The Scent of Sake (25 page)

O-Natsu became more attentive to Rie than usual and now seemed to Rie the only individual who really understood her. Rie drew closer to Fumi too, a sensitive child nearly eleven, and the bond between them strengthened. As the darkest days of Rie’s mourning passed, she again turned to the office for comfort. Working with Kinnosuke began to provide a semblance of normalcy. Kin retired soon after her father died, and she sorely missed his wisdom and experience in the double loss.

Before Kin left he told her what her father wanted to tell her before he died: how proud he was of her, and that he wanted to give her the family seal. Kin handed Rie the seal Kinzaemon had entrusted to him the night before he died, asking that he give it to Rie with his special blessing.

Rie took the seal with both hands, held it to her head, then her heart, and inserted it in her obi. Two tears coursed down her face as she did so.

Rie felt a catch in her throat, an emotion that rendered her nearly speechless. Her father, for whom she had worked so long, had recognized, after all, what she had done. She stuttered. “Thank you for telling me, Kin-san. Thank you.” She bowed low.

Jihei showed signs of taking his responsibilities more seriously, but he continued his heavy drinking. While he worked in the office, it was to Kinnosuke and Kin, on his occasional visits, that Rie turned when a serious problem demanded attention. Yoshi as a young teenager became a real presence in the office, now formally ranked as apprentice, although it was understood that he would succeed Jihei. Her father’s death made it palpably clear to Rie that the future of the Omura enterprise rested with Kinnosuke and Yoshitaro. And herself.

After the chance meeting with Saburo and his wife, and the death of her beloved father, Rie poured herself into the business as never before. For the next five years, everything seemed to be going well. Then one day Rie saw Kinnosuke come running past her into the office, his gown flapping and fluttering in the breeze. She quickly followed him.

“Toji is worried about the sake,” Kinnosuke said to Yoshitaro and Rie, frowning. “He’s been sampling it.”

“He’s on his way here now,” said Yoshitaro in a voice breaking lower.

Toji rushed into the office and knelt on the tatami. He bowed abjectly.

“The sake has gone bad! It’s terrible! I’ve tried three barrels.

They’re all the same.” His head remained bowed. “No!” Rie cried. “It’s not possible!”

“I have no words to apologize adequately,” he said, bowing to Rie.

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“Let’s go and see,” said Kinno. He and Yoshi followed Toji briskly out of the room and along the corridor toward the number one kura. Rie followed and stood beyond the door to the kura. She shifted impatiently from one foot to the other as she waited for the men to emerge.

“What a calamity,” she said half to herself, half to Yoshi who stood with her. What will we do? Yoshi, go and ask them to bring samples from all three kura to the office.”

He nodded and disappeared through the kura door. Rie walked back to the office and sat at the work table. Minutes later the men reappeared with several flasks. Kinno and Toji were shaking their heads.

“Well?” Rie asked, her heart pounding.

The men put the flasks and cups on the table. Each man poured from the separate flasks, swirled the sake in their mouths briefly and spat into spittoons. All three were frowning.

Jihei stumbled into the room and looked at the three. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Taste this,” said Kinno.

Jihei picked up a cup. “Awful!” he said with a grimace and spat. “Let me taste,” said Rie. She sipped and spat samples from

each flask. “A disaster,” she said, frowning.

“This is the first time this has happened in all the years I’ve been here,” Toji said.

“It happened to Kato many years ago, others too. If one or two barrels from one kura are bad, chances are the whole cellar is ruined.”

“We have to recognize it’s a total loss,” Kinno said. He slumped.

“We’ll have to discard it all,” Toji agreed.

“All of it? All three kura? Nothing to be done?” Jihei picked at his eyebrows.

“How did it happen?” Rie asked, tapping her fan on the table.

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“We’ve never had this kind of thing happen before. I’ve always been so careful to wash the barrels and trained the girls to do likewise. I wonder if I could have missed something? But I keep a close watch.”

“Now, don’t blame yourself,” said Kinno. “You just never know when this is going to hit a brewery. Who knows why? It’s happened to many others. Hardly anyone has escaped.”

“I wonder if Yamaguchi had something to do with this?” Rie said, frowning.

“It’s possible,” Kinno said. “Yoshi, bring the ledger books for this year, please.”

Yoshi staggered under three heavy ledgers. Rie watched intently as Kinno opened them to the pages of the year’s expenses and income. Kinnosuke began working with the abacus.

The room was tense and silent for several minutes except for the rapid clicking of the wooden counters.

