Chapter

           Seventeen

The branch nearly bare

A single flag fluttering:

A scrap of red silk

The next morning’s ikebana lesson was an autumn theme; we were to arrange maple branches in tall vases.

Misaki was humming happily as she worked. Her contentment was in stark contrast to my own tumultuous thoughts. I was still worried about Rin, about her motive for inviting Misaki on the excursion to Hakone, and unsettled by the attack on the house. But Misaki knew nothing of the currents swirling around our feet, and I was glad of it.

As if in reflection of my disordered thoughts (though, to be honest, it would have happened anyway), my arrangement quickly went awry. The shin was telling me in no uncertain terms that it wanted to slant, while the soe was determined to stand tall.

The master grumbled under his breath as he considered my arrangement but said nothing. He seemed to have decided I was a hopeless cause.

When the ikebana lesson was over, Misaki agreed that we might spend some time painting. ‘To restore your good humour, Kasumi,’ she teased. ‘I’ve never known anyone to be left so out of sorts by arranging flowers.’

We had just gone outside to gather leaves to paint when a cloud passed over the sun, causing the temperature to drop suddenly.

‘I’ll get our jackets,’ I volunteered.

I went first to my alcove for my own jacket, then to Misaki’s room, where I was startled to see Isamu standing by the dressing table. In his hand was the red comb that had been missing.

‘You found it! Misaki will be so glad. Where was it?’

He spun around at the sound of my voice and looked so guilty I knew at once.

‘You took it in the first place,’ I said slowly, as the flush creeping up his neck confirmed my suspicion.

‘I just borrowed it for a while.’

Why had he wanted Misaki’s comb? The answer was all too clear. Hadn’t I known it all along? He loved her; he loved her and wanted something of hers to keep and so had taken the comb, but when he found out she missed it he’d decided to put it back.

‘Kasumi, I can explain.’ He looked so anxious that, despite my own misery, my first thought was to reassure him.

Taking the jacket from the clothes stand, I said, ‘She’s in the garden, she’ll be happy to see you.’

‘Kasumi —’

‘Don’t worry. I won’t say anything.’

I led the way outside.

‘Here’s your jacket,’ I said to Misaki. ‘And here’s Isamu too.’ My voice, I was pleased to note, was light and steady. ‘And I have good news: I found your red comb. It was under the rack against the wall. Probably we couldn’t see it because it was in shadow.’

Misaki frowned. ‘I’m sure I looked under the rack.’ Then she shrugged. ‘But that is good news.’

Isamu shot me a grateful look.

But I didn’t want his gratitude. I wanted . . . I wanted him not to be in love with his uncle’s wife.

Isamu helped us to gather leaves, then the three of us went inside for tea. All the time Isamu was watching me closely, clearly worried that I would give away his secret.

As he was leaving, he said to me quietly, ‘Kasumi, it’s not what you think . . .’

‘I told you: your secret is safe with me.’ Who knew better about secret love? I left the room, too wretched to stay in his company any longer.

‘I’m going to have a good long soak in the bath now,’ Misaki declared when we were alone again. ‘I’m still sore from riding in the palanquin.’

The square tub made of cypress wood sat in a small room behind the kitchen. I carried buckets of water heated on the stove from the kitchen until the tub was full, then Misaki relaxed into it with a sigh.

‘I’m so glad you found my comb. It’s not just because it’s beautiful that I love it. It’s because it reminds me of the night when you arrived in Edo . . . with Isamu.’

I didn’t know how to respond. I was sure it wasn’t really my arrival she wished to remember, that it was her husband’s nephew she was thinking about.

‘I’d been so alone before, but since then . . . well, it’s like I have a family around me again.’

I felt tears prick my eyes. My thoughts had been so uncharitable, thinking only of Isamu and my jealousy, while she was so open and affectionate.

I said abruptly, ‘I’m going to sort out your dressing table so we don’t lose anything else.’

Alone in the dressing room, I felt calmer. I sorted the combs from the hairpins, arranging them neatly in the drawers of the dressing table. Holding the red comb in my hand, I paused. Like Misaki, it made me think of Isamu, of how he had blushed when I caught him returning it. He was without honour, I told myself: mooning after his uncle’s wife.

I would get my misery out in the best way I knew how, I decided. We had left the leaves in the reception room, ready to paint. I took an ink stick and ground some ink, then I took up a brush and let my hand move without thinking, allowing my black thoughts to empty onto the page. But when I looked at what I had done I saw that my brush had not sought the calm of nature, as I had expected. I had drawn a face: Misaki. I had accurately rendered her fine features and large almond-shaped eyes, but there, prominent on her cheek, was a horrible disfiguring scar, much more hideous in my painting than it was in reality.

I gazed at the picture in horror. It was not Misaki who was ugly; it was me. Inside. I put the brush down with a tremulous hand, frightened by what I had done. Snatching up the paper, I tore it into small pieces.

