The Pillow Book of the Flower Samurai

by Barbara Lazar

  My first customer with this story pretended to be Dōkyō, the power-hungry Buddhist monk who claimed vast healing and magic powers. He needed to seduce the empress for influence. As he approached, I spoke: ‘Why use your powers, when your other abilities will make this woman a dutiful and devoted slave? Why not seduce the empress?’

  ‘Thank you, Empress, for your advice. I could call on the Gods to entice you, but I am struck by your beauty.’

  I leaned away from my mock-throne in mock-rapture. ‘As I look on your handsome face, your virile and strong body, I imagine all the powers and pleasures therein. There is but one path to win my heart, and only you can walk it.’

  Then I murmured, ‘I shall tell you what to say and do to win my heart. Follow my directions.’ He nodded. ‘Touch my feet, admire them, take off my shoes, and kiss my entire foot – all over.’

  ‘Ah, Empress! Such great power in such small, dainty, graceful feet.’ He lifted one foot to admire it, rubbed it and removed my shoes. I beamed at his surprise.

  ‘What a wonder the empire is ruled on such tiny and beautiful feet!’ He moved his lips over my bathed and perfumed feet. ‘What a marvel your toes are!’

  He licked the top of each and started to suck the largest. I whispered, with my eyes almost closed, ‘Start with the smallest and finish with the largest one for best results.’

  He looked up. He had not expected correction, but I had decided to risk it with him, a familiar long-standing client who was eager to please. With success, perhaps a few of his wives and concubines would appreciate me. He took my smallest toe in and out of his mouth with little sucking noises. I responded with sighs of delight and deeper breaths, which he enjoyed.

  This elderly customer withered easily, unfortunately. No matter. I became his empress slave – which he loved to repeat for many months – to Rin and Hitomi’s profit.

  Gradually this client visited less often. Hopefully, he found devoted slaves in his own household. The older customers loved to play the desirable young monk.

  Every tender and respectful man was another victory for Tashiko and her memory.

  VI. Information

  The majority of my customers maintained contact despite or because of the gradual though radical modifications I made to my stories. The Gods approved my plans, or perhaps I found my Right Actions and Livelihood.

  I created a system to keep track of the adjustments to each story, to eliminate violence towards women. I maintained a log by customer and by story, so no one, no servant, no man, and especially neither Hitomi nor Rin, could discover my plan. My rage at Tashiko’s brutal murder was the dry wood for this, my revenge fire. Payment for her death was grass bending before the wind, meekly, quietly, in small ways, but always growing.

  The log had a twofold purpose: for me to become chōja; to locate and kill Goro. Such a lengthy process. Some customers came so infrequently that the changes for them in my stories were not completed for some time. For others, who visited many times a month, it happened faster. I maintained my log with caution and painstaking diligence.

  Every moment I worked to avoid detection. I hid my log of my customers and stories under my futon, a large floor covering and the floor. Those who cleaned my hut could suspect nothing.

  Except for Misuki, whom I decided to trust, I told no one of my plans or records. No one else knew of them. The disastrous Tsuneyo contest burned in my nightmares.

  Beside my stories and customers, my extensive records included the cost of my clothing and makeup. These increased progressively with planned irregularity: a little glitter, a new kimono, a story requiring a particular colour or cloth or style. Witch sand demons altered their forms to camouflage their intentions. They required elaborate costume changes within a single story. Significant props of lacquered toilet boxes or inlaid quivers that appeared in the stories had to be included. That happened infrequently, for special occasions and feast days or for customers who paid well. Critical strategies require the finest scheduling. Calculations, cunning details and circumspect timing. Since I had lost my love, I wanted to take from Hitomi what she loved most, her wealth, and from Rin, what she loved most, her power.

  Time disappeared, and with the addition of more sisters, young and younger cast-offs from Chiba or girls from poor families, more sadness filled my spirit. Almost two years had gone by since Tashiko’s death, but I continued to burn incense and candles in her memory each day. I maintained my log, and my costs expanded slowly despite the perils.

