The Ghost Brush (138 page)
B
ut no stranger than my own.
I
am left to my own devices. I hear the drip of water from the roof in winter and see fireflies on summer nights. There are cats too, their bony spines rubbing against my coffin. For a time certain of my paintings surrounded me, but after Shino’s death the doors were cracked open and the works carried off. I wanted to see them again, see where they’d got to—one reason I interrupted this red-skinned repose. In that, I am satisfied. Partly. There are others, spread around that fractious world, in vaults or down in forgotten chests, that I will not see again. And here I lie.
Rebecca wandered by in the temple grounds not long ago. She examined the gravestones and tried to find the view over to the sea. She took her camera and snapped pictures of a tiny shrine where a flower had been left. Looking for me, I suppose. I didn’t call out.
I am the unbeautiful, the untended, the unintended, the unofficial painter.
At the age of fifty-seven, I felt a surge of tremendous power. At sixty-seven, I had disappeared and was presumed dead.
I am the brush. I am the line. I am the colour.
There are facts I would like to talk over with my father. The world is round. What does that mean for waves? Do they shoot off the edge? Or curl around and come back, licking the surface, like your tongue would a rice ball or an ice ball?
He was a scattered man, always pulling a geographical escape, always adopting a new name. His money he pissed up a wall—yes, I liked that expression. Thank you for it. His talent he flashed and then grew bored of, flashed again so it burst out of the rock like some gusher—and then drought. He squandered. He wasted. His pride was immense. He tossed gold coins on the floor for us to count; he was above such things. He exploited us all, but mainly me.
He was my father.
“Go with him,” my mother said. “I have no more patience for it. You be the one. You love him.”
A life sentence, that one.
On this subject of love. Shino says it is the greatest of mysteries. I said once and I say it again: it is nothing but a rat’s fart in a windstorm.
You can quote me. I am Oei. Katsushika Oei. Katsushika I take from the place where Hokusai was born. Oei is what he called me. Some people say my father was difficult. I can’t agree. He was not difficult. He was impossible.
I am she, Hokusai’s daughter. Painter of deep pools of colour and perfect, fine lines. A woman who loved food and drink and tobacco. Soothsayer. Consumer of the mushroom that has, as promised, given me immortality. My body dyed red and wrapped in a winding sheet, I lie preserved, a great painter in my own right. A fine woman loved by more than one man. And who loved several in return. But none, I promise you, more than the Old Man.
It could be my epitaph. Perhaps it is. But you would have to find my grave to know.
And that you cannot do.
FROM THE START
, the historians of Japanese art whom I approached have welcomed the entrance of a novelist into their field. They have been generous with their knowledge, their connections, and their time. Part of the joy of writing this book has been making their acquaintance and learning about the world of
ukiyo-e
prints and paintings. To the following I owe a debt of gratitude.
John T. Carpenter, Donald Keene Lecturer in the History of Japanese Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and Head of the London Office of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. His open mind and subtle interpretations of prints and calligraphy guided me.
Dr. Ellis Tinios, Honorary Lecturer in the School of History, University of Leeds, and special assistant to the Japanese Section of the Department of Asia, British Museum. His encyclopedic knowledge of the field of Edo-period illustrated books and prints is mixed with great enthusiasm.
Dr. Patricia Fister, Professor, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, Japan, introduced me to Oei in the first place, and Professor Kobayashi Tadashi, Professor of Japanese Art History, Gakushuin University, Tokyo, and Director, Chiba City Museum of Art, Japan, discussed her disappearance and influence with me.
I am indebted to Mr. Kubota Kazuhiro, formerly Chief Research Curator for the Cultural Affairs Division in Obuse, Nagano Prefecture, Japan, and currently Research Associate at the Japan Ukiyo-e Museum, Matsumoto. He offered me unlimited use of the results of his labours in archives and collections across Japan. His passion to discover the truth about Oei and her work inspired me.
I would also like to thank Sakai Nobuo, CEO of the Japan Ukiyo-e Museum in Matsumoto, and Curator Koike Makiko at Isago no Sato Museum in Kawasaki, Japan. The London art dealer David Newman gave me hours of his time and was highly entertaining.
Librarians Jack Howard at the Royal Ontario Museum Far Eastern Library and Mariko Liliefeldt at the Japan Foundation in Toronto have been invaluable.
