Hideyoshi and Rikyū

by Nogami Yaeko

  Kisaburō walked across the cold, wooden Noh stage and headed to his uncle’s office. Like most city houses, Yahei’s home was narrow but very deep, with an interior courtyard garden. Kisaburō had a good view of the garden as he walked into the office, which was detached from the rest of the house, and a patch of bush clover and Japanese banana plants caught his eye. The bush clover wasn’t in bloom, but the shape of the wide banana leaves against the low earthen wall added a tasteful touch to the garden. It reminded Kisaburō of a Chinese painting.

  On top of the small desk in front of the window was a libretto for the Noh play Yashima. At that desk, Yahei would write notations and corrections in red ink on the textbook copies his disciples made. Despite his loose approach to life in general and women in particular, Yahei liked to keep careful records of the oral transmission of Noh chanting, musical accompaniment, historical inquiries, and so on. Next to an alcove was a cabinet with swinging doors where Yahei kept those manuscripts when he was not using them. The manuscripts were kept on one of the shelves. On the same shelf was a deck of playing cards that Ochika had brought back as a European souvenir, and kept always next to the cards was another memento, a white ivory box. As a fashionable young man, Kisaburō knew all types of card games, and he was very familiar with both the cards and the box.

  The box held all Ochika’s treasures: a silver chain with an imitation agate cameo, an authentic jade collar pin that she was particularly proud of, a ring, a lace handkerchief that could fit inside one’s palm, and a perfume jar—a small, egg-shaped glass bottle with a pleasant scent lingering around the mouth even though it was empty. They were Ochika’s prized possessions, but she never complained when she found Kisaburō playing with them. Kisaburō found the combination of numbers and exotic images on each playing card intriguing, and he felt that the secret to Ochika’s mysterious life overseas was hidden in those cards.

  But today, he didn’t feel like playing games with the cards to kill time, or looking at the objects in the white box. He leaned against one side of the sliding door with his legs straight out, not moving even as the air became chilly. The plaster underneath the somber roof of the main house darkened as the sun sank lower, while above the roof the sky was still a clear, bright blue. The light and the dark made a lively contrast that would gradually fade as night set in. In the same way that the dark shadows gradually rose to envelop everything in view, something in Kisaburō’s subconscious mind finally rose to the surface.

  When Kisaburō had come back to Sakai, he had left his father behind, but the Sen family name still bound his mind and body. It was only when Kisaburō visited his uncle’s house and talked to Ochika that he felt free, as if she had released him from a spell. He never delved into the reason too deeply, but when he was with her, he knew he was close to the world where he really belonged, with different values and a different sense of judgment. He admired the life experience that would allow her to say that Hideyoshi was not the only ruler in the world. Her colorful past and her unrestrained lawlessness were like an erotic scent that no other woman possessed.

  Ochika was not a whore, nor immoral, as his mother and others said. He knew well that she was a great liar when she wanted to be, but on the other hand, she could also be brutally honest. Her actions might appear to be selfish, but she worked hard to maintain her position as the manager of Yahei’s household affairs, and she was smart.

  Yahei often escaped the house, telling Ochika that he was going out to teach when really he was roving from woman to woman. But as soon as he walked through the door, she saw through him with a glance. In the same way, Ochika’s seasoned insight went through Kisaburō like a subtly shot arrow. A deep, hidden whirlpool can be revealed by dropping one leaf on the water’s surface, and a similar process had begun inside Kisaburō. Until Ochika had dropped the leaf, his subconscious desires had no concrete existence. He looked vacantly at the sky, which had gradually changed to a grape-colored dusk, and did not even bother to swat the mosquito that was buzzing around his cheeks. It whined faintly like an old man complaining.

  Yuri’s story about selling herself had also made him aware of his hidden emotions. In a port city like Sakai, Yuri’s tale was hardly unusual. Whatever law was passed, there was a constant demand, and as long as men wanted to buy girls, girls would be sold. Even though Ochika hadn’t said it in so many words, it was just common sense. Kisaburō saw the reality in front of him, but he didn’t get sentimental about it. Or rather, he tried not to.

