The Cup

The electric shriek of my telephone woke me from a doze. It was security. My appointment had arrived and was waiting in the lobby. The clock read 8:37 pm. She was late. She was also the only specialist who could answer my troubling question, so I was glad that she had agreed to come. I took a sip of tepid coffee from my mug and walked out of my office.

Dr. Sauer was standing in front of the Goya in the lobby, leaning in close to examine the twisted faces on the canvas. I cleared my throat to get her attention, but her focus was fixed.

“Mr. Gray?” she asked with her back to me.

“Good evening, Dr. Sauer,” I replied. Her eyes stayed locked on the painting. “I appreciate you making time to consult on my project. Can I offer you a coffee or tea before we begin?”

“No,” she said and turned around to face me. She was short and waifish, wearing all black and carrying a black suitcase with copper latches. Deep, dark bags sagged under her eyes like bundled blankets. “I just flew in, and I have to catch a red eye after we conclude our business. Can you introduce me to the object?” 

I detected a breath of German under an otherwise aristocratic English accent, and her left eye twitched with each hard syllable she spoke. Though not the first eccentric to step inside The Bildung and Roman Art Brokerage, something in her demeanor unnerved me, like walking through a cloud of cologne on an empty street. 

“Right this way,” I said. Dr. Sauer trailed behind me a few steps as we walked down a wide hallway lined with identical glass-fronted offices. Walking wordlessly ahead of her made me feel like a tongue tied docent in a museum of sameness, or an unwitting zealot demanding distance from a subservient wife — both roles brought me discomfort.

“Are you an artist?” asked Dr. Sauer. Her words hit the back of my neck like darts and I nearly shuddered.

“I wouldn’t call myself that, no,” I said with some hesitation. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s been my experience that those of us who work in this business began with higher aspiration. There are only so many fallbacks for fine artists.”

There was a time when I would have said yes. Fifteen years ago, I finished my MFA from the School of Visual Arts and had some initial successes from a few group shows. The paintings sold, and the press was promising. I even earned a commission to paint a mural at a tech startup in Austin, but they hemorrhage their venture capital before I could cash the check. My only solo show was forgettable, and the galleries stopped returning my calls. A period of flailing followed as I chased validation through vice and approval in the superficial. Through the excess, I drifted from my imaginative core until a complete creative hibernation settled in. The money I had earned from my paintings had dwindled, so, on the recommendation of a friend, I accepted a position at The Bildung and Roman Art Brokerage and started a career as an art dealer. It was a transition of terrible ease.

At room fourteen, I opened the door and held it for her as she caught up. There was a large table in the center, a few chairs and a storage vault on the back wall. She set her briefcase on the table and began pulling out an odd assortment of instruments. There was something that looked like a record player made of copper, then a brass tool that appeared to be half tuning fork and half horn, then a small block of clay.

“Is the object here?” she asked, her left eyelid fluttering.

I stepped to the storage vault and entered my password. A mechanism inside gave out a hollow click, and I opened the door. Inside was a small box that I carried to the table. I put on a pair of white gloves, opened the lid and carefully removed a small ceramic sake cup. Anyone unfamiliar with antiques would mistake it for an ordinary restaurant sake cup. It was round and squat with a white glaze — wholly forgettable except for a gruesome painting of a blue crane pierced by an arrow.

Dr. Sauer crossed her arms and stared at the cup, her left eyelid dancing to her thoughts. Slipping into a pair of white gloves, she picked up the sake cup and examined it, turning it side to side and flipping it over to check the maker’s mark. She brought it up to her nose and sniffed as though it were a peony.

“What can you tell me about the object?” she asked, setting it back down on the table.

“It came into our possession about a month ago from a new client. Our staff appraisers recognized the pottery techniques and believe it was made in the early Edo period. Maybe 1605? But every test they ran to quantify its age came back with irregular readings, as though the cup had been made this year. The client insists that we feature it in the next auction, but that’s impossible without verifying its provenance. A colleague said I should call you, Dr. Sauer.”

“So you called me. Let me ask you this, Mr. Gray — do you believe this sake cup was made in the sixteen hundreds, or is it a forgery?”

