by A. L. Knorr
Pale bodies slick with soap and water stood under every showerhead, scrubbing and shampooing. There was some nervous laughter and conversation in low voices. The tension in the room was even thicker than the steam.
"There," the woman said, hooking a hand under my elbow and pointing to a showerhead which had just become free. The girl who had turned off the water was wrapping herself in a cotton towel. She handed me a slimy bar of soap as we passed.
"Have you done this before?" I asked the girl beside me, whose head was white with suds.
She squinted at me with one eye before closing it again and tilting her head back under the spray to rinse. "Nervous?"
"A little," I replied. In fact my knees felt weak with fear.
"You're here with me, so you're not a trained maiko, or a geisha. Just mimic them as best you can and you should be fine. Don't say or do anything stupid, and try to go for the ones that smile and laugh a lot."
"Mimic the geisha? Which ones are the geisha?" I craned my neck at the women around me.
"They're getting ready in another room. They keep their costumes locked up. Full geisha dress and jewelry is worth well over three million yen." She lowered her voice, and added, "And they don't trust anyone here."
I blinked at her. "And what are we?"
She flipped off the water and grabbed a towel from an overhead rack. I did the same.
"We're the pretenders," she said, surprised. "Your house didn't prepare you very well, did they. Where do you come from?" She grabbed a second towel, blotted her face, and wrapped up her hair.
"Oh, uh, Kyoto." I dried my skin off.
"Me too. Which house?" She headed for the door.
My stomach was spiraling downhill fast, along with the situation. What if this girl found out I was an imposter? I said the first vague thing I could think of. "It's a house in Yamashina Ward."
She frowned. "I didn't know there was a house in that area." She grabbed a cloth bag from a peg by the door and I snagged my black silk and followed her out into the cool dark hallway.
She introduced herself as Chiyoko and I gave my name as Yokana.
"Not enough trained geisha, and no real maiko at all say yes to these events. So they hire us to bolster the numbers," she said under her breath as we wandered along the cold stone floor. "They dress us similar to geisha but with enough differences that the men can tell us apart. That way if we slip up, they are more forgiving."
"Slip up?" I asked as my teeth began to clack from the cold.
She pushed her way into another room. A space heater stood in the center and I sighed with pleasure as the heat washed over my freezing and wet skin.
"Yes, with the geisha way," she said. "Why don't you take the place beside mine? It's free. I know how you feel. It was my first year once too. It's a little nerve-wracking, but you'll be okay.”
Right.
I froze when I saw the vanity lights and mirrors lining the wall and realized that every girl here was applying makeup from a personal makeup bag.
"Think they'll notice if I don't wear any makeup?" I asked with a laugh.
She gave an authentic belly-laugh until her eyes skimmed me and realized I actually didn't have a makeup bag. She stopped laughing and her eyes grew wide. "You're not joking, are you?"
I shook my head and bit my lip, giving her my best 'please help me' expression. "I was told the makeup would be provided," I whispered.
She let out a long breath. "Your house sisters must hate you." She put a hand on my forearm and her eyes darted about the room before settling on me again. "They've played a terrible joke on you, and shame on them for it. If Madam Kameyo knew, you would be taken aside and punished."
I let my eyes grow round with fear. Little did this girl know that I was up against someone a lot more terrifying than Madam Kameyo.
"Don't worry," she said quickly. "I'll help you." She shifted her makeup bag over so it sat between us. "We can help each other, in fact. My partner from last year didn't come this year. Something happened to her last time that must have frightened her." She unscrewed the lid from a pot of white paste and picked up a brush with wide flat bristles. She fished in the bag and pulled out a fat hair clip. "Here, tie your hair back."
"Something frightened her? Like what?" I asked as I twisted my wet locks up and clipped them to the top of my head.
