by T. Cook
I half stifled a tremor. “Whatever you did, it healed me completely. It was like magic.”
“It seems like magic, but only because you don’t understand it,” he said, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“Where did you learn to heal people?” I asked, and averted my eyes to avoid the perception of another untruth.
“I once had a friend who was a very learned herbalist.”
When he withdrew his hands, an involuntary sigh escaped my lungs before I caught myself, and the hint of a smile quirked the corners of Shin’s mouth in response.
“You will soon be well.”
“Only to be tricked and sabotaged again.”
“And if so, I will help you get well again.”
“Shin,” it was the first time I had ever called him by name and he responded with a soft touch of his hand on my knee. “Will you drug them every night?”
He withdrew his hand. “No. I don’t have the stores, for one.”
“And…?”
“Over using herbs is a good way to be discovered.” He seemed to be speaking from experience.
“But the weavers are conspiring against me…and they will use you to do it.”
“They will only harm themselves,” he predicted. He seemed so certain; I almost believed him.
“They’ll find a way eventually…”
He put a finger to his lips and as quickly as he’d come, disappeared back into the garden.
That night, I slept deeply and continuously until morning.
Shin’s prediction about my recovery proved accurate. By mid-morning I was ready for a crutch and could sit and work at my loom with some propping up with a zabon cushion.
I worked all afternoon under the frustrated glances exchanged between weavers. And there was more than frustration; there was determination as well. They had not given up.
11
I sloughed any remaining mistrust of Shin like an outgrown skin, without knowing him or understanding his motives for kindness to me. He never could justify to me his coming to Madame Ozawa’s. He never would explain why he was helping me, healing me…one wound at a time. It was as though he was somehow bound to perform these miraculous rites, without any compensation. But that wasn’t quite true. If I were honest with myself, I would acknowledge he had implied a cost to come. One day there would be a reckoning. Yes, and somehow this deed would eclipse everything he had done for me. And still, I couldn’t imagine ever having power to give Shin anything.
Time—much time—taught me this was only a failure of imagination on my part.
* * *
By night, Shin and I cloistered in the private recesses of the garden where he revealed to me his mysteries of the earth and spade. Since arriving at Madame Ozawa’s house, he had not been idle.
“These are my medicinal herbs. I don’t dare plant them too extensively. They’re not ornamental, after all.” He knelt down and gestured to the differing flowering and leafy bunches, “Motherwort, passionflower, ginseng, burdock, rhodiola.”
“What is this?” I pointed to a small bush that he had apparently grafted with little sprigs bearing tiny white flowers.
“That—” he said, encasing it between his hands protectively, “is an experiment. If it works, then once tinctured, it will make a fairly potent antidote for blood borne illness.”
I started. “That is truly wonderful. Will you sell it?”
“I don’t know,” he said, but seemed doubtful.
“But such a medicine would be so valuable…”
“Come see the rest of the garden.” He gestured to another corner of the garden.
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, his jaw set; his mouth grim. Another secret? Somehow I felt this antidote might not be for everyone.
“Yes, show me.” Shin was not only an herbalist. He was an artist. In one short season, he had begun training cypress, pines, and azaleas into the beginnings of a stunning miniature collection. I could hardly believe how life thrived beneath his touch. And yet I could believe it.
“Has Madame seen these?”
Shin shook his head. “I don’t know if she would approve them entirely. I promised her a harvest.”
“And she’ll have it. I have seen the vegetable garden.”
“Come,” he gestured with his head. “The greens are ready.”
He pressed a small harvesting knife into my palm and we knelt between the furrows of the tender spring plants.
It was a white night, clear and luminous, as only the first night following heavy rains can be. The thrumming song of the cicadas and the percussion of the bullfrogs rose above the sound of our movements between the furrows.
“Careful with that one,” Shin whispered and I started when his giant hand covered mine. “He lifted a heavy leaf and revealed a large orb spider. “You were about to disturb one of my best workers.”
I released a quiet gasp, and peered upward, studying Shin’s eyes. How had he even noticed the spider? Shin seemed to know the placement of every mysterious thing. His movements were quick, yet perceiving. He was gentle, distant, and exquisitely restrained. Here was a man of no rank, no wealth, and yet, somehow, his shadow covered every man I had ever seen or heard of. Again, I remembered Tatsuo’s suspicions, and I could not look away from him.
When we finished in the garden, I sank low into a parting bow, but before I retreated a step, Shin’s hand caught my shoulder. “I can’t let you go inside like that.”
I glanced down at my cotton robe. “Damp earth stained the hem and the area where I had knelt on the ground. I had also managed to soil my hands and knees and could not return directly to the house.
“It will be hard to wash the robe and yourself without anyone’s notice.”
I instantly understood he was right.
“Wash at the spring, and I’ll take your clothing and return it clean.”
I nodded, and followed him to the spring deep inside the garden. Shadows of the sculpted trees cast strange shapes across Shin’s face, hiding his eyes, but I could feel his gaze upon me notwithstanding. Surrounding the milky mineral pool, my mother-of-pearl tile work shone under the moonlight like lightning, and seemed to ignite me with an electric current that I was sure I couldn’t long withstand.
