Imo (potatoes)

The rice crop failed that autumn for the third year running, the wailing of the starving peasants penetrated deep into the daimyō’s (lord’s) castle.

At the gate Sumitada and his father sat upon their horses surveying the rotting fields of Saitama Province. Orphaned children clustered at their stirrups daring touches upon their greaves to beg for coins. Bodies of dead peasants, their parents perhaps, half covered in water, lay still on the ground where tall rice stalks once had swayed, their hands still stuck in the wet earth where they had died grubbing for nourishment the poisoned soil was loathe to render.

‘Kore ya naru mai (This is bad). There will be a rebellion,’ said the lord, softly, so the peasant children would not hear.

‘Surely not, Father. There hasn’t been war for over 100 years. The Tokugawa rule the entire land,’ Sumitada assured him. ‘Your vassals are loyal.’

‘Peace in the land, but starvation in the North. I’m telling you, Sumi. And I’m too old to put on armour again.’

‘Worry not, Father. My brothers are warriors, and even I can fit your armour now.’

‘I have no doubt, nor of your might nor of your dutifulness.’ The daimyō took a coin purse from a cord hanging from his obi (belt sash) and handed it to his youngest son. Sumitada gave a mon (coin) to one begging child, then another.

‘They’ll give these coins to their grandmothers or their aunts, or whoever is left alive, but what good will it do? There is no rice to buy,’ the lord sighed.

The lord and his son turned their reins and returned to the castle. As the horses’ hooves clacked and thudded across the drawbridge, Sumitada worried to see his father’s slumped shoulders. Was this the great Mori Daimyō, bosom ally of Tokugawa Ieharo Shōgun, the ruler of 20,000 koku of land in Saitama, the largest landowner in the Kantō region? Even the greatest lord in all the realm bows in defeat when his stomach is empty. In times of famine, the greatest kingdom is worth naught but a bowl of rice.

The lord surrendered his reins to a stableboy and descended onto the steps hurriedly proffered by another to ensure his dismounting in dignity. The nimbler Sumitada leapt off the saddle by himself, saying, ‘Shall I take a larger purse and travel to Kanagawa to buy rice, Father?’

‘No. That is, yes, you shall take a larger purse, and yes, you shall travel, with a suitable retinue, but not to buy rice. We could give the peasants rice, and it would just poison again next year. I want you to go to Satsuma. I cannot spare your brothers. They must be ready to battle if the vassals rebel.’

Sumitada knew what he meant. The treasure of Satsuma, the southern island, was famous.

‘Imo (potatoes)?’

‘Yes, I want you to go buy Satsuma-imo (Satsuma potatoes).’

These bright crimson potatoes were so sweet, the horticulture of these treasures was a closely guarded secret of the people of the southern island. A merchant could sell them anywhere in Nippon (Japan) for a price greater than pearls. In famine-stricken Kantō, men would kill for them.

‘Father, export is strictly forbidden; they guard them there with their lives. They don’t even allow merchants to dock in port.’

‘I know, my son, and only my empty belly and the empty bellies of my people provoke me to send you. Though you are young, Sumi, you are clever. I believe you can find a way if you use your head.’

His older brothers teased him, ‘What shame has come upon our family that Younger Brother has become a merchant?’ but that was just what they said to his face. Behind the shōji screens, they admired him. What an adventure, to dare the hostile markets of Satsuma, where so many had lost their lives.

Among his retinue was a Confucian scholar named Aoki Konyō. He beckoned the scholar to ride up front with him.

He asked him, ‘What are we going to do about speaking?’

The dialect in Satsuma was highly specific. Even natives of neighbouring provinces in Kyūshū, Kumamoto, Hyūga and the Ōsumi islands had a hard time with it; people from the North and the South could barely understand one another.

‘Language is one of the ways they catch out incomers. The minute you open your mouth, they know you’re from the North and are after their potatoes.’

‘So, they slit your throat.’

‘Haah.’

They reached Ōsaka after a little less than a month of travelling, and here they booked passage for Nagasaki, where they hired an interpreter speaking Satsugū (Satsuma dialect), a man named Hōbei.

‘They get the red ones from Ryūkyū (Okinawa), tono-sama,’ Hōbei told them.

The innkeeper recommended them to a merchant named Sōza Rintarō, the largest seller of potatoes in the region. They were in a hurry to conduct their business, as the New Year was about to begin and according to religious custom, whether Buddhist or Shintō, no commerce was to be conducted for three days. At the gong of midnight, temple bells would ring 30 times to wash away the year’s sins.

So it was that on the last day of the year, Sumitada with his entire retinue rode into Sōza’s large estate, a mansion house with many wings, each with its own garden lush with tropical plants and flowers, where they were escorted into the main courtyard. The man held court like a daimyō, sitting behind the shōji screen without inviting his guests inside.

That morning, Sōza had instructed the cook to include a good supply of kuri-kintan (Satsuma potatoes with candied chestnuts) among the New Year’s dishes, and the servant had remained at the shōji screen, as if wishing to speak.

‘What is it, Cook? We have insufficient potatoes?’

