The Teahouse Fire

by Ellis Avery

You might as well give gold to a cat, it took so long for Japanese music to grow on me. I had grown up on Latin hymns and New York street music—the accordion, the fife and drum, the Irish fiddle—and my mother’s craggy French alto, her love songs and lullabies. These had not prepared me for the meowl, the twang, the start-and-stop of Japanese music. I sat in the packed-earth cloakroom at Koito’s as I did when Yukako practiced at home, alternately bored and grated upon, happiest when Inko appeared with tea and treats, a glint in her eye. “Your Young Mistress is good, huh?” Japanese is fraught with little crises of etiquette: say yes and risk the rudeness of bragging about your own household, or say no and risk the rudeness of disloyalty? “She’s trying,” I offered.