“Your work?” Shin said.
I gave a shy nod.
“I bathe here in your mother of pearl bath often.” A small smile touched his lips. “You’ve ruined me for scrubbing over a bucket for the rest of my life.”
I smiled at this. It seemed to me that my ambition to attract the gods had been realized after all, but I had never imagined myself bathing among them, and the thought of it froze the breath in my lungs.
The pool was small and deep, fed by an underground current. It was unsuitable for drinking, but although not quite warm, it made quite a good home bath.
I stole a last quick glance at Shin, who stood silently by. There was wisdom, and not seduction motivating the bath proposal, I knew. What’s more, bathing was a ritual for social cohesion as well as cleanliness, but little more. And yet, Shin was a man unlike any I had ever seen, and we were alone.
Had the time now come? Would he make his request of me now? If so, I told myself I was prepared to answer him. I ducked behind a juniper, shivered as I dropped my soiled garments, then slipped into the pool, gasping as I submerged my warm skin up to the neck. My gaze searched to the pool’s edge, where Shin stood.
But the poolside was vacant.
I scanned all around. Shin had disappeared.
I waited some minutes, scrubbing my knees and hands with a handful of green maple leaves, but Shin never reappeared.
I checked myself against the disappointment that gripped my stomach. Wasn’t Shin an immortal? Would he make an illicit request of me? I trembled with the cold realization that he wouldn’t. After all, it was against his character. His every action had always been protective—yes, towards me, but he had reserved an uneasy distance for himself and something made me uncert
ain it was for my sake alone. Moreover, shouldn’t I protect myself? After all, Shin would ultimately leave, perhaps be driven away by Madame, and I would be again alone, with no one but myself for help.
Floating on my back, I peered into the night sky. The iridescent glow of the abalone shells lent the bath a dream like quality. I almost thought I could have been dreaming. Had my creative genius fabricated Shin? I had dreamt of him before.
And recently, my dreams had been so vivid.
I closed my eyes against the real possibility of my own madness, blinked, and flinched. One shaku from my face, stretched between two low hanging branches of the nearby maple, spread the silken threads of an enormous spider’s web. In the center crouched a spider, identical to the one I had saved from Cook several weeks before. He seemed to watch me with the same intensity reserved for a flailing moth.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I said, speaking aloud. “I saved your life…or that of a family member. You owe me a debt of gratitude.” I paddled slowly backwards toward the pool’s edge. The spider’s eyes seemed to follow me. As I peered back, a mysterious voice flooded my mind with breathtaking force.
“You did save me. And I will never forget it.”
12
In my youth, I wished for freedom so mightily I thought I would willingly scratch the flesh off of my bones to get it. I would endure any degree of temporary torture for a promise of liberty granted in the earlier half of my life. So I imagined.
My thoughts were rash. I had never even tested my upper threshold of pain tolerance. How could I know what I would endure? But sometimes even rash wishes are delivered up, disguised as some gruesome prospect we would never consent to in our right minds. These prospects have enough power to, in time, deliver our heart’s wish. The difficulty is holding faithful to the wish while enduring its torturous delivery.
Illness came to our town. The mountains provided a natural barrier to the spread of disease. However, upon reaching us, disease often devastated the population, wiping out great numbers. This illness, however, was more mysterious, and more selective in its death route.
It found Madame Ozawa’s house early. One elderly weaver succumbed while threading her loom. She simply collapsed to the floor. She drew her last breath only two feverish hours after laying her upon a futon to rest. Her family carried her corpse away that evening, while all in the household busied themselves furiously with the task of cleansing.
We burned her loom, replaced the tatami, all the dead weaver’s inventory of silk. Cook went about hunched and chanting Buddhist prayers as she rubbed her bead charm. Kame fashioned fabric masks for Madame and Satomi, herself and Cook. Shin tended the bonfire in the garden while Tatsuo prayed over incense. Then everyone left for their homes and the private onsen baths in the mountains. Madame and Satomi stayed away for several days, leaving her household of servants behind.
Having cleaned or burned everything reasonable, the servants watched and waited for the next to succumb. With Madame gone, Tatsuo took charge of the household, but with the weavers staying away, all work ceased, except perhaps, Shin’s laboring hands in the garden.
I felt oddly liberated, thoroughly well, and unafraid of the illness. I wove as I pleased and rather enjoyed the comparable solitude. Emboldened by the weavers’ absence, and with only Kame and Cook to worry about, I threw open the mill’s shoji doors by night and burned oil in my lamp.
Shin appeared on the veranda and silently watched me at work. I gestured for him to join me. He knelt down beside me and cast an admiring glance at the piece of embroidery I was finishing. I had woven two cranes, male and female, entwining in an embrace.
“Well? How does it compare to my mother’s work?”
“It is beautiful, but your mother’s work was different. Yours is evocative. Deeply felt. Her work was more intricate, both structured and fragile.”
I nodded to my loom and asked, “Have you ever used one?”
“Not like this, but I have tried making fabric before.”
