by Givens John
Ox blossoms! The boys had laughed; and the nickname became so established that he adopted it as his poetry pseudonym, a pose of rustic simplicity indicating the innate superiority of the urban samurai aristocrat.
Ox-Blossom would have preferred to excuse himself from the task of editing the poetry group’s final compendium, but others had already begun to define Old Master Bashō’s way of linking in terms that advanced their own interests. They wanted secret teachings, a catalogue of enigmas, a codification of arcane rules and requirements, access to which would be restricted to fee payers. Schismatics had already begun campaigning for a return to the ‘profound-depth’ style of linked poetry in repudiation of the ‘lightness’ of the Old Master’s late manner, and only the prestige of the Sotobayhama name could prevent them from taking over the valedictory publication entirely.
Once he had rested, Ox-Blossom continued out through a tenth-day market that was arranged along the banks of the river. Old Master Bashō had mentioned this market in one of his travel journals, and Ox-Blossom wished to see it as if with the eyes of his teacher. Yet as he watched itinerant pedlars pick through heaps of cabbages, checking for worm damage and leaf burn and the depredations of fungal rot – aware that their own customers would do the same – whatever aesthetic value might be found in the bucolic scene eluded him. No doubt an intensified understanding was required, an appreciation of nuance that he seemed not to possess.
At the river ferry’s quay Ox-Blossom paid his copper and joined the other passengers. A young wife with a pale complexion took the seat beside him. She was well-dressed for someone living in such a rural district; and she carried a pheasant cock in a bamboo basket-cage, the bird’s long tail feathers protruding through a gap in the weave. The young wife told him her husband had snared the pheasant in the moorlands that morning. She was on her way to the retirement villa of a connoisseur who would pay two silver for the opportunity to paint a true image of it.
Is that so? A true image?
He is an artist who creates the exact likeness of what he sees placed before his eyes, and who condemns as frivolous the city painters in Edo or Miyako, with their phoenixes and dragons and venerable Chinese sages.
A painter of integrity, said Ox-Blossom.
Stew it with ginger and onions in a sweet-wine broth, called an oarsman from his perch at the fore transom; and the young wife smiled and glanced at Ox-Blossom in a way that reminded him of how whenever poor little Ohasu had become amused by something, she would check surreptitiously to see if his dignity would permit him to share it.
Being in a narrow boat on a swift river made the young wife anxious; and as they caught the current, she distracted herself by describing how she was obliged to manage two small children, a flock of ducks, an aged father-in-law, who wandered in the lanes and became confused, and a husband who, although enterprising, had a fondness for squandering his time and money in the wine shops and brothels of the provincial castle town. The ducks, in particular, were a burden to her. There’s no end to the ways they find to sicken and die, she said.
A difficulty indeed, said Ox-Blossom. He enjoyed seeing the first traces of autumn colours in the maples and rowans and lacquer bushes sliding past, the reds and yellows and oranges reminiscent of the gaudy-robes his little friend had worn, with her nape exposed and vulnerable, and the hem of her scarlet underskirt showing.
They will eat mouldy grain and collapse from bloating.
Is that so?
And rapeseed meal! How can they be so stupid as to eat something poisonous to ducks?
A difficult question indeed…
Possession of her person meant that little Ohasu could now live wherever she wished. He had wondered how she might support herself and instructed his seneschal to keep track of her once she left the pleasure quarters. Nothing too overt; he didn’t require further access himself nor wish to deny it to others – the superior man accepts the inevitable – but he was curious about her fate. He might even try writing about her.
I’d imagine you’ve heard of the tail-bobbing disease? said the young wife.
Tail bobbing?
Wheezing is another symptom.
I see, said Ox-Blossom.
Maggoty vent, too, although by then it’s too late.
Ohasu had been taught the rudiments of calligraphy, and Ox-Blossom used to enjoy the way her little pink tongue protruded between her lips as she concentrated on writing her poems. Perhaps a use might be found for her as a copyist.
