There’s less enlightening information about the older brother. Yoshi Takamatsu’s personal entry is light on hard facts, and raises more questions than it answers. He left Sasayama to settle on the other side of Lake Biwa when he was barely twenty, but the entry doesn’t say why. He captured the patronage of a powerful Kyoto warlord, but it doesn’t say how. And it doesn’t explain why so few of his works have survived. The only thing it clears up is why his younger brother inherited the family name: Yoshi Takamatsu was blind.
Nori blinks. That can’t be right. The potter who made Hikitoru was blind? How could a famous artist be blind? Digging deeper, she finds an article by a professor of Japanese art history. Based on the fact that the hereditary artistic name bypassed Yoshi, the scholar suggests that he lost his sight early in life, but he doesn’t explain how or when.
He must have done all his famous work before he lost his sight. That would explain why his pieces are so rare. Nori checks his birth-date, then scrolls down to the descriptions of Snow Bride and Waterlily. Both were made before he was nineteen. He must have become blind sometime in his early twenties. After he moved away from Sasayama? Or was that why he’d moved away from Sasayama?
She follows a link to Snow Bride, curious whether it’s also a National Treasure. It takes her to a Fujimori Fine Art auction catalog from four years ago. Scrolling down, she scans the description. Rounded silhouette . . . thin lip . . . ten million.
Ten million. Ten million yen. Four years ago, the reserve price for Snow Bride was ten million yen.
She’s stunned. Even if Hikitoru doesn’t turn out to be National Cultural Treasure material, if it’s worth anywhere near ten million yen, her worries will be over. Not just for now. Forever.
All she has to do is find it.
12.
Feudal Japan
JULY, 1681
Sengen-in Monastery, Kyoto Prefecture
The temple dweller known only to fellow novices as Yoshi sits outside the abbot’s study, waiting to be summoned. This morning at first light, he’d sat his last zazen meditation, eaten his last breakfast of pickles and rice, and ritually wiped his wooden bowl for the last time. Today the abbot will send him out into the world with a task to complete before he returns to take his vows.
Yoshi sat his first zazen in the darkest days of winter, isolated and alone, not yet warmed by the friendship of the other novices. The ancient wooden meditation hall had felt vast and empty, despite the presence of nearly a hundred monks. But day by day, as the pain from kneeling for hours lessened, the pain of losing Kiri also began to diminish. By the time the tolling of the temple bell wiped the slate clean on New Year’s, he was no longer freshly ambushed by grief every morning when he awoke.
After the new year, he slowly began to participate in monastery life, instead of being cared for like a broken sparrow. The first task the rōshi assigned was more practical than spiritual. Yoshi had quickly discovered how much he relied on others to set his meals before him, to make sure his clothes were clean and aired, to keep his tonsured head shaved and his topknot neatly bound. All through the deep snows of January, he learned to do those things for himself. By the time the scent of plum blossoms began to distract him through the meditation room windows, not only could he take care of his daily needs, he could also chop vegetables and scrub floors nearly as quickly as the other novices.
By the time he heard newly hatched swallows peeping hungrily from beneath the spreading temple eaves, the monk in charge of vigilance no longer had to tap him on the shoulder with his bamboo rod to remind him to straighten his back as he sat zazen in the drafty meditation hall. Oddly enough, his blindness helped him—he wasn’t, after all, distracted by the sights that so easily diverted the other novices—and by the time the young swallows were whirring about the tower that supported the deep-voiced temple bell, his daily practice had calmed his soul enough that he’d actually found himself contemplating the future. Maybe he could learn to cook the temple’s simple vegetarian fare, instead of just hauling its garbage. Or he could study to become the monk who strikes the ceremonial drum at worship, instead of merely chanting the sutras.
Then the abbot asked him to take part in a tea ceremony. It was an honor to be invited, and it turned out to be a far more moving experience than Yoshi expected. At home, tea ceremonies had been used to sell pottery, but at Sengen-in, they were elevated to a form of meditation. The unhurried performance of ritual gestures, the mindful appreciation of each tool, the divine moment when tea surprises the tongue.
