by Ellis Avery
“This spring,” Jiro said, “You did me the honor of expressing interest in a new black Raku bowl called Shunrai, made by the present heir to Rikyu’s first Raku master, Chojiro. To that end I gathered this company here.” I heard a strained note in Jiro’s voice at these words, underscoring the presence of uninvited guests.
“I wanted to repay your interest with something extraordinary,” Jiro extemporized. “When you said I should call the Shunrai bowl Kaminari instead, I had to hold my tongue, because there is already a tea bowl by that name. As muffled and weak as spring thunder is to summer’s, so is Shunrai to the tea bowl you hold. Kaminari was made for Rikyu himself, by Chojiro.” He sounded as assured as if he’d meant to use the gold-mended bowl all along.
As the guests exclaimed in surprise and pleasure, I heard the engineer Tanabe’s soft voice repeating Jiro’s elegantly improvised tale. No, not quite repeating. What was I hearing? I heard Japanese, but it made no sense. And then it did: a Japanese voice, using Japanese syllables, was translating Jiro’s words into another language. There was a foreigner here! I listened and listened, but the language wasn’t French or English. And then a voice repeated the translator, asking something in a harsh, sour tongue. It was the Dutchman from the Expo.
I almost cracked my head against the floor beam above me, I was so surprised. Was Jiro so appalled by Kato’s presence—and his brother’s and friend’s defections—that the further insult of a barbarian guest went unnoticed? He must be one of the canal people, I thought. Tanabe had been too polite, it seemed, to translate the earlier posturing among the men. I was impressed that Jiro allowed only a tiny strain in his voice when he said, I gathered this company.
At the end of the chakai, after Jiro had carried all the utensils out of the tearoom and reentered to bow his guests good-bye, I heard the Dutchman’s voice, and the uncomfortable syllables of Tanabe hushing him. The Dutchman repeated his short question, and Tanabe, laying his hands on the floor for a deep bow just over my head, asked Jiro something in the most elaborate, humble Japanese imaginable, as if to emphasize the foreigner’s rudeness by compensating for it. He was asking if Jiro would be so kind to consider, at some later date, entertaining an intermediary to discuss the possibility of engaging in negotiations, at his convenience, relating to a matter of mutual interest.
“Ah, is that so?” asked Jiro. I knew the only thing he wanted less in the world than to sell that tea bowl to a barbarian was for his brother and Shige to see him do so. I knew, too, that the tattooed man’s deadline preyed on him, and that he had not yet paid for Shunrai. The thing that would save face, of course, would be for Jiro to show no encouragement to the Dutchman in front of Shige and his brother, but to not discourage him, either.
Is that so? would have marked the end of the night if the Dutchman had not at that moment spoken for himself in broken Japanese, aggrieved, as if he’d been forced to repeat himself. “How much for the bowl?”
The crude words rang loud. I could feel Shige and Tanabe’s embarrassment, and I could feel Jiro’s hatred boring a hot dark crater through the floor. The Imperial Advisor tried to smooth over the affronted silence: “We’re so sorry. It’s not even clear whether this is a matter for discussion at any point…”
Then Jiro spoke. Very slowly and clearly he named a sum, an impossible sum, a sum that traded insult for insult. A sum that made clear to all that he never wanted to entertain a foreigner in his tearoom again. Above me, the floor popped and creaked with the shifting weight of the guests, as if subtly, seated, they were closing ranks with Jiro against the barbarian.
And then I heard the Dutch voice again, blunt as the sun on a sheet of tin. “Hai.”
The room was very quiet.
And then I heard Jiro’s voice proving that there are no mistakes in tea, proving himself worthy, in that moment, in that sacrifice, to be called the Mountain’s heir. “Hai,” he agreed. I knew the others would respect him for keeping his word.
The foreigner then made another request to Tanabe, who refused to repeat it with a rapidity that surprised me. Undaunted, the Dutchman repeated himself in Japanese: “Mo onna.” As if he were ordering another drink! I want a woman too. Or maybe, I want the woman too. My jaw dropped. The disgusting creature, he thought Yukako was for sale.
“My guest has no idea how offensive he’s being,” said Kato. “I’m so sorry. There’s no reason we need to spend another moment on this tonight.”
