Then she comes to her senses. She dares not do anything that might lessen its value. Setting it carefully on the table, she goes upstairs to fetch the box with its name on top.
Time to turn this piece of rightness into money in the bank.
17.
Feudal Japan
NOVEMBER, 1703
Shigaraki
Saburo strains to lift the wooden board he’d stacked with water jars, then glances around to make sure nobody is watching, and offloads a few. Yakibō can lift twice as many, and Hattsan can carry even more, but they’ve been doing this their whole lives, after all, and he’s only been doing it a few months. Balancing the tray, he staggers onto the short path between the kiln and the storehouse, exchanging grunts with the potter as they pass each other. Then he stops and turns to squint at the figure moving past the kiln. Why is Yakibō carrying a stack of pottery away from the shed where they keep the finished goods?
He doesn’t find out until later that afternoon, when he returns to the farmhouse with a wet washcloth slung around his neck, fresh from scrubbing off the day’s grime and soaking in the hot spring near the bridge.
“I’m back,” he calls, untying his sandals in the stone-paved entry.
“Oh. It’s you. O-kaeri.” Welcome home.
Saburo detours to the kitchen to hang up his washcloth, then joins Yakibō, who is squatting amid a circle of pottery.
The poet moves in for a closer look, hardly believing his eyes. Are those . . . tea ceremony bowls? How did a backwoods potter learn the art of making utensils for that elite ritual?
It’s a subject that Saburo unfortunately knows all too much about. His eldest brother will someday inherit the title Tea Master of the Sorasenke School from their father, and his middle brother is making a name for himself as a master in the most prestigious flower-arranging guild. It has fallen to third son Saburo to become either a potter or a poet—tea schools, after all, need an endless supply of scrolls brushed with seasonal sentiments to hang above the flower arrangements, and bowls to drink their matcha from.
Unfortunately, his mind had wandered while the pottery master droned on about how a fine tea bowl must strike a perfect balance between the artist’s intention and the whim of the kiln gods, and how essential it was to spend one’s life cultivating an intimate relationship with those fickle deities. Saburo has little patience for anything that takes years to master, so his bowls sat awkwardly in the hands and his glazes looked haphazard, not artful. When the pottery master had damned his work with faint praise within earshot of Saburo’s father, the mightily displeased patriarch had understood the message at once, withdrawing him from that apprenticeship (instead of waiting for him to be unceremoniously kicked out), and sending him (along with a generous donation) to sit at the feet of the crankiest of the poet Basho’s disciples instead.
But even though Saburo has no talent whatsoever for shaping clay, he can spot the work of a master in his sleep. Which is why he’s staring down at the ring of Yakibō’s pottery, dumbfounded. The Shibata family owns a number of tea bowls made by renowned artists, but every one of the pieces encircling the blind potter rivals the finest in the Sorasenke School’s collection.
Oblivious to the effect his work is having on his temporary apprentice, Yakibō frowns.
“Help me decide, will you?”
“Decide what?”
“Which of these is yabō?”
“Yabō?”
Saburo has seen a lot of tea bowls, but never an “ambitious” one. How can a tea bowl be “ambitious”?
The potter offers the one he’s been weighing in his hand. Saburo sinks to his knees and takes it, his breath catching as it settles between his palms. The kiln’s fiery blast has blown ash across this one like a calligraphy master, melting crisscrossing strokes of glossy gray-green over half the outer surface. The other half is bare, an exquisite example of how small impurities can explode from the rough red clay during firing and contribute a rustic beauty all their own.
“I want you to hold each of these in your hands and tell me,” the potter is saying. “Do any of them make you feel ambitious?”
Flattered he’s being asked for his opinion, the poet holds the tea bowl in the light and turns it full circle. His admiration only increases as he considers it from every angle, noting that the bowl is lighter than it looks, and feels warm to the touch, even though it’s nearly as cold inside the farmhouse as out.