“I’m confident it’s real. All of my research says it was crafted in the early years of the Tokugawa Shogunate. I’ve seen similar porcelain at the national collection in Tokyo, glazed white and painted with blue cranes. But I have never seen an example with a crane violated by an arrow. It’s an anomaly.” What I didn’t say was that the grim painting made the sake cup foreboding, like a silent phone call at midnight. 

“I detest anomalies, Mr. Gray.” Dr. Sauer set the cup down with care, her left eyelid trembling fast. “They wriggle under my skin like worms and writhe about until I get a satisfactory answer, which I shall attempt to find tonight. May I begin?”

“Please do.”

With measured movements, she set the cup on her turntable, taking care to align it to a series of circular grooves on the platter. Once sure of its position, she tore off three pieces of the clay and pinched them onto the platter to secure the cup in place, then spun the platter with her hand to ensure everything was still in alignment.

“I have to warn you, Mr. Gray,” she said, still looking at the cup. “My specialty is authentication beyond question. That is why you hired me. The process can be jarring to some. I must insist that you stay still and stay silent. Do you agree?”

“I won’t say a word.” What else could I say?

Dr. Sauer turned a dial on the turntable, and the platter whirred to life, spinning faster and faster until the impaled crane became a blue blur. She reached for her tool, positioned herself above the cup and eased the tuning fork end inside and raised it back towards the lip in slight increments. When she reached the top of the cup, she adjusted the dial, and the platter spun faster. Again, she lowered the tool into the cup and raised it again. Midway up the ascent, a raspy hiss sounded through the tool’s horn, like air escaping an inflatable mattress. She pulled the tool out and turned the dial. The cup moved so fast that all of its features vanished, and I worried that it might fly off the device and shatter against the wall. Dr. Sauer buried her tool into the cup and lifted it towards the lip. The hoarse hiss returned at a deeper pitch, lasting just a few seconds before becoming a dry cough. 

“Identify yourself,” ordered Dr. Sauer in a stern tone. But who was she asking?

“This is Shugo,” said a voice coming through the horn of her tool. 

Struck by dual instincts of terror and fascination, I stepped back from the table, my crossed arms unfolding and my right hand rising to stroke my chin. Dr. Sauer sensed my motion and shot me a look of silent ferocity. The frantic flickering of her left eyelid spoke in place of words — stay still, stay silent. Her gaze returned to the cup.

“Where are you from?” asked Dr. Sauer.

“Shugo’s body was dug out of the foothills of Mount Izumi and formed into this shape by a master potter whose name has been lost to time,” spoke the gravelly voice. “My brothers and sisters were commissioned as gifts for the warriors who fought beside the Shogun at the Siege of Osaka. Shugo was presented to General Moritaka, a young leader granted lands and titles in the great peace that followed the long war.” 

My mind reeled at the spectacle. Where is this voice coming from and who is this doctor channeling it like some art history spiritualist? It seemed like a scam. And yet the story spoken by the voice matched my research. The similar sake cups had been ordered by the Shogun and distributed to his close allies, and a general named Moritaka had commanded a sizable formation at the final battle. I could not immediately believe what I was hearing, and I could not immediately discount it. 

“What is your purpose?” asked Dr. Sauer.

“Shugo lives to ease the pain of my host, General Moritaka,” spoke the sandy voice. “After victory, he was given a castle in the province of Otomo and charged with managing the territory. But he was young and believed his duty was to command men, not lord over lines in a grain ledger. Like all of the Shogun's allies, he swore an oath to preserve the peace, and this caused a bitter storm to lash his spirit. He turned to Shugo to dull the winds. I was the first thing he reached for in the morning and the last thing he touched at night. He spoke to Shugo, recounting the same story again and again of how he killed an opposing general with a single arrow. He had his artisan repaint my chest to commemorate the moment. I can still feel the tickling touch of the brush sliding across me, just as I remember the General’s rough hands and smooth lips.”

“By what route did you arrive here?”

