A Geisha for the American Consul (a short story) Read online

  ‘I don’t think I can eat this,’ she whispered to Haru.

  ‘You know what Mr Fukuzawa says.’

  Taka looked admiringly at her sister’s gleaming chignon, envying the way she was so perfect and never had a hair out of place. Two years older than Taka, Haru seemed grown up already. She was always smiling and serene, ready to accept whatever came her way. She picked up her chopsticks and leaned forward.

  ‘We have to eat meat to nourish our bodies if we’re to be tall and strong, like westerners.’

  ‘But it smells so … so peculiar. Will I still be able to pray to Buddha and the gods if I eat it? Won’t it make me smell like a westerner? You’ll be able to smell it wherever I go.’

  ‘Just listen to you girls,’ trilled Aunt Kiharu, putting her dainty fingers to her chin and tilting her small head. ‘Haven’t you read Cross-legged round the Stew Pot?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Fujino primly. ‘They don’t read such nonsense. They’re well-brought-up young ladies. They go to school. They know far more already than you or I ever will. History, science, how the earth began, how to talk properly and add up figures …’

  ‘Ah, but, my dear Fujino, I wonder if they’re acquainted with the important things – how to please a man and entertain him and make sure he never leaves your side!’

  Fujino folded her fan and tapped her smartly on the arm, clucking in mock disapproval. ‘Really, Kiharu-sama. Give them time.’

  Aunt Kiharu was Taka’s mother’s closest friend. They had been geishas together in Kyoto and Taka had known her ever since she was a little girl. Now she tipped her head coquettishly and gave a knowing smile, then pursed her lips and recited in a high-pitched lilt:

  ‘Samurai, farmer; artisan or trader;

  oldster, youngster; boy or girl;

  clever or stupid, poor or elite,

  you won’t get civilized if you don’t eat meat!

  Meat for the winter months – milk, cheese and butter, too;

  Scrotum of bull will make a man out of you!’

  Fujino hooted with laughter. She dipped her chopsticks into the simmering pan, lifted out a slice of greying meat and placed it neatly in Taka’s bowl. ‘We don’t want to turn you into a man, but we certainly want you to be civilized!’

  Taka chewed the morsel thoughtfully, turning it round and round in her mouth. It was stringy and there was something rather nauseating about the taste but she would have to get used to it if she was to be a modern woman. She thought of the rickshaw boy waiting outside, smoking his pipe, and the grooms squatting in the antechamber. It was a shame they would never have the chance to be civilized, but that was just the way it had to be.

  That year Taka’s body had changed more than she could ever have imagined possible. She’d grown long and slender like a young bamboo, she’d seen breasts swelling under her kimonos, she’d had her first bleed – she’d become a woman. If she’d stayed in the ancient capital, Kyoto, where she was born, she’d be finishing her geisha training by now and preparing for her ritual deflowering. But instead here she was in the bustling city of Tokyo, learning to be a modern woman.

  For the world was changing even faster than she was. She’d spent the first years of her life in the geisha district of Gion in the heart of Kyoto, in a dark wooden house with bamboo blinds that flapped and creaked in the breeze and a flimsy door that wobbled and stuck in its grooves. Her mother was a famous geisha there. When she strolled the narrow alleys of the district, the passers-by inclined their heads and sang out, ‘Good morning, Fujino-sama, how are you today?’ in high-pitched geisha lilts.

  In the daytime the plaintive twang of the shamisen echoed through the house as Fujino practised the performing arts that were her trade, for geishas, as everyone knew, were entertainers, artistes; the two characters gei and sha mean ‘arts’ and ‘person’. In the evening she and her fellow geishas appeared at parties. They served food, topped up sake cups, performed classical dances and songs, teased, told jokes and stories and played games. Some of their customers were merchants, old and jowly, others young and handsome samurai. But whoever they were, if they had worries the geishas were ready to lend a sympathetic ear. They were the men’s best friends and some were also their lovers.

