The Ghost Brush (56 page)

O
ne day when I was washing out my paint dish at the gutter, a cluster of foreigners entered at the far end of the alley. This was not unusual. But this group had some very tall men, and something in the posture of one of them caught my eye.

I had known he would come. I had known since the banquet that the Dutch doctor had not forgotten me. But I had left my brother’s home and did not know if he could find me. But the printshop of Katsushika Isai would interest him, perhaps because it advertised the works of Hokusai.

He was walking quickly and scanning both sides of the alley, where the wooden houses stood on short stilts a little above the muddy ground. I crouched and kept my eyes cast down. As he came closer I realized it was not von Siebold I recognized, but a much younger man. The young man was just the way the father had been when we met thirty years before.

At the sight of this young man tears sprang from my eyes.

Oh, terror. I had gone soft. I kept my head down and prayed they would stride past. I did not want to be seen. So much for my many dreams of this man, or rather of his father.

They passed me without a glance and entered the shop.

Isai came with his soft voice to touch my back. “Oei-san, the Dutchman is looking for you.”

“He cannot be.”

“He wants to speak to the daughter of Hokusai.”

The residents of our alley stuck their heads out their doors. I saw my home in this young man’s eyes: low, ramshackle structures; people who were unkempt; children who were dirty; gutters that smelled. He had never seen me on my terrain.

“You must tell him I am not here.” I was panicked. What had I been thinking of, dreaming of such a man? My pride in myself collapsed. Probably I was ugly after all. I never looked in mirrors. What was to see? Every day I wrapped my long hair around a comb and stuck it in place with one long hairpin. I used no cosmetics, and jewellery would have been in the way. I wore a simple robe with a black obi. Over it I wore my working smock with its splashes of paint here and there—very few, as I was careful.

“Oei, go to greet him! He can make you rich.”

It shamed me that money was all my people thought about. I took the small bowl in which I had been mixing red with both hands. I sank it in the water and lifted it up. I swirled the water so it made circles. The dried red came off the sides and began to sweeten the clear water so it became thin, transparent crimson, thickening as I continued.

I was acting like my father. I had considered his balking very unfair when I was a child, when I had to do the social easing. But the indignity of my poverty and my pride in my work were too much in conflict for me to speak.

The young man came walking. He looked across me, scanning right, scanning left. His eyes met mine.

“It is a pleasure to meet the daughter of the great master, Hokusai,” he said in poor Japanese.

I found some lost graces. “I knew your father.” I smiled. “You are his double.”

Von Siebold the younger extended both his hands to me, and I gave him mine. I stood awkwardly, my arms and hands sticking straight out in front of me from the waist like handles on a cart. I had adopted my father’s strange habit of refusing to bow. Or rather, I had given up the strange habit of bowing.

“He will be very pleased to know that I have found you,” he said.

I looked into his stark blue eyes, which were only the second pair of blue eyes I had ever seen. And they were not the same as his father’s. They were cold.

“Extend him my best wishes,” I said.

The Dutchmen left soon after.

O
nly a few days later the little troop of tall men appeared again. There were two von Siebolds amongst them. And the people of that quarter who were standing alongside, watching this encounter between the yellow-haired barbarian and the daughter of the famous painter who was herself as famous a painter as a woman could be, murmured and called one another closer to watch.

His hair was now white. It was even more beautiful.

They led us to a teahouse and made us sit. I was grateful that this did not have to happen in my poor room. Nonetheless, the son would not sit, nor would he take tea.

I did not ask von Siebold about his Japanese wife. I asked about his Japanese daughter, Ine. Von Siebold told me she had become a midwife. He was proud of her. But I could see her existence troubled his fully European son.

The talk flowed. How did it flow? Why did it flow? There were few people in this life with whom I could talk. There was Sanba. There was Eisen. Strangely, too, there was von Siebold. All that time ago I had been able to speak my thoughts to him, and he understood. We had looked kindly on each other. We had disagreed; we had warmed to each other.

But that had been in the old world, under the nose of the bakufu. He was then one of the only foreigners in the country. His words had been my first messages from the outside. You are not like other Japanese woman, he had said. He did not understand why they settled for so little. I had clung to that idea. Instead of being a man, as my relatives accused me, I might resemble some woman of a larger world. Some woman who was not willing to settle for only a little.

Now we met again—not in a new world or in the old, but someplace ugly in between, where a new world was being born. I was almost nostalgic for the dangers of those days, so much simpler than the dangers now.

“I love them both very much,” he had said that about his Japanese family. And I had asked him if he had a European wife too, and he had laughed and said no. Only one wife. But I supposed he did take a European wife afterwards; this white-skinned son was proof.

As we spoke I could see him puzzling: Why is this daughter of the great master working down this mud alley? Why is she in poverty?

“Your father, Hokusai,” he said, “lived to a very great age. He had tremendous energy and a stubborn nature.”

He grew animated to speak of the man. But he had never met Hokusai! It was always me who came to the Nagasaki-ya.

Isai and the disciples stood around nodding. Now that my father had become a national hero, it was impossible to say anything negative about him.

“How were his last years?” von Siebold asked.

I listened, my head cocked to one side.

“What was it like at the end?”

“Difficult,” I said.

“Ah, but you were with him,” he said.

To my great alarm, the tears were welling again. And why? My brother had made me feel this way when he said he recognized that my attentions had kept our father alive. Was this what I needed? To be acknowledged? But that was a Western need, was it not?