“We’ll have huge debts with a loss of this magnitude,” Kinno said finally. “We’ll have to rely on sales of Shrine Water, plus our income from gold-silver exchange and moneylending to survive until next year. I’m not sure if we can make it.” He sighed, leaned back, and looked at Rie and Jihei.

No. No!
This couldn’t be happening. Her father had trusted the house to her. She would not fail him. Rie let out a puff of the cheeks. “We must diversify even more. We have to now in order to survive.” She put down her fan and pulled the comb from her hair.

“You’re right, no question,” said Kinno. “We’ll lose customers as it is, we’re bound to.” He bit his lip.

“What do you suggest?” Jihei wondered.

Did the head of the house have no ideas of his own? Disgraceful.

“How about buying from several small brewers who have little or no brand recognition beyond their local areas?” Kinno asked.

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“Excellent idea, Kinno!” Rie cried. “Yes, we could sell in our barrels under our label, using sake blended from several small brewers. It would be a new product that way.” She tapped her fan on the table.

“Could we do that?” Jihei bounced up and down on his heels in a petulant manner.

“Why not?” Rie asked. “Who would object? Shogunal commissioners like White Tiger as well as anyone.”

Yoshi looked back and forth from Rie to Kinno with his mouth open.

This was how he’d learn. It was how she had learned—by listening to her father and Kin as a child.

Several streets away, Kikuji Yamaguchi sat, elbows on his table, issuing orders and going through ledgers. He belched.

Yusuke, his aging clerk, sidled up to him with a crablike gait. “Have you heard, Master? White Tiger’s brew has turned sour, all of it!” He smiled and looked at Yamaguchi expectantly.

“So!” roared Yamaguchi. “Omura’s sake has gone bad! And we didn’t have to do anything. Excellent. This is our chance to capture their customers, their whole market. They’ll be helpless. Good, Yusuke,” he bellowed.

“Master?”

“Start working on Omura’s customers. Get the list at the Brewers Association, can you?”

“I think so, but . . .” Yusuke took three steps backward. “Don’t hesitate.” Yamaguchi’s jowls trembled as he spoke.

“Divert thirty percent from our regular customers to Omura’s regular clients. Promise our regular customers more next season, and buy up all you can from smaller brewers.”

Yusuke nodded.

“And have three clerks assist you. Get started today. No delay!” he barked.

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Several mornings later Kinno approached Rie in the inner office. “Oku-san, I heard some news about Yamaguchi.”

Rie looked up quizzically. “What?”

“I hear he’s trying to move into our markets, to take over our customers. He has heard about our sake disaster.”

“A devil! He’s a devil!” Rie frowned darkly.

Kinno scratched his head. “How are we going to stop him?” No one answered.

Late that morning Rie walked out into the garden as the sun broke faintly through the clouds and caressed the azaleas. She strolled slowly, head down, her hands behind her back in unconscious imitation of her father’s walking posture. She halted at the stone and sat. Resting her chin on her hand, she gazed pensively at the pond.

She looked around the garden for a moment, and her eye fixed on the time-haunted fences that enclosed the carefully manicured space. She felt transported to the temple garden, far from the brewery. A sense of timeless peace pervaded her being, and she silently thanked her ancestors for creating this oasis of tranquility. As she looked around, her eyes rested on the clump of bamboo whose leaves rustled in the breeze. Bamboo, a favorite kimono pattern, symbol of adaptability, of bending with shifting circum-stances.

As she mused, her father’s voice came to her: “A major set-back always offers a major challenge, an inevitable part of doing business.” She looked back at the bamboo and listened as the leaves whispered softly. Her gaze shifted upward, above the vine-covered fences to the roofs. Her eye traveled along the rooftops over the office and two-story section of the house and beyond, to the towering roofs of the three kuras. The kuras, the kuras! She slapped her knees, rose, and walked back into the office.

Yoshi was working at one end of the room.

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“Yoshi, can you find your father and Kinno?” she asked. “I want to talk to them.”

“I can find Kinno, but I don’t know about Father.” “Please ask Kinno to come to the office, then.” Yoshi nodded and left.

Minutes later the shoji slid open and Kinno and Yoshi entered.

They looked at her expectantly as they sat.

Rie sat perfectly straight. “You know that each time we have had a crisis in the past we have survived because we found a solution other than brewing. That is how we survived. Brewing is the work given us by our ancestors and we must continue it, no question.” She paused and looked up as Jihei walked into the room.

She ignored the supposed head of the house.