The Geisha with the Green Eyes Page 5

  I held the teacup so she could sip from it, and she nodded her thanks. Another first!

  “You know, in this light and crouching down, you could pass for Japanese,” she said grudgingly. “Of course, as soon as you stand up anybody can see you’re as tall as a man, and those breasts are grotesque.”

  I wanted to shrug. What could I do about it? But I didn’t. Even when she was in low spirits, it was not a good idea to annoy Carpi. Instead, I directed my glance at the tatami matting, making sure that my expression was neutral. Nothing she could do about my thoughts. Strangely, ever since my mizuage, I had found myself wanting to answer back. To argue. To question. Some days, I gave myself a headache wondering why and what for. I shared a little of my confusion with Kiku, who I trusted, but she just looked at me and told me it was better not to worry about the way things were. After all, what did I think I could do about it?

  She was right, of course, but it didn’t help. Not at all.

  “You just don’t know how lucky you are, Midori.”

  I blinked at the bitterness in Carpi’s voice. Me? Lucky? Lucky to be ugly and deformed? Lucky to resemble a foreign Barbarian? What was so lucky about that? I risked a glance at her face and blinked in surprise.

  Carpi was crying.

  Or at least, tears were rolling down her face. She made no noise, nor did her expression change, but she was definitely crying. Thinking she must be in great pain, I stood up.

  “Shall I get Auntie for you?” I asked.

  Carpi shook her head so hard that the tears flung themselves onto her robe. “No. Just sit down for a minute, will you?”

  I did as I was told and sat silently, too shocked for words. Eventually, curiosity got the better of me.

  “Why am I lucky, Carpi?”

  I thought she was not going to bother to reply, she was silent for so long. When she spoke, her voice was weary.

  “You were upset by your mizuage, weren’t you?”

  Upset? Well, that was one way of putting it. I still dreaded sleep, knowing that I would dream of Teruki-san. Dream of what he was going to do to me, time after time after time. And every time, it was as sharp and degrading and awful as the actual act had been. I nodded, not bothering to try and explain.

  “I suppose you think it was worse for you than the rest of us?”

  I frowned. Oddly, the idea had never occurred to me. None of the girls – except Kiku, who had made light of it – ever wanted to talk about their mizuage. I suppose I had thought they had simply taken it in their stride and got on with life. I shrugged.

  “You’re a fool, Midori. It’s always dreadful. Degrading. Something we all have to live with. Oh, I know Kiku pretends to shrug it off, but that’s her way. Don’t you go thinking you’re so different from the rest of us because you’re not.”

  Carpi paused, seeming to stare through me. A particularly bad cramp made her suck in air and I quickly offered her more tea.

  “Why am I lucky, Carpi?” I asked again.

  She waggled her hands at me. “Rather be like me, would you? At least you’re whole. Oh, you look strange, foreign, but at least you’re not a freak, are you? Someday, somebody is going to like you enough to offer Auntie a good price for you, and you’ll go off to be a respectable mistress. But me! I’ll be here until I get old and wrinkled and nobody is willing to pay good money for me anymore.”

  She spoke bitterly, and I stared at her in surprise.

  “I thought Auntie had already had offers for you,” I blurted.

  “Well, she hasn’t. Would you want to pay a good price for somebody who was nothing more than a trained monkey? I tell you, Midori, there are days when I would take poison if I could get hold of some. Commit seppuku if I could. See what I mean? I’m not even capable of giving myself an honorable death.”

  For one horrified second, I thought Carpi was going to ask me to help her kill herself. I must have flinched because she laughed. An ugly, bitter sound.

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’m not going to do it. Not yet, anyway. Not for a long while. I should have done it years ago, but I never had the chance.”

  She turned her head from side to side, staring at her hands where they joined on to her shoulders. They were remarkably beautiful hands, the fingers long and slim, and the nails beautifully shaped. I had never thought about it before, but I suddenly realized that their beauty made their horror all the worse.

