She leaves her coat on, sensing that the waiting room might be more Siberia than Sahara today. Excusing her way toward a swath of empty seats in the middle of a row, she squeezes past a hijab-wearing woman and three men whispering in something that’s not quite Chinese. Leaving a polite empty seat between herself and an amulet-rubbing Vietnamese lady, she pulls out her phone to kill time, scrolling past the storybook weddings, rosy babies, and gap-toothed children of her increasingly distant friends and classmates.
#29. #30. #31.
Robin looks up. That was fast. Eight numbers in fifteen minutes. If everyone takes care of business that quickly, she’ll only have to use half a day of her unpaid leave. On the other hand, previous experience tells her it’s far more likely those hapless applicants failed to bring some minor piece of documentation, or fill in every box to the exacting requirements of the bureaucrats behind the windows.
She spares some sympathy for the dejected Nepalese woman now zipping her parka as she heads for the exit, remembering what it was like to be on the receiving end of bewildering instructions delivered in rapid Japanese, instead of getting the coveted rubber stamp.
#34 and #35 are dispatched quickly. Too quickly. She’s not immune to the irrational fear that others’ misfortune could be contagious, so she rechecks the papers in her battered plastic folder. Passport, visa extension form (signed), academic transcript (stamped and sealed), and the all-important letter from her advisor, guaranteeing that he’s overseeing the research (and, by extension, the ability to behave according to Japanese rules) of Robin Swann, PhD candidate.
The time between numbers stretches. She won’t be done before lunch after all. She stands, tugs at her slacks so they cut into a different spot on her hip. She’ll have to give up something until they fit again, but she already stopped eating rice two weeks ago, and she can’t bear the thought of giving up wine right now. The only thing getting her through endless days of testing a tedious lot of Bizen-ware is the prospect of a glass of pinot when she gets home.
But give it up she must. At her thinnest she took up more than one seat on the subway (even though she tried not to) and she knows from humiliating experience that not a single pair of pants in all of Japan will fit her. She won’t have a chance to buy new ones until she goes home to Boone Falls for Fourth ofJuly.
The annual family reunion. She’s not looking forward to it. Even if she spends all her free time between now and then working on her dissertation, three months is too soon to have it in the bag. She’ll have to come up with a fresh excuse for why she’s still not Dr. Robin Swann. Her aunt will enquire how she likes her job in China. Her uncle will tell her that he doesn’t understand how anyone can live in a place where all they eat is raw fish. And she still won’t have the heart to tell her mother that not only do they have McDonald’s in Tokyo, the food is a lot better than the desiccated “welcome back to civilization” cheeseburgers that unfailingly await her in the oven when she arrives. By the end of the week, she’ll be counting the hours until her parents go off to church, so she can dig out the plastic Sailor Moon chopsticks she’d insisted on using at every meal in high school, and employ them to ferry her emergency supply of seaweed-flecked potato chips from the bag to her mouth.
Even on her darkest nights, she doesn’t consider moving back to Boone Falls for long. But now the clock is ticking, because without a doctorate to roll the employment dice for her, where else can she go? There’s not a single assistant professorship or post-doc she can hope to land—not in Boone Falls, not anywhere—without those three crucial letters after her name.
#48. #49.
Clutching her plastic folder, she gathers her muffler and purse onto her lap, ready to go when called. After work, she’ll go to the library and transcribe numbers until closing time. And if she manages to finish that table tonight, she’ll put off giving up her nightly glass of wine until tomorrow.
11.
Present-Day Japan
MONDAY, MARCH 31
Tokyo
Crap, she’s late. Late, late, late. Nori dashes headlong down the stairs, cursing herself for forgetting to set her alarm. She’d been up until the small hours, searching every corner of the flat, but even after midnight, when the astrology forecast ticked over from sensho (bad luck after noon) to the more auspicious tomobiki (good luck all day, except at noon), she’d found no sign of the missing tea bowl.
And now it’s nearly nine-thirty, half an hour past opening and an hour past the time she usually goes downstairs to ready the shop. And late is bad. Their best customers tend to come early, hurrying back to their restaurants before lunch prep ramps up in earnest.
