The Scent of Sake (31 page)

She stomped rapidly up the stairs to her room, went to the window, and sat looking down into the garden. How could she save the house from this unprecedented disaster?

Stunned and desperate, Jihei stumbled along the road in the dark. It was unheard of. How could Rie evict him from his own home? He was still house head. She had no power, no authority. He could not go to the Sawaraya now. O-Toki must have been talking to someone about what he had told her, about the sake

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souring. Not like her to reveal a confidence. But she must have told someone, maybe O-Haru. O-Haru was a gossip. Where to turn? He paused, swaying in the gloom of the street. His eye caught a red lantern down by the bridge, and he began to stumble toward it. He could get a drink there. They would know him, though it was not a place he frequented. Everyone in this part of Nada knew him. Where was he to go? His mouth felt so dry. He pushed toward the lantern, then bent to duck under the noren and opened the squeaking sliding door.

“Please come in!” came a thin high voice.

Jihei saw a serving girl behind the low counter. She wore a rough kimono and had round red cheeks and was clearly far below the status of geisha.

Jihei didn’t hazard her another glance. He slumped down on a stool at the single counter. “Sake!” he grunted.

“Yes.” She nodded and turned to get a heated flask and single cup.

“Hurry!” he growled.

“Yes, sir.” The girl turned and placed the flask and cup in front of Jihei. She poured quickly before Jihei had a chance to pick up the cup properly. He emptied the cup and poured himself another. Then another. He glanced around furtively and saw that he was the only customer. When the flask was empty he mumbled, “More!”

The girl removed the empty bottle and placed a full one in front of Jihei, pouring the first cup for him. He continued to drink. What could he do? Surely Rie could not have been serious. She had no right, no authority. He was head of the house. He began to nod and sway on the stool. His eyes closed.

“Sorry, sir,” came the girl’s voice after he had emptied several flasks. “We are closing now. You will have to leave.”

Jihei’s head had sagged to his chest.

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She prodded Jihei on the shoulder. “We are closed now,” she said insistently. “Please leave.”

“Oh,” Jihei groaned. He tried to stand but instead fell off the stool. He reached for the counter to raise himself but slumped back onto the floor. The girl bent to help him up. Jihei leaned against her and reached for her breasts. She brushed his hand off, opened the door, and pushed him out, quickly sliding the door shut behind him.

Jihei lurched into the street and slammed against the rough wooden wall. He gripped his stomach, leaned over, and retched. He wiped his mouth with his kimono sleeve and took a few halting steps away from the wall. He fell and sat immobile, his head down. Then he moved his hands along the ground trying to rise. How could his wife do this to him? And she had never been a real wife, not like O-Toki. But how could he go to O-Toki now? He thrust himself onto all fours and reached for a lamppost to try to stand. He began to shuffle along the road toward the bridge, halting and swaying every few steps, groaning with each breath. He retched again, and stumbled further. As he arrived at one end of the bridge he reached toward the railing for support. He slipped in the mud, missed the railing, and slid down the steep muddy embankment. His arms flailed frantically as he splashed into the black river below and disappeared.

Rie came to breakfast with her children the next morning. She said little beyond “Good morning, Yoshi.”

Before breakfast was finished, Kinnosuke rushed into the dining room out of breath. “Oku-san!” He glanced at Yoshitaro. “Master has been found in the river. He drowned in the night.” He gasped in quick sharp breaths and bowed.

Rie glared at Kinnosuke and placed both hands on the table, even as her heart raced. Could he not have told her privately first? She closed her eyes for a moment, her tirade from last night so fresh in her mind. What had she done? “I see.” She pushed up from the table. “Come, Yoshi, to the office.” She walked purposefully down the corridor followed by Yoshitaro and Kinnosuke. The girls who had been sitting at the table began to weep loudly as Rie made her way to the office.

Rie sat at the table and motioned Yoshitaro and Kinnosuke to join her.

“Just as we’ve formalized arrangements for your wedding, your father. . . .” She put her hand to her forehead. There was

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no need to tell the children that she had sent Jihei away or that he was responsible for the sake failure two years earlier. O-Natsu knew, but she would keep quiet.

“What do we do now?” Yoshitaro asked, biting his lip, sorrow written in the lines of his face.

“Of course you succeed now automatically. And you and Kinno need to make the funeral arrangements.”

“Why did you push him so hard?” Yoshi looked at Rie accusingly. “That’s what drove him to drink as he did. He didn’t see any role for himself here, with you making the decisions all along. He felt frustrated. That’s why he drank so much, and it only got worse.”

