Spinning Silk

by T. Cook

  I bent my awareness to the same focus, and I was almost surprised how simple it was to discover the collective pulse. I detected much awe, ample lust… jealousy. I knew Madame expected to leverage all of this to the furthest extent. But she could not have known my own intentions. Even so, I felt certain she was trying to guess my mind as well. It would be possible, even likely, she would see through me too, if Shin were present. Fortunately, he wasn’t.

  After tea, Madame produced a silver key and commanded a servant to unlock the largest chest. Madame herself presented its contents. Cries of delight and even ecstasy issued unreserved from all around. I couldn’t pretend humility. I, better than anyone, knew feelings of delight upon completing a weave. Hearing, at last, the praise of others was an unexpected experience for me. It had been over a year since I had been able to take uncomplicated pleasure in anything. But I was not wooden to this approval. It brought something like pleasure to my heart and I am sure I didn’t disguise it.

  “Now, Madame Sato, please reveal to us the identity of this brilliant weaver,” begged Lady Nobu.

  “I will,” Madame said. “But I anticipate some surprise. Perhaps more than surprise. I trust in your civility, however.”

  “Of course,” said Lady Nobu.

  “Then may I present to Master and Lady Nobu and their honored guests, my daughter, Sato Fuyuko. She is the weaver of every last thread within these chests, and more.”

  Madame had rightly anticipated surprise. And if my sense of awareness was not faulty…hostility. And dared I also note—outrage? Though I sensed exertion to master all these feelings.

  “It is hard to believe,” Lady Nobu admitted, “that a girl so young, so unacquainted with the world, could be the source of these sophisticated designs and the master of such superior technique.”

  “She showed an aptitude to fine work from a tender age. When she asked for instruction, I did not withhold it because she was young. You may now, perhaps, understand my reluctance to bring her out publicly, and hence, my long silence as to her identity.”

  “We don’t know what to say,” said one of the merchants. “I agree with Lady Nobu, but if your daughter can produce a sampling of such superior work, what can anyone say? We are most impressed and will celebrate her skill with you.”

  “Of course,” echoed Lady Nobu. “We have a loom and we can furnish raw silk for an experiment.”

  Madame Sato glanced at me. “I will not answer for her.”

  The irony of Madame’s deference struck me and she almost flinched at the expression I turned on her. Yet, no one but she would have seen it for what it was. “Give me one week at a loom,” I said. “Place it in the garden tea room with thread died to my instructions and four lanterns filled with oil. I will take one meal at mid-day and tea in the morning. Have a servant bring this to me on a tray. Otherwise, please understand my need for strict privacy.”

  Lady Nobu accepted my conditions. I closed myself inside the tearoom that very afternoon. I didn’t begin work immediately. One week was more than ample time for me to produce a showpiece. But I hoped for uncommon inspiration, and did not want to commence work too early.

  Also, my mind was preoccupied with the prospect of reaching out to Shin. I hoped for a chance—any chance—to speak to him without bringing Kiyo into confidence.

  I lit all four lanterns at night, but drew only moths, and eventually a shrewd spider to the corner of the ceiling. I slept, dreaming always of Shin, but he never appeared in the flesh.

  On the third day of this apparent indolence, the shoji doors split, and Kiyo popped her prettily coiffed head through them.

  “Are you enjoying what our cook puts out for you daily? It must be exhausting lying around all day, not lifting a finger to do anything. I hope you are not wasting away.”

  I snapped up and pulled myself into seiza. It was hot in the teahouse and I was wearing only some light cotton underclothing. And so I faced Kiyo, exposed in more than one way, and my head hung as much in embarrassment as in deference to my host’s eldest daughter.

  “I beg your pardon, Kiyo. The meal I receive is very fine. But why are you coming to me now? Haven’t I one full week?”

  “Oh, you’ll have your week, I suppose. Though my father thinks it is a monstrous charade you and Madame are playing. But we are all intensely curious about what you expect to gain from it.”

  “There is no charade. I…I am preparing to work! And you had promised strict privacy.” I should have been more outraged, but I was off balance with her abrupt intrusion.

  “You have as much privacy as anyone has around here. I hope you will not rely upon it too heavily. As I have said, only I can guarantee your anonymity. The whole house knows, of course, that you are opening the doors and burning an obscene quantity of oil through most of the night. Is that figure into your creative process?”

  “It does,” I said wishing for the dignity of my kimono dress. “You will have to trust me.”

  Kiyo laughed in my face. “Of course, of course.”

  * * *

  In the end, I was almost grateful for Kiyo’s intrusion. Rude as she had been, it might have been so much worse, so much had I trusted in Nobu’s faithful compliance with the conditions I had required. At least Kiyo had destroyed that pretense. I no longer hoped for a chance meeting with Shin. I would find a way to free him without his help.

  29

  When the moon reached its apex on the fourth night, I went to the loom. It was a risk. I had only a vague outline in my mind. The design was as full of tension as the fingers which wove it, and I was uncertain of success. I believed it to be my authentic creative voice speaking, however, and couldn’t have abandoned the idea even if I had wanted to.

