Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata Page B

piece, but a long time has gone by since it became a tea bowl. People watched over it and passed it on – some of them may even have taken it on long trips with them. I can’t break it just because you tell me to.’
    On the rim of the bowl, she had said, there was a stain from her mother’s lipstick. Her mother had apparently told her that once the lipstick was there it would not go away, however hard she rubbed, and indeed since Kikuji had had the bowl he had washed without success at that especially dark spot on the rim. It was a light brown, far from the color of lipstick; and yet there was a faint touch of red in it, not impossible to take for old, faded lipstick, It may have been the red of the Shino itself; or, since the forward side of the bowl had become fixed with use, a stain may have been left from the lips of owners before Mrs Ota. Mrs Ota, however, had probably used it most. It had been her everyday teacup.
    Had Mrs Ota herself first thought of so using it? Or had Kikuji’s father? Kikuji wondered.
    There had also been his suspicion that Mrs Ota, with his father,had used the two cylindrical Raku bowls, the red and the black, as everyday ‘man-wife’ teacups.
    His father had had her make the Shino water jar a flower vase, then – he had had her put roses and carnations in it? And he had had her use the little Shino bowl as a teacup? Had he at such times thought her beautiful?
    Now that the two of them were dead, the water jar and the bowl had come to Kikuji. And Fumiko had come too.
    ‘I’m not just being childish. I really do wish you would break it. You liked the water jar I gave you, and I remembered the other Shino and thought it would go with the jar. But afterward I was ashamed.’
    ‘I shouldn’t be using it as a teacup. It’s much too good.’
    ‘But there are so many better pieces. You’ll drink from this and think of them. I’ll be very unhappy.’
    ‘But do you really believe that you can’t give away anything except the finest pieces?’
    ‘It depends on the person and the circumstances.’
    The words had rich overtones.
    Was Fumiko kind enough to think that for a souvenir of her mother, a souvenir of Fumiko herself – perhaps something more intimate than a souvenir – only the finest would do?
    The desire, the plea, that only the finest be left to recall her mother came across to Kikuji. It came as the finest of emotions, and the water jar was its witness.
    The very face of the Shino, glowing warmly cool, made him think of Mrs Ota. Possibly because the piece was so fine, the memory was without the darkness and ugliness of guilt.
    As he looked at the masterpiece it was, he felt all the more strongly the masterpiece Mrs Ota had been. In a masterpiece there is nothing unclean.
    He looked at the jar and he wanted to see Fumiko, he had said over the telephone that stormy day. He had been able to sa itonly because the telephone stood between. Fumiko had answered that she had another Shino piece, and brought him the bowl.
    It was probably true that the bowl was weaker than the jar.
    ‘I seem to remember that my father had a portable tea chest. He used to take it with him when he went traveling,’ mused Kikuji. ‘The bowl he kept in it must be much worse than this.’
    ‘What sort of bowl is it?’
    ‘I’ve never seen it myself.’
    ‘Show it to me. It’s sure to be better. And if it is, may I break the Shino?’
    ‘A dangerous gamble.’
    After dinner, as she dexterously picked seeds from the watermelon, Fumiko again pressed him to show her the bowl.
    He sent the maid to open the tea cottage, and went out through the garden. He meant to bring the tea chest back with him, but Fumiko went along.
    ‘I have no idea where it might be,’ he called back. ‘Kurimoto knows far better than I.’
    Fumiko was in the shadow of the blossom-heavy oleander. He could see, below the lowest of the white branches, stockinged feet in garden clogs.
    The tea chest was in a cupboard at the side of