Barbery A Single Rose

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-80533-377-7
Verlag: Pushkin Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 144 Seiten

From the author of the international bestseller The Elegance of The Hedgehog comes a life-affirming novel about unexpected second chances set against the temples and teahouses of Tokyo. 'A moving tale of emotional awakening and blossoming love' Woman's Own 'An enjoyable, immersive read' The Lady Rose has just turned forty when she is unexpectedly summoned to Japan for the reading of her father Haru's will, who seemingly abandoned her when she was a baby. Leaving behind her life as a botanist in Paris, Rose travels to Kyoto and is led around its enchanting tea houses, temples and zen gardens by Paul, Haru's former assistant. Initially a reluctant tourist, Rose comes to discover her father's legacy through the itinerary he set for her, finding gifts greater than she had ever imagined and connecting with gentle widower Paul. This is a mesmerising story of second chances, of beauty born out of grief and roses grown from ashes.

Muriel Barbery is the author of four previous novels, including the IMPAC-shortlisted multimillion-copy bestseller The Elegance of the Hedgehog. She has lived in Kyoto, Amsterdam and Paris and now lives in the French countryside.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Barbery, Muriel

Weitere Mitwirkende

Anderson, Alison

Leseproben

1

It is said that in ancient China, during the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a prince who, every year, would have a field of a thousand peonies planted, and during the first days of summer their petals would ripple in the breeze. For six days he would sit on the floor of the wooden pavilion where he habitually went to admire the moon, drinking a cup of clear tea from time to time, and he would observe the flowers he called his girls. At dawn and at sunset, he would pace up and down the field.

Early on the seventh day he ordered the massacre.

His servants would lay out the lovely, murdered victims, their stems severed, heads pointing to the east, until only a single flower was left standing in the field, its petals offered to the first monsoon rains. And for the five days that followed, the prince stayed there, drinking dark wine. His entire life was contained in those twelve revolutions of the sun; all year long, he thought of nothing else; once they were behind him, he took a vow to die. But the hours he devoted to selecting the chosen one, then delighting in their silent tête-à-tête, held so many lives in one that the months of mourning were not a sacrifice to him.

What he felt as he gazed at the survivor? A sadness shaped like a sparkling gemstone, shot through with flashes of such pure, intense happiness that his heart faltered.

A Field of a Thousand Peonies

When Rose woke and, looking around her, did not understand where she was, she saw a red peony with sullen petals. She had a vague sense of regret or lost happiness. Ordinarily, this inner agitation scratches at the heart before vanishing like a dream, but on occasion time is transformed, and gives the mind new clarity. That is what Rose was feeling that morning in her encounter with the peony, which revealed its gilded stamens to her from its exquisite vase. For a moment it seemed to her that she could stay for ever in that bare room, gazing at that flower, feeling alive as never before. She studied the tatami mats, the paper panels, the window opening onto branches in the sun, the crumpled peony; finally, she observed herself, as if she were a stranger she had only met the previous day.

The evening returned to her in waves – the airport, the long drive through the night, the arrival, the lantern-lit garden, the woman in a kimono kneeling on the raised floor. To the left of the sliding door through which she had entered, branches of summer magnolia spilled from a dark vase and caught the light in successive cascades. The shadows on the walls shimmered like gleaming water pouring onto the flowers, and all around there was a strange, quivering darkness. Rose could make out walls with sand finishes, flat stones that led to the raised flooring, secret spirits – an entire twilit life suffused with sighs.

The Japanese woman had led her to her room. In the next room, steam from a bath rose from a large basin made of smooth wood. Rose had slid into the scalding water, captivated by the bare simplicity of this damp, silent crypt, its wood decor, its pure lines. Stepping out of the bath, she wrapped herself in a light cotton kimono, the way one might enter a sanctuary. In the same way, she slipped between the sheets with an inexplicable feeling of fervour. Then everything faded away.

Now there came a discreet knock, and the door slid open with a soft hiss. The woman from the night before set a tray down by the window, her steps short and precise. She said a few words, took gentle, sliding paces backwards, then knelt down, bowed, and closed the door again. As she disappeared from view, Rose saw her lowered eyelids quiver, and was struck by the beauty of her brown kimono and its obi belt embroidered with pink peonies. The memory of her clear voice, each sentence ending on a clipped note, chimed in the air like a gong.