This was the frightening thing about foreigners. In their presence one began to feel foreign emotions.

What could I say about my father?

Could I say that in his youth, his sensuality overcame me? That in his age, my father had abused me, taking umbrage at each little error and each little deviation from his precious art. Even though I was his daughter it was not right. I knew that now.

I could say now of my father that in aid of “making pictures,” he hurt people, especially those who loved and served him.

“Vast ambitions. And yet, I must suppose that by the great age of ninety, he was ready to pass away?” said von Siebold.

“No,” I said. “With his dying words he begged for ten more years.”

I would have liked to say he asked for my forgiveness and asked me to continue to make pictures. That too had happened—but by the time he died, he had recanted.

There was silence between us then, as if my father had just entered the room. After a moment von Siebold spoke.

“And, Oei-san, how is your husband?”

“He is no longer living,” I said. “But before that, we were divorced for many years.”

I could see him making a note in that way he had of observing my race. “Unusual.” His face furrowed.

“It was not so unusual,” I protested with a laugh. “My sister divorced too. I lived with my father from the time I last saw you. Together we painted and taught at the North Star Studio.”

“And now? Where do you live?” he said.

“I have many homes. I make my living with one brush.”

He did not ask to see my work.

“Do you have children?”

“I have none,” I acknowledged. “But I have students. The disciples of Hokusai are also concerned with my welfare.” I nodded to Isai. This was true. I did not have to say in exactly what way they were concerned.

“Hokusai is the most famous Japanese artist in Europe now,” he said.

I let my head sink to its customary angle above my right shoulder. “I have heard the works are popular.”

“More than popular. They have taken Europe by storm!” Now he waxed his old enthusiasm and sprang from his seat. “They are influential. Many artists, especially in Paris, praise him and look at the manga.”

Isai and Tsuyuki Kosho—the one who called himself Iitsu II, to my great annoyance—were taking careful note. I did not feel their presence was friendly.

“A designer named Félix Bracquemond found the manga sketchbooks in Paris and soon copied motifs from it. He praised Japanese design to the sky amongst his group of artist friends. He showed the sketches to all his friends, who were all great artists, and he began to make work based on them.”

I said I hoped my father was listening from the next world.

Von Siebold walked around in a circle on his long legs. “Of course I knew this long ago. Hokusai was a genius. I knew it before the great artists of Europe got on to the fact. That’s why I bought those paintings from you. I am collecting, still,” he said. “I would be interested in anything you have of your father’s work.”

Here came my dilemma.

If I said, “There is nothing; all is gone,” he would have gone away without buying. And there would have been no sale for the disciples. Tsuyuki and Isai were watching me carefully. I might as well call them what they were: forgers.

“He has been dead now many years,” I said, stalling for time.

Right there, I could have told him.

I could have said, “Dr. von Siebold—Phillip—my father’s work is my work. It has been so for a long time. In fact, as long ago as when you bought your Promenading Courtesan, I was the painter.”

But would he believe me?

“Those pictures weren’t signed,” I could say. “And you never asked. A Fisherman’s Family and the Two Women and a Boy—the picture of the nursing mother. My father was ill those years; he wasn’t working. I drew the straight lines with your pencils and I used Dutch paper. Those are the works you call Hokusai’s. They are my works. I made them for you. Especially Promenading Courtesan. My whole heart went into that.”

I could have said that.

But I did not. I was under the eyes of Isai. I was under the nose of Tsuyuki. And something more—another reason—stopped me from speaking the truth.

Was I afraid of them? I think not. They needed me. I was the only one who could imitate the master so the imitation could not be detected. Naturally, because in most cases, I was imitating myself. Furthermore, I had the seal.

Why, then?

I was afraid of myself.

Why did I pass up this chance to save myself? From simple embarrassment? From long habit of being a ghost? Had I developed a preference for being a ghost? Become disgusted, as my brother Sakujiro suggested, with the whole idea of fame? With the celebrity that drove men to distraction and devilry? Yet I had wanted so much for Phillip to know me and know who I was, truly. Now that I had the chance, I ducked.

Somehow I didn’t want all that noise in my life. It sounds strange. I do not understand it. I only know I did it.

I said, “You must be careful. There are many forgeries. Especially since his death. The picture must be signed. And it must have the seal on it. And his signature.”

I said, “It is very difficult to find something by Hokusai. But I can look in the private homes where I have stored the work. I hope that for you, I might find something. Because of your long relationship with us, yes, I will try.”

He ran the tip of his tongue along his lips in a gesture I remembered. His eyes widened and smiled at me.

“But I will need a little time. Please, may we meet in another month?”

“Of course,” he said. “Of course.”

Von Siebold took the bait so easily. And then I felt sad. Had I nurtured the belief all these years that this golden-haired god would be my champion? Surely not.

He was pleased and bowed to everyone around the circle. I walked him to the end of the street. On parting, he kissed my ink-stained hand.

“My dear Oei, you should know that the whole world is excited by things Japanese: your fans, your kites, your umbrellas. People love your porcelain. And especially your kimono. Oh, the exquisite patterns in the fabric! Of all these, the ukiyo-e are first in line of magic-making.”

“How beguiling we are,” I said brightly. “We had no idea.”

It seemed so ordinary that we would walk side by side down a street. The strictures that had governed my life were collapsing, and the oddest part was that once they had collapsed, it was as if they had never been there at all.