The back room was being rebuilt that autumn.
The carpenters had taken the old frame down. New timbers leaned against the shop's wall. They waited for their day of work. The roof let in more sky than it should. A sheet of oiled cloth covered one corner. It kept the worst of the rain off. It also kept the light out, all day.
The head carpenter named the price for the whole work. Frame and roof together came to three thousand, eight hundred ryō. Ren agreed to the price, there and then.
The room's window faced the yard's wall. Its light had always been plain, not bright. Now the cloth and the timbers dimmed it more. At noon, the room held a grey half-light. At the bench, shadows pooled in the corners. Ren worked there by lamp, most days. The lamp burned early, and burned late.
The autumn making rested on its racks. Its jars waited under their two waxes, new and old. Their seals had been checked, one by one. The making's count would come in its time. Meanwhile, the year's test came due. A year was measured, in this shop, by testing. The test did not wait for a better room. It never had waited for anything.
Toma came from the tea stall at midday.
Toma was the tea stall's boy, quick and neat. He had mixed the samples in other years. Mixing means he set their order himself. Ren did not watch the mixing, by the rule. The rule was the whole point of the test. If Ren knew the order, it was no test. It was only a man reading his own labels.
Toma brought the tray through the shop. Twelve samples lay on it, in small dishes. Each dish held a leaf, a root, or a powder. Their marks were turned face down, on slips. Toma set the tray on the back bench. He set it under the lamp's edge, where he chose. Then he stepped back, to the door's side. He would keep the slips, and say nothing. His silence was part of his work.
Ren washed his hands at the basin. He dried them on a clean cloth. He took his place at the bench. The lamp burned at his left shoulder. Its light fell across half the tray. The far half lay in the dimmer air. Outside the door, the street sounded ordinary. Inside, the room smelled of new timber.
He began with the near dishes, as they lay. He did not move the tray toward the lamp. Moving it would have been a small cheating. The test was of his eyes and tongue. The room was the room the year had given. He picked up the first leaf, and looked. He smelled it. He tasted a corner of it. Then he named it, quietly, to Toma.
Toma said nothing. He turned no slip over. He only watched Ren's hands, and waited. Dish by dish, Ren worked along the tray. Some names came at once, certain and clean. Some came slower, after a second smell. Twice he held a leaf up toward the window. The grey light there was no kinder. He named those two from the smell alone. He felt sure of both, as he named them.
The roots lay at the tray's far end. They were cut in short pieces, alike in size. Ren tasted each piece, and spat into the bowl. A bowl of water waited by the tray. He used it between the roots, as always. The last root's taste was mild and earthy. Two roots he knew shared that mildness. One was common in salves and drinks. One was its neighbour, from wetter ground. The taste alone sat between the two. It would not settle, either way.
His way of work had a rule for such a moment. The rule was a comparison piece, kept aside. A known root, tasted beside the unknown one. Side by side, the difference showed itself. The kept pieces waited in their box, on the shelf. The shelf was six steps from the bench. Ren looked at the tray, and at the count. He felt the day pressing behind the test. He named the root from the taste alone. He did not fetch the comparison piece.
Toma turned the slips over at the end. He laid them in a row, by the dishes. Ren read the row against his names. The names were written in the day book after. The count of the year was nine of twelve.
The three errors were read aloud, and named.
Toma read the slips, in the tray's order. Ren listened, with the book open. The first error was a salve leaf, misread. A salve leaf is a leaf used for salves. Two such leaves lay among the twelve. They were cousins, close in shape and smell. In a bright room, their edges differed. One edge was toothed, one edge was smooth. In the back room's low light, the edges blurred. Ren had named each leaf for the other. Both names were wrong, by that one swap.
He did not blame the light in the book. The light was a fact of the room. He had chosen to test in that room. He could have waited for a bright day. He could have moved the test to the counter. He had done neither, and the book said so. The errors were his, in his conditions.