  Carpi had no arms at all. Her wrists were barely more than stumps so it appeared that her hands were growing straight out of her shoulders. Those beautiful hands were fully functional, she could use them just as anybody else would use their hands, but she had little chance of doing so. She could not eat with her hands, she could not write with them. Lacking arms, it was impossible. She couldn’t even put her makeup on with them. Instead, she used her feet and her toes. Used them exactly as the rest of us used our hands.

  I had a sudden, unwanted vision of what Carpi could do for her clients with her feet and felt ill. As if she had read my mind, Carpi grimaced.

  “I suppose I should be used to it. I was born like this.”

  We had all wondered about that. When we were sure that Carpi could not hear us, we discussed the matter between ourselves. Some thought that a strange illness had caused Carpi’s disfigurement. Others said that a jealous lover had cut off her arms and then sewn her hands back onto her shoulders. Masaki insisted that her own parents had done it, when she was a baby, to get a living out of her. We were all wrong, it appeared.

  “My mother was an aristocrat by birth. My father was a high-ranking civil servant. I was their first child.” Once started, I guessed that Carpi was unable to stop. I desperately wanted to cover my ears, or just get up and walk out, but I knew that I could not. If nothing else, politeness held me fast. “In fact, I was their only child. I was told that my mother said that my father took one look at me and told my mother that I was not his. That it was not possible for something like me to come from him. My mother begged and pleaded with him, but he wouldn’t listen. Of course he wouldn’t. Who would want a monster for a child? A freak? He turned his back on my mother – and me, of course – and sent one of the servants around to collect her belongings in a bundle for her. The servant told her she was to leave immediately and to take me with her. My mother offered to expose me on Mount Fuji, anything to be allowed to stay, but my father was adamant. We were both to leave.

  “My mother was still bleeding from giving birth, but somehow she got up and walked out of the house. She took me with her. I think she was going to expose me anyway, but she fell down in the street from weakness and loss of blood, and a family of burakumin found her and took us both in. Even for burakumin, those people were low caste. They were traveling gypsies who made their living juggling and doing tricks in the street. All they had they carried on their backs with them, like tortoises.

  “My mother never got over the shame of it. First there was me, half a child. The devil’s own spawn. And then to be forced to owe a debt of gratitude to burakumin – she who had once been a rich woman with servants at her beck and call. A woman born to an aristocratic family. It was all too much for her. The burakumin who took us in told me the tale when I was old enough to understand. My mother simply refused to eat. She died quite soon, so they left her where she had died, in a field somewhere. That was her choice, they said. Nothing they could do about it.

  “But me? I was their salvation, their treasure. As soon as I could toddle, they began to teach me to use my feet like hands. One of them could write, and he taught me to hold a pen in my toes. Chopsticks took me an age to master, but whenever I tried to eat straight off the plate with my mouth, my new family slapped me and made me try again with chopsticks clasped in my toes. For a while, I found it so difficult that I thought I was going to follow my mother and simply starve to death.

  “Yet I learned. And I lived…after a fashion. The burakumin locked me in a cage at night so I could not run away. During the day, they exhibited me at any village
or town they came across. Sometimes I just sat and let people look at me. Now and then I was taken to a rich man’s house and made to eat in front of him. Nearly always the people who were paying my new family to look at me wanted to see me naked, to ensure that it wasn’t all just a trick. Quite often, the rich men wanted to play with me. Or wanted me to touch them. With my feet, of course. That’s where I learned to be skillful with my feet. Learned to make any man burst his fruit with just a touch of my toes.

  “I might still be living that life if Auntie hadn’t heard about me. I must have been about ten or eleven, I think.” I nodded. I could clearly remember Carpi arriving at the Hidden House. Auntie had kept her tucked away for months until she had taught her manners and how to speak nicely to the clients. “Anyway, as soon as Auntie laid eyes on me, she offered the burakumin a purse for me. They argued and pretended that they couldn’t bear to be parted from me, but when she actually tipped the gold out in front of my ‘father,’ greed got the better of him. And so here I am.”