And castor beans! Don’t say a word to me about castor beans!
No. But he had to say something. You raise them for their eggs then?
Eggs and feathers. Then later duck meat. The wife’s small face shone serenely, all fear of the swollen river current forgotten. I’ll get a good price in the city.
You will take them there yourself?
I will. For my husband wouldn’t make it past the first wine shop.
A difficult situation.
Difficult, yes. But she would be the one visiting the new dry goods emporiums in Edo while her husband remained behind in their village, with one snotty child tied on his back and the other stumbling along whining for a suck dummy. An obi in the new, extra-wide style will be my first purchase, said the wife, and perhaps even a silk robe like the kind they wear in the pleasure quarters.
I see.
And tortoiseshell hair ornaments, mottled yellow and brown. I know exactly the ones I want.
Indeed. And he too knew them, decorations like those his little friend had once shown him shyly; and it occurred to Ox-Blossom that perhaps this, too, was a kind of lightness, these simple correspondences, expressed without embellishment.
Ox-Blossom had always assumed that he understood Old Master Bashō’s way of linking in his late manner, but perhaps all he’d done was understand the words he had used to describe it. But now that he was able to recall with tranquility his days and nights of doubt and desire in the pleasure quarters, he detected within his reconfiguration of what had been lost an abrupt easing of the pain of separation, like the moment when, after a protracted struggle, the curved worm is at last extracted from the helical cone of the winkle shell.
And clogs with scarlet toe cords! Can you imagine?
He could; and after wishing the young wife a safe journey, Ox-Blossom set off on the road to the remote mountain villa where the final edit of the Bashō Group Compendium would be made. He hiked up through the dry heat until he reached a roadside rest shelter. Wind shifted the tops of the cedar trees although the forest floor was still. He drank from his water gourd then held it cradled in his palms, the damp surface slick as catfish skin. The idea of the sadness of the end of love was in many ways more satisfying than the girl herself had been. He drank again then got out his writing kit and sketched a prose heading:
The true image of things: a bird in a cage and a skiff on a river. What else is there but this? Unsure of my feelings, and unable to seek the advice of my little friend left behind in Edo, I devised this poor offering for her.
Then he dashed off a quick haiku, the words dropping down each out of the one before in a single, sinuous line of black ink:
Clogs with scarlet toe cords forgotten under a cherry tree; spring arrives in the barrier mountains.
It was wrong for the season – poems written in autumn should be about autumn – but it exhibited the kind of logical authenticity he found satisfying. And of course spring was particularly appropriate for the melancholy yearning felt by parted lovers.
THE CLOUD TERRACE PAVILION was a medieval villa erected high on the eastern peaks of the mountains that formed the central spine of the main island of the archipelago. It had been constructed by an eminent family whose descendants chose the wrong side during the civil war, resulting in the slaughter of their persons and the forfeiture of their estates. In the decades that followed, the Cloud Terrace had become a favourite venue for Tokugawa connoisseurs in search of the pleasures of the past. The main structure was a large hal
l with a massive roof of grey tiles. Removing the wooden sliding doors on the outside walls converted it into an open-air pavilion perched dramatically at the edge of a cliff, with an external porch thrust out over the void and supported by a trestle-work of pillars, each pier of which had been fashioned from a whole cedar tree. Attendant buildings and cottages were dispersed among the surrounding groves and crags, and covered walkways connected the complex together so that upright granite scarps and dramatically twisted pines seemed to form part of the architecture.
Aesthetes were drawn to the Cloud Terrace by its simulation of a way of life that had long since ended. The villa’s Tokugawa masters – susceptible themselves to the lure of nostalgia and the seductions of self-indulgence – ensured that no hint of modernity obtruded in any obvious way. The cushions, screen paintings, tray tables, and crockery were recent masterworks modelled on cherished originals; and the robes issued to guests were self-consciously archaic in style although newly made from fine silks and brocades, authenticity of effect being more important to the Tokugawa than actual authenticity.
