Authors: Sujata Massey
“Oh, please don’t say that, I’m getting embarrassed.” I paused, thinking about the meaning of his statement. “Actually, have many of his friends come before?”
“Yes, he’s sent us several friends from around the world who became customers.”
The young man opened the front door, ceremoniously standing back so that I could be the first one in. A slender woman in her sixties dressed in a simple wool sweater and skirt appeared and sank to her knees, pressing her forehead to the polished pine floor.
“Welcome to our humble studio. I am Sakurai Nobuko.” Mrs. Sakurai was smiling, causing her wrinkles to stand out in deep relief. Despite her fine clothes, I could see evidence of the years, and the environment, in her face. She looked like someone who had worked, and lived, hard.
I knew I wasn’t supposed to reciprocate as dramatically, so I just gave the deepest possible standing bow, such as a disgraced executive would make at a press conference, and murmured my name and my apologies for disturbing her. When I stood up, I saw that she’d been staring at my hair.
I pretended not to notice. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you so much. I don’t suppose that it is still possible for me to see the master?”
“Yes, yes, he’s just finishing up at the wheel. I apologize for his lateness.”
This was all very confusing to me, the fact that a Living National Treasure and his wife would be so obsequious to a stranger with some, but not much, money to spend. Maybe in Kyushu, the strong Japanese tradition of hospitality was even stronger. Or, I realized, it could boil down to simple Japanese reasoning: if the Sakurais gave excessively to me, I would have to outdo them. As I followed her into the studio, I wondered how much Mr. Harada’s other international friends—perhaps even the Birand brothers—had spent.
I’d been expecting a luxuriously appointed shop, but the studio was more akin to a Japanese home. An idealized Japanese home, of course—a room large enough for fourteen tatami mats, its expanse of grass-covered flooring broken only by a low
kotatsu
table and three
zabuton
cushions covered in Kyushu indigo cotton. The only way you could tell it was not a typical tidy reception room was that the
tokonoma
alcove held a statuesque greenish brown
ikebana
vase that in turn was holding a branch of
mikan
, to which a few tangerines elegantly clung. The shoji doors were open to the garden, which was the only source of light in the semidarkened room.
Mrs. Sakurai followed the direction of my interest. “We lost our tree in the storm.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but you’ve made a lovely, spare arrangement. Have you studied
ikebana
?” I asked.
She laughed, putting a hand over her mouth. “No, I never had that kind of time. I’ve spent my life helping the master. There has never been time for flower studies.” She paused. “Harada-san’s daughter, she will marry a flower master soon,
neh
?”
Her words confirmed my thought that the Sakurais must not have learned about Emi’s death. The remoteness of Kyushu from Tokyo—not to mention the loss of television during the electric outages—made that likely. Certainly national newspapers were available at the next town over, but there hadn’t even been a convenience store in Umeda—and who had the time to sit and read newspapers when there were pots to be shaped, a roof to be retiled, and a destroyed orange tree to be disposed of?
I fretted inwardly about how I could break it to Mrs. Sakurai about the Haradas’ tragedy. Then a sliding door in the back of the room moved and the gray-haired master entered, his shoulders slightly stooped under a thin burgundy sweater. He wore loose
gumue
trousers like those Takeo favored for gardening, and thick green socks with a split toe.
The simplicity of the potter should not mislead me, I reminded myself as I decided to go for broke and bow, on the floor, the way his wife had bowed to me. He was a Living National Treasure, so if I wasn’t humble enough, he might be offended.
“Please, there is no need,” he said gently, urging me up.
I gave my introductory greetings and offered my shopping bag, which contained the expensive chocolates.
“No, no, we cannot accept it. Please, this is too much.” This time Mrs. Sakurai spoke, but as the courteous protest sprang forward, so did her slim hands. She took the bag and laid it gently to the side.
“It’s just a few handmade chocolates from Belgium,” I said apologetically. “Really a very small thing. I’m not sure if you like sweets.”
“Oh, Belgian chocolate is very delicious. Thank you. Tell me, you must be very tired from your travel. The train takes all day,
neh
! How about some tea to restore you?”
“I flew,” I said. “I took the train only from Fukuoka. I’m not tired at all. On the contrary, I’m so excited to see your great works.”
“I’m terribly sorry, but there is not much here at the present moment,” Mr. Sakurai said, sliding open the doors of a long cabinet set against a wall. I remembered doing the same thing at Takeo’s country house, where the cabinet was neatly organized with boxed-up pottery. In the Sakurais’ cabinet, extra shelves had been set in, to hold a copious amount of ceramics, all unboxed and arranged for display. Overhead were spotlights illuminating the ceramic treasures in gentle hues of green, brown, and black. Now I knew why Mrs. Sakurai had kept the room dark—to give the pottery, which itself was on the dark side, an almost magical glow, once the cupboard was opened.
