The Ghost Brush (125 page)

She had only a faint recollection of what she was looking for.

Here it was. Stored under “Retta—use of colour.” An article by a woman named Carolina Retta. For once, the filing system worked. Carolina Retta had been a new name to Rebecca. She had given a paper at the symposium in Venice, and it was published in the proceedings. The subject of her paper was Hokusai’s last published book, A Treatise on Colour. That book was published in
1848
, less than a year before Hokusai’s death. Two more volumes were promised but never appeared. A copy was held in the British Museum in London, although Rebecca had never seen it. However, she had had given the paper a quick read, and she had tried but failed to find Carolina Retta.

She had copied some of the relevant parts onto her computer. Now she could see that Retta had suggested, tactfully (such suggestions were always made very carefully), that Oei had the main role in writing Hokusai’s last book. Rebecca had more or less assumed the same, but apparently art history had not made the leap. Retta listed carefully reasons to think that Oei had had a hand: first, the date of the book was so late in Hokusai’s life; second, the drawings in the book were like the ones in the letter in Obuse; third, the thick colours it described were Oei’s trademark; and fourth, the phoenix painting Rebecca had seen just today was an example of its technique.

“We can find a close correlation here between the techniques described in the manual and several used in paintings attributed to Hokusai’s final years,” wrote Retta. “There is also a good possibility that Oei assisted him at this time in compiling the notes used for the manual. In any case, surviving letters prove that she was conversant in the colouring techniques used by her father.”

Rebecca had not thought much about this last published book of Hokusai’s before, but there it was: a final claim on the colouring techniques perfected by his daughter.

Had Carolina Retta also visited the mountain town of Obuse? A dozen years ago, perhaps more, had this woman—she seemed to be Italian, working in Venice—made the same pilgrimage to discover the mysteries of Oei as Rebecca was making now? Certainly Carolina Retta referred to the letters that Rebecca saw. She had even made her own translation.

“To prepare oil for oil-painting pigments use one go of perilla oil (paulownia or camellia oil) and filings obtained from seven lead bullets . . .”

Lead bullets? That’s what Kubota meant by “a lead shot,” and what Oei meant by the little circle she drew. Rebecca wondered idly how she got access to lead bullets. Did she beg them from the restive samurai?

“Leave it buried for sixty days . . .”

Yes, that was the secret. Had she revealed it then because her father was dying and was about to publish a book giving “his” special method of colouring? Because they needed the money this Treatise on Colour would bring?

But Retta also referred to two big pitchers used by Oei to prepare oil. “Two big pitchers still survive. . . .” Where were those now? Sold off, as were many of the treasures left in Obuse, as Kubota hinted?

But here was another article: “Hokusai Paintings in Obuse: Realms of the Genuine and the Spurious” by Shinichi Segi, in the same proceedings. Shinichi too writes of matters in Obuse as if he had been there. He relates a discovery in
1977
in the former belongings of the family Juhachi-ya Iwajiro. He wrote that the family found, in their belongings, a package bearing the warning “Do Not Examine Contents.”

The family had opened the package. Inside was a letter from Hokusai with a signature on it. There were also three seals. A good seal was made of rough stone. Two were made of paper and used as stencils. One read “Katsushika” and the other “Hokusai
100
.” They were still usable. There was a sheet of paper with trial imprints. There was also a sheet of paper with practice examples of Hokusai’s signature. This could be none other than the tools of a forger, Shinichi wrote.

Carpenter had said seals could be lent; they could be used by people other than the owner.

Rebecca sat back, heart pounding.

She had carried the story here in her laptop.

But she hadn’t been able to see it until she had been told something different.

Someone had been practising to be a forger. Was it Iwajiro? Was Isai in on it? The story had changed since the article was written. No one now mentioned this package reading “Do Not Examine Contents.”

The family which had at first revealed this information now were holding it back. And where was Retta in
2009
? None of the scholars ever mentioned her.

Just then, Kubota-san arrived at the door to take Rebecca to the station.

R
ebecca left Obuse by train for Matsumoto.

She was carrying a bag of goodies from Kubota-san. It contained a reproduction of the receipt showing both Hokusai’s and Oei’s faces, and a reproduction of the letter describing the method of making pigment, with its small burnt hole and the larger hole where someone had torn out the name of the recipient.

He had also given her a few prints of images on clear plastic. Laid overtop of one another these showed how a certain pattern of shapes repeats eerily and almost exactly in work signed by Oei. In Beauty with Cherry Blossoms at Night, the “beauty,” who is a high-ranking courtesan, is shown holding a paper and brush, next to a standing lantern. Over her head the gnarled branch of a tree with clots of leaves rises up to the top edge.

In the other, A View of Mt. Fuji, the conical mountain is on the left in the middle of the scroll, taking the same shape as the lantern, and a dragon rises up in a trail of smoke, to the right and towards the top of the painting, taking the shape of the tree. This painting is said to represent his death.

This was the compositional style that Kubota had seen over and over again in work that he deemed to be hers: characters bunched together in a dense clump in the centre of the page, and a twisted formation, like a dragon’s tail, leading up to the top border. The background was blank, so rare in Hokusai’s works.

Retta had remarked on the same thing. She too had talked about composition. “Where a complex central image sat amidst a background simplified to the point of being abstract,” she wrote, “that was Oei’s influence.” And she went farther: “No only did Oei act as a muse to her father in his later years, but there is a good deal of evidence suggesting that she sometimes painted works in his stead.”

Rebecca thought of Boy Viewing Mt. Fuji, which she’d seen way back at the Freer symposium, and which had been described as a problematic attribution. A central image amidst a simplified background. That twisting tail leading up. The same geometry, again.