Ambition. What a strange name for a tea bowl. But if Yakibō is crazy, at least he’s crazy talented. Saburo tilts the bowl and peers inside, appreciating the sparkles of glassy green caught in the rough clay. He sets it down and picks up the next.
It’s nearly identical. Puzzled, he picks up another. And another. There are slight variations between them, but they all have the same odd, oval shape that fits into his cupped hands like a bird settling into its nest. They all have rivulets of translucent green glaze cascading from their rims, ending in jewel-like drops that wink when the bowl tips toward the light. All are dusted with a sheen of ash that has melted to a glossy gray-green, the unglazed clay showing boldly through the gaps with a roughness that makes the smooth parts seem even smoother. And all have the hallmark of the rarest and most sought-after Shig-araki-ware: glassy green pools at the bottom, suggesting an eternally sublime sip of tea.
“I can’t choose,” he admits helplessly. “They’re all beautiful.”
“Beautiful?” The potter sounds annoyed. “Use your ears, poet. ‘Beautiful’ isn’t what I asked for. Here,” he says, thrusting the first bowl into Saburo’s hands again. “This time, close your eyes. Don’t be distracted by your precious sense of sight. Imagine the thing you want most in the world, the thing you’d do anything to get.”
The potter sits back, folding his arms over his chest.
Saburo closes his eyes. Imagines returning to Kyoto, his writing box stuffed with reams of brilliant poems. His poetry master stands before a sea of disciples, solemnly naming Saburo his most worthy successor, while his father sits among the assembled luminaries, trying not to beam with pride, but failing.
Saburo picks up one bowl, then another. Turns them, studies them, tries to feel something. None of them make him feel ambitious. Just anxious. If he doesn’t choose one soon, the potter will think him an insensitive oaf.
“This one,” he says with false confidence, thrusting the one he’s holding into Yakibō’s hands.
The potter frowns as he hefts the bowl, running a thumb along the lip.
“Interesting. Not the one I’d have chosen. Nevertheless,” he hands it back, “take this to the kitchen and find a box that fits. There should be some empty ones on the top shelf.”
By the time Saburo returns, the potter has assembled an inkstone, a water dropper, and a brush.
“You can read and write, can’t you?”
Saburo laughs. “I’d be a pretty pathetic poet if I couldn’t.”
“Good. You can save me a walk into town to ask the priest.” Yakibō scoots aside.
Saburo kneels before the writing implements and positions the box squarely on the tatami before him, then rubs a stub of inkstick on the stone, adds a splash of water. He swipes his brush through the dark puddle.
Tip poised, he asks, “You’re sure you want me to write yabō?”
“Yes.”
He composes himself the way his calligraphy teacher taught him, visualizing the stroke order. Then he lowers his brush, and the characters for “ambition” flow across the lid. Not bad. Not bad at all. He looks up to find the potter waiting to exchange his name seal for the wet brush.
“Bottom left,” Yakibō directs.
Saburo carefully stamps the stylized characters that read “Yoshi Takamatsu” in the lower left corner and hands the seal back to its owner.
“Why did you call it ‘Ambition’?”
“Because it’s time to give up returning to the monastery as a shortcut to enlightenment.”
“What?”
; The potter doesn’t explain, just stacks the rest of the bowls as if they were everyday crockery and rises, aiming for the door.
Saburo watches, mystified, as the gathering twilight swallows the potter and his priceless cargo. Where is he taking them? Does the crazy bastard have any idea what people would pay for tea bowls of that quality? How revered he’d be if he lived in a decent-sized town, instead of the back of beyond?
If he could persuade Yakibō to let him take one back home, show it to his father . . . He imagines the look on the old taskmaster’s face and laughs out loud. Neither of his brothers is famous enough yet to have relationships with artists who produce tea ceremony utensils of this quality. He looks at the box in his hands. Wouldn’t they be surprised if he came back with a stack of brilliant poems and a masterpiece like this in his pack?