It was a revelation. He began to wonder if the gods had led him to Sengen-in to become the temple’s tea master. And that’s when he realized that sometime in the past few months, he’d decided to stay at the monastery forever.
On the day the monks exchanged their heavy winter robes for lighter linen, he’d knocked on the abbot’s door to ask permission to take his vows. But that interview hadn’t gone as he expected. The abbot listened to his request and instead of giving him an answer, asked a question: had Yoshi ever learned a trade?
Rinkan-rōshi had never probed him about his past, except to learn the source of the despair that had driven him out into the snow to die. That first night, the abbot had explained that everyone who arrived at Sengen-in with the intention of becoming a monk left his old self behind on the temple steps and started at the bottom, regardless of his rank in the outside world. He’d gently assured the young man in the torn and soiled hemp robe that it was often those with the humblest beginnings who attained enlightenment most quickly.
Recalling those words, Yoshi was a little embarrassed to admit that he was the privileged son of an artist—a potter, who made tea ceremony ware—and that because of his father’s position, he’d never learned a trade.
“But,” he added, “my childhood toys weren’t painted kites or wooden puzzle boxes, they were a fist full of clay and a potter’s wheel. Before I left my father’s house, I made tea ceremony utensils, but I’m sure I could make more useful things too. Would you like me to make something for the temple?”
“No, that’s not why I asked,” the abbot replied. He refused to say more, and sent Yoshi away that day without an answer.
Several weeks later, though, Yoshi had been called to the abbot’s study and asked if he was ready to give up his first attachment.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” he said, eager to show the abbot what a model monk he’d be. “I’m ready to give up all ties to the outside world.”
“No,” replied the rōshi. “Not yet. There’s something you need to do first. I want you to go back out into the world. I want you to leave Sengen-in and work for a potter I know, over in Shigaraki.”
The blood drained from Yoshi’s face. Leave the safety of the mountain temple where he’d found peace? No. He couldn’t face life outside the walls. Here, his work, his meditation, and his meals all took place in the company of his fellow monks. Outside, every time a woman opened her mouth, he’d be reminded that he will never hear Kiri’s sweet voice again.
“I can’t. I’m not ready. Let me do something else,” he pleaded. “Anything else. I’ll go later, when I’m stronger.”
“I don’t think you understand,” the rōshi said, unmoved. “Until you give up your attachment to that girl, you cannot be fully present here. You’re using this place to hide from your attachment, and it’s chaining you to the Wheel of Rebirth. Until you give her up, you may not vow yourself to this temple.”
A dove called plaintively outside the window. The silence deepened, but he couldn’t bring himself to submit to the rōshi’s request.
“You may go,” sighed the abbot.
He’d dragged himself back to the kitchen in despair. The rōshi was right, but he couldn’t give Kiri up. He held her memory close before he went to sleep each night, told her things that nobody else would understand, needed the ache that reminded him he’d once been loved.
Adding to his sorrows, this was the first time the abbot had been anything but
kind. A distance widened between them, one he couldn’t bring himself to close. Feeling abandoned and alone, he ate his meals, swept the temple steps, and meditated in lonely silence, acutely aware he was nothing but an outsider. The other monks might be diligent or lazy, they might achieve enlightenment or not, but they all belonged here. Everyone but Yoshi would be allowed to live out his days in service to the temple. The discipline stick rapped him daily, as his head drooped and his mind chased itself in circles, trying to escape the task he’d been set.
Then, one day in early summer, the tide turned. Little by little, he became resigned to his fate. One midsummer’s day, he woke up with the strength to accept it. He knocked on the abbot’s door and humbly asked for directions to the potter’s kiln.
A week later, he sits on the sweet-smelling rice straw mats lining the corridor outside the rōshi’s study, with his traveling bundle on the floor beside him and a wooden box in his hands.
