The Scent of Sake (13 page)

One morning soon after the funeral Rie knelt at the Butsudan altar to light incense and to offer rice before the tablets of her mother and ancestors. Her father entered the room, she could sense without turning. She placed an incense stick in the powdery ash, lit it, bowed and clapped her hands to attract the attention of the gods.

“
Ah,
Rie,” her father said behind her when she had finished.

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“It’s so important to keep our communication with the ancestors, the Buddhas, just as we see to the continuity of the house with our heirs. And Rie, your mother was fond of plum wine. Why don’t you serve her a cup each morning with the rice? She’ll be pleased.”

“Yes, Father, I’ll do that.” She glanced at the new tablet on which her mother’s posthumous name was inscribed. A fresh stab of grief overtook her.

“I was gratified that all the major brewers sent family members to attend the funeral. It shows our standing here. You know you need to keep a record of the donation each house made. Then we can return the same amount, with interest, when they have their funerals. Mother always kept strict records.”

Rie took a deep breath. “Yes, Father, I have them now. Don’t worry.” Rie took a rice paper pamphlet from a small wooden cabinet near the Butsudan and pushed it toward her father, seated next to her. “I’ve entered all the donations.”

“Very good, Rie. And the kurabito too. Mother was always so attentive to their needs. This will be your responsibility from now on.”

“I know, Father, that’s why they have been content here and come back year after year from Tamba. I’ll take care of them.”

Kinzaemon pushed his bushy hair off his forehead and nodded. Rie sat at the Butsudan long after her father left the room. Now the enormity of the obligation resting on her shoulders made her catch her breath: the on to her father and nine generations of ancestors, and the burden of the important business of the Omura House, one of the largest in the most ancient and respected industry in all Japan. Soon her father would retire, and the entire responsibility would rest with her. The reality of Yoshitaro, the new heir and the bloodline of the geisha, in the main house sent a wave of agony through her. He was a reminder of

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everyone she had failed. In the tragedy of her mother’s death, she had temporarily forgotten about him. Although her father had been understanding about bringing the child into the house, she could see in his eyes that he had hoped for a child of his own blood. She buried her face in her hands. The time had come to turn her attention now to this intolerable situation.

Rie opened the wooden shutters and looked out at the garden from her upper-story room early one morning. The wintry landscape, in the garden and compound, out on the streets, wherever she looked, was defined by a narrow spectrum of color from brown to gray. In the house she insisted that flowers in red and yellow be displayed to counter the gray monotony that had taken hold since her mother’s death. She still hoped for a child, but as the months passed, she had given up on the idea that she would ever have one with Jihei. There must be another way, but how? The glimmer of an idea rose inside her. Something unthinkable. So unthinkable she put it from her mind immediately.

She reluctantly admitted that she was beginning to enjoy the bursts of vibrant energy from Yoshitaro to enliven the somber atmosphere of winter that came with this period of mourning. She regretted that as a married woman she was required to appear in black at weddings and funerals, generally her only occasions

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beyond the brewery. In the house she wore kimonos of indigo-dyed kasuri fabrics.

When she opened the wooden shutters of her room in the morning and looked at the garden, she watched for the plum blossoms that heralded the beginning of February, and the pink and fuchsia azaleas, harbingers of early spring and the end of the brewing season, precursors of the cherry blossoms. In muggy summertime, the cicadas competed in a buzzing humming chorus that increased in volume with the temperature. In autumn, yellow chrysanthemums reminded her that the brewing season was beginning again. The life of the garden thus marked the seasons of Rie’s days following her mother’s passing.

Of course, there would be no meeting with Saburo. Perhaps in some future time. In the meantime, just thinking of him consoled her. During the summer months after the brewing was finished, the workload in the brewery abated. The kurabito went home to their farms in Tamba, where they worked in the rice paddies. Apart from selling and shipping sake, the focus shifted to moneylending and gold-and-silver exchange. Because the Tokugawa shoguns had fallen on hard times and their economic condition was reflected in the lives of their daimyo vassals, the samurai were impoverished, forced into the grip of moneylenders. Some of them tried to eke out a living in craft occupations, making um-brellas or fans.

“The samurai are parasites, leeches on us, Father,” Rie said, unconsciously echoing her father’s sentiments. “It’s we merchants who produce the real wealth.”

