French Cup: A Neighborhood Story

Chapter 2: -Kazuya- Sugar Glass

The soothing voice of Misora Hibari was tickling our ears as Yuko worked with complete concentration at the task in her hands. With quick motions, she clipped around a milky white ball of mizuame sugar, the soft, pliable mass at her will to make whatever she wanted of it. Anything could come out of that ball, twisted and pulled by her expert fingers and her snipping and grabbing clippers. It sat on a stick, and as I watched, she pulled a head from it and clipped small, pointed ears on it. She pinched, and a snout formed. 

With my mouth open dumbly, I watched her coax long limbs from the lower part of the ball, clipping paws into the ends. She stretched it out further, making a torso. 

"Is it a cat?" I asked, still watching like an awestruck child. 

She winked at me in response, the secret inside of her until the end when all would be revealed.

One of my favorite things was to sit with her. Watching her, this ninety-seven year old master of amezaiku, an art where a candy artist creates intricate creatures and objects out of a mass of sugar. When it hardens and cools, you're left with a tiny sculpture not unlike one you'd find in a curio shop or a Swarovski store. Sometimes, much too beautiful to eat. In particular, I was a fan of her goldfish creatures, often admiring them as I passed by her shop's window. 

She also made other kinds of wagashi, traditional Japanese candies and sweets. However, her amezaiku is what made tourists stop and stare. It made the locals come back again and again, wanting to support her. It was no secret that her shop was hurting. I wanted to do everything I could to keep her in business. How devastating it would be to lose this precious art. For it to be gone like a leaf traveling down a fast moving river? Forgotten, like it had never been there? Too delicate, too breakable. Too easily lost.

I'd brought her some glazed croissants around 3AM. I'd have to go to French Cup to start baking around 4AM, so we didn't have a lot of time together. However, I wanted to ask her if she needed me to go to the grocery store for her, or if she needed a ride somewhere later. She assured me she was fine, quietly telling me so kindly. Now, I was watching her small form, her lowered white head with her familiar tight bun, her skin like tissue paper that someone had balled up and tried to unsuccessfully smooth out. As I watched, she pulled a tail full of a sneaky personality out of the creature on her stick, and her tongue made an appearance as she twisted the tail into place. 

"It is a cat, I knew it," I grinned, wiggling on my stool in front of her raw wood table.

"A-ra, not yet," she gave a little growl, excited to show me, too.

As she moved the creature this way and that, her quick hands setting it into place, it reminded me of the stray cats I'd often see around. Almost every shop had some kind of dish outside for them. As a result, we had a lot of them. There was a fat black cat who was my favorite, affectionately and plainly called Kuro by the locals. He had a clipped ear, so he'd been caught and freed before. It was obvious that he was the master of the neighborhood, strutting around like he owned the place. 

As I thought about these cats, Yuko tapped the creature with her clippers, and the sculpture made a glass-like sound. She was checking the consistency, seeing if it was ready for the next step. Hearing the right sounds, she put it in front of an automatic fan, and immediately pinched up another ball from the waiting mizuame in her wooden box on the table in front of her. 

This part always got to me. That candy must have been about a million degrees, and yet she didn't even flinch. I worked with melted sugar also, and I couldn't imagine putting my hands in it. And yet, she did it repeatedly. It was a skill long learned by her, to endure that heat. It was just another thing that I admired about her, among countless things.