Chiyoko took my chin in her fingers and lifted my face to the light. "I'm sure you can guess," she said. "What do you think happens at an event where we are not allowed to say 'no'?" She said this so matter-of-factly that I had to wonder for a second if I had heard her correctly. "Well," she rolled her eyes. "You are allowed to say no," she added, "but they advise against it." She said it with emphasis gave me a look full of meaning. "Not something I would really want to test," she said under her breath. She dipped the brush in the paste and began to paint my cheeks with the cool mixture.
My fingers became ice-cold. I hoped she wasn't talking about what I thought she was talking about. "Say no to... a game of poker?" I raised an eyebrow. "Beer? Making papier-mâché masks?"
She bit back a smile. "Nice to see you have a sense of humor about it." She frowned and paused in applying my make-up. "I'm sorry your sisters didn't prepare you better. It's not funny to play with someone's career like that."
I made an appropriately angry face. "Yes, I will have to talk to them when I get back."
"Shhh," she shushed me as she painted under my nose, across my lips and down my chin. "Be still or I will make a mess." She dipped the brush again and painted my forehead, earlobes, cheekbones and jaw. The brush strokes tickled under my chin and down my neck. "Turn please." Chiyoko's fingers gripped my shoulders and I turned around so my back was to the lights. "Collar," she said.
Somewhere in the deepest recesses of my memory I recalled some village girls in Furano whispering about how the geisha leave two stripes of clean, makeup-free skin down the back of their neck. I pulled my robe down off my shoulders and held it closed in front of my chest.
Chiyoko's fingers tilted my head forward. The brush strokes down the back of my neck and across my upper back made me shiver.
"I know," Chiyoko said. "This part always gives me goosebumps, too." The brush strokes slowed down as she applied the white paste, leaving two inverted triangles down either side of the back of my neck. "Okay, face me again."
I turned back to Chiyoko's critical gaze as she inspected her work. "What do you think? Good enough?"
I looked at myself in the mirror and gave a start. The ghost staring back at me looked nothing like me. Even my lips and eyebrows were completely white. My usually light golden eyes looked almost black peering out from the pale geisha mask my face had become.
"Looks good," I said, hoarsely. I cleared my throat and fought the urge to scratch an itch on my cheek.
She nodded and handed me the pot and the brush. "Sorry, I only have one brush," she said shrugging. "Beggars can't be choosers." She closed her eyes and tilted her face up to the light for me.
"It's nice of you to share." I dipped the brush in the makeup. As I painted Chiyoko's face in the same way she'd done mine, I found myself thinking that in another time, another place, another circumstance, Chiyoko and I might have been friends.
Chiyoko became a porcelain doll in front of my eyes. The paint erased all natural skin color and covered every freckle, mole, and scar.
"So, is this event always on Tai Island?" I asked.
Without opening her eyes, Chiyoko made a sound of affirmation. "For as long as I've been coming, anyway," she mumbled through stiff lips, trying not to move.
"I heard," I said casually, "that Mr. Yukimura has quite a collection of samurai artifacts on display here. Do you remember seeing anything like that here last year?" I dipped and painted, dipped and painted, across her jaw, down her neck to her collarbones.
"Turn?" she asked, eyes still closed. "Feels like you're done the front."
"Yes."
She turned her back to me and tilted
her face forward. "There were some nice decorations in the great room last year. I don't know if they were actual artifacts or just replicas, but knowing Mr. Yukimura, I wouldn't doubt their authenticity. He has a reputation for being a generous patron to the museums in Kyoto."
"Oh, really? That's nice of him." I was proud of myself for keeping a straight face. "Is the great room where the party is?"
"Yes, but there are a lot of other rooms used for more private parties and things." She frowned. "At least I would guess that's what they're for. Don't really know. I've never seen anything aside from the great room and a few of the suites upstairs. The place is a maze, and Madam Kameyo doesn't like it if we wander for no reason."
"Right." My skin prickled at the thought of what Chiyoko would have been doing with the yakuza in those upstairs suites. "But if I got one of them to show me around? Just a little tour for interest’s sake?"