  “That must have been better than being kept in a cage,” I said.

  Carpi looked at me contemptuously. “What do you know about it?”

  The words came suddenly, and I could not stop them. Even if Carpi had said she would tell Auntie, even if I was threatened with the Boys, I could not have stopped.

  “Aren’t I in a cage just as much as you were?” I asked. “I can’t go anywhere. Can’t do anything. I was born here. Every day, I suffer for the sins of my mother just the same as you do.” I was so agitated, I got to my feet and started to pace about the room. “I’m not allowed even to sit in the sun. I have to stay in the darkness all the time.”

  “At least you’re whole!” Carpi said. “At least you stand a chance of getting out of here.”

  She leaped to her feet, supple as the fish she was named for. As always, I stared at her in fascination – watching Carpi get to her feet was a thing of great beauty. We glared at each other, almost head to head.

  “Oh, go away.” Carpi suddenly seemed tired of me. “Go on, push off. Leave me alone. You’re only making me feel worse.”

  I went, not at all reluctantly.

  Chapter Five

  Laughter is not always

  As you might think.

  It can hide tears.

  You may, if you know the ways of the Floating World, think that I am lying when I describe myself and my companions as geisha. Geisha do not sell their bodies for sex. Geisha sing and dance and entertain. Courtesans – if the man has enough money – are for sensual pleasure. For the lower type of man, there are common prostitutes. For those who have very little money, there are always the women behind the lattices, women who can be inspected from the street by every passerby and claimed by anybody who fancies them and has a copper coin in their purse.

  But you must understand, even by the standards of Edo’s Floating World, the Hidden House was extraordinary.

  Auntie called us geisha, as did the men whom we entertained. And that is what we considered ourselves to be. And the men were vetted very carefully. No one was allowed to enter the Hidden House without being introduced by somebody who was already a client. And, to be sure, they all had one thing in common – they all had very large purses. For us girls in the Hidden House were nothing if not expensive.

  We attracted the wealthy. The important. Hidden from the world as we were, yet we were aware that many of the men who visited us were important politicians, often nobility. Samurai, very often.

  Geisha could, of course, have lovers. Men whom they chose for themselves. We did not have that good fortune. Our men were chosen for us by Auntie very carefully. But did it matter? All geisha were captives, all in debt to their Auntie. All expected to be nice to the patrons. One way or another. We girls in the Hidden House were not just expected to have sexual talents. No, indeed. Each of us could play the samisen, except for Carpi, of course. We could all sing and dance, make witty conversation. We knew how to make our men feel even more important than they were. So, do not tell me that we were not geisha. We were. We were exceptionally talented geisha, at that.

  It was sometimes the case that men came to us purely for those social skills. They would eat with us, enjoy our singing and playing, and then move on to another house somewhere else in the Floating World to the courtesans of their choice. When this happened, Auntie would still make her money as the courtesans would, of course, be suggested by her, and she would expect a share of their fee for the introduction. But this did not happen often.

  The Hidden House was also odd in that we were only open to clients in the evening. Most tea houses and houses of assignation were open to visitors in the afternoon as well. But not us.

  We were special. Or so we told ourselves.

  That evening, Auntie told me we were to hold a party. It was the first time that my services had been called for since my mizuage. I looked at her pleadingly, but Auntie was stone. Had she not given me many weeks to recover? Had I no gratitude at all? Where would I be if she had not taken me in when my mother had disgraced herself by running off with her Barbarian? She would have done better to have exposed me on Mount Fuji at birth. And so on. And on. And on. Finally exhausting herself, Auntie gave me a brisk thwack around the back of the knees with her cane and told me to get to the bathhouse.

