you'd soon get much better. Ever present in his dreams was the wish to improve the wretched lives of his other and Otsumi. The one person he gave no thought to at all was Chikuami.
As he approached the castle town, his mind was dazzled by his usual daydreams, Someday… someday… but how? was his only thought as he walked along.
'Fool!'
On his way across a busy crossroads, he abruptly found himself in the center of a noisy mob. He had run his cart into a mounted samurai, followed by ten retainers carrying spears and leading a horse. Straw-wrapped bowls and plates fell all over the road, breaking into pieces. Hiyoshi tottered uncertainly among the wreckage.
'Are you blind?'
'You idiot!'
While scolding Hiyoshi, the attendants trampled on the broken dishes. Not a single passerby drew near to offer him help. He collected the broken pieces, tossed them into the handcart, and began pushing again, his blood boiling in indignation for having been treated this way in public. And within his childish fantasies, he struck a serious note: How will I ever be able to make people like that prostrate themselves in front of me?
A little later, he thought of the scolding he would get when he got back to his master’s house, and the cold look on Ofuku's face loomed large in his imagination. His great fantasy, like a soaring phoenix, vanished in a host of worries, as if he had been swallowed up in a cloud of poppy seeds.
Night had fallen. Hiyoshi had put the handcart away in the shed and was washing his feet by the well. Sutejiro's establishment, which was called the Pottery Mansion, was like the residence of a great provincial warrior clan. The imposing main house was linked to any outbuildings, and rows of warehouses stood nearby.
'Little Monkey! Little Monkey!'
As Ofuku drew near, Hiyoshi got up.
'Yeah?'
Ofuku struck Hiyoshi's shoulder with the thin bamboo cane he always carried when looking around the employees' quarters or giving orders to the warehouse workers. This was not the first time he had struck Hiyoshi. Hiyoshi stumbled, and was immediately covered with mud again.
'When addressing the master, do you say 'yeah'? No matter how many times I tell you, your manners don't improve. This is not a farmer's house!'
Hiyoshi made no reply.
'Why don't you say something? Don't you understand? Say 'yes, sir.''
Afraid of being hit again, Hiyoshi said, 'Yes, sir.'
'When did you get back from Kiyosu?'
'Just now.'
'You're lying. I asked the people in the kitchen, and they told me you'd already eaten.”
'I felt dizzy. I was afraid I was going to faint.'
'Why?'
'Because I was hungry after walking all that way.'
'Hungry! When you got back, why didn't you go to the master to make your report right away?'
'I was going to, after washing my feet.'
'Excuses, excuses! From what the kitchen workers told me, a lot of the pottery you were supposed to deliver in Kiyosu was broken on the way. Is it true?'
'Yes.'
'I suppose you felt it was all right not to apologize to me directly. You thought you'd make up some kind of lie, make a joke of it, or ask the kitchen workers to cover for you! This time I'm not going to put up with it.' Ofuku grabbed Hiyoshi's ear and pulled. 'Well, come on. Speak up.' »
I’m sorry.
'This is getting to be a habit. We're going to get to the bottom of this. Come along we'll talk to my father.'
'Please forgive me.' Hiyoshi's voice sounded just like the cry of a monkey.
Ofuku did not loosen his grip. He started to go around the house. The path that led from the warehouse to the garden entrance of the house was screened by a thicket of tall Chinese bamboos.
Suddenly, Hiyoshi stopped in his tracks. 'Listen,' he said, glaring at Ofuku and knocking away his hand, 'I've got something to tell you.'
'What are you up to now? I'm the master here, remember?' Ofuku said, turning pale and beginning to tremble.
'That's why I'm always obedient, but there's something I want to say to you. Ofuku, have you forgotten our childhood days? You and I were friends, weren't we?'
'That belongs to the past.'
'All right, it belongs to the past, but you shouldn't forget it. When they teased you and called you 'the Chinese kid,' do you remember who always stuck up for you?'
'I remember.'
'Don't you think you owe me something?' Hiyoshi asked, scowling. He was much smaller than Ofuku, but he had such an air of dignity about him that it was impossible to ell who was the elder. 'The other workers are all talking, too,' Hiyoshi went on. 'They say the master is good, but the young master is conceited and hasn't got a heart. A boy like you, who's never known poverty or hardship, should try working in someone else's house. If you bully me and the other employees again, I don't know what I'll do. But remember that I have a relative who's a
'Master Ofuku!'
'Master Ofuku! Where's Master Ofuku?'
The servants from the main house had been searching for Ofuku for some time. Ofuku, held prisoner by Hiyoshi's stare, had lost the courage to answer them.
'They're calling you,' Hiyoshi muttered. And he added, making it sound like an order, 'You can go now, but don't forget what I told you.' With this parting remark, he turned away and walked toward the back entrance to the house. Later, his heart beating wildly, he wondered if they were going to punish him. But nothing happened. The incident was forgotten.
The year drew to a close. Among farmers and townspeople, a boy turning fifteen usually had a coming- of-age ceremony. In Hiyoshi's case, there was no one to give him a single ceremonial fan, much less a feast. Since it was New Year's, he sat on the corner of a wooden platform with the other servants, sniffling and eating millet cakes cooked with vegetables—a rare treat.
He wondered grimly, Are my mother and Otsumi eating millet cakes this New Year's? Although they were millet farmers, he could recall many a New Year's when there had jeen no cakes to eat. The other men around him were grumbling.
'Tonight the master will have visitors, so we'll have to sit up straight and listen to his stories again.'
'I'll have to pretend to have a stomachache and stay in bed.'
'I hate that. Especially at New Year's.'
There were similar occasions two or three times a year, at the New Year and at the festival of the god of wealth. Whatever the pretext, Sutejiro invited a great many guests: the potters of Seto, the families of favored customers in Nagoya and Kiyosu, members of samurai clans, even the acquaintances of relatives. From that evening on, there would be a horrendous crush of people.
Today, Sutejiro was in an especially good mood. Bowing low, he welcomed his guests in person, apologizing for having neglected them that past year. In the tearoom, which was decorated with one exquisite, carefully chosen flower, Sutejiro's beautiful wife served tea to her guests. The utensils she used were all rare and precious.
It was Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa who, late in the previous century, had first practiced the tea ceremony as an aesthetic exercise. It had spread to the common people, and before long, without anyone consciously realizing it, tea had become a central part of people's daily lives. Within the confines of the narrow little tearoom
