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Authors: Joyce Lebra

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #General, #Historical

The Scent of Sake

BOOK: The Scent of Sake
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The SCENT

of

SAKE

oyce Lebra

To those who preserve the tradition.

When Amaterasu came forth [from the dark cave] the Plain of High Heaven in the

Central Land of the Reed Plains

. . . became light.

the
Kojiki

Contents

Epigraph

iii

The Characters

xi

Chapter 1

It was a day Rie would never forget, the day…

1

Chapter 2

Rie’s wedding, her father told her, would be remembered in…

11

Chapter 3

As soon as her eyes opened, Rie extricated herself from…

20

Chapter 4

Gloom pervaded the house following the loss of Rie’s baby

32

Chapter 5

Several seasons had passed, and Rie had yet to become…

42

Chapter 6

Rie’s mother supervised preparations for the arrival of the infant,…

52

Chapter 7

The morning after the baby’s arrival Rie rose even earlier…

56

Chapter 8

Rie still relished the memory of the outing with Sunao…

65

Chapter 9

Rie opened the wooden shutters and looked out at the…

76

Chapter 10

With the death of Hana, the atmosphere and relationships in…

83

Chapter 11

Rie awoke early. She sat up abruptly as she realized… 88

Chapter 12

Rie alighted from the ricksha beyond the house, so as… 96

Chapter 13

The construction on the storeroom and number one kura

went… 104

Chapter 14

Rie awoke the next morning still angry about this new… 109

Chapter 15

The memory of the night Masami became her lover O-Toki… 115

Chapter 16

The day after Jihei’s visit to O-Yumi, he was sent… 121

Chapter 17

For the next two years, Rie and Jihei called an… 127

Chapter 18

Eighteen thirty-seven was an eventful year in the Omura Household 134

Chapter 19

Kinzaemon’s retirement in the spring of 1841 was a major… 140

Chapter 20

“Can you believe it, Father?” Rie asked as she sat… 147

Chapter 21

After the chance meeting with Saburo and his wife, and… 155

Chapter 22

Rie walked to the courtyard one morning and looked at… 164

Chapter 23

“Yoshi, you’re nineteen now,” Jihei said to his son one… 173

Chapter 24

One morning Rie walked out to the garden for a… 182

Chapter 25

Rie reeled from the news that had just now reached… 192

Chapter 26

Rie came to breakfast with her children the next morning 196

Chapter 27

“Come in, O-Natsu. Join me in a cup of tea?”… 203

Chapter 28

“I have no intention of allowing any of the girls… 213

Chapter 29

“Only two weeks until Teru’s marriage. It will be a… 224

Chapter 30

Two or three months had elapsed since Teru’s death, and… 230

Chapter 31

Seisaburo’s marriage to Mari Yamada of the East Nada

brewing… 241

Chapter 32

“Oku-san,” Kinnosuke said to Rie one morning, “Seisaburo

has something… 248

Chapter 33

One evening in 1863 the shoji to the office opened… 259

Chapter 34

“Yoshi, come on,” Rie said as he hobbled slowly toward… 265

Chapter 35

Rie opened the shoji and walked into the inner office… 274

Chapter 36

As Rie walked toward the kitchen one morning she heard… 284

Chapter 37

A few days later Rie caught Yoshitaro alone at the… 295

Chapter 38

Several years had elapsed since White Tiger organized

the first… 305

Chapter 39

Rie opened the shutters of her upstairs room early one… 312

Chapter 40

Two years had elapsed since Rie first broached the subject… 320

Chapter 41

Ume was married to the Kuniyoshi son as Rie wished,… 328

Chapter 42

Three months after Rie’s conversation with Fumi a

worse crisis… 335

Chapter 43

Buntaro hurried to Kobe port soon after Rie and Tama… 343

Chapter 44

The wedding reception of Hirokichi and his Fujiwara

bride was… 349

Chapter 45

Rie and Tama could still see workmen coming and going,… 357

Acknowledgments
365

About the Author

Credits Cover Copyright

About the Publisher

The Characters

Kinzaemon IX Hana, his wife

Rie, their daughter Jihei, Rie’s mukoyoshi

Fumi, Rie’s daughter by Saburo Kato Seisaburo, Rie and Jihei’s son

O-Toki, Jihei’s favorite geisha, mother of Yoshitaro Yoshitaro, Jihei’s son of O-Toki

Tama, Yoshitaro’s wife

Teru, Jihei’s daughter of O-Toki Kazu, Jihei’s daughter of O-Yumi Eitaro, Fumi’s mukoyoshi

O-Sada, Yoshitaro’s geisha

Ume, daughter of Yoshitaro and O-Sada Hirokichi, son of Fumi and Eitaro

Mie, daughter of Fumi and Eitaro Mari, Seisaburo’s wife

O-Haru, Sawaraya proprietress Masami, O-Toki’s lover

Goro, son of O-Toki and Masami Nobuo, son of Seisaburo and Mari Masako, daughter of Seisaburo and Mari Naoko, Hirokichi’s wife

Hana, daughter of Hirokichi and Naoko

x i i

Toji, brewmaster

Kin, banto, chief clerk

The Characters

Shin’ichi, Kinnosuke, his successor Nobu, wife of Kinnosuke

O-Natsu, faithful family servant O-Yuki, maid

Mrs. Nakano, marriage go-between Hirano, Seisaburo’s banto

Buntaro, Hirano’s son, Kinnosuke’s successor Yamaguchi, competing brewer

Yusuke, his banto

Chapter 1

It was a day Rie would never forget, the day her mother told her who her husband would be. That day she had knelt in the frigid courtyard scrubbing the wooden sake barrels, barrels so large they had to be lifted by ropes and pulleys. She gripped the big brush in both hands and scrubbed back and forth, back and forth until her muscles ached. She rubbed her blue-cold hands together and held them over her nose and mouth. Then she scratched under the cotton scarf that held back her long thick hair and shifted on the rush mat on which she was kneeling. As she did so, she glanced through the misty screen of her breath at the door of the brewery and inhaled the pungent, mildewy smell of yeast, the smell that permeated every corner of the drafty old wooden house and brewery buildings. Women were never to enter the forbidden door that gaped darkly before her.

“Let a woman enter the brewery and the sake will sour,” the old ones always said. Her mother had warned her of this since childhood. But Rie relished the yeasty smell of brewing sake that

2
oyce Lebra

BOOK: The Scent of Sake
13.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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