CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

A MOUNTAIN AND SEA CHANGE

The black tile roofs of the castle of the powerful Okubo clan of Odawara towered over the low roofs of the town below like a lord over his obeisant subjects. Odawara was a major port and an industrial center of about five thousand tile-roofed houses. It had a large complement of carpenters, paperers, plasterers, tilers, and coopers. It also boasted three dyers, five blacksmiths, ten sword sharpeners, two lacquerers, six silversmiths, and a hundred and three sake brewers.

When Cat and Kasane entered the town midway through the hour of the Hare, its streets were filling with peddlers and bearers laden with boxes and bales. Children carrying trays of homemade snacks for sale wandered out of the small side doors of their tenements.

With a rumble and clatter apprentices were opening the heavy shutters at the shop of the bean curd maker, exposing the boiling vats and the rank, steamy bustle inside. Fishmongers touted their bream and herring. Coins jingled in the scales of the exchange shops. From one side alley Cat could hear the steady clink, clink of sword makers’ hammers. From another came the frump of the weavers’ mallets as they pounded cloth to soften it.

Maids were taking advantage of the unusually warm weather to wash clothes in big tubs in the courtyards behind the front gates of inns and houses. Others stretched long, wet rectangular panels of disassembled kimonos onto frames hung horizontally between trees. Still others leaned from the second-floor windows to lay bedding out to air on the first-story roof overhangs. They called teasing invitations to Cat, and she pulled her hat farther down over her face.

Cat led the way through the twisting streets. At the crossroads on the outskirts she stopped to study the small forest of wooden and stone road markers. Then she turned west onto the broad track of the Tkaid as it led into the foothills. Just beyond the city, past the Sanmai Bridge, as though they had been discarded there, were small stands selling tea and souvenirs.

The most plentiful items for sale were slender paper lanterns with wire handles. When not in use they could be collapsed into their round bamboo rims and tucked into the front of a robe. They were the specialty of Odawara, and small groups of pilgrims clustered around the stands selling them. The road to Hakone was long and precipitous, and the sun set early behind the high peaks. Night in the mountains was very dark.

Kasane lagged behind to inspect the garlands of sedge hats dangling from the beams and corner posts of one stand. When Cat looked back Kasane beckoned to her. “Hachibei …” Kasane caught hold of Cat’s sleeve and drew her away from the stand. “Our hats don’t match,” she said in a low voice.

“I could say I lost mine.”

“Of course.” Kasane dared not contradict her mistress by pointing out that that would draw attention to them. That it would necessitate more discussion with the barrier guards. Cat figured it out for herself. She traded in the old hats and some coins for two new ones. She handed one to Kasane.

“Forgive my rudeness, but they should have marks.” Kasane stared at the ground and flushed at her own impertinence.

“Marks?”

“A charm. To protect us.”

Cat sighed. Kasane was right. Pilgrims’ hats always had some pious sentiment painted on them.

She found a calligrapher. The old man was laying out his faded cushion and setting up his lacquered writing stand under a roof of torn matting thrown over a rickety frame. Cat kneeled on the small straw mat he had laid down for his customers.

“Oh, honorable Five-Brush-Monk …” She bowed low. “Our pilgrims’ hats were lost overboard in yesterday’s storm. Will you honor us by inscribing a suitable phrase on these unworthy surfaces?”

“I am honored that my inferior abilities may be of use.” The old man settled a pair of wire-framed spectacles onto the sharp bridge of his nose. “Since you’re my first customer, I’ll give you a discount.”

He spoke a refined dialect in a whispery voice, tinged with irony. He was charmed by Cat’s comparison of himself with the great calligrapher Kb Daishi, the Five-Brush Monk. He was further charmed that she chose to share with him the secret that she was not, in fact, an uneducated peasant.

As he laid out his brushes and ink stone with spidery fingers, Cat noticed the slight droop of his left shoulder. It indicated a man who had carried the two swords of a samurai most of his life.

“How much, most venerable sir?” It embarrassed Cat to have to ask the rnin, reduced in circumstances though he might have been, the price.

The old man waved a hand, as though payment were of no consequence. “Ten coppers,” he murmured.

Cat laid the hats on the frayed mat next to him. She settled back on her heels to wait.

“Hachibei,” Kasane said, “I’ll be back soon.”

“Where are you going?”

“To buy rice for your meal tonight.” Kasane bowed and hurried into the crowd at this small morning market.

The old man added a few drops of water to his stone and methodically ground his ink stick on it. When the water became black and thick he added more, washing the ink into the small trough at one end of the stone.

Apparently oblivious to Cat’s presence and to the noise of people hawking their wares all around him, he continued the methodical, circular grinding for a long time. Then he took up one of the hats and turned it in his hand. He tilted his head back to study the brim’s wide surface through his spectacles. Two more customers arrived and squatted on their heels to wait, but he ignored them also.

He sat for several more long moments with his hand poised over the brushes in the earthenware container. Finally he chose one with a bamboo handle and a fairly broad tuft of badger hair. He dipped it gently into the ink. For his ten coppers he painted his words on the cheap hat as painstakingly as if he were fulfilling a commission for the emperor.

Kasane arrived as Cat was putting ten coppers, plus five extra for luck, into the center of a paper handkerchief. She twisted it so the ends spread out into a shape like the petals of a flower. He bowed when she presented the package to him.

Cat gave Kasane her hat and led the way to a small open-air tea stand. With their feet dangling, the two sat on the wide bench in front while the waitress fixed their morning tea.

“What did the honorable writer put on our hats?” Kasane studied the thick black characters as though if she looked at them long enough, they would make sense to her.

“The words say, ‘Before the first step is taken the goal is reached.’”

“How splendid!”

