self-assured.
You don’t need to control the source of supply, a provisioner to the shogunate claimed loudly, the wine making him boisterous , but you do need to control distribution. He held out his cup and Ohasu refilled it. Manage your carters, said the provisioner, watching Oyuki as she worked out the complexities of the rice crackers song. And your dockers too. Keep them sweet.
‘What won’t you see…’ Oyuki picked tentatively at the opening phrases, mistiming the tricky up-pluck syncopation. ‘Lips and … and tongue …’ She tried it again. ‘A husband’s liesand a something something and lips and … lips and … tongue …’ I just can’t get that part!
You’re too tentative, Ohasu said, starting around with the wine pourers again. Just jump at it.
Jump at it?
You have to make it bigger. Up quick then down hard.
Are you talking about me? asked a cotton merchant, his face flushed pink and his smile loose and easy.
Or you could cheat and finger-pluck it with your left hand, said Osome; but Ohasu said no, the next stroke still had to be timed properly. Up big then down. Ohasu chopped the beat with her free hand as if wielding a plectrum herself, and the cotton merchant tried his joke again. So, it’s a thing that goes up and gets hard then comes back down again? Whatever can it be?
Oyuki stroked out the first notes of a love song and sang, ‘Some men yearn to discover a shy beauty waiting under the blossoms…’ Then she released the tension in her centre string so the tone wilted in comic deflation. ‘And some to find her shame-place pink and slimy as the gill slits of a sea bass…’
What! shrieked Osome, and Ohasu laughed too. That’s smutty! she cried, glad that Old Master Bashō seemed not to have heard it.
You’re too much for me, said the cotton merchant, glancing around for allies. For all of us, the provisioner concluded approvingly . Girls swollen with the juices of spring.
Osome snapped off the tip of a blossoming branch then dropped to her knees beside the cotton merchant, wrenching her sash knot open and releasing it in a sudden surge of brocade that spilled down onto the man’s lap. ‘Oh, come and look, what won’t you see!’ Osome inserted the spray of pink flowers in his topknot. Who can be moderate under the blossoms? She twisted sideways then leaned against the cotton merchant toreconstruct her sash knot again, emitting little grunts of consternation at the effort required.
‘Orange and pink on the…’ No, it’s, ‘orange and pink on the … this and this!’ Oyuki hit the up-twang perfectly. She began it again, but no one seemed to be listening so she retuned her samisen and began strumming out the lugubrious opening bars of Green Willows Pink Blossoms , holding each note cluster solemnly before sliding on to the next.
‘Spring rain sad in the dripping green of the willows,’ Ohasu sang; and Oyuki joined in at, ‘Wetting my sleeves and the hems of my skirts, wetting the path as I walk on my weeping way;’ then Osome came in as they sang, ‘Sad spring rain in the lonely sadness of the willows,’ their plaited voices rising sweetly plaintive within the flickering pink lattices of falling cherry petals, while the merchants sprawled on their red felt mats discussed forward contracts and funding strategies as they sipped from their elegant wine cups, and the old poet on his own seemed aware of everything and nothing.
The bell fades,
but the scent of blossoms resonates in the evening.
T HE MERCHANTS CARRIED O SOME off to see the evening cherry blossoms illuminated by bonfires suspended in iron baskets, but Old Master Bashō stayed behind at the picnic site. Ohasu poured for him. Despite the wife’s advice, she had prepared a few ideas on the chance that she might be invited to participate in the merchants’ linked poem that day; but they had tossed out stanza after stanza with the casual ease of boys flipping pebbles into a cistern, and the poem was
You don’t need to control the source of supply, a provisioner to the shogunate claimed loudly, the wine making him boisterous , but you do need to control distribution. He held out his cup and Ohasu refilled it. Manage your carters, said the provisioner, watching Oyuki as she worked out the complexities of the rice crackers song. And your dockers too. Keep them sweet.
‘What won’t you see…’ Oyuki picked tentatively at the opening phrases, mistiming the tricky up-pluck syncopation. ‘Lips and … and tongue …’ She tried it again. ‘A husband’s liesand a something something and lips and … lips and … tongue …’ I just can’t get that part!
You’re too tentative, Ohasu said, starting around with the wine pourers again. Just jump at it.
Jump at it?
You have to make it bigger. Up quick then down hard.
Are you talking about me? asked a cotton merchant, his face flushed pink and his smile loose and easy.
Or you could cheat and finger-pluck it with your left hand, said Osome; but Ohasu said no, the next stroke still had to be timed properly. Up big then down. Ohasu chopped the beat with her free hand as if wielding a plectrum herself, and the cotton merchant tried his joke again. So, it’s a thing that goes up and gets hard then comes back down again? Whatever can it be?
Oyuki stroked out the first notes of a love song and sang, ‘Some men yearn to discover a shy beauty waiting under the blossoms…’ Then she released the tension in her centre string so the tone wilted in comic deflation. ‘And some to find her shame-place pink and slimy as the gill slits of a sea bass…’
What! shrieked Osome, and Ohasu laughed too. That’s smutty! she cried, glad that Old Master Bashō seemed not to have heard it.
You’re too much for me, said the cotton merchant, glancing around for allies. For all of us, the provisioner concluded approvingly . Girls swollen with the juices of spring.
Osome snapped off the tip of a blossoming branch then dropped to her knees beside the cotton merchant, wrenching her sash knot open and releasing it in a sudden surge of brocade that spilled down onto the man’s lap. ‘Oh, come and look, what won’t you see!’ Osome inserted the spray of pink flowers in his topknot. Who can be moderate under the blossoms? She twisted sideways then leaned against the cotton merchant toreconstruct her sash knot again, emitting little grunts of consternation at the effort required.
‘Orange and pink on the…’ No, it’s, ‘orange and pink on the … this and this!’ Oyuki hit the up-twang perfectly. She began it again, but no one seemed to be listening so she retuned her samisen and began strumming out the lugubrious opening bars of Green Willows Pink Blossoms , holding each note cluster solemnly before sliding on to the next.
‘Spring rain sad in the dripping green of the willows,’ Ohasu sang; and Oyuki joined in at, ‘Wetting my sleeves and the hems of my skirts, wetting the path as I walk on my weeping way;’ then Osome came in as they sang, ‘Sad spring rain in the lonely sadness of the willows,’ their plaited voices rising sweetly plaintive within the flickering pink lattices of falling cherry petals, while the merchants sprawled on their red felt mats discussed forward contracts and funding strategies as they sipped from their elegant wine cups, and the old poet on his own seemed aware of everything and nothing.
The bell fades,
but the scent of blossoms resonates in the evening.
T HE MERCHANTS CARRIED O SOME off to see the evening cherry blossoms illuminated by bonfires suspended in iron baskets, but Old Master Bashō stayed behind at the picnic site. Ohasu poured for him. Despite the wife’s advice, she had prepared a few ideas on the chance that she might be invited to participate in the merchants’ linked poem that day; but they had tossed out stanza after stanza with the casual ease of boys flipping pebbles into a cistern, and the poem was
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