Rie glared at Yoshi. “Are you accusing me of being responsible for what he did, Yoshi?”

“I see a connection.”

Rie felt her anger rising out of control. “It was your father who caused our sake to sour. He ruined it deliberately! He was destroying our house.” She instantly deflated. She hadn’t meant to tell him, to hurt him further.

Yoshi stood up, hands on his hips. “I don’t believe you. He couldn’t have done that.” He left the room abruptly.

Rie let out a deep, sobering breath.

That evening Jihei’s body lay on the futon in the parlor. The shutters had been closed and the smell of stale sake and death pervaded the room.

Rie paused at the doorway and looked at the lifeless form of the man by whom she had had a child. She arranged zabuton around the futon, and the family seated themselves for the wake. She turned to Yoshitaro next to her.

“It can’t be helped, Yoshi,” she said softly. “We’ll have to postpone the wedding until the year of mourning is over. If only he had not drunk so heavily. All the weddings will be delayed a year.” She paused and looked at Yoshitaro.

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He nodded, but it was a brusque nod filled with silent anger and accusation.

Silence enveloped the family. Lamplight flickered against the shoji. Kazu, Teru, and Fumi dabbed at tear-filled eyes.

“Sei, go to bed,” Rie said, her hand gentle on his shoulder.

Seisaburo stumbled to his feet. He was about to open the shoji when another hand did so from outside.

Kinnosuke knelt at the edge of the tatami and bowed toward Rie and Yoshitaro.

Rie nodded to him and motioned for him to sit opposite her. She looked over at Kinnosuke and bowed slightly to the man she had trained since childhood, a man now so vital to the house and totally dedicated to Yoshitaro. She sighed and looked back at Jihei’s corpse. Fumi leaned against Rie, who put an arm around her daughter. Strange that she felt so little for this man she had sent away; mainly relief. No, perhaps not so strange. Hatred had been the real bond between them. And yet she knew that hatred had now created a rift between herself and Yoshi, one she must find a way to overcome.

Early the next morning Rie went down to the kitchen and looked out over the vaulted rooftops. The first light of dawn was just yellowing the sky. Alone in the kitchen, she lit a fire to heat water for tea. O-Natsu and O-Yuki would be in soon. She turned and walked slowly out into the garden. Nothing stirred. No sound was audible. She sat on her favorite rock and rubbed the back of her neck and shoulders. She realized that she had sat at Jihei’s deathbed without shedding a single tear. Now her shoulders began to shake and she began sobbing as she released her anguish. Not for the loss of Jihei, for whom she had trouble concealing her distaste. His drinking was just the most obvious of his weaknesses. What she felt was rather a poignant sense that so much of her own life had passed, and relief that he would no longer embarrass or dishonor the house. And finally, sadness

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for the breach in her relationship with Yoshi. She walked back into the house, paused at the pillar and moved her hands over it thoughtfully.

The children and the business, the house, were still her reason for being. She must find a way to mend her fences with Yoshi. With a last shuddering sigh she walked into the office to ask that a notice be posted over the entrance announcing the funeral.

Rie sat next to Yoshitaro at the head of two long lines of black-kimonoed brewers and their wives. Three Buddhist priests intoned their deep monotonous mantras, rising and falling in so-norous unison. Incense hung heavy in the air and lamps flickered against the shoji and glanced off the elaborate gilt Butsudan. Rie sat absolutely upright looking straight ahead, her face impassive. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Yoshitaro sat equally immobile at her side and that none of the other four children ranged below him was shedding a tear. Rie felt a sense of family pride as she surreptitiously eyed the five children she had raised so carefully. Her marriage had not been a total loss. It had enabled her to add these five children to the house.

Then a reassuring thought came to her. Now it would never become known that she had banished Jihei from the Omura House, something she really had no authority to do, but Jihei had been too drunk to argue. A huge scandal would have erupted if the news had leaked out. She took a deep breath and pressed her lips together, a twinge of guilt accompanying the relief she felt. If Jihei had not died as he had, that one moment of anger could have very well cost them everything her father had worked his whole lifetime to achieve. She shivered at the thought.

Rie watched with pride as Yoshitaro stood and spoke briefly, thanking all for attending his father’s funeral and asking formally for the cooperation of the brewers as he assumed the headship of the Omura House and of White Tiger.

After sake was served, Yoshitaro moved toward the entrance

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