The Last Tea Bowl Thief

by Jonelle Patrick

  Now what? The only thing left to do is wait. She makes her way down the hall to her cubicle, flipping on the lights. How can she occupy herself until Uchida-bōsan arrives? Draping her jacket on the back of her chair, she switches on her computer and begins researching the proper way to put together a Japanese letter of resignation. If all goes well, she’s going to need one when it’s time to quit being a lab slave and launch her career as a Saburo scholar. When the prescribed phrasing is finally typed in, the lines formatted, and the envelope addressed, she still has two hours until the priest arrives, so she dives into proofreading a report for the head expert in the Buddhist Sculpture department. She has just hit “Print” when her phone buzzes. Could Uchida be early?

  “Moshi-moshi?”

  “Hashimoto here. I need you in my office right away.”

  Lack of pleasantries: not a good sign. She glances at the clock, and is surprised to see it’s already past ten, but Uchida-bōsan won’t be here for at least twenty minutes. She has to stall.

  “Of course,” she replies, crossing the room to straighten the printer paper as the first page of the Buddhist Sculpture report glacially emerges. “I’m in the middle of printing a report for Kato-san right now, but if you give me a few minutes, I’ll—”

  “No. Now.” Click.

  Uneasiness ratchets up to dread. She hadn’t sent the Hikitoru authentication to her boss yet, but what if she jumped the gun? If she’s already accessed the report, seen the pictures . . .

  Armoring herself with fresh lipstick, she buttons her suit jacket. Spine straight, shoulders back, she marches down the hall to Hashimoto’s office. She smooths her skirt, tugs her jacket into place, and knocks.

  “Come in.”

  Her boss is at her desk, her face set in hard lines of disapproval. No need to ask why—the dipping bowl sits front and center, unwrapped.

  “Sit down.”

  She does.

  “Where is it?”

  “Where is what?”

  “The Yakibō tea bowl. Hikitoru.”

  She looks from her boss to the piece on her desk.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I think you do. This,” she nudges the dipping bowl toward Robin, “is not it.”

  “It’s not?” Wrong, wrong, wrong. Sell it, sweetheart. “What do you mean?” she amends, fixing the dipping bowl with a puzzled look. “I just finished testing it early this morning. Have you seen my report?”

  Her boss swivels her laptop so Robin can see the screen. The freshly fixed authentication document is zoomed in on the main photo.

  “I don’t understand.” Robin glances back and forth between the picture and the real thing. “They look the same to me.”

  “Oh, they are. Which is how I know you’re involved.” Hashimoto picks up the dipping bowl, regarding it with a jaundiced eye. “Unless all the hidden impurities in a piece of centuries-old pottery spontaneously exploded in the safe over the weekend, this piece has far too many ‘dragonfly eyes’ to be Hikitoru.” She turns it to display the offending side. “Where did you get this forgery?”

  “It’s not a forgery.” That, at least, is the truth. “I ran the numbers, just this morning. It’s an eighteenth-century tea bowl, made by Yoshi Takamatsu. Look at the test results. Compare them to his known works. The numbers don’t lie.”

  “Since you’re the one who put them there,” Hashimoto says in a cutting voice, “I’m quite sure they do.”

  Raising her chin defiantly, Robin says, “You’re welcome to send it out to an independent lab for testing, if you don’t believe me.”

  “We don’t have time for that.”

  “You’ll just have to take my word for it, then.”

  “The word of a thief?”

  She opens her mouth to protest, but Hashimoto is clicking open another window.

  The CCTV footage from Friday plays. Paralyzed, Robin watches herself and Nori silently act out their parts in fuzzy black and white, substituting the decoy Shigaraki tea bowl for Hikitoru. Without the dialogue, it’s far too easy to see what they’re up to. How could she have thought this amateurish ruse would fool anybody?

  “I don’t know what you did with Hikitoru after you and your accomplice took it out of the office on Friday,” Hashimoto says, “but you can either tell me where to find it, or I’ll call Inspector Anzai and have him arrest you right now.” She picks up her phone.

