A Geisha for the American Consul (a short story)

by Lesley Downer

  He was on his chair, at his desk, thumbing through a pile of papers. With his scowling face and mane of grey hair he looked every bit as fearsome as the stone lions standing guard at the temple gates.

  He stared at his papers as if she wasn’t there but his foot had begun to tap in the way it did when he was angry. The frown on his face deepened. Okichi dropped to her knees and gazed up at him, trembling. She realized now she’d made a terrible mistake. She should never have come.

  He glared down at her. ‘Well?’

  It was too late now. It had to be done. She took a deep breath. ‘You … you go Edo?’ she stammered, opening and shutting her mouth like a fish. As she spoke the strange foreign syllables she felt her courage rising. ‘I … I wait you. You come back, I here.’

  He breathed out sharply. Her heart sank. ‘No. You go,’ he said in slow deliberate tones, as if speaking to a child or an imbecile.

  There was nothing to lose, nothing she could do would make things any worse. She took a breath and uttered the phrase which had won his heart so many months ago: ‘Ai rabu iu.’

  ‘Go now. I busy.’ He turned back to his papers.

  The room was spinning. There was a ringing in her ears. She put out her hand to stop herself collapsing on the floor. She was having trouble breathing. ‘Ai rabu iu,’ she whispered. ‘Ai rabu iu.’

  ‘You go. Now,’ he thundered, so loudly the wooden walls shook, and he slammed his fist down on the table.

  Biting her lips, Okichi stumbled to her feet. She plunged blindly out of the room and out of the temple, through the temple gates and into the woods, running as far away as she could from the hill, the temple, the city, everyone. Slipping and falling, tripping over roots and brambles and bushes, she blundered through piles of dead leaves, tears pouring down her face, till she found a dark hollow surrounded by trees. There she crumpled to her knees, crushed with misery, and howled until she had no tears left.

  *

  When she looked up the shadows were long. She was on a headland. She could see the sea through the trees and the small pine-crowned islands that fringed the bay. Wrung out and exhausted, she dried her eyes on her sleeves and crept back to the house.

  She was too ashamed to see Townsend again. She hid in a corner of the room where she and Fuku stored their clothes and curled up, head pressed to her knees, cursing herself, wishing she’d never gone in to see him. She ran over everything that had happened from the day she arrived at the temple, everything she’d done wrong, wishing she could have avoided this dreadful fate.

  Later on the door slid open. Townsend was standing on the threshold. He stepped inside. He‘d never come to her room before.

  Okichi’s heart gave a leap, but then sank as she saw the expression on his face. She tried to read it. There was exasperation there, pity, remorse – maybe a trace of affection. He held out his hand and pulled her to her feet and gave her a clumsy embrace.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said, patting her back. ‘Never mind.’

  She raised her tear-stained face to his and gestured helplessly. There was no bed in the room, they’d have to lie on the floor to make love and she knew he was too stiff to do that. Suddenly she was aware that he was an old man and she a young girl. To him she must seem no more than a foolish child.

  ‘I come your room,’ she whispered timidly.

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘Goodbye,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ The door slid shut.

  She lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, running over his words again and again.

  In the middle of the night she sat up abruptly. There was something she’d forgotten – the most important lesson Mother ever taught her. Geisha were playthings, she’d told her. They poured men’s drinks, danced for them, teased them, slept with them, made them laugh till they forgot their cares and worries, cushioned their pain when they were sad. But the men they tended so lovingly had not the slightest interest in who their pretty companions really were. They didn’t care that they had feelings too, that they suffered and felt pain. They didn’t want to know. Geisha were toys – that was all – to be used then discarded. She’d thought Townsend was different but she’d been wrong, very wrong.

  *

  In the morning Fuku came in, beaming cheerfully. Her eyes widened when she saw Okichi’s puffy face and tear-soaked sleeves. ‘I have a surprise for you, Big Sister. This will cheer you up.’

