Geisha in Rivalry

by Kafū Nagai

  The hostess of the Murasaki was a big woman with a fair complexion and full curves. She would be thirty this year. But now, after the embers had flared up again and again, it was becoming a relationship that could only be described as a mesalliance with no hope of separation. As Yoshioka looked back and compared this complicated liaison with the simple and sincere love that he and Komayo had shared when she was eighteen and he twenty-five, he had the pleasant sensation of having watched a play or read a novel. A pleasant sensation, but one that somehow gave him the strange impression of being absurd and unreal.

  "Oh, there you are! I've been looking all over the place for you."

  A short, stout man in Western-style clothing stood in front of Yoshioka. Obviously he had already drunk a considerable amount of whisky in the second-floor dining room of the theater. His face was red, and a few beads of perspiration stood on his nose. "There was a phone call for you a little while ago," he said.

  "Where from?"

  "From the same place as usual." The fat little man, after looking around to see that nobody was nearby, let himself drop on the sofa next to Yoshioka. "It seems that you haven't been to the Minatoya very often lately."

  "Was it you that she called to the phone?"

  "No. The truth is that I was just curious to see who was calling, so I went to answer for you. But it was only the usual thing. I couldn't help feeling sorry for her." The fat man laughed. "It seems Rikiji knows you're here tonight. Probably somebody from her group is here at the theater and hasn't lost any time letting her know. Anyway, she wants you to be sure and stop by her place on your way home, even if it's only for a few minutes."

  "No, Eda, old man. To tell the truth, I've got another plan for tonight—something very special." Yoshioka offered Eda a gold-tipped cigarette, at the same time looking around the lobby. "Let's go to the restaurant," he said.

  "I suppose it's something to do with that affair in Hamacho."

  "No. Not an old story like that. Something romantic."

  "Really? What is it?"

  "In fact, it's like something out of a novel."

  "Now it's getting interesting," said Eda, chiming in with Yoshioka's tone as they went through the lobby to the big restaurant in the basement.

  "I suppose you want whisky as usual."

  "No, I've had more than enough of that tonight. I'd better have some beer. It's still too early for me to lose my balance." As Eda laughed again, his whole face became lined with wrinkles and his body shook. With his handkerchief he wiped the sweat from his forehead. From his behavior and from the tone of his speech, anyone could quickly see that he was Yoshioka's vassal. His curly hair had thinned almost to baldness, but there seemed to be no substantial difference in age between him and Yoshioka. In the company that Yoshioka managed, he was one of the men in charge of stocks, and whenever a banquet or a garden party was given, it was always he who took care of the arrangements. As a result, he was no less popular in the geisha world than Yoshioka, the general manager. No matter where, whenever the name of Eda-san of such-and-such a company came up, all of the geisha and even the teahouse maids spoke of him as a jolly, harmless, drink-loving fellow. From time to time, out of familiarity, they said things to him that were downright rude, but he was never known to become angry. When women teased him or made a fool of him, he went right along with them, taking it all as lightly as though he considered himself quite valueless. Nevertheless, he had three children at home, and the oldest girl had already reached the age for marriage.

  "Now what on earth is this romantic story?" Eda, holding in his hand the bottle of beer that the waiter had brought, seemed to be all ears. Then he added with some emphasis: "Certainly your haven't stolen a march on me by getting involved in a new affair?" He followed this with more laughter.

  "To tell the truth, that's what I'm hoping."

  "Aha! So it seems you're as much of a sinner as ever."

  "Eda, old boy, don't joke. I feel that tonight, for the first time, I've really fallen madly in love with a woman."

  After he had said this, Yoshioka looked around to see if anyone else was near, but in the large dining room only a few waiters stood talking together in one of the far corners. Otherwise the room was quite empty, and not a single guest was visible. The light of the electric lamps shone on the white tablecloths, giving a special brilliance to the foreign-looking flowers on the tables.

  "Eda, this is really a serious story."

