The Forty-seven Ronin project never materialized, not with Sanba. My lover was always behind on his deadlines. He liked it that way. When he really needed to produce he took a room over his publisher’s office. And if that didn’t work, he went into hiding. He emerged, sometimes weeks later, with a finished manuscript and a desire to celebrate. He found his home distracting because he had a small son. I didn’t know where he was most of the time.
But I knew he’d reappear. We sat in little bars on barges along the Sumida. We walked along together—slowly, because Sanba suffered from gout that made his feet and ankles hurt. I drank with the crowd of printmakers, writers, and hangers-on—my father’s friends, or they would have been, had he taken time to hang out with them.
I was happy then. I was a known entity: Hokusai’s daughter, Sanba’s lover, an apprentice artist. So what if my ears—like my father’s—were meant for a person twice my size? If I was afflicted with the inability to be compliant? This body gave me pleasure, and Sanba too.
A miracle had happened. Life had opened a place for me.
M
Y FATHER WAS POOR AND PROUD OF IT
. I began to understand why. It was his image, and it helped him become famous.
One day a furnisher for the Shogun came to the North Star Studio. This in itself was astonishing. More astonishing was that Hokusai took a dislike to the man and said he was busy. “I come not to buy a painting,” the messenger told me. “I come with an invitation.” He looked as if he wished he didn’t have to.
Hokusai was not painting, but he was thinking about painting. Sometimes this took a long time. He sat on his mat in full view of the messenger, who was kept kneeling in the doorway. It was early summer. Our clothing was thin, plain cotton. The messenger remained on his knees, in his bright, padded jacket bearing the crest of the Shogun. Eventually Hokusai waved. The man could speak.
“I bring an invitation to join the Shogun Ienari on an afternoon of hunting.”
“Hunting?” my father murmured, very low. “I will show you hunting.” He asked me to bring him his outer robe.
Hokusai clad the subjects of his paintings in sumptuous velvets, but his own outer robe was shabby, had been worn many times, and was never cleaned. I reached it where it hung over the top of the screen, noted its odour, and carried it to my father on outstretched arms. I hoped to demonstrate to the messenger of the Shogun the necessity of showing deference.
Hokusai took the coat on his knees. He stretched out the collar and squinted at it. He made a quick jab, two fingers held like pincers. He gave a grunt of satisfaction. He peered again, running the fabric through his fingers. “Ah!” he said and again jabbed at the garment. “Mmmm!”
He was hunting a louse. I tried to see the messenger’s face, but I couldn’t. He didn’t move; I didn’t move.
He caught a dozen, crushing the barely visible creatures between the tips of his thumb and forefinger with great noises of satisfaction. He seemed to be alone in his world. To interrupt would bring a shower of abuse. The messenger, accustomed to self-abasement at the palace, waited. Hokusai hunted and pecked, hunted and pecked.
Finally he had had enough.
“Hey, you! Ooo-ei,” he said. “Is there a messenger waiting?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Tell him I can see him now.”
T
he invitation was to attend a falcon-hunting party at the tidal gardens. The painter Buncho of the Shirakawa clan would be there, and the Shogun wanted an impromptu painting competition. This was the heart of enemy territory. Sadanobu was fond of Buncho. Suddenly Hokusai was jovial.
“I would be delighted. One request: may I bring my daughter?”
The messenger bowed. “We provide you with as many servants as you need.”
“No, no. No servants. Only my daughter can be trusted with my brushes.”
I
didn’t mind the long walk to the hunting site. It was the live chicken that annoyed me. Hokusai strode resolutely, bowlegged, in front. I came behind with the ink, and the squawking covered cage that bumped against my shins. People averted their eyes, as if I were burping uncontrollably. Behind me the Shogun’s servant carried the roll of paper and a large mop.
