I took a step closer and saw a spare brushed rendering of a curved train track. “Ara!” I remembered something the monks on the ship had told me: when Admiral Perry’s black ships came to scare Japan into trading with the West, they brought a miniature steam train—with cars just big enough for a man to straddle and ride—and set it up on the shore to astonish the natives. Jiro pointed to the train track: “It looks like a long scar in the ground,” he said. “They call this kettle a servant, but I can see it’s one of their gods, look.”