  He got a certain pleasure from denying Yuri his sympathy, just as he derived a strange, masochistic pleasure from his own self-hatred. But also, Yuri’s beauty wasn’t the kind that inspired his emotions. He didn’t like women who wouldn’t respond even when provoked.

  Some of his friends saw him as flirtatious, and some as a man of strict morals. The truth was that he was both, and neither. He was often taken with thoughts that he was not living in the right place, or doing the things that he was meant to do. It led to a feeling of detachment that seeped into his romantic affairs. He was never satisfied with any one woman. Whenever he slept with one, a deeply rooted emptiness crept over him, leaving him cold.

  His old friends had already gotten married, and a few were fathers. But somehow, he didn’t think the emptiness inside him would be solved by marriage. He cherished his single life, and he wasn’t sure what he was grasping for. What kind of woman was he interested in? His wavering heart held no answer. The things he hadn’t accomplished yet seemed to hold more promise than any of the things he had done. He felt that even though he wasn’t sure what he was chasing, he was in pursuit of something beautiful.

  In this emptiness was a longing for Ochika that surprised him. Ochika’s image lingered dimly at the edges of his consciousness like a halo around the moon. He sometimes thought that he should not go to Daikumachi anymore, but somehow he always ran into his uncle on the street and was invited back to the house. And when Kisaburō came, Ochika would nag him as if he was a man who had been in debt for three years. “Surely you must have done something bad if you can’t show your face to anybody,” she would tease with a grin. The skin of her face always looked cool, like white silk, contrasting with her amorous black eyes, slightly pouty lips, and her teeth, which were dyed a dark bluish purple. She was full of sensual beauty.

  With her sharp instincts, she had to know that he was attracted to her, and the thought made him tremble with guilt and fear. But at the same time, knowing that she sensed his secret gave him a pleasurable thrill.

  As he sat in the dark, Kisaburō’s mind wandered. Foreign words like oratio and confissao, always uttered by Christians in the city, had penetrated Kisaburō’s subconscious like tiny pebbles thrown through the air. Although those words meant nothing to him, they suddenly surfaced in his mind, and he found himself daydreaming about a large cross sitting on top of three stone steps. In a nearby white chapel was a statue of the compassionate Santa Maria, which sat in a niche below the altar. The altar held three shining silver candlesticks. At the back of the church was a pipe organ whose beautiful sound rang out to heaven and earth. Outside the chapel was a beautiful, spacious garden where there were rare lilies and roses from overseas, a clear pond, and green trees. Among the trees, a children’s choir marched in procession, carrying an icon and singing Gregorian hymns as they walked.

  He remembered seeing that scene during an Easter celebration at the castle belonging to Takayama Ukon in the city of Takatsuki. The memory had stayed with Kisaburō like a souvenir from a far-off land. Justo Takayama Ukon was a Christian lord who had truly embraced his new faith, in stark contrast to some others in Kyūshū who had only converted to Christianity in order to profit from trade with the Europeans. Two years ago, at the age of sixteen, Kisaburō had visited him during Easter. A few months later, the Christian missionaries were banished, and Ukon had lost his title and lands. Because of his unshakable faith, he had accepted these hardships as God’s will, and he had taken refuge with the Maeda family in
Echizen.

  Ukon had served both Nobunaga and Hideyoshi, and had been honored as a courageous warrior. As a reward for capturing the region of Negoro in Shikoku, he had received the lands of Banshū Akashi. His father, Dario Takayama Hidanokami, had taught Ukon how to be a faithful servant of God, and together they built churches and public service institutions, such as schools and houses for the poor, dedicated to God’s benevolence. Those institutions still functioned even after Ukon lost his lands and title, and afterwards were visited by Christian pilgrims from the Kinki region.

  Kisaburō’s great aunt—who had raised Riki like a mother—lived in Takatsuki. When she was seventy, she had fallen ill and became anxious to see Riki again, so the family had sent a message asking her to come and visit one last time. In addition to bringing an attendant on the overnight trip, Riki had brought Kisaburō, who had just turned sixteen. The great aunt had been delighted to see Riki before she went to heaven, saying that it was a blessing from God to have her family with her for her last Easter. They had gone to Ukon’s castle together for the celebration.

