Firefly

by India Millar

  I was early. Reo had said he would meet me at the time of four bells. That was still some way off. My excitement had been too great for me to eat during the day, and now I was thirsty, and beginning to be hungry. I shouldered my way through the crowds and stepped inside the first teahouse I came to. It was nothing as elegant as Hana’s Green Teahouse, but the food smelled savory and I was glad to accept a plate of hot noodles laced with ginger and tuna and a steaming cup of tea. I ate with a good appetite, concentrating on my food, and I was astonished when a woman’s voice interrupted me.

  “Good appetite, lord.” I glanced at my side and found a yujo hovering, her fan flirtatiously before her face. She was quite young, and from what I could see of her eyes and smooth skin, I thought that she was probably pretty. “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before. And surely I would have remembered such a handsome noble as you.”

  She sat down at the bench opposite me uninvited and folded her fan. I had been right. If she hadn’t been wearing so much paint, she would have been very pretty.

  “I’m afraid you’re mistaken.” I pitched my voice as low as I could manage. It tickled and I wanted to cough. “I have been here often, but I am a mere younger son of an unimportant samurai family, not a lord.”

  She assessed my—or rather Isamu’s—robes cynically. As the sky was overcast, I had borrowed not only a kimono, but also one of Isamu’s kataginu, a long sleeveless jacket worn over the top of the kimono. Like all of his clothes, they were sober in color but superbly elegant in cut and quality. Her hard eyes calculated the cost of my robes to the last coin. Obviously satisfied, she smiled broadly at me.

  “Well, no matter. I can see you’re on your own, good sir. My name is Effet.” She put her head on one side, watching me to see if I appreciated the pun. “Effet” means virtue or chastity. Clearly, this was a yujo of some wit and not a little intelligence, as her name was not only the opposite of her profession, but was obviously intended to signal that she was clean and wholesome. Had I truly been a man, I thought I would have enjoyed spending the evening with her. “Would the honorable samurai perhaps welcome my company, if he is not already committed?”

  “Alas, Effet. I’m bound to meet a friend at Hana’s Teahouse.”

  Although her face remained impassive, her eyebrows rose in a clear signal of surprise.

  “Indeed, lord. Well, I’m sure Hana-san’s geisha will enchant your evening.” She smiled archly. “Of course, in the unlikely event that Hana-san doesn’t recommend further entertainment for you later, I can be found at the teahouse at the intersection of the Namida-Bashin. Perhaps I may hope to see you there later?”

  “Perhaps,” I said non-committedly. Effet rose gracefully, and, in spite of the fact that several men were looking at her with interest, she drifted out of the teahouse without so much as a glance at them. I finished my tea in great content. Surely if such an experienced inhabitant of the Floating World as Effet hadn’t seen through my disguise, then neither would Reo. Or at least, not until I wanted him to know the truth.

  The bells were sounding as I made my way to the teahouse. Hearing them, I stopped short and searched the street for Reo. For a moment, I was deeply disappointed. I could not see him anywhere. Had he decided not to show? Had Isamu, deciding the joke had gone far enough, told him the truth? My spirits sank. I was about to turn away when my arm was grabbed.

  “Jun! So punctual! You have no idea how I have looked forward to tonight. I have been out of town, hunting with Isamu these last few days, and I was deeply tempted to ask him where I could find you so I could contact you and make sure you had not forgotten me.”

  I suddenly understood why Emiko found him so attractive. They were very alike. Just like her, Reo’s thoughts were on himself to the exclusion of all else. It must have been rather like looking in a mirror at her own reflection. I stared at Reo silently. He was, I supposed, a handsome man in a flashy, flamboyant sort of way. Iki? No. Isamu was iki. Reo was too overblown, too in love with himself to be genuinely iki.

  It was clear that Reo had mistaken my silent contemplation of him for delight that we were together. He smiled broadly and stroked me quite tenderly under my chin.

  “Dear child, are you still holding to your vow of silence? Surely not. At least, do tell me how much you’re pleased to see me.”

