She’d be older now. He’d be able to feel the bones in her dove-like hands, and her musical voice might have acquired new depths from forty years of living. It’s even possible that she’s exchanged her fragrant silk kimonos for the incense-perfumed robes of an abbess.
Holding the tea bowl before him, he stills his mind. Then he probes his feelings, one by one.
His fear that she’d sickened and died.
His outrage that she’d renounced his love by taking her vows.
His anger that she’d given him up so easily.
His heartache that she might never really have loved him.
For years, those thoughts felt like open wounds, but today, for the very first time, the pain is gone. He sees them for what they are: distractions. It wasn’t his love for her that had been binding him to the Wheel of Rebirth, it was his longing to be with her again in this life. After two decades, he has finally grasped that if they’re truly connected by the red thread of fate, they’ll meet again when they’re reborn. And someday, when they both attain enlightenment, they’ll dwell together forever in the Western Paradise.
Which is why he needs to hurry up and break this attachment, because neither of them is getting any younger. And Kiri has spent her whole life praying behind convent walls—she might very well go straight to the Western Paradise when she dies, and he doesn’t want to keep her waiting.
When this storm passes, he’ll go to the place in the woods where he hid the last two First Love candidates, and smash them. Then the only task remaining will be to let go of Hatsu-koi itself.
Rain is pattering on the roof again, so he puts the tea bowl back in its box, gathers an armload of firewood, and hurries down the hill to the farmhouse. As he nears the front door, he hears a moan.
“Hattsan?” But it can’t be. It’s coming from the wrong direction.
He dumps the firewood inside the front door, then feels his way down the track that leads to the road. He doesn’t go far before his toe encounters a body, lying face down in the mud, soaking wet and stinking of sake.
15.
Feudal Japan
SEPTEMBER, 1703
Shigaraki
The first thing Saburo the Aspiring Poet becomes aware of as he swims up to consciousness is the smell of smoke. He opens his eyes a sliver. Then wider, because he still can’t see a thing. It’s so dark he can barely make out the peaked ceiling far overhead, supported by undulating beams blackened by age or soot or both.
His head hurts like a pack of vindictive demons is trapped inside. Reaching up, he finds his tonsure stubbled, his topknot awry. There’s a tender patch high on his cheekbone and he winces as his fingers explore some scratches on his jaw that he can’t remember—
Then it all floods back. The accursed typhoon, a late-season storm so fierce, he couldn’t tell where the path ended and the forest began. The onslaught of wind and rain that not only pounded relentlessly from above, but blew sideways like the gods had turned the world on its ear. His traveling hat had been useless, his fine clothing soaked in minutes, and as he tucked his chin against the wind, his enviable goatee became a downspout, sluicing cold rain straight down the neck of his kimono. His feet were rubbed raw by plodding through the mud in sodden sandals, and his wet cloak felt like it had been fashioned by a blacksmith, not a weaver. Blinded by the driving rain, he must have taken the wrong track, because he hadn’t encountered a single inn along the way. Just endless, endless trees that blocked the waning light long before sundown, and bushes that snatched hungrily at his garments from either side, as if they didn’t get a chance to snare travelers very often.
The only thing that kept him from giving up was the bottle of sake he’d intended as a gift for the family acquaintance he was counting on to offer him a bed at his next stop. The alcohol had warmed him, dulled his aches and pains, or at least made him care less. Trying to make the final mouthfuls last, he’d spotted a track that didn’t look like it had been made by animals, running up into the trees. He’d fallen more than once as he stumbled up the rocky path, his feet clumsy with exhaustion or drink or both. The weathered door of a decrepit-looking farmhouse is the last thing he can remember. But he must have knocked, and there must have been somebody home, because here he is, warmer and drier than he’s been in two days. And hungover as hell.
“You’re awake.”
The gruff voice belongs to an imposing figure materializing from the gloom.
Saburo tries to answer, but his throat is too dry. The smoky smell diminishes as the man moves away, then returns as he’s handed a roughly glazed cup.
“It’s just water,” the man says, “but that’s probably the best cure for what’s ailing you.”
