It was Hata who wrote to him that Satō Sensei’s very long life had come to an end – peacefully, as he slept. Months passed and Theo felt an aching need to have one precious thing of Sensei’s. Just one thing. He often recalled the moment Sensei had served him tea in the Futaba bowl, rarely used, named for the site of an ancient kiln. The gesture was a bestowal of trust and friendship.

‘Do you remember? I think I told you about that,’ he wrote to his cousin Patricia.

She emailed back, ‘You want to buy the Futaba? Sensei’s tea bowl?’

Theo and Patricia hadn’t seen each other in years, but emailed often. It was Patricia, not Theo, who’d made a life in East Asia. At first she’d taught piano at an all-girls’ school in Taipei. Then, in Hong Kong, she worked as secretary to the Scottish widow of a builder from Kowloon. In Bangkok she did the paperwork for shipments of silks and sapphires. Now, in Japan, she was in the business of importing opals. As younger ‘only’ children in a large clan, Theo and Patricia, a year apart in age, had been thrown together like brother and sister. Their mothers had packed them off to skating rinks, public swimming pools, art museums and summer day-camps. Later, they travelled together. They’d always had divergent but complementary interests. On their first trip to Japan (Patricia’s idea), Theo would have been content to wander around the temples and private museums of Tokyo; Patricia preferred remote Akita and Aomori. She said she liked what was in the air in those back-country places: brume, salt, the clank and whirr of a bike coming up behind her on a narrow road. She impressed upon him the role of landscape in ancient poetry. Standing at the lunch-counter at an open-air station, she’d said ‘There is the real thing,’ pointing at pine-covered mountains behind and tiled rooftops sloping down to the sea. Theo was unexpectedly moved. Who else had yearnings so like his own?

‘I’m looking for a word, Theo,’ she emailed him. ‘Insensitive. Yeah, that’s the one. Does your friend Hata even want to sell?’

Theo wrote to Hata and asked him. For several months and after many emails back and forth, Hata moved cautiously towards a yes, and finally Theo boarded a plane to Tokyo.

He was in mid-flight over the Pacific when Hata came to a firm decision about selling the Futaba bowl. A hand-written letter waited for Theo at the hotel. My good friend, it began. The tone of Hata’s letter was circumspect and remorseful. By the end of it, Theo understood that there were officials who wanted to list the Futaba bowl as an Important Cultural Property. It was unlikely to be allowed to leave the country. More to the point: Hata – Sensei’s disciple and heir – felt a duty to personally safeguard the Futaba tea bowl, whose beauty was known to few people outside of the world of Tea. Theo, as favoured as he’d been by Sensei, had held it in his hands only once.

Theo re-folded the letter, shoved it in a pocket, and followed the porter to the elevator and up to his room. He pondered Hata’s invitation to a ceremony at Sensei’s tea hut (now Hata’s) in Jingu-mae. He’d confirmed his attendance weeks ago. That, at least, hadn’t been cancelled. He slumped in a chair, pulled out his phone and skimmed through his emails. There was a reply from Patricia, about meeting afterwards at Jingu Park. ‘O.K.,’ she wrote. ‘But if something comes up – just saying! – I’ll try & catch you at your hotel.’ The word ‘try’ seemed insincere. He didn’t write back.

The next day, Theo knelt among Hata’s other guests and waited his turn to hold the Futaba bowl that had once been Sensei’s. From the hut was a view of a pebbled stream, an arching footbridge and a copse of maples. His knees ached. His senses took in everything at once. Kimonos in the muted colours of ripe plums and mourning doves. The smell of incense. How frail the walls seemed. In a recess, the hanging scroll, a sprig of grass. The murmur of speech, the separateness of kettle – ladle – whisk. The fluid movements of red silk fukusa. The bowl passed slowly from guest to guest. Then it was in front of him, on the floor, an austere and sturdy presence, within reach. Hata’s glance held none of Sensei’s warmth or understanding. Patricia would fail to look for him at Jingu Park or at the hotel. He clasped his hands to stop them from shaking. Then he bent forward to take the bowl. It felt warm and buffed by time, pocked, immutable and imperfect, just as he remembered.