Spinning Silk

by T. Cook

  “You did well.”

  “They are well suited for happiness,” I said.

  “Yes, but take what credit is due to you.”

  “I hardly see what I had to do with it.”

  Madame huffed. “It was a great triumph! Didn’t you hear the talk?”

  “What was the talk?”

  “That Eiko was the most elegant bride the village had ever produced. The daimyo himself proclaimed it. ”

  “Surely that was flattery.”

  “Yes, certainly. But flattery would be hardly necessary for a lesser occasion. Rest assured, the Ishiyama name gained much face tonight. I think they will be kind to Eiko.”

  I hoped this was true, but in the end Eiko got neither cruelty nor kindness from them. Mother Ishiyama died very early the next morning.

  22

  “To be sure, Mother Ishiyama’s death was inauspicious. But what does it have to do with you? Did you poison her soup?”

  “No, Madame.”

  “Well, then. Call it an accident. The family will mourn. But even if you insist on taking responsibility, remember Mother Ishiyama’s death was very good for Eiko, whose interests you represented. So take heart. For the bride, you were a charm.”

  “Madame. I can hardly believe what I am hearing you say.”

  “And I would deny every word if you repeated it, but privately, I urge you to look at this event in the correct light. The married couple is well. Mother Ishiyama was aged. She was very happy to see her son so admired. Take confidence that you were able to encourage such a shift in attitude in time for her death. Otherwise, her death really would be unfortunate.”

  We spoke no more of it, but I did not forget Mother Ishiyama’s strangely timed death. And neither did Madame.

  23

  Madame Sato spoke little while taking tea, but tea’s end always followed with some new revelation.

  “Furi, I have taught you a little bit of reigi and a few skills of the noble classes, but I have not taught you one very valuable lesson.”

  “Indeed, Madame?”

  “You weave silk for the noble classes. Do you ever stop to consider the cost of their privilege?”

  I admitted I did not.

  “When I was young and our domain more prosperous, my husband received many guests. Even the occasional foreign sea captain of a merchant trading ship was not so unusual.”

  “Is that so?”

  “On one occasion, a Vineland Captain dined with my husband and told him an intriguing story. It was, of course, a western legend of a king who had an envious and flattering subject who praised him for his fortune and rank. Do you think the highest king enjoys his wealth so very much?”

  “I had always supposed he did.”

  Madame covered a slight smile with one hand. “And well you might. But this king invited his subject to try the comfort of his own throne for the length of a banquest in the subject’s honor. His subject readily agreed, and took the seat of honor—but then saw the king had taken a katana blade and suspended it by a single strand from a horse’s tail above the throne. Seeing this, his subject begged to be unseated.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes. Sometimes even the highest-ranking hold their position with as little ease as this subject did. Can you imagine?”

  “Yes, when you put it that way.”

  “Risk is the price of possessing anything worth having.”

  I remembered Cook’s schemes against Shin and me, and added, “Some are threatened even by the possibility of your having something valuable.”

  “I maintain the only happy people—peasants or nobles—are those who learn to sit patiently with steep risks.”

  “But how can anyone be happy with a katana dangling above her head?”

  “Life is full of danger, Furi. And sitting with fear is a valuable study. Believe me, Furi. Your powers of execution should bear you up well under even the sharpest katana.”

  * * *

  And so, I began to meditate upon this danger, or fear—its many names, colors and forms. Then I began to practice recognition, and a gracious hospitality reserved for only the highest ranking in society. I studied ritual and grace, almost to excess. As a slave, I should never have learned any of it.

  The rites changed me. They measured my breathing, regulated my heartbeat, and steadied my movement. I found greater awareness and equanimity, and the dread I had been carrying so heavily fell away like a burden. I began to understand then how Madame Sato affected the appearance of such nobility, even after losing everything.

  I wondered why Madame had shared this particular lesson with me. But she had her reasons, and revealed them in time.

  24

  Yoshi perched for a long minute atop the garden wall, catching his breath. “Your wall seems to have grown taller,” he said to Madame, when he dropped over the top.

  “The gate is no taller. You are fatter, and I am glad to see you so happy in marriage,” Madame said from her seat upon the veranda.

  He smiled broadly. “I am happy indeed. Please come and honor us with a visit soon. We are parents of twin boys!”

  At Madame’s encouragement, I stayed with Yoshi and Eiko a month. Eiko had no mother on either side and needed help. Madame herself could not stay away, and continued her regular inquiries after the family long past my visit.

  Eiko had come through the birth strong and the infants were well and relatively fat, for twins. I had little experience with children, but Madame soon fell into a grandmotherly affection for the creatures. It rather awed me to see how such a strict, formal woman could alter in the presence of new life. But there was still much I didn’t know about Madame.

  She bathed with the babies, slept with them and yielded them to their mother only when they demanded to nurse. Something urgent and spiritual seemed to possess her and I marveled at this transformation—this brave, even heroic support of new life.

