The Scent of Sake (2 page)

hung in the air. She had always played near the door and the barrels as a child. As a little girl, she had waited, terrified, for the news that the sake had soured. It never had. Now that she was grown, now that she had her own secret opinions of what women could accomplish, she made it her duty to wash the barrels, a task she took on when she knew her father was not looking. As atonement.

This time he caught her. “Rie! Haven’t I warned you to stay away from the brewery door? It’s too dangerous to be so close to the
kura,
brewing building, and washing barrels is not your responsibility.”

Rie looked up to see her father looming over her, frowning, hands thrust into the sleeves of the indigo work kimono he always wore. His white chicken-feather eyebrows were dusted with frost and seemed to stand erect in anger.

Understand me
, she longed to say.
See me as doing my best for you and the house.
But she couldn’t say it.

Rie stood and bowed, looking down at her feet. Her father, Kinzaemon IX, head of the House of Omura, was the one person in the world she most wanted to please. He represented all nine generations of the ancestors, a long line to which both he and now Rie owed
on
, the obligation that could never be repaid but toward which one must strive throughout one’s life.

At first when her brother had died, so had all her father’s hopes and dreams. But after weeks of grieving, he had uttered the portentous words that would change her life: “So now, Rie, the future of the Omura House rests with you. You alone are the one who will maintain the honor and prosperity of the house. Remember, this is a heavy responsibility.”

Everyone knew that sake brewing was a man’s world, and Kinzaemon could have brought a geisha’s son into the house. But with the Kansai
chonin,
the merchants, they often preferred to adopt a husband for a daughter, an adult clerk who had proven

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his mettle and would be an asset to the family business. It was common practice among brewers, a good business strategy.

And she had felt it, felt the weight of the generations fall upon her, the hope her father had bestowed upon her. She could not bear his sad eyes or the way her mother got busy every time she neared so as not to let on that she had been crying. Rie had promised herself then that she would take this loss from their shoulders, this burden, and carry it as her own.

Now, as she washed the barrels, she pictured her little brother Toichi’s large brown eyes, his sweet face. She should have been watching him closer, her father’s only son. He had been her responsibility, and now he was gone. Her guilt was a burden she would bear the rest of her life, the result of her own carelessness and disregard of her responsibility to the house. As she finished scrubbing the last of the barrels all she got was blue-cold hands and a scolding from her father. “Yes, Father. But I do not want to leave this job to others. It’s too important. And I’m not so near the door.” She glanced up briefly, and looked down again.

“Get back to the kitchen!” Kinzaemon bellowed.

Rie was careful not to let her anger and disappointment show. She bowed, dropped the brush, and ran toward the door leading through the earthen corridor to the rooms of the house. The kitchen. That was the place of women. How unreasonable of her father to expect her to be only a confined “girl in a box.”

Now she was the first and only child. The samurai knew what to do about barren wives who had only daughters. A mistress could always be found to provide an heir for the house. Still, the Kansai merchant houses found daughters useful. The midwives liked to announce with the birth of a daughter: “It’s a girl, so the house will prosper.” With a son you really had a gamble, true enough. You had to take what you got, and that could be a bright boy or a dull one. Her baby brother Toichi had been bright. Still, with a daughter, intelligent or not, you had a range of choices for

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an adopted husband for her. And for an important house like the Omuras, there were plenty of prospects, excellent ones.

With Toichi gone, it was imperative that Rie take an interest in the business, this she knew, to learn as much as she could from her imperious father and chief clerk, Kin. “Knowing about the brewery will help your husband in the future, the house. I want our brewery to be number one,” her father had always said.

And so, as Rie glided rapidly along the pounded earthen corridor to the polished platform hallway and rooms of the house, she determined to fulfill her father’s wish. As penance. But how, she wondered as she ran her hand along the dark brown woodwork that gleamed in the faint, frozen morning light? She turned and ran her hand along the sturdy aged cypress pillar that supported the house, the House of Omura, the house whose head she had so far disappointed. At nineteen, her arms could barely reach to embrace this post that had supported the house for nine generations. She walked more slowly to the kitchen door.

“Oh, there you are,” said a smiling plump maid whose apple cheeks bespoke her country origins. O-Natsu held out a cup of tea to warm Rie’s hands. “O-Josama,” O-Natsu said, using the title reserved for the younger woman of the house, “your mother wants to see you. She is in her room waiting.” She bowed again. “Thank you, O-Natsu.” Rie sipped tea and held the cup in both hands for a moment to warm them. She handed the cup back to O-Natsu, adjusted her scarf and apron, and walked along the chilly corridor and up the steep slippery wooden stairs to her

mother’s second-floor room.

“I have returned,” she announced, kneeling outside the door. “Come in,” her mother’s soft voice greeted her.

