3.

Feudal Japan

NOVEMBER, 1680

Sasayama

The clay flows between his fingers. Thinner . . . thinner . . . and JL stop. Yoshi Takamatsu lifts his hands from the rim of the bowl spinning on the potter’s wheel. A smile blooms on his face. This one feels right. As the wheel slows, he reaches for the cord used to cut a newly thrown piece from its mounting, but it’s not where he left it.

“Nobu?” he calls to his younger brother. “Did you take my cutting cord again?”

“It’s not your cord,” grouses Nobu from across the studio.

Actually, it is. But to be fair, it was Nobu’s before it was his, and their father’s before it was Nobu’s.

“Can I have it back so I can get this bowl off the wheel before it dries?”

“Only if you explain again how you do your glaze,” comes the sulky reply. “You must have left something out when you told me last time, because mine didn’t turn out at all like yours. Father said it looked like I’d slopped mine on with an old rag.”

Yoshi sighs. The truth is, he doesn’t know how he does the glaze. He just gives it a stir, swipes it on, then lets the gods of the kiln do the rest.

“Maybe if you close your eyes,” he suggests, “and do it without thinking.”

“Close my eyes? How am I supposed to do anything with my eyes shut, stupid? That’ll make it worse, not better.”

“Sorry, I don’t know what else to tell you. Maybe if you didn’t care so much about how it turns out . . .”

“Easy for you to say.” His brother’s voice drips with resentment. “You don’t have to.”

Which is true. He doesn’t. Yoshi is older by six years, but it’s his younger brother who’s being groomed to take over the family business. Someday Nobu will become Honzaemon IV, if he ever learns to glaze his tea bowls properly.

Yoshi had been destined to become Honzaemon IV for the first five weeks of his life, until his parents’ delight at being granted a son turned to despair. They finally had to admit to themselves—and then to each other—that their baby’s eyes weren’t tracking any fingers, or focusing on any faces. The priest at the local shrine regretfully confirmed their fears: Yoshi was blind, and likely to stay that way.

A pity, everyone murmured when his parents were out of earshot, since he was otherwise a beautiful child. From his mother, he’d inherited curved lips that tilt up at the corners and expressive features that eloquently telegraph his joys and sorrows. From his father he’d inherited thick black hair that resisted being confined in a topknot, and long, sensitive fingers filled with hidden strength, perfect for shaping clay. The only thing he lacks is sight.

To be honest, Yoshi doesn’t really understand why not being able to see is such a big deal. He’s overheard more than one of his father’s patrons offering to buy his work. His formal training stopped the day his brother was old enough to sit at a wheel, but he’s still allowed to fill empty spots in the kiln after his father and brother have arranged their pieces for firing. It makes no sense to him that he has to be able to see in order to do anything important, but that—everyone tells him—is the way of the world.

Fortunately, unlike blind men from families without means, Yoshi will never have to eke out a living as a masseur on the back streets. But his drop from number one son to the bottom of the pecking order means that nobody spares him much attention unless there’s some left over after the other four children have been prodded and coddled. Even his sisters are more valuable to the family than Yoshi; their womanly arts and pretty faces will buy the Takamatsu family valuable marriage alliances.

He does contribute to the family fortunes in one way, though: despite being blind (or perhaps because of it), he’s especially good at preparing the clay. The chunks of earth they gather from a secret spot outside town must be wetted down with just the right amount of water, then he treads the virgin clay with bare feet until all the stones and impurities are worked out. When he feels the consistency is just right for his father’s work—not too stiff, not too soft—he finishes the job by cutting and kneading it until there isn’t a single air pocket left.

His brother Nobu hasn’t quite got the hang of it yet. He’s too impatient. He’s earned more than one beating when he quit working it too soon, and his pieces exploded in the kiln, taking some of Father’s work with them.

Yoshi hears the missing cord drop onto the table beside him. Winding the ends around his fingers, he stretches it taut, then draws it beneath the foot of his bowl, separating it from the wheel. Then he dips his hands in the nearby water basin and gently lifts the still-pliable vessel. He holds it before him, taking pleasure in the feel of it, allowing the delicate walls to bend slightly inward, becoming one with his cupped hands.