Twice I took Ellis Tinios’ course at the Rare Books School of the University of Virginia and loved it. The Freer Gallery was very generous in allowing us to see its collection and use its facilities. Barbara Nettleton read the manuscript in an earlier draft and provided many helpful comments.
And the Toronto translator, journalist, and storyteller Yusuke Tanaka has worked with me at every stage, providing insight and humour along with scrupulous translation of letters and documents.
Emily Honderich made the companion website theghostbrush.com and Robin Honderich made the video The Finer Hand.
My agent, Helen Heller, has been involved with the novel at every stage, and my thanks to Iris Tupholme of HarperCollins for her exceptional efforts on behalf of the novel. I also thank Janice Weaver and Sarah Wight for the complex copy edit, managing editor Noelle Zitzer, and the whole team at HarperCollins Canada.
My faithful and tolerant partner, Nick Rundall, has lived with this novel for years; my grown-up children, Robin and Emily, my sisters, Trudy and Sue, and my amazing parents, Doris and George Govier, are never far from my mind.
I have read many books about Hokusai and the ukiyo-e of the Edo period, too many to mention here. I encourage readers to go to the companion website to the novel, theghostbrush.com, to view source material and images.
Glossary
ageya:
inn, banquet hall
bakufu:
feudal government of the Edo period
beru:
blue pigment imported from Europe
bijin-ga:
pictures of beautiful women
bin-sashi:
hair ornaments
bo: long staff
daimyo: lord
gyoji:
government officials working as censors
Juhachi-ya:
the number eighteen, here the name of a merchant caravan
kago:
sedan chair carried by porters
kata:
pattern; in martial arts, a sequence of movements
keshi ningyo:
very small ceramic dolls made in sets
kosode:
outer garment
kotatsu:
table heater
koto:
stringed instrument, like a wooden harp
manga:
quick sketch
mochi:
rice paste
momme:
small unit of currency
mon:
unit of currency; also gate
moxa:
A dried herb substance burned on or above the skin to stimulate an acupuncture point or serve as a counterirritant
naginata: long pole tipped with a blade
netsuke:
small, carved wooden charm
opperhoofd: commander of the Dutch at Deshima
rangaku-sha:
scholars of Dutch learning
ryo:
large unit of currency
saiken: guidebook to pleasure quarter
sakura: cherry tree or blossom
samisen:
bowed instrument
sekisho:
security gates at entrance and exits to the major cities
shinzo:
apprentice prostitute under the age of sixteen
shochu:
distilled spirits made from potato, buckwheat, etc.
shoki: demon
shunga:
erotic pictures; “laughing” or “spring” pictures
surimono:
picture with poem written on the page
tabi: socks
tatami:
woven straw floor mat
tayu:
grand, highest-ranking prostitute
Tokaido:
one of the great roads of old Japan, leading from Edo to Kyoto
ukiyo-e: woodcut print, literally “pictures of the floating world”
unagi: barbecued eel
yakko:
a noblewoman sentenced to a term as a prostitute as a punishment
yarite:
housekeeper of a brothel, often a former prostitute
Yoshiwara:
licensed pleasure quarter in the city of Edo
About the Author
KATHERINE GOVIER
’s novel
Three Views of Crystal Water
was a
Globe and Mail
Book of the Year in 2005;
Creation
was a
New York Times
Notable Book of 2003. The winner of Canada’s Marian Engel Award (for a woman writer in mid-career) and the Toronto Book Award, Govier is the author of eight novels and three short story collections and is the editor of two books of travel essays.
Also by Katherine Govier
Novels
Three Views of Crystal Water
Creation
The Truth Teller
Angel Walk
Hearts of Flame
Between Men
Going Through the Motions
Random Descent
Short Stories
The Immaculate Conception Photography Gallery
Before and After
Fables of Brunswick Avenue
Travel Anthologies, editor
Solo: Writers on Pilgrimage
Without a Guide: Contemporary Women’s Travel Adventures
Credits
COVER ART:
Katsushika Oi,
Girl Composing a Poem under the Cherry Blossoms in the Night
, mid-19th century. Courtesy of the Menard Art Museum, Komaki City, Japan; not on permanent display.
Copyright
The Ghost Brush
Copyright © 2010 by Katherine Govier.
All rights reserved.
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
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