As the would-be poet struggles to sit, his rescuer splays one strong hand against his back to help him up. Saburo grabs the cup and drinks greedily, hands it back, asks for more.
“Later. Best to go slow at first. My name is Yoshi, but everyone calls me Yakibō. Who are you?”
“Shibata.” He bobs an awkward bow. “Saburo Shibata.”
How long had he been out cold? Is it the middle of the night? Or already the next morning? He squints into the gloom. The windows are shuttered tight against the storm, but slivers of light show around the edges. Must be daytime. Outside, anyway—it’s midnight in here. The only light in the cavernous room comes from a fire banked low in the sunken hearth. It leaps up onto an iron teakettle suspended over the fire, then illuminates the underside of a carved wooden carp counterweight and the links of an iron chain disappearing into the gloom overhead. His rescuer’s face is in deep shadow, the flickering light behind him silhouetting a shaved pate surrounded by wiry hair that’s been pulled into the topknot worn by commoners and samurai alike.
“Where am I?” Saburo asks. “How long have I been here?”
“Since yesterday.” The man adds a stick to the fire. “We found you lying in the mud outside. What were you doing in the woods all alone, during the biggest storm we’ve had in years?”
Saburo groans and falls back onto his pallet, reminded of the long list of calamities that had befallen him since he set out. His blistered feet, unaccustomed to walking long distances each day. His “winter” cloak, so inadequate for the mountain weather that it would have been laughable if it hadn’t nearly killed him. And his utter failure to find the inspiration he’d been seeking.
“I was hunting poems,” he sighs.
That got a guffaw. “Did you catch any?”
“No,” he admits. “Not one.” He ought to laugh along with his rescuer, but his throbbing sense of failure hurts more than all his aching bones combined.
“Well, then, Saburo Shibata, as a wise man once told me, you’re lucky you didn’t become a Buddha while still burdened with such burning desire. Be grateful you’ve been given another chance to rid yourself of attachments like that. You might find enlightenment yet, before your time comes.”
Yoshi-known-as-Yakibō melts into the darkness again, and by the time he returns, the would-be poet has figured out what his nickname means.
“Why are you called the Pottery Priest? You don’t look like a priest.”
The man gives a short laugh.
“I’m not. A lifetime ago, that’s what I wanted to be. I am a potter, though, for my sins.”
Which is almost as hard to believe. He sounds educated, and doesn’t have the nearly incomprehensible backcountry accent Saburo had encountered the last time he stopped at a village inn.
“You don’t sound like a potter.”
“Well, that’s what the gods made me, this time around, anyway. Hopefully, it will be the last.” Yakibō braces his hands on his knees and stands. “But right now, I’ve got wood to stack and a kiln to finish loading. You rest, get your strength back. If you’re feeling better by tomorrow, Hattsan and I would welcome another pair of hands stoking the fire.”
He shuffles to the door and lets himself out. A little rain blows in as it closes behind him, and Saburo sinks back i
nto dreamless sleep.
The next time he awakens, it’s even darker. Is this potter fellow too poor to afford a little oil for a lantern? Fortunately, he isn’t too poor to afford food, because Saburo can smell pickled radishes and hear the soft crek crek of chopsticks scraping a rice bowl.
“Yakibō? Is that you?” He cautiously raises his head, relieved it doesn’t hurt like the devil anymore.
“Ah, you’re awake, young poet,” comes the potter’s voice. “Good thing you returned to the land of the living before I ate the bit I was saving for you.”
“Why are you sitting in the dark? How can you even see to eat?”
“Seems to me I use my mouth for eating, not my eyes.”
But the potter shifts from where he’s sitting and a bamboo rice paddle knocks against the iron pot, scraping something into a bowl.
Saburo hopes it’s for him. He’s hungry enough to eat a wild boar, hide and all.
“Here.” A warm bowl and a pair of chopsticks nudge up against his arm, and he gropes for them. Whatever is in the bowl smells delicious. Pickles, dried fish cured with soy sauce and sweet sake, and rice that’s been in the pot long enough to acquire a toasty crust. But it’s too dark to see the ends of his chopsticks. What’s he supposed to do, stick his face in the bowl and eat like a dog?