This is what Kiri’s face would feel like, if he could hold it. The smooth skin, the gentle curve.

“That’s wrong, you know,” Nobu informs him. “That shape. Father scolds me and makes me do it over if it’s not round.”

That’s not why he makes you do it over, Yoshi thinks, settling his bowl onto a drying shelf. More than one famous tea bowl isn’t round. But until an artist learns to follow the rules of making tea ceremony ware, he’s not allowed to break them. Good thing he isn’t burdened with the curse of sight, or he’d have to follow the rules too.

He cleans the wheel and tidies his tools, then feels his way toward the bath, hoping it’s still too early for his father to be taking his turn. On the way, he checks the cupboard where he’s been hiding his tea bowls. Poking his arm deep between the folded bedding, his fingers walk up the stack, counting . . . three, four, and five. All still there.

He has to hide them, because his work has a way of disappearing if he leaves it in the studio. Two water jars and a tea bowl have gone missing since last spring. His father told him he needed more shelf space, so Yoshi’s pots had been tossed on the trash heap to make room for his own. That’s his privilege, of course, as the named artist of the household, but it still hurts Yoshi to be reminded that his work is of no consequence and never will be.

Not as far as the outside world is concerned, anyway. But Kiri will appreciate it, and she’s the only one who matters. Today’s tea bowl will be the last he’ll make before he decides which one to give her. He pulls his arm back and slides the cupboard door closed, smiling to himself, imagining her cry of delight when she holds his gift in her hands for the first time.

Today he’s in luck—the bath is empty, the water hot. By the time the townsfolk outside the garden walls are hurrying home for their evening meals, he is scrubbed and soaked and wrapped in a cotton kimono, dangling his legs over the edge of the polished wooden veranda encircling their house. Although the temperature is dipping toward freezing, Yoshi still glows with inner heat from soaking neck-deep in the cedar tub. Breathing in the crisp autumn air, still pungent with the ghosts of burning leaves, he tilts his face to the sky. Snow is coming, late tonight, or early tomorrow morning. He always knows before anyone else. He sits, languid and content, listening to the faint whir of bat wings dipping and diving over the garden as the crows argue in the trees, contending over the best roosts for the night.

Today’s tea bowl could very well be the one. He’d made it a little smaller than the others, remembering Kiri’s delicate hands. He’d held them only once, but the memory fills him with joy, again and again. It had been like holding a pair of wild doves—soft and smooth, beating with life.

They’ve known each other for almost seven years now. Would he even have met her if he’d been able to see? He thinks about that for a moment. Probably not. Not to talk to, anyway. She’s the third daughter of an official in Lord Katahachi’s government, and no matter how sought-after the Takamatsu family’s tea utensils become, samurai are samurai and artisans are artisans.

The only time they really intersect is at tea ceremonies. The Takamatsu family teahouse had been built by his grandfather, Hon-zaemon II, and every social climbing samurai worth his rice allotment longs to receive tea in the room that had once hosted the shogun himself. Honzaemon II hadn’t been a top-notch artist, but he was a genius at selling tea bowls to the culture-hungry warrior class. Nothing predicts an imminent increase in rank quite like being invited to a tea ceremony hosted by a superior and performed by a famous tea master. Guests never fail to fall all over each other in their eagerness to buy everything they touch that day, and commission much more.

On the day he met Kiri, he’d been banished to the garden, ordered to stay out of sight and shoo away the crows. They like to perch in the tree that’s smack in the middle of the famous view framed by the teahouse’s window. If they just sat there, they wouldn’t be a problem, but their cawing is too distracting for the nervous guests, who already have plenty on their minds. The choreography of a tea ceremony is as strict as the rules governing how and when a samurai may draw his sword, and mistakes can be just as deadly to a career.

Yoshi hadn’t minded the crow job. He’d much rather be out in the garden on a warm spring day than inside the teahouse. He remembers sitting on the bench by the pond, breathing in the heady fragrance wafting from the wisteria arbor, listening to the waterfall’s gentle music and idly waving the gardener’s broom in the air to keep the crows from settling.

