Tea time with Nakaima

They walked up the moss covered path to the partially obscured entrance. Branches from an old cherry tree hung low over it giving a brooding, lonely effect. The deep red was quietly matched with the faded brown of the door. It was classic wabi sabi. Gabriel had been asked by arriving gaijin so many times to translate this inscrutable phrase. His best answer had been rustic longing.

Nakaima pulled the sliding door to the right and went ahead.

“Douzo Gaburieru san. Ohairi kudasai”

He beckoned his guest in with a wave of his short arm. As soon as Gabriel got into the large, old fashioned genkan entrance he immediately felt a strong shift in energy. Nakaima was purported to be a world class geomancer. His considerable Feng Shui skills were sought out by a wide ranging clientele. Knowing where to put what and why was his forte. Therefore every single object placed in a room or a garden, including trees and plants, would have an effect on the overall ambience.

When a culture is as riddled with superstition as Japan then being extra careful which way your toilet pointed became a sure way not to get crapped on mused Gabriel. He could see some value in all this, but reckoned most of it was in the head of the perceiver. What wasn’t after all?

Unlacing his shoes before stepping up on to the one stone step into the house he remarked.

“Nakaima san this is wonderful. I had no idea you were this artistic.”

“When I was gay I used to hang out with interior design artists Gaburieru san.”

He had looked so dead pan when saying this that it took the Spaniard a moment or two to realize he had been had. Yet again. The guy was a master.

“Right, Nakaima san. Very funny.”

“Come on in! I have lots to show you inside.”

Nakaima seemed genuinely excited to have finally got Gabriel to the place he had been talking about all these years. They moved unshod over the shiny old tatami mats to another sliding door. It creaked a little when opening. No doubt this old house had shifted more than a little over the last three hundred years. Unlike modern Japanese houses the old country homes were very spacious. They had high roofs so there was always a feeling of expansiveness in them. This had almost totally gone from anything built after the war. In fact the Japanese themselves referred to their own houses as ‘rabbit hutches’.

“Wow! This is truly traditional Nakaima san. Where did you get that irori? And that hibachi over in the corner-it must be from the Meiji period. What about that amazing butsudan over there? I have never seen one that big!”

Gabriel was getting more impressed by the minute. His love of the Japanese antique was irrepressible. His widening eyes roved longingly around the deeply spacious room. A single massive beam arched across its top. Above that there was the musty darkness hanging below the thatch. The floor was in polished dark brown wood except at the edge of the huge, glowing irori firepit. There it was surrounded by worn out , yellow tatami mats.

Nakaima must have had somebody there to keep the place heated at all times. At this altitude keeping old houses warm was an art and a labour of love. There was no insulation to speak of.

“Slow down Gaburieru san! We have all day and I will explain everything. First, let’s have a cup of green tea. You probably don’t know that I am a certified tea master too. I used to join all the housewives in the Kyoto tea ceremony classes just to get laid. Just kidding, just kidding! Now relax while I get the tea ready.”

Fifteen minutes later Nakaima walked in, this time in a full length, dark kimono. He was carrying a bamboo tray with tea utensils perfectly set out on it. He laid this gently on the floor as he ceremoniously kneeled in the seiza position. The ninja gave a deep bow. Gabriel immediately assumed the same posture opposite him. The two men were getting definitely close to some kind of new understanding in this five year relationship he felt.

Below them twenty three of Nakaima’s staff members prepared a different kind of welcome.

“Do you liky tea or coffee?” His voice reverberated across the space between them.

Gabriel burst out laughing. Nakaima’s seldom heard English accent was brilliantly atrocious. He pronounced coffee like most Japanese as kouhee and do as dzoo. Of course no choice existed as they were about to have macha – the pure green tea packed with caffeine.

Nakaima moved gracefully across the floor towards his guest. From the door to the irori fireplace was a walk of about fifteen meters.

On his right, worn, brown wooden cupboards were inlaid flush to the wall to a height of two metres. All the household items for eating as well as clothing would be neatly stacked in them. Then there were six shoji doors, also on his right. They were made of wood slats and paper. They opened into the adjoining guest room. The ninja’s white tabi socks made almost no noise as he slid forward towards Gabriel, now sitting by the warm irori in the formal seiza posture. He passed the Buddhist altar, the butsudan and the old ceramic brazier with charcoal in it-the hibachi.

“You must have had a lot of traditional tea like this Gaburieru san. Did you know that our greatest chanoyu grand master sen no rikkyu had to do seppuku?”

“That was at the order of his samurai boss Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the shogun right?”

Gabriel remembered the chanoyu lecture at the ura senkei tea headquarters in Kyoto the second year after his arrival. Even today the tea ceremony leader is always a male out of respect for Sen Rikyu.

“I think the shogun was jealous of the great influence Sen Rikyu had at court. All we have of tea ceremony comes from him. He walked his talk.”

Gabriel was curious about what he meant.

“His death poem was composed to the very dagger he ripped his elderly guts open with. After giving an exquisitely final tea ceremony for his guests, during which he smashed his best tea bowl, he said: ‘Welcome to thee, O sword of eternity! Through Buddha and through Daruma alike Thou hast cleft thy way’. After disemboweling himself, he got the chop. Right there in the tea room. Covered the walls in bright red. Very aesthetic indeed. I would say that is ‘walk your chop!’ ”

Nakaima guffawed over his own joke once again before settling down to the minutia of the ceremony.

An iron pot hanging over the irori firepit was now at the boil. Nakaima picked up the small bamboo spatula on his tray. Inserting it into the tea container he scooped up the deep green powder then carefully deposited it in the bowl. Deftly manipulating the foot long ladle he transferred boiling water from the iron pot into the bowl. His body sat almost motionless, frozen with fierce attention as his powerful right arm gracefully proceeded to whisk the mixture at high speed. Placing the precision carved whisk carefully back on his tray he offered the bowl to Gabriel. Slowly turning it in a full circle he gestured to his guest.

“Douzo”

Three slurps later the bowl was set down in front of the host with perfunctory thanks and a bow. The bitter taste reminded Gabriel of the many times he had shared in this simple ceremony of the transitory, the effervescent and the aesthetic. If Japanese art was anything it was pure appreciation of the simple truth, ‘here today, gone tomorrow.’

“And now I will take you to the real lair Gaburieru san. Follow me.”

As they left the room he pointed to a shining katana ceremonially set on a wooden stand.

“That is the very sword his head was removed with Gabriel. My family were retained in the service of Toyotomi Hideyoshi at the time. We have always regretted the incident while we continue remaining loyal to the powers to be. The sword was a gift for that loyalty. 46 generations have passed since we began in ancient Japan. Now we are needed more than ever.”

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