Chiyoko shrugged. "If you're with one of them, you can go anywhere." She cocked her head to look at me out the corner of her eye. "You're really curious about this place?"
"I love history," I said. "Straighten please."
She put her face forward, straightening her neck for me. "Just make sure you keep the conversation about them and not about you," she added. "These men love to have a woman think they're fascinating and that they know everything."
This seemed like excellent advice. "Thanks for that," I said, and meant it. I painted the back of her neck and upper back, leaving her skin blank and making the smooth lines as best I could.
"The irony is that half of these girls are university students. Med students and law students. Brilliant women playing simpletons for the night." For the first time since I'd met her, I heard bitterness creep into her tone. "Some of them will get tangled up in relationships with men here."
"I can only imagine," I said, putting the finishing touches on her makeup. “Okay, I think you're good."
Chiyoko turned to me and put a hand on my forearm. She held my gaze. "Don't get involved," she warned.
My heart melted at the sincerity for my well-being in her eyes. "Don't worry, Chiyoko. That won't happen."
"And, don't forget. They made you sign a non-disclosure agreement for a reason. When you leave this place, you don't talk about anything you saw or heard."
"Of course," I said. They had these girls sign NDAs? A thousand imaginary spiders walked across my skin. What went on in this place?
Chiyoko squeezed my arm and nodded. She looked in the mirror to examine her makeup. She turned her face this way and that. She pulled out a small hand-mirror and used it to look at the back of her neck in the big mirror. "Good job," she said. "At least your sisters are teaching you to apply makeup correctly."
I almost laughed. Makeup had never been my strong suit. My collection was limited to an old dried-out tube of mascara, clear lip gloss, and three pots of colored glitter that Saxony had given me as a gift for a birthday a few years ago. I had been turning 'fifteen' and Saxony hadn't known me well enough to realize that I wouldn't use glitter unless at gunpoint. With Saxony, it really was the thought that counted.
Chiyoko applied my brow and eye makeup, painting the outer corners of my eyes with bright pink. She chattered quietly about the sisters back at her house, how she had an allergic reaction to the first white makeup she tried, and how in the old days, there was lead in the makeup which made the geisha sick.
The soft brush strokes across my eyes and the murmuring sweetness of her voice worked to calm my nerves. The other girls applying makeup and doing their hair around us faded into the background and I could almost convince myself that we were not a bunch of women preparing to entertain criminals, but just young ladies bonding over makeup and hair talk. A stab of longing for my friends passed through me and I wondered what they were up to. Jealousy for the safety of a normal life was the aftertaste.
Chiyoko put the finishing touches on my bottom lip with red paint and leaned back to admire her handiwork. "When your hair is done, you won't look any different than a real Maiko," she said.
I held out my hand for the makeup but she shook her head. "I'll do my own eyes—it’s my favorite part and no one else ever gets it right. No offense."
"None taken," I said with relief. I took my damp hair down and frowned. If Chiyoko expected me to do my own hair in a geisha style, or worse—hers, then she was going to be terribly disappointed.
Chiyoko eyed me. "Go see Madam Kameyo. We get wigs as part of our costumes."
"Oh." I spied the fierce-looking woman by the door speaking to a young woman in glasses. Madam Kameyo had her finger in the girl’s face and the girl was nodding, her eyes downcast. I gulped and steeled my nerves. I wandered over and stood there quietly until the two were done talking and the young woman left the room.
Madam Kameyo spied me. "Come," she said, waving me closer with a sharp hand movement. She grasped my shoulders. "Face," she barked.
I tilted my face up so she could see it. She inspected, making a grunt of approval. "Go to the next room. Miyoko will give you the rest. Tell her I said the chrysanthemum. Go."
I stepped out into the cool hallway and went to the next door. I raised my knuckles to rap but the door opened and a tall woman dressed from head to toe like a geisha came out. She walked by me, gliding like a ghost. I couldn’t help but watch her slide away, silent but for the soft rustle of fabric, her hips swaying under the belt cinching in her waist.