  Originally, the great aunt’s entire family had been Christian. Like other Christians in the neighborhood, their faith was part of their daily lives, and the difficult doctrines in the Bible blended with Japanese daily customs as a kind of natural temperance and an order that must be kept. At sixteen, Kisaburō hadn’t fully understood the Christian way of life, but he’d felt that this house was very different from the one where he had grown up. And just as he didn’t recall what kind of food he’d eaten two days before, the impression of strangeness hadn’t lingered long in his mind. But he did remember that the name of Takayama Ukon was repeated many times during the trip, always praising the lord for his good deeds.

  Later on, Kisaburō would remember that trip as the subtle line that separated his boyhood from his manhood. When he had gone to Takatsuki, he still had his boyhood forelock and wispy hair on either side of his ears; within six months, his forehead had been shaved, symbolizing his entrance into adulthood. During the same period, his voice had dropped from the high, clear notes of a flute to a low frog’s croak, and the skin on his cheeks had grown grains of rough hair. In the lower part of his body, where his skin had been as smooth as his face, there was now a mysterious grass-like black covering, and the tiny, toy-like thing attached to the same area now jumped up and became solid by itself. He had wanted to die with shame and amazement. Everything moved and changed without any conscious control, not only his body, but his mind as well. Even now he felt the same way. Just as perspiration was washed away by hot water, there was no way to alleviate his distress except to immerse himself in his emotions and face what was happening.

  The things that he had seen at his great aunt’s house during the Easter celebration were more than a beautiful memory—they left a deep impression. Kisaburō knew Christianity on the same level as most of the townspeople in Sakai. People there didn’t look twice when missionaries came from churches in Kyōto, or when church administrators from the town walked around in their full-length, black woolen robes and round, black woolen hats whose brims were so wide they could be used as umbrellas, talking to each other in their European language. Sakai kept the traditions of a free city, and accepted any new philosophy that came to rest there. Christianity blended effortlessly into their local sensibilities.

  Of course, the laws that banished Christian missionaries from Japan also changed the situation in Sakai. But for Kisaburō, the new religion, with its strange concept of God and the universe, was very novel and attractive at first. If he had even once truly fallen to the bottom of a pit of psychological darkness and despair, he might have adopted the new faith and clung to it like a pillar. But in Sakai, with all its wealth and pleasure, he was a young man who lacked nothing. Instead of embracing God, he turned his back on the new religion. For a prodigal son who was both arrogant and idle, the severe code of this angry God was terrifying. He refused to accept the word of preachers who said that it was the prodigal sons who would receive God’s grace, even more so than the good sons. The idea that he could be forgiven was distasteful to Kisaburō.

  Kisaburō was the most taciturn member of his family, especially around his father, but when Kisaburō did speak, he often mentioned Ukon’s name.

  Under his tea name, Nanbō, the devoted Ukon had been counted as one of Rikyū’s leading disciples, along with fellow Christians Furuta Oribe and Makimura Masaharu. Kisaburō had been a child when Rikyū began teaching Ukon. Regardless of the type of tea gathering, Kisaburō would ignore the proceedings and run off to play, thinking it had nothing to do with him. By the time he was forced to learn tea and began attending the gatherings held by his father or brothers, Ukon had already disappeared from Rikyū’s tea group. Rikyū’s students pretended they didn’t know where he was.

  Why did Kisaburō want to talk about Ukon? For fear of Hideyoshi, the story could only be told in a whisper: Hideyoshi had banished Ukon for being a Christian. In order to keep his faith, Ukon had abandoned lands worth seventy thousand koku. Along with his memories of Takatsuki, Ukon’s courage became a new inspiration for Kisaburō.

  It wasn’t strictly true that Kisaburō hadn’t known anything about Ukon’s banishment. Sometimes things that one should realize but hasn’t noticed come as a bigger surprise than the things one doesn’t know. Newly aware of the political dynamic, Kisaburō began to pay more attention to the people around his father. His purpose in asking about Ukon was to discover what Rikyū thought about Christianity. Kisaburō was intimidated by the foreign religion, and he was curious about his father’s opinion.