“Yakibō-san? I’ll need a little light if I’m going to eat.”
“Sorry. I forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“You’re handicapped.”
Before he can ask what that means, a flint is struck, and a paper-shaded lantern begins to glow. As the flame lengthens inside, he sees Yakibō’s face clearly for the first time. It’s seamed and nut-brown, his wispy beard untrimmed, his milky eyes staring at nothing as he tucks away the flint and takes up his bowl and chopsticks again.
“Are you . . . blind?”
“Since birth,” the potter replies, poking around in his bowl with the tips of his chopsticks. Encountering a chunk of daikon radish, he pops it into his mouth.
“But how can you . . .”
“Make rice? Make pots? Make a living?” He laughs. “I manage. And if you’re about to start feeling sorry for me, I’d like to point out that I wasn’t the one lying unconscious in the mud.”
“Yes, but—”
“Look, young poet,” the potter says, taking a swig of sake. “I’ve been blind my whole life, so I don’t really understand this ‘sight’ thing you can’t seem to live without. To be honest, at times I wonder how the rest of you muddle through the world, missing so much that’s right in front of your noses.”
Stunned, Saburo nearly drops his chopsticks. You miss so much that’s right in front of your nose. Hadn’t his poetry master said the same thing, the last time he had spared a word for Saburo’s poems?
But the master’s words hadn’t been meant kindly. Saburo had been so stung by the criticism, he’d almost given up. But now that the same words have been uttered by a blind man who feels sorry for him because he can see, Saburo understands them in a whole new light.
This is a sign. He was meant to get lost in these woods. He was meant to be rescued by this potter. He was probably even meant to be eating this rice and these pickles. Maybe he’s finally on his own version of Basho’s Narrow Road to the Deep North after all.
16.
Present-Day Japan
MONDAY, MARCH 31
Tokyo
Nori promises to keep searching for Hikitoru, assuring Daiki she’ll call the minute she finds it. Rolling the front shutter down between them, she slips the pin into its locking holes. Then she turns to face the empty shop. Time to find that tea bowl.
The stock is arranged alphabetically by Japanese phonetic character, according to the name of the maker. A-i-u-e-o, ka-ki-ku-ke-ko, sa-shi-su-se-so . . . It’s an odd way for a pottery store to be set up—most sellers group bowls with bowls and plates with plates—but it says a great deal about her grandmother’s way of thinking.
The shelves weren’t always arranged this way. The first Sunday after Nori quit high school and began working full time, she’d arrived at the closed shop in a foul mood, furious that her grandmother had summoned her to work on their day off.
She hadn’t been sorry to leave the pointless homework and meaningless memorizing behind, but it turned out that sitting in class was a lot less tiring than staffing the shop. She’d been too stubborn to admit it, but every night, as soon as ’Baa-chan’s snores began rattling her door, Nori had collapsed onto her own futon, asleep within minutes. She’d barely communicated with her friends all week because she fell unconscious every night, mid-message, phone in hand. By closing time on Saturday, she’d bowed out of their weekly shopping meet-up and was looking forward to sleeping until noon instead.
But early Sunday morning, her alarm woke her at the usual time, even though she definitely hadn’t set it the night before. When she groped around to turn the bleeping thing off, she discovered a note telling her to be down in the shop by eight-thirty, and to bring rice balls for breakfast. ’Baa-chan had gone down early, and was waiting for her.
When Nori yanked open the front shutter, resentfully toting four rice balls fetched from the market down the block, she didn’t recognize the place. The shelves were bare, every dish in the shop stacked on the floor.
Had ’Baa-chan gone mad? It looked like she’d decided to do ō-sōji, even though it wasn’t December, when everyone scrubbed the nooks and crannies that only got cleaned for New Year’s.
Without a word of apology or thanks, her grandmother bit into a rice ball and handed Nori a pad of paper and pencil.
“You’d better take notes,” she’d said. “Until you learn the new system.”
