi had severely constricted her eating so much that her intricately arranged meal remained untouched.

  I will only have a nibble, she thought to herself. I will only eat the plum.

  Then, with great subtlety and refinement, Mother revealed two slender fingers from the sleeve of her heavy silken robe and placed the plum discreetly in her mouth.

  The plum tasted wonderful. Sweet and fragrant. Mother let the juice slide down her throat and into her empty stomach. She closed her eyes, savoring its exquisite taste.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw Grandmother surrounded by several of the wives of actors in the theater laughing and speaking among themselves. She smiled at Grandmother and watched as she elegantly bowed her head and bent her knees, in a polite departure from her guests. Within a few moments she was at her daughter’s side.

  “The plums are delicious, Mother,” she said.

  “Plum blossoms are the first flower to appear in winter. They are hearty and they persevere. Even after the cruelest frost, the plum blossom remains. That is why the image of the plum is ever present at a wedding. Especially a winter wedding like yours, Etsuko.”

  * * *

  Father had seen the sugar-dusted plums being neatly arranged earlier that morning. He had frowned behind Grandmother’s back as she frantically rushed to place each one on its tray. In his mind, the plum did not bode well for the future.

  He was silent as the four of them rode in carriages to the shrine for the Shinto ceremony, he riding with Grandfather, she with Grandmother.

  My mother stepped out of the palanquin like an empress.Grandmother steadying her exit with the extension of her hand. Mother held the front placket of her robe with candle-thin fingers, the tips finely rounded and lightly powdered, and stepped to the ground with grace. Grandmother straightened the robe’s heavy train and met the eyes of her husband. He was beaming, seeing his daughter dressed in the same magnificent finery in which he earlier had wed her mother.

  Father gazed nervously at his young bride. He noticed the beautiful shadow that her headdress cast over her porcelain-white face. He felt the coldness he had harbored in his heart so long grow warm. She was indeed more beautiful than he imagined a woman ever could be.

  Their eyes finally met during the exchange of the san-san-kudo, the three sips, followed by another three sips of sake, the essential binding part of the Shinto ceremony. And for the first time in his memory, he discovered two eyes blinking back at him.

  * * *

  That afternoon, the Yamamoto household was brimming with food and conversation. Grandfather believed he was uniting the finest blood and talent in the theater. When he lifted his cup of rice wine to toast the new couple he remarked, “This day signified the merging of acting and art. Their son, my future grandson,” he declared, “will be the future of Noh for us all!” The other actors cheered Grandfather and the young couple and within minutes they broke into song. With great gusto they began chanting “Takasago” the Noh song that describes the twin pines of Takasago Suminoe, a symbol of everlasting marital happiness. But the actors never finished the chorus. The rice wine had made them giddy and they gave up halfway through, buckling over in their kimonos, their faces as red as pickled plums.

  * * *

  None of the daughters in the other families envied my mother. They all believed that my father was too consumed by his craft ever to be bothered with love. Within the circle of hushed whispers, it was said that a man whose fingers are indistinguishable from the blades with which he slices can never truly caress and love the flesh. His fingers become scythes, and his skin solidifies, hardened by the wood he embraces day after day.

  * * *

  On her wedding night, my mother waited anxiously for my fath
er to join her in their connubial futon. She lay stiff, the virgin bride tucked neatly under the red silk blanket. Grandmother had embroidered the futon’s overlay with large white cranes, and mother, her eyes shut tightly and her fists clenched at her sides, wished more than anything that the silken cranes would take flight and carry her far away.

  Father, however, had spent nearly an hour soaking in the o-furo in what proved to be a futile attempt to calm his nerves. Exhausted from the wedding, and overwhelmed by the crowds of guests, he sought the peace and tranquillity of the bathhouse. To be sure, he knew that his wife waited for him. Her elaborate wedding robe was already folded and she was now elegantly dressed in a delicate yukata. Her skin smelled sweet from the almond blossom balm, her lips painted into a demure expression. She waited. Like a lovely bundled-up furoshiki waiting to be untied.

  He had never been with a woman before. His only memory of a naked woman was that of his aunt. He had seen her shriveled body when she disrobed before bathing with the wooden pail in the outer yard of the old house. Her spindly backbone protruded from her flesh like the snaking spine of a scaled fish. Her breasts, deflated with age, hung like the weak teats of an animal. When she poured the water over her head, letting it cascade in a huge torrent over her whole form, her hair adhered to the blades of her shoulders like a black wig threaded with long strips of seaweed.

  He knew his wife would be different. He had studied her face, much as he studied the planes of a mask. Her porcelain-smooth complexion, the slight elevation of her cheekbones, he already knew her features by heart. With ease he could imagine her narrow eyes rimmed in black kohl, the brow bone white and high. Had he a block of wood in front of him, he could carve her from memory. He would begin with the nose. Long and distinctively arched. Not flat like most. He would carve away both the right and left sides of the wood until it rose from the center like a small triangle. Then he would move on to her mouth. He pictured her lips blossoming into a full pout. Red like a poppy. Smooth like a single petal. In his momentary wandering of the mind, he transcended time. It was only when he discovered himself in steaming water up to his neck, the steam rising over his face, that he awakened.

  He gathered himself slowly. The heat had made him lethargic, yet he knew he must go to his bride. She would be waiting for him. He wrapped himself in an indigo-dyed yukata and pushed his red feet into his rope-coiled sandals. The stars in the evening sky were white and dangled above him like shimenawa, the strips of rice paper one knots to mark the most sacred places.

