by Nogami Yaeko
Inside Kokei, who had been born to the greatest warrior family in the Hokuetsu region, there was a tempestuous warrior. There was also a monk who had studied Buddhism since childhood, learning in the Ashikaga school and then receiving strict training from Shōrei. Those two sides of Kokei’s personality could work in harmony, but they also fought each other, and Rikyū was the only one who saw that hidden agony. Rikyū could do nothing but accept Kokei’s obsessive anger over Tenshōji Temple, which Kokei could not speak about, but only express on his yellow-stained face.
There were footsteps in the hall, and a young monk came to inform them that lunch was ready. As soon as he left, thirteen-and fourteen-year-old monks brought in the lacquered trays that held their lunch. One of them sat neatly in his black robe and served them rice from a black lacquer container.
Rikyū sat beside Kokei and picked up his chopsticks. Rice mixed with peas and mushrooms was one of his favorite dishes, and he ate with relish, savoring too the side dish of braised horsetail. He even had a second serving of soup with tofu and a sprinkling of butterbur flowers. He looked like he was simply happy to be satisfying his hunger after the two-mile trip from Kyōto. In truth, however, his heart was heavier than his stomach. Kokei’s comment that he might as well use the letter to blow his nose and the way he had put the letter back into the box weighed on Rikyū’s mind.
After lunch, the meeting moved to the one-and-three-quarter-mat tearoom. In the alcove was a scroll with calligraphy by the monk Rosetsu, who had taught Kokei when Kokei was young. The calligraphy was a single line: “One bunch of flowers.” Kokei made tea using a blue-green Ido-ware tea bowl that Rikyū had given him as a gift. Then it was Rikyū’s turn, and he showed Kokei the way that Japan’s premier tea master made tea.
They didn’t talk about anything special before Rikyū left. Still worried, Rikyū advised Kokei to just forget about Tenshōji Temple, to be on guard against Maeda Gen’i, and to remember that there was another magistrate standing in Gen’i’s shadow.
4
Rikyū officially lived at his house in Jurakudai with Riki and his son Kisaburō, but Riki and Kisaburō often traveled back to Sakai for long periods. When duty called, Kisaburō would make the journey by himself. He wasn’t involved much in the family business, but there were always weddings, funerals, serious illnesses, or other occasions that required a personal visit. Rikyū was too busy to visit his relatives often, so when simply sending letters of congratulation or condolence wasn’t enough, the duty of representing the family usually fell to Kisaburō. Dōan, the oldest son, could not travel because of his rheumatism. Shōan, the second son, had a capricious character that was not unlike Kisaburō’s. But, unlike Shōan, Kisaburō lived with his parents, so it was easier to send him.
Whenever he was told to go to Sakai on one of these family errands, Kisaburō complained. But Riki knew Kisaburō’s secret: he was so happy for a chance to go back to Sakai that he would even endure a funeral wake that lasted several days.
“Well, I know you’ll be disappointed if your father sends someone else,” Riki told him.
“I don’t mind if someone else goes,” he said petulantly.
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t want to go. You’re the one who always wants to send me there.”
It was just a small quarrel between a mother and her young son. Her final words were to remind him to come straight home after the visit and not to stop by Daikumachi, in Ōsaka, where his uncle lived.
His uncle, Yahei, was a widower, but there was a woman who lived with him, Ochika. Yahei’s wife had died ten years ago. He and his wife had lived in Nara and later moved to Sakai. He had known her since he was very young, and they had shared many hardships. After her death, many women came to visit Yahei openly, and Ochika had been one of them. It was rumored that she had been sold to the crew of a European ship when she was young, and had come back to Japan shortly before she moved into Yahei’s house. It seemed that the long stay in a foreign country with European men had made her temperament different from that of ordinary Japanese women, and had even caused a subtle physical change that made her more exotic. The dewy skin of her face and limbs was as pure white as silk, and when she spent too much time in the sun her skin looked as if it was dyed light red. She never perspired, even on one of Sakai’s famously hot summer evenings. Her age was difficult to tell; sometimes she looked near thirty, and sometimes only twenty.
