The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel (6 page)

It wasn't long before I discovered that my cropped hair and boyish clothes thrilled Kawashima in a way that I could not fail to notice. I knew that he had always found me attractive, but I had never before had such attentions lavished on me. He would visit my fencing lessons, never taking his eyes off me, grunting with satisfaction when I lunged theatrically and laughing when my fencing master's sword caught me out. Perhaps in breeches and boots I had stirred in Kawashima those homoerotic fantasies rooted in the warrior tradition that Japanese men are said to be prone to. It made for better soldiers if women didn't have to be taken into account. Kawashima came from samurai stockwho, when they ruled supreme, were said to despise women as inferiors, useful only to produce their offspring.

I had watched Kawashima make love to both men and women, and on the whole I think that he preferred men; he was certainly more vigorous with them. Once as I looked on from my hiding place he had roared with such pleasure as he took a young soldier that the boy went quite white. I have seen him both cruel and tender with men, but never indifferent with them as he can be with women. I have lost count of the boys he has lain with but have only counted eleven women. They include Teshima's girls, a colleague's geisha offered to him as a gift and his monthly coupling with Natsuko, which appeared to me to be an act of duty with nothing of the animal in it. I risked a lot spying on Kawashima, knowing that if caught I might be sent back to China. With both parents dead I wondered which sibling would bother to claim a disgraced sister. But I could not stop myself from living vicariously through his sexual exploits, and I longed to be one of them. I suppose that at some level I had always known that eventually he would make his way to my portion of the house, to complete what had been between us since the moment he had asked my father for me all those years ago.

Teshima had been wrong when he said that sex would never hurt as much again, for with Kawashima it was always as painful as the first time he took me. He would arrive in my rooms sweating and full of sake, but never drunk and stupid with wine in the way that I had seen his sons in the cellar. His preference was to take me standing and from behind, he said he could feel the length of me better that way. He didn't speak much and was rough and heavyhanded, leaving me bruised and sore with bite marks adorning my body. Thus I discovered that it was possible to enjoy pain. I never received a compliment or an affectionate word from him, however; after that first time it was a rare week when he did not visit me at least twice. I found an unexpected comfort in Kawashima's caustic lovemaking, and sex with him was exciting and dangerous too, for I never knew how I would look or feel after it. Sorry would wince at the sight of my bruises and treat them with a thick paste she made from the tobacco plant.

My life had taken a new turn and I found myself thinking about Kawashima all the time. I loved the smell of him, the suppleness of his skin, the way he filled my rooms with life. But most of all I loved that I had become part of the routine of his life, that I seemed to belong at last. When he began sending a string of politicians, soldiers and businessmen to take their pleasure with me, I didn't object, but something in me broke with the pain of not being special to him. I was aware that his blood daughters were not used in this way, and that hurt. But I had to remind myself that I was, after all, the daughter of a concubine and had from a young age thought sex a natural occupation for both men and women. I recalled my mother was always waiting for my father's summons to his bed, and when it came she glowed with the honour of it. If it ever occurred to me that I was damaged by the encounters with the men from Kawashima's circle, I buried the thought. I did not care to think of myself as a victim and, in any case, I had no choice in the matter. I enjoyed the presents and the news of the outside world that the men brought to my quarters and sex for me was always satisfying, no matter how cruel or how inadequate the lover. Yet despite the pleasure I took in it there were often times when I was left with a hollow ache, as though without someone actually inside me, I was as alone as an orphan.

I was frequently irritable with poor Sorry, who never carried a grudge, and always forgave me. Sometimes I would have such dark days that I would lock myself in my bedroom and escape to a better place with opium. The drug-induced dreams that came were magnificent; in them I was a goddess, able to fly across continents, free to wander the earth.

Sorry worried when I locked her out. She said that even though I appeared to be a warrior, in truth I was a sad motherless girl who should never have been sent from China and from her family. In her eyes I was a daughter of China struggling in a foreign land. But the notion that all things admirable were Japanese had been instilled in me and I never for a moment regretted my citizenship of that country.

Kawashima and his friends despised China. They often joked about it and thought Chinese men weak and cowardly. I was told by a politician who visited me that my relative, the pompous little Emperor, had married WanJung, she of the beautiful countenance. They were not allowed to leave the Forbidden City and the Emperor commanded so little respect that his eunuchs stole from him and threatened his life. It was said that Pu Yi kept a club by his bedside and as his Empress was the only one he trusted, he set her to watch over him while he slept. I feigned disinterest, but I was ashamed to be even distantly related to a man who was afraid of eunuchs and needed his wife to protect him. He was sixteen years old, the same age as myself, old enough, I thought, to have grown some courage in his nature.

My way of life in the Kawashima household continued as I have described until the inevitable happened and I found myself one morning retching into a bowl held sympathetically by Sorry.

'You are with child, Eastern Jewel,' she whispered.

I knew before she spoke it. I think I had known for some days but the idea was so dreadful to me that I couldn't bear to think it. If I gave birth to a child now its father would be unknown. I would be relegated with Sorry to some poor lodging to be hidden away for the rest of my life. The child would not be recognised by Kawashima who would never speak of me again. He would keep my dowry to compensate for the years he had fed and housed me. My life would be lost to me and I would become an unimportant, unmarriageable person. In China I would have been just another concubine with child; in Japan I would be worse than a street whore.

I had always taken great care to avoid conception by inserting a small sponge into my vagina before each encounter. After lovemaking I would put a tube inside myself and wash with a disinfectant made by steeping locust leaves in boiled water. Sorry said that all the concubines she had known had used this method when they couldn't face another birth. She added that it only worked if the gods were willing. In my experience the gods are rarely willing. Their purpose is about erecting barriers, mine has always been to demolish them and that is what I set about doing.