  When he walked to the tatami room where his bride lay, he discovered her not exactly as he had imagined. Fearing in her loneliness that her new husband had rejected her, Mother had begun crying. Her once impeccably powdered face was now streaked with red blotches. The rice powder had clumped like glue around the basins of her eye sockets, and her lips were swollen beyond the line of her lip rouge. Seeing his face looking down at her sent her seeking refuge in the sleeve of her yukata.

  Father knew that what his master had forbidden him was now rising in his chest. Emotion swam inside him, choking him like a salty wave. Indeed, the face he now saw before him was definitely not a mask. Yet the faint noise of weeping and the sweep of milky leg protruding from the slit of her robe reminded him of his mother. He knelt beside her and stroked her arm as if it were the rarest column of wood. He traced the blue of her veins running like the current of a river underneath the skin, branching into thin spiders at the delta of her wrist.

  She turned to him, half her face imprinted with the texture of buckwheat grains from the pillow, and smiled faintly. It was easy for him to see beyond the smeared makeup, the faint redness, that blemished her otherwise beautiful countenance. For Father was a carver and could easily disregard the often misleading appearance of a block of wood. He knew that, underneath, she was more beautiful than any mask he had ever carved.

  His hands moved over her cheek, and she found herself surprised by their warmth. He fingered the stray hairs that had fallen onto her cheeks and stroked them behind the curve of her ear. When he caressed her neck, he found himself surprised by the sheer smoothness of skin perhaps more supple than even oiled cypress. When he fumbled over the cloth and moved to untie her sash, he could not help but hear her soft, nervous giggles.

  Somewhere deep inside him he wished that she would not make a sound. Sounds increased his nervousness. Brought him out from the recesses of the workings of his inner mind, where he felt uneasy, where he felt unsure.

  But he proceeded. He felt the smoothness of her breasts, the contrast of her nipples. He inhaled the sweetness of her perfume.

  Underneath his body, he felt her initial tension rise and then release. And he heard the clenching of her teeth fade into soft moans. He wished to see her face, wondered if it too would be transformed like a mask on stage, and searched to find it, to uncover it from the shadows. Once he had discovered it, he held her head in between his palms like a boy who has finally grasped the moon.

  His lips fell over hers and he inhaled, hoping to breathe her soul into his, so that perhaps he would release it again in the form of a mask. But the taste was not as he expected. Not the sweet floral scent of almond blossom, not the nutty smell of toasted ginkgo. Something unexpected, something terrible. The taste of plums.

  He fell away from her like a slain man. The taste of plum was his forewarning. He had danced with the seductive sensation of emotion, and now he would be punished. The gods would take her too.

  Mother turned to him, bewildered, not knowing what she could have done, humiliated by how she had failed. But he no longer saw her. There was no one but him in the room with his darkness and his ghosts. He did not feel her trembling hand on his back. He did not hear the repetition of her sobs.

  She was the last thing that he would allow himself to love. And he knew in his heart he would never be able to kiss her again—for he knew now the destiny that awaited them.

  And it was on this fated night, when the taste of plums slipped like poison between my parents’ lips, that I, their only son, was conceived.

  FIVE

  I firmly believe that my father began carving only because he knew that whatever he created with the chisel could never die.

  Marriage, however, confused him. As he was a husband now, he would be responsible for his wife’s protection. This weighed heavily on him. On the night of their wedding, death had lurked in the shadows of their room. He had smelled it. Ripe as a plum. And now he had to either resign himself to fate or try to overcome it.

  All of these sensations and feelings scared him. He had not known such fear since he was a child. This must be that which Tamashii had warned him of. That which threatened to weaken his craft. Emotion. Yet Etsuko was not what he imagined a woman to be. She was far lovelier. How could his heart not weaken to her? How could he not thaw when he was in her presence?

  She reminded him so of his mother.

  Now that they were married, she wore her hair long for him. Shiny as lacquer. Fragrant as camellia oil. He would graze her shoulder just so that he could inhale her intoxicating perfume.

  Just as he believed it was his duty to protect her, she believed it was her duty to care for him. To love him. As no one had done in years.

  In the morning she would rise before the house awakened, while her parents still slept and the night braziers still burned. She would slide from underneath their coverlet, careful not to disturb him, and gather herself and her robes. Then, with steps as light as a spirit, she would walk into the garden to scoop the miso paste from one of the earthen jars and pull two or three fish from their salty box. She would steep his rice in citron and rice wine. She would lay a branch of blossoms, to wait beside him and his bowl.

  On the days when her early departure left a coldness and an aching emptiness in their bed, he would rise minutes after her. He would walk toward their small paper window and slide it ever so slightly to one side. Just to watch
her, if only for a moment, as she glided through the garden as ethereal as a ghost.

  He could hear the sound of the latch closing, the gentle whipping of her hair. To him nothing was more beautiful—not even a mask, dare he say it?—than his wife wrapped in her morning robe.

  The black of her hair falling like the smooth feathers of a raven bird, the shine of her alabaster brow. He could anticipate the sound of her footsteps, he could watch her for hours and never tire of the sweet melody of her voice. With great voracity, he consumed his breakfast as if it were manna delivered to him by the gods. He saw her image in the cloudy broth of miso, and her tenderness in the wilted greens.

  * * *

  As much as his superstitious mind hated to admit it, the first month of their marriage was nothing short of blissful. Every morning she prepared his meal for him, and his afternoons were free so that he could carve. His father-in-law converted the small room on the second floor into a studio so that he could work uninterrupted on his masks. When he had imagined himself adopted into a household, he never dreamed that one as prestigious as the Yamamoto family would be as kind and as warm as he discovered them to be.

  Since their first meeting at the o-miai, Father had known that Etsuko felt no love for him. He knew that he was not beautiful and that the years spent in isolation had prevented him from cultivating any charm. He only hoped that she would learn to love him, as his father-in-law promised she would.