Kusamakura (13 page)

A line begins lightly and modestly at the nape of the neck, then draws in from both sides to slide easily down and over the shoulders, breaks into ample curves that flow on down the arms till they no doubt finally part ways at the fingers. Beneath the full swelling breasts, the waves of line recede momentarily, to swell smoothly out again in the gentle curve of her abdomen. The line of force then slips around behind the form, and where the tension of the line gives out, the two columns of flesh tend slightly forward to balance it. The knees now receive the lines and reverse them, and when those long undulations have traveled to the heels, the flat plane of the feet brings all this intricacy to rest in effortless completion at the soles. The world could hold no more complex tension of forces, and none more unified. One could discover no contours more natural, more soft and unresisting, less troubling than these.

Moreover, this shape is not thrust blatantly before my eyes, revealed like a common nude. The perfection of its beauty is only modestly intimated, hinted in an ethereal atmosphere in which all is transformed to profound subtlety. Like some apparition of a mythic dragon suggested to the imagination’s eye by a few brief flecks of scale within a brushstroke wash, the shape is replete with a subtle air, a warmth, an unfathomable depth that satisfies every instinct of the artistic sensibility. If minutely depicting every scale on a dragon becomes ludicrous, then equivalently, veiling a naked figure from full and flagrant exposure to the eye resonates with a hidden profundity. Gazing upon this form, my eyes seem to be beholding some faery moon maiden, fled from her lunar realm, hesitating a moment before me as the pursuing rainbows swarm about her.

The white form grows increasingly distinct. Another step, and this delightful moon maiden may, alas, descend into the common world—but just as the thought crosses my mind, her jet-black hair swirls suddenly like the tail of the mythic turtle that cleaves the waves, starting a sinuous undulation rippling along its length, and up the stairs the white figure leaps, rending the swirling veils of steam as it goes. A woman’s clear peal of laughter echoes away down the corridor; in its wake, the bathroom falls quiet.

I gulp in a mouthful of hot water and stand stock-still in the bathtub, while startled waves lap at my chest, spilling with a soft whoosh over the tub’s edge.

I take tea with the master of the house, Mr. Shioda. The other guests present are the abbot of Kankaiji temple, who introduces himself as Daitetsu, and a layman, a young man of twenty-four or -five.

Taking a right turn along the corridor from my door and then a left at the end has led me to the old gentleman’s room, which is down at the far end. The room is a six-mat one, about twelve feet by nine, and a large, low sandalwood table occupies the center, imparting an unexpectedly cramped feeling to the space. Instead of the usual cushions surrounding it, there’s a carpet with a woven flower design. It is no doubt Chinese. In its center is a hexagon containing a scene depicting a rather strange house and an odd willow. The surrounding ground is an almost steel-blue indigo, and at each corner is a brown circle, through which is woven an arabesque design. I doubt that such a thing would actually be found in a Chinese sitting room, but it is certainly most intriguing here, in place of the normal cushions. Just as the worth of an Indian cotton print or a Persian wall hanging lies in its slight oddness, so this flowered carpet’s generosity and lack of fuss constitute its tastefulness. All such Chinese household furnishings, indeed, have the same rather dull and unimaginative quality. One is forced to the conclusion that they’re the inventions of a race of patient and slightly slowwitted people. The special value of these objects is the way they daze and bemuse the viewer. Japan’s works of art, on the other hand, are created with all a pickpocket’s fine-tuned alertness. The West creates on a grand and detailed scale, which can never quite free itself of the reek of worldliness.

Such are the thoughts in my head as I take my seat. The young man places himself beside me, halfway down the length of the carpet.

The abbot is seated on a tiger skin, whose tail spreads past my knees while the head lies beneath the old gentleman. All the gentleman’s hair seems to have been removed and transplanted onto his face, so that his cheeks and chin are smothered in a thick tangle of white beard. He is carefully arranging the teacups on their little saucers on the table before him.

“We have an unaccustomed guest staying, so I thought I’d take the opportunity of asking you to tea,” he says, turning to the abbot.