“None, surely,” Jiro said, with such mocking dryness that his brother and Shige laughed. No doubt if they were married to Yukako they’d want to be rid of her too. In better spirits, they filed out of the tearoom, the Dutchman mercifully silent at last, tying on his leather shoes.
I lay under the house for a long time as Jiro cleaned the tearoom, wiping down the floor with deft, angry strokes. I was still clenching the cotton thongs of my sandals with my toes, afraid they’d make a sound if I let go. My feet were cramping up. Something crawled across my leg. I squirmed. I heard Jiro leave the tearoom, heard him dismissing his student helpers, heard him clatter off with a lantern in search of the Shunrai tea bowl. I crept out from under the house, shivering in the summer night, and made my way up to Yukako’s room, sandals in hand, looking both ways for Jiro first. A thin film of dirt and ooze covered my kimono, and I quickly changed into a bathhouse robe. When I heard a familiar clop of shoes outside the kitchen entrance, I ran down to tell Yukako what had happened, but it was a messenger instead.
The young man was dressed in Advisor Kato’s colors. “This was written on behalf of my master’s foreign guest,” he said, showing me a letter as I poured his tea. “He wanted to make sure your Master Teacher saw this tonight. Is he in?”
I heard footsteps down the hall as Jiro searched for the Shunrai bowl. “He’s a little busy,” I said, staring at the paper dumbly. I made out some numbers and the character for tomorrow. I saw the kanji for woman, too, but I was distracted by a familiar slip of coarse paper tucked into the folded bottom edge of the letter, by a familiar fat square seal.
“What’s this?” said Jiro behind me, lantern in hand. He took the paper from the messenger and read, lifting out the label I’d made for Yukako’s setto. Yukako’s kanji were torn off, leaving only my English and the red stamped seal, which Jiro held close to his lamp. He took a cold look at me and nodded curtly at the messenger. “That won’t be a problem,” he said crisply. “Tell him to bring the money at noon.”
My heart beat in my throat. Don’t act guilty, I thought, paralyzed. Just do what you usually do. What do I usually do? When the boy left, I self-consciously bent down to take his teacup to the basin, and Jiro seized me by the hair.
Even after years, each new visit from the hairdressers hurt my scalp afresh, with the pulling and the wax, and the slightest new pressure made me wince away. “What is this?” Jiro said, shoving the label in my face. I said nothing.
I was stronger, but I was at a bad angle: I reached for his arm and stumbled as he pulled harder, then fell against the hard handle of the kitchen knife tucked uselessly into my obi. My scalp burned. “Raku. Shin. What is this?” he demanded. I said nothing, but gasped, staggering toward him to relieve the pain. I heard my knife skid across the floor.
“There’s a man who saw the demonstration of tea sets for sale at the Exposition yesterday,” Jiro recounted icily. “He’d like to acquire the servant girl in my household who wrote this,” he continued, brandishing the label, “provided she’s a virgin and good-tempered.” Another burst of pain ripped my head as he pulled me up to face him. “Look at your face. You’re covered in dirt,” he said, his mouth curling. “I’ll break you in myself; the pig won’t know the difference.” He twisted my hair as he pulled it, and I could feel some of the hairs tearing out of my scalp in a wave of rippling pops. I clawed at his wrists as he dragged me toward the water barrel. “Wash, you animal,” he said, pushing my face in.
If only I could crawl back and get my knife, I thought, before I tried to breathe and
sucked in water. Oh God oh God, I panicked, my head burning. I choked a bubbling scream into the water and he hauled out my head. “What makes you think she wouldn’t buy Shunrai back, you bastard?” I shouted the last word in French, inchoate. “It’s better than you deserve.”
I wish I could have told myself this as a child in my uncle’s lap: if a man is menacing you, ask him something. I don’t know why it works. “What are you talking about?” Jiro demanded, confusion loosening his grip on my hair just long enough for me to elbow him in the groin and run, quick, out the kitchen door in my bare feet, into the lamplit courtyard outside, where Yukako was just walking home.
I was panting with rage and terror. I tried to speak and couldn’t. I just kept opening and closing my mouth, facing her, as Jiro walked out behind me, his dagger in hand. “Get out of the way, Miss Urako,” he said quietly, looking at Yukako, livid. The dagger shone, a foot long, curved and single-edged like Akio’s bright swords long ago. I thought of my kitchen knife left behind on the floor and gave an inappropriate, hysterical yip of laughter. What had I been planning to do, pare him?