Vaulting over the last step to the sidewalk, she dodges a bicycle, its front basket piled high with soup bowls, and tosses an apology to a startled knot of tourists, chattering away in a language she doesn’t understand.
Hers is the only store on the block that’s still closed. She rams her key into the half-rusted padlock, yanks on the handle and rolls up the wide front shutter with a clatter. When the opening is barely waist-high, she ducks under and pulls it down quickly behind her.
Inside the windowless store, it’s pitch black with the shutter down, but Nori has made her way to the light switch so many times she could do it in her sleep. Feeling her way between the sidewalk displays that she pulled inside yesterday at closing time, she flicks on the lights, illuminating thousands of dishes, all shapes and sizes.
From one-bite appetizer plates to wide-mouthed ramen bowls, pottery is stacked on floor-to-ceiling shelves lining every inch of wall space. Deep green Oribe, black and tan Mashiko-ware, ochre and brown Seto-yaki, blue and white from Kutani. The patchwork of colors comes from every corner of Japan, fashioned by kilns that Okuda & Sons has done business with for generations. Tables crowd the narrow space between, tempting customers with the most seasonal wares. Unlike the forever-unchanging fake flowers in the vase upstairs, the store displays are kept meticulously up to date, anticipating the next season a month in advance, so restaurateurs can stock up on dishes for seasonal specialties before they’re needed. It had taken Nori months to learn her grandmother’s system of organizing, but now, when a restaurant manager leaves a message that he needs thirty Seto-yaki soy sauce dispensers with the pine design, she can find them in minutes.
The shop is unheated, so she keeps her coat and muffler on while she switches on the space heater behind the counter, readies the cashier station, and checks the answering machine. Two messages. She prays they’ll need everything from appetizer plates to dessert bowls.
The first is a disappointment—onesie-twosies to replace last month’s breakage. But the second voice belongs to Masao Watanabe, owner of the busiest conveyor-belt sushi restaurant in Asakusa. He’s opening a smaller, more premium branch and plans to stop by first thing in the morning to choose the plates that will tempt patrons to eat more than their fill.
She leans on the counter, weak with relief. A big order from Watanabe-san will not only pay the bills this month, it might pay next month’s as well. Plenty of time for her grandmother to get well, or to find Hikitoru and sell it to the highest bidder.
Then she remembers the time. How early is “first thing”? Scuttling to the front of the shop, she heaves the shutter open and peers up and down the street, searching for the shaven-headed restaurant owner.
She greets the wizened chopstick seller from next door, who’s out sweeping his sidewalk, and bows to two shoppers strolling past. No sign of Watanabe-san. Good. If he’d arrived earlier and found the shop still closed, surely he’d have left another message on the machine.
She’s just begun maneuvering the heavy sidewalk displays into position when she spots someone coming out of the shop next door. Tall. Bald. Watanabe-san?
She takes a step toward the restaurant owner, then freezes as the patriarch of Itoh Fine Ceramics follows him out to the sidewalk, performing the kind of deep and obsequious bow a shopkeeper reserves for customers who have just spent lavishly.
No. He wouldn’t . . . !
Her hackles rise. It’s not the first time the Itohs have tried to steal a customer, if half the things her grandmother has hinted at are true. The store next door hasn’t been in business quite as long as the Okudas, but its frontage is three times as wide. The Itohs somehow came out of the war far richer than they’d been before—suspiciously richer, according to ’Baa-chan—and they’d bought up the two neighboring shops, replacing them with one wide building. Theirs is now topped with seven stories of rentable real estate, plus a penthouse for themselves. Unlike Okuda & Sons, with its traditional open front that allows passers-by to see all the stock at a glance, the Itohs’ store features an air-conditioned interior and tastefully styled displays behind plate glass windows.
Tetsu Itoh holds his deep bow as Watanabe-san takes his leave, but as he straightens, his eyes meet Nori’s and widen in alarm. He whisks back into his shop, like a weasel into its burrow.
The restaurateur turns and catches her staring. His brow furrows, trying to place her.
She forces a smile.