  “No,” Robin yelps. “Wait.” Her own phone buzzes. Uchida. He’s in the lobby. “I can . . . I can explain.”

  Hashimoto sits back, arms crossed.

  “There’s a man in the lobby right now who can back up what I’m about to tell you. A priest. He came this morning, from Shigaraki.”

  “The priest who claims that Hikitoru belongs to him?” Hashimoto scoffs. “He’s hardly a disinterested party. For all I know, you’re working together.”

  “We are, but not in the way you think. He’s here to back up what I tried to tell you last week.” Stop reacting, scolds Nori’s grandmother. Take the offensive. Robin puts some conviction into her voice and says, “The discussion we really ought to be having, is why Mr. Fujimori is planning to hand over a culturally important property to someone who isn’t the rightful owner. Hikitoru really was stolen long before it was given to Senkō-ji. Uchida-bōsan brought proof.”

  Hashimoto’s lips thin to a skeptical line, but she lifts the receiver of the phone on her desk and calls reception.

  “Is there a priest out there waiting to see me? I understand. Yes, she’s with me. Please bring him back.”

  They sit in fraught silence until the receptionist knocks and announces the shaven-headed, sumo-sized figure filling the doorway in his crisp linen robes. One hand is wrapped around the head of his knobby cane, and the other grasps a tote bag with a long wooden scroll box poking from the top.

  “Hajimemashite,” he rumbles in his sonorous voice, bowing to Hashimoto, who rises to return the greeting. Then he turns to Robin and says, “Swann-san,” with a reassuring smile. He takes the proffered seat, declines an offer of tea.

  Hashimoto folds her hands before her.

  “I apologize for being rudely direct, Uchida-bōsan, but we’re scheduled to return the tea bowl Hikitoru to the head priest at Senkō-ji in three hours, and I hope you’re here to tell me where it is. I also understand you feel that you have a claim to it. Perhaps you can show me the evidence you brought.”

  “Gladly,” he says, drawing the scroll box from his bag. “With my own apologies for getting right to the point, are you familiar with my nine-times great grandfather’s relationship with the potter, Yoshi Takamatsu?”

  “Swann-san told me that he was the priest who conducted Yakibō’s funeral service. That he claimed to have been entrusted with a deathbed wish to perform a ceremony using Hikitoru, but the tea bowl was missing when he tried to retrieve it. Miss Swann’s theory,” she casts a withering glance at Robin, “is that it was stolen by the poet Saburo.”

  “Yes,” Uchida confirms, ignoring her tone and removing the scroll from its box. “That’s exactly what happened, according to this document signed and sealed by my ancestor. When he realized he wouldn’t be able to fulfill his vow before he died, he wrote this eyewitness account, including details of the offering he’d been asked to perform. It has been passed down from head priest to head priest through my family, until it—and the obligation it represents—came to rest with me.” He rises to offer the scroll respectfully, with both hands, to Hashimoto.

  The art expert receives it and inclines her head. “With your permission . . .?”

  He assents.

  She raises her reading glasses, unfurls it. Her brows knit as she reads, the lengthening hush punctuated only by the ticking of the clock that Robin is usually too busy to notice. A gust of wind buffets the tall glass windows, and the room dims as a cloud blows in front of the sun.

  The art expert gasps, whipping off her reading glasses to stare at the priest.

  “He promised t
o break it?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s not . . . that’s not what you intend to do, is it?”

  “No, it’s not,” he replies, face serene. “It’s what I already did.”

  ““What?” She blanches, and shoots to her feet. “But that’s . . . you can’t! Tell me you didn’t!”

  “I was merely fulfilling my vow,” he said calmly, “using the tea bowl that was entrusted to my ancestor by the potter who made it. The only reason it survived this long was because the dying man was too sick to do it himself.”

  “That’s completely beside the point!” the art expert sputters. “That tea bowl, it . . . it wasn’t yours to break! This document,” she flaps a dismissive hand at the scroll, “says nothing about giving the tea bowl to your ancestor.”