  Rikyū’s answer was always the same: The banishment of missionaries applied only to missionaries. Hideyoshi accepted the Japanese who had become believers, so Rikyū’s Christian tea students could continue to practice their new faith. But the way of tea was Rikyū’s way of life, and it left no room for discussion about religion. “So I really don’t know anything about Christianity.”

  Kisaburō reminded his father that Yakuin Zenso had taken an active part in prosecuting Ukon. Zenso was a Buddhist monk who was deeply loyal to Hideyoshi’s mother, a friend of one of Rikyū’s servants, and who sometimes came to Rikyū’s tea gatherings. Clearly, sometimes personal politics did cross paths with the way of tea. Kisaburō brought up the rumor he’d heard about Ukon’s banishment.

  Rikyū skillfully deflected any questions about Ukon’s exile, adding that it was not wise to gossip about Hideyoshi’s decisions.

  Damn that old man! Kisaburō clenched his teeth. There was truth in Rikyū’s words about being disciplined in the way of tea and not allowing oneself to be distracted by religion or politics. Kisaburō could not argue with it. Rikyū had kept to these principles for almost his whole life, and only a man like that could teach those principles and make people believe.

  But Kisaburō bitterly resisted his father’s teachings on tea ceremony. Kisaburō was practicing tea only for the sake of his family. He even casually skipped lessons with Rikyū. But on the other hand, when it came to the philosophy of tea, Kisaburō had the utmost respect for his father’s teaching. In that regard, he was no different from the best of Rikyū’s students.

  What was the secret source of his father’s amazing skill? Even in small, inanimate objects, Rikyū could find the hidden soul with a glance. With his father’s touch, a piece of bamboo, a scrap of wood, or even a half-ruined utensil blossomed, like a bud on a tree energized by the invisible breath of spring. Rikyū was able to bring out the utmost beauty of tea objects.

  Kisaburō believed that the true secret of his father’s incomparable skill lay in this ability. It came out most clearly when Rikyū made tea alone with a spontaneous arrangement of utensils rather than carefully choosing each item for a formal gathering. He simply moved his hands effortlessly. The simple fact of his presence meant that the scroll in the alcove, the flowering branch in the vase, the lively kettle singing in the sunken hearth, the tea container, the tea bowl, and even the
bright paper screen in the window opened up the secret lives hidden in their shapes and colors. Rikyū took a quiet pleasure in creating a world of order and harmony around himself. How could such a man become distasteful to Kisaburō?

  Kisaburō couldn’t have said how Rikyū had changed since he began to serve Nobunaga and Hideyoshi. But if Rikyū had remained only a local tea practitioner and kept his attention on wabi rather than politics, he wouldn’t have gotten caught in the net of hostility and darkness that is cast by politics and power. Kisaburō’s young, sensitive ears didn’t fail to catch the whispered stories that surrounded Rikyū as Japan’s highest-ranking tea master. A man who pursued his own agenda, a man who wore Hideyoshi’s prestige like a fine robe, a man who would change his mind in exchange for money or gifts: Those judgments were harsh, but there was too much truth in the words for Kisaburō to dismiss them. What kind of person was his father? The more Kisaburō thought about it, the less sure he was.

  He got offended when anyone said he looked more like Rikyū than his brothers and sisters did. When Kisaburō was a child, he had wanted to hear that he looked more like his beautiful mother than his father, but it hadn’t gone any deeper than that. Now his relationship with his father was more complicated, and comparisons to Rikyū made his anger surge. One person who especially provoked him was Oseki, the old maid who had known Rikyū since he was a young man, because she voiced constant surprise at the similarities between them: They both had a big, strong build; large eyes with layered lids; and a thick, high nose. They even cleared their throats in the same way. These days, Rikyū moved more slowly, but when he was young, he had been impatient, and he walked quickly as if he was trying to kick the bottom of his kimono. Kisaburō walked the same way.