Deep in a daydream, he’d been imagining what he’d do if he were the valiant Kintaro and met a bear in the woods, when a girl’s voice piped up behind him.

“What are you doing?”

He’d dropped the broom, startled.

“I was scaring away the crows.” Falling to his knees, he felt around for the broom handle. “Who are you? And how did you get in here, anyway?”

“I came with my father and brother. They’re at some stuffy old tea ceremony.”

Yoshi climbed back on his bench, resumed his shooing.

“Why aren’t you inside with the women?”

“It’s so boring. All they do is talk. And I can’t exactly kneel on the floor all day, can I?”

“Why not?” He waved the broom. “Don’t you practice? If you practice, it gets easier.”

“Not for me.” Offended. “Don’t pretend you didn’t notice.”

“What do you mean?” He’d turned toward her voice, puzzled by her anger. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

Then there was a telltale pause, as she took in his milky eyes, his unfocused gaze.

“Oh,” she said. “You can’t . . .”

He felt her draw near, inspecting him like everyone does when they first realize he’s blind. Why do they do that? What does that tell them that they don’t already know? It always feels like a violation, and he’d instinctively shifted away.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” she said in a small voice. “Have you always been . . .”

“Since I was born.”

“Me too.”

That surprised him. “You’re blind?”

“No. But there was a big fire. When I was a baby. They didn’t quite get me out in time so . . .”

“You got burned?”

“Yeah. That’s why I can’t sit seiza.”

“Oh.” Must have been pretty bad, if she couldn’t kneel on the floor like everyone else. On the other hand, having an excuse not to sit with your feet tucked under you for hours might actually be pretty convenient. You wouldn’t be expected to sit seiza, just to be polite. When Yoshi kneels before his wheel shaping a pot, he’s too wrapped up in what he’s doing to notice the discomfort, but sitting respectfully while adults drone on about the dull things grown-ups talk about puts both his brain and his legs to sleep.

He resumed his broom waving.

“Does it still hurt?”

“No.”

“But you can walk, right?”

“Not very well.”

“Oh. How did you get in here, then?”

“I use a stick. My maid helps too. Sachi goes everywhere with me.”

And years later, the faithful Sachi still does. That day in the garden was the first time he’d heard Kiri’s voice, but it wasn’t the last. Over the years, they’d devised ways to run into each other on the day of the Sheep, when Kiri is on her way home from painting lessons, and sometimes on the day of the Rooster, when she and Sachi are allowed out to the shops. Being different from everyone else is what first drew them together, but over the years, their friendship has become something more.

Oddly, nobody forbids their meetings. Kiri’s comings and goings seem as little regarded as his own. Yoshi has decided that invisibility is one of the best things about being “handicapped,” although it still annoys him when people talk about him like he’s not in the room. Do they think that being blind also makes him deaf?

It does occasionally allow him to learn something to his advantage, though. Last spring, he’d overheard two visiting samurai wives tut-tutting about what a pity it was that Kiri’s face had been so disfigured in that fire. If the damage had been confined to her limp, they might have considered a match with her powerful family for one of their younger sons. The poor girl, she’ll never marry.

Which had kindled a hope Yoshi had never dared consider. Kiri’s face doesn’t matter at all to him. It’s her ready wit, her soft hands, and the way her silken robes smell of flowers and rain that he cares about. And her voice. When he’d told her she must be prettier than his sisters because her voice is so much nicer than theirs, she’d laughed in a slightly bitter way and said that was the first time anyone had ever said that to her, and would probably be the last.

If he hadn’t already been convinced that having the gift of sight isn’t as important as everyone claims, that clinched it. Having two good eyes somehow blinds them all to the fact that Kiri is the most beautiful girl in the world.

He slips his newest tea bowl into his father’s next firing, waiting impatiently for the kiln to cool off enough to dig it from the ashes. And when he does, he finds the waiting was worth it.