‘No, master. Those from your recent shipment from Ryūkyū are firm and sweet. It’s just that, at market, something happened.’

‘Speak, then.’

‘A soothsayer said something that worried me.’

‘What was that?’

‘She said, “A Northerner will steal the master’s treasure.”’

Sōza had brushed him away, ‘I’m a businessman. I don’t have time for superstitious nonsense.’

Waving away the interpreter, the merchant addressed Sumitada in the Kantō dialect, ‘Northerner, you may speak with me directly. You seek to steal my potatoes.’

‘Potatoes are what I seek,’ said Sumitada. ‘I would take them to the North, but I do not wish to steal them. I wish to buy them from you with good gold ryō. In Kantō, the rice crop has failed for three years running.’

‘Yet in the South, the gods are generous.’ Sōza waved his hand to indicate his gardens, where an enormous fig tree, the size of which Sumitada had never seen in his life, twined branches laden with new buds over the entire corner of the house.

‘I have my father’s purse. He is…’

‘Foreigner,’ interrupted the merchant, ‘I have no doubt your father is a rich man. I have no doubt his purse is heavy. You are lucky that you have come to me and not some other merchant. They would kill you and cut out your tongue.’

And so, with all his retinue still on one knee in the courtyard like lackeys, without even being admitted inside for a bowl of tea, Sumitada was dismissed.

On their way back to the inn, they found the way blocked by a burly man holding up his matchlock to bar their path. If they’d been in the North, Sumitada’s men would have demanded to know who dared pass in front of the son of the great Mori Daimyō, but he had forbidden them to open their mouths for fear of detection. They fumed indignantly while the object of the man’s solicitude, a rich palanquin, passed them by.

It was a lady’s carriage, painted, carved and lacquered, carried by eight porters. Wasn’t it too early for the first of the New Year’s visits? It was not the craft of nobility. Sumitada could see no family crests, so it was no one of samurai class, yet the richness of the décor and the retinue bespoke a lady of some wealth.

As it passed him by, the bamboo flap lifted just noticably, and Sumitada held his head high, knowing he was watched.

The morrow was New Year’s Day, and while he and his men had nothing to do but to enjoy the inn’s New Year’s dishes, a serving maid came to him. She bowed and presented to him a missive, a poem, in a female hand, the calligraphy reasonably skilled. It was written in the southern dialect, not as flowery as the poems written by the ladies in Yedo, but not bad.

“New Year; a lord stands at the crossing in the road. Such a mystery.”

This is a courtship, he thought; I’m being summoned to a tryst.

He was ushered in via a side gate and knelt before her veranda. The place looked somehow familiar.

The maid slowly opened the shōji screen, and he saw her. The lady was very pretty. She wore a blue and white silk kimono in multiple layers like some kind of princess, belted with a red obi (sash) gaudy with gold thread and embroidery. She’d painted tiny eyebrows high on her forehead imitating the courtly style, and her long black hair was carefully arranged. A spoiled rich girl, he thought, Papa’s little pet, no doubt. He bowed, not too low, of course. Of what rank could this lady be that was comparable to his? At her beckoning he mounted the veranda, removing his wooden sandals, and entered her room.                                                    

She picked up a whisk and prepared for him a bowl of green tea.

‘Lady, your poem spoke of mystery, yet I know not who you may be, nor what this meeting may have in store for me.’ At least, she’s cultured enough to know the tea ceremony, he thought. He turned the cup gracefully in his hand and sipped.

She spoke in what she seemed to think was the Yedo dialect. ‘Me, I am no mystery. I am Ogin, daughter of Sōza Rintarō, a merchant who is known to you.’ Sōza, the very merchant with whom Sumitada had the previous day had such unsuccessful negotiations. Sumitada looked around the corner of the veranda and espied the same enormous fig tree. Perhaps the lady had followed him from his appointment with her father. ‘It is you, tono, who are the mystery,’ said the lady.

He told her his name was Sumitada.

She gasped. Only one of daimyō class would have such a name.

He told her that he was the son of Mori Daimyō. She gasped again.

He told her about the peasants starving in the fields of Saitama, and she sighed. Women’s tender hearts ache at the thought of people suffering.

‘Now I have told you my secret. And so, pretty Ogin, as to the other mystery, what this meeting has in store for me?’ He moved beside her and thrust his hand between the folds of her kimono.

She gave a little cry, but not too loud. His bold move took her by surprise, and yet she was not averse to it. She blushed brightly, the crimson colour of her country’s potato, and threw her black hair behind her in abandon. The lady was in love. Sumitada’s fingers, now so boldly seeking her skin from among the silken folds, filled her with a thrill she had never before felt in all her young days.

The futon (mattress) was waiting, already laid, behind the next screen. Such had, indeed, been her intent.

‘You have disgraced me,’ she teased afterwards as she lay upon her pillow. He had removed all her robes, and they lay in dishevelled piles around the room. She would need to call a maid if she wanted to be redressed.

‘A disgrace which did not displease you,’ he said arrogantly.

‘Will you not save me, then, from shame?’