  The following morning, my work was well underway. Under the quiet spell of creation, I was alive to the whir of response energy generated by my progress. I knew the whole house was watching. I felt every beat of their anticipation, and even the stiff tension of Madame’s concern.

  I perceived Madame Sato’s well-controlled veneer of calm had splintered, and I supposed she fretted about what I was doing and what that would mean for her.

  After all, she kept inside the house, suffering most of the skepticism about me. Our hosts watched her closely, too, guarding their valuables and whispering scurrilous things behind her back. For Madame Sato, this behavior would be a singular affront. But to her credit, she did not disturb me. She never demanded I alter my vision of creation, or conduct myself as she preferred. In her way, she trusted me. My betrayal would come as a blow to her.

  If there had been any other way, I would have taken it.

  * * *

  Kiyo, however, came to the tearoom without inhibition. It was her character to consult her own convenience first, and any attempt at restraint on her part was a mere practiced formality, and nowhere near her natural inclination.

  “I must admit, I doubted you, Fuyuko. My parents doubt you still, but I’m watching you work, and I can see by your speed alone that you are a master. I think I will have you weave my entire trousseau. You will, won’t you? Did you not know I am to be married?”

  I had not known, but she would talk bidden or unbidden.

  “Oh yes. For such a country place as this, it is quite a conquest, or so they say. Everyone gossips about it. Do you want to know what they say? They say I shall be very rich! You can depend upon my having full credit to pay for your work. But you did not ask whom I am to marry. Don’t you wish to know?”

  “Indeed, I am curious. May I ask who the honorable person is?”

  “His name is Ogata, and he is a minister to Whitegrain himself! You do not believe me, but I am no liar.”

  “It is a high marriage,” I acknowledged, “but I wouldn’t think you would be happy with anything less.”

  “You know me better than I gave you credit for. Indeed, you are right. I am not easy to satisfy. But everyone tells me what a grand match it is and how well it will be for me once we are married. There will be
so many people who come to see me and I shall be in a very fine circle of acquaintances. So you really must weave me the finest clothing possible. I must be fit to appear before the Emperor, for it is a high probability I will!”

  “You honor me with your confidence in my ability.”

  “If I like what you do, perhaps I will invite you to my house. I will be in a position to do many fine things for you—you didn’t think I could do such things, did you? But I will. Please me, and you shall be very happy indeed.”

  I nodded and bowed my head to the tatami. For Madame Sato’s daughter to show this kind of obeisance to Kiyo was hardly necessary, but I was not really her daughter. And a display of humility seemed enough, only barely, to satisfy Kiyo’s ideas of what was appropriate.

  * * *

  By week’s end, I had finished my design. This is what I did. The central piece of my work was the embroidered obi, upon which I stitched a husk of a chrysalis, quite ugly, as only a chrysalis is. I did not adapt it. I could not make it pretty. Mine was quite apt, for embroidered work. Above the chrysalis, on a delicate piece of stem, I stitched a butterfly, not brilliant, as a mature butterfly is in the sun, but still wet and not quite folded out. I believed I had captured the newness, even vulnerability of nature’s transformation. The piece of silk I had woven beside it was not brilliant, either. It was a pale green color, like a new shoot of bamboo. It heightened the sense of vulnerability evoked by the butterfly and would be perfect, I thought, for a young girl reaching adulthood.

  I was pleased with my work, but not assured of others’ pleasure, and I brought the obi sash and the silk fabric to Madame, slowly, almost reluctantly.

  As usual, she examined it silently, without a word of praise, or complaint, then folded it up again and took it away. It was too late in the evening to display it to our hosts, so I went away to the tearoom to rest. I had not slept for ten minutes in the past three days. Despite my questions and worries about how well it would be received, I slept long and deeply through the night and most of the following morning.

  Madame finally roused me from sleep with a tray bearing salt fish and a bowl of country miso soup. “You were right to wait. Today is the day you must wear the hummingbird obi. Come. Eat. We must get you dressed. They are waiting for you.”

  I drank my soup and ate almost quickly enough to satisfy Madame, who I had never seen so agitated, nor impatient. Her hands almost trembled as she robed me and tied the elaborate obi behind. I made no difficulty for her, for I felt almost the same readiness…to be known, to be recognized, finally unmasked—but by only one person.

  I followed behind Madame Sato across the walk through the garden, even raising my gaze up to search around the garden. He was as absent that day as he had been for the past week. If I had not known him and his mysterious ways of appearing and disappearing, I would have wondered at it more. Surely, he was close by, however. Surely, I would speak to him soon.

  * * *

  Our hosts, their former guests, and several new faces were assembled within the great house. I followed Madame through the shoji doors with a gentle rustle of silk. A murmur filled the room as I appeared. Madame bid me stand and display my clothing and somehow I bore it as the crowd of guests approached, crowded, and dared touch the edge of my robe. I wanted to pull away, even to push back, but I kept my eyes down and let them speak the words of disbelief—as though I were not even there! I bore their vulgar attempts at interpretation—as though they had any of my intent. As though they knew my heart when I had embroidered the hummingbirds. They did not. They could not know!