Nobody knew where she was from, or who her parents were. There was no doubt she had grown up in a brothel, and that women of that type used to visit Yahei freely. The owner of the Yanagiya brothel, where Ochika had lived on her return from overseas, was like a father to Ochika. A well-known purveyor of sexual services in the Chimori neighborhood, he hired Ochika, who had studied dance and Noh chanting with Yahei, to perform for his clients. It gave her status, and she used it to get rid of her competition at Yahei’s house.
Publicly, she was one of Yahei’s “women of the house.” The term implied hired women, which included a cook.
Riki disliked the fact that her brother was such a womanizer, both because of her status as Rikyū’s wife and out of concern for her family’s reputation, especially since it would make it more difficult to find husbands for her daughters. She wished Yahei could behave like an ordinary man.
In her own household, Riki depended on their head maid, Miwa, to handle most of the day-to-day domestic matters. Because of Miwa, Riki was able to travel back to Sakai before Rikyū did, and sometimes she could stay in Sakai longer. Riki treated Miwa with respect. Obedient and modest, Miwa’s tireless support made it possible to manage their many visitors. If Ochika were more like Miwa, Riki would have suggested that Yahei marry her and end his dalliances. But given Ochika’s scandalous reputation, Riki had to accept her as one of the “women of the house.” Although Riki still loved her brother, she kept Ochika far away from her own home. And since the death of Yahei’s wife, who had arranged the match between Riki and Rikyū, Riki never visited Daikumachi, even though it had once been like a second home to her.
Kisaburō knew very well how his mother felt about the situation. It seemed to Kisaburō that he couldn’t leave the house without his mother warning him not to go to Daikumachi. She said it so persistently that he wondered if she knew he was visiting his uncle’s house in secret. But if she did know, he thought, he would be in trouble.
It was a good mile-and-a-quarter walk from Jurakudai to Fushimi, where he would catch a morning boat down the Yodo River to Sakai. He hurried over Gojyō Bridge, crossing the Kamo River, and down the old road through the towns of Higashino-Toin, Kujyō, and Higashi-Takeda. The mountains of Kyōto were already behind him in the pre-dawn light, and the uneasiness of the quarrel with his mother was fading.
He never took a boat at night unless he had to. Recently, the ferries between Kyōto and Ōsaka had begun running twice a day, once during the day and once at night. Because the Yodo River had many shoals, traffic on the water was limited to small boats that could hold only thirty koku of rice and a cargo of tightly packed passengers.
The Yodo River was central to the transportation and economy of Ōsaka. The ferry landing at Kyōbashi was nestled among boats reserved for government officials, merchants’ cargo boats, and small boats loaded with brushwood gathered in Uji. As Kisaburō approached now, mountains of cargo were being loaded onto and off the boats. Porters ran around, workmen shouted, and people who worked at local inns called out from the river banks, trying their best to tempt passengers. The restaurants alongside the river were lively, full of passengers from Kyōto and Sakai and well-wishers who came to meet them or see them off, all enjoying a meal or a cup of sake before heading on their way. Nearby, shrewd street vendors waited to sell food and drink to the travelers, shouting out their wares: sweet rice dumplings, cheap candy, seasonal squashes fresh from the fields, tissues, toothpicks, stomach medicine. Their voices mingled with those of men pretending to be monks with triangular hats perched on their
foreheads and ceremonial sleeveless jackets, calling out for donations for their made-up temples.
To Kisaburō, the noise and chaotic energy of the dock was like the beach at Sakai in miniature. The louder and dirtier the dock, the more comfortable he felt. Life at Rikyū’s house in Jurakudai was one of never-ending restraint, but here in the hubbub and boiling energy he was released. For Kisaburō, the emotion was similar to what Rikyū felt when he went back to Sakai or visited Daitokuji Temple. The difference was that for Kisaburō, it also meant escape from his family; even if only for one day, he was no longer the son of the tea master Rikyū. So while ordinarily he was a quiet, self-contained young man who didn’t open up to Rikyū, his brothers, or the servants, on the ferry he became a different person.