Ox-Blossom was greeted by his fellow editors in the main assembly hall. You have been here for a few days then?
We have indeed. You are our only laggard.
I decided to walk, said Ox-Blossom, the simplicity of this assertion meant to suggest the true spirit of the literati artist.
We too had wished to emulate the Old Master’s habits, said the editors, but we found the convenience of palanquins difficult to resist.
The pleasure providers selected for the occasion of the final edit radiated an aura of sweet wistfulness intended to complement the furnishings. Their hair was styled in an antique manner and their eyebrows plucked out to create the broad smooth forehead of the classic Heian-era beauty. They were costumed in multiple layers of silk robes, the combinations of colours where they overlapped meant to exemplify the elegance of the old court; and they hid themselves simpering behind robe-draped screens, and veiled their faces when on outings amidst the cliffs and grottoes or even when transiting between buildings, their timidity considered charmingly erotic although this semblance of reluctance was relaxed during the long and liquid banquets that filled the afternoons and evenings at the terrace – the managing of modesty-veils during such lively celebrations judged a nuisance – and abandoned wholly during night frolics in the outdoor thermal baths, when the illusion of the disinclination felt by refined ladies to expose themselves to the gaze of the world dissolved in the unsubtle ambience of sulphurous fumes and hot water.
Stacked against the inside wall of the main pavilion building were panniers filled with hand scrolls, printed books, bound manuscripts, and bundle upon bundle of loose sheaves of poems tied together with silk cords. A few of the panniers had been opened already and their contents arranged in piles of association although this seemed premature since the criteria of assessment had not yet been determined. Ox-Blossom was prepared to defend ‘lightness’ as an ideal. He would have his supporters. But he knew that the cabal of poets who wished to return to the ‘profound-depth’ style of linked poetry would make demands requiring compromise if not outright capitulation.
The first day was spent sorting through the mass of materials. The participants broke into groups, some choosing views of the autumn sky and mountains, others preferring the ambience of gardens and grottoes. Senior Editor Ox-Blossom occupied the central position in the pavilion. Behind him in the tokonoma alcove hung an ink painting depicting their teacher’s old brush-wood gate with the plantain growing beside it. Tea was supplied throughout this initial process, and trays of little cakes made available. The pleasure providers also functioned as couriers, carrying scrolls and manuscripts between editors and scribes, their mounds of silk robes rustling seductively as they moved about the pavilion, conveying questions and comments and, upon occasion, clever witticisms which they pretended not to understand and often didn’t.
In the middle of the room three piles were established: one for poems and linking stanzas that had been accepted, one for the obvious rejects, and one for those still undecided, with a rationale for each decision entered into a log which could be reviewed should disputes arise later.
By the end of the afternoon, the process had been completed. The undecided pile was larger than the senior editor would have preferred, but he had won debates he’d anticipated losing and retained submissions he’d thought doomed. Disputatious camps had formed within the ‘return to profundity’ clique; small differences had become magnified, egos swollen; and specific characteristics of the profound manner of haikai linked poetry had so risen in importance in the minds of their defenders that the acrimony which billowed up around the appropriateness of including the image of a pine tree in a poem on autumn hills rich with coloured leaves seethed so violently, so grew in intensity, that all the work done before was almost lost as one group of disgruntled conservatives threatened to renounce all further co-operation and return immediately to Edo if such vulgarities weren’t repudiated. A compromise was reached finally, and an otherwise inoffensive poem on spring mists sacrificed in a gesture of amelioration.
Some of the poet-editors hiked up to a small viewing platform higher in the mountains while others strolled down to the thermal baths, where a few of the bolder pleasure providers were known to be awaiting them, naked as peeled willow wands in the crisp autumn air. Only the senior editor remained on the terrace, assisted by a scribe and the youngest and least experienced of the pleasure providers, an undernourished young woman with rheumy eyes and a nose pink with inflammation.
