by Kafū Nagai
"Oh, no! Why should it be embarrassing for me? Really, I'd like to know."
"Well, with people saying things like that, you can't very well go out to other places, can you? At least for the time being."
"That's the reason. Isn't that what I meant when I said that I really felt sorry for you? Especially since you already had Komayo-san, and then I came along. And now if things go wrong between you and her, I really won't be able to make any excuse for myself."
"Don't bore me with talk about Komayo. I told you that subject was tabu. But there's another strange story going around. People are saying that you and I got engaged a long time ago when you were still working at Rikiji's house. They're telling it around that we separated for a while because you found a danna who bought you your freedom. And Rikiji is just as bad as the rest of them. There's one geisha who actually asked Rikiji if the story was true or not, and do you know what Rikiji said? I understand she told her that it certainly was true. It's become such a nuisance for me to have people asking about one thing and another that I just tell them it's all true. I even told that tiresome Komayo the same thing."
"What did she do then?"
"What did she do? I don't know, because that was the last I saw of her."
"It's really strange. To tell the truth, I've lost track of time. It all seems much longer ago than just yesterday. Niisan, how do you suppose things could have turned out this way?"
"What do you mean?"
"Niisan, please don't ever leave me. I beg you." And with this, in typically unreasonable feminine fashion, Kimiryu burst into tears.
That evening, having made no ado about accepting Kimiryu's invitation, Segawa stayed at her house in Hamacho—the one where her danna had earlier established her as his mistress. One night's stay led to a second and then a third, and finally it became his custom to go directly from there to the theater for his daily appearances. Under this arrangement, his manservant Tsunakichi and his jinrikisha man Kumako also moved in. Management officials and others connected with the theater who had urgent matters to discuss with Segawa naturally took to visiting the house in Hamacho. As a result, the house in Tsukiji became something like a private family retreat while the one in Hamacho seemed to have supplanted it as the main residence. Although Segawa's name plate was not put up at the gate, it was to all appearances his home. And Kimiryu, with her hair always done now in the marumage style of a married woman, was virtually his wife.
After all this had taken place, Segawa's stepmother Ohan, probably considering above everything else the pleasant prospect of Kimiryu's inheritance, made it her business to visit the house in Hamacho and to ask politely for the continuance of favors toward her son. Shortly afterward, when Kimiryu went to visit her in return, she was welcomed with extreme courtesy. Because of this, Kimiryu became imbued with the idea that she loved her as much as if she were her own mother. All at once the relation between them had become so intimate that they were going to the theater together, not only to the Shintomiza but also to the Imperial Theater, the Ichimuraza, and a number of others.
Meanwhile, from teahouse to teahouse in Shimbashi, among her geisha friends and her acquaintances in the world of actors and entertainers, Rikiji of the Minatoya was tirelessly—though casually and in a roundabout way—sowing the seeds of rumors designed to reflect credit upon Kimiryu and draw sympathy toward her.
MORNING BATH
IT WAS about eleven o'clock in the morning, just at the time when the Hiyoshiyu public bath was almost empty of customers. The solitary patron, who was occupying the huge tub as if it were his private property and who seemed to be enjoying himself immensely as he warmed his body in it, was old man Gozan, the master of the Obanaya. Yawning with a prolonged and unrestrained "ah," he stretched his skinny arms until they seemed about to be pulled from their sockets. Then, plunging them again into the clean and freshly heated water, he lay back to regard with interest the brilliant winter sunlight that came slanting in through the skylight in the high ceiling. At this moment, the outer glass door of the bath slid open with a clatter. The man who entered appeared to be about forty: a dark-skinned fellow with a bull neck and wide shoulders unsuited to the wadded silk kimono that he wore. The collar was conspicuously grimy, but he wore the kimono with a certain style. The obi was of the silk crepe type that is stiffened where it shows in front but soft at the back,. where it is tied. He wore no haori. Beneath his nose was a thin mustache that he seemed to have cultivated with great care. He looked neither like a newspaperman nor like a lawyer. It would, in fact, have been difficult to take him for a man of respectable origins.
