The Geisha with the Green Eyes

by India Millar

  We stirred, as if a breeze had trickled through the room. This was news indeed! The other girls looked at Akira with new respect. I could see the abacus working in each pretty head. Just how rich was our new master?

  “As far as most of you are concerned, there will be no change to your lives. You will behave yourselves, and you will be as nice as you know how to the patrons. The patrons themselves will change. You will find that many of my business associates wish to buy your time. I think that you will find that they are very generous men, so I hope you will have nothing to complain about.”

  A chorus of “no, Akira-san” rippled the air like a hand through ripe rice. Only I remained silent.

  “There will be one change. Midori No Me will be here some of the time, but will no longer work as a geisha. I will use her talents elsewhere. That is all. There is food for you all in the main room. Please enjoy.” Numb, I rose with the other girls but did not leave. Akira’s voice stopped me. “Midori No Me, you are to stay.”

  The girls filed past me as I stood, my heart beating so hard that I swear I could see the front of my kimono move with the force of it.

  Akira stood and stretched from head to toe like a cat that had just woken up. I fixed my eyes on the floor and concentrated on breathing. So close, it was like being in the presence of a wild animal that one is not quite sure is properly secured. He walked around me and paused behind me. I felt his finger run down the nape of my neck and I shivered, cursing my body for responding to his lightest touch.

  Oh, Danjuro. I am sorry! If you were back, this man would mean nothing, nothing at all to me. But you are not here and I don’t know if you are alive or dead. And this terrible man is here, and I am in his power.

  “Kazuha.” His voice was the whisper of silk, discarded prior to lovemaking. “I told you to wait. And now I am here.”

  I could not speak, my throat was too dry.

  “I have taken you out of bondage. Never again will you need to smile for a patron. Now, you have no one to please except me. Does that please you?”

  My mind was in turmoil, my thoughts autumn leaves blown by an unseen wind. Was I pleased? What could I say? I had never known anything but the Hidden House in the whole of my life. I had known from my first steps that my role in life was to please any man who wanted me, who could afford me. And now this almost unknown man was telling me that all that was to be no more. That I was no longer a geisha in the Hidden House. That in a single sentence, he had swept away the foundations of my world.

  I was terrified. And told him so.

  He listened, and then laughed out loud. “Any other geisha would be on her knees, kissing my feet with thanks. But not you, Kazuha-chan. Perhaps that is the reason I chose you. Or at least, one of the reasons.”

  Emboldened by his good humor, I asked, “What do you want me for, Akira-san?” It should have been obvious, I suppose. Akira was taking me as his mistress. But I sensed that there was more, and I was deeply curious.

  “What a clever girl you are, Kazuha-chan. You are right to ask, of course. If I just wanted you to use, I could leave you here and take you whenever I chose and still get some income from you from the patrons. But you speak the foreign Barbarian language, don’t you?” I nodded. “And I think you understand far more of their ways than the rest of us.”

  I considered. Yes, I suppose I did. They no longer seemed quite so foreign to me. Perhaps it was because I was half Barbarian myself, but something about them called to me. I loved being able to speak without thinking about what I was saying first. Loved actually being able to laugh without just pretending amusement. And above all, I loved that they treated me as a woman, a woman in my own right, not something to be bought and sold at will.

  Akira was waiting patiently for my answer, and I nodded.

  “Good. I want to do business with the foreign Barbarians. And to do that, I must have somebody I can trust. Not just to tell me what they are saying, but to tell me what the faces behind the words mean. You understand me?”

  “Of course.” I smiled. Every Japanese knows instinctively that words tell only half the story. The rest is expression and body language. But the Japanese could not understand their meaning when the Barbarians laughed and made jokes amongst themselves. They thought them deliberately insulting when I knew it was just their way of trying not to show nervousness. “I will help you, Akira-san.”