“Oi,” says Yakibō, framed in the doorway. “Are you coming?”
“Oh, sorry, I was just . . .” The poet scrambles to his feet, Yabō in hand. “Those tea bowls. I didn’t know you could . . . I mean, they’re extraordinary. Do you have any idea how valuable they might be? I mean, this one alone might fetch more than you make in a year, selling water jars and grinding bowls.”
The potter throws back his head and laughs.
“And what would I do with that kind of money?” He scoffs. “Money. I’m glad that was never one of mine.”
“One of your what?”
“Attachments.”
Saburo looks at him blankly.
“Life is suffering, and the origin of suffering is attachment,” Yakibō prompts.
“Yes, yes, I know.” He’s heard the Pottery Priest blat on about the Four Noble Truths often enough, and he recognizes the Buddhist saying. “But what does attachment have to do with tea bowls?”
“Everything! Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said since you arrived? Come. I want to show you something.”
He strides away.
Dusk is falling fast, so Saburo grabs the lantern before trotting after him. The blind man trails one hand along the side of the farmhouse, reaches the corner, then pushes off into the darkening forest. At a fork in the path, Yakibō veers left without hesitation and shoulders through a stand of twiggy brown bushes toward a dilapidated shed.
Saburo had never noticed it before. It’s easy to see why—it doesn’t look like it was built by human hands, it looks like it grew there. Knocked together from unstripped branches and fallen limbs, dead leaves still flutter at the end of dry twigs, and a pelt of chartreuse moss spreads over the top. The potter tugs open a wooden door that hangs crookedly on leather hinges and ducks through the low opening.
“Don’t just stand out there like a stone Jizo statue,” he calls from within.
The shed is barely big enough for two people to turn around in, narrowed even further by a waist-high stack of split logs banked along the wall. Saburo squeezes inside, and the potter allows the door to bang shut behind them, plunging the place into darkness.
“This,” the potter announces with satisfaction, “is where I keep my sins.”
Saburo holds up the lantern, revealing five wooden boxes lined up on a plank that runs the width of the shed. All are of pale, unvarnished kiri -wood, with blue silk cords and names brushed on the lids in a tight, fussy hand. Yakibō takes Yabō from him and makes a space for it at the end. Then he picks up the box next to it.
“I’ve been working on this one for over twenty years.” He hands it to Saburo.
The poet angles it toward the lantern so he can read the name. Hatsu-koi. First Love. What does Yakibō mean, he’s been working on it for twenty years? Once pottery is glazed and fired, it’s done. You can’t really—
“A wise man once taught me that attachment is the desire to have,” Yakibō is explaining, “and also the desire not to have. These . . .” he says, waving at the shelf, “are the attachments that have been chaining me to the Wheel of Rebirth.”
Now Saburo’s really confused. Is he so attached to them, he can’t bear to die?
“May I open this?” he asks.
“Go ahead.”
Saburo balances the lantern on the stack of firewood and opens the box. The bowl inside is the same shape as Yabō, but smoother, glossier. Red clay peeks through the pale glaze only here and there, like ash-cloaked coals smoldering with inner fire. He can almost feel its heart beating. The inner surface is liberally sprinkled with the tiny melted chips of feldspar called “dragonfly eyes,” and a shallow pool of clear, glassy green has pooled on one side, forever preserving a final sip of tea. He closes his eyes and lifts it as if to drink, the thin rim pressing against his lips. Instead of being rough, as he’d expected, the delicate curve fits smoothly against his mouth. He can almost taste the tea slipping down his throat, delivering the kind of sublime experience that inspires poets to greatness. Opening his eyes, he gazes into First Love’s depths with wonder. If this thing of beauty was a chain tying him to the Wheel of Rebirth, he’d be happy to go around again and again and again.
18.