  Several times a month my tutors continued to teach me and Misuki, who remained an apt pupil. I sought always to locate Daigoro no Goro. To do this, I read more of everything: history, commerce, accounting, shipbuilding, war strategies, poets, philosophers, teachers, scholars and healers. Everything I learned I tried to include in my stories, depending on clients’ interests, business and desires. The primary purpose was always to track down the priest with the impenetrable eyes and the sadistic, murderous heart.

  How did I come across all of this information, all of this writing? My tutors did not supply enough of what I wanted. Clients became the varied source of materials I read. Some customers asked, ‘How can I thank you for your entertaining ways?’ I asked them for anything written that was no longer needed from their business, obsolete ships’ logs or accounting sheets.

  ‘Any trifle you could spare for a silly girl.’ Stroking them suggestively, I would add, ‘It will warm my heart knowing it has touched your hands.’ While I called it a trifle, I knew how rare paper was and how expensive scribe services were.

  I received scraps of this and that. Sometimes, after clients were satiated physically, I probed for the meaning of something I had read earlier. My log aided me in displaying a seemingly total interest and devotion to their smallest gifts. Naturally, this pleased them – and it was my duty to give joy, however bitter my spirit. This was my revenge for Tashiko.

  With drooping bellies, dripping sweat, they whispered to me, ‘You know, the hero should never have bought silk in spring because . . .’ or ‘If that prince had married a daughter to this neighbour, just as Fujiwara did with . . . a terrible battle could have been avoided.’ I wrote these entries by separate classification in my log. After each, I recorded new information to use the next time.

  When they puffed themselves up on ‘discovering’ their recommendations in my stories, only my memory of Tashiko kept a satisfied but grim smile from my lips. I could blush at will by holding my breath. Often their discovery, accompanied by a low bow with such a blush, yielded a coin or a gift of writing.

  Presents I received included small copied parts of the Records of Ancient Matters, the venerable Chronicles of Japan and more. These I read and read again. They proved priceless to me because at this time I reasoned all knowledge could be used to entrap and tempt the men into foolish games, which I controlled. The games plucked elements of their savagery and transformed their brutality without them knowing it. The process was extraordinarily slow, but so burned the coals of my hatred and revenge.

  Akio encouraged me. I shared my systems and information with him. He shared fighting strategies, which I adopted for my retribution.

  The moment came when I taught as much as I learned. After a time, I gave more advice than I received. As their heads lay on my lap, I whispered, ‘Register your lands to a temple, or have your lands confiscated by a temple and then repurchase them.’ Several new landowners learned this and were indebted to me. Some gave me weapons or new armour. A rack in Akio’s armoury grew heavy with gifts to me. A quiver, arrows with the special black-banded hawk feathers, pieces of armour that a clients’ children had worn, all found their way to my cache.

  Two older women came to serve me. They became servants when their faces, voices or ageing bodies no longer attracted clients, and were glad to be with me. Their only other choice was abject slavery or the eta.

  When my first servant came to me, I was too kind and forfeited my authority. She lost her respect for me. With the second,
I did better. I was strict, but not rigid. I acquired the skill to be compassionate but not empathetic. In this way, we maintained our separateness, and I my authority.

  More than four years had passed since the death of my beloved Tashiko, years of reading, studying and learning. My plans were succeeding. Madam Hitomi increased my price often, like a perennial plant returning every year to flourish and grow larger. When Rin had died from the coughing illness, I orchestrated an elaborate funeral hoping to entice Goro to the Village. He did not take the bait.

  Hitomi named me chōja before my eighteenth birth anniversary. I garnered a tenth of everyone’s earnings, which swelled my resources. My stories and services intertwined business advice, military strategy, political advice and customers’ needs as the threads of a heavily patterned brocade. My clients became wealthier, more powerful, higher-ranking, and able to help me learn even more.

  I translated what they told me into tools to fool them into kindness and gentleness, the only means to honour my Tashiko’s memory. Many men were transformed at Hitomi’s Village.