  “But this does.” The priest reaches into his tote bag and pulls out a stiff envelope, passes it across the desk.

  As Hashimoto slowly lowers herself back into her chair and extracts the fragile scrap of paper inside, Uchida explains, “That was written by my ancestor, at the blind potter’s behest. Yakibō wasn’t sure he’d be able to break his last ‘attachment’ before he died, but he wanted to make certain that his final wishes were respected and that nobody would prevent Hikitoru from being broken after he was gone. I don’t know if the thief saw this note and ignored it, or dropped it unaware, but it was left behind when my ancestor discovered the tea bowl missing.” He nods at the scrap of paper in Hashimoto’s hands. “I’m sure you recognize Yakibō’s seal. The one next to it belonged to my nine-times-great-grandfather. This document clearly gives whoever found Hikitoru the permission—and the obligation—to break that tea bowl on behalf of Yakibō’s immortal soul.”

  The art expert’s mouth is opening and closing, struggling to find the words to express her outrage and dismay.

  He holds up a placating hand. “I understand why you’re distressed, Hashimoto-san. Swann-san’s reaction was the same. Which is why I gave her a tea bowl to replace it, one that was fired in the same batch as Hikitoru, according to Yakibō’s apprentice at the time. The tea bowl sitting on your desk is one that Yakibō might have chosen to represent his final ‘attachment,’ had he not settled on the one that I broke.” He folds his hands across his mountainous bulk and nods at the dipping bowl. “From your company’s point of view, nothing essential has changed. You’re still in possession of a genuine Yoshi Takamatsu tea bowl that was made to represent the eighth of the ‘attachments’ that inspired the poet Saburo.”

  Hashimoto is still pale, but his words seem to be getting through, because the calculating crease has reappeared between her brows.

  Robin stands and bows.

  “Hashimoto-san, I sincerely apologize for surprising you with news like this. I know that Uchida-bosan ’s documents will have to be tested and investigated before you and Fujimori-san can acknowledge his ownership of Hikitoru, but I hope you’ll agree that what we need to do right now is postpone that press conference.”

  Robin does a final save on the Bizen-ware report and sends it to the printer. Two o’clock has come and gone, and the press conference didn’t happen. Fujimori-san is probably fuming in his office, after making a reluctant call to his would-be client at Senkō-ji. Across town, the head priest will be gnashing his teeth. Hashimoto-san probably got stuck with breaking the news to Inspector Anzai, and is undoubtedly packing up Uchida-bōsan ’s documents and the dipping bowl to ship to the most nitpicky independent lab she can find.

  Robin’s phone buzzes. She checks the name on the screen and sighs. She’s been expecting this call.

  “Miss Swann. Could you come to my office, please?” Her boss’s chilly tone turns the request into a command.

  “Yes, ma’am, I’ll be there as soon as I finish printing out the Bizen-ware report.”

  Hashimoto hesitates, but she must need that authentication badly enough to wait a few minutes, because she concedes, “All right. Bring it when you come.”

  Robin crosses to the printer, watching it spit out the last Fujimori Fine Art document that will ever bear her name. Leaving the pages to emerge on their own, she returns to her laptop to click open the letter of resignation. After inserting today’s date, she queues it up to print after the Bizen-ware report.

  While she waits, she looks around the tiny cubicle she’s called home for the past three years, feeling a twinge of loss. There won’t be much to pack. Just the photo of her team after their first crazy auction and the framed woodblock reproduction of Hasui’s “Zojoji Temple in a Snowstorm” that they’d given her for working around the clock to rush their authentications and save their butts, after the previous authenticator quit.

  The printer wheezes to a halt, and she tidies the Bizen-ware report into a plastic sleeve, then looks over her taishoku todoke before stamping it with her seal and folding it into the envelope inscribed with the three characters for “formal letter of resignation.” Slipping it into her purse, she walks down the hall and stops before Eriko Hashimoto’s office. Knocks.

  Come in.

  She enters, with a polite, “Please excuse me for intruding.”