  She reached into her sleeve and brought out a purse bulging with money. ‘Look.’ She took out a shiny coin and held it out to Okichi on the palm of her hand, then put it in her mouth and bit it. ‘Silver, pure silver! There’s plenty for you too.’ She held out another purse. ‘A hundred ryo for me – a hundred! And a hundred for you too. They’ve done us proud.’ Okichi put her sleeve to her eyes. Try as she might she couldn’t stop crying. Fuku pressed the purse into her hand. ‘No need to be miserable. We’ll be the richest women in Shimoda!’

  Okichi took a deep breath. She dried her eyes and began to pack. But she hardly knew what she was doing. All she could think was that she’d never see Townsend again.

  Before she left she took a last look round. The temple had become home in the months she’d been there. She kept away from the big main room where the men were and crept like a thief into the antechamber with its benches where she’d knelt when she’d first come here, and gazed at the foreign decorations and tall chairs and tables, engraving it all in her memory.

  Then she looked round carefully to make sure no one was nearby and slid open the door to Townsend’s room. His shirt was lying discarded on the floor. She hadn’t been there to tidy it up for him. She picked it up and buried her face in the crumpled white linen, breathing in his smell. The memory of him was so intense it was as if he were there in the room with her. For a moment she wondered if she dared take it. Then she shook her head, folded it neatly and put it on his bed. She stood in the doorway, unable to tear herself away.

  Chapter 5

  THE TWO GIRLS left the temple that afternoon. They walked slowly, carrying their bundles, along the seafront to Shimoda, past bobbing fishing boats and big ships at anchor out in the bay. Ragged urchins sitting on the sea wall, kicking their heels, shouted out, ‘Hey! It’s the tojins’ whores.’

  They walked into town. When they came to the place where their paths parted, they bowed and said ‘Goodbye’. Fuku went to the geisha district where she lived, Okichi to hers. Okichi knew she would never see Fuku again. The sight of her would bring back too many memories. She suspected Fuku felt the same.

  She made her way through the narrow streets, across canals, to the house she’d thought of as home for most of her life. She’d almost walked past it before she spotted it. The walls had been rebuilt in crisp pale wood and there were new bamboo buttresses at the foot to protect it from urinating dogs, and a new red lantern outside in place of the faded torn one that had been there before.

  She slid open the door and Mother appeared, straight-backed and elegant in a new kimono. All this, Okichi thought with a twinge of bitterness, bought with the tojins’ money. ‘I’m home,’ was all she could say.

  Mother stood, arms folded, blocking Okichi’s way, glaring down at her from the raised interior of the house. ‘Been thrown out, have you?’ she said. ‘Don’t give me any of your excuses. What an opportunity I found for you – and you let it slip through your fingers.’

  Okichi started to explain that it was nothing to do with her, that the tojin were leaving anyway, going to Edo, but her voice faltered. She was too tired and miserable to argue.

  ‘Well, you can’t come back here,’ said Mother. ‘Not now, not after you’ve been with the barbarians. The whole town’s talking about it. We can’t go losing our reputation and all our customers.’

  Okichi made her way back to the small house beside the river where her real mother took in washing. She was even more bent than Okichi remembered and her hands were gnarled and arthritic, but she smiled warmly and welcomed her in. Okichi gave her the purse
with most of the hundred silver ryo. She wouldn’t have to take in washing ever again.

  But Okichi knew that she’d bring ill fortune down on whoever she lived with. She couldn’t stay at her mother’s more than a few days.

  *

  It wasn’t long before the city elders discovered she was back. They summoned her to the magistrate’s office. She knelt, head lowered, as one after another rapped his fan on the floor. ‘You haven’t reported to us once.’

  There was no question in Okichi’s mind. She would be loyal to Townsend to the end. She didn’t care what happened to her. ‘I’m sorry, Sir. I had nothing to tell.’

  ‘Piffle. You were supposed to report everything – what they ate, what they said, what they’re planning. Let’s start with the layout.’

  ‘You’ve been there, Sir, you saw for yourself – the antechamber, the kitchens, the altar room, the main room.’

  ‘What did they do morning to night?’

  ‘I didn’t see them, Sir. I was busy with housework. They kept to their own room. They talked, they walked around a lot. Sometimes they stayed in, sometimes they went out.’ She stared at the floor, trying to make herself sound as stupid as she could.

