Geisha

by Mineko Iwasaki

  Right after everyone got home it started to pour. The rain was coming down in buckets. In what seemed like minutes, the pond began to overflow its banks and the water started flooding into the house. We all rushed around in a frenzy taking up the tatami (straw matting). I found the whole thing very amusing.

  After we rescued all of the tatami that we could, we each got two pieces of strawberry candy that had a picture of a strawberry on the wrapper. We were all running around the house and eating the candy. A few of the tatami mats were floating on the water. My parents got on them and started using them like rafts, propelling themselves from room to room. They were having more fun than anybody else.

  The next day my father gathered us together and said, “Alright everyone. We’ve got to clean up the house, inside and out. Seiichiro, you take a crew and work on the back bluff, Ryozo, you take a crew out to the bamboo grove, Kozo, you take a crew to clean the tatami, and Fumio, take your baby sister Masako and get instructions from your mother. Understand? Go out there and do a good job!”

  “And you, Dad, what are you going to do?” We all wanted to know.

  “Someone has to stay here and man the castle,” he said.

  His battle cry energized us but there was one problem. All we had to eat the night before was that strawberry candy and we had been too hungry to sleep. We were famished. All of our food had been lost in the flood.

  When we complained to my father he said: “An army can’t fight on an empty stomach. So you’d better go out and scour for provisions. Bring them back to the castle and prepare for a siege.”

  After receiving their orders, my older brothers and sisters went out and came back with rice and firewood. At that moment, I was very glad to have brothers and sisters, and grateful for the riceball I was given to eat.

  Everybody stayed home from school that day and slept like there was no tomorrow.

  Another day, I went to feed the chickens and retrieve the eggs as usual. The mother hen was named Nikki. She became angry and chased me back into the house, where she caught up with me and bit my leg. My father got furious and caught the hen.

  He picked her up and said, “I’m going to kill you for this.” He wrung her neck right then and there and hung her dead body under the eaves of the house by her neck. (Usually he hung them by their feet.) He left her there until everyone got home from school.

  When they saw her they all thought “Yummy! We’re having chicken-in-the-pot tonight.” But my father said to them sternly. “Take a good look at this and learn something from it. This dumb beast took a bite out of our precious Masako. It ended up dead as a result. Remember. It is never okay to hurt other people or cause them pain. I will not permit it. Understand?” We all pretended that we did.

  That night we had chicken-in-the-pot made from the unfortunate Nikki. I couldn’t eat it.

  My father said, “Masako, you have to forgive Nikki. Most of the time she was a good chicken. You should eat so that Nikki can attain Buddhahood.”

  “But my tummy hurts. Why don’t you and Mommy help Nikki become Buddha, instead.” Then I said a little prayer.

  “That’s a good idea. Let’s do what Masako says and all eat the chicken so that it can attain Buddhahood.”

  Everyone said a prayer for the bird, dug in and thoroughly enjoyed helping Nikki become a Buddha.

  Another time, in a rare show of conviviality, I was playing together with everyone else. We went up onto the mountain on the right side of our house. We dug a big hole and took everything out of the kitchen, all the pots and pans and dishes, and dumped them into the hole.

  We were playing near my brother’s secret fort. We were having a great time when my older brother dared me to climb a pine tree that was right there.

  The branch broke and I fell into the pond in front of our house. My father’s studio faced the pond. He heard the big splash when I fell. He must have been surprised but he didn’t overreact. He looked at me and asked calmly, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m in the pond,” I said.

  “It’s too cold to be in the pond. What if you catch a cold? I think you’d better get out of there.”

  “I’ll get out in a couple of minutes.”

  At that point my mother showed up and took charge. “Stop teasing her,” she said. “Get out of there this instant!”

  My father reluctantly picked me up out of the pond and summarily deposited me in the bathtub.

  This should have been the end of it, but then my mother went into the kitchen to make dinner. Everything was gone. She called out to my father, who was taking a bath with me.

  “Dear, I’m afraid there’s a problem. I won’t be able to make dinner. What should I do?”

  “What in the world are you talking about? Why can’t you make dinner?”

  “Because there’s nothing’s here. All our things are missing!”

  I overheard this conversation and figured I’d better alert everybody to her discovery so I started to head out the door. My father grabbed me by the collar and held me fast.

  Pretty soon everybody came home. (It would have been better if they hadn’t.) My father prepared to mete out his customary punishment in which he lined them up and hit each one over the head with a bamboo sword. I usually stood by his side while he did it (thinking, “I bet that hurts”). But not this time. That day he yelled at me: “You too, Masako. You’re part of this.” I started whimpering as he lined me up with the others. I remember saying “Daddy” but he ignored me. “This is also your doing.” He didn’t hit me as hard as he hit the others but it was still a great shock. He had never hit me before.

  We didn’t get any dinner. My brothers and sisters cried while they took their baths. Then we were sent to sleep. My brother complained he was so hungry that he floated in the bathtub like a balloon.

