Geisha

by Mineko Iwasaki

  This was the time of day I did my “shopping.” It was simple, really. I went into a store and picked out what I wanted or needed. The maid said, “It’s for the Iwasakis of Shinbashi,” and the shopkeeper handed me the item. A pencil. An eraser. A ribbon for my hair.

  I didn’t know what money was. For years I believed that all you had to do to get something was to ask for it. And if you said, “It’s for the Iwasakis of Shinbashi,” you could get anything at all.

  By now I was getting used to the fact that I was sort of an Iwasaki. But then, that first year of school, Old Meanie showed up on Parents’ Day instead of my mother and father. She wore a light purple kimono with a sharkskin pattern and a fancy black haori (a jacket-like garment worn over kimono). She had on heavy makeup and strong perfume. Every time she fluttered her fan a cloud of scent wafted into the room. It was very upsetting.

  The next day my classmates called me “Little Miss Geiko” and said that I was adopted. I got angry because it wasn’t true.

  The next time there was a parents’ function at school Old Meanie was busy and Kuniko came in her place. That made me much happier.

  I liked going to school. I liked learning things. But I was painfully shy and kept mostly to myself. The teachers went out of their way to play with me. Even the principal tried to coax me out of my shell.

  There was one little girl whom I liked. Her name was Hikari, or Sunbeam. She was extraordinary looking. Her hair was golden blond. I thought she was very lovely.

  Hikari didn’t have any friends either. I approached her and we began to play together. We spent hours whispering and giggling under the ginkgo tree on the playground. I would have given anything for hair like hers.

  Most days I tore out of school as soon as the bell rang, anxious to get to my dance lesson. I had the maid tidy up my desk for me and ran home ahead of her. But once in a while the dance teachers were busy with something else and we had an afternoon off.

  One time when I wasn’t busy Hikari-chan invited me to come over after school. I was supposed to go straight home but decided to go with her instead.

  Kaachan came to pick me up that day. She was a tattletale who had a habit of stealing things. Darn, I thought. I guess I’ll just have to trust her.“Kaachan, there’s something I have to do. Please go have a cup of tea and I’ll meet you back here in an hour. And promise me you won’t tell Auntie Oima. Understand?”

  Hikari-chan lived alone with her mother in a skinny little row house surrounded by neighbors. “How terribly convenient,” I remember thinking, “to have everything and everyone so close by.” Hikari’s mother was gentle and warm. She served us an after-school snack. I didn’t usually eat snacks. My older brothers and sisters were always scrambling to get whatever there was, so I never ate anything. In this case I made an exception.

  The time flew and soon I had to leave.

  I went back to Kaachan and she took me home. As soon as we arrived, it was obvious that news of my whereabouts had preceded me.

  Auntie Oima scolded me severely. “I forbid you to go there again,” she yelled. “Do you understand, young lady? Never, ever again!”

  I wasn’t in the habit of talking back to her, but I was confused by her anger and tried to explain. I told her all about Hikari-chan, and how sweet her mother was, and how they lived with all these nice people, and what a good time I had when I was there. But she refused to listen to anything I had to say. It was my first encounter with prejudice, and I honestly didn’t understand it.

  There is a group of people in Japan called the burakumin. They are considered unclean and inferior, somewhat like the untouchables in India. In olden times this group took care of the dead and handled other “polluted” substances like beef and leather. They were the undertakers, the butchers, the shoemakers. The burakumin are no longer as segregated as they once were, but were still largely confined to ghettos when I was growing up.

  I had unwittingly crossed a line. Not only was Hikari-chan an outcast, but she was also a half-breed, fathered out of wedlock by an American GI. It was all too much for Auntie Oima, who couldn’t contain her fear that I would be contaminated by association. Keeping my reputation unsullied was one of her major preoccupations. Thus the hysteria generated by my innocent “transgression.”