  “You will.” His voice was suddenly cold, and I was reminded that no matter what, this man was my master. He owned me just as he owned the rest of the girls and could get rid of me any moment I displeased him. Tread carefully, I warned myself. Very carefully. “But for now, Kazuha-san, you will help me in a different way.”

  I trembled as he undid his robe and kicked it away. I felt the eyes tattooed on his body watching my every movement and was visited with the unsettling thought that he would still be watching me, even when he was asleep. I slid to my knees, less in obeisance and more because my legs refused to support me.

  Akira swayed toward me and rubbed my lips with his tree of flesh. I opened my mouth to take him into me, but he tapped my head sharply with his extended fingers and pulled back. I kept my lips tightly closed as he rubbed back and forth, back and forth. Quite suddenly, he placed his hands on each side of my face and found the trigger point that forced me to open my mouth against my will, so my lips gaped wide in an involuntary silent scream. Then and only then did he thrust his tree of flesh in my mouth. He did so with such force that I nearly choked. His strong fingers continued to pinion my face. I could not close my mouth, not even a fraction of an inch, no matter how hard I tried. I heard him laughing, laughing, laughing and then he was exploding down my throat, almost choking me.

  When he had finished, he simply walked away from me.

  I was escorted away from the Hidden House that same day and taken to Akira’s house. True to his word, Akira bought me a dozen new kimonos. All superb, all expensive. Even little Nekko was given a collar of braided silver. I had a suite of rooms all of my own. A bedroom, a sitting room, a roofed terrace that opened to the lovely garden. He took me to Mori-san and bought me a handful of expensive trinkets. I was immensely sorry for my poor former danna and wondered if Akira had chosen his establishment on purpose. It was only later that I realized that of course he had. He knew everything about everybody in the Floating World, and it was yet another way of showing his ownership of me. A trivial hurt, inflicted on Mori-san almost without thought, but vindictive all the same.

  I should have been the happiest of women. No longer did I have to serve any man who clapped his hands. I had a rich, undeniably attractive lover. It did not take me long to notice the longing looks Akira received from other women. The courtesans behind the lattice, even the geisha promenading in the street, turned their heads to watch us go past, and I heard the wistful sighs trailing behind us. I had a home in one of the most beautiful houses in the whole of Edo. I had a half a dozen maids at my command. Anything I wanted was mine for the asking. I felt the way a baby bird must feel that has fallen out of the nest. For the first time in the whole of my life, I was on my own. I had no Auntie to tell me what to do, no Boys lurking in the background to protect me. Above all, I missed the companionship of the other girls. I missed our cozy gossips in the afternoons, the long sessions spent combing each other’s hair, the delightful communal baths.

  I was still deeply suspicious of Akira. And, oh, how I missed Danjuro. Being unable to utter a word about him was torture. I even made sure I shielded my thoughts of him when Akira was with me. He noticed everything. The slightest change of expression, the least gesture. There were those in the Floating World who said the yakuza was a demon in human form, all knowing, but at the same time caring for nothing. I came to believe that.

  I had always imagined that it must be heaven to only have to be with one man. And if that man was deeply attractive and rich, why it would surely be heaven on earth! But I was wrong. So very wrong.

  Akira would have none of the tric
ks I had learned at the Hidden House. He had to be in command, always. He knew in an instant if I was only pretending to enjoy what he was doing to me, and the inevitable outcome was a hard slap or even a punch. I learned very quickly to simply take what was given to me and to remain silent and inert if I didn’t like it. In fact, I began to realize that he preferred it when he knew that I hated what he was doing to me. And increasingly, I did hate it.

  He enjoyed my body often. If I was asleep when he came in, I was expected to be awake and alert within seconds of him coming to me. He took me when it was my time of the month and laughed at me when I could take no pleasure in his actions. Once, he woke me in the middle of the night and no matter how I tried, I remained dry and he could not enter me easily. He was angry. I expected a clout around my head – his usual form of reprimand – but no, he got up and wrapped his robe around himself and stalked out. I sent up a prayer of thankfulness, but it was premature. Akira came back with two of his men and set them on me while he watched. Afterward, he took me himself in the rear, the only part of my body that had obviously been forbidden to his men. I managed not to weep while he was with me, but when he had gone I cried myself to sleep. The next morning, he laughed at my swollen face and made me crawl on the tatami to him and then satisfy him with my mouth.

