His hands moved down the senior courtesan’s spine. Fumi grunted. He pushed his thumbs in between the bones. She made a soft moan. Shino pulled me away. We sat across from each other with our teacups while she tried to lead me in a polite exchange: it was her mission to teach me charm.
“The cup of tea is so very warm in my hands and helps to keep the cold at bay.”
“It does, and so does your smile on a winter afternoon,” I answered automatically. I added, “I hate the blind man.”
“You will regret that. The gods do not smile on those who despise the afflicted.”
I could have argued that I didn’t hate all blind men, only this one. He was trying to steal her. Shino belonged to my father, even though he could not pay to be her client. And to me. I knew they met. I didn’t know how or where; they were secretive. But she was right that I regretted my hatred. It was so fierce and hot it had drawn the blind man here. It was like a branding iron, which, as it hissed, clamped to its target.
The blind man’s footfall came from the corridor.
“Where is the
yakko
?” he said, though he knew. His voice was penetrating, making up for his blank eyes. “I have something for her.”
Shino gave me a glance. She tucked her heels under her hips and rose, with perfect grace, opening our screen. He pulled a sack from his bag. “It would please me if you would take this and prepare yourself a meal,” he said.
“You are kind,” Shino said, “but it is quite impossible for me to take a gift.”
“It’s a fish,” he said.
I heard a giggle come from behind the screens. I knew what the other girls would be saying: “Hear that? He brought a
fish
!”
Little whoops of merriment echoed down the hall.
“Smelly,
izn it?
”
“He’z in luv . . . He wants her,
izn it?
”
He heard, of course. He was blind, not deaf. The mockery made Shino even more polite.
“It is so considerate of you,” Shino said. “A fish is the one thing I could not refuse. If I had a place to cook it. But alas I do not . . .”
“You will find someone to cook it for you.” He thrust the packet at her and she took it from his hands, bowing low, although he could not see.
He stumped along the corridor and felt his way down the stairs, hilarity following.
“You can’d cook that thing in yur room! Id’ll stink, wone it?” some girl shouted through the wall.
Shino professed delight with her gift. Then she presented it to me.
“Take it home. Your mother will prepare it.”
“I
wone
eet’ id, ’cause it came from
that.
” I knew it infuriated her when I talked brothel talk.
I took the damned fish and put on my padded jacket. We went into the hall. In the next room two
shinzo
were playing a game of cards. A man emerged from a closed screen at the far end.
“Who’s that?” I was curious about everyone here.
“A publisher’s censor, a
gyoji,
” said Shino.
I hadn’t seen one before, had only heard of them. The
gyoji
turned his head as he descended the staircase. He had a small beard. Government men usually had small beards. He hadn’t even tried to disguise himself.
“He’s a spy!” I said.
“You’re so harsh!” chided Shino. “Have compassion. He used to sell prints from under the counter, but now he has to inspect them. He had no choice. We all live in the same world. We do the best we can.”
“I am too harsh, but you are not harsh enough.” Then I relented: “You’re tired.”
She cast me a reproving look. “You yourself must become very tired, with such passions.”
“Okay, then, what
is
he doing here?”
“The same thing the others are doing.”
“He is our enemy and a spy for the
bakufu
—and he also patronizes the brothels?”
Her face got that infuriating look of amusement, the one she often got when I—or my father—was most aroused by injustice. “Look at it another way. How can he be a censor of the art of the brothels if he hasn’t visited one?”
“My father hates
gyoji,
” I said.
“Ah,” said Shino, “but he is harsh too. And no excuses for him: he should understand life more than you do.”
Shino ruffled my hair.
“A
gyoji
is simply a man. A man in fear like all the rest. He is forced by fear to be a spy. If, even while he’s inspecting pictures, he’s making an assignation with a courtesan,” said Shino, “he sees no conflict. In fact, he sees a continuity between the two. He has his feet in two rivers.”
“One flows one way, and the other, the other!” I pressed one leg forward and the other back until I toppled sideways against the wall. A petulant female voice rose up complaining. They lived in a house of paper. I picked myself up. “Stupid way to stand.”
“He must be careful or the current will take him, true,” said Shino. “But we are all forced into difficult positions.”
“You aren’t. You are good.”
“How can I be good?” Shino laughed softly. “I am a courtesan.”
“The pictures are beautiful. If I was in charge, I would want pictures made.”
“But if you were the powerful, you would not see things the same way the artists do. You might suspect that the pictures told stories against you and your ways.”
“A picture can’t do any harm. It’s not like a man with a sword.”
“Is that what you think?” She shook her head. “Then they are smarter than you are.”
“To be afraid of a picture?”
“Oh, yes.” She had walked me to the door. She was making me leave.
“What can a picture do?” I said, to keep her.
“You are asking me to think as they do,” said Shino, exasperated. “I can only guess. Perhaps they are frightened not of the picture itself but of the thoughts it gives rise to.”
“Thoughts are invisible, like ghosts,” I said. “They can go anywhere. They won’t be stopped by men with little beards.”
“Maybe not, but men with little beards will still try. Ghosts, and thoughts, seep in, and before you know it people lose respect.”
“People laugh at Hokusai.”