“Come in,” says the abbot.
When they’re both seated, with fragrant wisps of steam rising from their teacups, the abbot presents Yoshi with a note, stamped with his seal.
“This is your introduction to my old friend, Takanori. We were novices together, but his father and elder brother were killed in the Great Yasu Flood of 1665. He gave up his intention and returned home to run the family business, but I think you’ll find that he still walks the Eightfold Path.”
He calls to a monk waiting outside in the passageway, introducing him as Brother Jin. Jin grew up in a village on the eastern shore of Lake Biwa, and knows the way well. He will accompany Yoshi and act as guide. It will take them two days to get to Takanori’s kiln, deep in the mountains near the Yasu River.
“The Yasu River,” Yoshi says. He doesn’t know anybody who’s been there. “What kind of pottery do they make in those parts?”
“Shigaraki-ware. Do you know it?”
He does. It’s very different from his father’s Tamba-ware, which is valued for the subtlety of its underglaze and the controlled drips that cascade down the sides. Shigaraki-ware is prized for its scratchy wild-ness, the way patches of rough, unglazed clay and natural impurities burst through slick smatterings of melted ash.
Yoshi has no experience making pots like that. Even his skill at preparing the raw earth might not be useful. How good would he be at treading out the kind of clay that has to be left rough, studded with chips of feldspar?
His doubts must have shown on his face, because the abbot reminds him, “The unknown is the soil in which learning takes place.”
They contemplate this truth together, as the twitterings of birds in the cherry tree outside fill the silence. Finally, the abbot reaches for his teacup and Yoshi picks up his wooden box.
Drawing himself upright, he formally extends it toward the rōshi with both hands.
“This is one of my most treasured possessions,” he says, “but it reminds me of the bride I tried to follow into the next life. As a sign that I intend to return only when I’ve given up that attachment for good, I humbly ask you to accept it, on behalf of the temple.”
He bows low over the table, and as the abbot lifts Snow Bride from his hands, he feels his soul lighten, just a little.
13.
Present-Day Japan
MONDAY, MARCH 31
Tokyo
Closing time, at last. At the stroke of five, Nori wheels the sidewalk displays into the shop and bangs down the front shutter, slipping a pin on a slithery chain through a pair of bolt holes, to lock it from inside. She returns to the cluttered office and burbles hot water into the old stained teapot to prepare for the tea bowl hunt.
She stands before the shelves of dusty, expensive ceramics in the lean-to, holding her steaming cup, guessing that the box belonging to the tea bowl she’d taken to Miura’s will most likely be among the foolish purchases made by her father.
Scissoring open the stepladder, she climbs it to search among the goods stacked on the top shelf. Checking one box after another, she’s looking for one with a stamp that matches the mark on the bottom of that decoy tea bowl. Up and down, back and forth, she ferries anything that’s roughly the right size to the office, just in case ’Baa-chan didn’t just switch the two. She’s made five trips before she uncovers the box with a Yamamura stamp on top. She picks it up, and knows right away it’s not nearly heavy enough to have a tea bowl inside.
“’Baa-chan,” she moans, “why do you always have to make everything so hard?”
Because that’s the way you learn. Her grandmother’s voice is as loud as ever inside her head, even though it’s trapped in an unconscious body, six blocks away.
When Nori had skinned her knee as a child, her grandmother had handed her the first aid kit and told her to apply plenty of stinging disinfectant before the bandage. And every New Year’s, instead of presenting her with a traditional red envelope filled with cash, ’Baa-chan hid it somewhere in the house. The year she turned eight, she looked high and low. The day wore on and her excitement dissolved into tears, but her grandmother refused to tell her where it was. That envelope remains hidden to this day.
If she changed her mind about wantingyou to sell it, Miura had said, I’d wager she hid it somewhere. Somewhere you’ll never find it. But her grandmother would never have told her Hikitoru was their insurance if it wasn’t. The two of them don’t always agree, but they’ve got each other’s backs. Nori’s parents are long gone, and ’Baa-chan’s loved ones have been dead even longer. They’re the only Okudas left.
