The Tea Master Read online

The tea master

  by A M Kirkby

  Text Copyright © 2015 A M Kirkby

  All Rights Reserved

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  Short stories

  A Ghost Story of the Norfolk Broads

  The Tin Heart

  Sword of Justice

  Sacrifices

  Egerius

  Wake the Dragon

  Rise Above

  Not a Ghost Story

  Haunted

  Westminster Chimes

  The Augur

  Novellas

  Walsingham Way

  Green Land

  Doppelgänger

  Novels

  Etruscan Spring – forthcoming

  Etruscan Blood - forthcoming

  Children's books

  Kasbah cat

  Pagliaccio the Opera Cat

  The Cat Who Couldn't Miaow

  Red light on maple leaves.

  Mmmm. Look at it.

  Leaves. Yes.

  Look at it with the eyes of the spirit. Look at the differences of red; glowing and dark, translucent and glowing, so light it's almost golden, the different reds of blood, apple, pickled plums. Pink of salmon, tuna, ginger pickle. And tomorrow all those colours will be vanished away.

  Not tomorrow.

  What?

  Not tomorrow, Hideyoshi says. They'll still be here tomorrow.

  Rikyu displays a little irritation.

  I'm not talking about exact time. Soon enough, they'll be gone, this splendid colour darkened, faded, dead. All things are impermanent.

  All things are impermanent, agrees Hideyoshi, repeating Rikyu's words, which are also the Buddha's.

  They sit, regarding the autumn, red light on red leaves.

  ***

  They don't always agree.

  The golden tea room, for instance. At last, Hideyoshi thinks, the dignity that the ceremony requires.

  Gold leaf. Gold everywhere. Gold on the beams, gold laid delicately on the paper screens, gold lacquer on the table, spattered even on the mat. Gold warm, gold dimly echoing, reflecting the other gold, so that sitting in the tea-room was as if you were sitting in the middle of a golden bell.

  You don't like it?

  Too beautiful, says Rikyu.

  Isn't that the point?

  Rikyu is not convinced. He sits, slightly stiff; he's an old man, creaky with age. He takes the ladle and reaches to scoop the water from the iron pot on the square hearth. Even the flames seem to be golden; only the pot remains ungilded, blackened by fire.

  Rikyu whisks the tea. He has done this a thousand times, but never before in this room; never here, never now. A first time, like all times, unique, and to be savoured.

  Hideyoshi accepts the bowl. Ironically, for once, Hideyoshi is not standing upon ceremony. In this, Rikyu is his master's master.

  Even the tea's rich green seems tinged with gold.

  Gold is gold, Hideyoshi says. You know what it's worth.

  Rikyu knows the old Oda retainers call Hideyoshi a peasant. They think he doesn't know; but he does. He knows in his bones he'll never be one of them; he's suspicious of their clannish ways, suspicious of things he can't put a value on.

  Gold is gold. Tea is tea.

  Indeed, says Hideyoshi, turns the bowl and passes it back.

  ***

  The first tea they ever took together, when Hideyoshi was just a lieutenant to old Oda, one spring. Rikyu was already an old man then, with the shadowy presence of the ancient; you forgot, sometimes, that he was there.

  Everyone vied with each other, back in those days - what, ten, fifteen years ago? but how fast they had gone, how much had changed - for the best tea, the best tea bowls, pots, ladles. There was Korean celadon ware, with its rich glaze like dripping sugar, and Chinese porcelain, thin, translucent, or ornately painted with rich dark blue, or with a light blue haze of lazy calligraphy. But Oda Nobunaga had the best, always.

  Sen no Rikyu flicked the bowl lightly with a fingernail and it rang, high and hollow. Outside, a hotogisu sang its sad, whirring song.

  Listen, Rikyu said. The universe is nothing but sound brought together. This sound you will never hear again.

  One of the lieutenants laughed, but old Oda glared at him, and he stopped. Rikyu passed the bowl, and Oda turned it a quarter turn in his cupped hands, and bowed his head, and drank in silence.

  The bowl passed. Hideyoshi drank, and the others, and the bowl was set back in front of Rikyu. A cool breeze stirred the warm air.