“Shugo spent many years at the side of the General,” said the voice. “His attention intoxicated me. But it vexed his son. Each morning, he brought breakfast to the General and implored him to set Shugo down, to return to his family, to return to him. In the beginning, the General ignored his son. As the son’s pleas continued, his father’s rebukes grew violent. One morning, he smacked the breakfast tray out of his son’s hands and slapped him across the face. A bead of blood trickled down from his lip and pooled on the tatami mat floor. The room entered a state of pure stillness, as if a boulder had come to rest after tumbling down a hill. The seconds were eons. The General stood up, walked over to his son and held him in his arms. A crimson bloom blossomed on the breast of his white kimono.”

The dusty voice went silent, and the only sound in the room was the soft whirr of the revolving platter. My body felt stiff from standing in rapt stillness, transfixed by the disembodied story of the sake cup. My skepticism had not subsided, yet I had to admit I was captivated.

“The next morning, the General did not reach for Shugo. The day’s shadows passed from west to east, and still nothing. In the evening, he came for me, setting me in a lacquer box and closing the lid without a single glance. That was Shugo’s world, a space of darkness, lost from my host, lost from my very reason for existing. Outside of the box, peace passed to world war and world war passed to peace. Our nation was burned to bones, yet my box survived. Soldiers from afar discovered me and brought me on their ship to a new continent. The hands of many collectors held me, but none filled me with sake, and none brought me to their lips.”

At this, Dr. Sauer lifted her tool out of the cup and set it down on the table. She twisted the dial on her device, the platter slowed to a stop, and the cup sat inert. 

“Wait,” I exclaimed with more passion than I expected. “Isn’t there more?”

“What more do we need to know?” Her left eyelid was more relaxed now, lifting and falling like the belly of a napping cat. “We have identified the authenticity of the cup, and that is what you hired me to do. In my experience, it is best to stop there. Besides, the buyers never ask.”

“But the cup spoke to us, bore its soul to us. That has to be worth something.”

“What you fail to understand is that there is no value in the voice, except that it attests. The clients who would purchase such an object appreciate appreciation above all. At auction, someone will outbid someone and hold onto the cup until the next auction when the next someone is willing to bid even more. We are not in the business of art, Mr. Gray. We are in the business of pork belly futures. You and I are in the pen, knee deep in the muck, sizing up the sows, readying them for the block. But the outward is all that matters. To the buyers, pigs have no souls, no matter how hard they squeal.”

We did not speak as Dr. Sauer pulled the clay away from the cup, set it on the table and packed her instruments into her briefcase. I retrieved the authentication paperwork, and we signed our names on the necessary lines. At the front entrance, we shook hands and she stepped into the night without looking back.

I returned to room fourteen, where the cup was still sitting on the table next to its box. Pulling up a chair, I sat across from it and lit a cigarette, blowing a cloud of smoke at the cup and listening for a cough. Silence. My thoughts clashed between my materialist worldview and this glimpse into a metaphysical maybe. The cup had some way of experiencing the world, but the art world only cared about the last hand raised before the auction gavel falls. Its future is clear — set on display yet divorced from any sense of intrinsic purpose, like a tiger in a zoo. Or worse, it could serve a sentence of solitary confinement in a vault while the market builds demand. Either way, there’s no question what my role is. I am the jailer, the goon of this gulag making sure the prisoner is ready for its transfer. The recognition makes me bite the filter of my cigarette, wanting nothing more than to feel the firm resistance of a paintbrush between my teeth.

After sliding the box back into the vault and locking the door, I returned to my office and packed up my messenger bag. The security guard gave a half wave when I said goodnight. On my way home, I made a stop at the corner liquor store for a bottle of sake before walking up the three flights of stairs to my apartment. Sitting down at my dinner table, I reached into my bag and set the sake cup next to the bottle, which I opened and poured into the cup. The thought of General Moritaka and the storm that raged inside him filled my thoughts as I lifted the cup to my lips and drank the sake in one gulp. Heat radiated inside me, coursing through my capillaries before settling into a feeling of indistinct calm. In the corner of my apartment stood an easel gripping a blank canvas between its jaws. I stared at it, listening.