Geisha

by Mineko Iwasaki

My mother looked perplexed. “Well, the name of the family of flowers is cosmos. It is the kind of flower it is.”

  “But we have a family of people living in our house and they each have their own name. That means each of these flowers should have it’s own name too. So I want you to give each of them a name, just like you gave names to us. That way none of them will feel bad.”

  My mother went over to where my father was working. “Masako just said the oddest thing. She wants me to give a name to each one of the cosmos flowers.”

  My father said to me, “We don’t need any more children, so we don’t have to give them names.”

  The thought that we didn’t need any more children made me feel lonely.

  I especially remember one beautiful May afternoon. There was a soft green breeze blowing down from the mountains to the east. The irises were in full bloom and it was perfectly quiet. My mother and I were relaxing on the front verandah. I was sitting on her lap and we were basking in the sunshine. She said to me, “What a lovely day it is today!” I distinctly remember saying to her, “I am so happy.”

  This is the last truly blissful memory I have of my childhood.

  I looked up. There was a woman crossing over the footbridge, approaching the house. She was somehow indistinct, like a mirage.

  Every muscle in my mother’s body tensed. Her heart began to race and she broke out in a sweat. Her smell changed. She shrunk perceptively back into herself, as though she were recoiling in terror. Her arms hugged me tighter in an instinctive gesture of protection. I sensed the danger she felt.

  I watched the woman walk toward us. Suddenly I felt time stop. It was like she was walking toward us in slow motion. I remember exactly what she was wearing. It was a dark kimono belted with an obi that had a beige, brown, and black geometric pattern on it.

  A sudden chill went through me and I ran inside the house to hide in the closet.

  I couldn’t believe what followed next. My father came into the room and this woman began to speak to my parents with pure hatred in her voice. They tried to answer her but she kept interrupting them, becoming increasingly strident and aggressive. Her voice got louder and louder. I didn’t understand most of what she was saying but I knew that she was using a lot of bad words and very rude language. I had never heard anyone use that tone of voice before. She was like some kind of demon. Her harangue seemed to go on for hours. I didn’t know who she was and couldn’t imagine what my parents could have done to make her act like that. At last she left.

  Afterwards, a dark cloud descended on the house. I had never seen my parents so upset. Dinner that night was strained. We couldn’t taste our food. I was very, very scared. I crept over into my mother’s lap and buried my face in her side.

  My brothers and sisters went to bed right after dinner. As always, I stayed nestled with my mother while my parents relaxed around the table, waiting for my father to announce that it was time for us to go to bed. They hardly spoke. It got later and later and my father didn’t move. Finally, I fell asleep in my mother’s arms. I awoke with them and Koro the dog in their futon the next morning.

  The horrible woman showed up again a little while later. This time she brought two boys with her. She left them with us and went away. All I knew about them was that they were her sons.

  The older one was named Mamoru. He was a brat and I didn’t like him very much. He was three years older than I was, the same age as one of my brothers, and the two of them got along together well. The younger one was named Masayuki. He was only ten months older than I was. He was nice and we became friends.

  The boys’ mother came to visit them about once a month. She brought toys and candy for her boys but never anything for us, even though we were children too. It made me remember my father’s saying about the samurai. I couldn’t stand the sight of her. There was something rapacious and cold about her eyes. When she came I would hide in the closet and put my hands over my ears. I wouldn’t come out until she left.

  3

  MY FATHER WAS PLANNING a visit to Madame Oima and asked me if I wanted to go along. I loved going on outings with my father, so I said yes. My father assured me that we were just going for a visit and we could leave anytime that I wanted to.

  I was still scared to walk over the footbridge in front of our house and my father had to pick me up and carry me. We walked to the trolley and boarded the car bound for Sanjo Keihan Station.

  My world at the time was still very small. There weren’t any other houses on our side of the bridge and I didn’t have any playmates. So I was wide-eyed at all the sights of the big city, at the number of houses that lined the streets of Gion Kobu and all the people that were about. It was exciting and a little bit scary. I was already on edge by the time we arrived.

  The Iwasaki okiya was located on Shinbashi Street, three doors east of Hanamikoji Street, built in the elegant architectural style typical of the Kyoto karyukai. It was a long and narrow building with transom windows that fronted the street. I thought it looked forbidding.

  We entered through the genkan (entrance vestibule) and stepped up into the reception room.

  The place was filled with women, all wearing informal kimono. I felt strange. But Madame Oima invited us in with a broad smile on her face. She was effusive in her greetings and hospitality.

  Tomiko appeared. She was wearing an elaborate hairdo. To my astonishment, she looked like a bride, especially her hair.

  Then a woman came into the room attired in Western-style dress.

  My father said, “Masako, this is your older sister.”

  “My name is Kuniko,” she said.

  I was dumbstruck.

  And then, who should walk into the room but that really nasty woman, the one I couldn’t stand, the mother of the boys who were living in our house.

  I started tugging on the sleeve of my father’s kimono and said, “I want to go home.” I couldn’t deal with all this stimulation.

  When we got outside the tears started to fall, slowly and steadily. I didn’t stop crying until we reached the Sanjo Keihan train station. I know that’s where we were because I remember seeing the elementary school with the turrets on top.