Tall in her gauze robe, Yukako fixed her husband and the dagger with the same look she used on her sons when they misbehaved. She gave me a quick glance, both protective and dismissive at once. Without breaking her husband’s gaze, she quietly set down a wooden box. I heard the metallic rasp of coins in her sleeve.
Jiro did too. “I want to know what you did,” he said, his voice hard with rage. “But first I want to see how much you made on Shunrai. Turn out your sleeves.”
“Right now?” Yukako looked at him, amused, and pulled a small bag out of one sleeve and a few coins out of the other. On the bench outside the cloakroom door, under the hanging lantern, Yukako poured out her coins and Jiro sat to count them. I stood in the doorway, a little behind Yukako, the blood loud in my head. “You think I sold your Shunrai bowl to some stranger?” she asked.
“Shut up.” At the interruption, Jiro started counting again from the beginning.
Yukako watched him. “I didn’t sell it. I pawned it back to Raku for a hundred student tea bowls. Today I sold fifty.”
“Shut up!” Jiro snarled, brandishing his knife. He blinked at his stacks of coins and began counting a third time, setting down his knife in order to touch the money with both hands. As effortless and hypnotic as her father making tea, Yukako glided toward him and took the knife. She put it away inside, returned, and said nothing, arms folded.
At length, Jiro finished. He stood facing Yukako, his fists at his sides. “So this is all you got? You took Shunrai for this? I sacrificed the Rikyu bowl for this? You cheap whore, you butcher-fucker,” he chanted, groping for a word low enough. “You worm,” he said, and cuffed her across the face.
He hit her. I stepped up on the bench and leapt down, tackling Jiro from above, all the advantage mine. I pinned him on the ground and forced his arm behind his back like an Irish bullyboy. “Get your dog off me,” Jiro told his wife, gasping.
Standing, Yukako looked down at Jiro where he lay. “I sold the fifty tea bowls,” she said, continuing her explanation as if nothing had happened. “And I collected my fee from the Expo. You had some debts in Pontocho that needed settling,” she said, referring to the tattooed man. “So I went straight from the Expo and dealt with them. And then, because the last thing in the world I would want would be to upset my lord, I went to Raku and bought Shunrai back again for you.” Yukako held up her box by its carrying scarf. “What you just counted is the money I have left over. Urako, you can stop. You’re embarrassing him,” she concluded.
I eased off and Jiro sat up quietly, cross-legged on the ground. Yukako set the box in his lap with both hands. His expression vacant, Jiro untied the knotted fabric; his long fingers traced his own calligraphy.
Both Jiro’s and Yukako’s heads jerked up at the woodwind sound of music, and they looked at each other, united for a baffled moment. Jiro began trembling as he parted the silk wraps inside the box and lifted out the night-black Shunrai tea bowl. He stared at it with unfocused eyes. “What do I do with this now?” he murmured.
A small procession appeared: the two boys, carefully leading two cartmen. Holding a lantern, Tai paid the cartmen while Kenji played his long bamboo flute. Jiro’s mouth formed a small numbed O as the cartmen unloaded fifty Raku student tea bowls, each in its own twine sack.
I looked at Jiro and addressed him, as if in his shock he could hear me. I pointed to the bowl in his lap. “Maybe the foreigner will trade that for the Rikyu bowl you sold him,” I said. “Don’t try trading me, because I’m not for sale.”
Suddenly, Jiro stood, leaving Shunrai in its box on the ground. He seized the bamboo flute out of Kenji’s hands, lifted it overhead like a cudgel, and brought it down hard on one of the student bowls.
A Raku bowl smashes with a dull, hollow crunch, anticlimactic, like a man kicked in the chest. The boys watched with open mouths while their father smashed and crushed until the flute broke in his hands, until it was a pointed bamboo stump and tears streamed down his face. Panting, he said something to Yukako. What was it? He was, he’d said, like Rie, like Lear without the rainstorm, betrayed by family and friends, his face naked with desolation. He stared at Yukako. She had smeared shit in his robes as a boy and he had borne it in secret, so that he could become a man like her father. No: so he could live in the dream of being such a man, his own personal floating world, one in which it was enough to love tea. Jiro stared at Yukako and said it again, his voice wet with despair, the comic truth of a tragic night. This is not what I married you for.