  I had no memory of my mother, had rarely even seen a mother nurse her child, and for the first time in my life, I watched the demand and the stress those infants imposed upon Eiko with some surprise and almost horror. And yet, father and mother’s mild submission to the burdens of two helpless tyrants seemed near endless.

  Having lived much longer and experienced much more since that time, I can say with some confidence there is nothing in this world more mundane than human birth. And yet I feel it equally true that there is no earthly thing more miraculous—maybe one thing: that both parents should survive the ordeal with the child intact. That is an extraordinary miracle. And yet most people do. I hold that truth with some bitterness, although I have practiced carrying it lightly for the better part of my life.

  Yoshi and Eiko were happy in their love and in their children. And in spite of the abundance of that emotion I was sure I would never share with them, I was unthreatened by it. I was happy for them.

  My last evening with them, I busied myself, preparing dinner, and then tidying the kitchen. Finally, I seated myself, slightly apart from the family on the tatami around the kotatsu table. I watched as long as I could and listened while Yoshi sang in his low bass to wife and children.

  At length, I went quietly out of the room to ventilate the feelings I could not restrain. The night was dark. And a narrow scythe of a moon seemed to stretch across the sky, penetrate my chest and hook around my heart.

  Where was my mother? Did she have any thought of me now? What had she endured to give me life, and for no better purpose than for more suffering? Had she truly loved my father? Did their love have so little to do with me that I should be so destitute of the same?

  The scythe moon seemed to tug my heart until it penetrated and the blood ran out and flowed into tears. Gradually, a unique sensation of warmth gradually grew and enveloped me. The moment was as close as I have ever felt my mother to this day, and though subtle, its influence lingered, and steadied me.

  When I let myself inside again, Yoshi had fallen asleep over his bowl of wine, but he roused when
he heard me re-enter.

  “You are going tomorrow?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “It is well you have found Madame Sato. She will help you find your people.”

  I reached for the lamp to extinguish the flame.

  “My people are long dead now.”

  Yoshi started. “How do you know? Unless you heard it from one of your own?”

  I blew the flame and the room collapsed into darkness, well to screen my emotions still so near the surface. “The message did not come from my people.”

  “Who could know except your people?” I could not answer this. What did I really know of my identity? Shin had never revealed even my family name.

  “Your Madame is shrewd. She will help you find the people who matter now.”

  “Good night, Yoshi,” I said, tracing my fingers along the bare wall to the door of my room.

  “Remember us when you have found them,” came the quiet reply.

  Well had he asked for my remembrance; he was not asking for his own sake. I learned shortly thereafter that Yoshi had been conscripted to mandatory military service.

  25

  My loom produced more silk than at any previous time of my life. And Madame began to spend long stretches of time away. I didn’t know where she went or why she became such an infrequent guest. She didn’t speak to me of the reason. Nor did she demand I produce the volume of silk I had begun to make, but the supply of materials continued, and in her absence, I rarely rested.

  I had not the same pleasure I had once enjoyed in my work. The best of my creation seemed to take something from my heart, and I often ached over it. I no longer thought of this pain as something to avoid, however. For the first time, I began to understand what Madame had meant when she described to me agony worth savoring.

  While I grieved, a longing to hear news of Shin grew into a constant melancholy. In some ways, I was more withdrawn and vulnerable than I had ever been. I had never let myself truly feel the pain of losing Shin. In Madame Ozawa’s mill, I habitually buried pain along with other strong emotions of a necessity. I was, after all, not quite human to Madame Ozawa. She had demanded my production as if I were one of her looms, and would not support me in grief or joy. But all that had changed.

  Madame Sato indulged my grief as well as other emotions. Until, at last, she didn’t.

  “You’ve been crying, Furi.”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “I think you have not stopped since I was last here.”

  “I suppose not.”

  She paused, then pivoted. “Would you like to come with me on a journey?”

  “No, Madame.”

  “I didn’t tell you where. Doesn’t it matter?”

  “No. I don’t think I would like to take any journey anywhere, ever.”

  “Hm,” said Madame, and seemed to change the subject. “You know, Furi. I think you have forgotten your mother.”

  “How could I? I have never known her.”

  “There is one mother who can never be taken from you.”

  “Who is she?”

  Madame pointed to the full moon rising above the horizon.

  I started, remembering the warmth of feeling I had experienced under the moon while staying with Yoshi and Eiko.

  “The moon is a mother to all womankind. She is our model of dignity and compassion.”

  “What can the moon do for a woman’s heart?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “No, Madame.”

  “To know your mother is to know your worth.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Let’s put it this way: can you imagine a presence with greater dignity?”

  I sighed. “Perhaps not.”

  “There is not finer lineage.”

  “But if all womankind belong to the moon—surely not all women are equal?”