  My parents’ involvement in aesthetic pursuits meant that our house was full of beautiful objects: quartz crystals that glittered in the sunshine, fragrant pine and bamboo decorations that we hung up for the New Year, exotic-looking tools and implements my mother used for preparing herbal medicines, shiny musical instruments like my father’s bamboo shakuhachi flute and my mother’s one-stringed koto, and a collection of fine handcrafted ceramicware. The house also boasted it’s own bathtub, the old-fashioned kind that looked like an enormous iron soup kettle.

  My father was the ruler of this little kingdom. He had his studio at home, and he worked there with a few of his many apprentices. My mother learned the traditional kind of Japanese tie-dyeing known as roketsuzome from my father and became a professional in the field. My parents were known for their herbal remedies. People were constantly coming over to ask them to concoct something for them.

  My mother did not have a strong constitution. She suffered from malaria and it had weakened her heart. Yet she still had the fortitude and perseverance to give birth to eleven children.

  When I couldn’t be with one of my parents I preferred my own company to anyone else’s. I didn’t even like to play with my sisters. I loved silence and couldn’t stand all the noise that the other kids made. When they came home from school I would go hide or find some other way to ignore them.

  I spent a lot of time hiding. Japanese houses are small and sparsely furnished by Western standards, but they have enormous closets. That is because we store many household items in them when not in use, such as our bedding. Whenever I was upset or uncomfortable about something, or I wanted to concentrate or just relax, I would head into the closet.

  My parents understood my need to be alone and never forced me to play with the older kids. Of course they kept an eye on me, but they always let me have my own space.

  Yet I do remember wonderful times when the family was all together. My favorite of these were the beautiful moonlit nights when my parents would perform duets, he on the shakuhachi and she on the koto. We would gather round to listen to them play. I had no idea how soon these idyllic interludes were going to end.

  But soon they did.<
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  1Editor’s Note: Japanese names are herein written with given name first and family name second, as in the West, except in the case of historical personages, in which the order is reversed according to Japanese custom. Also, following common usage, Japanese nouns are not given a plural form.

  2

  ICAN IDENTIFY THE EXACT MOMENT when things began to change.

  I had just turned three. It was a cold winter afternoon. My parents had a visitor. A woman. A very old woman. I was shy in front of outsiders and hid in the closet as soon as she stepped into the entranceway. I sat in the dark listening to their conversation. There was something oddly compelling about this woman. I was fascinated by the way she talked.

  The visitor’s name was Madame Oima. She was the proprietress of the Iwasaki okiya in Gion Kobu and had come to ask if my sister Tomiko might be interested in becoming a geiko. Tomiko had visited the Iwasaki okiya a number of times, and Madame Oima could see her potential.

  Tomiko was the most delicate and refined of my sisters. She loved kimono, and traditional music, and fine ceramics, and was always asking my parents questions about these things. She was fourteen. I didn’t understand everything they were talking about but I understood that this lady was offering Tomiko a job.

  I didn’t understand that the Iwasaki okiya was in severe financial straits. All I knew was that my parents were treating her with a marked degree of respect and that she projected the greatest air of authority of anyone I had ever met. I could feel the regard in which my parents held her.

  Drawn by her voice, I slid open the door of the closet about 3 centimeters and peeked out to see who the voice was coming from.

  The lady noticed that I had opened the door and said, “Chiesan, who is in the closet?”

  My mother laughed and said, “That’s my youngest, Masako.”

  When I heard my name I came out into the room.

  The lady looked at me for a second. Her body was very still but I saw her eyes widen. “Oh, my goodness,” she said. “What black hair and black eyes! And such tiny red lips! What an exquisite child!”

  My father introduced us.

  She kept looking at me but addressed my father. “You know, Mr. Tanaka, I have been looking for an atotori (“one who comes after” or successor) for a very long time and I have the oddest sensation that I may have just found her.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. I didn’t know what an atotori was or why she needed one. But I felt the energy in her body change.

  It is said that a person who has the eyes to see can penetrate to the core of a person’s character, no matter how old that person might be.

  “I’m serious,” she said. “Masako is a magnificent little girl. I’ve been in this business a long time and I can tell she is a treasure. Please consider the possibility of enrolling her in the Iwasaki okiya as well. Really. I think she could have a wonderful future there. I know she’s still a baby, but please, won’t you think about allowing her to train for a career?”

  Training to become a geiko in Gion Kobu is a closed system. It is organized in a way that only girls living in an okiya in Gion Kobu are able to study all the requisite disciplines with the accredited schools and teachers and are able to meet the demands of the grueling schedule. There is no way to become a geiko while living on the outside.

  My father was clearly nonplussed by this unexpected turn of events and didn’t answer her right away. Finally he said, “We will discuss your offer to Tomiko with her in depth and we will encourage her to accept your proposal, although the ultimate decision is up to her. We will get back to you as soon as she has made up her mind. But about Masako. I’m terribly sorry, but I can’t even consider it. I simply won’t give up another one of my daughters.” If Tomiko agreed to join the Iwasaki okiya he would have already given up four of his seven girls.