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Jiro left for One Pine teahouse, retiring permanently at the age of thirty-three, to take holy orders at Sesshu-ji temple.
WITHIN HOURS of his departure, Jiro had sent word to his wife that Tai was old enough to head the household on his own. Hearing this, Yukako packed her husband’s things up in a fleet of handcarts and sent Kenji with them to his father’s retreat to say, if Jiro preferred to stay, that she would gladly fund the renovation of One Pine. Kenji came back that evening with news of Jiro’s assent. That very night, as the boys sat in their bath, I helped Yukako carry down their bedding, their few clothes and books and treasures, and install them in their father’s garden study. Grave and secretive, the boys weren’t children anymore: that night no one came padding back upstairs to share his mother’s bed.
I DON’T THINK anyone slept the night Jiro snapped. The boys sat up all hours whispering. Yukako stalked off alone, no doubt to Baishian. Jiro left for his nightly debauch and dragged himself in at dawn, staying only long enough to fumble around for a few things in his room and lurch back to his waiting jinrikisha. I know this because I lay awake until the sky went from black to white, my scalp burning, wracked with pity, disgust, fear, and shame. I couldn’t stop worrying over the same three facts. I had let him touch me. It was only luck that Yukako had come home in time. The Dutchman was bringing the money at noon. I felt scalded and very alone. The mosquito netting, invisible in the dark, became a cobweb cloud in the gray morning, when I heard Jiro’s jinrikisha come and go.
The boys feigned sleep when I stirred. I found Yukako downstairs in the family shrine, sitting before an artist’s ink drawing of her father, hands folded. A fresh stick of incense burned before the picture, the smoke lifting like milkweed. “I guess you heard him go too,” I said.
“Un,” she grunted.
“I’m so sorry this happened—”
“There’s really nothing to say.” Her voice was hard to read, neither angry nor sad but opaque, worn, like glass blunted by the ocean. She was quiet for a long time, and then she decided something. “I guess if he doesn’t come back this morning, I’ll teach his class for him,” she said aloud.
“Hai,” I said. “Would you like some tea?”
“Very much.” Her voice was cold but her hands tightened gratefully around the cup. I told her, ashamed, about the Dutchman, and she laughed. “I’ll take care of that.” J
iro had taken both black tea bowls, old and new, so when the Dutchman came, Yukako took half his money in exchange for another bowl said to be from Rikyu’s time, packing him off with a recommendation on where one might purchase a young girl, as I was sure to give him a nasty disease.
THAT NIGHT, after the boys went to bed in their new room, I lay alone in Yukako’s chamber, spent. When she came upstairs, I saw she’d taken every comb, pin, string, and horsehair pad out of her hair, which hung, newly washed, in long wet ribbons. “I think that was my last,” she said, bidding farewell to the married woman’s hairstyle.
I remembered Inko’s story about her mother warding off her husband with a widow’s obako after two of their children died. I missed her so much. Yukako sat at the mirror, experimenting with a deep-eaves bun like a foreign lady’s. “Won’t Miss Miki be surprised when she comes tomorrow?” I said. As I sat in bed watching Yukako, I imagined the hairdresser’s daughter bringing news from her cousin, by some miracle living in Tokyo again. She’d have word for me from Inko, a gift. Exhaustion made it easy for me to daydream, resting my chin on my knees.
I touched my own hair. I’d been hiding my ruptured coiffure under a servant’s tented kerchief all day, occasionally pushing loosened bits of horsehair and string into the kitchen fire, my stomach knotting at Jiro’s remembered hands. What would happen when he returned? I’d worried all morning, and then his message came. He wasn’t coming back. Why not wash my hair too, start again? That night I folded my arm around Yukako’s chest and slept like a stone, safe.
23
1885
THE FIRST FORMAL TEA invitation Tai extended as the new head of the household was, at Yukako’s behest, to Imperial Advisor Kato: Tai was to host and she would assist. With the canal under way, the Meiji court had asked Kato to focus on Kyoto’s public schools, a problem to which he’d applied himself sporadically since his arrival. It was autumn, mackerel season, and the venerable tea bowl Yukako chose was a rare flecked steely blue, like a mackerel’s body, inked with a black lattice ami, or fishing net. It was a nod both to the season and to Kato’s choice of plaid ami shawls for the Christian Ladies’ School.
