"Ah, this little gendeman. This is the lad expelled from the Komyoji."

"You've heard already?"

"Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, I've just come from the temple."

Hiyoshi looked around restlessly. Never before had he been called a "little gentleman." Ashamed, he felt himself blush. Oh, my, you've been to the temple because of him?"

"Yes, the priests came to my house to apologize. I was told that an incense burner I had donated to the temple was broken in two."

"This little devil did that!" said Oetsu.

"Come now, you shouldn't say such things. These things happen."

"I heard it was a very rare, famous piece."

"Most regrettably, it was the work of Gorodayu, whom I served during his travels to the country of the Ming."

"Doesn't he also use the name Shonzui?"

"Yes, but he fell ill and pa.s.sed away some time ago. In recent years, many pieces of blue-and-white porcelain bearing the seal 'Made by Shonzui Gorodayu' have been made, but they are fakes. The only man who has ever been to the country of the Ming and brought back their pottery-making techniques is now in the next world."

"I've heard that you've adopted Master Shonzui's son, Of.u.ku."

"That's right. Children tease him by calling him 'the Chinese kid.' Lately he's been refusing to go outside at all." The merchant gazed down at Hiyoshi. The boy, unexpectedly hearing Of.u.ku's name, wondered about the man's business.

"You know," the merchant continued, "it turns out that Hiyoshi here is the only one who ever defended Of.u.ku. So when Of.u.ku heard about this latest incident, he asked me to intercede. Many other things are supposed to have happened. The priests told me about his bad behavior, and I couldn't persuade them to take him back again." His chest puffed up with laughter.

"His parents must have ideas about what to do with him," the man said, "but when he's to be placed somewhere else again, if his parents think an establishment like mine would be appropriate, I'd like to be of a.s.sistance. Somehow, he seems to hold promise."

With a polite farewell, he took his leave. Holding on to Oetsu's sleeve, Hiyoshi looked back at him several times.

"Tell me, Auntie, who was that man?"

"His name is Sutejiro. He's a wholesaler who handles pottery from many countries."

Hiyoshi was silent for a while as they trudged along.

"The country of the Ming, where is that?" he asked suddenly, thinking of what he had just heard.

"That means China."

"Where is it? How big is it? Are there castles and samurai and battles there, too?"

"Don't be such a nuisance. Be quiet, won't you?" Oetsu shook her sleeve irritably, but a scolding by his aunt had no more effect on Hiyoshi than a gentle breeze. He craned his neck upward and gazed fixedly at the blue sky. It was so wondrous he could hardly stand it. Why was it so incredibly blue? Why were human beings earthbound? If people were able to fly like birds, he himself could probably travel to the country of the Ming. Indeed, the birds depicted on the incense burner were the same as those in Owari. The people's clothes were different, he remembered, as were the shapes of the ships, but the birds were the same. It must be that birds had no countries; heaven and earth were all one country to them.

I'd like to visit different countries, he mused.

Hiyoshi had never noticed how small and poor a house he was returning to. But when he and Oetsu peered inside, he realized for the first time that even at midday it was as dark as a cellar. Chikuami was nowhere to be seen; maybe he was out attending to some business.

"Nothing but trouble," Onaka said, after hearing of Hiyoshi's latest escapades. She let out a deep sigh. His expression was nonchalant. As she looked at him, there was no blame in her eyes. Rather, she was impressed by how much he had grown in two years, Suspiciously, Hiyoshi eyed the infant sucking at his mother's breast. At some point his family had increased by one member. Without warning, he took the child's head, wresting rom the nipple, and peered at it.

"When was this baby born?" he asked.

Instead of answering, his mother said, "You've become a big brother. You'll have to behave."

"What's his name?"

"Kochiku."

"That's a strange name," he said excitedly, at the same time experiencing a feeling of power over the small child: the will of an older brother could be imposed on a younger brother.

"Starting tomorrow, I'll carry you on my back, Kochiku," he promised. But he was hadling the baby clumsily, and Kochiku began to cry.

His stepfather appeared just as Oetsu was leaving. Onaka had told her sister that Chikuami had grown tired of trying to wipe out their poverty. He sat around drinking sake, and his face was flushed now as he entered the house. Spying Hiyoshi, he let out a yel1.

"You scoundrel! You were expelled from the temple and you come back here?"

Tenzo the Bandit Hiyoshi had been back home for more than a year. He was eleven. Whenever Chikuami lost sight of him, even for a moment, he'd charge around looking for him and roar at the top of his voice, "Monkey? Have you chopped the firewood yet? Why not? Why did you leave the pail in the field?" If Hiyoshi so much as started to talk back, the rough, hard hollow of his stepfather's hand would quickly ring against the side of the boy's head. At such times his mother, the baby strapped to her back while she trod barley or cooked, would force herself to look away and remain silent. Still, her face looked pained, as if she herself had been slapped.

"It's natural for any eleven-year-old brat to help with the work. If you think you can slip away and play all the time, I'll break your a.s.s!"