  From when she was a little girl Taka helped out at geisha parties, absorbing the geisha ways, running around with trays of drinks and listening to the geishas’ witty chat, learning to speak their special dialect with a coy Kyoto lilt. Her mother and Haru taught her to warble geisha songs and dance prettily and play the shamisen. Her older brother, Ryutaro, had been sent to live with their father and learn how to fight. He had been killed in battle, so long ago that she barely remembered him. But the younger, Eijiro, stayed with the family and was always around the house, tormenting her.

  Ever since she could remember the streets had been full of samurai, milling about, brawling. There were regular clashes between men of the southern clans who were determined to depose the shogun and his government and the northerners who formed the shogun’s police force and supported him. When she was very small, samurai of the southern Choshu clan had set fire to the imperial palace, where the emperor lived. One of her earliest memories was of standing in the street, gazing in excitement, while smoke billowed and people ran about in panic, afraid that the fire would spread through the wooden city.

  More than once the shogun’s police had come hammering at the door, demanding to see her father. She’d be bundled off to the back of the house and would watch open-mouthed, her heart pounding, through the crack in the sliding paper doors while her mother barred their way, swearing he wasn’t there, though Taka knew perfectly well he was.

  She’d always known that her mother and her geisha friends loved the men of the southern clans and that the shogun’s police and the northerners were the hated enemy. Every night southern samurai congregated in the teahouses to discuss and plot or just talk and laugh. Her mother played the gracious hostess while they drank and argued, keeping an eye out in case the shogun’s police suddenly appeared. And of all the gallant, brilliant samurai, the most gallant and brilliant of all was her father. People addressed him as ‘General Kitaoka’. Big and bluff and rather serious, he presided over the gatherings. He’d sit quietly, then start to speak and the others would fall silent and listen. Taka felt proud to be the daughter of such a man.

  He was often away. Sometimes she would find her mother weeping and guess that he was at war and that she was afraid for him.

  When Taka was eight there was a huge battle right outside the city. She could hear the boom of cannons and smell the smoke that drifted across like a cloud.

  Then there was rejoicing. The southerners had won. A few months later the shogun was overthrown. His capital, Edo, was taken and Edo Castle, where he had lived, handed over to the southerners, who were to form a new government in the name of the young emperor. Her father was one of the leaders. A few months later news came that the emperor would leave Kyoto and move to Edo.

  Taka and her family had to move too, to join her father, and suddenly her life turned upside down. She’d never left the geisha district before, let alone been out of the city, certainly never travelled in a palanquin. Now she spent twenty days on her knees in a cushioned box jolting along the Eastern Sea Road. When she peeped out of the small window or stepped out to stretch her legs, all she could see was an endless line of people and palanquins escorted by attendants and guards and porters and horses laden with baggage. She crossed forests and mountains and saw the sparkling waters of the ocean for the first time.

  Edo, their new home, was the biggest, richest, most exciting city in the world. Not long before, it had been a place of daimyo palaces and samurai residences, of narrow streets crammed with artisans and merchants, depicted in innumerable woodblock prints. With the emperor here, it became even more exciting. It was declared the new capital and given a new name: Tokyo, ‘the Eastern Capital’. Kyoto had been just ‘the Capital’.

  Even now Tokyo was ba
rely five years old. It was a young city, bursting with noise and energy, where people hurried about, gazing at the extraordinary new buildings rising around them. When Taka first arrived, the Ginza, where the Black Peony was, had been a nondescript neighbourhood of shabby wooden shops selling chests or cabinets or fabric. The previous year there had been a huge fire and the district had completely burnt down. Now it had risen again. It was a magical place lined with splendid brick and stone buildings, with colonnades and balconies where men in Inverness capes and ladies in voluminous western dresses gazed at the rickshaws and horse-drawn omnibuses careering by, as if the whole world had suddenly come to life.

  People said, and perhaps it was true, that for the first time ever they felt they could change their destinies. Under the rule of the shoguns, everyone’s clothing and hairstyle had been decreed by law. A man of the samurai class had to dress as a samurai, a man of the merchant class as a merchant. But now, if they had the money, anyone could don the costume of the new age, and no one would have any idea what class they had once belonged to. The new government positively encouraged it. If people wanted to be really modern, all they had to do was eat a little meat.