  The maid who felt no pain helped me. Auntie had named her Suzume - Sparrow. Small and chirpy as she was, the name suited her. I thought she was rather a nice child and that it was a shame that she was doomed to lead the sort of life I anticipated for her. Oddly, it seemed to bother her not at all, and I wondered what her background was that she was happy in the Hidden House. She chattered on cheerfully as she soaped me and then poured buckets of water over me before I climbed in the bath. The other girls followed very quickly, apart from Carpi, who was still ill, and I realized that this was to be an important event if we were all to participate. A very expensive event.

  I huddled on my side of the bath, seriously considering ducking beneath the water and not coming up again. The other girls chattered on happily, even Naruko, who had had her mizuage just after me. I lowered my head until just my nose was above the steaming water. I didn’t think I could do it. If every encounter with a man was like my mizuage, I would rather never see a man again. I would rather die.

  “What’s the matter with you, Midori?” Kiku swung her head from side to side, causing ripples. “You look positively sick.”

  “I’m not exactly looking forward to this evening.”

  Kiku raised her eyes heavenward.

  “She’s at it again!” she tutted. “Look, Midori, what makes you think you’re so special? We all have to do it. Why not be sensible and try and enjoy it? It’s going to be a special occasion tonight. Auntie told me we have some special guests who will probably give us all a nice present afterward. Unless you ruin it with your sour face, that is.”

  All of the girls stopped talking at once and turned to glare at me. Even tiny Masaki, who was perched comfortably on the steps so as not to drown, looked angry. Just as they could not understand me, I was bewildered by them. Enjoy it? Enjoy having your body ravaged by a strange man? By old men? By ugly men? Men who could do exactly what they wanted to do to you again and again until you were too old and too worn out to be of any further use. A fine future to look forward to that was!

  “How are you supposed to enjoy it?” It wasn’t what I wanted to say, but those were the words that popped out. “We have no choice in it at all. We’re just sold to anybody who wants us. We might just as well be on the street, common whores.”

  I heard an intake of breath that was so shocked, the silence afterward was profound. Then all the girls spoke at once, and I have never – then or since – felt so hated. I was stupid, they said. I was going to ruin things for everybody. Who did I think I was, to give myself such airs and graces? Of all people, I had been born here! I should know how things worked. I flinched back from the torrent of anger. At first, I thought I had hit a sore spot,
that they were genuinely upset to hear their own hidden feelings dragged into the light. I was wrong.

  Kiku restored order by slapping the bath water, hard. She rose up so that her shoulders and breasts were exposed, streaming water, and wagged a finger at me.

  “Midori, shut up. You’re no different from any of us, from any woman in the Floating World or out of it. What do you want? A single man to love you?” She put such an ironic tilt on the word “love” that it sounded frankly pathetic. “And where, in the whole of Japan, are you going to find such a creature? Men don’t love their wives, that’s why they take mistresses. Even mistresses, who may be cared for, are still at the beck and call of their owner. That’s the fate of women in our world, all of us. We have to be owned by a man or we belong nowhere. Without a man, we are nothing.”

  I writhed in the water. I understood what Kiku was saying, and of course she was right. No man married for love; the aristocrats married for money and position. Peasants often married because the object of their interest had slightly more than they did, albeit “more” might mean a cooking pot or – lucky man! – a donkey.

  “I know,” I muttered. “I know all that. But at least if you are married, you only have one man. And you know him. You…you don’t have to service anybody who pops up with the money in their pocket to buy you.”

  For a moment, I thought Kiku might hit me she looked so angry. But she did not, and her sarcasm was worse.

  “One man. Two men. A dozen men. What difference does it make? If you were out there, Midori, exactly who would want to marry you, looking like you do?” The other girls giggled their agreement. “And if somebody did marry you, how much do you want to bet that he wouldn’t spend all his free time – and money – somewhere like the Hidden House? Isn’t it better to be the one who gets paid, and well looked after, the one who enjoys themselves with somebody else’s husband? Eh? You know perfectly well that Auntie would never let just any man in here. They are all introduced. She makes sure that they are all right.”