This is the one. He knows right away. Running his fingers over the cascade of delicate rivulets spilling down its curves, he can feel the magic that the kiln gods worked with their fiery breath.

Just to be sure, he retrieves the other candidates and holds each between his palms, but they only confirm its rightness. Tossing the rejects onto the trash pile, he wraps the bowl in a piece of linen, settling it into a fresh wooden box and tying it with a blue silk cord. Finally, he stamps his artist’s mark on the lid with vermilion ink.

The days pass with maddening slowness until his next meeting with Kiri, and when the hour finally arrives, he’s waiting for her on the bridge, nervous as a fledgling sparrow teetering on the edge of its nest. He invites her to a nearby shrine to stroll in the garden, so he can give her his gift in the most secluded public place he knows.

Just as he’d hoped, she gives a small cry of pleasure when she opens it.

Pure joy shines from his face as he waits for . . . why isn’t she saying anything? He hears a sniff. And another. Is she . . . crying? He’s been imagining this moment for months, but tears are not what he—

“It’s . . . it’s beautiful,” she quavers. “I’ll take it with me, and treasure it forever.”

“Take it with you? What do you mean?”

“I’m being sent away. Right after the new year.”

“What?”

“My father . . . two nights ago, he sent for me and told me I’m going to Jakkō-in.” She draws a ragged breath. “It’s a convent. Near Kyoto.”

The bottom drops out of his world. “For how long?”

“He says . . . he says that soon I’ll be old enough to marry, but he won’t defy the gods by finding me a match. That any man in search of a wife would take one look at my face and know that the kami-sama have other plans for me. That no man from a decent family will marry a woman who attracts such bad luck. And since I’ll never have children, it’s . . . it’s my duty to spend my life praying for those who will.”

No. He doubles over. This can’t be happening.

“Yoshi? What’s wrong?” She steps closer. “Please don’t . . . are you all right?”

How could he have been such a fool? He’d been so busy imagining the moment he wins her heart, he hasn’t given any thought to how impossible it will be to win her hand. A crippled girl and a blind boy. A samurai’s daughter and an artisan’s son. He doesn’t have a prayer of persuading her father to give his blessing to a pair the gods have so doubly cursed.

“Please don’t worry about me,” she begs. “I hear Jakkō-in is a beautiful place. And the nuns there don’t have to give up everything, not like at some temples. I can still wear my favorite kimonos, and I can still paint.” Her voice breaks. “I can still drink tea from your tea bowl.”

“I didn’t mean for you to drink it alone!”

“I won’t be alone. I’ll . . . I’ll have Sachi. Sachi is coming with me.”

Sachi is not who he meant.

“What about others? Will you be allowed to see . . . others?”

“No.” He can hear her gulping back tears. “Once I take my vows, I won’t be allowed to see anyone from outside. Not even my family. Not until . . . not until we meet again in the next life.”

Then her cough becomes a sob, and her composure crumbles, overcome by the despair she’s been trying so hard to keep inside.

He reaches out to her, but they’re in public, and he manages to pull back just in time. Touching her will draw attention, make everything worse, not better. All they can do is stand there with wet cheeks, throats too choked to speak, their misery and longing expanding to fill the space between them.

Somehow he finds the words to part with her and stagger back home. Bereft, hollow, he drags himself through the side gate and locks himself in the outhouse, where he can finally bury his face in his wadded-up cloak and surrender to his anguish.

For the next two days, he rages against fate, see-sawing between anger and grief.

How could the gods do this to them? Haven’t he and Kiri had more than their share of bad luck? Isn’t it someone else’s turn?

Then his fury hardens to resolve. If the gods are powerful enough to set Kiri on this path, they’re powerful enough to derail it. He just has to convince them. He visits the family shrine many times a day, plying the gods with coins and prayers. He even makes his servant take him across town to the Ojiyama Inari shrine to climb the tunnel of a thousand red torii gates.

But the weeks fly by, and preparations for Kiri’s journey proceed unchecked. The gods aren’t listening. Either they aren’t mighty enough to change her destiny, or they choose not to.

But if they don’t care enough to save her, surely they won’t mind if he does.