  And now there were westerners walking the streets. Taka’s mother had told her how when she, Fujino, was a child, before Taka was born, Black Ships had steamed into Edo Bay, bringing pale-faced barbarians with grotesque features and huge noses and terrifying weaponry. Now they were everywhere, installing western-style buildings and lighthouses and telegraphs, though people still stared wherever they went.

  Taka often saw them on the streets. There was even a barbarian who came and taught her English. They looked very strange, barely human, in fact, but she knew they were to be admired, for they held the key to civilization and enlightenment. The government encouraged men at least to dress western style, eat meat as the barbarians did and learn western languages so that Japan could join the outside world and be the equal of the western nations. Fewer women took up the new fashions but geishas had always been trendsetters and Taka’s mother in particular was always ahead of the times.

  Even the calendar had changed. The previous year had been the fifth in the reign of Emperor Meiji, a yang water monkey year according to the traditional calendar, which should have been followed by the sixth, a yin water rooster year. But then the government had made the extraordinary announcement that the year would end on the second day of the twelfth month. The following day was to be known as 1 January of the new year, numbered 1873 by the western calendar.

  The old calendar had made sense but the new one made none. As far as anyone knew, 1873 was just an arbitrary number. After all, who could possibly remember one thousand, eight hundred and seventy-three years ago or have any idea why the calendar should start then? Most people simply ignored the official calendar and continued to use the old one, just as they ignored the new name, Tokyo, and thought of the city as Edo and themselves as Edoites.

  The only practical change was that New Year had come too early. It felt completely wrong to be observing New Year rituals and enjoying New Year dishes at the height of winter, rather than when the plum blossoms were coming into bud. In previous years the children had gone out to play battledore and shuttlecock and watch the strolling players but that year it was far too cold.

  Taka’s father had been there when the calendar changed. His work often took him away but she loved it when he was at home. She was a little in awe of him. He was huge, as big and tall as a sumo wrestler, and round like a bear – like Fujino, he was larger than life.

  He had written a poem to mark the change of calendar and took her on his large knee and gave it to her:

  Since times long gone this has been the day we greet the New Year.

  How will the western calendar reach the distant mountain villages?

  The snow announces the coming of a fruitful year and families treasure their elderly.

  How joyful are the shouts of the village children.

  ***

  ‘So Oharu’s getting married and you’ll be a grandmother soon,’ Aunt Kiharu was saying with a high-pitched laugh. Haru’s cheeks turned bright red and she stared fixedly at the glistening meat in her bowl.

  ‘And next we have to get Taka off our hands,’ boomed Fujino.

  It was Taka’s turn to cringe. If only her mother didn’t have to speak quite so loudly, she thought, valiantly struggling with another piece of meat. It was horribly chewy but she refused to admit defeat.

  Then suddenly she noticed that something had changed. The voices and clatter of chopsticks, the rustle of sleeves and patter of feet in the next room had stopped. There was utter silence, as if everyone was holding their breath, then a terrifying bellow followed by crashes as the diners scrambled to their feet and rushed for the door.

  There was another sound too – footsteps, padding towards their private room. Taka felt a shock of fear. She stared around. They were trapped, there was no other way out. She rushed to the back of the room, knocking against a table as she ran. Fortunately it was big and heavy and didn’t fall over. If the glowing charcoal had spilt it would have set the whole place alight. She tried to hide behind Haru and the maids, crouching so close against the wall that she felt the sandy grain of the plaster pressing into her skin.

  Her mother’s three chairs crashed over. Fujino was on her feet, her dagger flashing in the candlelight. Now that she was the mistress of one of the country’s leading samurai, she’d taken to carrying a dagger, as samurai women did. Aunt Kiharu was beside her and she too had a dagger in her hand.

  Breathing hard, Taka watched as the door slid open and a face appeared in the dim light of the hallway, swathed in a scarf like a brigand. Black eyes glinted from between the folds of cloth. It was a man, big and burly, in shabby leggings, the wide sleeves of his jacket tied back ready for a fight. He had a sword in one hand.