Kasane didn’t understand the phrase, but she continued to stare at the miracle of writing. Cat watched the travelers stream by. Already the road was crowded. Even though this time between harvest and the New Year’s celebrations was not the season for pilgrimages, the tinkling of pilgrims’ bells was constant.

“Did you find food?” Cat asked.

“Yes.” Kasane held up a small cloth tied around a handful of raw rice and shook it. “I held out my pilgrim’s bowl and begged. A kind woman gave me enough for us to eat tonight. Someone else gave me forty coppers.”

Kasane pulled a pair of cloth arm guards from her sleeve and handed them to Cat. They were shaped like long, fingerless gloves of the sort worn by laborers. Kasane had gotten them from a used-clothing peddler. They had seen hard wear, but she seemed pleased with them. “I used some of the coppers to buy these.”

“We haven’t money to spare for such things.”

“They only cost twenty coppers.” Kasane lowered her voice. “They’ll help to hide your hands.”

When Cat tried one on, a wide flap continued from her wrist across the back of her hand and down to the first row of knuckles. She put on the other one. They did obscure the fact that she hadn’t the hands of a fisherman. “Thank you,” she said.

Then Kasane gave Cat the crude straw gaiters she had bought. They were itchy, but they disguised the slender curves of Cat’s legs. Next she showed Cat how to wear her cotton towel as a peasant man might. She draped it low on Cat’s forehead, folded the ends over, brought them down across her cheeks, and tied them under her chin. The towel hid her face somewhat and finished her transformation into a fisherman.

Kasane and Cat hung their rosaries of a hundred and eight prayer beads on their wrists and tied their brass pilgrims’ bells to their sashes. Then they put on their hats and packs. Fortified by the hot tea and leaning on their staffs, they joined the stream of traffic.

When at an impasse Musashi recommended a mountain and sea change. If one’s opponent is expecting the sea, give him mountains. Cat was now prepared to give the guards at Hakone barrier a loutish peasant lad named Hachibei.

As the Tkaid wound up and around the side of the mountain, they could look over the edge and see the hamlets and paddies in the narrow valleys far below. The sides of the mountains were covered with hardwoods, all woven together with wisteria and azalea and saxifrage.

Young women from the mountain villages hawked sweet dumplings and tea by the side of the road. Occasionally Cat passed a priest or nun begging. Rich merchants plodded by on rented horses led by postboys. Porters and kago bearers exchanged good-natured insults as they passed one another. Groups of pilgrims sang ditties from their home districts or chanted the praise of Buddha. Pairs of couriers jogged by shouting nonsense syllables, “Ei-sassa, ei-sassa, korya, korya, sassa, sassa,” in time to their pounding feet.

As Cat and Kasane climbed higher, however, the tall cedars closed in over them, shutting out the sky. The small statues of Jiz-sama, who protected travelers, became more frequent. Clusters of them, each wearing a small red bib, stood in niches carved from the granite boulders lining the road.

People grew quiet. Even the kago bearers were saving their breath for the ascent. Cat heard her own gasps over the muffled clop of the horses’ straw-shod hooves on the rocks and the tinkling of bells. In the chill mountain air she began to sweat, and she took off her travel cloak.

The road became a rocky, narrow trough passing between two rows of towering cryptomeria trees. As it rose toward the clouds, the Tkaid twisted and turned on itself in short switchbacks. It was bordered by high banks and sheer drop-offs. It was flanked by stands of bamboo and tangled heaps of fallen trunks covered with moss and ferns.

The trees were immense. The undergrowth was lush and dank. Silvery waterfalls catapulted down granite cliff faces into the deep, green crevices of valleys. The plumb faces of the mountains rose in hazy blue ranges as far as Cat could see.

As Cat rounded a sharp turn she saw a small figure stumble just ahead. The child was burdened with a load of straw-wrapped bundles tied to a wooden frame and thatched with straw. The frame reached above her head, and it caused her to lose her balance. When she pitched toward the cliff’s edge, Cat grabbed the nearest side pole of the frame and hauled her to safety. The fall was three hundred cho to a river raging over boulders.

The child staggered and collapsed onto her hands and knees on the rocks of the roadway. Her chest was heaving, and she was gasping for air as she struggled to rise again. She looked about eleven or twelve years old.

“Wait.” While Kasane held the frame, Cat lifted the broad straw-padded strap from its place just below the child’s collarbone. Then she helped her up, led her to a boulder by the side of the road, and sat her down. Kasane steadied the ladderlike frame and leaned on it patiently.

“Where are you going?” Cat asked.

The girl only stared at her with wide, desperate eyes.

“Where are your people?”

Nothing.

“Where do you live?”

The girl gestured to her mouth.

“You cannot speak?”

The child was deaf and mute, but her eyes were eloquent. She was dressed in the rags of a paper shift tied with a wisteria vine. She was barefoot. Her arms and legs were thin as hairpins.

Cat remembered her father’s mother admonishing her once for helping a servant. By helping her Cat had raised the woman above her proper station and threatened her orderly rebirth in the next life. But Cat also remembered Musui carrying the old woman’s burden of firewood.

“I’ll carry it.” Kasane reached for the frame.

“You have the pack to carry, and the bundle.” Cat put her pilgrim’s bell and her rosary into the furoshiki. Then she handed it to Kasane.

Kasane held the frame, and the child arranged the thick woven straw pad on Cat’s back. Cat lifted the strap over her head and arranged it under her collarbone. She steadied the load while Cat stood up under it and shifted it to balance it. The frame forced her to wear her hat slanted forward and down. It restricted her vision to the stony patch of ground under her feet.

Its weight bent her over. She tried to imagine what it must have been like for the child. She beckoned to the girl to follow. Then, leaning on her staff, she began trudging up the narrow road.