The Ghost Brush (85 page)

“I see.”

“Do you want to see the surimono?”

“Yes, please.”

These were poetry cards that Hokusai made on commission to commemorate a birth or a death, a festival or a new year. They were delicate—beach at low tide, groups of figures amongst the weeds and shells and rusty anchors of the shore, glimpses of distant Fuji. These were influenced by Western art, and by what the Dutch wanted.

Sanba looked at these—the faraway objects painted smaller than the ones in front; the curved horizons. “He has completely changed,” said Sanba. “That is brave for an artist who is not young anymore.”

“He changes all the time.”

“What is he working on now?”

Recently he had been making books of manga, which was another way of saying “everything in the world, and how to draw it.” He took the sketches that he made at parties and made a collection of these pieces of paper, and from that came a little book for beginners that showed them how to draw. The simple pictures were often ones he had used in teaching me. I liked to think that he imagined them for me, bowlegged, bad-tempered girl that I was.

The pictures were of crabbed little people struggling to lift a barrel or stir a pot, of fat people, old women, drunk men, blind pilgrims. He used no models. He had seen them once, or maybe we had seen them together, but I forgot and he never forgot. And this first book, How to Draw, was a good seller. That made everyone happy, especially the publisher.

“Right now he’s making a book dedicated to Japanese women. Each one will be in the grip of a powerful emotion, and each at a different stage of her life.”

“Maybe he’s too busy, then.”

“I don’t think so.” I said. “We take anything on. What is it you want?”

“I’m thinking of writing a new version of Chushingura, the Forty-seven Ronin. You know this famous story. I want to add scenes that are not known. There’s going to be another kabuki play of the story. Do you like kabuki?”

I smiled. It was something I rarely did. If you’re not pretty, why try? If your eyes are not almond and meek but round and high, with tight lids stretched over the bigness of your eyeballs. If your bulging lids cannot contain the rude health and impertinence of your spirit. If your legs when pressed together would allow a good-size cat to slip between the calves. If your hairline begins far back on your forehead, which swells with more brain than a woman deserves, and your chest is bony and a glimpse under your blue cotton kimono offers only jutting collarbone. I was suddenly acutely aware of these things and shut my smile.

“Yes, I believe I do, but I have never been to the theatre.”

Sanba continued to look at me searchingly. I thought he was going to say something more, but he didn’t. My father was pretending to be engrossed in his work. I reached for some designs he had played with years ago. “This is how Hokusai would show the Forty-seven Ronin. Shall I tell you?” Everybody knew this story, but not our twist on it.

“Please,” said Sanba.

“The daimyo Takumi no Kami had many loyal followers. But he also had an enemy, Kozuke, the Master of Etiquette. The reason for this secret hatred was that Kozuke had fallen in love with the daimyo’s wife. He wrote her a declaration, which she treated the way a virtuous woman would, showing it to her husband. That was why the daimyo Kami raised his short sword against the Master of Etiquette.”

“Really?” said Sanba. “That’s a very interesting change to the story.”

“After this, the overlord commanded that the daimyo Kami kill himself, and so he did. Therefore, his forty-seven loyal retainers had no jobs and had to become wave men. That means they rolled back and forth with the waves because they had nothing to hold them still. Are you paying attention?” I said.

“You’re teasing me!”

“Not teasing but testing. Are you listening?” It was fun to talk to him. I was good at amusing old men. I played this way with my father.

“This Lord Kami, who had drawn his sword and had to die, you will remember, was very much liked by his retainers. And it was not his fault that he had raised his sword because he was upset about his wife. So his retainers made a plan and waited for a very long time. Then they would carry it out and get revenge on the overlord.”

“Revenge! What is that?”

“You know. A special kind of noodle. It is eaten with broth.”

This was a pun—inspired, if I may say so. My father and I made puns all the time. Sanba liked it and we started to laugh.

“Look at this one. It is the print of the ronins’ attack on the overlord. It’s night, but we can see everything. It’s what I said before. A trick. That’s what painters do.”

“Trick people or lie or tell the truth?”

“Well, truth or lies.” He was twisting my words so cleverly I was getting confused. I giggled. The painting students and my sisters looked up. My father scowled. We moved out into the alley.

“And I will tell you another thing if you are very interested,” I said.

“I am.”

“There is something very personal in this for my father. But you have to promise never to repeat it.”

“I would never repeat gossip,” said Sanba.

“Now that is a lie.”

“My lies are just like the lies you see in your father’s paintings, merely pragmatic.” He was flirting with me. I had been slow to recognize it because it had never happened before. But that’s what it was.

“Ah,” I said. I was flustered. I decided to tell him the really important part. “This bad Lord Kozuke, who was in reality not Kozuke but Lord Kira, was the great-grandfather of the mother of my father.”

“The great-grandfather of your father’s mother?” He rolled his eyes and counted on his fingers. “How many generations back?”

“Four. Or five. So she says.” In fact my grandmother often insisted on the nobility of her background. But something had put her amongst the peasants. She never explained what.

“That is a distinguished thing. To trace your ancestry to someone in the story of the Forty-seven Ronin.”

“I suppose,” I said dubiously. “But he was the villain. The wrong ronin!”

He laughed again. “That’s quite an admission. Lucky I’m not a spy,” said Sanba.

“I knew you weren’t. They’re fatter and have better clothes. Often they have small beards.”

“Ah,” said Sanba, “it’s true.”

At this point Hokusai got to his feet. His brow was wrinkled. He came to the door, wiping his hands. “O-ooei!” He smiled vacantly at Sanba and jerked his head for me to get inside. “O-ooei, can you look to the students?”

“My father will talk to you now.”