  Taka knew exactly what he was – a ronin, a lordless samurai, impoverished and embittered, accountable to no one. When she was little, the streets had swarmed with men like him, swaggering about, looking for trouble. Memories flooded back, memories she’d done her best to suppress – of shouts echoing down the streets, fists pounding at the door, her mother confronting angry intruders. She remembered peeking through the shutters and seeing bodies right outside their house.

  Fujino stepped in front of him. Taka had often wished her mother were more like her schoolfriends’ mothers – wispy, tight-lipped, nervous, not so huge and flamboyant. But now her heart swelled with pride.

  ‘What a commotion,’ Fujino said softly. It was her geisha voice, the icy tones she had used when men grew unruly from too much drink, when a glance from her narrowed eyes could make them tremble like children. ‘And all for one man!’ She drew out the syllables with scorn. ‘I’d put that sword away if I were you. Money, is that what you’re after?’

  The man hesitated as if taken aback by her boldness. He glared at her defiantly.

  ‘Where is he, that traitor?’ he growled. ‘I know he’s here.’

  He spoke in the broad vowels of a southerner. So he was a man of the Satsuma clan, like Taka’s father. It was her father he was after. She knew her father had enemies, it was far from the first time someone had come looking for him. The man must have spotted the family crest on their rickshaw.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing, a Satsuma man, waving your sword like a thug? You should be ashamed. The police will be here any moment. You’d better leave quickly, while you have the chance.’

  ‘He’s here, I know he is, that traitor Kitaoka.’ He spat out the name.

  Fujino drew herself up. In her voluminous skirts she filled the room. The man seemed to shrink before her.

  ‘Be careful how you speak of my husband, fellow,’ she boomed. ‘He’s a far greater man than you’ll ever be.’

  The man raised his sword a little, keeping the blade pointing down.

  ‘Your husband?’ he sneered. ‘You’re no samurai wife. I know a geisha when I see one. You’re
that fat Kyoto whore, that precious geisha of his. You’ve certainly come up in the world since you were swanning around the pleasure quarters, haven’t you, Princess Pig! Well, I’ll spoil your pretty face.’

  Fujino raised her dagger.

  ‘Coward. We’re all women and children here.’

  ‘Women and children. I’ve got women and children of my own to support. Shame on you, with your fancy barbarian clothes, filling your stomachs with barbarian food. We didn’t fight and die to see our women aping stinking barbarians. My name is Terashima Morisaburo,’ he added, tearing off his scarf to reveal a swarthy face with a scar puckering one cheek. ‘You can tell Kitaoka one thing. He thinks he can take our swords, he thinks we’re going to hand them over just like that and leave ourselves defenceless. He thinks we’re going to stand by while he disbands the army and recruits peasants – peasants! – to do the work of samurai. And what are we supposed to do, we samurai, how are we supposed to survive when we have no work and no stipends? Well?’ The man took a step further into the room. ‘Answer me that!’

  He reached his sword under Fujino’s skirts and jerked the blade upwards. She stepped back out of the way but Taka heard the fabric rip.

  ‘That’s what I think of your western finery.’

  There was a swish as the man swung his sword. Taka gasped in horror. Fujino raised her dagger to parry the blow, but instead of the clang of steel on steel, there was a dull thud. Peeking from behind Haru’s skirts, Taka saw that the man had misjudged the height of the room. The sword had lodged in the low crossbeam of the ceiling and stuck there, quivering.

  Then she noticed a movement in the hallway outside and caught a glimpse of dark skin and the flash of eyes, slanted like a cat’s. There was someone else there – not the rickshaw boy, not the grooms, but another attacker, even more fearsome than the first. The restaurant was totally silent. Everyone had fled. There was no one to protect them from these villains.

  Sawdust showered from the ceiling and there was a splintering sound as the samurai wrenched his sword free. He raised it again, holding it in both hands, preparing to bring it down in a death blow.