The Scent of Sake (37 page)

Yoshi rose. “It will not happen because she will not have the

opportunity.”

“Sit! You have not been excused. What do you mean by suggesting that she will not have the opportunity? Do you think you can refuse your duty to this house? Impossible! You were adopted as heir, and you must provide a successor.”

Yoshi paused in the doorway. “We will have an heir. I have a daughter already.”

“I know about your disgraceful philandering at the Sawaraya. And that geisha has had a child. But we will not bring her into this house as we did you.”

“Then there will be no heir, no successor,” Yoshi said, and walked from the room.

As Yoshitaro went about the business of the day, he recalled with pleasure his visit to O-Sada when she had told him she was pregnant with his child. She had smiled as she watched his face. He had been so enthusiastic, had embraced her.

“My wife has not become pregnant in three years,” he told her.

“Perhaps you have given me a better chance than your wife,” she had replied, a mysterious glint in her eyes.

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He guessed that Rie would eventually relent and want to bring O-Sada’s baby into the house, but he dreaded breaking the news to Tama. He knew Rie would do it, if asked, relieving him of the duty. Still, he felt a twinge of guilt, a bit of sadness for Tama, who had worked so faithfully for the house.

Several months had passed and Rie still hadn’t relented and let Yoshitaro bring O-Sada’s child into the household. Tired of fighting with his mother over the child, he determined to pay O-Sada a visit. He knew it would be an awkward meeting, painful for O-Sada, yet he could not postpone it.

Faced with the prospect of having no heir for the main house, Rie had no choice but to agree to Yoshi’s request to bring in Ume, distasteful though the prospect of another geisha’s child in the house was.

O-Sada did not attempt to conceal her tears as she nursed her baby. As he watched, Yoshitaro recalled the earlier conversation, the far happier occasion of his previous visit.

He put a hand on O-Sada’s arm to calm her. “But Ume will have a good life, O-Sada. She will have every advantage in the Omura House. And a good marriage.”

“Yes,” she sobbed. “I know, but I don’t want to give her up.” She stopped and put the baby to her shoulder.

“Be reasonable, O-Sada,” Yoshitaro said, leaning into her. “What life can you give her? And you know caring for you will always be my responsibility.”

“Yes, it’s true,” she said softly. “I don’t want her to grow up here, like me. O-Toki has told me she had a daughter besides you, and there was another from the Kitaya, all adopted into the Omura House.”

Yoshi stiffened.

She put a hand to her mouth. “I thought you knew about Teru and Kazu.”

He shook his head brusquely, eyes downcast. Once again his

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mother, if he could even call her that, had lied to him. He could never forgive her. Three children. He had been told the girls were adopted relatives from the country. No wonder she favored Fumi and Sei, who were no doubt her own.

“It was very hard for her to lose them that way. That’s why she is always so happy when you visit. She is proud of you.” She sniffed. “But I can’t bear the thought that I won’t be able to watch Ume grow up and marry.”

“I’ll tell you about her whenever I come. And I’ll do my best to arrange that you can see her sometimes, especially when she marries. But that’s twenty years away, so don’t worry about it now. I promise she will have the best possible life.”

O-Sada sighed and wiped at her tears with her sleeve. “Come,” Yoshitaro urged. “O-Yuki is waiting in the ricksha

outside.”

O-Sada rose holding the baby, picked up a large furoshiki with the baby’s clothes, and shuffled out after Yoshitaro. He took the furoshiki, put an arm around O-Sada, then released her and handed her an envelope. She bowed and handed Ume to O-Yuki, then leaned over to kiss the baby a last time before bowing again to Yoshitaro. He watched from the ricksha as O-Sada turned and stumbled back to the entrance, hands over her face.

Rie looked at Tama. The rest of the family had left the dinner table and they were alone.

“I’m sure you are aware, Tama, that the most important duty of the wife of the house head is to produce an heir. You know, the samurai say a bride is a borrowed womb.”

Tama sat opposite Rie, eyes downcast. Rie could see that she was twisting her hands in her lap.

Tama bowed. “I am sorry to have disappointed you.”

“Well, it can’t be helped.” Rie sighed. She had not planned to share her own experience with Tama, but it seemed appropriate

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now. “You know, Tama, the same thing happened to me when I married. My parents adopted your husband because I had no child for several years after I married.”

Tama looked up, her eyes widening. “Oh, I didn’t know it happened that way.”

“Yes, Yoshitaro is my husband’s son by a mistress.”

Tama caught her breath. “Oh!” was all she could manage.

Rie felt a measure of sympathy for the girl, knowing how such words stung, how they burrowed beneath the skin to leave pain in its wake. But it was kinder to tell her than to have her find out as Rie had—through gossip on the streets. “Yes, a mistress at the Sawaraya, a geisha. Now Yoshi has insisted on bringing in his daughter from the same establishment, though I have been opposed to it. I cannot prevent it, since we do require an heir, a successor to the main house. Yoshi is house head so I may not be able to prevent this, though I have been trying to stop his plan. I have not succeeded. We will have to bring this child in.”