“Quite right, Rie,” her father agreed. “They mouth their Confucian maxims and look down on us, but they are completely dependent on us economically.”

The House of Omura, like most merchant houses in Kobe and Osaka, benefited from the penury of the samurai class, which depended on the cash and services of the merchants.

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Every summer when the days were particularly hot and humid, the Bunraku puppet troupe came from its Osaka headquarters to perform one or two of Chikamatsu’s masterpieces for the merchant audiences of Kobe.

Rie turned to Jihei one morning. “Why don’t we take Sunao to Bunraku this Saturday? Her husband is away in Edo. I think we can spare the time, and she would enjoy it. Father would too.” Rie did not mention that she would also enjoy the outing.

“Not a bad idea,” Jihei replied. “Yes, I’d enjoy it too. We can all go.”

The Omuras had reserved seats in one of the best sections in the packed theater. Just as Rie, her father, and Sunao were following Jihei inside, he was shouldered aside by a huge figure Rie at first took to be a sumo wrestler.

“Move aside, Omura! Let me pass!”

Rie watched as Jihei struggled to catch his balance. She glanced up in time to see the fat, arrogant face of Kikuji Yamaguchi, and Jihei straightening his collar and brushing off his kimono.

“Incredible effrontery!” he said to Rie, loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. “Who does he think he is?”

“He thinks he’s the most important person in Nada,” Rie replied. “We’ll show him.” She gave Yamaguchi a withering glance. Geishas butterflied in, tittering, long-sleeved hands covering their mouths. They timed their entrance to attract the attention

of the entire audience just before the lamps were extinguished.

Rie watched Jihei out of the corner of her eye as he scanned the geisha section and settled on an individual. It must be O-Toki, Rie decided, noticing a geisha with mask-white makeup wearing an apricot kimono that blatantly displayed the nape of her neck. Perhaps that kind of makeup and dress did excite men, as intended. As she watched, the geisha turned toward them, then quickly covered her face with a fluttering fan and turned away.

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Humiliation bubbled up inside Rie at the thought that she was still barren.

The lamps were snuffed out, and the purple curtain billowed upward on Chikamatsu’s perennial favorite,
The Love Suicide at Amijima,
portraying a triangle in which the hero is caught between his duty to his family and his passion for the alluring cour-tesan. The nasal twanging of the
samisen
accompaniment helped to transport the audience to the magic world of the unfolding drama. As the play advanced toward its climax, the puppets raised their eyebrows, waved their arms, shrieked and wailed in an agony of frustration and despair.

Then came the denouement: the anguished hero committed suicide with his mistress, a lovers’ suicide. Rie could hear men clearing their throats and shifting in their seats. When the lamps were relit, she noticed tears glistening on Jihei’s cheeks, and several men around them weeping. She smiled ruefully. Chikamatsu was in truth the master playwright. He had so accurately evoked the two separate worlds of Japan, the world of the family and the world of the geisha, the water world where wives never ventured. It was obvious where the sympathies of the men in the audience lay: with the hero and the geisha, not with his wife and children who were left behind.

“What a master Chikamatsu was,” Sunao said to Rie as they rode home in a ricksha together.

“And did you notice all the men in the audience weeping?” Rie asked. “We are supposed to sympathize with the hero and the geisha, not the wife and family at home,” she added with a wry smile.

“Isn’t that the way with most of his plays,” Sunao asked rhe-torically.

Work at White Tiger continued as if the Bunraku expedition had not occurred. Kobe was home to all the largest breweries in

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Japan, and competition among them for the Edo market, key to the success of any large brewery, was fierce. Thousands of other brewers scattered throughout the countryside did not enter the Edo market but brewed wherever farmers had a rice surplus and sold locally to loyal clientele.

Rie stood eavesdropping beyond the office one morning, as she often did. “Yamaguchi tried to contract one of the cask ships we’ve been using, to monopolize the whole ship,” Kin said to Kinzaemon and Jihei. “He offered a price higher than the going rate, but the shipper was wary because of his long connection with us. The man just has no scruples.”

“Well, it’s good that we’re in time with this year’s shipment to Edo,” Jihei said.

“Especially since we contracted the two extra ships to handle expansion this year,” Kinzaemon agreed.

Kin scratched his head. “But I’d like to see our gold-and-sil-ver exchange expanded further. Always less risk that way, as Rie says.”