Our destination was the marsh at Tokyo Bay, near the mouth of the Sumida River. Ienari had become Shogun at eighteen; he was over forty now. Sadanobu’s reforms had affected him perversely: he was dissolute, quixotic, and indulgent. He had built a brothel inside the castle, lattice and all. All of Edo knew he often cancelled his afternoon appointments to take a falconry day in the marsh.
The tide flooded in and out through a narrow water gate. A huge pine tree grew at one edge. It was famous because it was 150 years old. Irises with fat purple flames were in bloom. Riding trails threaded around a little teahouse. A small mound representing Mt. Fuji was there for ladies to climb.
The Shogun’s retinue stood by, with mounted warriors and standing warriors as wide as they were tall. Ienari himself beckoned us on, smiling and lighthearted; he looked like a fat boy. We trudged over three bridges that zigzagged through the tall grasses. They stood in water a foot deep, the pillars supporting them iced with salt.
I felt the nearness of the sea. The tide was coming in. At the sandy edges of the water little crabs scuttled. The sun was hot, and as the water rose, the marshes began to glint, like metal. The birds couldn’t hide—not the ducks along the soft edges of the sandy earth that bordered the pond, or the small birds with yellow wings that were perched on the tall spires of sea grass, bending them.
The falcon sat on Shogun Ienari’s wrist with the sun flashing on its majestic little metal helmet. It was chained and clad in feathered leggings. The Shogun wore an elegant deerskin glove. Everyone stood as in a trance. In the silence you could hear the insects. Hokusai scratched his ass. Buncho, the official artist, stood straight and looked at home surrounded by lords. Sadanobu—paunchy, hard-nosed, softer, somehow womanish—stood nearby. He looked at Hokusai with a curl in his lip.
There was a murmur, an instruction somewhere in the ranks.
No one flinched.
The chicken made a ghastly screech, as if it were being killed.
Ienari alone laughed. My arm ached from holding the cage. I lowered it a little.
My father jerked his head at me: up, up. I raised it.
I had no idea what he was planning. But my irritation was great enough to make me forget my fear. My father played a dangerous game. These lords, and the Shogun himself, were impulsive and could have had us in prison for impudence. Did Hokusai play the game because of his pride in his samurai background or—remembering the “Hokusai, a peasant of Honjo” sign he put outside the door of each of our dwellings—his pride in being simple?
The chicken squawked again. I switched it to my other arm. Ienari gave the signal to free the dogs. They bounded off magnificently. Splashing and barking and tearing first in one direction, then in another, in zigzags, circles, they scared up the birds: herons, larks. Up from one clump flew a crane. A crane! Symbol of good luck.
Then Ienari lifted the hood off the falcon. He released the chain. The predator trembled on the regal wrist. We all held our breath at our sovereign’s brilliance, which was really the bird’s brilliance, the brilliant threat of nature. The artists stood waiting. My arm ached. My chicken scratched. I lifted one foot and then the other. The platform squeaked. The water moved beneath. The grasses swayed, and bird cries tested every fibre of the falcon’s being.
Then Ienari gave the sign. The predator shot forth like an arrow, pierced the heart of the crane, and brought it down. The dogs splashed towards the corpse. The falcon returned. Ienari stroked its neck lovingly.
Another crane flew up. Again the falcon went out to murder the bird of good luck, and again the dogs went mad for the blood.
There were larks, too, caught that day. There were others; I tired of it instantly. At last it was over. The Shogun’s party repaired to a restaurant, where the cook prepared the crane in the ritual way. We made our way up to Senso-ji temple, where the art competition would take place.
S
enso-ji was our home ground, which gave us an advantage in the competition.
Buncho went first. He made a brush sketch of the tidal garden we’d just left, the platform where Ienari had sat, the soft grasses of the marsh. His brush never varied in speed, never flipped or stabbed. He finished his sketch and remained still for a few seconds. Then he bowed extravagantly. The falcon deigned to turn its ears, keen enough to pick up the scratching of the brush while tucked inside its pretty helmet.
Minions lifted the paper and held it up so everyone could see. They sighed in appropriate awe.