“Yes, and he wants them to. Perhaps laughter will get him through.”
“He will get through because he is stronger than the
bakufu.
”
Shino put her finger on my mouth. “You are passionate, child. But you are foolish. I know this trait, because I was that way not so long ago. And look what happened to me!” She gave that light laugh.
“My father fears no one, especially not the
bakufu.
”
“You can’t say such a thing.”
“My father says it.”
“Your father also is unwise,” she said firmly. “Before, he could get away with his crazy ways because he was not very popular. Now his name is growing. Everyone knows it. The
bakufu
choose whom they punish. Always it is the most famous.”
“He says we’ll leave Edo.”
She seemed to brighten. “He’s not at home in the licensed quarters. Not anymore. And you shouldn’t be either.”
“Wouldn’t you be sad? If we left Edo?” I watched her face for signs and saw nothing. “Who do you love more, me or my father?”
That made her laugh. “You’re too bold. You speak of adult matters.”
“Tell me.”
“I’ll tell you this much: he asks me the same thing.” Then she looked embarrassed. Her low-lidded eyes went blacker than normal, and her narrow chin ducked into her kimono. She drew in her lips, and the long tip of her nose dipped modestly. She reached up a hand to her heavy topknot, as if it too were destabilized.
As good as an admission.
“If we had money, we could pay your debts and buy your freedom,” I said. I said it without thinking.
She chided me gently. “Your father has a wife and you have a mother.”
“But he doesn’t have a courtesan—except you.”
“He can’t afford a courtesan, not even a plain one like me!” She laughed. “I won’t be leaving the Yoshiwara any time soon.”
“Unless a man buys your freedom.”
“He would have to be a wealthy man. And a wealthy man would have his pick. He wouldn’t want me.”
The blind man’s bland, attuned face swam into my mind. But I knew he was not wealthy, so I was relieved.
I took the fish to the painting room my father rented sometimes in the temple, when we had lots of work to do. The apprentices were busy. I put it on the hibachi. Its skin frizzed up nastily and stuck to the grill. Its flesh fell off the bones into the fire. The apprentices laughed at me. I was hungry then. I was left with a skeleton of many tiny bones, each one of which could catch in the throat and choke me.
I decided I was not a cook.
I
T WAS THAT
day of the month again when the prostitutes had free run of the kitchen. Kana was out; she wouldn’t sit with them, she said, and watch them stuff themselves.
The girls dug in.
“Thaz
rich.
She’s already fat, and we’re so skinny.
She
duzn like to see
us
eat?”
“Oooh, passa tofu.”
“Doan take it
all,
hey.”
“I wone, I wone, just one more . . . oooh.”
There had been a fight in the brothel the night before. Yuko was holding a cold cloth over her swollen jaw.
“Can yu b’leeve this guy? He wuz such a yob
.
I wannud to throw him out, but I wuzen strong enuff. I mean why’d they let this todal yobbo in here? I told him if he didn’ stop pushing me I’d get Jimi to come. But he woodn
lissen.
An’ I had
nuthen
to threaten him with.”
“You need somethin’ hard or sharp or poinned
.
”
“They woodn let us have stuff like that in here.”
“I spose yu culd use yur meer?” said one of them, sucking a finger.
“My meer? But whud ’f I broke it?”
“Then yu cdn see yourself.”
“Whud a relief!”
Yuko dove across the table and slapped her. “Very funny!” she said, putting the compress back on her chin.
“At home,” Shino said slowly, “we were all taught to defend ourselves. My brothers as young as ten had swords. Women were taught also, just in case.”
“In case what?”
“We might be attacked by a friend who suddenly became an enemy. We might be accused of disloyalty and have to kill ourselves. My father said we should know how to kill even a friend who was seated having tea or walking with us. There were special
kata
for these times.”
“What were they called?” said dreamy Yuko.
“Oh, let’s see: Rain and Thunder, the Monk’s Walk, and Walking Talking Between Friends.”
“Didja have a sword?”
“I had a long pole with a blade on the end, yes. My
naginata.
But now”—she gestured toward the Great Gate—“Shirobei’s got it. Anyway, you don’t really need a sword. You can use almost anything to defend your honor—a cooking pot, even.”
They all laughed like crazy.
Shino reached into her hair and pulled out her metal
bin-sashi.
She held them up in front of her face: “You could even use your hairpins.”
“Ooooh!”
She jabbed with them in the direction of one girl’s eyes. “Go away! Hssss!” She feinted and jabbed again. The girls looked blank. Then they looked impressed.
“Sort of like that,” Shino murmured sweetly, putting the pins back into her hair.
But Yuko got a glimmer in her eye.
“That’s
wizard. . . .
Can you teach me?”
They were drunk on food. That’s how it started. They went up to their rooms and pulled the pins out of their coifs. Rolls and rolls of straight, black, oiled hair fell on their necks.
Bin-sashi
were about ten inches long and came to a long, sharp point. The higher ranked the courtesan, the more she had. Shino had six now. Fumi had eight. On days when she was dressed up, they were all in her hair. Shino’s were lacquered red; she had a taste for pretty things and she had bought them, adding to her debt.