“Thank you for sending someone along to invite me. I haven’t gotten around to visiting for quite some time, and I was just thinking I must call in today.” The abbot is close to sixty, with a round face and softened features reminiscent of one of those quick, freehand ink sketches of the Bodhidharma. He seems on familiar terms with the old gentleman. “This is your guest, I presume?”

The old gentleman nods as he lifts the little red clay teapot and lets the precious greenish-amber liquid trickle two or three drops at a time into the teacups. I am pleasantly aware of its elegant aroma gently invading my nostrils.

The abbot speaks to me immediately. “You must be feeling lonely here in the countryside by yourself.”

“Er, well . . .” I say, unable to summon any real answer. If I say I’m lonely, it will be a lie, but if I say I’m not, a long explanation will be required.

“Not so, Your Reverence,” our host chimes in. “This gentleman’s come here to paint, so he’s quite busy in fact.”

“Ah, is that so? That’s good. Would you be an artist in the Nanso School?”
¹

“No,” I manage to reply this time. The abbot wouldn’t understand it if I told him I painted in the Western style, I decide.

“No, he’s in that Western style,” the old gentleman says, coming to my aid once more in his role as host.

“Ah, Western, eh? That’s the sort of thing Kyuichi does, isn’t it? I saw his work for the first time the other day. Very nicely done, I thought.”

“No no, they’re just boring little things,” the young man protests, breaking his silence.

“So you showed the abbot one of your poor pieces, did you?” the old man inquires. Judging from his attitude and the way he speaks to the young man, they’re probably related.

“I didn’t exactly request a viewing—he came across me when I was sketching at Mirror Pool,” says Kyuichi.

“Hm, is that so? . . . Well now, the tea is poured. Do have some,” the old man says, placing a cup before each of us. There are no more than three or four drops of tea in each, though the cups themselves are very large. The glaze is a light gray ground, daubed all over with burnt sienna and pale yellow brushstrokes that may have been intended as a painting or merely as a pattern, reminiscent of a half-formed devil’s face.

“They’re by Mokubei,” he remarks simply.
²

“They’re delightful,” I say, in equally simple praise.

“There are a lot of fake Mokubeis around. Look at the base. You’ll find his signature there.”

I lift it up and turn it toward the paper-screened window to see. The warm shadow of a potted aspidistra falls across the screen. Sure enough, when I twist my head to look closely at the base, I see the single small character “Moku.” A signature is not really important in appreciating a work of art, but dilettantes apparently set great store by it. I bring the raised cup directly to my lips. A connoisseur with time on his hands will elegantly taste this rich, delicately sweet liquid, ripened in the precise temperature of the hot water, by letting it run one drop at a time onto the tip of the tongue. Most people believe that tea is to be drunk, but that is a mistake. If you drop it gently onto the tongue and let the pure liquid dissipate in your mouth, almost none of it remains for you to swallow.

Rather, the exquisite fragrance travels down to permeate the regions of the stomach. Using the teeth on solid food is vulgar, while mere water is insipid. The best green tea, on the other hand, surpasses fresh water in its delicate, rich warmth, yet lacks the firmness of more solid substances that tire the jaw. Tea is, in fact, a marvelous drink. To those who spurn it on the grounds of insomnia, I say that it’s better to be deprived of sleep than of tea.

I next turn my attention to a blue stone tea-sweets dish that the old man has now produced and is passing around. It is nothing short of astonishing to consider the fine dexterity of the master craftsman who has carved such a large piece of stone to such thinness, and with such delicate precision! Spring sunlight shines through the translucent stone, seemingly captured and held there within its depths. It is right that such a plate remains empty.

“I brought this out to show our guest here. He’s been kind enough to admire my celadon, so I thought I’d bring out a few more things for him to see today.”

“What celadon would that be?” the abbot asks. “Oh, you mean the tea-sweets dish? I’m fond of that one myself, yes. By the way, I don’t suppose Western pictures can be painted onto sliding doors, can they? If they can, then I’d like you to do me one.”

Well, I think, I could do it if asked, but I don’t know that it would be to the abbot’s taste. There’s no point in slaving to produce such a thing if he then declares that he doesn’t like Western painting.

“I don’t think Western painting would work for sliding doors,” I say.

“You don’t, eh? Yes, that’s true, I suppose it would be a bit garish if it’s the sort of thing I saw Kyuichi painting the other day.”