No price tags, I thought, as my gaze ran over the breathtakingly simple plates, teacups, bowls, and vases. I saw the snake from the garden reincarnated in a
choka
or spouted sake ewer, which had an applied clay pattern of a snake curling up the side that formed a handle. It was too big for me to take home, let alone afford, but I thought I’d ask him about it.
“That we call
haritsuke
,” he said. “It’s an old method that had almost vanished from use among today’s potters.”
I knew from my own studies that
haritsuke
was a technique popular from the 1700s through the mid-nineteenth century, but I asked a question about its age so that I could lead into my next query. “So, what do you think about this controversy that the earliest potters in Kyushu were not Japanese at all?”
“Well, of course the Koreans were brought here from the 1600s onward,” he said. “But there are some of us who were here much earlier. It’s not a legend, but reality.”
“That makes sense. I heard there is more in common with Middle Eastern pottery than Asian,” I said. “That
haritsuke
technique—I feel as if I’ve seen examples of similar work in ancient Near Eastern pottery.”
He nodded, smiling. “You’re right. And I recently had the opportunity to explore more ways to work with
haritsuke.
If you’re interested, I can show you some smaller examples for sale.”
He disappeared from the room and came back with a box, which he set on the table. I sat down across from him and watched him open it. There, against a padded backing of brown silk, were the chopstick rests—five little brownish gray eels upon which one could set down dining implements. I found myself looking away from them immediately, and forced myself to concentrate. What was my problem? I realized that because these eels were so small, they were closer to looking like worms. Five hundred dollars for wormy chopstick rests; I tried not to recoil.
“How charming,” I said, then wanted to bite my tongue for using a word they might find patronizing. It felt so odd to me to play the role of a dressed-up person with money; I was always on the other side. “I would like to buy something a bit larger, if it’s possible. Your wife had mentioned teacups.”
“Yes, I think we still have the set of cups. I’m slow.” He gave a slight, self-deprecating smile. “You know, it takes about a full week for me to make a set. That’s why there isn’t much for sale. But I do have these.”
The next box he opened held five cups, all of the lovely, brownish green color that came from skipping the bisque stage before the pot was fired in a wood-burning kiln. It was another historic method come back to life in Sakurai-san’s weathered, skilled palms.
“Please hold them, if you like,” he urged, and I put a hand out toward the box, silently praying that I wouldn’t do anything as stupid as dropping a thousand-dollar teacup on the polished
keyaki
wood table. The feeling, in my hand, was good—oddly familiar, though. I studied the almost invisible whorls on the piece, thinking. Then I turned the cup over and saw the little indentation I’d seen on his bowl at the Haradas’ home, and on the ibex ewer.
“You must hold them all. See what you think, please.”
He wanted me to buy them, I thought as I put the first cup down and picked up the second. Now I knew he was complicit in Mr. Harada’s deception. What to do?
I glanced away from the cups and saw that Mrs. Sakurai had come back holding an earthenware teapot and teacups similar to the one I was holding.
“I’m sorry. Shall I wait to serve the tea?” Her voice was apologetic.
“Please, I wish you hadn’t gone to the trouble for me,” I said. Secretly, I was glad to see her. I needed a break before I committed myself to spending thousands of dollars, and I also thought it would be advantageous to ask my questions before the deal was closed.
“She’s very tired from travel. Of course she will drink tea,” the master said. “Why did you take so long to prepare the tea?”
“So, please tell us the news of Harada-san and his family,” Mrs. Sakurai said.
I couldn’t keep going any longer. In a low voice, I said, “I apologize for the sad news I must bring you. Last week, his daughter passed away.”
“Oh, dear,” Mr. Sakurai said softly. He dropped his head for a minute, as if praying. Then he looked up at me again. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Please tell us about the situation.”
“It seems impossible. She was such a young girl, about to become a bride—” Mrs. Sakurai choked and set down, on the tray, the cup of tea she’d been pouring for her husband.
“So you met her, then?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. Her whole family came last spring to see about having the groom’s gift made,” Mrs. Sakurai said. “Emi-san was such a lovely young girl, so slim and with so much energy, yet complete refinement—just what you’d expect from an ambassador’s daughter. If I may be so bold to ask…what happened?”
“She was in a car accident,” I said. “The street signals were out because of the typhoon.”
“A car accident,” Sakurai said, his voice heavy. “Life can be taken away, just like that. Having children ourselves, we can imagine her parents’ grief.”
“They drove to see us that last time, remember?” Mrs. Sakurai said. “Emi-san was their only child. I remember Harada-san’s wife saying that she wasn’t sure she was ready to let her daughter go. I told her that she would be young enough to enjoy her grandchildren. I shouldn’t have tempted fate with my words.”
