He followed her down the corridor and out to the thermal bath in the garden, the summer moon’s radiance silvering her small body. She removed the boards fitted over the trough then slipped into the heated water like an otter down its slide.

Say you saw something, said Ohasu, a flower in the mist, a bright winter bird, an insect singing in cut brushwood, and you made a stanza about it in such a way that the connection was between the thing itself and your version of it.

Old Master Bashō smiled. I see you wish to defend those who write stand-alone haiku.

Just that you could do that.

And would you wish to spend your life making things out of words then sticking them up on walls?

Ohasu adjusted the cloth protecting her coiffure then stood dripping and perched on the outside edge of the tub, gazing out at the silver and black shapes of the mountains and trees in the moonlight. It would be odd for a girl, I know. But I’ve always loved words, the shapes of them.

Old Master Bashō eased himself up out of the hot water too.

… words had been like a magic world for her as a child, a peach blossoms spring she could climb down into and take possession of. The shapes of words were paths she could trace out, following them this way and that; they were mazes to study and admire, maps and diagrams and arcane charts, each new one a delight.

The character for horse, you can see his four little legs running. And the word for flying looks like birds on the wing.

Most aren’t pictures.

No, I know. But words had been like a magic world for her as a child, a peach blossoms spring she could climb down into and take possession of. The shapes of words were paths she could trace out, following them this way and that; they were mazes to study and admire, maps and diagrams and arcane charts, each new one a delight. It’s still that way for me, Ohasu said. And the old fellows who come out to visit me know it. Obscure words for rare flowers, odd names for lost cities, weird-beings that are no longer thought to exist, they write them out and show me how to write them, and each becomes something we share. Is that not a form of linking?

No doubt. But your house master will still want to be paid in cash.

Yes. That’s so. For all his foolish chatter about romantic love. Ohasu stood abruptly and climbed out of the soaking trough then stepped into her clogs. She went out into the garden then turned to face him, her wet body sleek in the moonlight. Is his way of linking so very different from yours? When something occurs to you, an image, a phrase, an idea, and you jot it down and think about it and try it different ways, what are you linking to if not another, earlier attempt at the same thing? Your links are to yourself. Ohasu unwound the white cloth from around her hair and began wiping herself dry with it. So why shouldn’t mine be? Why shouldn’t I try to make things out of words even as others are trying make something out of me?

Perhaps you should. But doing it on your own seems too lonely.

I am seldom on my own, said Ohasu. But I’m always alone. She finished wiping down her legs then wrung out her little white cloth and held it draped over her belly in a belated gesture of improvised modesty. Did you like my story about the weepy little girl? My listeners usually find it moving. Because they are willing to believe that I have no choice in what I do. And in what is done to me.

Old Master Bashō said nothing. And when they returned finally to their shared room, each wondered which side of the folding screen the peony girl would choose and which the other’s preference would be.