  I was very frustrated and took my anger out on poor Kaachan for tattling. I’m afraid I made her life miserable for a while. But then I started to feel sorry for her. She came from a poor family and had lots of brothers and sisters. I caught her pilfering small items from the house to send to them. Instead of telling on her, I gave her little presents so she wouldn’t have to steal.

  Hikari-chan and her mother moved away soon after this incident. I often wondered what became of her.

  But life was too full for me to dwell on anything for very long. When I was seven I became self-conscious of the fact that I was a “very busy person.” I always had somewhere to go, something to do, someone to see. I felt like I needed to finish whatever I was doing as quickly as possible and trained myself to be incisive and efficient. I was in an eternal rush.

  My longest sprint of the day came between the end of school and the beginning of dance class. I got out of school at 2:30. Dance lessons started at 3:00 and I wanted to be the first one there, by 2:45 if possible. So I raced back to the okiya. Kuniko had my dance clothes ready and she changed me from Western dress into kimono. Then I bolted out the door. Kuniko, carrying my dance bag, trailed behind me.

  By this time I had grown very attached to Kuniko and was as protective of her as she was of me. I hated it when people treated her like she was inferior. Yaeko was the worst offender. She called Kuniko ugly names like “pumpkin face” and “mountain monkey.” This infuriated me, but I had no idea how to combat it.

  It was Kuniko’s responsibility to take me to dance class and bring me home. She never missed a day, no matter how busy she was at the okiya. I devised a whole roster of daily rituals that I performed on my way to and from dancing school. Kuniko patiently endured my routine. There were three things I had to do on my way to class.

  First I had to take a piece of molasses candy to Mother Sakaguchi’s house. (I thought up this idea by myself and put it into action.) Mother Sakaguchi gave me a snack in exchange. I put the snack in my bag for later.

  Next I had to stop at the shrine and say a prayer.

  Third I had to run and pet Dragon, the big white dog who lived in the florist shop.

  Then I could go to class.

  Kuniko was always waiting to take me back to the okiya. I enjoyed the route home immensely.

  First we went to the florist shop and I fed the snack that Mother Sakaguchi had given me to Dragon. Then I looked around the store. I loved the flowers because they reminded me of my mother. The girl in the shop let me pick one out in exchange for bringing a treat to Dragon. I thanked her and brought the flower to the owner of the take-out gourmet shop down the block. In return, she cut two slices of dashimaki, a sweet omelet made in the shape of a jelly roll, and gave them to me to take home.

  Dashimaki was Auntie Oima’s favorite snack. When I proudly handed her the package, she always grinned with delight and acted surprised. Every single day. Then she burst into song. There is a song she sang whenever she was happy, a famous jingle that goes su-isu-isu-daradattasurasurasuisuisui. To fool me, she would substitute an incorrect consonant and I had to correct her before she would eat the dashimaki. Then I would sit down and tell her everything I had done that day.

  The first time I had to go to Family Court was when I was in the second grade. I was eight years old. Old Meanie took me. My mother and father were there. Before I could be adopted, the court had to ascertain that I wanted to become an Iwasaki of my own free will.

  I was completely torn and unable to make a decision. The whole thing was so stressful that I threw up violently in front of everybody in the courtroom. I wasn’t yet ready to leave my parents.

  The judge said “This child is obviously too young to know
what she wants to do. We have to wait until she is old enough to know her own mind.”

  Old Meanie took me home to the okiya.

  12

  MY LIFE BEGAN TO REVOLVE around going to Shinmonzen and I tried to spend as much time in the school as possible. With each passing day I became more passionate about the dance and increasingly determined to become a truly great dancer.

  One day I arrived at Shinmonzen and heard Big Mistress speaking with someone in her studio. I was disappointed because I liked to have the first lesson. When I entered the room I saw that the woman, though older, was stunning. There was something about the way she carried herself. I was immediately intrigued.

  Big Mistress told me to join in the lesson. The older woman bowed and welcomed me. Big Mistress taught us a dance entitled Ebony Hair. We practiced it quite a few times. The woman was an exquisite dancer. At first I felt quite self-conscious dancing with her but soon got lost in the flow of the movements.