  “Of course I am delighted to be here with you, Reo-san.” I spoke softly, trying to make my voice as husky as I could. “Shall we go straight to the teahouse?”

  He grasped my arm as if he thought I might want to get away from him. I wasn’t surprised; I wanted to put as much distance between us as I could. Reo glanced at me questioningly, and I smiled—I hoped flirtatiously. Did men handle these things differently from us women? I had no idea, and little time to find out. He grinned back and suddenly pulled me out of the road and flattened both of us against a shop wall. I set my teeth, thinking he had decided to taste my delights before we had even reached our destination.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  “Keep back.” Reo put his arm across me protectively. I wondered if he would feel my breasts, but he was clearly so agitated he didn’t even notice them. “If they touch us, we may be contaminated by them. Who knows what illnesses they carry on them? Judging by the way they stink, it could be anything.”

  Reo jutted his chin to the road in front of us. I had been so surprised by what I saw as his sudden attack that I had not noticed that what passed for silence in the Floating World had fallen on the street. Voices had suddenly become muted, and even the food vendors had ceased to cry their wares. Just like us, the crowds had pressed to the sides, leaving an empty channel in their midst. I stared in the direction he was indicating and saw two men walking in our direction. They walked casually, as if they barely noticed—and cared even less—about the sensation they were causing.

  “Who are they?” I asked in astonishment.

  My first thought had been that some great lord must be passing amongst us. A man so noble that the crowd had scattered before him. But these men were no lords. They were like no men I had ever seen before, and I stared at them with amazement.

  Both were very tall. Far taller than Isamu, and he was a tall man. They were correctly dressed in robes made of good quality silk, but it was evident that they were not entirely comfortable in them. The way they walked was all wrong, and every few steps, one or the other of them plucked at their skirts as if they were getting in the way of their stride. I almost smiled as I saw their discomfort, but the smile faded to horror as they passed in front of a flaming torch and I saw their faces clearly.

  In the torchlight, their hair looked so fair it was almost colorless. And both had hair on their faces! It made me itch just to look at it. And almost worse, their poor eyes were so misshapen, I wondered if they could actually see. Obviously they could, as they strode forward with apparent disregard for the way everybody else drew back from them. One of them glanced in our direction as they passed by, and he nudged his companion with his elbow. The other man looked at Reo and me, and he grinned widely before closing one eye deliberately. I was bewildered. Courtesy made me wait until they were unlikely to hear me before I began to question Reo about the exotic strangers. It didn’t take long. The crowds closed behind them as they passed by. The entire incident took only a couple of heartbeats, but it left me gasping to know more.

  Oddly, it reminded of the one time I had been allowed to accompany Father and Isamu when they went on a journey to inspect our estate. I couldn’t remember why I had been allowed to go with them. Was it so Emiko would have somebody to chat with? Or had Isamu simply decided to be kind to me? No matter. Father and Isamu had traveled on horseback, with their retainers in front and behind them. Emiko and I followed behind the retainers in a palanquin. Our curtains were closed, of course, but we both peeked out from time to time. Emiko had quickly become bored with the unchanging scenery, but I had continued to look. This was my first glimpse of anything beyond our garden and the orchards t
hat enclosed the house, and everything was of interest to me. The memory of the journey had long been forgotten, but the sight of the strangers awoke it vividly. In just the same way as the crowd had drawn back from them, their eyes cast down and their voices stilled, had the peasants drawn back from our procession whenever we went through a village. Wherever there was more room—on the roadside or when we passed fields where the peasants were working—the villagers hadn’t just bowed, they had prostrated themselves full length on the ground. It had intrigued me, and I had pointed it out to Emiko.

  “Father must be a very important man,” I said timidly. “The peasants treat him as if he is a god.”

  Emiko looked at me as if I was mad. “Of course they do. He has the power of life and death over them. If he thought they weren’t civil enough, he could have them executed.”

  This seemed extremely harsh to me, and I was stupid enough to say so.