"Well, don't stand there gaping, come in," said a voice.
I stepped into a small space with boxes and bags everywhere. A full length mirror stood in front of a small platform. The woman in the glasses from earlier stood folding up fabric and glanced at me when I came in. Another older woman with enormous glasses tilted her head back to peer at me, her eyes as enormous as an owl’s.
"You must be Miyoko," I said, a tremor in my voice. I cleared my throat. "Madam Kameyo said the chrysanthemum."
"What? Speak up, girl," barked the woman in glasses.
"She said the chrysanthemum," I repeated, louder and more confident this time.
Miyoko snorted and put her hands on her hips. "Did she?" She eyed my form from head to toe. "Well, she has no idea what I have in my inventory." She bent and rifled through a nearby box, muttering to herself. She pulled out a clear plastic bag with blue fabric inside. She pulled it out and tore the bag open. "I say the blue with the cranes will suit you best." She pulled out a robe of bright robin's egg blue and shook it open. She threw it at the other girl and went back to her rummaging.
The other girl waved me over and I stood in front of the mirror. What followed was a lot of turning and lifting my arms as the younger woman swathed me in meters and meters of fabric. My hair was spiraled up and shoved under a tight net cap. An elaborate black wig was placed over the cap and fasted with tiny clips. By the time she was tying the thick belt around my waist, I had begun to sweat.
The last thing to be sorted were the shoes. White socks specially made with a space between my big toe and second toe encased my feet. I stared at the five-inch tall flipflops the young woman shoved in front of my feet. I slipped a foot in, sliding the thong into place. I stepped up onto the first one and then slid my other foot home.
I looked at myself in the mirror and stared for a full minute. Staring back was a geisha who could have stepped out from an ancient tapestry. If I didn't move or blink, I looked like a perfect doll. The red paint on my bottom lip gave me a supernatural pout, and the pink makeup on my eyes reminded me of cherry blossoms. The wig on my head could easily have been mistaken for my own hair. It curved wildly out in upside down cups which covered my ears and arched up high over the crown of my head. A silver clip with dangling blue beads hung down to my cheekbone and swung around as I moved my head.
"How will they know I'm not a real geisha?" I said, my voice an octave higher than normal.
Miyoko rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I swear, the more beautiful they are the more empty their brains," she muttered. She turned aw
ay and folded up a discarded robe.
The woman in the black glasses leaned close and said quietly: "No obi belt. Don't mind her. She forgets sometimes that most of the girls here are untrained."
"Do we get a...a crash course?" I asked.
"Sorry," the young woman shook her head and stood up. "You'll have to ask one of the other girls. If you didn't think you could do a convincing job, you shouldn't have signed the contract." She picked up a bunch of discarded plastic bags and then stopped, eyeing what must have been terror on my face. "You look great though," she said cheerfully.
15
As soon as she was finished dressing me, Miyoko told me I was free to go to the castle and join the party already underway. Instead, I went back to the dressing room to find Chiyoko. Only a few girls remained, putting the final touches on their makeup. Chiyoko wasn't there. I thought she must have headed to the party and turned to leave. I opened the door just as she was coming in.
"Wow," she said. "You look amazing." She scanned me from wig to platform shoes. "You clean up well."
"So do you," I smiled.
Chiyoko was dressed in a pink kimono with a dense pattern of bamboo leaves reaching up from the hem. A green belt cinched her in at the waist and a wig similar to mine covered her real hair.
"Ready?" she asked.
"As I'll ever be," I said.
Chiyoko gestured to a couple of other girls in the room. "Toshiko, Yuko, are you ready to come down?"
"A few more minutes," waved the one in the bright green kimono. "You go ahead."
Chiyoko nodded and hooked a hand under my elbow. We made our way across the courtyard together to the castle.