  "Yes indeed. Can't you see I'm all ears?"

  "Stop it. You always turn everything into a joke. It's hard to tell you anything serious. As a matter of fact, I met her only just now on the staircase—quite by accident."

  "I see."

  "She's a girl I knew when I was still in school."

  "Is she a lady? No doubt by now she's somebody's wife."

  "You're too quick. She's not an amateur. She's a geisha."

  "A geisha? You must have begun your pursuit of knowledge quite early."

  "At the beginning, when I first started to play around, she was the very first geisha in my life. At that time her name was Komazo. Well, it lasted about a year. Meanwhile I finished school and immediately went abroad. When we broke up... well, we settled everything properly between us, please believe me."

  "I see." Eda puffed generously at the cigarette that Yoshioka had given him.

  "She told me that now, after seven years, she's a geisha again in Shimbashi. She says her name is now Komayo."

  "Komayo? From which house?"

  "I only asked what her name was. I don't know anything else—whether she has her own place or whether she's bound herself out or what."

  "You can probably find out soon enough if you ask someone else on the quiet."

  "Anyhow, there must be some reason why she gave up the profession for seven years and then became a geisha again. I'd really like to know what sort of person has been keeping her up to now."

  "You really want to make a close investigation, don't you?"

  "It can't be helped. It's always best to know all about such things from the start. You know how it often goes. A man unknowingly seduces his friend's girl and ends up making an enemy."

  "Well, if this story of yours moves so fast, I can't just stand here doing nothing, either. Anyway, let me have a look at her. Where's her seat? Is she in a box?"

  "I don't know. I only met her in the lobby a little while ago."

  "I suppose you'll be going somewhere after the theater. I'll come along, and then you can call her and let me look her over at leisure, if you'd like."

  "I wish you would."

  "So Rikiji is finally to be the cast-off geisha. How sad for her!" Eda was laughing.

  "I can't say that it bothers me at all. You know as well as I do that I've done plenty for her. Even if she loses me, she won't have any problems. She has four or five contract geisha working for her, and she has a regular supply of customers."

  A few people from the audience, talking unrestrainedly in loud voices, entered from the corridor. Noticing this, Yoshioka broke off the conversation. From the stage one could clearly hear the clattering sounds that accompanied a battle scene.

  "Waiter!" Yoshioka called. "The bill!" He got up from his chair.

  AN EXQUISITE THING

  "GOOD evening. How good of you to come!" With every mark of respect, the mistress of the Hamazaki machiai knelt in the doorway of the room and bowed. "You've been somewhere for the evening?"

  "We were invited to the Imperial Theater. In order to please Fujita-san we took in a play with an all-woman cast," Yoshioka answered. Having begun to take off the skirtlike hakama trousers that he was wearing formally over his kimono, he stood there as he was, without bowing, "Being the lover of an actress isn't easy, is it? It seems one always has to provide an audience for her."

  "After all, it's much easier with geisha," said the mistress as she came and sat by the sandalwood table. "Eda-san, you look awfully hot. Wouldn't you like to change into something cooler?"

>   "It's hot, all right, but this evening I'll have to put up with it. I just don't like wearing a yukata robe. It makes me feel like the character that gets cut down in the play Iseondo."

  "Aren't you being awfully formal?"

  "Madame, the truth is that we have a little request to make of you."

  "Anything you like. Let's hear what it is."

  "You're very kind. Tonight, with your permission, I'll be the host. All right? And so I'd like to have you call in entirely different geisha from the usual ones."

  "Very well. And which ones shall I call?"

  "Well, let's see. In any case, we won't call Rikiji."

  "Really? And why on earth not?"

  "That's why I said we had a request to make of you. You'll understand by and by."

  "But really, you..."

  The mistress looked suspiciously in Yoshioka's direction, but he only grinned broadly and puffed on his cigarette. A maid brought in some sake and appetizers. Eda hastily drained a cup and then offered it to the mistress, saying at the same time: "We'd like to have you call the one named Komayo right away. Komayo, do you understand?"