The boat was full of people, young and old, killing time with idle conversation, and he casually joined in, laughing and making crude jokes with them. When a boat selling cooked food drew up alongside them, he bought a skewer of cooked potatoes and a potato root jelly cake. He gave some to the male servant who accompanied him and munched on his own with relish. And even though he could have paid a fee to sit on a more comfortable seat, he chose to sit with the other passengers. They were packed so closely together that he couldn’t move his hands or legs, but he felt free.
This time, however, taking the ferry turned out to be a mistake. Just before they reached the Mishima River, the sky clouded over and the wind turned cold, promising a late August typhoon. It was still too early for the boat operator to put up the rush mat cover that was customary between September 13 and March 13, so they were all exposed to the cold river wind. The touch of a head cold Kisaburō had felt when leaving Kyōto became a full-blown illness.
Kisaburō usually stayed at a great-uncle’s house in the neighborhood of Tenma whenever he came to Ōsaka. It was only a short distance from the port, but his fever and headache were now so severe that he barely made it. Once there, he was told to rest for two or three days, but after only one night he forced himself onward to Sakai, where he was supposed to attend a birthday celebration for a relative who would turn eighty-eight the day after next. It was all in vain. When he got to his father’s house in Sakai, he was struck with severe diarrhea, and didn’t make it to the party after all. One of Rikyū’s clerks ended up delivering the congratulatory gift from Rikyū.
“Hey, what’s wrong with you?”
In the midst of his fever, Kisaburō heard a voice from somewhere. He felt dizzy, as if he were in a rocking boat, and the voice sounded as if it came from far across the water or the bottom of the ocean. He was so weak that he couldn’t utter a sound. Finally, he realized who the familiar voice belonged to.
When Kisaburō’s long black eyelashes and shell-shaped eyes were closed, he looked like a boy. He opened his eyes a crack, and saw the bright face of Torigai Yahei shining in the dim light of the room.
“I was surprised to hear that you’ve been in bed since you came back,” his uncle continued. “Do you still have diarrhea?”
“I think I’m fine.”
“Your face doesn’t look normal. Take it easy, and don’t strain yourself until your stomach settles.”
“Okay.”
Seeing that Kisaburō was not seriously ill, his naturally optimistic uncle lost his worried expression. Yahei told Kisaburō that he would need more than rice porridge and arrowroot drinks to give him stamina. “When you get better, come and visit me. Ochika will make you a feast of European food.”
It was only in front of Kisaburō that Yahei openly showed his affection for Ochika rather than treating her as one of the “women of the house.” The three of them shared this secret, and it gave them a special connection, but for Kisaburō it was something more. In front of Kisaburō, Ochika became more than merely a “woman of the house,” and in Ochika’s company, Kisaburō found he could be perfectly himself. Everywhere else, he was the son of Japan’s highest-ranking tea master. Just as the tail turns a star into a comet, Rikyū’s reputation made Kisaburō somebody in the eyes of high society. But Ochika acted as if she didn’t care about Kisaburō’s renowned father. When Kisaburō was with her, he felt like an ordinary eighteen-year-old with no obligations.
Kisaburō’s illness kept him in bed until September. His physical strength finally came back, and, hearing that he would have to return to Kyōto in a day or two, he left the house and began wandering aimlessly. He didn’t even tell Oseki where he was. Oseki, the widow of the clerk Mohei, controlled the Sakai household while Rikyū and Riki were in Kyōto. She was so vigilant in keeping an eye on domestic comings and goings that Rikyū had secretly given her the nickname “Kōzōsu,” after the nun who supervised Hideyoshi’s sleeping arrangements.
He went west as if he were going to the river and then turned south. If he had been going to visit his uncle, he would have gone in a different direction. The streets were arranged just like the wooden lattice grid on a shōji screen, with Rokkan Road forming a straight line that ran through Sakai from north to south. Daikumachi, where Yahei lived, was located on the eastern side of that road. If Kisaburō had walked north from his father’s house, Yahei’s house would be a short diagonal distance. But when Kisaburō visited his uncle, he always took an indirect route.
