Shogun

he spooned up exactly the right amount of green powder and put it into the handleless porcelain cup. An ancient cast-iron kettle was singing over the charcoal. With the same tranquil grace Buntaro poured the bubbling water into the cup, replaced the kettle on its tripod, then gently beat the powder and water with the bamboo whisk to blend it perfectly.

He added a spoonful of cool water, bowed to Mariko, who knelt opposite him, and offered the cup. She bowed and took it with equal refinement, admiring the green liquid, and sipped three times, rested, then sipped again, finishing it. She offered the cup back. He repeated the symmetry of the formal cha-making and again offered it. She begged him to taste the cha himself, as was expected of her. He sipped, and then again, and finished it. Then he made a third cup and a fourth. More was politely refused.

With great care, ritually he washed and dried the cup, using the peerless cotton cloth, and laid both in their places. He bowed to her and she to him. The cha-no-yu was finished.

Buntaro was content that he had done his best and that now, at least for the moment, there was peace between them. This afternoon there had been none.

He had met her palanquin. At once, as always, he had felt coarse and uncouth in contrast to her fragile perfection—like one of the wild, despised, barbaric Hairy Ainu tribesmen that once inhabited the land but were now driven to the far north, across the straits, to the unexplored island of Hokkaido. All of his well-thought-out words had left him and he clumsily invited her to the cha-no-yu, adding, “It’s years since we .?.?. I’ve never given one for you but tonight will be convenient.” Then he had blurted out, never meaning to say it, knowing that it was stupid, inelegant, and a vast mistake, “Lord Toranaga said it was time for us to talk.”

“But you do not, Sire?”

In spite of his resolve he flushed and his voice rasped, “I’d like harmony between us, yes, and more. I’ve never changed, neh?”

“Of course, Sire, and why should you? If there’s any fault it’s not your place to change but mine. If any fault exists, it’s because of me, please excuse me.”

“I’ll excuse you,” he said, towering over her there beside the palanquin, deeply conscious that others were watching, the Anjin-san and Omi among them. She was so lovely and tiny and unique, her hair piled high, her lowered eyes seemingly so demure, yet for him filled now with that same black ice that always sent him into a blind, impotent frenzy, making him want to kill and shout and mutilate and smash and behave the way a samurai never should behave.

“I’ve reserved the cha house for tonight,” he told her. “For tonight, after the evening meal. We’re ordered to eat the evening meal with Lord Toranaga. I would be honored if you would be my guest afterwards.”

“It’s I who am honored.” She bowed and waited with the same lowered eyes and he wanted to smash her to death into the ground, then go off and plunge his knife crisscross into his belly and let the eternal pain cleanse the torment from his soul.

He saw her look up at him discerningly.

“Was there anything else, Sire?” she asked, so softly.

The sweat was running down his back and thighs, staining his kimono, his chest hurting like his head. “You’re—you’re staying at the inn tonight.” Then he had left her and made careful dispositions for the whole baggage train. As soon as he could, he had handed his duties over to Naga and strode off with a pretended truculence down the river bank, and when he was alone, he had plunged naked into the torrent, careless of his safety, and fought the river until his head had cleared and the pounding ache had gone.

He had lain on the bank collecting himself. Now that she had accepted he had to begin. There was little time. He summoned his strength and walked back to the rough garden gate that was within the mother garden and stood there for a moment rethinking his plan. Tonight he wanted everything to be perfect. Obviously the hut was imperfect, like its garden—an uncouth provincial attempt at a real cha house. Never mind, he thought, now completely absorbed in his task, it will have to do. Night will hide many faults and lights will have to create the form it lacks.

Servants had already brought the things he had ordered earlier—tatamis, pottery oil lamps, and cleaning utensils—the very best in Yokose, everything brand-new but modest, discreet and unpretentious.

He stripped off his kimono, laid down his swords, and began to clean. First the tiny reception room and kitchen and veranda. Then the winding path and the flagstones that were let into the moss, and finally the rocks and skirting garden. He scrubbed and broomed and brushed until everything was spotless, letting himself swoop into the humility of manual labor that was the beginning of the cha-no-yu, where the host alone was required to make everything faultless. The first perfection was absolute cleanliness.

By dusk he had finished most of the preparations. Then he had bathed meticulously, endured the evening meal, and the singing. As soon as he could he had changed again into more somber clothes and hurried back to the garden. He latched the gate. First he put the taper to the oil lamps. Then, carefully, he sprinkled water on the flagstones and the trees that were now splashed here and there with flickering light, until the tiny garden was a fairyland of dewdrops dancing in the warmth of the summer’s breeze. He repositioned some of the lanterns. Finally satisfied, he unlatched the gate and went to the vestibule. The carefully selected pieces of charcoal that had been placed punctiliously in a pyramid on white sand were burning correctly. The flowers seemed correct in the tokonoma. Once more he cleaned the already impeccable utensils. The kettle began to sing and he was pleased with the sound that was enriched by the little pieces of iron he had placed so diligently in the bottom.

All was ready. The first perfection of the cha-no-yu was cleanliness, the second, complete simplicity. The last and greatest, suitability to the particular guest or guests.

He heard her footsteps on the flagstones, the sound of her dipping her hands ritually in the cistern of fresh river water and drying them. Three soft steps up to the veranda. Two more to the curtained doorway. Even she had to bend to come through the tiny door that was made deliberately small to humble everyone. At a cha-no-yu all were equal, host and guest, the most high daimyo and merest samurai. Even a peasant if he was invited.

First she studied her husband’s flower arrangement. He had chosen the blossom of a single white wild rose and put a single pearl of water on the green leaf, and set it on red stones. Autumn is coming, he was suggesting with the flower, talking through the flower, do not weep for the time of fall, the time of dying when the earth begins to sleep; enjoy the time of beginning again and experience the glorious cool of the autumn air on this summer evening .?.?. soon the tear will vanish and the rose, only the stones will remain—soon you and I will vanish and only the stones will remain.

He watched her, apart from himself, now deep in the near trance that a cha-master sometimes was fortunate enough to experience, completely in harmony with his surroundings. She bowed to the flower in homage and came and knelt opposite him. Her kimono was dark brown, a thread of burnt gold at the seams enhancing the white column of her throat and face; her obi the darkest of greens that matched the underkimono; her hair simple and upswept and unadorned.

“You are welcome,” he said with a bow, beginning the ritual.

“It is my honor,” she replied, accepting her role.

He served the tiny repast on a blemishless lacquered tray, the chopsticks placed just so, the slivers of fish on rice that he had prepared a part of the pattern, and to complete the effect, a few wild flowers that he had found near the river bank scattered in perfect disarray. When she had finished eating and he, in his turn, had finished eating, he lifted the tray, every movement formalized—to be observed and judged and recorded—and took it through the low doorway into the kitchen.

Then alone, at rest, Mariko watched the fire critically, the coals a glowing mountain on a sea of stark white sand below the tripod, her ears listening to the hissing sound of the fire melding with the sighing of the barely simmering kettle above, and, from the unseen kitchen, the sibilance of cloth on porcelain and water cleaning the already clean. In time her eyes wandered to the raw twisted rafters and to the bamboos and the reeds that formed the thatch. The shadows cast by the few lamps he had placed seemingly at random made the small large and the insignificant rare, and the whole a perfect harmony. After she had seen everything and measured her soul against it, she went again into the garden, to the shallow basin that, over eons, nature had formed in the rock. Once more she purified her hands and mouth with the cool, fresh water, drying them on a new towel.

When she had settled back into her place he said, “Perhaps now you would take cha?”

“It would be my honor. But please do not put yourself to so much trouble on my account.”