  ‘We didn’t send you there to do housework,’ barked the head magistrate. ‘They were plotting something. Why won’t you tell us? Have you turned into a tojin yourself?’

  She shook her head dumbly. ‘I’m sorry, Sir.’

  ‘We’ll start with something simple.’ The clerk was scribbling furiously. ‘We hear they wear weapons even when they’re eating.’

  Okichi nodded non-committally. ‘They have different customs from ours, Sir.’

  ‘And they kill pigs and cows to eat.’

  One elderly clerk pressed his withered face close to Okichi’s. ‘Big, were they, like people say?’ He nudged her and cackled with laughter.

  ‘I was just a servant.’

  ‘Come on, you’re a geisha. He asked for you because you’re pretty. Some of that must have gone on.’

  ‘Anyway, what were they up to?’ demanded the chief magistrate. ‘They told us plenty of stories but what did they say behind our backs? You must have heard something.’

  ‘I don’t speak their language, Sir.’

  They interrogated her for hours but in the end they let her go. ‘Stupid girl. We should have sent someone more intelligent,’ she heard them saying as she backed out of the door on her knees, bowing humbly. She smiled to herself. She hadn’t given away anything that could damage or embarrass Townsend.

  *

  She knew now there was no place for her in Shimoda. She’d learnt too that the world was a far bigger place than she could ever have imagined. So she decided she’d go to Edo and try her chances there. She could sing, she could dance, she had her beauty and her skills at bewitching men, and she felt sure she knew more of the ways of foreigners than anyone else in the entire country. And if all else failed, she had money now – she could buy silks, open a shop.

  But she wouldn’t go until Townsend had left, till she’d seen him leave.

  For days before the tojins’ departure the city talked of nothing else. On the appointed day, Okichi joined the crowds lining the coast road that led to the city from the temple, taking her place under a gnarled pine tree. A stiff breeze blew in from the sea and clouds scudded overhead. They waited and waited until they heard the jangling of the rings on top of the heralds’ staffs, then the procession appeared, as enormous and splendid as the cavalcade when the lord of Shimoda set off on his annual journey to Edo.

  First came a battalion of samurai armed with pikes, followed by a standard bearer. Okichi felt a pang in her heart as she saw the great flag he was holding aloft – the very banner with the red and white stripes that had billowed day after day over the courtyard. Then came the person she’d been waiting and yearning to see: His Excellency the Consul, on a large black horse, gazing over the heads of the crowd, his grey mane of hair and sideburns and moustache giving him an air of dignity and grandeur. He was wearing a red jacket embroidered with gold, blue trousers with a gold stripe and shiny leather boots. He looked magnificent.

  Okichi smiled to herself. In the entire crowd, she was the only one who knew why he was on horseback, instead of in his palanquin, as dignitaries were supposed to be. She remembered how he and Henry had complained about how they hated being squashed in palanquins. It was like travelling in a coffin, Henry used to say. Her heart was filled with pride and happiness that she had had the honour of being the geisha of such a great man.

  The crowd scrambled back, falling silent as the imposing figure passed. Townsend looked around, scouring the sea of faces. For a moment Okichi wondered if he was looking for her. Then their eyes met. His face softened and he raised his gloved hand in a salute. Her heart swelled as the memories came rushing back of those happy days – seeing the pictures of his parents, serving his meals, laughing together, and the nights they’d spent, his whiskery face close to hers. Blinking back tears, she gave him her best smile as she raised her hand in reply.

  Then he turned away, stern and imperious again, gazing straight ahead, into the future.

  Next came his umbrella bearer and his shoe bearer, then Henry on his horse, followed by another troop of samurai and the two palanquins that the tojin would use when they entered Edo, and last a train of porters carrying baggage. The familiar chairs, table and mattresses passed by, strapped on the back of packhorses.