In the ten days since Kisaburō had returned to Sakai, the sky had turned clear and bright, a sign of the impending autumn. Even the long curtains hanging in the shop doorways looked a little fresher in the crisp sunlight. Lately, the fashion had been to dye the name of the store or the type of goods they sold onto a long, wide cloth in a stylized design. The owners of a long-established store would spend more money on their curtains; off the main street, where the shops were humbler, the curtains were worn and faded.
On one such back street, Kisaburō passed an armor store, which stood with solemn dignity as if trying to overwhelm the vegetable shop and the hardware store on either side. When Kisaburō was a child, he had loved to look around the store and admire the armor. In the back of the shop were beautifully decorated suits of armor with red, white, and black lacing. From the eaves hung arm plating, shoulder guards, the capes that would billow behind soldiers as they rode, flags, and banners. Inside, craftsmen wearing trousers and hats were painting lacquer onto faceplates and tying silk cords onto chest plating using special knots. Others were using threads to tie neck guards to the helmets.
People in Sakai didn’t understand the real terrors of war. Even if there were battles somewhere else, they seemed to feel it had nothing to do with them. All they talked about was the profits they could make. Kisaburō was fascinated by the armor store, but this had nothing to do with war cries, flying arrows, or the chaos of battle. The beautiful and mysterious goods were something far from the reality of his daily life, just like war.
He was also curious about the way the armor makers worked. How many years had that old man gone through the same daily routine? Kisaburō wondered anew as he watched the old man, who must have been around seventy, set up a big basin in front of the store. He pulled his shabby trousers to his hips and sat crosslegged as he scraped rust off of a piece of armor. He hadn’t changed since Kisaburō’s childhood. Even the hat that perched on his shiny, bald head like a sparrow was the same.
The old man focused intently on his work, too busy even to talk to his wife when she walked in front of him. The armor store was constantly busy, the staff working to prepare for the attack on Odawara. Nearby there was another man doing lacquer work for the face armor, with a sleepy-looking apprentice boy mixing the lacquer next to him. The boy was almost leaning over the bowl, as though he hadn’t slept the night before.
The blacksmith’s shop on the next street had switched to producing guns, and they were making big profits. The townspeople talked about the blacksmith’s profits with envy. But for Kisaburō, admiring the strange beauty of the armor with a child’s eyes, the rumor of war in Odawara was still far from his daily concerns. War was a job for the warriors. The only part that concerned the merchants was wheth
er or not they could make a profit.
The ten days of rest had given Kisaburō strength, and the autumn sun made him energetic. Banishing thoughts of war and merchants, he was happy to take his time wandering the streets of Sakai, idly watching the scenes around him.
At a dyeing workshop, one piece of cloth sat in a jar of indigo dye, while another was stretched over a long board as the workers stenciled a design into the cloth. Nearby, another cloth had been covered in starch to stiffen it, and while it dried it was tied to poles with strings to keep it stretched out, with fine bamboo skewers holding the fabric in place.
Nearby, a carpenter’s house was filled with energy as some workers planed wood, sending shavings scattering in all directions, while others carved the wood and some used ink brushes to mark where the wood should be cut.
Next door, at a tailor’s shop, four women embroidered fabric quietly under the close watch of an old male teacher with a white beard. Recently, not only wealthy ladies but also courtesans from Takasu and Chimori wore kimonos embroidered or embellished with gold leaf, so the women at the tailor’s shop were making good money.
Kisaburō turned down an alley where there were just a couple of houses. A small black dog that had been following Kisaburō suddenly started to yap. A doddering old blind monk trudged toward them, the lute he played for money stowed neatly in a rug bag on his back, making him resemble a beetle. His bent, bony body seemed to be constantly on the verge of falling over as he walked. He looked more like an insect than a human being. The small dog barked at the monk, raised its tail, and bared his teeth as if it were going to bite the old man’s shin. Kisaburō whistled at the dog as if it were his own to make it stop. The monk looked like a hungry ghost who had walked out of an old scroll painting, and the dog was barking as if to scold the monk for his shabby appearance. Instead of feeling sympathy for the monk, the thought made Kisaburō smile coldly.
