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watches her head, the top of it facing him and her hand moving with the brush, her steady, trancelike breath, and thinks she’s somewhere underneath the layers and folds. When she walked into the room, she was tucked in a dream, her eyes coated with a soft haze. She sets down her brush, raises her hands, and presses her fingertips to her temples. When she picks up her brush again, there is a red ring at the corner of her eye. He’s seen that gesture before, but can’t place it. He watches the redness slowly fade, still trying to recall where he’d witnessed that gesture. Only after many moments pass does he realize she is speaking to him.
    What? he asks.
    Shipment. The next shipment, she asks, when is it?
    He’s still dazed, uncertain what she’s saying. He follows the words and scrapes off their sheen.
    He forgot about the next shipment. Why, it’s today, he says. I completely overlooked—
    I’ll pack the boxes, she says.
    Her gesture, forgotten, as he pushes his thumbs into the clay. He is usually so organized about the shipments. If she hadn’t reminded him, he’d have to wait a month to ship the boxes; the Parisian dealer who ordered his vases and bowls would probably cancel any future orders. He quickly pumps the footpad twice and grabs another handful of clay. He will make a magnificent bowl. Strong now from so many bowls, his hands bend and move the huge ball of clay. The potter’s wheel turns faster.
    H OURS LATER, HE IS DONE . He rises without looking at his finished bowl and announces he’s going inside for lunch. He asks if she’d like to join him.
    No, thank you, she says, not looking up.
    He nods and almost says, Of course not; when does she ever choose to bewith him? Right before he makes his safe exit, he turns and looks at his new bowl. Why did he look? How awful, he thinks. How hideous and unsightly and he must restrain himself from rushing back to his wheel and smashing it with his fist. He wills himself to open and shut the door. Not now, he tells himself. I’ll come back later.
    For these last hours, she has been painting around and around him. Now that Hayashi is gone, she pulls out her earlier painting. There is her lover, in a light blue kimono. He is waiting for her. She mixes yellow and red and makes peach. She begins to paint herself.
    H E SETS HIS TEA cup on the kitchen table, his mind agitated. Her gesture. Her fingertips pressed so hard to the temple. At last he remembers. How long has it been since that memory visited him? How could he have tucked it away? The cherry-bark man clamped his hands to his head. He did this as if some thought just occurred to him, some horrible thought, then he collapsed and died on the floor of Hayashi’s hut.
    Of course, it is a painful image, he thinks, but he is relieved that he remembered, that he recovered a bit of the cherry-bark man. He smiles. A father to me, he thinks. The maid fills his wooden bucket with ice water. She hands him his Emerson book and pours more tea. He’ll go back to the studio and get rid of that ugly bowl. He will soak the dried pieces in water. From the new ball of clay, the hideous thing gone, he’ll begin again. Emerson probably never created anything horrible. He looks at the book cover. The Dutchman gave him this book when he was eight years old, but the fire took it. Years later, the Dutchman sent him more Emerson, and he read them at the mountain monastery. His father had met the Dutchman with pale hair in his tea shop and hired him to teach his son Western history, literature, and English. The man had pale reddish skin and pale hair on his arms. He came every Monday with a bag of books on his back.
    In the West, a man can do what he wants, said his father. The way of the West is the only way for Japan.
    He learned the Greek myths and the legendary figures. He wrote essays and learned English. After the tall man left for the day, the boy practiced theway the man threw back his shoulders, his chest puffed out, his