The tea seller prattles on, but the blood is roaring in Saburo’s ears and he doesn’t hear a word.
How could Yakibō be dying? For every step of his journey, he’d wondered how the potter might have changed over the years. Had he become wiser, crazier, angry at life, at peace with life, free from his attachments, burdened by new attachments? The one possibility that had never crossed Saburo’s mind is that the pottery master who seemed more like a force of nature than a mortal man might be dying.
The tea merchant is looking at him with interest, but Saburo has no idea what question he’s just been asked. He has to get out of here. Abandoning the half-full flask of sake and his startled companion, he blurts that he’s not feeling well and stumbles back to his room.
Collapsing on his futon, he stares up at the woven bamboo ceiling. If he’d been far away in Kyoto, where weeks can go by without thinking of his old mentor, the news that Yakibō wasn’t long for this world wouldn’t have troubled him so much. But here, within walking distance of the dying man, he can think of nothing else.
He tries to tell himself he’s only upset because he needs the potter to make a tea bowl for the daimyō, but it seems like only yesterday that they’d shared the camaraderie of keeping the kiln fires burning for three days and three nights. Cold wind buffeting their backs, they had passed the sake bottle back and forth, filling each other’s cups, while the Pottery Priest waxed eloquent on what it meant to be a poet or an artist or merely a man, navigating this earth for his allotted span. The truth is, Yakibō had taught him everything worth knowing.
Saburo pulls the covers over his head, but it doesn’t shut out the fact that the potter is about to die with bad blood still between them, and he’s close enough to do something about it.
He turns to the wall. Squeezes his eyes shut. Sleep is what he needs. A few hours of blessed oblivion. He’ll decide what to do in the morning.
But despite the three flasks of sake, he tosses and turns, itchy with unconfessed sin. His guilt grows, as unrelenting as a headache, too painful to ignore. By the hour of the Rat, his freshly awakened conscience is insisting he take a hard look at what he did twenty years ago and call it by its true name. By the hour of the Ox, he can no longer escape the dread certainty that if he doesn’t set things right before Yakibō dies, he’ll carry that burden for the rest of his days. And by the hour of the Tiger, he’s begging the gods to make a deal. If they’ll keep Yakibō alive until morning, he’ll go straight to the farmhouse at first light. Prostrate himself before his old master. Admit what he did. Beg for forgiveness.
Finally, he falls into an exhausted sleep.
The demons that tormented Saburo in the night have shrunk to a more manageable size by morning, and a slightly more optimistic inner voice suggests that they might even have been a little exaggerated. The curse of a creative mind, as it were, throwing shadow puppets against the wall. Nevertheless, the prospect of spending any more nights in their company makes Saburo shudder, so he sticks to his plan.
But instead of dashing out the door at dawn as if all the oni in hell were after him, he takes the time to dress himself in his finest kimono and oil his topknot before setting out. It’s a fine day, with a clear, blue sky arching overhead. Warm, but not too hot yet. He detours to the local temple to make an offering, then, buoyed by the discovery that the astrological forecast for today is tomobiki —good luck all day, except at noon—he begins to plan how best to obtain the forgiveness he craves. Swinging his walking stick, he’s soon deliberating between a glittering array of words in which to cloak his apology, discarding and replacing them until he has assembled an oration that would be worthy of the daimyō himself. By the time he crosses the bridge near Yakibō’s kiln, he’s even congratulating himself on the elegant way he likens his sorrow at having wronged the potter to the bitter tears of the goddess Amaterasu.
Turning up the path to the farmhouse, he takes a moment to appreciate the shrilling of the summer cicadas. Why are they so much louder and more poignant in the woods than in town? And the trees—they seem bigger than the last time he walked this way. They’re certainly encroaching on the path, although that might be because last time they were winter-bare, and now they’re wrapped in lush green robes. The bamboo, too, has spurted up between winter’s dried stalks, in fountains of freshly striped green and gold.