“Let me show you,” I said, taking his hands in mine. He yielded reluctantly as I guided him to the shuttle. We worked together silently, hands and shoulders lightly touching, our movements, even our breath synchronizing in a wordless rhythm until the morning was upon us. At dawn, he stood and stretched his long limbs, leapt over the veranda, and retreated to his garden until the following night.
After midnight, he appeared again on the veranda again. As I worked, he whispered the poetry of his daily observations in the garden, detail by detail, from the tenderness of the mother bird with her nestlings to the reflected iridescence of the dragonflies’ wings.
The verbal images seemed to travel up my threads and jump lifelike into the threads of my fabric. My work had never appeared lovelier. Of all the hours of silken happiness I had known until that time, the nights with Shin at my loom side were at once the most sublime, and least satisfying I had ever known.
As sky began to change and he stretched and turned to leave, I caught his arm and held it.
He took my hands, but frowned.
“Please,” I mouthed this word only.
He squared his frame above me, expression full of warning. When he met my glance, I saw his eyes twitch in eagerness to escape. Then I gasped in pain.
A sharp sting withered my grip and at once I withdrew my fingers.
I looked up again to find a vacuum where Shin had once stood. A thin wisp of a spider’s thread fell empty across the floor.
* * *
Shin had grown around me like a tree. Had shaded me with his broad leaves, fed me with his fruit, and adorned my view with flora.
The bare act of withdrawal seemed to me like mounting up a frozen peak in a winter’s storm to wait for death. But in the face of his refusal, what choice did I have?
13
I closed the house and worked by lantern light, wondering constantly when or even if I would ever see Shin again. He might wander away from the mill freely like so many already had.
On the tenth night, a single door slid narrowly open with the barest scrape against its tracks, but I heard it, and started as though it had shaken the house. Shin entered, carrying a small homemade lantern. In the dim light, he watched me embroider an obi sash, which gradually revealed the forms of two hummingbirds sipping the nectar of a wild blossom.
“What do you think of those birds?” Shin finally asked. “What is on your mind as you stitch them?”
I stifled a sigh. “I suppose I am jealous of their happiness.”
His smile was sad. “Don’t be. Their nectar is oversweet and thin. We could not survive on it.”
At this, I stiffened, hurt by the indifference his comment seemed to imply. But as I turned away to hide my face, Shin caught me by the shoulders.
“I cannot free you from Madame Ozawa,” he whispered.
I pulled out of his hold. “I’m not your obligation. I know.”
“Furi, I cannot free you, but you can free yourself. You can do that and more.”
I stared up at him sharply. “What do you mean? I have no name—no rank. Madame can—”
“Madame can do nothing to you. She can have no power over you.” His hands returned to my shoulders, trembling on my skin. His eyes dilated. The vibration of his gentle whisper thrilled in my ears, “If you are only willing, she and no one can keep you. Nature is as accommodating as it is confining. It will…bring us together. Don’t be afraid to use your strength.”
* * *
The sound of Shin’s whisper lingered in my ears while I rested sleeplessly atop my bed. He had spoken of union; I assumed this meant love. I was eager to believe it. Self-flattery is the simplest form of self-deception, and I yielded to it without resistance. Deceiving myself about Shin’s love hadn’t changed my low estimation of myself, however. Does that seem like a paradox? It isn’t. I had learned to quantify myself by Mother Ishiyama’s asking price. Flattery is only a cheap polish easily applied to any surface. Years would pass before I woul
d discover the truth. Until then, I leapt at myths.
I didn’t lie to myself on every point, however. One sense, I perceived with acute certainty and could not deny it, however strange it may seem to me. As clearly as I knew my own force to create, I realized: I terrified Shin to his marrowbones.
He had alluded to a personal strength I knew nothing of. And he had charged me to use it—this when it seemed only to terrify him? Use it to what end, I wondered.
The evidence of his fear was subtle, but in his nearness, I could see it: the quickening of his pulse; the dilation of his eyes; the guarded way he touched my skin; his, often violent, urgency to leave my presence. A lover’s nearness would not do that. A predator’s would. And no matter how I tried, I couldn’t understand why he would suppress real terror to come so near me.
Somehow I still clung to the idea of his love, however unlikely. Under that blissful illusion, I wanted to share Shin’s unshakeable certainty of what would be, but self-flattery wouldn’t help me there. Brilliantly intuitive though he was, he seemed so out of step with the powers that dictated our lives.
One such power was about to speak, and with a word, divide us painfully along the seam that had so recently knit us together.
14
Madame and Satomi returned, and with her all of the surviving weavers. It seemed the mysterious illness had passed by us. Feeling upheld by fate, they returned to their petty grievances. Perhaps their jealousy reignited upon seeing the work I had produced in their absence. Madame, almost, could not restrain her delight, and these pieces soon disappeared from the house. I was sorry, especially, to see the hummingbirds go. It was my single best reminder of Shin’s pledge.
I could bear Madame’s return while I believed Shin loved me. I could be patient, and so I avoided the garden, and I kept the mill’s doors closed while I worked through the night.