  The conversation was notable for what was not mentioned: the Rokkaku, the Miyoshi clan, the fighting monks, alliances, betrayals, attacks. Instead, Nobunaga talked about calligraphy, swords, the new lotus pond in his castle at Nagoya, the quality of the hotogisu's song, and, eventually, tea. He praised Rikyu's sureness and skill, but he was praising himself, too, for having such a tea master, and they all knew it. There were polite smiles; one lieutenant singled out Rikyu's fine arrangement of the room, another commended his demeanour; Hideyoshi smiled, and said nothing.

  Then Rikyu dropped a stone into the still pond of their talk: "What is this tea, anyway?"

  No one dared to answer. Even Nobunaga himself was silent.

  "You need charcoal. A cool room, in summer. Flowers. Time. Tea. You need consideration, you need preparation. That's all."

  That was all? Nobunaga frowned; two of the younger men were looking worriedly at each other. Hideyoshi looked down, carefully not meeting anyone's eyes. A peasant-born samurai learns caution quickly.

  But he was thinking: you need preparation. Anyone else would have left that out. I like this man.

  You make it sound so easy, said Nobunaga.

  So easy, Rikyu said. Can you do it, my lord?

  ***

  Rikyu and Hideyoshi walking, springtime and the cherry blossom, which is one day a haze or a cloud on the trees, and the next like snow on the ground, thick and white and as fleeting as a late spring snowfall.

  Rikyu stoops, and for a moment Hideyoshi looks around, expecting ambush, then he sees Rikyu has picked up a stone from the path. A small, smooth, black stone with a ring of dull crackled quartz around it. He tosses it from hand to hand, feeling its weight, as they continue their walk, Hideyoshi in the lead, Rikyu dawdling a little.

  So many stones, Rikyu says, and just this single one caught my eye.

  In his hands it seems to shine, as if his touch has polished it.

  The low sun falls on the quartz. It sparkles for a second before Rikyu turns the stone, and the glint is gone.

  Imagine how many years it has been there, Hideyoshi says. Hundreds of years perhaps, and today, you pick it up.

  You could learn from that stone.

  Hideyoshi laughs. I have a hard head already, he says.

  Stability, says Rikyu. Patience.

  Hideyoshi stops, and turns towards his tea master. Solidity, he says. Nobunaga was always trying to carve out a dynasty for himself. Never did. You're right; I could learn from this stone. I'll do better than Nobunaga.

  Rikyu smiles. He looks down at the stone in his hand, and throws it up very gently, so that it lands in a moss-bordered pool, which swallows it with a tiny gulping sound. On the black bottom of the pool it is no longer visible. Bright rings spread out from its entry point, touch the edge of the pool and dissolve back into stillness.

  ***

  What the fuck is this?

  Hideyoshi looks at the malfor
med thing in front of him. Thick, uneven walls of rough clay. Coarse glaze slapped on, pocked with tiny holes. Grey and brown, dirt colours.

  It's not even straight, he says. A child could make something like this.

  Don't you feel its integrity?

  Its what?

  He has a distinct impression he is being made a fool of. He wants to say, like a peasant, you're having a laugh.

  A fly buzzed. Heat haze hung over the plain, but under the thatch of the tea house it was cool.

  It is simple, Rikyu says. There's no pretension about it. It shows what it's made of.

  Hideyoshi sees how a fat thumbprint remains embedded in the clay of one side, whorls under the dripped glaze.

  I'm just a peasant, I know, Hideyoshi says, but …

  Whenever Hideyoshi says something like that, the tea master knows something bad is coming.

  ***

  Hideyoshi is beset by evils. There is a rebellion in the south. There is Ieyasu, who sometimes is, and sometimes is not, his ally; moving like water - supporting old Oda's younger son against Hideyoshi, and then submitting, and then retreating, gone to some tiny place in the middle of nowhere with his yokel samurai, so that no one knows what he's up to, but everyone wonders. There is his three year old son, who never seems to be well, always feeling the chill, always pale. There's the fact that he keeps having to play one alliance off against another, and trying to stop one ally from finding out about the other arrangement.

  He comes to the tea house for peace, to clear his mind for a while. He wants to look into the foamy green of the tea, to smell the grassy, pungent steam, to forget everything except the moment.

  Rikyu has told him: "The way of tea is this. First you boil water. Then you make tea. And drink it."

  It is simple. If only Hideyoshi's life could be reduced to such simplicity. If only things didn't change every moment. If only Hideyoshi's own temper didn't get in the way.

  Thunder rumbles in the distance. An autumn storm.

