I knew what he was up to. He wanted encouragement now because Tsutaya had slighted him.
W
e sat on the bench and looked at his designs.
They were sketches of our city, the Eastern Capital. I knew all the scenes. One was the ferry docks by the river, with lovers saying goodbye as the boat draws in. One was the front of the kabuki theatre, looking down from above on rows and rows of round heads. The heads were pushed together like cabbages at the feet of two large men. The men were reading lines.
“I’ve seen the front of the Nakamura, but I’ve never been inside,” I said.
“I should hope not,” said Shino. She looked at each of the pictures carefully. Her little filly-face was sad, but glad to look: maybe she had been to these places before. But she was a captive now.
The street scene in the Yoshiwara interested her: the courtesans dressed in white robes for the summer festival, mustering for their procession. “So that is what it will be like,” she said.
My father put himself in his pictures for fun. Always he drew an old man, bent and wrinkled, with no hair. Then he said, “That is me!” I don’t know why he did this. It was not what he was. It was what he would become. He was old in years, yes, but not in himself. He was wiry and full of energy and his thick, black thatch sprang out up from his scalp like grass.
“Look at others who are published and tell me if these are not better,” he challenged.
The apprentice courtesan laughed. “Of course I don’t know tastes,” she said, “but they look very pretty to me. I have seen such pictures in the castle, not only here in the Yoshiwara.”
“You see? What did I tell you? The noble ladies want this stuff,” my father said.
It was fun to be laughing with her. I had no friends at all, only sisters and now, a brother. With them, I fought. He showed another page.
“This one is the Nagasakiya, where Dutch traders stay when they are in Edo.”
I sucked in my breath when I told her. It was a daring picture, I knew. We were not supposed to see the barbarians. It was a test; she might have scolded us or turned away.
She did not, but examined the picture closely.
“Were you there?” she said.
“We were!” I babbled. “I was riding on my father’s shoulders as he sketched. I could almost see in the windows. When the red-headed men appeared, a roar went up!”
“Oh my, are you always so brave?” she said with a curious smile.
The Storyteller
IF MY SISTERS AND I
were not grinding seeds for pigment or bringing clean water from the well, we might sneak into the back rows of the storytelling hall at the end of our alley. It was a long, narrow building and it was quite easy to hunker down amongst the packages and feet of paying customers. We tried to keep out of sight of the manager so we wouldn’t get kicked out.
I loved these men who recited our legends in the making. The storyteller that day was wild-eyed and powered by some inner magic that created silence around him. I arranged myself in the aisle so I could peer down it. He warmed up by making the voices of a dozen people come out of his mouth, one after another. He shook a rattle to announce the suspense of the moment. He swung his body low on bent knees, circling flat hands on a level as if he were grinding corn. He only needed to start talking and I was still as a stone.
Snow fine and bitter as dust was falling. A young noblewoman stepped into her sedan chair and closed the door. Through the curtain her husband said goodbye.
“You are going to the World of Dreams,” he said. “Mind you don’t fall sick from the lacquer trees.”
He laughed, this lord. It was an evil joke. A double row of lacquer trees stretched alongside the Dike of Japan all the way from Harajuku to the Yoshiwara. The lacquer was poisonous, and you could die of it. But he wasn’t really talking about the trees. He was talking about the danger of her falling sick because of the work she had to do. This lord had been displeased with his wife. He had sent her to the chief magistrate, who sentenced her to five years’ service as a courtesan.
“We’re lucky,” one of the bearers said, lifting the handles. “The load is light.”
“Hey, she weighs no more than a few bags of rice,” said his partner.
They began to run.
Inside the box, the young wife jostled from side to side. She could hear the bearers’ broad, bare feet hit the wet stone. They could have been slapping cheeks or buttocks. Slap, slap, slap. They did not stop. The fifteen-year-old wife of Lord Yoshida shrank inside the folds of her silk and velvet
kosode
. She might be going to her doom, but no one was going to hear her howl.
They took the highway along the dike. She saw the lacquer trees through the split in the curtain. At the top of Primping Hill the bearers shouted and stopped and set down their load. The older one addressed her from the other side of the curtain.
“From here you walk. No one is allowed to ride into the Yoshiwara.”
The young wife pulled back the curtain and craned her neck to see. The road zigzagged with teahouses on either side. At the bottom and across the water was the bridge. The World of Dreams didn’t look like much. It was just a few square blocks, surrounded by moats, in a marshy area. She had been there once on an outing with her parents. Families with children often went to see the festivals. The place she remembered was more like an amusement park with clouds of cherry blossoms and a parade of exquisite women.
She stepped down, holding out her hand for help. The Bridge of Hesitation arched across the moat. She saw the Gazing Back Willow tree, where lovers parted. On the other side was the guard.She walked up and over the hump of the bridge. She had her
naginata
with her, a long, thin pole with a sharp curved blade at the end. The guard stepped out of his guardhouse.
“Surrender your weapon,” he told her.