Tama’s hands flew to her face. Then she bowed, and ran from the room. Rie could hear her crying as she hurried toward the stairs.

Rie closed her eyes, feeling spent by the encounter and bad for Tama. She was about to take a well-needed rest when she heard a ricksha, and walked toward the entrance, fearing what she would find there.

When Yoshi returned to the house with Ume, Rie and Tama both greeted the baby reluctantly. From the moment Ume came into the house Yoshitaro protected her. He looked in on her in the nursery night and morning, often picking her up, even carrying her into the office to show to Kinnosuke.

“Oh yes,” Kinnosuke said, grasping a tiny waving hand. “I can see that she is your daughter.” Kinnosuke smiled at the gurgling baby.

“I hope she doesn’t grow up to look like me,” Yoshitaro said,

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gazing down at her. “I’d rather she took after her mother,” he said softly.

“Well, no matter whom she looks like she’ll be very important to the next generation in the house. She’ll have an adopted husband, as your mother did. Unless you have a son, of course,” Kinnosuke added quickly. “But I’ll see that she gets the same training you did,” he said, patting the baby.

“Good. And by the way, congratulations! I hear that you have had a second son,” Yoshitaro said with a touch of envy in his voice. “I hope Nobu is doing well.”

Kinnosuke bowed. “She is thriving, thanks to you. Both of our sons are healthy, and Toru is growing fast. Nearly six. He’ll soon be going out as apprentice somewhere, to eat someone else’s rice. We can’t have him grow up idle or spoiled.”

“You’ll send him out so young?” Yoshitaro asked.

“Have you forgotten that you were helping me here when you were five?”

“I haven’t forgotten, Kinno-san. Yes, I would be grateful if you would have a hand in Ume’s training.”

As Rie eavesdropped on the conversation she realized she felt nothing for Ume but annoyance that the child was now installed as Yoshi’s heir. And now she would be the probable wife of Yoshi’s successor, another adopted husband.

“That she has no Omura blood is really regrettable,” Rie said to O-Natsu, later that day, the only one in the house to whom she could speak so frankly. Ume was granddaughter of Jihei and daughter of Yoshi. O-Toki’s bloodline was still polluting the house. “But she will be trained to become a true daughter of the Omura House, totally dedicated to our traditions,” Rie added, “and she must never be told of her Sawaraya origins. Every hint of it must be expunged from her character.” A fleeting memory of Teru flashed through her mind and she flinched.

Seisaboro was now twenty-one and Rie could no longer delay

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arranging his marriage. She again turned to Mrs. Nakano, this time to find a bride from a brewing family, so that Seisaburo and his bride could establish a new branch family. Yet even as the plans progressed, Yoshi appeared withdrawn like his father had been, and turned more and more to Kinnosuke, avoiding Rie whenever possible. Well, it couldn’t be helped. The house came above the individual. She had learned it, and he must learn it too.

The Yamada family were respected brewers and had a daughter of the right age. Rie was satisfied at the prospect of a link with another major brewing house in Nada. She smiled. How proud her father would be. She would inform him when she burned incense at the Butsudan in the morning.

“Must I?” Sei said, when his mother told him of Mari, the Yamada daughter.

“Yes, Sei, and she is quite pretty as well as being from a highly respected family.” Rie took out her comb, paused, then replaced it smartly. How well Mrs. Nakano’s daughter-in-law had turned out to be as a go-between after old Mrs. Nakano had retired. She had trained her successor well.

One evening, as Rie was preparing for the night, she sat before her dressing table combing her hair and musing. The face of the family was continually changing. The only child still at home, once Sei was gone, would be Yoshitaro, but already the next generation was beginning with Ume. And Tama. Rie still thought of her as a new member, though a permanent one, although one who had failed a major duty. To be fair, it was Yoshi who had failed.

“I have no intention of sending you back because you have not borne a child,” Rie assured Tama one evening. “I know that some samurai families simply hand a bride ‘three and a half lines’ and dismiss her if she fails to bear an heir. But we are not samurai, and even if we didn’t have Ume I would not do that.”

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Tama held Ume and appeared to be trying to develop affection for the baby, as she bowed and murmured her gratitude.

Rie continued combing her hair, slowly gazing at each graying strand. Now Eitaro was in the house, not actually a house member, but he came to the office each day and worked right alongside Yoshi and Sei. Rie noticed that Eitaro and Seisaburo had formed a close bond from the start, a friendship. Yoshitaro, though, seemed to keep his distance from Eitaro, insofar as possible in the office. Perhaps when Eitaro finished his apprenticeship in the house and was set up in his own branch, Yoshitaro’s attitude might change, or would it only become worse?

One morning Rie lit an incense stick in the Butsudan and clapped her hands to attract the attention of the gods, the spirits of her parents. Then she turned toward the tokonoma alcove and began arranging three stalks of yellow chrysanthemums in a shallow black vase.