The strength concealed beneath Hana’s voice was a source of wonder to Rie. She opened the sliding screen with both hands, bowed, and glanced at her mother’s refined face, a face that did

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not reveal the manifold concerns behind it. A brewer’s wife was responsible for the food, housing, clothing, health, and well-being of all the brewery workers. Rie entered the room on her knees and moved toward the hibachi to warm her hands. She looked down at her chapped red fingers and held them over the glowing coals, rubbing gently.

Her mother was sitting opposite Rie, her back to the paulownia dressing cabinet, sewing together sections of a kimono that had been taken apart for laundering. Her mother’s room was a large eight-tatami room with a two-tatami dressing room adjacent. It was sparsely furnished according to Japanese sensibil-ity: a low lacquerware table, the hibachi, the paulownia dressing cabinet, and
zabuton
completed the appointments. “Where have you been, Rie? Out in front of the kura again?”

Rie hesitated, bowing slightly. “Yes, Mother. I was washing barrels.” She moved her back and wet feet closer to the warm coals and reached to pour tea for her mother and herself.

“You know, Rie, your father doesn’t like you there. And so close to the kura. I’ve always felt we shouldn’t be anywhere near the kura door. You know how great the danger of pollution is.”

Hana snipped a thread and looked at her work critically. She had tried to show Rie the lock stitch, but Rie could not sew stitches as fine as her mother’s and always felt awkward and inadequate when faced with a sewing task.

Rie put down her cup and poked at the hibachi coals with long metal chopsticks. “I know, Mother. But I’m not really so near the door. I must work there in order to wash the barrels. That’s where the
kurabito
leave them when they’re finished. And that’s where the well is.” She cringed, remembering the well. If she’d been closer that day, little Toichi wouldn’t have fallen in. Rie was eight at the time, and Toichi had only been walking a few months. How was she to guess that he could have pulled

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himself up, fallen in. Gooseflesh crawled up her arms as she remembered. “I can’t move the barrels, you know. And Toji-san has never complained.”

“No, I don’t suppose he would. He has always been so fond of you. He even let you play in the barrels as a little girl. He knows he can count on you to continue the traditions of our house. But you know the Ikedas lost their whole cellar last year when the sake went sour. And you must listen to Father. You must obey him.”

Warmth crept up Rie’s cheeks as she pressed her lips together and reached for a cup of tea, warming both hands and inhaling the comforting green tea fragrance.

“I know.” She put down the cup and moved her hands back to the hibachi without speaking further. She knew better.

“Have another cup of tea, Rie.” Her mother smiled ever so slightly.

Rie glanced again at her mother’s face with its patrician Kyoto nose, the distinctive downward curve that marked aristocratic women from the old capital. It was known that someone in Hana’s family had had a liaison with a Kyoto woman. Rie’s mother had inherited the woman’s best feature.

“Another thing, Rie. . . .”

Rie glanced again at her mother, and lowered her eyes. This must be why her mother had called her.

“You are close to twenty now, and it’s high time we were serious about your marriage. And we have several good candidates. Your father and I are especially interested in the Okamoto son, Jihei. He has been apprenticed to the Ohara house, so we know he has had excellent training, and the reports we hear are good.”

Jihei?

Rie looked up in alarm. She tried to remember what Jihei looked like. She knew he was one of the clerks who came on errands to the office.

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“
Ah,
I remember now,” she murmured, her heart sinking. She recalled a boy with a large nose and eyebrows that stood up straight like her father’s. Not the handsomest of clerks by any means. Not as handsome as the Kato’s third son, the son whose elegant bearing, fine chiseled features, and long fingers bespoke a certain sensitivity. On the day of Toichi’s funeral, Saburo Kato had stood before her, murmured his apologies, then had looked up at her with such intense brown eyes that she knew then he shared her wound in some way. Understood it. Since then, she had noticed him more than once.
He
would be her husband, given a choice. But no choice would be given, of course.

“We have arranged the
o-miai
meeting for early next month. The Okamotos have been approaching us, and they are serious.” Hana paused to turn a teacup around in her hand. “We don’t want to delay too long or they will get discouraged and look elsewhere. We can have the wedding before summer.”

“I see.” Rie slowly put her cup down, her hand trembling. “You know Father and I have your best interests at heart.” Rie sighed and tried to put Jihei’s face out of her mind. Luckily, his face was very forgettable. Unluckily, she knew it was the interests of the house that mattered, not her own preferences.

Hana glanced at Rie’s face before continuing. “Personal feelings have so little to do with marriage. Your father and I were fortunate. We grew fond of each other after we married. That is what you must hope for.” She paused. “We know you understand. So we’ll ask Mrs. Nakano to go ahead with the
o-miai
arrangements. We’ll choose a good fortune day in May. I’ve always liked spring weddings. Summer is too hot.”

Hana leaned forward slightly. “And you must try to be a good wife, Rie. Be compliant. Your feelings must not intrude.” Hana put down her sewing and looked at Rie’s face. “Women often find it necessary to ‘kill the self.’ Otherwise life becomes too difficult.”

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