“What new system?” Their system was fine the way it was! Nori could find anything in the shop at a glance—bowls with bowls, plates with plates—even though she’d only been working there a week.
“Hand me those ramen bowls from the Akagawa kiln,” her grandmother had directed. “The black ones with the brown crosses inside.”
’Baa-chan climbed the stepladder to set them on the highest shelf on the right-hand wall, next to the entrance.
“Now the green Akiyama dishes with the pine design. Are you writing these down?”
Seething with mutinous thoughts, Nori did as she was told. But by the time the first section had been stuffed with dishware that looked so random she didn’t know how she’d ever find anything again, she couldn’t contain herself any longer.
“Why are we doing this?” she’d whined. “How will our customers ever find anything in this mish-mash?”
“They’ll have to ask.”
“How will I find anything in this mish-mash?”
“You’ll learn,” her grandmother said, fixing her with the stink-eye from the top of the ladder. “And when I’m dead and gone and it’s time to restock styles that are sold out, you’ll know who to order them from, won’t you?”
Then she understood. In order to find anything, she’d have to memorize the name of every kiln and know what kind of pottery they made. And when it was her turn to take over, she’d be able to run the family business without thinking twice.
So, learn she did. She also grudgingly noticed an increased number of up-sells and add-ons, now that customers had to describe what they wanted instead of just browsing the shelves and finding it themselves. As usual, her grandmother had more than one reason for doing something. And, as usual, she’d made Nori figure that out for herself.
Which came in handy now. As Miura pointed out, if her grandmother didn’t want her to have the tea bowl, she’d have put it somewhere Nori would never find it. But if she did want her granddaughter—and only her granddaughter—to find it, she’d put it in a place only the two of them would think to look.
That’s how she knows Hikitoru won’t be tucked behind bowls from the same region, or hidden amid others the same color. She’d searched all those places at Daiki’s suggestion before he left, but now that he’s gone, sh
e goes straight to the shelf with goods made by kilns whose names start with the character “ya.” That’s where her grandmother would hide a tea bowl made by a potter known as Yakibō.
She moves aside blue and white soup bowls from Yakata, and red teapots from the Yamaguchi kiln, and . . . yes! There it is. A single, oval, tea ceremony bowl. Shigaraki-ware, just as Miura had predicted.
Elated, she takes it in her hands. Hikitoru fits into them like the potter had made it just for her. She closes her eyes, lifts it to her lips.
And freezes.
Holy crap, what is she thinking? This thing is worth ten million yen and she’s standing over a concrete floor. With the panicked focus of someone crossing a rotten log that spans a bottomless chasm, she inches back down the stepladder and doesn’t breathe again until Hiki-toru is sitting safely on the low table in the office. Shaken, she makes some tea to calm herself.
Half a cup later (and back in her right mind), she pulls the tea bowl toward her and trains the lamp on it. A swash of glossy, gray-green glaze swirls around the outside and jumps the rim to the inside, leaving the rest of the exterior in its natural state—rough clay that deepens in a pleasing gradation from ochre to deep red, salted with white. But it’s the inner surface that takes her breath away. Clear green glaze has melted into a pool at the bottom, reminding her of a secret swimming hole surrounded by boulders.
Even to her untrained eye, it’s an exquisite piece, but it will be someone else’s job to wax eloquent about its finer points. Her job is to fetch ’Baa-chan’s magnifying glass and examine it for flaws, anything that might diminish its value.
She takes her time, makes herself look hard. But even though she examines it twice over, she doesn’t find a single crack or the tiniest chip. It’s perfect.
Face aglow with triumph and relief, she holds Hikitoru one more time. And feels it again. That rightness. She’s never attended a tea ceremony, never understood why some people’s idea of fun is getting trussed up in a kimono to spend an hour drinking a bowl of spinach-y froth and eating a snack that—no matter how pretty it looks—tastes like plain old sweet bean paste. But as Hikitoru nestles between her palms, she begins to understand. She lifts it, and as the delicate rim slides smoothly between her lips, she suddenly wishes there really was tea in it. Wishes she could drink from this thing of beauty, just once.
The Last Tea Bowl Thief Page 9