  Big Mistress criticized my work, as always. “That’s too slow, Mine-chan. Pick up the tempo.” “Your arms are sloppy. Make them tighter.” But she didn’t say one word to the other woman.

  After we finished Big Mistress introduced me to the guest. Her name was Han Takehara.

  Madame Takehara was considered one of the greatest dancers of her generation. She was a master in a number of different schools who penetrated to the core of the medium by pioneering an innovative style of her own. I was privileged to have danced beside her.

  From the time I was little, I loved to observe accomplished dancers and sought the opportunity to study with them whenever possible. This is one of the reasons I spent so much time at Shinmonzen, because dancers came from all over Japan to study with the iemoto. Some of the women whom I met in those early years are now the iemoto of their own schools. Of course, I also spent countless hours observing Inoue teachers and students at their lessons.

  A few months after my first (flawed) recital, I was chosen to dance a child’s role in the Onshukai Dances that took place that fall. This was the first time I appeared on a public stage. I danced in the Miyako Odori the following spring, and continued to dance children’s roles until I was eleven. Being on stage was a great education, because I got to feel and experience the dancers up close.

  Unbeknownst to me, Auntie Oima invited my parents to attend every one of my performances, and, as far as I know, they always came. My eyesight was so poor that I couldn’t pick out individuals in the audience, but somehow I always knew they were there. Like little children everywhere, my heart cried out to them, “Look at me, Mom and Dad! Look at me dance! Aren’t I getting good?”

  We have school on Saturday in Japan, so Sunday was my only day off.

  Instead of sleeping in, I got up early and ran over to Shinmonzen, because it was so much fun for me to check out what the iemoto and the little mistresses did in the morning. Some days I got there at six A.M.! (I said my prayers and cleaned the toilets after I got back from the studio.) Children’s classes started at eight o’clock on Sunday, so I had plenty of time to follow the little mistresses and watch what they were doing.

  The first thing Big Mistress did was say her prayers, just like Auntie Oima. While she was in the altar room, the little mistresses cleaned the school. They wiped down the wood surfaces of the stage and the long corridors with rags and scrubbed the toilets. I was impressed. Even though they were my teachers they had to follow the same routine I did, because they were still disciples of Big Mistress.

  Big Mistress and the little mistresses ate breakfast together. Then Big Mistress gave lessons to the little mistresses and I got to watch. This was the highlight of my week.

  I also enjoyed the summers, which in Kyoto are hot and humid. As part of my training, every summer day I had to sit behind Big Mistress and cool her with a big round paper fan. I loved the job. It was a perfect chance to watch her giving lessons, uninterrupted, for long stretches of time. The other girls didn’t like to do it much, but I was able to sit there for hours. Eventually Big Mistress would make me take a break. The other girls played paper/scissors/rock to decide who got the next turn. Ten minutes later I was back to start fanning again.

  Along with the dance, I was working hard on my music. When I was ten years old I put away the koto and began to study the shamisen, a stringed instrument that has a square body and a long neck and is played with a plectrum. Shamisen music is the customary accompaniment to Kyoto-style dance, including the Inoue School. Studying the music helped me understand the subtle rhythms of the movement.

  There are two words that mean dance in Japanese. One is mai and the other is odori.

  Mai is considered sanctified movement, and is derived from the sacred dances of Shrine maidens that have been performed since ancient times as offerings to the gods. It can only be performed by people who are specifically trained and authorized to do so. Odori, on the other hand, is dance that celebrates the vicissitudes of human life; that commemorates joyous occasions and solemnizes sad ones. It is the kind of dance commonly seen during Japanese festivals, and can be performed by anyone.

  There are only three forms of dance that are termed mai: mikomai, dances of the Shinto shrine maidens, bugaku, dances of the imperial court, and noh mai, dances of the Noh drama. Kyoto-style dance is mai, not odori. The Inoue School is specifically associated with noh mai and is stylistically similar.