  More learning: writing

  Politics, noble people

  Chinese poetry

  My dear one’s memories still

  Fill my heart as moonlight, my eyes

  BOOK 8

  I. One In Particular

  ‘My dear Kozaishō, why do you tell me this story?’ A new client, a well-dressed Taira samurai captain, Kunda Takiguchi no Tokikazu, stopped me in the middle of ‘The Flying Jars’.

  His words shone like gold and silver lettering on indigo paper. It took me a few moments to absorb what he was saying. No one had ever asked me such a question. I lowered my head and knelt in front of him. Would he hurt me? Complain to Hitomi, so that I would lose my fee?

  He took my hands in his. ‘Men usually come to women, such as yourself, to play out their desire for power and control. I believe you know that much.’

  I controlled my temper and concentrated on his melodic speech. Its smoothness quelled my panic. After all, Taira samurai from Rokuhara, familiar with the capital and all the high-ranking people, should know more than the customers from a local shōen.

  ‘Most men would not wish to pretend to be an inexperienced, arrogant priest. They would not agree to play the role of a conceited priest humbled to learn from an older one. I would not.’ His eyes gazed straight into mine, and I saw his spirit. ‘So, I ask again, why do you tell this story?’

  I thanked him for his honesty. I could not tell him the truth and remained silent. What would he do?

  His warm brown eyes beamed kindly at me. ‘Sing for me. I have heard rumours that your voice and songs are enchanting.’

  I reached for the biwa, relieved, yet troubled by the rumours. Who had spread them?

  He put his hand on my forearm before I could play and lowered his voice. ‘I have also heard that you practise to be a samurai.’

  With effort my face remained blank but it grew hot.

  ‘After our transactions here, may I have permission to train with you?’

  His courtesy and calm of his voice caused my body toquiver. He was a powerful man. I nodded. ‘Yes, honourable Kunda Takiguchi no Tokikazu.’ Where had he heard about me? From whom? And how?

  Tokikazu and I marched on to the practice field. The rising summer moon was almost hidden by swollen clouds, foretelling of a coming storm.

  On the practice field, Akio’s pupils enlarged and his eyes grew black. He made a small bow. I made a large one to Tokikazu, wondering at Akio’s agitation.

  Akio and Tokikazu glared at each other, like two cocks ready to fight. Fireflies swirled about them. The cicadas rumbled, while the hototogisu sang to announce the summer.

  Tokikazu asked Akio for a bokken session with me.

  Permission was granted.

  We began.

  Every ploy Akio had taught me to take advantage of my height succeeded. I was confident because Tokikazu was lean and only a little taller than I. But my second time with each gambit failed – altogether.

  ‘Here.’ Tokikazu put up his hand to stop after I lay on the ground for the fourth or fifth time in succession. He pivoted his wiry body to Akio and nodded. ‘Akio! Please, let us demonstrate for Kozaishō.’

  Akio walked over, his shoulders hunched defensively, his fingers pale around his bokken.

  They performed. Akio sliced at Tokikazu, who deflected. Next Tokikazu countered with his bokken’s edge. He rolled backwards on to the ground, righted himself and thrust up into Akio. With another stroke Tokikazu ‘sliced’ from neck to belly.

  Akio fell backwards, roaring with laughter. ‘Well done, Tokikazu.’ Akio stood up, brushed himself down, and made a little bow.

  The rest of the evening we practised together, two at a time. Akio and I ran through the tactic later until we were comfortable and familiar with it.

  I wondered, for several years, why Tokikazu never returned to visit me, and why his memory persisted in my thoughts.

  Most clients relinquished their old ways as I worked my stories on them. For example, another direct subordinate of the Taira governor, a lieutenant, had developed a fondness for food and grew larger at each subsequent visit. Completion no longer satisfied him unless he was eating at the same time. He preferred feasting to almost any other activity, including my singing, which had earlier pleased him.

  I found three stories that served. In the first, an oni decided to eat his wife, but instead was consumed by a lion and a tiger. In the second, ‘The Woman Who Ate Nothing’, a female oni covered her true mouth on top of her head with hair. She ate her husband’s friend, but her husband saved himself by hiding in a forest. For the third, I altered ‘The Handless Maiden’, whose hands were chopped off while she ate. My alternative was that an evil brother cut off a prince’s hands; and the prince wandered until he performed a kindness for a peasant woman and the Goddess of Mercy restored his hands.