  I shouldn’t have given way to anger. After all, my critics had ultimately accepted what I had done. Even so, I gripped and struggled to control unruly emotions. Madame recognized them, and wisely, begged for silence and space. To a more composed audience, she displayed my week’s work.

  Again, they crowded, praised, sighed. They pronounced me an artist, a genius, a mystic. I stood apart from them, and wished to run away, for I sensed, too, continued disbelief, and some treachery.

  At last Madame excused me, and I turned slowly to withdraw, every muscle of my torso tensed to restrain my haste—every nerve alive to the sensation of Shin’s nearness and recognition.

  As I treaded the garden path toward the teahouse, my gaze trained studiously to the ground, I knew Shin watched from somewhere across the garden expanse. I paused and dared lift my eyes to meet his for only one breath. And in that instant, a force charged through my body to my center, paralyzing my step for several seconds. When I could walk again, eyes averted, I yet sensed him and all the emotions of our past intercourse. Desire. Fear. The overwhelming tension of restraint.

  Something more welled at the foot of this mountain of raw emotion. A spring. Bubbling up from the ground and running over with bright pure fluid.

  In this liquid emotion, I recognized Shin’s honor, even his awe. I could not fully fathom having inspired the feeling from the one I held out as a creature so far beyond me, but there it was.

  * * *

  Madame and I returned together to the old mountain inn. I was exhausted, but the work, I understood, had only just begun. Lady Nobu had begged Madame Sato to stay and have me weave Kiyo’s trousseau. Madame had consented for me, but they had not agreed upon a price, nor could I allow this. I had my own demands.

  The wedding day was already fast approaching. I would have only three months to perform, I didn’t know how much work, but I knew it would be substantial.

  “We must remember this when we negotiate terms,” I said. “I don’t like to work under such watchful eyes and upon other people’s timelines. I would rather we returned to the farmhouse to do the work.”

  Madame hesitated, and I didn’t pursue the point, because as much as I hated to stay, I couldn’t abandon Shin.

  “Wait,” I said, “before you negotiate a price with them. I want to finish the work first, and I want to be present.”

  “These things are so tedious, my dear. You cannot really want to be present for the negotiation.”

  “Why not? You said I would get everything. Suppose I have an interest to know how much that is?”

  Madame started at my blunt admission of ambition. “If you insist.”

  “I do.”

  I steeled myself that night as we soaked in the hot mineral bath for the months of labor, stratagem, and yes, duplicity that lay ahead.

  30

  A fortune in silk spools lined one wall of the tearoom where the loom stood waiting for me. I sat down to stare at the spools until I could gain some inspiration, and fell asleep gazing at them.

  I hadn’t slept long before Kiyo was again at the door.

  “Already hard at work, I see.” She yawned almost widely behind her closed hand to show how little she thought of me.

  I frowned. “I regret I have no more to show you. I think you would be better pleased with me and my work if you came at the end of the week instead of the beginning.”

  “Oh no, indeed. It was so dull when you left the house. I have been waiting for your return only for a change,” she said. “I am glad we shall have you for the next little while—at least as long as you will sometimes bother yourself to wake up and talk to me.”

  “I will have to get to work soon in order to finish your trousseau on time.”

  “I have seen you work. You can do it,” she dismissed my concern with a wave of her hand. “But you are such a lucky creature. I am almost jealous of you—you shall be so rich by the time you are done here. And you will have no duties, nor obligations like I shall have as a wife to a high official. I think I shall find marriage quite tedious. Sometimes I can’t bear to face it.”

  “But you called it a conquest only days ago!”

  “And it is a conquest, but when I see you so praised and hear such a fuss made of your little projects, I begin to think I shall hardly be much richer than you. And you will have so little work for all of that freedom.”

  I stared at the wall piled high w
ith silk thread. “That seems unlikely.”

  “You shall. Do not contradict me. You shall be admired and almost famous. And I will have so many obligations, except of course when my husband is away…which will be often. And then I shall be truly tedious.”

  “You have so many friends,” I reminded her.

  “To be sure, I have many friends, but they cannot always be visiting.” She released a long sigh. “Except for the gardens. There will be gorgeous gardens at my husband’s home. There is nothing else to do. I shall tell my father to send Shin to me. You know I must. Then our gardens will exceed anything and everything! And having some company from the tedium will do me no harm, either.” She said this and I almost jolted when she winked at me.

  “Will your father send him to you?”

  “Oh, I think so. My status will be so high then and I will send nice gifts in the bargain. How can they refuse?”

  “But…” I almost stammered the words. “But you cannot expect your husband to pleased with that?”

  “He is only a servant. My husband would make a present of him if he were his own man.”

  Here again, I sensed that she was baiting me, but I couldn’t help myself. “Does his servant status make him so unworthy to be considered a threat?”

  Kiyo gasped. “How dare you even suggest it? He is a gardener.” Then she covered a small smile with one hand. “Can you really be in love with him? Fuyuko. You absolutely cannot indulge your sentimentality like this. I beg you to master yourself, or someone will expose you. I can see I had better take you in hand or you will soon get into terrible trouble. The world is so wide. People cannot all be trusted.”