  Rikyu is holding out the black tea bowl. Hideyoshi realises Rikyu has been holding it out for some time; Hideyoshi's mind has been wandering. So much for the moment: a moment he has forgotten already.

  He takes the bowl, turns it a quarter turn in his hand, and drinks. The repetition of the rite should bring him peace, but not today. He's still thinking what to do with Ieyasu.

  He could ask Rikyu, but Rikyu would not reply. Or would say something about tea, or stone, or season, which would not be helpful.

  Rikyu coughs gently. Hideyoshi is still holding the bowl. The earthenware is growing cold in his hand.

  Hideyoshi sees the reproof in Rikyu's eyes. It rankles. Rikyu is only a merchant's son after all, it's not his place to sneer.

  When Rikyu holds his hand out for the bowl, Hideyoshi's anger flashes. He stands abruptly, and turns to walk out, and remembers he's still holding the bowl. He throws it at Rikyu, and is already turning again to go as he hears it crack against the hearth and smash.

  ***

  Temple visiting. Visiting the emperor. Hideyoshi has come a long way from the days when he held Nobunaga's horse, or his shoes.

  And yet. And yet.

  His rule is incomplete. Other clans still hold out against him. The islands are a patchwork of local fealties, shifting allegiances. Nothing is secure.

  They still hate him, he knows. No one dares to say it to his face, but he still sees the sneers, if he doesn't hear them. Fifteen generations of cold noble blood stare down the peasant chancer made good.

  He comes to the temple on a bright day. Sun shines from the gilded roof of the pavilion and makes the ivory silk of his kimono shine like pale gold. He enters through the great gate; huge cypresses shade the path. Their scent is strong and resinous.

  He makes his offering of incense, watching the smoke drift and trail on the air till its tendrils slowly dissolve to nothingness. He bows, twice, and claps his hands together, twice, sharply.

  For a moment he feels at peace. For a moment the great trees and the mountain give him their strength. And then the priest says "Hideyoshi - oh, you have Rikyu as your tea master!" and it's spoilt. All he has worked for, all he has built, and he will only ever be remembered as Rikyu's patron. It's Rikyu, not him, they respect.

  Two days later, the emperor gives Rikyu the status of koji, Buddhist priest.

  ***

  Hideyoshi's anger eats at him. Anger at Ieyasu, who is still playing those games of advance and retreat, betraying and asking forgiveness, and is too powerful and too far away to crush. Anger at the nobles who still see Hideyoshi as a jumped-up servant. Anger at the emperor, who doesn't understand his own powerlessness. Anger at old Nobunaga, who left his affairs in disorder and only Hideyoshi to sort them out. Anger at his own anger, which he knows makes everything more difficult for him; the awful leaden feeling afterwards.

  It is no state of mind for calligraphy. His characters scrawl, sprawl, swoop, splash as he stabs the brush into the paper. Small drops of ink spatter around his words.

  You have made your tea, now drink it.

  ***

  The tea master considers the garden through the tears on his lashes. He holds in his hand the letter that has come from Hideyoshi. He admires its black and savage writing; for once Hideyoshi has overcome the constraints of his effortful calligraphic hand, and produced writing of real simplicity and force. Thunder rumbles in the distance.

  He holds in his hand the old bowl Hideyoshi had smashed, repaired with golden lacquer. The lacquer crazes its black sides with a golden web.

  Outside, he knows, are Hideyoshi's men, as well as the thunder. He will not leave the tea house. Inside, his five friends, and a blade. He makes the tea. He whisks it.

  Ichi-go ni ichi-do. The singular moment that will never come again.

  He smells that prickly familiar smell of green tea. He sees the vivid green in the dark of the bowl. He has done this so many times, and he has never done this. It is familiar and it is strange.

  He passes the bowl. His friends drink.

  And now he leaves the ceremony behind, and creates his own rite.

  To you the whisk, he says, and hands the bristling bamboo whisk to Yukihiko.

  To you the pot.

  To you the caddy. The scoop. The napkin.

  He takes the bowl in his hand, feeling the roughness of its foot, the rounded curves of its bowl that fit his fingers so well. Thinking of Chojiro who made it.

  He raises it high. He brings it down.

  He looks at the blade on the mat in front of him. It is simple, and fine. The edge shines, a thin line, light on sharpness. Ichi-go ni ichi-do.

  He raises it. He brings it down.

  Red on maple leaves.

  ***********