It’s hotter here, away from the river, where the sultry air isn’t stirred by even a hint of a breeze. He mops at his forehead with his hand towel, swats at a mosquito. The sooner he delivers his apology, the sooner he’ll be able to escape to somewhere cooler. Perhaps he’ll enjoy a bowl of refreshing somen noodles and a flask of cold sake, once the gods are satisfied and his demons banished. Tucking his fan more securely into his obi, he climbs the hill, puffing a little, but it’s not long before Yakibō’s farmhouse swings into view. As he draws near, he sees that the blackened cedar siding has weathered to a silvery gray, and the front door has been replaced, although it’s rotting in the same corner as before. The crack across the entry stone has widened in two decades of freezing and thawing, its seam of moss no longer winter brown, but brilliant green and pushing up a miniature glade of pale blue flowers, nodding on delicate stalks.
He stops a few steps short, preparing himself. Yakibō will be old. Ailing. Perhaps in pain. But no matter how sick he’s become, the man who devoted his life to freeing himself from his sins will certainly welcome the chance to put things right between them before he faces another turn on the Wheel of Rebirth.
Holding that thought, Saburo steps up to the front door. Knocks. Waits. Waits some more. Has the old man become hard of hearing? He knocks again, louder, just as the door slides open, revealing a sour-faced figure, balding and stooped.
Neither recognizes the other.
Saburo is first to venture, “Hattsan?”
Gets a puzzled look in return.
But . . . he can’t have changed as much as the potter’s apprentice! Threads of silver brighten his own hair and goatee now, but Hattsan no longer has to shave his tonsured head, and his thin topknot is nearly white. Saburo is wearing a pleasant expression he likes to think of as “benevolent wisdom” on his prosperously rounded face, but Hattsan seems to have suffered some grave misfortune that stripped the flesh from his bones and dragged the corners of his mouth down into twin parentheses of disapproval.
“It’s me,” the poet enlightens him. “Saburo.”
“You!” Surprise smooths the apprentice’s face for an instant before the dour creases return, deeper than before.
“Hattsan?” calls a querulous voice from within. “Who’s there? Is it the priest?”
“No,” his apprentice replies. He stands aside. “It’s the Frozen Poet.”
“Saburo?” A pile of quilts next to the hearth stirs and a disheveled graying head pokes out. “Saburo, is that you?”
“Yes, master.” He steps over the threshold. “It’s me.”
The vast room seems to have shrunk. Or maybe it’s just that the corners aren’t lost in gloom, battened down tight against winter’s chill. Today, every shutter has been thrown wide to welcome any passing breeze that might freshen the stale air.
Saburo delivers the proper honorific greeting and draws nearer to the figure lying beside the hearth. He can’t ignore the slightly nauseating odor of chronic illness, but he does his best to disguise his distaste. Sweat beads his forehead. Even though it’s stifling inside the house, the hearth fire is leaping and crackling as if snow lay knee-deep all around.
“I’d know that voice anywhere,” Yakibō says, struggling to sit. “But I never thought I’d hear it again in this life.”
Hattsan crouches to assist his master, and Saburo is shocked by how shrunken the once-robust potter has become. Shoulders bowed, his spine now curves protectively around some inner hurt. Even wrapped in two quilts, he seems no bigger than Saburo’s youngest son. His neck is as skinny and corded as a rooster’s, the skin across his cheekbones stretched tight, strangel
y pale for a man once at home in the elements.
The potter aims his filmy eyes toward his visitor.
“Come. Sit.” He pats the tatami with one knob-jointed claw. “Hattsan, is there any tea?”
Saburo seats himself cautiously, wondering what to make of this reception. He’s not detecting even a hint of a grudge that’s been nursed for twenty years. It’s almost as if Yakibō has forgotten about the stolen tea bowl. Could his illness be eating away at his memory? Poor old codger. The poet’s resolve wavers. Might his apology do more harm than good? Perhaps it would be better not to say anything, not to awaken memories best left—
“Tell me,” Yakibō says, interrupting his dithering. “Did you ever become the poet you wanted to be?”
Saburo’s head snaps up, slightly stung that his reputation hasn’t preceded him.
“I did, yes. In fact, my first success—my first humble success—was a collection I began writing while I was here. I even have my own disciples now,” he can’t help adding.