Ox-Blossom was near the end of his review of the selections still in dispute when he came to a single hand scroll containing a series of poems he and Ohasu had done together. Memories of the past flooded him with nostalgia. He read through the scroll then chose one of Ohasu’s poems and recited it to the girl kneeling forlornly in the corner.
She said she thought it was nice.
And this? He read another of Ohasu’s poems.
It’s nice too, replied the uncertain young pleasure provider, twin pearls of mucus expanding and contracting on the bottom rims of her nostrils as she sniffled in quick little snorts.
Ox-Blossom held the scroll for a moment longer then placed it on the alcove shelf behind him rather than consigning it to one of the piles in the middle of the room. Some things were too precious to expose.
The evening banquet began with rare delicacies, and it rumbled forward in a spirit of fellowship. Wine flowed and agreements were reached, ruffled feathers smoothed, slights forgotten. It occurred to Ox-Blossom in a moment of inspiration that few aesthetic principles could be more ambiguous than ‘lightness.’ He pointed this out to the conservative faction. Could any man among them define it? Of course not. Surely a lifetime of fees lay within such an amorphous concept.
The conservatives celebrated his insight, pondered the pleasures of promoting the ineffable, held their wine cups up to be refilled, and eventually tottered off to the various cottages they had been assigned, some accompanied by pleasure providers and some not.
Ox-Blossom ordered paper lanterns placed along the path leading out to one of the more secluded thermal pools. Pale wisps of steam rose from the dark surface of the sulphurous water and dissolved into the inky blackness of the night sky. He hung his clothing on the stubs of branches of a nearby pine trimmed for that purpose then used the old-fashioned dipping gourd to rinse off and warm his skin before settling into the murky pool, clutching himself against the shock of the heat of the water.
The autumn night was clear and bright with the silver river of stars, and the tiny voice of a single cricket sang nearby, adding to his sense of well-being.
Ox-Blossom noticed that the young pleasure provider was hovering uncertainly in the glow of the nearest paper lantern. She said she didn’t know what she was supposed to do. No one seemed to have any use for her. She said she was called the Princess of the Chamber of the Fragrance of Lilies although that wasn’t her real name,
and she struggled with the multiple layers of her unfamiliar costume and the various sashes and ties that held it all together, searching out a separate branch stub for each garment as she removed it so that the silk robes and underskirts and dangling sashes formed an exotic backdrop to the austere simplicity of the mountain grotto.
The girl squatted at the edge of the pool. Judging it presumptive to touch a gourd dipper that had been used by the senior editor, she rinsed herself by splashing up palmfuls of water in a foolish and ineffective manner. Her chest was concave, her nipples still those of a child, and the patch of shame-hair at her little jade gate was hardly more than a tuft of black floss. She crept forward then sank into the hot water, emitting strangled little gasps of dismay at the heat, two lines of snot depending suddenly from her nostrils.
Ox-Blossom returned his attention to the stars flowing above them, the milky beauty of it flooding across the unimaginable depths of the sky.
It’s lovely up here in the mountains, he said, and the fragrant princess responded with a constricted squeak of assent.
Had she been here before?
She had not.
Probably you are unfamiliar with such gatherings.
She was unfamiliar with most things.
So a new experience for you, Ox-Blossom said in an avuncular manner; and when they retired to his personal chambers and the quilts spread there for them, he gave her instructions and gently corrected misperceptions; then once matters had been resolved to his satisfaction, he lay back and made himself comfortable then asked if she couldn’t stop snuffling, at least long enough for him to fall asleep.
THE BATTLES OX-BLOSSOM HAD anticipated were joined throughout the day of the final cull; he won some and lost some. But the content of the compendium was finally agreed, and they could begin arranging the poems into sequences, a task that would take several more days.