As he took off his kimono, he looked at the playbills of the theaters and the storytellers' halls that were pasted on the walls of the dressing room. It was more than mere looking, however, for he glared at them with a side glance that gave him the expression of one who made it his habit to censor them. Then, with a rough gesture, he flung open the glass door that separated the dressing room from the bath, walked with big strides to the edge of the tub, and began to splash water over himself.
Old Gozan, having warmed himself to his heart's content, now stood up in the tub. Seeing his face rise suddenly out of the water, the new arrival greeted him with a nonchalant "ya" like that of a student. With that, he was about to plunge in, but apparently he found the water a bit hot to enter all at once. Gozan, speaking with what seemed to be deliberate irony, said to him: "Takaraya-san, there's nothing like a public bath, is there? A bathtub at home may be convenient, but it's no place to hum a song in." As he spoke, Gozan felt another yawn coming upon him, but he properly suppressed it.
Although Gozan felt no special enmity toward him, for some reason he disliked the behavior of the master of the Takaraya. Originally, the story went, he had been an underling in a group of barnstorming actors. Until only four or five years ago, whenever the Takaraya was mentioned, guests and geisha alike would say: "Oh, that house." There was no one in all of Shimbashi who didn't know about his shady establishment. But it was this business that enabled him to make a fortune overnight, and when this had happened, he suddenly engaged two or three accomplished geisha, ungrudgingly lavished tips on the more prominent teahouses, and, almost before anyone realized it, had reopened for business on a more respectable level. Last year, when there had been difficulties in the geisha guild and new committee members were to be elected, he had propagandized himself into being chosen as one of them and had gradually begun to wield power. Somehow, to old Gozan, this expanding influence of the Takaraya's master was no different from the way in which "upstart gentlemen" —to borrow a current newspaper expression—were nowadays rising from the ranks. From the start, he had been utterly unconcerned about appearances, and he had run the gamut of sordid dealings. Then, when he found himself in somewhat easier circumstances, he had used his money to make good connections and bring benefit after benefit to himself. Forgetting his previous social position, he had begun to give himself airs. Behavior of this sort didn't matter so much in politicians, businessmen, stockbrokers, and such, but it was Gozan's idea that, on the whole, people like geisha-house masters should run their enterprises as a kind of hobby: something to be undertaken by former playboys who had ruined themselves in running after pleasure. And everything about such an enterprise should be refined.
Even now, Gozan retained the ideas of his youth, and when he observed the behavior of the Takaraya's master with these criteria in mind, he did not like what he saw. First of all, the mustache under his nose was not to his taste. Then his manner of operating since he had become a committee member: whenever the guild discussed its financial reports or anything else of the sort, hardly had one of the members spoken but that he was on his feet, expatiating away in an oratorical style, just as though he were at a general shareholders' meeting of a joint-stock company. This was so ridiculous that Gozan found it unbearable.
But Takaraya, as people called him, seemed not to realize how thoroughly he was disliked. Or, if he did, perhaps it was his
intention to get the upper hand through the impudence and sharpness that he believed to be the secrets of success. At any rate, the old man's equivocal answer to his greeting, given in the midst of a smothered yawn, seemed not to disturb him at all.
"Sensei," he asked, "is it true that you've stayed away from the storytellers' halls ever since you had that trouble?" This question was addressed to Gozan from the bathtub.
"Well, at my age, I just can't go any more, even if I'd like to." The old man, squatted on the draining floor, was washing away at his sides, where the ribs showed prominently through the skin. "If I did go, it would be an embarrassment to them—and even more of an embarrassment to the customers."
"I don't know why it is—maybe because they don't have anything good to offer—but the storytelling halls seem to be empty nowadays, don't they? By the way, sensei, I've really been wanting to call on you to discuss a little matter, but I've been very busy, as you know."