Present-Day Japan
TUESDAY, APRIL 1
Tokyo
The next day, Nori is so distracted by the treasure sitting in the back room that she gives one customer the wrong change and doesn’t notice another wants to take a closer look at some bowls on the top shelf until he coughs to get her attention. At four-thirty, she gives up. She posts a note on the shop shutter, and twenty minutes later, she’s in front of the pawnbroker’s shop, tea bowl in hand. All too aware of what it’s worth, she has wrapped the box in three hand towels and tucked it inside two extra plastic bags, worried that a single layer might catastrophically fail.
She hesitates before the door with its rusting mail slot, recalling the jumble of unsold goods inside, the smell of mold. Sighing, she presses the ailing bell. Miura might be past his prime, but the note her grandmother left tucked inside the silk carrying cloth gave her no other options.
This time it’s Daiki who unchains the door. He herds her through the dark shop, bouncing impatiently as she exchanges her boots for slippers. Running down the hall ahead of her, he knocks on the office door.
This time, Miura rises to greet her, and after they’ve exchanged bows and pleasantries, the boy joins them at the table, vibrating with suppressed excitement as she unpacks her prize from its cocoon of bags and towels.
She offers the box to Miura. The old man’s hands tremble slightly as he unties the cord. He examines the calligraphy on the lid, then opens it. Easing the bowl from its box, he unwraps it, lets the cloth fall.
A smile transfigures his face.
“Now this is the real Hikitoru.”
He examines it inside and out, turning it full circle, gazing into its depths.
Nori allows him to worship at the shrine of potential pricelessness for a few minutes, resisting the urge to ask what it’s worth, but finally, she can’t stand it any longer.
“So . . . what do you think?”
Miura steeples his fingers. A car honks somewhere outside and a moth flitters into the circle of light, drunkenly bashing its wings against the lampshade.
Why isn’t he saying anything? Had he spotted a flaw she’d missed? She clears her throat.
The pawnbroker still says nothing.
“Did you . . . see something that might make it worth less than the others?”
“No,” Miura says absently. “It’ll be worth more, if anything.”
“More? How much more?”
“That . . . depends.”
Her smile fades. “On what?”
“How much did your grandmother tell you about Hikitoru?”
“Not much.”
“Did she mention the . . . special circumstances?”
“What do you mean, ‘special circumstances’?”
“You’ll have to ask her.”
“I can’t! I mean, the thing is, she’s sick right now. I can’t risk worrying her. And even if I asked her, I’m not sure she’d . . . can’t you just—?”
&
nbsp; “I’m sorry,” Miura says, shaking his head. “All I can tell you is that pieces like Hikitoru need to be sold to a special kind of collector. And for that kind of sale, we charge a special rate of commission.”
“How much?”
“Fifty percent.”
Fifty percent? She can’t have heard right. That’s outrageous. Does he really think he can get away with gouging her like that? What kind of an idiot does he think she is?
Of course, she can’t say that, not to his face. She drops her gaze to hide how insulted she is.
“Fifty percent seems . . . high,” she murmurs.
“Your grandmother didn’t think so.”
Now the old snake is out-and-out lying. ’Baa-chan would never have agreed to terms like that. And she’s not going agree to them either. She should have paid more attention to her instincts—this felt wrong, right from the start. The sooner she gets out of here, the better.
“Can I . . . think about it?” she asks, eyes still lowered.
“Of course.” Miura bestows a cordial smile. “Take your time. You know where to find us.”
Nori has wrapped herself in a cloak of flaming outrage by the time she steps off the train at the station near the hospital. Fifty percent commission? Criminal. And Miura knows it. Does he think he can take advantage of her because her grandmother is sick? Because she’s a girl?
Unless . . . maybe that was just a negotiating tactic. In which case, she’s got news for him. She’s not the novice he thinks she is. She’ll show him negotiating tactics . . .
She gives a curt bow to the white uniform on duty at the nurses’ station and stalks to her grandmother’s room. Nothing has changed since her last visit. The other bed still lies empty, and her grandmother still lies motionless as a wax doll.
The Last Tea Bowl Thief Page 10