“Good morning, Watanabe-san. Remember me? I’m Nori Okuda.” She gestures to the open storefront behind her.
“Oh.” His face reddens. “You’re the granddaughter, right?” Stepping closer, he hesitates, suddenly awkward. “How is she? Your grandmother, I mean. Itoh-san told me she’s in the hospital.”
“She’s . . . recovering.” Best not to air the details out on the sidewalk. “I’m sorry I was a little late this morning. But I got your message, and if you’re ready to choose dishes, we just received a few things that I’m sure you’ll like.”
She nudges aside the displays blocking the shop entrance, but when she looks up again, Mr. Watanabe is still standing on the sidewalk a few feet away, radiating discomfort.
“Ah. The thing is . . .” Sideways flash of eyes, downward curve of mouth. “I didn’t know when—or if—you were going to reopen. My new place’s hard opening is scheduled for Saturday the thirteenth, so I, uh . . . well, I’m sorry, but I already found what I needed next door.”
The bottom drops out of her stomach.
“I . . . I see,” she stammers. She manages to babble something about remembering them in the future if he needs anything else, then bows to hide how stunned she is.
Mr. Watanabe asks her to give his regards to her grandmother, then makes his escape.
Nori staggers back into the store and leans against the soup bowl display, reeling. She’d only been half an hour late! How could he have outfitted an entire restaurant so fast? And where did he get the idea they might be closed indefinitely? Did he go next door, to ask the Itohs?
Yes, that’s exactly what he did. Her blood begins to boil. He’d gone next door to ask about ’Baa-chan, and ended up buying all his dishes. No, he hadn’t bought all his dishes, Itoh-san had sold him all his dishes.
She stalks back out to the sidewalk and stares daggers at the shop next door. The spotless sheen of the display window reflects her clenched fists, her stony face. Then her shoulders slump. It’s too late. A done deal. The order is signed and sealed with Watanabe-san’s hanko. Even if she was as fearless as her grandmother, the kind of person who could march right in and confront old Weaselface, it wouldn’t accomplish anything.
Nori retreats, defeated. Mad at Itoh, mad at herself. She tugs the dust covers off the sidewalk displays and rolls them into a bundle. Trudging to the back, she stuffs them beneath the counter, then stares bleakly through the deserted shop as people saunter by outside, without a glance in her direction.
The only saving grace is that ’Baa-chan wasn’t here to see this. Nori had quit high school to help run the shop when her grandmother had her first “spell,” so she doesn’t have many career options if ’Baa-chan decides she’s too much like her father. He ran the family business for only a year after her grandfather died, but that was long enough. Afflicted with an uncanny gift for sensing trends a little too late, his enthusiasms packed the lean-to behind the office with unsellable goods. He nearly bankrupted them before her grandmother had to step in and take over again. Nori had only been five at the time, so she hadn’t realized that was the beginning of the end.
But it was, wasn’t it? Six weeks later, her mother left, and a month after that, her father was found by the side of the road, the victim of a hit and run. A car? A truck? Nobody knew, nobody saw anything. At the hour he’d been returning from wherever he was drowning his sorrows that night, all good citizens had been tucked up in their futons.
Her mobile chimes from her pocket. Unknown number.
“Moshi-moshi?”
“Okuda-san? This is Daiki. Uh, Daiki Miura. We met yesterday at my grandfather’s shop . . .”
The boy? Why is he calling her?
“Oh. Yeah. Hi,” she replies. Awkward silence. Obviously, he doesn’t like talking on the phone any more than she does.
“Can I help you with something?” she prompts.
“I, uh . . . I was just wondering if you’d found it yet. Hikitoru.”
“No. But I haven’t had much of a chance to look, so—”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. But you’re going to look today, right?”
Persistent little mosquito.
“Yes, as soon as I finish work. At five.”
“Five, huh? Actually, my basketball practice is over at six, so if you need some help, I could come over and—”
“No,” she says. Her grandmother would banish her to rural Aomori if she let a kid poke around in their business. “I mean, thanks for the offer, but the shop isn’t that big, so there aren’t that many places to look.”