As he said this, Takaraya looked casually around the bathroom, but on the men's side there were only the two of them, as before, and from the women's side there came no sound at all. There was nobody else there but the old woman sitting on the doorkeeper's platform, peering through her glasses as she concentrated on taking some garment or other apart.
"What I wanted to tell you, in fact, is that we'd like very much to have you become a member of the guild committee. If you've given up going to the storytellers' halls, of course you must have a good deal of free time. We are extremely eager to have you help us out in our work." As he spoke, he gradually adopted his customary bombastic tone.
In order to promote his own influence in the guild, Takaraya had caused one after another of the older members to quit and, as replacements for them, had nominated mediocrities who were of no character one way or the other. In a word, his design was to arrange everything to his own advantage. As proprietor of the Obanaya, which could be counted among the oldest and most respected houses in the whole of Shimbashi, Gozan had the reputation of being a cross-grained old patriarch, the personification of obstinacy. At the same time, however, the natives of the district knew quite well that he was a virtuous man, extremely candid and without the slightest trace of greed. It was this that gave Takaraya his idea. If he could use his nimble tongue to cajole the old man into becoming a member of the committee, there would be no question of his opening his mouth at all, for it was well known that Gozan, instead of taking an interest in the trifling details of business, despised them. Since this was the case, it would be far better to have him on the committee than to be confronted by some busybody of a member who might engage with him in a struggle for power.
Perhaps because he knew all this, Gozan answered him brusquely: "No. That is something I must definitely ask to be excused from. My wife has been showing her age more than ever lately, and I am already an old man. I'd be no good at all as a committee member."
"That puts me in a predicament. In any case, the name of Obanaya-san is an old one in the district. No matter what you say, it is a popular house."
At this moment the bath boy, remarking by way of greeting that the weather had turned quite cold, came in to wash Takaraya's back, and Takaraya broke off the conversation. Meanwhile, one after another, three more customers entered the bath. One of these, a pale-looking man of about thirty, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, was the husband of the hairdresser Oko-san, whose salon, the Kimmanka, was quite popular in the district. Formerly, it was said, he had been a narrator for the silent films, but now he was practically the same as a kept lover. The second customer—portly, bald, and around fifty years old—was the proprietor of a poultry restaurant, the Ichiju. With him was a sickly-looking boy of twelve or thirteen with a crippled leg of the sort that is vulgarly called a duck leg. Since all of them were acquainted as neighbors, there was a mutual exchange of good mornings as the newcomers got into the tub. The conversation automatically divided itself into two groups, with Ichiju and Gozan in one and Takaraya and the hairdresser's husband in the other. The latter two involved themselves in a discussion of the geisha of the various quarters. After a while, as though he had just thought of something, Takaraya announced: "Lately, even in Shimbashi, that kind of geisha has put in an appearance. As a matter of fact, just between you and me, even some people in the guild have been complaining about it because they think it reflects on the good name of the district."
"You don't say! What's this geisha's name?"
"Oh, you still don't know? It's Ranka."
"Where's she from?"
"Oh, it's less than a month since she came out. But there's hardly anybody in Shimbashi that doesn't know all about her already."
"Really? It sounds wonderful just to hear you talk about it." The hairdresser's husband, burning with interest, didn't even take time to wash the soap out of his eyes. "What kind of woman is she? Is she good-looking?"
"Never mind about that. If I'm careless enough to tell you she's pretty or something of the sort, I'll have Oko-san mad at me."
"When you say things like that, you only make me want to see her all the more."
Takaraya laughed. "Well, in my eyes she isn't a geisha at all. In fact, she's the sort that gives you a double surprise. But she really has a stupendous reputation. Here and there, whenever people meet, you'll hear them talking about what an odd geisha she is. And now that she has such a reputation as a strange-acting geisha, all of a sudden she's become popular. She's really quite a sharp and intelligent woman."
"What on earth does she do? Nude dances?"