  “Only because so many have forgotten.”

  I bent my head aside. “Hm.”

  Madame nodded slightly.

  “To where are you journeying?”

  “It’s only a little distance form the town. But I have been invited to a samurai daughter’s salon. She has summoned several fashionable people who trade in silk.”

  “What samurai’s house?”

  “He is called Nobu.”

  The breath froze in my chest. It was some moments before I had composed myself enough to ask, “When shall we depart?”

  * * *

  I had not believed I would see Shin again in life. I couldn’t sit still with the thought of visiting the great house where he served. The thought alone terrified me. And yet, I would go. I dismissed the fear of harm I might do there. I told myself I had mastered it with discipline and ritual, and had greater confidence in what good I might do, as well.

  In several days’ time, I could be in the same room with Shin. Confront him face to face. I didn’t know how I would breathe, much less remember reigi to which Madame so constantly demanded my attention. But given the opportunity to only see him once more…but I should guard my emotions. It wouldn’t do to let Madame know about Shin and our history. Nor could I lose the discipline I had only lately acquired. Perhaps Shin had changed toward me when I left him alone in the garden. I had run away from him then, and it seemed improbable that he had not changed at all.

  I needed only to know. And surely as Madame’s personal servant, I would have occasion to mingle with other servants within the house.

  * * *

  “But Madame! It’s not lawful for me to wear a silk robe.”

  “You must wear a silk robe to be my companion.”

  “But Madame, I have no rank in noble society.”

  “No one knows you are not Junko Yamada, my companion. She perished in the plague with everyone else.”

  “I am sure to be discovered!”

  “Why should that be?”

  “Because I know nothing about her. And have only the barest understanding of the rites.”

  “You do very well. And I will tell you all you need to know about Yamada. You must be a noble woman in order to attend the salon. I do not need a servant. I need an expert weaver of silk, which you are.”

  “But you want me to lie about my true identity.”

  “It is the only way you should ever be admitted into this society.”

  “I have no wish to be in this society.”

  “Furi, do not be difficult. I can only bring you as a companion. You are not really my servant. You don’t even look like a servant. No one would believe it. Now come. You will look very well in this green brocade.”

  But I was difficult. And I had resolved against going.

  Madame breathed a great sigh. “What is the difficulty? You do not wish to be my companion?”

  “I do not wish to impersonate nobility.”

  “Well, you already are.”

  “What?”

  “I had to register this lease in someone’s name, and I did it in the name of my friend, Yamada Junko. I had to use a name and you do not have one. You have no family name. And Junko has no further use for hers, so I used it.”

  “Why did you not use your own name?”

  “Quite frankly, you need a name. Yamada’s is a perfectly good name and rank. I thought you might have use for it someday.”

  “But it isn’t true.”

  “Please don’t badger me. You do not know who you are. You may have been living a lie since birth. Anyway, rank is merely a label and some things are more important than labels. You are a whole life, and as worthy of this name as anyone.”

  “You are telling me people already believe I am this Yamada?”

  Madame shrugged. “Furi, you had no family name. What was I supposed to do? You need legal recognition.”

  “I could be recognized as your servant.”

  “But that will not really do. You are not rightfully my servant. You were technically Madame Ozawa’s, and we do not know where she is.”

  * * *

  And thus I be
came Yamada Junko, Madame’s companion and the fraudulent dead daughter of a deceased samurai.

  I fretted about the rites, about assuming a strange name, about the risk of discovery, but Madame lifted her face in placid self-assurance. “You are very observant. And I do not think you will call attention to yourself. I will speak for you as much as is needful. You need only take tea as we frequently do, and make proper obeisance to Master Nobu, if he even appears at all. I do not know that he will. I will be always beside you and you need not worry about anything more.”

  But, of course, I did worry about something more. It was the center of all I thought of. I was so distracted with thoughts of Shin; I had not given much consideration to Madame’s motives in bringing me to the house of Nobu.

  26

  We traveled for several days, stopping at respectable roadside inns for rest and baths. At every stop, the rumors of war fell softly from the lips of road-weary travelers passing through. We heard it everywhere, but no one seemed to know, or perhaps they dared not speak, of any specific rebel clan’s uprising. Shogunate armies stood sentry at every town, but no conflict ever stirred.

  No threat had ever surfaced in more than two decades since Whitegrain had defeated the warring clans. Even the so-called Spider Clan and their legendary Earth Kumo allies had long since bowed to the superior strength of the Ruling House. Even in the midst of these rumors, I sensed no real threat from anyone. The tension was all of a different kind.

  * * *

  I’d no idea how long we were to be away. I guessed it only after arriving at the mountain inn when Madame’s trunks, which she had sent from her residence in town, arrived. “Madame. Can you really want all of these trunks?”

  “We may. You never know. There are many buyers here in town. Now go with my maid and she will perform your cosmetic.”