  "Komayo-san?" The mistress looked inquiringly at the maid.

  "She's a new one. Beautiful too." Then, looking as if it had occurred to her quite suddenly, the maid added: "From Ju-san's house, I believe."

  "Ju-san's house? Really?" The mistress, with an air of having only now understood, put her sake cup down on the table. "She hasn't been to our house yet, has she?"

  "Oh, but she has! The day before yesterday, in the evening, she stopped in for a little while to say hello, didn't she? In Chiyomatsu-san's room...."

  "Oh, yes! Of course. That one: the short one with the round face. The older one gets, the more one mixes them all up."

  "And now who else?" Eda looked around at Yoshioka. "We haven't called Jukichi for a long time, have we? It's probably better to get someone from the same house."

  "Let's do it that way then."

  "All right, sir," the maid said. She placed the teapot and the cups on a tray and left the room.

  Returning the sake cup to Eda, the mistress said: "Somehow, I can't understand the reason for all this."

  Eda laughed. "Of course you don't understand. It's something that suddenly sprang up this evening. In fact, I'm quite confused myself." He laughed again. "Anyway, pleasant as it is to sit here, I'm impatient for her answer. I wonder if she can come."

  "Really, you've got me quite bewildered."

  "Now, now. Don't let yourself get upset. From here on, the story gets more and more interesting."

  The maid had come back. "They said Komayo-san is at the theater. She'll be here very shortly."

  "Ha, ha, ha, ha!" Eda unconsciously burst out laughing.

  "Good heavens! Why do you frighten me like that?"

  "Oh, come on, it's all right. How about the others?"

  "Jukichi-san and the others can't get here for a while. What would you like me to do?"

  "Well...." Eda looked over at Yoshioka. "Shall we tell them to come as soon as they're free?"

  This time, leaving the maid in the room with her guests, the mistress herself got up to go to the telephone.

  "Everything seems to be going very well," Eda observed. "If she comes alone, the talk will go more quickly."

  "Ocho," Yoshioka said to the maid, "have a cup of sake." He offered her his cup. "Tell me, do you know if Komayo has anybody steady?"

  The maid cleverly evaded the question. "She's a very good geisha, isn't she? They say she worked in this part of town once before."

  Once again Eda exploded into loud laughter.

  "Eda-san, everything seems to strike you as funny this evening."

  "I can't help it, because it is funny. Don't you know that this Komayo is my geisha? It was seven years ago, when she was working in this district before. The girls made quite a fuss over me for a while."

  "Good heavens! You, Eda-san? Ho, ho, ho, ho!" laughed the maid.

  "What's so funny about that? You don't have to be so rude."

  "It's the truth," Yoshioka put in. "I can vouch for it. For a while Eda-san was madly in love. Then they separated for some reason or other. Now tonight they'll be meeting for the first time in about ten years, it seems."

  "Really? Well, if that's true, it won't be exactly easy, will it?"

  "What do you mean, 'if that's true'? You're certainly full of suspicions, aren't you, Ocho? Back then, I wasn't bald, and I was a lot more slender and graceful. You should have seen me then."

  Presently, while Eda was talking, there was a sound of footsteps in the corridor. Then a voice said: "Neisan, is this the room?"

  Eda sat up dramatically, as if he were about to jump to his feet. It was Komayo who pushed open the sliding door.

  Her hair was done in the tsubushi style and set off with a silver-backed openwork comb and a jade hairpin. She wore a summer kimono of taffeta. Although her taste was elegant, perhaps from fear that her style itself would make her look a bit too old, she had put on a chemisette rather theatrically covered with heavy embroidery. Her obi was of the old-style printed mousseline called Kaga Yuzen, lined with black satin and held in place at the back with a scarf of pale blue crepe dyed in shibori style with a large, loose pattern. The cord tied over the obi was of a rather deep celadon green and was fastened with a clip made of a large pearl.