“Good. That’s good.” The blind potter accepts a cup of tea from his apprentice. Takes a slurp. “And why did you come back?”
Bam. He’d forgotten how direct people are in the backcountry. They haven’t even begun to check off the pleasantries that would be expected in Kyoto, but this is the opening he’d planned to arrive at by a tactful and circuitous route, so he’d better take it.
Setting down his cup of tea, he straightens his spine, composes his hands on his knees. Bows deeply, eyes respectfully lowered, even though Yakibō can’t see him.
“I came here today to beg your forgiveness, master.”
Puzzled pause.
“My forgiveness?”
Oh no. This is a mistake. Yakibō’s mind is too far gone. He backpedals.
“Yes, I wanted to say I’m sorry for the regrettable . . . thing . . . I did.”
No reply.
He cautiously clarifies, “The, uh, regrettable thing I did . . . twenty years ago.”
“Oh, that,” the potter says, setting his cup on the floor. “You mean stealing Yabō?”
Saburo is as shocked as if ice water had just been flung in his face. He casts about for the words he’d so carefully chosen, but they’ve deserted him. His flowery phrases are of no use, now that Yakibō has called him the thief that he is.
All he can do is gracelessly cry, “Yes, master! I truly regret taking your tea bowl! Please forgive me!” Knocking his forehead against the floor, he bleats the words of utmost apology, “Moshiwake gozaimasen, moshiwake gozaimasen!”
A log subsides in the hearth, sending a plume of sparks toward the roof. Sweat drips from the tip of his nose onto the frayed straw mats as Saburo holds his face to the floor, praying that his crude utterance will still be worthy of absolution.
What comes instead is a loud rapping at the door.
A visitor? Now? What terrible timing. Should he hold his bow? Or sit up to see who’s here? Hattsan decides for him, already moving toward the door. Still half-crouching, Saburo twists around to see who it is. The silhouette of a mountainous man in white robes blocks the light streaming onto the stone entryway. It’s Reverend Uchida, the priest who had pointed out the hidden depths of his first great poem. Then the man steps inside, and Saburo sees his mistake. Unless the old priest is aging backward, this must be his son.
“I’m sorry, am I interrupting something?” young Uchida asks, bewildered at the tableau.
Yes, yes you are.
But Yakibō welcomes him with, “No, of course not, not at all. Come in, come in. In fact, your timing is perfect.” A bout of coughing interrupts him, but he holds up a hand, bidding the priest be patient. When he catches his breath, he continues, “I asked you to come out here today to help me take care of that attachment we discussed, but now that Saburo here has returned,” he waves a hand toward the crouching poet, “I believe we can attend to both of them at once.”
The young priest turns to Saburo, surprised.
“You’re the Frozen Poet? The one who—”
He snaps his mouth shut, spots of color appearing on both cheeks.
“Yes,” Yakibō answers for him. “The one who stole Yabō. And he’s come all the way to Shigaraki today to make amends.”
“After all these years,” the priest marvels. “He really brought it back?”
“We were just getting to that part,” Yakibō says. They turn to the poet, expectantly.
Why are they . . . oh no. Yakibō thinks he’s here to give the tea bowl back? But that’s . . . impossible. Surely he doesn’t—But he does. Saburo feels a hot flush of shame. Even after twenty years, the Pottery Priest can still make him feel like he’s the only blind man in the room. How could he have forgotten that he’s dealing with a man who believes words are meaningless without action? That attachments to this world can only be broken by hurling them against a rock?
But what can he say? Perhaps the potter will accept a partial truth.
“I’m afraid I didn’t bring it with me.”
Yakibō’s brows draw together. “I don’t understand. If you came here to apologize, why did you come without Yabō? Where is it?”
Now he’s really in a corner. If he admits he never intended to return it, his presence here, his apology, the way he abased himself (not just before Yakibō, but in front of Hattsan and that gaping boy of a priest as well) will all be for nothing. He’ll have to slink off with his tail between his legs, gods unappeased, demons still on his back. He’ll be worse off than if he’d never come. Sweat slides in a long itch down his chest. Saburo opens his mouth, but he can’t say it. He can’t admit the tea bowl is still in Kyoto.