  “Oh, don’t be so childish.” My sister sighed at my ignorance. “That’s the way it is. They’re just peasants. They breed like animals, so one more or less isn’t going to make a difference to anybody. Father is their lord. They owe him everything. And anyway, he’s very merciful to them. All samurai are allowed to test the sharpness of their swords on any peasant they like if it pleases them to do it. Father and Isamu are both so enlightened that they say that’s barbaric and they would never do it. These people know when the gods have smiled on them. That’s why they love and respect Father so much.”

  One of our bearers stumbled slightly at that moment, and Emiko was so busy shouting at him for his clumsiness that she forgot what we had been talking about.

  The recollection came back to me now, vividly. I had thought at the time of our journey that there was no love at all in the villagers’ behavior, simply fear. And that was why I remembered it now. Everybody the strangers had passed by had drawn back because they were terrified of the two men, just as they had done when our procession had gone through the countryside. I was intrigued.

  “Who were they, Reo-san?” I demanded again. Reo drew himself erect nonchalantly, but I was not fooled at all. He had been as worried by the two men as everybody else in the Floating World.

  “They’re gaijin,” he said tersely. “Disgusting foreign barbarians. You can tell just by looking at them that they’re not normal men at all. Did you smell them?”

  I shook my head. I hadn’t been near enough to catch any odors from them, and I was sure that Reo hadn’t been either. But that didn’t stop him wrinkling his nose in disgust.

  “They stink of butter and meat. It seems to leak out of their skin. Not surprising, really. I’ve been told that they don’t even use the bath every day. Ugh. Up until recently, the authorities made sure they were confined to the island of Dijima, where they could trade without spreading their vile, strange diseases amongst us decent people. Now, you see them sometimes in Edo itself, walking about as if they have just as much right to be here as the rest of us. The shogun must not know about it or he would do something about it.”

  I stared at him, fascinated. Reo obviously mistook my interest as he went on quickly.

  “You don’t want to have anything to do with them. Don’t even get near them if you can help it. A lot of people don’t think they’re really human, but devils in disguise. Who knows what one could catch off them!” He glanced around and then lowered his head to whisper close to my ear. “I’ve heard tell that some of the yujo who were forced to go with them because they were desperate for the money have said that they have tails. Yes! That’s why they walk so oddly. And the yujo also say that the foreign devils seemed shocked when they saw their sex. They seemed surprised that they were normal. I think the gaijin women must keep their sex the wrong way around. Across instead of down. How hideous!”

  He meant what he said. I nodded gravely, smothering laughter. The gaijin were certainly very odd-looking to our eyes, but I couldn’t help but wonder if we seemed as strange to them. The incident had certainly added even more excitement to things, and now I was eager to get the first part of the evening over with. I had my plans in place. As soon as it was polite, I would pretend that I wanted to leave the teahouse to be alone with Reo. I hoped he would be delighted to think I was anxious to go to a house of assignation with him. Certainly, it was true that I was looking forward to getting him on his own.

  “Oh, forget about the gaijin, dear boy. I told Hana we would be here tonight. You see how sure I was of you? She said she would be delighted to see us again.”

  Reo had a fan in his hand and he used it to tap me lightly on my forehead. I bowed my head and smiled from beneath my eyelashes. Did he like his boys on the effeminate side? I thought he probably did. A moment later, I was sure; he put his hand on my backside and groped it thoroughly. He only stopped when the teahouse shoji slid open and the same maiko I had seen before welcomed us in.

  “Good evening, noble sirs. Jun-san. Reo-san. Hana bids me welcome you to her humble house.”

  Reo muttered something I didn’t catch. I guessed he was annoyed with the maiko’s clumsy error. As the elder “man,” she should have welcomed him first. I didn’t want him angry yet and made great play of standing back and bowing Reo in before me.

  “Welcome, my dear friends. Welcome. Would you like tea or sake?”

  Hana bowed to us. Her greeting was very warm, and I felt Reo bask in her pleasure.

  “Hana-san, always a delight to be with you. You no doubt remember Jun? He was with Isamu-san last time you saw him.”