It was an ingenious and compelling composition analysis, and the closest thing that exists today to prove Oei’s authorship.

All this was in a white bag.

She was also carrying a blue knapsack and dragging her black suitcase. She had her laptop and her purse slung over her shoulder.

In other words, she was burdened. And her mind was teeming. But Kubota-san would drive his own car and meet her at the station in Matsumoto. He apologized: he was a bad driver and did not want to frighten her on the mountain road. Hart regrettably was left behind; they would have to manage with Kubota’s minimal English and her nonexistent Japanese.

O
nce on the train, she opened her laptop and reviewed all her emails from Kubota, each one patiently translated by Yusuke.

He has been fired by the Takai Kozan Museum with no rational reason. Why? he wonders. He assumes his research on Oei’s contribution to Hokusai is regarded as irrelevant and even disturbing to their business and smearing the fame of Hokusai. The fear is that Hokusai’s credibility will be lessened if Kubota’s work becomes reputable. Certain Hokusai researchers shun him, while others—not so business-oriented—encourage his findings.

She had not paid proper attention to this at the time.

Kubota recommends you visit the Japan Ukiyo-e Museum in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, where the executive director, Sakai Nobuo, is his friend and can speak English well.

At Matsumoto station she had sixty seconds to exit the train. She lined up at the door ahead of time, loaded with her various burdens and with her Japan Rail pass open in her hand; she needed it to get past the barrier.

The door opened. Several people in front of her dismounted, then she humped Don Kihote over the threshold. On the platform she stopped to adjust her various straps. Women with pails and mops entered the car. She took a few steps. She saw, across two sets of tracks, Kubota-san waiting.

And then she felt a certain lightness. Something was missing; a phantom hung alongside her body. What was it?

She had left something behind. Her heart stopped.

But nothing else did. She watched as the car underwent a sixty-second strip-down and wash, disgorged the cleaning women out the front, and pulled away.

“I left something on that train car,” she said to the air. Futile! She knew what it was. It was the white bag containing Kubota’s work. The evidence.

As the train windows slid by she looked at the patterned upholstery and tried to memorize it, as if she might be asked to identify it in a lineup.

The end of the train fishtailed out of the station.

T
here is a picture of Rebecca standing beside the moat of Matsumoto Castle. It is a beautiful blue-sky day, and the water reflects perfectly the many tiers of black stone that rise behind her and the rows of pinkly blossoming cherry trees.

She wears her green jacket and her hiking boots. The blue knapsack and the laptop are at her feet. She smiles calmly. Kubota-san smiles too, in the matching picture that she took of him: long-suffering, lending his image to this ancient place. Kubota-san and she are playing tourist. They are trying to enjoy this sightseeing, but they are in shock.

The white bag was gone. Kubota had spoken to the trainmaster, identifying Rebecca as an important foreign personage. The trainmaster had nodded sagely and written many notes. Kubota-san too had written a note, in columns of finely inked characters, explaining that the white bag was left on the seat of the car that came from Obuse. They had checked Rebecca into the Buena Vista Hotel, and Kubota had given this note to the desk clerk, who examined it with the utmost seriousness and nodded many times.

“When the white bag is found, he will telephone to your room,” explained Kubota-san with aching countenance. They could do no more.

Matsumoto Castle was gorgeous. It also had very steep stairways designed to deter invaders. They climbed to the fifth floor, she with her knapsack, laptop, and camera. Terrific workout. They looked over the city and towards the mountains in the distance. And then they climbed down.

D
escendants of the characters in her research continued to make appearances on Rebecca’s itinerary: first Koyama-san of Juhachi-ya and the miso factory, and now Sakai-san, descendent of Sakai Yoshiaki, the samurai who came up the road to visit Takai Kozan. The reverse fantasy feeling that had begun in Obuse continued. She had imagined this, and now she visited it.

The first Sakai was a businessman in Matsumoto in the
1790
s. His wealth is remembered in numbers of warehouses: he had twelve of them behind his store. Hokusai, Hiroshige, and other artists travelled the mountain footways and turned up here. Sakai hosted them. Hiroshige drew his portrait. Sakai began collecting ukiyo-e prints. His collecting habit led the family to establish a shop in Edo, just outside the Shogun’s palace.

The collection grew and the shop continued, becoming the occupation of the first-born male of each generation through the twentieth century. Then, because Tokyo was prey to earthquakes, fires, and bombings, the owners moved the collection into the mountains to keep it safe. It was still there, in a private museum holding one hundred thousand ukiyo-e, the largest collection in the world. This Sakai-san was the eleventh generation. He asked her to call him Gankow.

He was an outgoing man with large teeth, animated and full of enthusiasm. He ushered them down corridors and behind locked doors into his small, book-filled office. She understood that Gankow was here to confirm the things that Kubota had told her, because he spoke English.

She started out with the easy stuff. What about Oei’s divorce?

“Hokusai educated her not for housekeeping, so she could not do anything. She divorced her husband when she was around thirty.”

What about her work with Eisen? Does he agree with the theory that Oei and Eisen created shunga together?

On this, Sakai was emphatic. “Yes. I’ve seen the secret signature.”

What happened to Oei after Hokusai died?

“The last proof that she was alive was the purchase by Takai Kozan in
1853
of her painting Chrysanthemums. You’ve seen that. Also the letter describing her technique for mixing colour. She alludes too to another possible commission for which she is sending drawings. So it is clear that someone had contact with Oei from Obuse to Edo, and that Oei taught by correspondence her student in Obuse—then nothing.”