Until now, the brush had been my solace, but for the first time I wondered if it was a curse.

As if to emphasise just how undeserving she was of my horrid portrait, in the days that followed Misaki grew ever more kind and generous towards me. Lord Shimizu, too, was at pains to show me how much he appreciated my remaining in Edo after the attack that had nearly ended my life.

One morning, before Shimizu left the house, he and Misaki presented me with a gift.

Misaki was holding a tray on which sat a box covered in a velvet cloth embroidered with coloured thread.

‘What’s this for?’ I gasped. ‘It’s not Ochugen or Oseibo.’ Midsummer and midwinter were the usual seasons for gift-giving.

Misaki merely smiled and proffered the tray.

I lifted the cloth to reveal a lacquered box.

‘Open it,’ Misaki urged.

Inside were half a dozen paintbrushes of various sizes. ‘Oh.’ I was shocked speechless. I picked up the largest brush, the polished wood of the handle smooth in my hand, and ran a finger along the coarse tip.

‘That’s made of pig bristles,’ Shimizu said. ‘This one —’ he indicated a long slender brush with a fine tapered tip ‘— uses cat hair.’

‘Daiki sensei told my husband what brushes to buy,’ Misaki explained.

I didn’t know whether to feel embarrassed or proud that the painting master had been consulted. Would he think it presumptuous of me to have my own utensils? I was neither a lady nor an artist, though I longed to be both.

As I arranged Misaki’s hair that morning, I stammered out my thanks for the painting set.

‘I wanted to thank you for your friendship, and my husband wants to support your talent. You really are talented, you know,’ Misaki said. ‘It’s not just we who think so. Daiki told my husband you are the best student he has ever had.’

The best student he has ever had . . . As I met Misaki’s eyes in the mirror, saw the love and admiration there, it was as if the clouds had parted and a radiant sun was pouring over me.

Then my gaze moved to my own reflection. With what I had discovered about my own character on the day Isamu had returned the red comb, I should have looked in the mirror and seen a demon — the jealous Hannya, perhaps. But I looked much as I always had. A little more pale, perhaps, from the time spent indoors since I came to Edo, but otherwise unchanged. Outwardly.

‘And I have another surprise for you later,’ said Misaki, drawing my eyes back to her.

‘What is it?’

‘If I tell you, it won’t be a surprise. You’ll see soon enough.’

When Isamu arrived midway through the morning Misaki greeted him as if she had been expecting him, then rose to whisper something in his ear.

Over her shoulder, his gaze met mine then darted away. Would we never be comfortable with each other again?

Misaki seemed oblivious to our discomfort. Turning to me, she said, ‘Are you ready for your surprise?’

I raised my eyebrows at her. What did Isamu have to do with my surprise?

Then he held out his arms and I noticed he was holding something covered in a cloth. ‘This is for you, Kasumi.’

For the second time that day I lifted a cloth to uncover a gift, this time a scroll. I looked up, puzzled, to see Misaki and Isamu watching me eagerly. I unrolled the scroll and saw to my astonishment one of my own paintings framed by silk. It was of a tree in the forest where I had once walked every day, the thin mist of early autumn drifting through its branches.

‘Where did you . . .? How . . .?’ I glanced from one to the other.

Misaki smiled. ‘I saved it after one of our lessons. I didn’t think you’d mind.’

In a corner of the painting characters were inscribed in elegant calligraphy.

‘What does it say?’

‘Mist drapes the valley

Closing its hand on each branch

Stroking ev’ry leaf,’ Misaki recited.

‘That’s my grandmother’s poem!’

‘It was so beautiful it stuck in my head, and this picture of yours made me think of it. Isamu did the calligraphy.’

I felt a catch in my throat to see my grandmother’s words alongside my own picture and had to blink back the tears.

‘Oh no, it was a bad idea, wasn’t it? We’ve made you homesick.’

‘No, it’s not that. It’s . . .’ I cleared my throat. ‘You couldn’t have given me anything I would love better.’

That night I unrolled the scroll again. It wasn’t for me to declare the picture worthy of being made into a scroll, but I did know it was successful in one respect. When I looked at it I felt what it was like to stand in the forest with the mist swirling around the trees, the cold cloak of it touching my skin. I had my valley here with me. I didn’t need to miss it because I carried it inside myself and I could return there with my brush. I had captured the feeling of the forest in my painting, just as Grandmother had captured the feeling with her words.

Reverently I placed the scroll in the small chest in my alcove alongside the book in which Grandfather had written Grandmother’s poems. My treasured possessions: my grandmother’s poems in my grandfather’s hand, and now the work of my own hand with my grandmother’s poem inscribed by Isamu.

Grandfather had thought I was special. Was this what he meant? I had found a use for my eyes and my hands, a gift with which I could express myself without the words that got me into trouble. Then I thought of the portrait I had painted of Misaki and remembered that not all gifts were benign.