“My paintings are terrible,” protests the youth earnestly, looking most embarrassed. “I’m just messing around.”

“Where is that pond you were speaking of?” I ask the young man, from idle curiosity.

“It’s a lovely tranquil place, in the valley behind Kankaiji temple. It’s just that I studied Western painting a little at school, you see, so I thought I’d stop by there and try my hand when I was feeling bored one day, that’s all.”

“And this Kankaiji temple . . . ?”

“That’s where I am,” the abbot breaks in. “A fine place. You can take in the whole sea at a glance from up there. Come and have a look while you’re staying. It’s only a half mile or so from here. From the corridor out there you can see the stone steps going up to it, have you noticed?”

“Could I come for a visit sometime?”

“Of course, of course. I’m always there. Mr. Shioda’s daughter calls in quite a lot. Speaking of which,” he says, turning to the old gentleman, “there’s no sign of your Nami today. She’s all right, I hope?”

“She must have gone out somewhere. Did she go to your place by any chance, Kyūichi?”

“No, she wasn’t there.”

“Probably off on a walk by herself again,” says the abbot with a laugh. “She’s got strong legs, has Nami. When I was out at Tonami the other day for a ceremony, I thought to myself, ‘Good heavens, that looks like Nami there on Sugatami Bridge,’ and sure enough it was. She was wearing straw sandals and had her skirts tucked up behind. ‘What are you doing loitering around here, Your Reverence?’ she says to me, quite out of the blue. ‘Where are you off to?’ Gave me quite a surprise, ha ha. ‘Where in heaven’s name have you been, dressed like that?’ I ask. ‘I’m just back from picking wild parsley,’ says she. ‘Here, I’ll give you a bit.’ And she suddenly shoves a muddy bunch of it into my sleeve, ha ha.”

“Dear me . . .” says old Mr. Shioda, with a pained smile. Then he abruptly rises to his feet and turns the subject hastily back to curios. “I rather wanted to show you this.”

He reverently takes down from the sandalwood bookcase a little bag made of fine old patterned damask. It seems to contain some heavy object.

“Have you ever seen this, Your Reverence?”

“What on earth is it?”

“An ink stone.”

“That so? What sort of ink stone?”

“It was a favorite piece in Sanyo’s collection.”
³

“No, I haven’t seen that one.”

“It has a spare lid done by Shunsui.”

“No, haven’t seen it. Show me, show me.”

The old man tenderly undoes the bag, revealing a corner of the russet stone within.

“That’s a lovely color. Tankei, would it be?”
⁴

“Yes, and there are nine ‘shrike spots.’”

“Nine?” repeats the abbot incredulously, evidently deeply impressed.

“This is the Shunsui lid,” says Mr. Shioda, displaying a thin lid in a figured satin wrapping. A Chinese poem of seven characters is written on it in Shunsui’s calligraphic hand.

“Ah, yes. He had a fine hand, a fine hand—though, mind you, Kyohei wrote a better one.”
⁵

“You think so, do you?”

“I’d say Sanyo was the worst of them. That tendency to cleverness made him vulgar. Nothing interesting in him at all.”

The old gentleman chuckles. “I know you’re no fan of Sanyo, so I changed his scroll for a different one today.”

“That so?” The abbot turns to look over his shoulder. The alcove is a simple recess in the wall. On its polished board stands an old Chinese copperware vase, its surface elegantly tarnished, with a two-foot-high branch of magnolia blossom arranged in it. The scroll hanging behind it is a large work by Sorai,
⁶
on a backing of subtly glowing figured silk. The calligraphy is on paper rather than the more usual silk, but the scroll’s beauty lies not only in the indisputable skill of the writing itself but also in the delightful harmony between the backing and the paper, which has aged with the passage of time. The figured silk itself is not particularly wonderful, but it seems to me to achieve its fine quality through a combination of faded color and a softening of the effect of the gold thread, so that any original gaudiness has dimmed, allowing a certain austerity to assert itself. The two little ivory scroll ends protrude starkly white against the tea-brown background of the earth wall, while before the scroll softly floats the pale magnolia blossoms, yet the overall effect of the alcove is so calm as to be almost gloomy.