"Well, there's no doubt that she's somehow naked, but it's nothing so vulgar as 'Ame-shobo' or any dance like that. To tell the truth, I've only heard about it from the girls in my house, so I don't know for certain, but it seems that she doesn't dance at all or do anything of the sort. To make a long story short, she just appears naked at parties. I understand that there are plenty of women that go in for this kind of art in Western music halls and theaters. What she does is to announce that this is the famous statue of so-and-so in such and such a place, and then she takes the pose of that statue. She wears snow-white tights and even a snow-white wig to make herself look like a marble statue. That's why nobody can just casually lodge a complaint against her. Anyway, she's one of those so-called new women, and if you did raise any objections, she'd be sure to give you no end of arguments. For instance, I understand that she says all sorts of wild things at parties—like telling people that the trouble they have every year with the nude paintings at the Ministry of Education exhibit all boils down to the fact that the Japanese just don't understand the beauty of nakedness. This is deplorable, she says, and that's why she thought up this plan to bring some artistic education to high-society gentlemen. That's what people tell me."
"You don't say! It seems that quite a character has appeared on the scene. Anyway, I'll have to go and get some artistic education myself."
"If you just call her on the spur of the moment, she won't come. They say she has three or four engagements every evening. It's ridiculous, isn't it?"
Meanwhile, in their own corner, the poulterer Ichiju and Gozan were talking. In contrast with the erotic conversation of the other two, theirs was the querulous dialogue of old men, and it was made up of tales of misfortune. "This boy was twelve this year, but what can I do with him the way he is?" Ichiju was washing his son's pallid back. "Just lately, I had to take him out of school. I suppose, after all, it's my punishment for taking the lives of all those chickens. A person can't just take such things lightly."
The boy not only had a crippled leg; his whole body was sadly underdeveloped, and he seemed to be quite retarded mentally. There was a vapid air of abstraction about him, and he neither spoke nor tried any sort of mischief. He merely sat gazing vacantly into space at something that wasn't there. Gozan, with evident pity, looked from father to son, comparing them.
"People have always said such things since olden times, but if it were true, then all the boys in the fish market ought to be cripples. T
here are also some people who will tell you that it is bad to go into the eel business, but eels are living creatures just the same as fish. That sort of thing is all in the mind. After all, I have a son of my own that still makes me want to cry."
"You mean the one called Takijiro-san? What has happened to him?"
"It's really almost out of the question to talk about it. Three years ago, I happened to hear a rumor—something to the effect that he was staying at a sake bar in the park at Asakusa. So I thought I'd try to find out, in a casual way, what the situation was. I thought that if there was some way of reasoning with him, I'd like to try it. This was the son I had once given up all hope for, but you know how a father feels toward his own blood. So I went on purpose from one bar to another in the neighborhood, pretending that I was just a customer."
"Of course. Parents are all alike."
"Well, when I asked around the neighborhood about his reputation, I really lost heart. It was just exactly as if he'd become possessed by a devil. I decided that if I did meet him and tell him what I thought, it would only mean more worry for me. If he was such a hopeless case, it would be better to leave it at that and not meet him at all, I thought. Better not to add more trouble to what was left of my life. So I went back home, and to this day I haven't told Jukichi anything about it at all."
"You haven't? But what did you find out?"
"I'm sorry to say it's something that I can hardly tell you. That scoundrel Taki lives there under the same roof with... well, I suppose you could say she's the same as a wife to him. But even when he sees this so-called wife of his taking in customers, he never gives it a second thought. In fact, people even say he takes the initiative and offers her to his friends and acquaintances and, besides that, uses her as the subject for unspeakable movies. Of course he does this behind the backs of the police. And the money he makes from this—he spends all of it right away on gambling. Even the streetwalkers in the neighborhood—and they're in the same business—say that Taki is nothing but the worst sort of trash and that the woman is to be pitied. When a person gets as corrupt as that, he is beyond hope. Anyway, when I heard that story, I gave him up for good. But when I think that such a scoundrel is sure to end up by giving trouble to the police, it weighs on my mind. I sometimes wonder if this isn't my punishment for having earned my living by telling stories about gamblers and gambling for so many years."