  The only time I was allowed back to the Hidden House was when Akira was meeting clients at the Green Tea House. Being an astute businessman, he always ensured that my face was unmarked by either blows or tears on those days. Once business had been done, I was allowed to visit with my old friends until Akira was ready to go. I smiled for them and showed off my new kimonos, and it was only to Mineko that I whispered the truth. We sat with our arms around each other and comforted one another.

  Mineko told me that it was not the same at the Hidden House. Since Akira-san had taken over, the clients had changed. Now anybody was allowed in, men who Auntie would not have let into the Green Tea House, never mind about the Hidden House. All that mattered was that they had the money to pay for the girls. Auntie herself was little seen, preferring to stay in her own rooms. Big appeared to have vanished altogether, and even Bigger was a pale shadow of his former self. The girls envied me deeply, and Mineko whispered that, bad as I thought it was with Akira-san, I was better off with him than here. I shuddered at the thought.

  “Was there any word of Danjuro?” I asked. Mineko shook her head. Nothing had been heard of him these six months past. Nothing at all. Even the Floating World was beginning to forget him. I would never forget him, I vowed. Never. No matter what.

  And then one of Akira’s thugs was beckoning to me, and I had to go.

  Chapter Eighteen

  We touched the fallen

  Leaves together.

  I still feel them now

  The fire was the talk of not just the Floating World, but the whole of Edo.

  The Floating World was no stranger to fire, of course. The whole of it was built of wood, and it took only a carelessly left charcoal burner or a flaring torch to start a fire. There were big ones every couple of years.

  But this one was different. It took only the kabuki theater.

  I heard about it from one of the maids while I was taking my bath. She was almost breathless to impart the news. I listened, and in spite of the heat of the water I felt my inner core turn cold.

  She had been out shopping early that morning and everybody was talking about it. The fire had been first noticed in the late evening, but by the time men had been roused to form a bucket chain to douse it with water, the heat was so extreme that nobody could get close enough to make a difference. By early morning, the kabuki was no more than smoldering ashes.

  Akira was out and he had not been back all that night. I dared not venture out myself. If he found out – and he would – I would feel his anger. Instead, I encouraged the maids to pop in and out to bring me whatever gossip they could find.

  It changed from hour to hour. At first, they said that part of the theater still stood. Then no, it had all burned to the ground. The theater people had gone back to the theater, they said, and were standing around, not knowing what to do. Then it was said that they had all been seen leaving Edo, carrying their goods on their backs with the richer ones leading mules and donkeys.

  And then it rained. Not heavy, thunderous rain, but a good, steady downpour that dampened the ashes.

  Then the news that I had half been expecting. A body had been found in the ashes where the stage had been. Enough of it was left to tell it had been a man. A tall man and probably a youngish man. The maid, eyes huge with excitement, said that everyone thought it was Danjuro, come to take his end in the place he loved. Or possibly his ghost. Who knew? Already the ballad makers were working hard on a special piece to mark the tragedy.

  I waved her away and sat quite still, quite silent. I watched the sun work across the tatami matting, and still I waited. Suddenly, a bird came to rest on the open window – a rose finch, his feathers the entire palette of pinks and reds – and he opened his beak and began to sing. I smiled.

  Akira was sad when he finally came in. He didn’t bother to ask if I knew of the tragedy, he simply assumed that I had heard.

  “You have heard about the body they found?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “They say it is Danjuro. Do you think it is?”

  I didn’t bother to lie. What was the point? Akira would have known I was lying immediately, and that would have been very bad for me. “No. I don’t know who it is, but I don’t think it’s Danjuro.”