Sumitada guessed what she meant. What do all girls want, once they’ve given themselves to a man? But she didn’t look as pretty now as she had before. He didn’t answer.

‘Will you take me North to your castle?’

‘Lady, I am on a quest.’

Even her name, Ogin (made of silver), bespake her lowly merchant status.

‘Suppose I were to assist you in your quest?’

‘You have crates of potatoes stored behind the other screen, do you?’ he said haughtily.

‘No, but I know where you can get them.’

Sumitada changed his tone, ‘Where?’

‘Ryūkyū, that’s where my father gets them. I know the name of his exporter. He has a house here in Nagasaki.’

Sumitada regained his gallantry, ‘Lead me to this man, pretty Ogin, and I will take two treasures back North with me. I shall present my people with potatoes to fill their bowls, and I shall sit you at my father’s side.’

He grabbed a quill and dashed off a poem to leave on her pillow: “The spring rains have whispered up their secrets; the mystery is unveiled.” The words, in the Yedo dialect, were so refined, so cultured; the hand so masculine, so confident; the calligraphy so skilled; the sentiments so delicate. Only a lord with years of private tutoring could produce such a work.

All the next day Ogin read and reread Sumitada’s poem, confiding giggling to her ladies, flushing so hotly each time that she was all a-sweat and had to bathe before dinner. By the time he arrived at her veranda, she would have killed her own brother for him.

He masterfully swung her up on his saddle and held her firmly by the waist, until she swooned with pleasure.

Dejima, it turned out, had returned to his home country for the New Year, but Ogin said she knew the location.

So, while she and Sumitada, hidden away from her father, passed the New Year sharing a pillow of love at a Nagasaki inn, Hōbei the interpreter procured them southward passage on a ship to the Ryūkyū islands.

Upon arrival on the island they found the supplier, Dejima, at his family home and paid him a visit.

At first the exporter was unwelcoming. ‘Nagasaki merchants pay us well for our silence. We’ve no allegiance to your shōgun. Shō Boku is our lord.’

But Sumitada bided his time, sharing Dejima’s food and drinking his sake. When they were well in their cups, he said, ‘Sir, I speak to you most frankly, people in my country are starving. Their bodies lie rotting in the paddies. Their children beg at the gates of our castle. We need another crop besides rice or our entire country will perish.’

The heartfelt plea won him over; they spoke of money, and Dejima agreed to the deal.

From the side of the room, where she and Sumitada’s men knelt with no sake cups before them, Ogin blurted out, ‘You might offer my affianced a better deal than that.’

Dejima looked up in shock. Who was this girl who until now had been considered merely a female among the customer’s retinue?

Sumitada also looked up in shock. ‘Be quiet, woman. This is none of your concern,’ he said, mortified.

‘My father gets a better deal from him, Anata. He’s trying to swindle you.’

Sumitada reddened in anger. How dare she even open her mouth? As if boasting of their relations. How sordid. She’d called him Anata. Anata, the form of address used by merchants’ wives to their husbands. Two gentlemen, sharing cups, had come to an agreement. The vulgar girl had dared to meddle in their affairs. She had tried to haggle, to haggle, like some fishwife at market hawking her wares. She imagined herself playing the wifey, bargaining on his behalf, as if rummaging for a discount made her clever. Instead, she had shamed him. This grubbing for coins was beneath his class, beneath his dignity. Ogin’s outburst dishonoured him to the very core of his being.

Still smarting from the shame of it, lying on the pillow next to her that night, Sumitada watched her sleeping face, red like a boiled pig from crying after his stern admonishment, and his thoughts turned to another.

A girl back in Saitama, Naoe; the daughter of a samurai, though perhaps not as rich, Naoe was of higher rank than any southern merchant, despite the airs paraded by Ogin’s father. Furthermore, Naoe was pretty, prettier than this pig’s daughter. She was a noblewoman, cultured, refined; she would never have opened her mouth in company like that. When I go home, he thought, I’ll save the people from starvation; I’ll be a hero; I’ll marry Naoe and be a lord. I can’t bring home this merchant’s brat as a bride; my father would die of shame. And Naoe would not come to me if I brought home a concubine.

On her pillow, he left no poem.

The soothsayer had spoken truly. The Northerner had stolen Sōza’s little treasure and left her, deflowered and in tears.

Aoki cultivated the crimson tubers in his hothouse, and the men piled up potato mounds. Sumitada married Naoe, became a lord and was hailed as a hero, even by his brothers. From time to time, he secretly remembered his amorous exploits in the South.

           Now the fields of Saitama had yielded up their first crop of sweet crimson potatoes, and the children laughed as they dirtied their hands digging at the mounds in the fields where last year their parents’ bodies had lain. From the castle wall Sumitada and his father could hear in the town below a potato seller with his mobile brazier vending cart, his rich chants of ‘ishi-yakiimo-ya, yakiimo (stone-roasted potatoes)’ that sent warm thrills up newly fattened children’s spines as they rushed into the street with their coins, crying ‘atchi, atchi’, (hot, hot) as they gleefully tucked into the steaming red delicacies.

‘Kore ya yoshi (This is good),’ said his father.