I sent Sorry to the herb doctor in the Chinese market to buy me a liquor that would expel the seed from my womb. She returned with a bile-green concoction, which against expectation tasted sweet as if flavoured with rhubarb. The herbalist said that if it was to work it would do so within six hours, otherwise something more powerful would be required. After the time had elapsed with no result except an excessive amount of stomach pain, Sorry tried a recipe of her own. She remembered hearing about it in my father's household when two young concubines became pregnant at the same time. The more devious of the two, wishing her child to take precedence over the other, boiled a copper band in water and as the mixture cooled added two drops of snake venom. She sweetened the mixture with honeyed tea and served it to her opponent. The copper would expel the child, the venom still its heart. Thus the job would be twice done.

'Did it work, Sorry?' I asked. 'Yes, mistress,' she replied, 'they say it is foolproof.'

The herbalist agreed with Sorry that it was indeed a good recipe but warned it should only be one drop of venom. 'Two will surely kill the mother too,' he said. The price for the venom would be high, the copper band, which should be green, he would throw in for good will.

Sorry boiled the brew until only an inch of liquid remained. Then as the water cooled she carefully dropped the venom in, making sure not to spill any of the precious fluid. I gulped the sticky serum down followed by a cup of sweet pomegranate juice to erase its bitterness. For two days I vomited up a hateful glue while the seed remained embedded in my womb.

Days passed and I devised a plan that involved telling Natsuko that I was pregnant, and persuading her to help me with a more scientific abortion. I knew that in a house that thrived on secrets, without her on my side, I had little chance of keeping Kawashima ignorant of my plight.

I would be taking a huge chance confiding in her. She hated me and would delight in having me banished from her home, so I had to find a way to secure her silence as well as her help. I was risking everything, relying on my belief that I understood Natsuko's nature better than she did herself, but I had no choice and besides, the jeopardy of the situation thrilled me.

On the day I went to her I dressed carefully in a black kimono with a dark blue obi sash. In Japan wearing black is said to be the sign of a moral person and I did not wish to annoy Natsuko with my usual attire. I powdered my face pale and attempted to disguise the provocative pink of my lips by staining them with asparagus juice. I wanted to convey the impression of humility and regret. Natsuko looked surprised to see me in so modest an outfit and was intrigued when I said I had come for her help. At first she was full of joy at my news: at last there was a way to be rid of me for good. But when I told her that the child was Kawashima's her face drained of colour and she gave a little moan. There was a long silence as she worked out what this would mean to her own life. The fear that her hated adopted daughter might bear her husband a child, perhaps even a son, was more than she could bear. She asked me how I could possibly be sure that it was Kawashima's child. I told her that not only did Sorry keep a record of my bleeds but that for some months Kawashima, being infatuated with me, had kept me entirely to himself. I said there was no question that the child would be born with the same strawberry birthmark that stained all of Kawashima's offspring.

Natsuko shuddered at the thought of the distinguishing pigment adorning any child not born of her; I could tell by the way her body slumped in the chair that she believed me. She struggled for a long time with the choice of helping me or telling her husband. But in the end I think she could not bear a child of Kawashima's born from my womb to live in the same world as her own children. And so for once, and for a brief time only, Natsuko became my ally.

Between us we made a plan that would take place during Kawashima's next trip to Osaka. The visits to his geisha were as frequent as ever and Natsuko was consumed with jealousy that both at home and abroad her husband chose other women's beds over her own. It is a fallacy that Japanese women are happy for their husbands to own geishas. They are the same as women the world over and cannot bear rivals. She may have been able to bear more easily the convention that he kept a geisha, but that in her own home he chose my bed tore her heart to shreds.

It was agreed that Natsuko would tell her doctor that she had a favourite servant who she wished to keep about her. The foolish girl had become pregnant by a man who was not free to marry her and wished to rid herself of the baby. If she had the child she could not work and would surely starve, a fate Natsuko would like to save her from. Of course, Natsuko did not expect such a distinguished man as Doctor Mura himself to perform the operation, but if he could suggest someone she would be eternally grateful. She told him that her husband would be furious if he found out and she feared the girl would be flogged half to death, so secrecy was of great importance. Doctor Mura said that although the girl probably should be flogged for behaving like a Tokyo street cat while under the care of such a fine mistress, he understood that Natsuko was acting from a kind heart and approved of her feminine tenderness. He recommended a recently qualified young man from the suburbs, and assured Natsuko that she could rely on his discretion.

A few hours after Kawashima had left for Osaka, Sorry set a dried sea horse over the door as a charm against evil. She burnt orange incense to invigorate the air and made me sip strong black tea. When the doctor who would not tell me his name arrived, I noted that he was neither young nor, I suspect, from the suburbs. As he leaned over me I could smell his sweat, which was as unpleasant as his breath. He smelled sour, as though he never washed, which was peculiar as even in the meanest of circumstances the Japanese are a clean race. I took it as a bad sign that he did not wash his hands before beginning even though Sorry had brought him a bowl of steaming water and clean linen towels. It was a bad sign too that he called for saki and only removed the cheap local cigarettes that he chain-smoked from his mouth to drink deep drafts of it.

To distance me from the pain, Sorry talked to me throughout the brutal procedure, reminding me of favourite poems and episodes from childhood. I bit into a cushion so that my cries would not give me away to the household. Just as I felt that I could not bear his exploration of my womb for one more minute, the nameless doctor finished, quickly rinsed his hands in the cooling water and, without a word to me, left the room.

Days of fever and bleeding clotted blood followed and in their wake came an infection that made me delirious for a week. I remember being conscious twice in that time, once when the sky was grey and then again when it was the pale gold of evening and the crows were in flight.