Ienari paced back and forth. His step was heavy and rigid. His face showed a past of self-indulgence and certain gratification. The day would unroll as each one did: he would have his way, and there would be death and obedience and worship and pleasure. What did it matter? He had been too young; he had earned nothing. Even amongst Shoguns there is earning and not earning, there is worthy and worthless.
“You now,” he said, barking in Hokusai’s direction.
Hokusai’s large ears were turned upward. He appeared not to hear the ruler. He gave a soft whistle. The falcon glared and did not turn a feather. He was teasing the bird. He was trying to make it lose its concentration; by his very nonchalance, he was spreading insurrection.
Sadanobu cleared his throat regretfully. He seemed to say, I could have had you all wiped out, back when I was senior councillor, and I didn’t. I am too soft-hearted.
Ienari laughed at the stubborn little man as he stood in his poor robe with a roll of paper. “Come now, will you make us wait?”
“Oh,” said Hokusai agreeably, “is it my turn?”
I hung my head, waiting for the axe to fall. Failure to fear, a crime for which Sadanobu had often had people convicted, was written as if on a placard over my father’s head. But it was not failure. It was refusal.
Ienari laughed.
Hokusai fumbled for his brushes. He took the roll of paper. He stepped forward, his forehead wrinkled with pleasure. The retainers’ faces were grim. Ienari appeared to be charmed. Hokusai hummed a tune. I was wobbling under the weight of the stupid chicken cage. Its inhabitant was obviously the only bird there that did not know how to behave. Flapping around in its cage! Feathers coming loose. Loud squawking. It had no idea what it was doing there, and neither did I.
Everyone was watching Hokusai. Oh, he was famous, that was true; even the Shogun had seen his pictures. The very fact that we were here showed the change in Edo. The refined Noh theatre and the Kano school of arts were losing fans amongst the aristocrats. The officially despised, tawdry, and cheeky Yoshiwara culture had never been more fashionable.
Hokusai rolled out the paper. I had put it together the day before. It was fifteen paces long. The ends would not lie flat. He gestured to the guards: You stand on that corner, hold it down. You on the other.
Ienari laughed again. Then he gestured to the guards that they should do as Hokusai wished. “Go,” he said to them, and four of them went.
I bet he hadn’t laughed like that since he was a nasty little boy putting worms in the maids’ noodles.
Sadanobu’s teeth clenched. But as the samurai clinked and rattled in their armour to their spots on the paper, certain nobles began to follow the Shogun’s lead and titter.
Hokusai scooped up the air in front of his body with his hands, indicating more laughter, more laughter. And the laughter got bigger, and now the corner-holders themselves were smiling sheepishly and it was not laughter at anyone—it was just laughter.
I put down the chicken’s cage.
Hokusai took up his mop. I mixed the blue indigo ink with water in a pail. He bent down and soaked the straw ends of the mop. He walked over to the paper, eyed it from this way and that, smiling to himself, waving to me.
Buncho, beside Sadanobu, straightened up from his deep bow. I saw his elegant, understated work and I saw something else: he too was smiling.
Hokusai got down on all fours and pushed his face near the paper. He lifted his mop from the bucket. A drop of paint fell from it. Sloppy. He looked at his audience and smiled. Then he lowered his brush to meet the paper at the exact point where the drip had fallen, beginning his work there.
Everyone could feel the change: he was unaware now, of the birds, the sky, the temple market, the waiting retinue. It did not matter that the Shogun was there. There were no more airs or poses. He began.
He painted a long blue line, walking with his mop the length of the paper. He pressed the giant brush, and twisted it, and pressed on the other side, getting the most of the ink. He created a long, wavy blue line. Even the chicken was quiet. I had been speaking to it. I had reassured it. But it was false reassurance; I did not know what its fate would be. Was it to be some sort of sacrifice?
Hokusai jerked his head at me. “Oei!” he hailed.
“Old Man!” I shouted back.
My next job was to produce the red ink, and this I did, with more water and a bowl.