  We boarded the train home and I retreated into my customary silence. My father seemed to understand what I was feeling. He didn’t try to talk to me about what had happened but just put a comforting arm around my shoulder.

  The minute we got home and I saw my mother I burst into tears and flung myself hysterically into her arms. After a while I extricated myself from her lap and went inside the closet.

  My parents left me alone and I ended up spending the night buried in the dark.

  The next day I came out of the closet but I was still very upset from my trip to the Iwasaki okiya. What I had seen of the karyukai was so different from everything I knew. My small world was beginning to shatter. I was confused and scared, and spent most of the time hugging myself, staring off into space.

  About two weeks later I resumed my normal routine. I did my daily chores and went back to “work.” When I was too big to sit in my father’s lap, he had taken an orange crate, turned it into a desk for me, and put it next to his. I spent hours happily occupied by his side.

  Madame Oima chose to pay us a visit on that very day. The mere sight of her sent me into a tailspin and I was right back in the closet. But it was worse this time. I was so scared of going outside that I wouldn’t even go out to play under the pepper tree on the other side of the pond. I clung to my parents constantly and refused to leave their sides.

  But still, Madame Oima kept coming and asking for me.

  This went on for a few months. My father was worried about me and tried to come up with a way to lure me back out into the world.

  He hit upon a plan. One day he said to me: “I have to make a kimono delivery in town. Would you like to come with me?” He knew how much I loved to go places alone with him. I was still leery of what might happen but, even though I was suspicious, I said that I wo
uld go.

  He took me to a kimono fabric shop somewhere on Muromachi Street. When we walked in the door the proprietor greeted my father with great deference. My father told me that he had some business to discuss and asked me to wait for him in the store.

  The salespeople entertained me by showing me the different items that were for sale. I was fascinated by the variety and richness of the kimono and obi. I could see, clearly and in spite of my age, that my father’s kimono were the most beautiful ones in the store.

  I couldn’t wait to tell my mother everything that had happened and, when we got home, couldn’t stop talking about the kimono I had seen. I went into a long-winded explanation about each one. My parents had never heard me talk for such a long stretch before and couldn’t get over the amount of detail that I had retained. And about kimono, of all things. I made a big point of telling my mother how proud I was that my father’s kimono were the most beautiful ones in the store.

  My father said, “Masako, it makes me very happy that you liked the kimono so much. I have something I need to talk to Madame Oima about. Would you come with me when I go to see her? If we get there and you don’t like it, we can turn right around and come home. I promise.”

  I was still vaguely disturbed at the thought of going, but I have an almost morbid compulsion to conquer whatever scares me, and I guess this trait was already evident when I was three. I agreed to make the journey.

  We went soon after. I was quiet but not as upset as I had been the first time. I hardly remembered any details of the house from my first visit, but the second time I went I was calm enough to pay attention to my surroundings.

  We entered the house through an old-fashioned genkan that had a floor of tamped earth instead of wood. The genkan fronted directly onto a tatami room, or reception area. There was a lovely screen at the rear of this room that hid the inner rooms of the house from view. In front of the screen was a flower arrangement. On the right side of the entranceway a tall shoe cupboard stood from floor to ceiling. Beyond that was a closet filled with dishes and braziers and chopsticks and other tableware. There was a wooden ice box, the old-fashioned kind that was cooled by blocks of ice.

  The genkan opened on a corridor that ran the entire length of the house, a long earthen passageway. There was a scullery on the right side, complete with cookstoves. The rooms of the house were off to the left of the corridor.

  The rooms were one behind the other, like a long railroad flat. The first room was a reception room or parlor. Beyond that was the dining room, where the geiko family gathered to eat and relax. It had a rectangular brazier in the corner and a stairway leading up to the second floor. The sliding doors of the dining room were open, revealing a formal living room that contained a large standing altar. Outside the altar room was an enclosed garden.

  Madame Oima invited us into the dining room. I saw a young maiko. She was wearing ordinary clothes and her face wasn’t made up, but she still had traces of white makeup on her neck. We sat down across from Madame Oima at the rectangular brazier. She sat with her back facing the garden, while we visitors were treated to the view. My father bowed and paid his respects.

  Madame Oima kept smiling at me as she spoke with my father. “I am happy to report that Tomiko’s lessons are going well. She seems to have a natural ear and is learning to play the shamisen beautifully. Her teachers and I are extremely pleased with her progress.”

  I heard a rustling sound coming from the earthen-floored passageway. I stuck my head down to investigate and found a dog lying there.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him. The only response I got was a bark.

  “Oh,” Madame Oima said, “That’s John.”

  “Big John would be a better name for him,” I responded.

  “Well then, in that case I think we should go ahead and call him Big John,” Madame Oima answered.

  Just then another lady appeared. She was beautiful but had a nasty look on her face. Madame Oima called her Masako, the same name as me. But I gave her a nickname in my head. I called her Old Meanie. Madame Oima told my father that this was the geiko who was going to be Tomiko’s “older sister.”

  “I think the name John is fine,” she said in a snotty tone of voice.