“Good grief, my friend,” said Sanba. “She is—what?—twelve at most? I wonder how the students like to be tended by her.”

“She is fifteen. And they should like it. She’s rather good,” said my father with satisfaction.

They began to talk business.

“I am going to write a new vendetta storybook, for which I will need pictures,” said Sanba.

“Ah, one of your formula cheapies? Whose work will you copy this time?”

“Not yours; no one would want it.”

This was their way: to insult each other, and themselves, as often as possible. And they put their heads together. My father called my mother to get tea, and the two men stood happily side by side, at the door, pointing and comparing and nodding. I sat down and began working on the design for a set of combs.

21

Antics

WHEN I WAS NOT MUCH OLDER
my father left our home.

First he went to live with his friend Bakin, whose novels he illustrated.

“Woe betide Bakin,” my mother laughed. “Hokusai will bring chaos to his home with his dirty clothes and dishes.”

The more successful my father was, the less respect she showed him. “Confusion reigns when Hokusai moves into your mind,” she said.

He stayed with Bakin only a few months. Maybe they did drive each other mad. Or maybe he had finally taken Sadanobu’s warning to heart. There were signs of another crackdown. Soon we saw my father at the door with his woven backpack and pilgrim’s hat. He announced he was setting out “on travels.” It was a clear, chilly day in early spring, with green shoots and the promise of blossoms.

“I hope you have your rainwear packed in that,” my mother said angrily.

He did not, I could tell. There was no room in his pack, and he would reason that he could get a coat along the way when he needed it, maybe by trading a sketch or painting a lady’s fan.

“Why are you going away?” I asked.

“To see things I can paint,” he said.

“If you stand at Nihonbashi, all the things in the world will parade in front of your eyes,” said my mother.

“Not the fisherman on the bank of a quiet river at dawn,” said my father. “Not a rocky waterfall between pine trees. That I can see in Chiba, not in Edo.”

“These are not the subjects of painting,” said my mother with all the haughty air of she-who-knew-nothing. She believed, as most people did, that the only true subjects of painting were the sights of Edo, the fashions worn by the beauties, and the actors with their giant scowls.

“You are a critic now as well, are you?” said Hokusai.

I felt the cut. My sympathies, which were naturally with him, swung over to her. He who lived on respect gave her none. I had seen so many women bob around uselessly, trying to please men with foolish smiles, taking the low seat at dinner, walking paces behind. My mother had once tried; she did not like the result.

“A better one than those fools who call you an artist,” she sniffed. She fought with more cunning these days, having learned a deadlier style from him.

“You know-nothing daughter of the slums.”

Hokusai, who loved to call himself “a peasant of Honjo,” nonetheless taunted her with his suspect high birth. Sometimes I wondered where this man had sprung from. Humble roots or noble, or some unholy mixture? Was his father Nakajima? Had he truly been born from one of the descendants of the enemy in the case of the Forty-seven Ronin? Whack, whack went my heart from one to the other, like a shuttlecock swatted with a racquet, back and forth. Whack, whack. It made me dizzy.

Waterfalls and quiet dawns my mother had not seen herself, only heard talk of. Like everyone she was curious to see the wonders of our country and go to the ends of the national roads that crossed right here at Nihonbashi. I knew she hated her life of drudgery, which she often said was brought on by us children and of course her husband. I added to my “never marry” vow the determination never to have children.

With my father’s absence, I was abandoned. After her bitter announcement at the public bath, Shino had gone silent. I did not go to her brothel for fear of seeing the blind man. Had they married? Would they have children? Courtesans did not, usually. Something to do with the precautions they took when they were working, and certainly the abortions they had, made babies impossible. I was glad.

“Are you travelling alone?”

Hokusai smirked and said, “I left sketches and instructions for Mr. Kenma and Mr. Oburu to copy. You must supervise. Bohachi accompanies me.”

I argued. Mr. Bohachi was a student of the North Star Studio who had worked for the city government and was now retired. He was too old to work and had plenty of money to pay for lessons, but could he walk miles at my father’s speed? He was younger than Hokusai, who was over fifty-five years old now, but he would have no idea how fast or how far that old man walked. “You are jealous,” my father said. I was.

And so, they left. We daughters were to run the studio.

M
y sisters took my mother’s part in all quarrels, which was odd because they were born of Hokusai’s first wife. They were older, halfway in age between my mother and me. O-Miyo behaved like a cow, making big eyes and swinging her lowered head winningly towards her husband, Shigenobu, still present in the studio as a disciple—and a poor one!—of my father’s. And she indulged that son of hers, who had graduated from tormenting the cats to stealing neighbours’ food and laundry.

In the studio, chaos reigned while Hokusai was on the premises. His drawings piled up in the corners like dry leaves. The money he made was left in its little envelopes here and there: we never knew what happened to it. On the now quiet, now curiously flat days that followed my father’s departure Tatsu went through the piles of drifted paper in the corners, sorting the dried banana leaves that had wrapped sticky rice from the sketches of children playing with shuttlecocks and the brush paintings of ravens. Tatsu was hard-working and sensible. I liked her, but she tried to boss everyone and often succeeded. She was well organized. But this did not make her a talent, something she failed to understand. Meanwhile, younger brother Sakujiro continued his important education and my mother tended to him with something like love.

I finished work that was owing. I copied out sketches of trees—cedars with bushy branches going up; willows with thin, wispy ones trailing down. Odd, awkward drawings of women’s hands and feet. He never did those well. Did he forget that women had use of these tools? The thatch roofs of sentry houses. Waves and beaches. Seeing these curling, crawling water ghosts, I remembered how my father and I had played in them. My heart was broken that he had left me with the women.