The Mask Carver's Son Read Online Free PDF Page A

masks to the Kanze theater, where the actors are awed. “Go to our patriarch, Kanze Yamamoto Yuji,” they all agree. “Go and show him your masks.”
    He travels the next day to the theater, his masks tied in
furoshiki
, his wooden children tucked warmly underneath his arms. He unwraps them under Grandfather’s watchful eyes, he reveals that which has come from him.
    Words do not come easy to him. But he need not speak in support of his masks. The masks speak for themselves. He offers them to the great patriarch with the extension of his marble hands, and presses his forehead to the tatami floor.
    He sees their magic revealed in the cupping of the famous actor’s hands. He feels the ghost of Tamashii smiling at the mention of my mother’s name. He bows reverently to my grandfather’s request that he visit his home. The priest has spoken the truth. He is a son of Noh.

THREE
    W ait until you see his hands!” Grandfather called out excitedly to Grandmother from behind his dressing screen.
    Grandmother was busy in the kitchen and could not discern the exact words of her husband. She put down her long chopsticks, took her pot off the flame, and went to see what he was saying.
    He stood there basking in the light of his discovery, his legs slightly apart, his stomach puffing through his
yukata
, his palms resting on his forearms.
    “I have found a man that I believe is suitable for Etsuko to marry,” he told her, his red face beaming.
    Grandmother looked at him, wild with excitement and brimming with plans. She fell silent, her eyes locked to the floor.
    *   *   *
    He stood staring at his wife for a moment, as she had the capacity to move him deeply. He would never tell her this, however, for that would make him appear ridiculously sentimental. Seeing her stand before him, quiet as a squirrel, brought him comfort. She supported his every wish. She had been his wife for almost thirty-three years and, in his days of joy, had borne him a lovely daughter and, in his days of sadness, borne him a stillborn son.
    He disliked thinking about his son. It only revealed wounds that could never heal. While his wife’s despair manifested itself in weeping, his had revealed itself in anger. He lashed out at the gods with an angry fist and challenged them with the volume of his voice. It was unfair that his son not be allowed a single breath on this earth. It was unjust that the Yamamoto family be denied an heir.
    He had watched as his wife, wrapped in blankets and her hair matted to her face, cried until her eyes swelled shut. Their son’s face in death appeared identical to hers wrought in grief, both pairs of eyes pink, sealed, and raw, both pairs of cheeks whiter than mountain snow.
    He preferred to remember how beautiful she had been when they first met. The vision of her kneeling at the base of the stage, her slender arms extended before her, searching the ground for her missing comb. If he closed his eyes, he had the ability to be transported back in time.
    “What are you looking for?” he had asked her as he descended the stairs of the main platform more than thirty years before. He had just finished one of his first rehearsals at the Daigo theater.
    “I have lost one of my combs,” she said shyly, lifting one arm to contain the section of fallen hair.
    “Let me help you,” he replied. He watched her as she smiled up at him, her pale cheeks blushing with embarrassment.
    After searching for a few minutes, he turned to her and asked why she did not simply redo her bun using the remaining combs in her hair.
    “It is so long that it requires nine combs to secure it above my head. Anything less will cause it to tumble.” She giggled and her laugh was soft, nervous, and feminine.
    He thought her charming. He thought her innocent. And in his heart he knew that one day this woman would be his wife.
    He courted her for months. He gazed for hours at her perfectly round face. Her skin as translucent as gossamer silk, her