  “But Miss Masako thinks that Big John is a better name,” countered Madame Oima, “and if that is what Miss Masako here thinks, then that is what we are going to call him. Listen everyone. From now on I want you all to call the dog Big John.”

  I remember this conversation verbatim because I was so impressed by Madame Oima’s power. She had the power to change the name of a dog, just like that. And everybody had to listen to her and do what she said. Even Old Meanie.

  I immediately bonded with Big John. Madame Oima said that Tomiko and I could take him out for a walk. Tomiko told me where Big John came from. She said that some dog had an illicit affair with a collie that belonged to a famous pickle-maker in the neighborhood and that Big John was the result.

  Someone stopped us on the street.

  “Who is that beautiful little girl? Is she an Iwasaki?” the woman asked.

  “No, she’s just my baby sister,” Tomiko answered.

  Then a few minutes later somebody else said, “What an adorable Iwasaki!” and my sister said again, “No, she’s just my baby sister.”

  This kept happening. My sister was getting very annoyed. It was making me uncomfortable so I asked Tomiko if we could go back. Before she could answer yes, Big John turned on his own and started heading for home.

  Big John was a great dog. He was exceptionally intelligent and lived until the venerable age of eighteen. I always had the feeling that he could understand me.

  We returned to the Iwasaki okiya and I said to my father, “It’s time to go home, Daddy. I’m leaving.” I blurted out a polite “Bye” to everyone else and, stroking Big John, proceeded to bounce out the door. My father said a proper good-bye and followed after me.

  He took my hand as we walked to the tram station. I had no idea what my father and Madame Oima had been talking about while Tomiko and I were out but I could tell that my father was agitated and upset. I began to suspect that something was really wrong.

  As soon as we got home I went straight into the closet. I overheard my parents talking. My father said, “You know, Chie, I just don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can bear to let her go.” My mother answered, “I don’t think I can either.”

  I began to spend even more time in the closet, my quiet womb within the bustle of family life.

  That April my oldest brother Seiichiro got a job with the national railway. The night he brought home his first paycheck we had sukiyaki to celebrate, and everyone gathered around the table to share in the feast. My father made me get out of the closet and come to dinner.

  My father was in the habit of making a little speech each night before we ate. He would recount the important events of the day and congratulate us on our achievements, such as an honor at school or a birthday.

  I was sitting in his lap when he proceeded to congratulate my brother on his independence.

  “Today your brother Seiichiro begins to contribute to the household expenses. He is now an adult. I hope the rest of you children learn from his good example. When you become self-supporting, I want you to think of other people beside yourselves and contribute to their welfare and well-being. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  We answered in unison, “Yes, we understand. Congratulations, Seiichiro.”

  My father said, “Very good,” and then proceeded to eat. I couldn’t reach the sukiyaki from where I was sitting on my father’s lap and said, “Daddy, what about me?” “Oops, I was forgetting about Masako,” he said and started to feed me from the sukiyaki pot.

  My parents were in a good mood. As I chewed first one piece of beef and then another, I started to think about how happy they were and the more I thought the quieter I got and the less I wanted to eat.

  I started to think. Would it be bette
r if I went to the Iwasaki okiya? How was I going to do it? How was I going to get there? I had to think of a plan.

  One of my favorite outings was our annual cherry blossom–viewing excursion, so I asked my parents, “Can we go see the cherry blossoms? And then can we visit the Iwasaki okiya?” There was no logical connection. We always picnicked under the trees that lined the banks of the canal, literally steps from our front door. But I knew the cherry blossoms would never look the same from the other side of the canal.

  My father responded immediately. “Chie, let’s make a plan to see the cherry blossoms.”

  “It’s a lovely idea,” my mother answered. “I’ll plan a picnic lunch.”

  “But right after we look at the cherry blossoms we can visit the Iwasaki okiya, right?”

  They knew how stubborn I was once I got hold of an idea. My father tried to distract me.

  “I think we should go to the Miyako Odori after we look at the cherry blossoms. Don’t you think that’s a better idea, Chie?” he asked my mother.

  I interrupted before she could answer.

  “I’m going to the Iwasaki okiya after we look at the cherry blossoms. I’m not going to see the Miyako Odori!”

  “What are you saying, Masako?” asked my father. “Tell me why you want to go to the Iwasaki okiya?”

  “Because I want to go,” I stated. “Then that lady will stop being mean to you and Mom. I want to go right away.”

  “Hold on there a minute, Masako. The situation between that lady and Madame Oima and us has nothing to do with you. You are too little to understand what is going on, but we owe Madame Oima an enormous debt of gratitude. And your sister Tomiko has gone to the Iwasaki okiya to uphold our honor. You don’t have to worry about it. It is something that we grown-ups have to take care of by ourselves.”

  My father finally agreed to let me spend one night at the Iwasaki okiya. I wanted to take my favorite blanket and pillow. My mother gathered them together and packed. I sat on the front stoop and stared at the bridge.

  It was time to go. My mother came outside to see us off. When we got to the bridge my father leaned down to pick me up and carry me as always but I said, “No, I’m going to do it myself.”