“I’m sure you didn’t do that. I am truly sorry to have brought you such bad news,” I said.
“No, please don’t worry. You came here for other reasons, happier reasons, and we asked you about Harada-san. We are distracting you with our grief! I apologize.” Mrs. Sakurai bowed her head.
No, I thought with a mixture of chagrin and hardness, they were not distracting me. They were clearing the way for me to ask what I needed to ask. “You mentioned that they commissioned a groom’s gift. Was it a set of cups similar to these?” Ever since I’d seen the cups, I’d had a suspicion they were an order for someone that hadn’t come to fruition.
“No, it was something not so Japanese,” Mr. Sakurai said. “A kind of
choka
using the
haritsuke
technique I mentioned.”
“A
choka
?” I repeated. He had used a word for a spouted vessel for liquid, such as a ewer.
“Yes, a
choka
.” Mr. Sakurai shook his head sorrowfully. “I completed it in the spring, in time for the engagement ceremony.”
“I wonder if I’ve seen it,” I said carefully. “Does it resemble a goat, by any chance?”
“Why, yes.” Mr. Sakurai looked surprised, but nodded. “I didn’t know anyone would recognize it as my work, because Harada-san was quite specific about my following the model of an existing ancient piece. I don’t usually do that kind of thing, but, well, he is a very special customer.”
“I think I saw it in a magazine,” I said.
Special customer
might mean that Mr. Sakurai would call Mr. Harada after I left, raising his suspicions. “So, ah, do you still have the original model here?”
“No. Mr. Harada took it with him when he picked up his
choka
.” Mr. Sakurai cocked his head at me, the grief he’d shown earlier replaced by a wary interest. “I wish I could show you a photograph…but Harada-san requested that I not photograph it for my artist’s record. I agreed because the piece was not an original design.”
“Speaking of original designs, I am quite enthralled by the set of cups you showed me. Are they really available for sale?” I decided to swing back into consumer mode, to allay any suspicions that might be forming.
“Of course. I mentioned them to you on the telephone.”
“I would like to buy them.” It was part of my cover—and now I had hard evidence of where Takeo’s ibex ewer had come from.
“I am honored by your choice.” Mr. Sakurai bowed his head, and so did his wife.
Feeling completely awkward when they faced me again, I said, “Will it be possible to arrange the details this afternoon?”
“Of course. Matsuda-san, are you returning home this evening?” Mrs. Sakurai inquired.
“I hadn’t anticipated finding a perfect set of cups like this, so I didn’t book a flight. And it’s quite far back to Fukuoka—I don’t think I could make a connection, even if I left now.”
“Flying is convenient,” Mrs. Sakurai said. “Harada-san usually flew to see us, but the last two visits he drove.”
He drove. Had he been worried that airport luggage inspectors would come across the ibex vessel as he brought it to Kyushu and then carried it back? Why didn’t he take the train instead? Driving seemed hard—but it might have been the method for someone who didn’t want to be noticed.
“In case I can’t catch my flight this evening, can you recommend a nice place to stay?” I asked, changing the topic.
“Oh, please stay with us. It’s very humble here, but we would be honored…”
Ordinarily, I’d have delighted in the opportunity to spend a night under the same roof as a master potter and his wife, but not tonight. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing you. I wonder if you know where Harada-san liked to stay, while he was in the area…”
“I really don’t know. The last time he was headed for his country house, wasn’t he?” Mrs. Sakurai turned to her husband with a questioning look.
His country house. Something Ramzi had said came back to me. Emi had promised him that they’d have time together at the country house after her marriage. I’d thought it was Takeo’s place, but maybe it was somewhere completely different.
Mr. Sakurai broke into my thoughts. “So, how did you say you knew Harada-san? Is it because of your husband, or…”
Husband? I wore no ring. Was it the fact that they thought no woman my age would still be single? I would have to go for something vague. I just said, “That’s right.”
“Ah, another diplomatic couple. I noticed your accent was different, and you have that special hairstyle. You must have been to so many interesting countries!” Mrs. Sakurai smiled at me.
“Matsuda-san, forgive me, but I must return to the wheel in my pottery.” Mr. Sakurai stood up. “My wife can help you with the necessary details for the teacups. I hope you enjoy the efforts of my poor labor.”
I bowed and murmured my thanks, wondering how the payment process should go. As Mrs. Sakurai carefully wrapped the box containing the cups in three layers of handmade
washi
paper, I realized that the rectangular plate next to the wrapping table was where I should lay my payment. I laid down the equivalent of $6,000, allowing for the tax. After she finished the wrapping, she excused herself, taking the tray into the next room. She came back with some change and a receipt, which I slid into my wallet with some relief. A thousand dollars for a teacup—I almost felt that I was getting a bargain.