  "It was kind of you this evening...." She began by greeting Yoshioka. Then, because Eda was a stranger to her, she changed her manner slightly. "Good evening," she said.

  Eda instantly offered her his sake cup. "You've just come from the theater?"

  "Yes. Were you there too?"

  "When we were leaving, we wanted to invite you to come along, but we didn't know where you were sitting." As he said this, Eda was casually taking in everything about Komayo, from her costume and her accessories to her behavior before guests. It was not at all a matter of his having a direct relation with her himself, but Eda had a taste for behaving boisterously in a place like this without indulging in passion; and because of this, he felt that tonight, for Yoshioka's sake, he would play the part of the spectator who sees the best of the game, assuring himself of the true value of this geisha Komayo and making no mistake about it. In a word, he knew that there were geisha and more geisha besides those spoken of as "Shimbashi geisha," and no matter how much Yoshioka talked about an old intimacy, he would lose face by taking up with too cheap a geisha. There was something of a difference between the Yoshioka of student days and the Yoshioka of today, a recognized figure in the business world, and Eda, with the honest concern that an old aunt might show, felt that tonight he must not get drunk and fail to play his role.

  For Yoshioka, it was a situation of even greater concern. The Komayo of today—was she owned by a geisha house? Did she belong to one only nominally? Or did she work independently more or less for her own enjoyment? There was no need to come right out and rudely ask her about such details. The way she wore her clothes, her manner with guests—he would put everything together, and with the acute observation that came from his everyday familiarity with geisha, he would have a look at her and venture a guess.

  Komayo carefully rinsed the sake cup and returned it to Eda, refilling it for him with proper grace. Although she could not be absolutely certain about it, from her experience in dealing with guests she had formed a fairly good idea of the relationship between Eda, whom she had met for the first time tonight, and Yoshioka. As if from an intention to be strictly prudent, however, she confined herself to inconsequential small talk.

  "It's really too hot already for the theater, isn't it?'" she said.

  But Yoshioka interrupted her suddenly. "Komayo," he said, speaking in a distinctly intimate tone, "how old are you now?"

  "I?... Let's not talk about my age. But you,. Yoshioka-san?"

  "I'm forty already."

  "That's not true!" Leaning her head to one side like child, Komayo began to count on her fingers, at the same time saying, a
s if to herself: "At that time I was seventeen... and since then..."

  "Be careful!" Eda quickly interrupted her. "People are listening."

  "Oh, excuse me. I was just..."

  "Well, what do you mean, 'at that time'? What sort of time was it?"

  Komayo laughed, winsomely showing her eyetooth. "Yoshioka-san, you can't be more than in your middle thirties."

  Yoshioka ignored this. "Tonight let's talk about personal matters," he said.

  "About yours?"

  "No, about yours. How long did you work as a geisha after I went abroad?"

  "Let me see...." While she was thinking, Komayo played with her fan, at the same time glancing up at the ceiling. "I stayed at it for about two years."

  "I see. Then you must have quit about the same time that I came back from my trip." Secretly, Yoshioka would have liked to ask if someone had bought Komayo's redemption at that time, but he was afraid to break the ice. So, with an unconcerned air, he said: "I suppose being a geisha is better than being a nonprofessional, isn't it?"

  "But I haven't become a geisha again by choice. As things turned out, there was nothing else I could do."

  "Really? Have you been someone's wife up till now? Or his mistress? Which?"

  Komayo slowly emptied her sake cup and placed it on the table. For a while she said nothing. Then, as if she had made up her mind, "I suppose there's no use in hiding things," she said. And still kneeling, she moved closer. "For a while I was a properly married woman. When you left to go abroad, I was really almost desperate." She laughed. "It's true, really. Just at that time the son of a wealthy country family came up to Tokyo to go to school. He said he wanted to help me, and it was he who bought me my freedom."