  These stories instilled changes in the Taira lieutenant. He shrank with each visit until he was of normal size. My log showed that the process continued for more than a year. When I had finished with him, he was gentler, kinder, slimmer and grateful.

  II. Premonitions

  In my eighth summer at the Village of Outcasts I awoke remembering a dream, inspiring me like a winter full moon. Tashiko came in an immense ring of fire, and through the smoke I heard the thrush’s call. It announced, ‘Someone’s coming! Someone’s coming!’ Arising, I shared this with Misuki and my serving women.

  Misuki closed one eye, and half smiled with the other. ‘This morning spiders’ webs decorated a corner of my hut . . . Remember the old poem – “Where spiders’ webs show, a woman’s lover will arrive”?’ Lifting her eyes to mine, she lowered her voice: ‘Two signs together . . . are auspicious.’

  Rare as such dreams were, my serving women nodded because I had shared the signs with them.

  ‘Perhaps it will be a new and wealthy client.’ One woman tittered. ‘He will give you many coins.’

  ‘A baby. Yes, it is an omen of a baby for you.’ The second grinned, putting up her sleeve to hide her glaring white teeth. I knew my morning tea prevented conception.

  Uncomfortable, I dressed early and went to the practice field, thinking of the white pheasant and the dragon-like cloud, the signs for which Master Isamu had allowed me on to the practice field at Chiba’s. While I was practising my archery on horseback, a visiting samurai arrived almost undetected because of my disquiet. Since he and I had done so before, we drilled with the sword.

  ‘You have improved, in our short time together. Indeed, you display great aptitude for the sword.’ He gave a small bow.

  Afterwards, I walked back to my hut, gratified at the compliment but still discomfited by the dream and Misuki’s premonition. Since it was not a day when a tutor visited, I collected my servants for the bathhouse. Emi prepared the scrubbing mixture while Misuki and I reviewed clients, songs, costumes, makeup and dances. Misuki tracked costumes in the order required. Since
her brush was still far better than mine, she wrote the lists.

  With Misuki’s direction, Emi prepared the room with all my requirements. She oversaw my hair ornaments and was a meticulous hair arranger, whose attention to detail had carried over from her love of flowers. In the coldest winter I had painted flowers.

  For ‘Grave of the Chopstick’ Emi painted the one red petal on each white flower for those who did not keep their promises. Her flowers matched the stories’ seasons and complemented my face and costume. She also compounded the correct incense – under Misuki’s guidance – so the scent was appropriate to the story. My clients delighted in what I did and how I looked, but especially in the fragrances of my hair and body. The flower must hold the passer-by not only with its shape and colour but with its scent.

  In the middle of our morning discussions, Madam Hitomi, wearing a vast array of seasonally inappropriate kimonos, burst into the bathhouse. She had neglected to gather her skirts and her hems trailed in a muddy sweep. She stood at the door with the morning light behind her.

  The corners of her mouth turned down. Strands of hair jutted out, and she chattered like a screeching bird. Startled, Emi bowed, covering her open mouth with her hands. Madam Hitomi had never arrived in such a manner. Indeed, she never visited the bathhouse when the Women-for-Play were there. Perspiration poured down her face in the steamy air, removing her painted eyebrows. It soaked her rouged and wrinkled cheeks. Drops rolled off her rounded chins, wetting her coat, which gave off a rancid smell. She had put on weight lately and now looked like one of my clients, especially the Taira governor’s lieutenant before he had shrunk. Hitomi glistened and dissolved in the late-morning sun like a rotting vegetable.

  ‘Kozaishō!’ She cocked her head.

  Misuki and Emi’s mouths were agape, eyes large with anticipation. Madam Hitomi had never bowed to me, ever. I had received at most a heavy eyebrow movement when I performed so magnificently that someone overpaid her.