“Okay,” he replies, disappointed. “But, you’ll call right away when you find it, right?”
“First thing,” she promises.
Another awkward pause, then, “When you call, uh, can you use my mobile number instead of the one on the card my mother gave you? The shop phone doesn’t have an answering machine. I’ve tried to tell them a million times, but . . .”
Ha. Nori had badgered ’Baa-chan for over a year before they got one. Their grandparents had obviously been cut from the same cloth.
“Understood,” she says. “I’ll call you when I’ve got something.”
“Great. Thanks. And, uh, good luck.”
Nori adds the kid to her contacts list. She’s got to give him credit—it took nerve to make that call. Had his grandfather made him do it? He’s obviously being groomed to take over the pawnshop, but now she stops to wonder why. Maybe misfortune had visited Miura’s family too. Maybe they need this sale as much as she does.
Reminded of sales, she glances at the old-fashioned black telephone crouching beside the cash register, silently accusing her. Her grandmother is diabolically good at sweet-talking customers into paying what they owe, but even thinking about phoning people and asking for money makes Nori’s stomach cramp. If she doesn’t do it, though, who will? She reluctantly opens the sales ledger to the first of the past due accounts. She’d flagged them all with post-it notes yesterday, to avoid making the calls, but she’s run out of excuses.
Closing her eyes, she rehearses her pitch. Palms sweating, she makes the first call.
By the end of the morning it’s gotten a little easier, just as her grandmother had annoyingly predicted. Four restaurant managers have promised to put a check in the mail, and if they actually do it, the lights and the internet will stay on for a few more weeks.
A distant construction siren goes off, releasing her like the school dismissal bell. Cheered, she flips the ledger shut. Time to grab some cheap curry, then use the rest of her lunch hour to find out more about that missing tea bowl. She can’t start tearing the place apart until closing time, but the more she knows about Hikitoru and the guy who made it, the more she’ll be able to guess what someone might be willing to pay when she finds it.
Ten minutes and a dash to the take-out shop later, Nori sets an old-fashioned silver desk bell on the counter, atop a dog-eared “Please ri
ng for service” note in her grandmother’s handwriting.
Shedding her shoes as she steps up into the office, she retrieves her personal chopsticks and plops down on a cushion behind the low table, keeping an eye on the shop through the open door.
She feels the office gods regarding her from inside their wooden shrine, high on a shelf that’s swagged anew each year with a sacred straw rope and supplied monthly with fresh offerings of salt, sake, and evergreen sakaki sprigs. The ’Baa-chan in her head reminds her she’d better enlist their help before beginning her search for information on Hikitoru.
Folding her hands, she begs them to prove Miura Senior wrong about the internet.
An hour later, though, her prayers remain largely unanswered. A phone search for “Hikitoru” turned up lots of comic book characters and a book on Japanese death poems. Adding “tea bowl” confirmed that Senkō-ji temple had indeed burned to the ground in the fire-bombing of 1945. Hikitoru is on the list of art treasures saved from the burnt-out temple by valiant priests and townspeople, but there’s no picture.
A search for “Yoshi Takamatsu tea bowl” delivers the now-familiar photos of Snow Bride and Waterlily, along with a few made in such different style that they must be the work of artists who share his name.
The potter’s online encyclopedia entry informs her that he was the eldest son of a famous ceramics family from Sasayama that has been passing down the artistic name Honzaemon for sixteen generations. They’re known for old-fashioned, wood-fired Tamba-ware, but oddly, it’s not eldest son Yoshi Takamatsu who inherited the honorary artist name when his father died, but his younger brother, Nobu.
The internet serves up plenty of examples of Nobu’s work. It’s typical Tamba-ware, made from the region’s pale ochre clay, slip-glazed a smooth reddish-brown, with drips of dark glaze running down the sides. But Nobu’s tea bowls are straight-sided, not rounded like his brother’s. Pages of critical exposition detail Nobu’s career (iterative, not innovative), his patrons (every wealthy samurai family in western Japan), and his legacy (he’s the father of an artist who is far more favorably regarded by art historians than he is).
The Last Tea Bowl Thief Page 6