  Okichi watched until the dust had settled and the clanging of staffs, thumping of pikes and tramp of feet had faded away. As she turned to go home the city felt empty and desolate. She raised her head, seeing the foreign ships in the bay, sailing off into the distance. She knew that no matter what she did, no matter what happened to her, her life would never again be as full of richness and joy as in those strange and eventful months she had spent at the disused temple on the edge of the city as the American consul’s geisha.

  The End

  Read on for an extract from Across a Bridge of Dreams by Lesley Downer

  1

  Tenth month, year of the rooster, the sixth year of the Meiji era (November 1873)

  A SAVOURY AROMA seeped through the curtained doorway and around the window frames of the Black Peony, the most famous restaurant in the entire city of Tokyo. Taka gripped the rim of the rickshaw to stop herself shooting forward as it jolted to a halt and the boy dropped the shafts to the ground. She sat back in her seat, closed her eyes and took a long deep breath. The smell filled the air, akin to the tang of grilling eel but pungent, oilier, richer. Beef, roasting beef: the smell of the new age, of civilization, of enlightenment. And she, Taka Kitaoka, at the very grown-up age of thirteen, was about to have her first taste.

  Fujino, her mother, had already clambered down from the rickshaw in front and disappeared through the doorway with a shiver of her voluminous dove-grey skirts. Aunt Kiharu bobbed behind her, tiny and elegant in a kimono and square-cut haori jacket, like a little ship after a huge one, followed by Taka’s sister, Haru, in a pale yellow princess-line dress, her hair in a glossy chignon.

  Taka too was in a western-style dress. It was the first time she’d ever worn one and she felt proud and self-conscious and a little nervous. It was a rose-pink day dress with a nipped-in waist and the hint of a bustle, brand new and of soft silk, specially commissioned from a tailor in Yokohama. She’d told Okatsu, her maid, to pull her corset so tight she could hardly breathe, and had put on a jacket and gloves and a matching bonnet. She lifted her skirts carefully as she went through the vestibule, past rows of boots smelling of leather and polish.

  Inside the Black Peony it was hot and steamy and full of extraordinary smells and sounds. Smoke from the cooking meat mingled with the fug of tobacco that blanketed the room. Above the hubbub of voices and laughter, slurps and the smacking of lips, there were hoarse shouts of ‘Over here! Another plate of your fine beef!’ ‘The fire’s going out. Bring more charcoal, quick!’ ‘Another flask of sake!’ As a well
-brought-up young lady, Taka knew she was supposed to keep her eyes modestly fixed on her mother’s skirts, but she couldn’t help it. She simply had to look around.

  The room was crammed with men, big and small, old and young, sitting cross-legged around square tables, each with a charcoal brazier sunk in the centre, dipping their chopsticks into cast iron pans in which something meaty sizzled and bubbled as if it were alive, changing hue from red to brown. They were dressed in the most extraordinary fashions, some like traditional gentlemen in loose robes and obis, others in high-collared shirts with enormous gold timepieces dangling from their breast pockets and with stiff-brimmed hats and furled black bat-wing umbrellas laid on the floor beside them. Sheets of paper were pinned along the walls with words brushed in the angular katakana script which marked them as foreign: miruku, cheezu, bata – ‘milk’, ‘cheese’, ‘butter’ – words that anyone with any hope of being seen as modern had at least to pretend to be acquainted with.

  Taka had never before been in such an exotic place or seen such an assortment of terrifyingly fashionable people. She gazed around in wonder then flushed and quickly dropped her eyes when she realized that the men were staring back.

  ‘Otaka!’ her mother called, using the polite form of Taka’s name.

  Picking up her skirts, Taka raced after her down the hallway and into an inner room. It was filled with heavy wooden furniture that cast long shadows in the flickering light of candles and oil lamps. Maids slid the door closed behind her but she could still hear the raucous shouts and laughter. She settled herself on a chair, smoothing the swathes of fabric, trying not to reveal how awkward she felt with her legs dangling instead of folded under her in the usual way. Her mother had spread herself over three chairs to support all the ruffles and layers of her tea dress. Maids fanned the charcoal in the braziers then carried in plates of dark red, shiny meat and laid slices on the hot iron griddle. As the smell of burning flesh filled the air, Taka wrinkled her nose in dismay.