The foulmouthed Chikuami drove Hiyoshi hard. But after being sent home from the temple, he worked hard, as if he had come back a different person. On those occasions when his mother unwisely tried to shield him, Chikuami's rough hands and voice lashed out with severity. It was better, she decided, to pretend to ignore her son. Now Chikuami rarely went into the fields, but he was often away from the house. He would go into town, return drunk, and yell at his wife and children.

"No matter how much I work, the poverty of this house won't ever be eased," he complained. "There are too many parasites, and the land tax keeps going up. If it weren't for these kids, I'd become a masterless samurai-a ronin! And I'd drink delicious sake. Ah, these chains on my hands and feet!"

After one of these fits of abusiveness, he would make his wife count out what little money they had, then send Otsumi or Hiyoshi out to buy sake, even in the middle of the night.

If his stepfather wasn't around, Hiyoshi would sometimes give vent to his feelings.

Onaka hugged him close and comforted him.

"Mother, I want to go out and work again," he said one day.

"Please stay here. If it weren't for your being around..." The rest of what she said was unintelligible through her tears. As each tear appeared, she turned her head to the side and wiped her eyes. Seeing his mother's tears, Hiyoshi couldn't say anything. He wanted o run away, but he knew he would have to stay where he was and bear the unhappiness and bitterness. When he felt sorry for his mother, the natural desires of youth-to play, to eat, to learn, to run away-would grow within him like so many weeds. All these were fitted against the angry words Chikuami hurled at his mother and the fists that rained iown on his own head.

"Eat s.h.i.t!" he muttered, his defiant soul a flame within his small body. Finally he pushed himself to the point of confronting his fearsome stepfather.

"Send me out to work again," he said. "I'd rather be in service than stay in this house."

Chikuami didn't argue. "Fine," he said. "Go wherever you like, and eat someone else's rice. But the next time you get driven away, don't come back to this house." He meant what he said, and although he realized Hiyoshi was only an eleven-year-old boy, he found limself arguing with him as an equal, which made him even madder.

Hiyoshi's next job was at the village dyer's shop.

"He's all mouth, and sa.s.sy to boot. Just looking for a sunny place to pick the dirt from his navel," said one of the workmen operating the dye press.

Soon after that, word came from the go-between: "I'm afraid he's of no use." And back home he went.

Chikuami glared at him. "Well, how about it, Monkey? Is society going to feed an idler like you? Don't you yet understand the value of parents?"

He wanted to say, I'm not bad! but instead he said, "You're the one who no longer farms, and it'd be better if you didn't just gamble and drink at the horse market. Everybody's sorry for my mother."

"How dare you talk that way to your father!" Chikuami's thundering roar shut the boy up, but now he was beginning to see Hiyoshi in a different light. He thought, Bit by bit, he's growing up. Each time Hiyoshi went out into the world and came back again, he was noticeably bigger. The eyes that judged his parents and his home were maturing quickly. And the fact that Hiyoshi was looking at him with the eyes of an adult deeply annoyed, frightened, and displeased the errant stepfather.

"Go on, hurry and find work," he ordered.

The following day, Hiyoshi went to his next employer, the village cooper. He was back home within a month, the mistress of the shop having complained, "I can't have a disturbing child like this in my house."

Hiyoshi's mother could not understand what she meant by "disturbing." Other places where Hiyoshi began apprenticeships were the plasterer's shop, the lunch counter at the horse market, and the blacksmith's. Each time he stayed no longer than three to six months. His comings and goings gradually became known, and his reputation got so bad that no one would act as his go-between.

"Ah, that boy at Chikuami's house. He's a foulmouthed good-for-nothing."

Naturally, Hiyoshi's mother felt embarra.s.sed around people. She felt awkward about her son, and in response to the gossip she would quickly deprecate him, as if his growing delinquency were incurable. "I don't know what can be done with him," she'd say. "He hates farming, and he just won't settle down at home."

In the spring of his fourteenth year, Hiyoshi's mother told him, "This time you absolutely must stick with it. If the same thing happens one more time, my sister isn't going be able to look Master Kato in the face, and everybody's going to laugh and say, 'Again?' Mind you, if you fail this time, I won't forgive you."

The next day his aunt took him to Shinkawa for an interview. The large, imposing mansion they went to belonged to Sutejiro, the pottery merchant. Of.u.ku was now a pale youth of sixteen; from helping his adoptive father, the boy had learned the pottery business himself.

In the pottery store, the distinction between superior and subordinate was rigidly applied. During his first interview, Hiyoshi knelt respectfully on the wooden veranda while Of.u.ku sat inside, eating cakes, chatting happily with his parents.

"Well, it's Yaemon's little monkey. Your father died, and Chikuami from the village became your stepfather. And now you want to serve in this house? You'll have to work hard." This was said in such a grown-up tone of voice that no one who had known the younger Of.u.ku would have believed it was the same person speaking.

"Yes, sir," Hiyoshi replied.

He was taken to the servants' quarters, from which he could hear the laughter of the master's family in the living room. That his friend had not shown him the least bit friendliness made him feel even lonelier.