She pries the lid off the Yamamura box, making sure it’s really empty. But . . . it’s not. A roll of yen notes as big as her fist is wedged inside. She pulls it out and stares at it. Snaps off the rubber band and counts. It’s mostly small bills, but it ought to buy groceries for a month, if she’s careful.
Message received, ’Baa-chan. If she wasn’t in the midst of a real emergency, she wouldn’t have to sell the tea bowl. At least not yet.
But with her grandmother’s medical expenses piling up, she has to keep looking. Climbing down the stepladder, she tucks the yen notes into her purse and returns to the table, praying to the office gods that one of the boxes stacked on the table will contain another Snow Bride or Waterlily.
She angles the desk light onto the first one. Inside is a brown and cream Karatsu-ware tea bowl with a bamboo motif. Definitely not Hikitoru. Box number two holds a glossy green Oribe bowl, and inside the third is an artfully rough piece of Shigaraki-ware.
The fourth lid is stamped with the mark of a kiln near Sasayama, the Takamatsu family’s hometown. This one’s more promising. It would be typical of ’Baa-chan to switch the valuable Hikitoru with a piece of ordinary Tamba-ware that’s similar enough to fool someone who isn’t expert enough to know the difference.
The bowl inside is a pale gray, with glaze dripping from the lip like Snow Bride, except the brown stripes are too regular, and its sides are straight, not rounded. She flips it over and holds it up to the light. There’s no potter’s mark on the foot. It’s either old enough to be Hikitoru, or the kind of mass-produced touristware that the kiln doesn’t put its name on. She hefts it, but since she’s never actually held expensive pottery, she can’t tell if it’s lighter or heavier than it should be.
If the sides were rounded instead of square, she’d be confident enough to stop looking and call Miura, but it’s not quite a good enough match. Setting it aside, she opens the last box.
This one holds a brick-red tea bowl with no stamp on its foot either. Its rounded shape is closer to Yoshi’s other work, but although it resembles Waterlily, the glaze cascades from the rim in thicker drips, with a distinct greenish cast. She sits back, worrying her lip.
Which one is more likely to be Hikitoru? The white one that’s the wrong shape, or the rounded one with the wrong drips?
She sets them next to each other. She could take both tea bowls to Miura, ask if he can tell her which is the real one. But what if his answer is “neither”? Or, even worse, what
if one actually is Hikitoru, but he doesn’t tell her? What if he makes her a lowball offer for it, then flips it and gets rich off her ignorance? No, she can’t trust Miura.
But what about the grandson? Does he know how his grandfather plans to identify the tea bowl without its box?
Daiki Miura is definitely the lesser of two evils. If he doesn’t already know how to spot the real Hikitoru, he can probably find out.
The boy picks up on the first ring. “Mosh’-mosh’?”
“Hello Miura-kun. This is Nori Okuda—”
“Did you find it?” he interrupts eagerly.
“I think so. But I’d like to be sure it’s the right one before I waste your grandfather’s time. Can you do me a favor and find out what he’s looking for? I mean, how is he going to identify Hikitoru without the box?”
“Actually, I already know the answer to that.”
“And?”
He hesitates. “It would be easier if I came over and saw it for myself.”
No chance. He’s sure to notice she’s so clueless that she’s trying to decide between two bowls that look nothing alike.
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” she replies smoothly. “If you could just describe the main points over the phone, I can save you the trouble.”
“It’s no trouble,” he counters. “I can be there in . . .” silence, while he checks the giant wristwatch, “. . . twenty minutes.”
“No, really,” she insists. “Please don’t trouble yourself. I’m sure I can—”
“The thing is, it’s not something I can easily explain. Over the phone, that is. If I could look at what you found, I could tell you right away.”
The Last Tea Bowl Thief Page 7