“Must I?”
“All those of the samurai class must surrender their swords. Even the women,” he chanted without looking at her.
“Why?” she said.
“It is because samurai and commoners are equal in the pleasure quarter.”
“Don’t believe it,” said the bearer, who had come up behind her. “Everyone knows why you can’t bring any weapon inside. It’s because the women are so unhappy that if they had a sword, they’d kill themselves.”
The guard had a narrow, tall skull, which sank down to wide cheeks, so his head looked like a gourd you might find sitting in a field. His name was Shirobei. It was always Shirobei. Every man who lived and died in that position had the name of Shirobei. A tuft of spiky silver hair stuck up from inside his uniform. His chest moved as if it was alive, and a sharp nose poked out. It was a white fox—and it was in his shirt. The young wife screamed.
“Don’t be afraid. The white fox is a God of Luck.”
She wrapped herself more tightly and made a haughty face. “Let me in.”
“The gate is locked. It’s the Hour of the Rat.”
“That’s why they’ve brought me now. So no one would see.”
“What’s your business?” said Shirobei.
“I’m coming to the House of the Corner Tamaya,” she said.
“Are you coming to stay?” He peered at her. It was a novelty these days. A
yakko
, a noblewoman sentenced to serve as a courtesan.
“So what was it?” he said. What disaster had befallen? “Famine, fire, flood?” Those were unlikely to affect the nobles. “Disgrace, treachery, kidnapping?” No? She must have brought it on herself, then. “An indiscretion with an actor?”
She held her chin high.
“We used to get ladies like you here,” he said. “But not for quite a while.”
He unlocked the gate. He took her weapon. On his face was an unreadable look. If she had not just learned that it was absent from the world, she would have called it pity. She shrugged the shoulders of her
kosode
closer to her throat.
“Thank you.” She bowed a little. He bowed. She straightened. She walked past the guard and looked back, saying goodbye to everything.
She did not regret the husband who had the power to discard her. Her parents, if they did not die of shame, would be there on her return. For five years she would be a Yoshiwara courtesan.
The audience groaned in sympathy. The storyteller turned his back and took a drink of water. He gave us time to shift position and munch our rice balls before he started again.
A man was waiting, wrapped in a cloak. He was the proprietor of the Corner Tamaya. He put his hands on the
yakko
’s shoulders. He looked her up and down. He turned her slowly front to back and back to front. It seemed he might unwind her cloak right then, but he stopped. He put a hand on her cheek and turned it slowly one way and then the other.
The storyteller had taken on the Yoshiwara dialect. His voice was now arrogant and snide.
“Not much of a bargain,” he said. “They told me you were beautiful.”
“You see the truth,” she said.
“I only took you because you were a gift.”
“Perhaps one gift more than you deserve?”
He reached for the clasp that held her hair and pulled it out roughly. He put his fingers in and drew out the tresses. They were long, so long. His fingers were like a comb; the hair kept coming until he let it drop. It reached her knees.
She raised her chin. Proud, almost defiant. She knew her hair was lovely. He looked as if he would slap her. But something—perhaps her fine clothes—stopped him, and he contented himself with glaring.
She bit back more words: if you don’t want me, let me go. She told herself, Don’t talk back, don’t talk back. How many times had her parents tried to teach her that? Hadn’t they said her tongue would be the death of her?
“Itz gonna cost me money to keep you. I hafta get you bedding too. Did you bring any kimono?”
“They took me from home with nothing.”
He sucked air and walked in front of her down the boulevard. The quarter was marked out in squares, the streets in a small grid. The broad street in the centre, Nakanocho Boulevard, went straight for a short distance and ended at the moat. Branching off to right and left were smaller streets. Edocho
1
went off on the right side and Edocho
2
on the left. The next was Ageyacho on her right and Sumicho on her left. “All of these are green houses. The last street here’z Kyomachi. Itz where the poorest prostitutes live, izn it? See? You’re lucky to be with me. Wait here; I’ve business to do.”
The
yakko
stood waiting in the cold, just in front of Mitsu’s shop. The layer of white snow was thin on the ground. She saw it covered blades of green that had already, too keenly, sprung up. But it was cold here, much colder than at home because of all the water.
From inside her shop Mitsu peered at her . . .
Mitsu? I knew Mitsu. She was really in a story? I worked my way forward a row or two. Miyo and Tatsu pulled on my coat from behind and made faces. They were going home. I shook my head. I put my hand back on my chin and rubbed it, my thumb on one side and my finger on the other, like an old man, my mother said.
. . . peered again, and then walked out to stand silently in the doorway. The
yakko
brushed off the light, high dressing of downy snow that had settled on her clothing. Her thonged clogs sat half-buried in the white fluff.
“Do you have any fresh tabi?” said the
yakko
to the shopkeeper. “I need them. These are wet and my feet are very cold.”
“That’s not what I sell,” said Mitsu. “And anyway, you won’t be wearing socks here.”