“I left it in my room at the inn,” he lies, abandoning all hope of absolution. Now he just wants to get away without a painful scene that will replay in his head for the rest of his life.
“I see,” Yakibō says. Then he brightens. “But the day is young. While you’re fetching the tea bowl, perhaps Uchida-bōsan can bring us the temple drum. There should still be plenty of time before nightfall to do things right.”
No, no, no, he needs more than an hour or two. He needs to be far away, before they realize he’s not coming back.
“I . . . I’m afraid I have other business to conduct this afternoon,” he stammers. “Perhaps tomorrow? Or,” really stretching it, “the next day?”
“I can come back tomorrow,” the priest offers.
“All right,” the potter agrees, subsiding into his nest of quilts. “Tomorrow it is.”
Saburo manages to take his leave with a modicum of dignity, but as soon as the door slides shut behind him, his knees buckle. Defeat and shame beat a twin tattoo in his head as he lurches back toward the road. He isn’t forgiven. He has made promises he can’t keep. He’ll have to leave right away. By tomorrow he’ll have to be so far away that even if they set the magistrate’s men on his trail, they won’t catch him before he’s out of their jurisdiction.
And then the biggest failure of all draws a howl from deep within. He has no tea bowl for the daimyō, and no way of getting one. The potter is beyond making one, and the only Yakibō tea bowl left in the entire world is sitting in his own treasure house, back in Kyoto.
Or . . . is it? A crow calls, the cicadas screech. What had Yakibō said to the priest? I asked you to come out here today to help me take care of that attachment we discussed.
There is another tea bowl.
The poet’s robes flap about his ankles as he flees, driving himself down the path as if swarmed by bees, trying to outrun the unthinkable.
But even now, a small part of him knows he will return tonight, with his traveling pack on his back. That he will find that tea bowl and take it, before the potter has a chance to destroy it.
A sliver of a moon has escaped the branches of the trees overhead by the time Saburo decides it’s safe to emerge from the grove where he’s been lurking since sundown. Nobody with legitimate business will be traveling at this hour, so there’s less risk he’ll be rec
ognized, but he still hurries along with his head down, keeping a wary eye out for highwaymen.
He hears the creek near Yakibō’s farmhouse before he sees it. Swollen with the summer monsoon, it dashes against the bridge’s stonework before roaring beneath.
He crosses, plunging up the hill at a spot wide of the stream’s former banks, which are well underwater now. Pushing through the waist-high bracken by the feeble light of the crescent moon, he swears as he slips on a patch of mud. By the time he limps into the shelter of the trees, his robes are soaked to the knee and he’s breathing hard, but there’s no time to stop and rest. He has to finish his business at the hut and be well away before dawn.
Keeping the sound of the tumbling torrent to his left, he pushes on, angling into the trees, but brambles that hadn’t been nearly so vigorous in wintertime waylay him, and shrubs that hadn’t been nearly so twiggy snag at his cloak. Rocks and logs lurk unseen beneath the knee-high bamboo until his shins bark against them, almost as if they were lying in wait. If only he had a knife to hack through this miserable—
And then a ghostly gray trunk looms up ahead, and he spies the tattered straw garland ringing the hollow tree. He must have aimed too far to the right and missed the hut, but at least now he knows where he is.
The sacred shimenawa rope has been frayed by many winters, its tassels straggling and uneven. But what jolts him like a centipede bite is how wrong he’d been the last time he was here. Leaves now sprout from every ghostly branch, all the way to its crown. The old tree isn’t dead. It hasn’t lost its power at all.
He turns to make his way back toward the hut, but a prickling sense of unease stops him. If the gods still live there, ancient and watchful, they must be powerful gods indeed, to keep a hollow tree alive. They could thwart his mission if he continues without paying his respects.
He returns to the tree, fumbling in his money pouch for the smallest coin he has, then parts the bracken to place it between the tangled roots. And there, nestled at the foot, lies a small mound of weathered one -mon pieces. He mutters a short prayer, then counts them. Six. Does that mean the potter has made six trips to the flat rock, sacrificed six tea bowls?
The Last Tea Bowl Thief Page 15