  Hana’s expression never flickered, but I guessed she had understood the message behind Reo’s words. I was no longer with her valued customer Isamu. Reo had stolen me off him, like the iki man about town he thought himself.

  Hana stood aside and Reo brushed past her, sitting in front of the tokonoma shrine alcove as if it was his right. I was appalled by his rudeness and waited silently until Hana smiled at me and indicated I should sit at Reo’s right hand, the position for an honored male guest. Had I arrived as a female, my place would have been to his left. I drew a deep breath; all was going to plan.

  Hana clapped her hands, and two geisha walked elegantly in. Before I could ask for tea, a cup of sake was pressed into my hand. I drank in tiny sips, smiling and nodding my appreciation of its excellence. The evening would, I thought cynically, cost Reo a lot of money. Such a shame it would not lead to the finale he was no doubt anticipating eagerly. He gulped his first cup in two swallows and held out the cup wordlessly to be refilled.

  I had no need to make conversation. Reo saw to that. He laughed and joked with the geisha, who looked at him adoringly as if their lives had been enriched by his presence. He was, I suppose, good company, if one had a taste for gossip from court circles and risqué comments.

  “Really, Reo-san?” Hana raised her eyebrows in apparent amusement at a comment from Reo I had missed. “I had not heard that the shogun was inclined to such things.”

  Instinctively, I guessed she had entertained the shogun in her house, probably many times. Would she, I wondered, pass Reo’s salacious tidbit about his personal habits back to him?

  “Oh, yes.” Reo had taken a lot of sake. He was bubbling with good humor, but not, I thought, actually drunk. It was some time since he had spoken to me, and I wondered if he had been distracted by the geisha who waited on him. I soon found I was wrong.

  Reo rubbed his hands together and leaned toward Hana, smiling widely.

  “Dear Hana-chan, I think it is time we went on our way. Unless, of course, you could find a little something else to entertain us with?”

  Hana smiled at him, her expression bland. “But of course, Reo-san. It will be my very great pleasure to recommend one of the best courtesan houses for you. If it pleases you, I will send one of the maiko out to alert them that you will be arriving shortly.”

  “Ah. I thank you, Hana. But that is not quite what I was thinking of.” Even the ebullient Reo seemed a little deflated. “Actually, I thought I might give young Jun her
e a special treat. I seem to remember last time we were here that you said he would be welcome in the Hidden House?”

  The eagerness in Reo’s voice was embarrassing. Hana inclined her head politely.

  “Indeed, Reo-san. Jun is welcome to taste the delights of my flawed jewels in the Hidden House at any time.”

  I understood what she was saying immediately. It took a little longer for it to filter through to Reo. His grin faded slowly. He stared at Hana incredulously and licked his lips.

  “Well, then.” He paused, waiting for Hana to speak. She smiled, her head on one side, but remained silent. “In that case, shall we take our leave of you and move across to the other place?”

  I squirmed with embarrassment. Surely, even Reo could understand what Hana was saying. I might be welcome in the Hidden House, but he was not.

  “I think not, Reo-san,” Hana said coolly. “If you’re bored with the delights of my beautiful geisha, I will ask the maiko to see you out.”

  Her tone was courteous, but her words hit Reo like a slap in the face. I held my breath in amazement. Who was this woman who dared to treat a man of a noble family as if he were a peasant? I waited for Reo to get to his feet and knock her to the ground. He would beat her to a pulp for her insolence and nobody would offer him anything but approval for his actions. Shock made me gasp out loud as Reo cleared his throat loudly and actually smiled. A small, twitching sort of smile, to be sure, but a smile for all that.

  “I could never be bored with your geisha, Hana-san,” he said stiffly. “But I think you are right. Jun is a very young man, and like all youths, he loses interest very quickly. Perhaps it would be better if I took him out and showed him a few more of the delights the Floating World can offer.”

  He stood and inclined his head. I took the hint and rose quickly. Hana rose with us, and—in spite of her earlier words—accompanied us to the door. As Reo bent to put on his shoes, she leaned forward and spoke in a soft voice.

  “Do make sure you come back to my humble house, Jun-san.”