  Akira simply looked at me, waiting for me to tell him why. So I told him about the finch, and he grinned.

  “You think that was a good omen?” I nodded. “What if it was Danjuro’s spirit, come to say goodbye to you?”

  I tightened my lips to keep the tears back. It was not. I knew it was not.

  “I’m sure it was Danjuro who died.” He was smiling, rocking back on his heels. His expression was odd, almost dreamy. “A lot of people have been saying he died months ago. I thought so too, but now I wonder.” Who had been saying that Danjuro was dead? I had not heard that rumor. I waited, silent. “He would never have wanted to just fade into obscurity. No, the great Danjuro would have wanted to go out with a grand gesture. And now he has. Even though he was my enemy, I admired him. If only the fool had let me buy at least part of the kabuki, this need never have happened. But no, he persuaded the rest of the owners that the kabuki could not fall into the dirty hands of a yakuza. As if my money is different from anybody else’s!”

  “What did you do to drive him away?” I had to ask, no matter what the consequences.

  “Not a thing. What could I, a mere yakuza, do to a great, famous man like Danjuro? I suppose I might have encouraged a few of the better actors that life would be more promising for them in Kyoto. And there again, there may have been a few money-lenders who decided to call in money owed to them by the kabuki. And I did hear that Danjuro himself had received a number of death threats. Surely, none of that could have driven the great man to take his own life? You don’t think for a minute that the loss of the woman he loved could have anything to do with it, do you?”

  Akira rose. He was whistling happily. I watched him leave, showering blessings on his head. Strange that it should take another man to tell me that Danjuro loved me. I was still convinced that my lovely finch had come to sing to me of good news, not bad.

  Akira came to wake me himself next day. He had risen early and gone out, and I had turned over and gone back to sleep. Now he was prodding me with his toe, telling me to go and take a bath. His mood was so good that I was instantly suspicious. But I did as I was told. He watched me while I bathed, still whistling. Once I was dry, he told one of the maids to bring a loose robe for me and then escorted me back to my bedroom.

  “Pin your hair up,” he commanded. “As tightly as you can.”

  As I worked at the unruly curls, he walked round me, rather as if he was viewing a sculpture he might wan
t to buy. I kept my face blank.

  “How long ago did I tell you I was going to put my mark on you?” I paused, suddenly wary. “Didn’t you ever wonder what I meant? Or were you so clever that you thought if you didn’t mention it, I would forget? I wonder about you, sometimes. Are you really so much brighter than I think you are?” What was I supposed to answer to that? He was still smiling when a man bowed himself into my room and began unpacking a wooden box. I stared at the contents and my stomach churned. Now I knew what the yakuza had meant.

  It took the artist the whole of the day. Akira allowed him to pause once, to take a drink and a bite to eat, but it wasn’t until dusk fell that he stood back and announced he had finished.

  “It will take perhaps a week for the swellings to go down, Akira-san,” he said hurriedly. “You will not really be able to see what it is like until then. It will be better covered completely for a few days, with some salve to keep it moist.”

  The nape of my neck, from the hairline to between my shoulder blades, was screaming in pain. I was stiff and cold from being made to sit still for so long, but that pain was nothing compared to how my neck felt.

  Akira arranged for a doctor to come and see me, and to apply something soothing to my skin. He came every day and changed the dressing. It would be fine, he assured me. Absolutely fine. I tried not to move my head, as every movement was sheer agony.

  I expected Akira to share my futon as usual, to gloat over my pain. To rub it in that he had absolute power over me. But to my relief, he did not. I could sense his excitement building, day by day, but I when I saw him, he was almost formal with me. I was bewildered.

  On the seventh day, the doctor came and removed the dressing but did not put a fresh one in its place. As soon as he had gone, Akira came and stood behind me, staring so hard at my neck that I swore I could feel his gaze.

  “You are very beautiful, Kazuha-san. And I have made you even more beautiful. Do you want to look?”