The third error was the last root. It was the neighbour root, not the common one. Ren had named it from its taste alone. The comparison piece had stayed in its box. His own rule required that piece. It required it for exactly this root pair. He had skipped it, to save six steps. The book counted the error in the shortcut. Not in the root, and not in his tongue. His tongue had told him the truth, plainly. It had told him the taste would not settle. He had named the root anyway, past it.
By lamplight, Ren entered the test just as it had fallen.
Nine of twelve, this year's test. Two salve leaves, each named for the other, in the back room's low light. One root, named by taste alone, with no comparison piece fetched. The error is in the shortcut, and the book counts it so. The rule stands: the comparison piece is fetched, every time it is required.
Nine was not a shameful count, in that room. It was also not a count to dress up. In better light, last autumn, he had reached ten once. He had never passed ten, in any year. The talent had its ceiling, and he knew it. Twelve of twelve belonged to other men's stories. His own book held an eight, and nines, and that one ten, honestly. That honesty was worth more than a clean page. A clean page, bought by excuses, bought nothing.
Toma took his tray back to the tea stall. The empty dishes rattled softly, in a stack. The slips went into the book, in their row. They would stay there, with the count. Next year's test would mix them again. The mixing would be Toma's, as it was now. The light, next year, would be the new room's. The shortcut's lesson would stay, whatever the light.
The fifteenth month was made in the same week.
Ren wrote a label for each sachet, then tied it shut. Twelve sachets of the wound powder were made that way. The tying was done at the front counter. Morning customers came and went around it. Ren finished the last knot before noon. Then he checked each label once more, slowly. A label misread at the hill cost more. It cost a climb, and a clerk's patience.
He carried the sachets up in a flat wooden case. The case had a lid, and a leather strap. The strap went over his shoulder, crosswise. The case rode flat against his side. It did not swing as he climbed the path. At the office, he set it on the inspection table. The lid was lifted back, on its hinges.
The clerk worked down the case's rows. He read each label where it lay. He did not lift the sachets out first. The reading came first, in the case. Every label was read, twelve in all. Six labels faced the window, in their rows. He chose those six, of his own choosing. Those six went onto the scales, one by one. The six passed at the scales, one by one agreed. Each weight agreed with the standard. The six went back into their own rows. The clerk marked the file for the month. The reading had passed all twelve of them. The six chosen had passed the scales. The month was delivered and accepted.
The money was counted on the table's bare part. One thousand, four hundred and forty. Ren took it up in small handfuls, palm by palm. Each handful went into the case's empty half. He went through the count twice, as his rule required. Then the lid came down, and the strap went up. The case came down the hill flat and heavier. The order had run fifteen months now, counting this one. Its months rested on tied sachets, read labels, and true weights. It had never run on anything else.
Four jars went to the street, that week.
All four were of the year's first month. The oldest month went first, as always. One jar went to a house past the candle stall. One went to the plasterer's yard, for a cousin. Two went on the same evening, doors apart. Each course was told plain, at the counter. Three days, morning and evening, the cup hot. No new jar of the autumn making was touched. That making still waited for its own count.
The year's first month held nine jars now. Thirteen had stood there at the week's opening. Four had gone out, in their order. The shelf held the second summer month whole. Forty-four jars, untouched by the week's street. Ahead lay the rest of the autumn's work. The roof of the back room still waited. The office's papers still came and went.
Later, with the shutters up, he gave the book the week's counts.
The fifteenth month stands delivered and accepted: twelve of twelve. In: one thousand, four hundred and forty. The box stands at nineteen thousand, two hundred and eighty.
The year's first month stands at nine jars. The test of the year stands at nine of twelve, with its errors named.
Ren shut the book on the poorer count first. The test's page lay under the month's page. That was the right order, for that week. The money would be counted again, in time. The errors would be read again, all year. A shortcut, once written, kept its lesson. It did not need to be taken twice.