Rose inspected the unfamiliar food, the teapot, the bowl of rice; every movement she made felt like a desecration. Through the bare frame of the window, whose glass pane and paper screen slid open, she could see the etched, trembling leaves of a maple tree and a more expansive vista beyond. There was a river, its banks teeming with wild grasses, and on either side of its pebbled bed were sandy pathways and more maples mingling with cherry trees. Midstream, in the languid current, stood a grey heron. Fine-weather clouds drifted overhead. Rose was struck by the force of the flowing water. Where am I? she wondered, and although she knew this city was Kyoto, the answer stole away from her like a shadow.

There was another knock. Yes? she called, and the door opened. The peony sash reappeared; this time, the kneeling woman said: Rose-san get ready? and pointed to the bathroom door. Rose nodded. What the hell am I doing here? she thought, and although she knew she had come for the reading of her father’s will, the answer still eluded her. In the vast empty chapel of the bathroom, next to the mirror, a white peony with petals lightly dipped in carmine ink was drying like a new painting. The morning light pouring through an opening latticed with bamboo cast fireflies onto the walls and, for a moment, immersed in the kaleidoscopic play of a stained-glass window, she could have been in a cathedral. She got dressed, went out into the corridor, turned to the right, retraced her steps after reaching a closed door, then followed the meanders of floor and paper. She turned a corner, and the partitions became dark wood with sliding panels, and round the next corner, she found herself in a large room with a live maple tree in the centre. Its roots burrowed deep into folds of velvety moss; a fern caressed the trunk, next to a stone lantern; all of it was surrounded by glass panelling, open to the sky. In the shards of a fragmented world, Rose saw the wood floor, the low seats, the lacquered tables, and, to her right, in a large clay vase, an arrangement of branches with unfamiliar leaves, vibrant and light as fairies, but the maple tree punctured the space in which Rose’s senses were drowning, and she felt the tree drawing her towards it, her breath responding to its magnetic force, as if it sought to make her body into a shrub with murmuring boughs. After a moment she escaped from the spell, went over to the other side of the inner garden, where large windows looked out onto the river, and opened a panel that slid soundlessly along its wooden rails. Along the banks with their cherry trees ran morning joggers, and Rose would have liked to slip into their steps that had no past or future, no ties or history; would have liked to be nothing but a moving point in the flow of seasons and mountains passing over cities on its way to the ocean. She looked beyond the river. Her father’s house was built at a certain height, above a sandy path visible through the tree branches. On the opposite bank were the same cherry trees, the same sandy pathway, the same maples and, further still, overlooking the river, a street, more houses – the city. Finally, on the horizon, a tumble of green hills.

She returned to the sanctuary of the tree. The Japanese woman was waiting for her.

‘My name Sayoko,’ she said to her.

Rose nodded.

‘Rose-san go for a stroll?’ asked Sayoko.

Then, in accented French, blushing slightly: ‘Promenade?’

Again those clipped sentence endings, like an echo, those pearly, shell-like eyelids.

Rose hesitated.

‘The driver outside,’ said Sayoko. ‘Wait for you.’

‘Oh,’ said Rose, ‘all right.’

She felt rushed, and behind Sayoko the tree called to her again, strange, seductive.

‘I forgot something,’ she said, and dashed away.

In the bathroom, she found herself facing the white peony, with its blood-lacquered petals and its snowy corolla. Hyoten, she murmured. She stood there for a moment, then, picking up her canvas hat, she left the chapel of silence and water and went out to the hall. In the daylight, the magnolia blossoms were curved like butterflies – how do they do that, she wondered irritably. Outside the house, the driver from the night before, in a black suit and a white cap, bowed when she appeared. He held the door open for her respectfully, closed it again gently. In the rear-view mirror she studied his eyes, thin lines of black ink blinking without revealing their iris, and, oddly, she liked the abyss of that gaze. Before long, he gave her a childlike smile that lit up his waxen face.

They crossed a bridge and, once they were on the other side of the river, headed towards the hills. She got her first glimpse of the city in a tangle of concrete, electric wires, and neon signs; here and there, the outline of a temple seemed to be adrift on the tide of ugliness. The hills drew nearer, the neighbourhood became residential, and finally they drove the length of a canal lined with cherry trees. They got out of the car below a street crowded with shops and wandering tourists. At the top, they went through a wooden gate – Silver Pavilion, said the driver. His lack of presence surprised her, as if he had absented himself in order to focus solely on her and whatever she needed. She gave him a smile, and he responded with a little nod.

And so they entered an ancient world of wooden buildings with grey tiled roofs. Before them stood strange tall pines set in squares of moss; stone walkways meandered past beds of fine grey sand where parallel lines had been drawn with a rake; a few azaleas had been invited. They went through the gate that led to the main gardens. On the right, next to a pond, with the help of...