The Mask Carver's Son by Alyson Richman

Author:Alyson Richman [Richman, Alyson]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical, Art
ISBN: 9781101621257
Google: yEZbhSEI6RwC
Amazon: 0425267261
Barnesnoble: 0425267261
Goodreads: 17165628
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2000-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-NINE

Noboru was with me when I received the letter from Iwasaki that informed me my father had passed away. Only minutes earlier, he had discovered the Semimaru mask wrapped in silk and carefully placed in the corner.

“What’s this?”

“I believe it is a message from my father.”

He picked it up between his palms and studied its face intently.

“Such a beautiful face,” he remarked as he continued to stare, transfixed by the intensity of the mask.

“Do you see anything else?” I asked, eager to hear him confirm my suspicion of its meaning.

“Sadness,” he said as he looked up at me and then back at the mask. “It is almost as if I can feel its spirit shaking in my hands. It’s weeping from underneath its skin.”

“Tilt it,” I told him anxiously. “Don’t you see anything else when you rotate it back and forth?”

He continued to sit on the floor, his feet tucked under him, his palms outstretched, when suddenly there was a violent knock on my door.

“Yamamoto Kiyoki, Yamamoto Kiyoki!” It was Ariyoshi, and he was out of breath from climbing the stairs to my room.

“Yes?” I asked the old man as I slid open my door.

“There is a messenger downstairs who will not leave until he has delivered a letter to you!” Ariyoshi’s face was flushed and his words were difficult to make out, each one merging into the other, like a string of beads.

“All right, then,” I said, not giving much thought to it. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

I went downstairs and discovered the messenger breathing clouds of steam into the frosty air. When he saw that I had come to accept the delivery, his shoulders tensed and his posture suddenly stiffened. He could not have been more than fifteen years of age.

“Yes, I am Yamamoto Kiyoki,” I told him, and extended my hand to receive the letter.

With his two hands clasping each side of the envelope, the young boy handed me the letter. “It has come from Kyoto.”

I handed him two yen and turned to read the letter in private.

The letter was dated December 14, 1895. I closed the shoji to my room and went past Noboru, who had wrapped the mask from my father and returned it to the corner. I sat down on the floor beside him.

Dear Yamamoto Kiyoki,

The year, it seems, has ended badly. The frost has come early to Kyoto, and, sadly, I must be the one to write you the devastating news. Your father passed away last night. Our colleague Isao-san discovered him early this morning after deciding to visit on him on his way to the theater.

We in the theater recognize that you will want to take responsibility for your father’s funeral. We thus urge you to return as soon as possible.

With grave sadness,

Kanze Iwasaki Keizo

I received the news of my father’s death without any immediate signs of grief. It was almost as if I could not believe that he had left me before I had a chance to return.

I remained on the floor with my knees curled beneath my chin, my kimono smoothed out underneath me.

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