  Let me explain what I mean by give up. When a young girl leaves to join an okiya it is like she is going to full-time boarding school. In most cases she will still go home to visit her parents when she has time off from school, and they are free to visit her whenever they like. That is the usual scenario. However, when a girl is chosen to be the successor to a house and its name, she is adopted by the proprietress as legal heir. In that case she takes the name of the okiya family and effectively leaves her birth family for good.

  Madame Oima was eighty years old and deeply concerned about the fact that she had not yet secured a proper successor. None of the women presently under her management were qualified, and she couldn’t die without finding someone. The Iwasaki okiya owned millions of dollars worth of property (real estate, kimono, priceless art and ornaments) and supported a staff of over twenty people. She was responsible for insuring that the business continued. She needed an heir to guarantee its future.

  Madame Oima visited us many times that year to discuss Tomiko’s enrollment. But she was campaigning to win me over as well.

  My parents never discussed any of this in front of me, but I imagine they explained it all to Tomiko. Madame Oima was the woman to whom they had entrusted my oldest sister Yaeko all those years ago. Madame Oima appointed Yaeko her atotori and raised her to be a geiko. But Yaeko deserted Gion Kobu without fulfilling her obligations to Madame Oima. This was a great embarrassment to my parents. They hoped Tomiko’s tenure would help make up for Yaeko’s defection.

  There was no way for Tomiko to become the next atotori, however. At fourteen, she was considered too old. Ideally, atotori are groomed from the time they are little girls.

  Nobody told me she was leaving. I guess my parents thought I was too young to understand what was going on so they didn’t try to explain it to me. All I knew was that Tomiko graduated from junior high school one day, went away for spring vacation the next, and never came home. (Under modern law, a girl must graduate from junior high school before she is allowed to enter geiko training school.)

  I was sorry that she wasn’t there. She was my favorite sister. She was smarter and seemed more competent than the others.

  Tomiko’s move didn’t curtail Madame Oima’s visits, however. She still wanted me too. Despite my father’s protests, she continued to pursue the matter. She kept coming back to visit and each time she did she asked for me again, month after month. And, month after month, my father continued, albeit politely, to refuse her.

  Madame Oima used every argument she could to convince him that I would have a brilliant career with her and that they shouldn’t stand in my way. She begged my father to reconsider. I specifically remember her telling him, “The Iwasaki is by far the best okiya in the Gion, and we can provide Masako with greater opportunities than she will find anywhere else.”

  Eventually Madame Oima’s persistence began to wear down my father’s resolve. I sensed the shift in his position.

  One day I was cuddled up in my father’s lap while the two of them were talking. She brought the subject up yet again. My father laughed. “Okay, okay, Madame Iwasaki, it’s still too soon but someday, I promise, I will bring her along to visit you. You never know, it’s up to her, maybe she’ll like it.” I think he said that just to put an end to her pestering.

  I decided it was time for Madame Oima to go home. I knew people usually went to the bathroom before they left the house so I turned to her and said, “Pee.” She thought I was asking, rather than commanding, and inquired graciously if I wanted her to take me to the bathroom. I nodded, got off my father’s lap, and took her hand. When we got there I said, “There,” and marched back into the parlor.

  Madame Oima came back a few moments later.

  “Thank you for taking such good care of me,” she said to me.

  “Go home,” I replied.

  “Yes, I should be going. Mr. Tanaka, I’ll take my leave. I think we made some real progress here today.” And with that, she left.

  I didn’t spend many years under my parents’ roof, but during the short time I was with them they taught me lessons that were to serve me in good stead for the res
t of my life. Especially my father. He did everything he could to teach me the value of independence and responsibility. Above all, he instilled within me a deep sense of pride.

  My father had two favorite sayings. One is a saying about samurai. It is a kind of proverb that says a samurai must keep to a higher standard than the common man. Even if he has nothing to eat, he pretends that he has plenty, meaning that a samurai never lets go of his pride. But he also used it to mean that a warrior never betrays weakness in the face of adversity. His other expression was “hokori o motsu.”“Hold on to your pride.” Live with dignity, no matter what the circumstance.

  He repeated these aphorisms so often and with such conviction that we accepted them as gospel.

  Everyone says I was a strange little girl. My parents told me that I almost never cried, even as an infant. They were worried that maybe I was hard of hearing or had something wrong with my voice or was even somewhat retarded. My father would sometimes put his mouth up to my ear and speak loudly or wake me up on purpose when I was deep asleep. I’d look startled but I didn’t cry.

  As I got older they realized that I was fine, just inordinately quiet. I loved to daydream. I remember wanting to know the names of all the flowers and birds and mountains and rivers. I believed that if I asked them they would tell me what they were called. I didn’t want other people to spoil it by giving me the information. I believed that if I looked at something long enough it would talk to me. I still do.

  One time my mother and I were looking at a lot of white and peach–colored cosmos that were blooming on the other side of the pond outside our house. I asked her, “What’s the name of this flower?”

  “Cosmos,” she answered.

  “Hmm, cosmos. And what is this little one called?”

  “That’s a cosmos too,” she answered.

  “What do you mean? How can two different flowers have the same name?”