  Her boss is sitting at her desk, hands folded, and she’s not alone. Mr. Fujimori stands behind her, short and stout, his face so akin to the God of Thunder painted on the screen in the lobby that she’d have been stifling a “separated at birth” laugh if the situation hadn’t been so grim.

  Hashimoto’s mask of propriety is back in place, but today’s stressful events have taken a toll. The lines around her mouth are more pronounced, and the skillfully concealed crow’s feet around her eyes have surfaced through her makeup.

  Coming to a stop before her desk, Robin catches a faint whiff of . . . tobacco? She didn’t know Hashimoto-san smoked.

  All in all, though, this tableau is no worse than she expected. And not as bad as she’d feared—at least they didn’t invite Inspector Anzai to the party. They must not be planning to have her arrested. Not yet, anyway. She places the authentication report atop her boss’s in-tray, then stands there, not sure what to do next.

  “Please sit,” says Hashimoto.

  She does. Obviously, they’re not going to let her go until they extract their pound of flesh. She pulls her letter of resignation from her purse, and holds the envelope ready in her lap.

  “I believe you know why you’re here,” says Hashimoto.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Your conduct over the past few days has been unacceptable.”

  “I understand.”

  “Your actions have embarrassed this company.”

  Only “embarrassed”? Frankly, she was expecting “damaged.” Cancelling a press conference at the last minute is embarrassing, but losing Senkō-ji’s potential commission is worse than that.

  Robin bows her head.

  “I understand.”

  “What you’ve done is not only unorthodox, it’s borderline illegal.”

  Merely “borderline”? They must have decided that it wouldn’t be profitable to reveal that the original Hikitoru had been replaced by a different Yakibō tea bowl.

  “I understand.”

  “Considering these grave circumstances, I’m sure you agree that it would be difficult for us to continue to employ you.”

  Wow, that was fast. She was sure they would—

  Fujimori coughs, and Hashimoto quickly adds, “Of course, in the interest of continuing your pursuit of a career in the art world, it goes without saying that you will refrain from embarrassing yourself or this company by engaging in unprofessional behavior, such as divulging confidential information about objects we represent, or our clients.”

  Ah. They’re worried she’ll reveal the substitution. That’s why they’re threatening her with never working in this town again. Well, she can agree to that without a second thought. She doesn’t care which tea bowl Yakibō chose to represent the eighth of Saburo’s Attachments, only that he did.

  “I understand.” The clock ticks. The moment l
engthens. Was that her cue? She shoots to her feet. Bows deeply.

  “Moshiwake gozaimasen,” she cries, extending the letter of resignation with both hands. “Please accept my humble resignation.”

  Hashimoto rises and takes it with due formality.

  “Accepted,” she says wearily. “Please give me your keycards. You can collect your personal things on your way out.”

  Robin zips the coin locker key into her purse and hurries toward the cafe where Uchida and Nori are meeting her. She has moved past numb, and the feelings now surfacing are as jumbled as the box of belongings she just stowed at Takara-chō Station.

  On one hand, she’s relieved. Maybe even slightly elated. Uchida-bōsan’s scroll and note have been sent out for testing, and once they come back, her former employer will have no choice but to give the dipping bowl back to him, signed, sealed, and authenticated as made by Yoshi Takamatsu in the eighteenth century. And from now on, she’ll be able to spend all day, every day, researching and writing the paper connecting Yakibō’s tea bowls to Saburo’s poems.

  On the other hand, she’s out of a job. Even she has to admit that calling the paltry sum in her bank account “savings” would earn her a Pinocchio nose.

  Five minutes after five. Nori checks again to see if Robin messaged her about being late. She studies her shoes, then peers down the alley, looking anywhere but at the man standing nearby. He was outside the cafe when she arrived, also apparently waiting for someone who’s running late. Big enough to have been a sumo wrestler in a former life, he has to be the priest Robin told her about, the one who broke Hikitoru. But that’s not a conversation either of them wants to have before Robin introduces them properly, so he’s also looking at anything but her. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches him checking his watch, then turning to study the menu tacked up outside the café.