The Mask Carver's Son by Alyson Richman Page B

buckwheat grains from the pillow, and smiled faintly. It was easy for him to see beyond the smeared makeup, the faint redness, that blemished her otherwise beautiful countenance. For Father was a carver and could easily disregard the often misleading appearance of a block of wood. He knew that, underneath, she was more beautiful than any mask he had ever carved.
    His hands moved over her cheek, and she found herself surprised by their warmth. He fingered the stray hairs that had fallen onto her cheeks and stroked them behind the curve of her ear. When he caressed her neck, he found himself surprised by the sheer smoothness of skin perhaps more supple than even oiled cypress. When he fumbled over the cloth and moved to untie her sash, he could not help but hear her soft, nervous giggles.
    Somewhere deep inside him he wished that she would not make a sound. Sounds increased his nervousness. Brought him out from the recesses of the workings of his inner mind, where he felt uneasy, where he felt unsure.
    But he proceeded. He felt the smoothness of her breasts, the contrast of her nipples. He inhaled the sweetness of her perfume.
    Underneath his body, he felt her initial tension rise and then release. And he heard the clenching of her teeth fade into soft moans. He wished to see her face, wondered if it too would be transformed like a mask on stage, and searched to find it, to uncover it from the shadows. Once he had discovered it, he held her head in between his palms like a boy who has finally grasped the moon.
    His lips fell over hers and he inhaled, hoping to breathe her soul into his, so that perhaps he would release it again in the form of a mask. But the taste was not as he expected. Not the sweet floral scent of almond blossom, not the nutty smell of toasted ginkgo. Something unexpected, something terrible. The taste of plums.
    He fell away from her like a slain man. The taste of plum was his forewarning. He had danced with the seductive sensation of emotion, and now he would be punished. The gods would take her too.
    Mother turned to him, bewildered, not knowing what she could have done, humiliated by how she had failed. But he no longer saw her. There was no one but him in the room with his darkness and his ghosts. He did not feel her trembling hand on his back. He did not hear the repetition of her sobs.
    She was the last thing that he would allow himself to love. And he knew in his heart he would never be able to kiss her again—for he knew now the destiny that awaited them.
    And it was on this fated night, when the taste of plums slipped like poison between my parents’ lips, that I, their only son, was conceived.

FIVE
    I firmly believe that my father began carving only because he knew that whatever he created with the chisel could never die.
    Marriage, however, confused him. As he was a husband now, he would be responsible for his wife’s protection. This weighed heavily on him. On the night of their wedding, death had lurked in the shadows of their room. He had smelled it. Ripe as a plum. And now he had to either resign himself to fate or try to overcome it.
    All of these sensations and feelings scared him. He had not known such fear since he was a child. This must be that which Tamashii had warned him of. That which threatened to weaken his craft. Emotion. Yet Etsuko was not what he imagined a woman to be. She was far lovelier. How could his heart not weaken to her? How could he not thaw when he was in her presence?
    She reminded him so of his mother.
    Now that they were married, she wore her hair long for him. Shiny as lacquer. Fragrant as camellia oil. He would graze her shoulder just so that he could inhale her intoxicating perfume.
    Just as he believed it was his duty to protect her, she believed it was her duty to care for him. To love him. As no one had done in years.
    In the morning she would rise before the house awakened, while her parents still slept and the night braziers still burned. She would slide