"Hey, Monkey!" Of.u.ku did not mince his words. "Tomorrow, get up early and go to Kiyosu. Since you'll be taking goods to an official, load the packages onto the regular handcart. On your way back, stop in at the shipping agent's and check whether the pottery has arrived from Hizen. If you loiter along the way or get back too late, as you did the other day, you won't be let into the house."

Hiyoshi's answer was not a simple "yes" or "yes, sir." Like the clerks who had served much longer in the shop, he said, "Most certainly, sir, and with the greatest respect, sir."

Hiyoshi was often sent on errands to Nagoya and Kiyosu. That day he took note the white walls and high stone ramparts of Kiyosu Castle and mused, What kind of pe people live inside? How can I get to live there myself?

Feeling as small and wretched as a worm, he was frustrated. As he made his way through town, pushing the heavy handcart piled high with pottery wrapped in straw, he heard the familiar words: "Well, well, there goes a monkey!"

"A monkey pushing a handcart!"

Veiled courtesans, fashionably dressed townswomen, and the pretty young wives good families all whispered, pointed, and stared at him as he went by. He himself had already become proficient at spotting the pretty ones. What annoyed him most was the staring, as though he were some kind of freak.

The governor of Kiyosu Castle was Shiba Yoshimune, and one of his princ.i.p.al retainers was Oda n.o.butomo. At the spot where the castle moat and the Gojo River met, one still sensed the presence of the declining grandeur of the old Ashikaga shogunate, and the prosperity that lingered here, even in the midst of the many disturbances going on in the world, upheld Kiyosu's reputation as the most glamorous town in any of the provinces.

For sake, go to the sake shop.

For good tea, go to the tea shop.

But for courtesans, it's Sugaguchi in Kiyosu.

In the pleasure quarter of Sugaguchi, the eaves of brothels and teahouses lined the streets. In the daytime, the young girls who served in the brothels sang as they played catch. Hiyoshi pushed his handcart through their game, dreaming, How can I become great? Unable to come up with an answer, he kept thinking, Someday...someday...He spun out one fantasy after another as he walked along. The town was full of all the things that were denied to him: delicious food, opulent houses, gaudy military gear and saddlery, rich clothing and precious stones.

Thinking of his skinny sister with her pale face in Nakamura, he watched the steam rising from dumpling steamers in the sweet shops and wished he could buy some for her. Or pa.s.sing an old apothecary, he would gaze in ecstasy at the bags of medicinal herbs and say to himself, Mother, if I could give you medicine like that, I bet you'd soon get much better. Ever present in his dreams was the wish to improve the wretched lives of his other and Otsumi. The one person he gave no thought to at all was Chikuami.

As he approached the castle town, his mind was dazzled by his usual daydreams, Someday... someday...but how? was his only thought as he walked along.

"Fool!"

On his way across a busy crossroads, he abruptly found himself in the center of a noisy mob. He had run his cart into a mounted samurai, followed by ten retainers carrying spears and leading a horse. Straw-wrapped bowls and plates fell all over the road, breaking into pieces. Hiyoshi tottered uncertainly among the wreckage.

"Are you blind?"

"You idiot!"

While scolding Hiyoshi, the attendants trampled on the broken dishes. Not a single pa.s.serby drew near to offer him help. He collected the broken pieces, tossed them into the handcart, and began pushing again, his blood boiling in indignation for having been treated this way in public. And within his childish fantasies, he struck a serious note: How will I ever be able to make people like that prostrate themselves in front of me?

A little later, he thought of the scolding he would get when he got back to his master's house, and the cold look on Of.u.ku's face loomed large in his imagination. His great fantasy, like a soaring phoenix, vanished in a host of worries, as if he had been swallowed up in a cloud of poppy seeds.

Night had fallen. Hiyoshi had put the handcart away in the shed and was washing his feet by the well. Sutejiro's establishment, which was called the Pottery Mansion, was like the residence of a great provincial warrior clan. The imposing main house was linked to any outbuildings, and rows of warehouses stood nearby.

"Little Monkey! Little Monkey!"

As Of.u.ku drew near, Hiyoshi got up.

"Yeah?"

Of.u.ku struck Hiyoshi's shoulder with the thin bamboo cane he always carried when looking around the employees' quarters or giving orders to the warehouse workers. This was not the first time he had struck Hiyoshi. Hiyoshi stumbled, and was immediately covered with mud again.

"When addressing the master, do you say 'yeah'? No matter how many times I tell you, your manners don't improve. This is not a farmer's house!"

Hiyoshi made no reply.

"Why don't you say something? Don't you understand? Say 'yes, sir.'"

Afraid of being hit again, Hiyoshi said, "Yes, sir."

"When did you get back from Kiyosu?"

"Just now."

"You're lying. I asked the people in the kitchen, and they told me you'd already eaten."

"I felt dizzy. I was afraid I was going to faint."

"Why?"

"Because I was hungry after walking all that way."

"Hungry! When you got back, why didn't you go to the master to make your report right away?"

"I was going to, after washing my feet."

"Excuses, excuses! From what the kitchen workers told me, a lot of the pottery you were supposed to deliver in Kiyosu was broken on the way. Is it true?"