  By the time I was ten I was aware of these distinctions. I was proud that I was a dancer of mai and a member of the Inoue School. I was perhaps a little too proud. I became a real stickler for detail.

  One cold winter day I arrived freezing at the studio and went to the hibachi to warm up. There was a teenage girl in the room whom I had never seen before. I could tell by her hairstyle and what she was wearing that she was a shikomisan.

  Shikomisan is the term used for someone who is in the first stage of apprenticeship to become a geiko, specifically one who is under contract to an okiya. I, for example, was never called a shikomisan because I was an atotori.

  The shikomisan was sitting in the coldest part of the room, near the door. “Come sit next to the fire,” I told her. “What’s your name?”

  “Tazuko Mekuta.”

  “I’ll call you Meku-chan.”

  I thought she was probably five or six years older than I. But in the Inoue School seniority is determined by date of matriculation not biological age. So she was my “junior.”

  I took off my tabi. “Meku-chan, my little toe itches.”

  I stuck out my foot and she respectfully stroked it.

  Meku-chan was sweet and gentle and had the most striking eyes. She reminded me of my older sister Yukiko. I instantly fell in love.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t attend the school for very long. I missed her and was hoping to find another friend like her. So I was excited, later that winter, when I went to the hibachi and saw a new girl about Meku-chan’s age sitting there. But this girl was already nestled up to the brazier and ignored me when I came into the room. She didn’t even say hello. Since she was the newcomer, this was inexcusably rude.

  “You can’t sit next to the hibachi,” I finally said.

  “And why not?” she responded, indifferently.

  “What’s your name anyway?” I asked.

  “My name’s Toshimi Suganuma.” She didn’t say “How do you do?”

  I was annoyed, but I also felt it was my responsibility as her “senior” to make her a gift of my superior knowledge and explain how we did things here in the Inoue School.

  I tried to make a point.

  “When did you start taking lessons?”

  I wanted her to realize that I had been there longer than she had and that she was supposed to treat me with respect.

  But she didn’t understand. “Oh, I dunno. A while ago, I guess.”

  I was trying to figure out what to say to make her understand her deficiencies when she was called away to her lesson.

  This was a real problem. I would have to d
iscuss it with Auntie Oima.

  I left school as soon as my lesson was over and accomplished my dog, flower, dashimaki routine as quickly as possible. I ran the rest of the way home.

  I gave the dashimaki to Auntie Oima. She looked like she was about to sing, but I stopped her. “Don’t do suisui today. I have a problem and I need to talk to you.” I explained my predicament in great detail.

  “Mineko, Toshimi is going to make her debut before you, so she will be one of your big sisters one day. This means you have to respect her. And be nice to her. There is no reason for you to tell her what to do. I’m sure that Big Mistress will teach Toshimi everything that she needs to know. It’s not your responsibility.”

  I forgot about this incident until years later. Soon after my debut as a maiko I was called to entertain at a banquet. Yuriko (Meku-chan) and Toshimi, both of whom had become top-class geiko, were in attendance. They joked good-naturedly about how self-important I had been when I was a little girl. I turned bright red from embarrassment. However, they didn’t hold it against me. Both became important mentors to me in the coming years. Yuriko became one of my only friends.

  Relationships in Gion Kobu last a long time, and harmony is prized above any other social value. Though characteristic of Japanese society as a whole, the emphasis on peaceful coexistence is even more pronounced in the karyukai. I believe that there are two reasons for this. The first is that our lives are so intertwined. People have no choice but to get along.

  The other reason is in the nature of the enterprise. Maiko and geiko entertain powerful people from every quarter of society and from all over the world. We are de facto diplomats who have to be able to communicate with anyone. But this doesn’t mean we are doormats. We are expected to be sharp-witted and insightful. Over time, I learned how to express my thoughts and opinions without causing offense to others.

  13