by Asha Lemmie
“No. The Americans stripped all the minor royals of our imperial status, so we’re not allowed to use titles anymore. Besides, I’m just a bastard.”
Miyuki’s disappointment was obvious. “Oh.”
“Sorry.”
“Oh, no, that’s all right,” said Miyuki, perking right back up. “Still, what are you doing here?”
“This is where I was sent,” Nori answered dryly. “This is where I am.”
Miyuki nodded. Everyone in the hanamachi, it seemed, understood this much. No more questions needed to be asked.
“I went to the orphanage five years ago. Then I came here and I’ve been here for two years now. Gonna have to stay here for two more years, then I can go get Nanako.”
Nori plucked a strand of grass from the ground. “You chose to come here?”
Miyuki’s smile was pained. “Lots of the girls here did. It wasn’t no worse than what we had before. Me, I could’ve stayed in the orphanage all right. They fed us and were nice most of the time. But Nanako’s delicate. Always has been since she was an itty-bitty baby. So I decided I had to get her out. Needed money for that.”
She took a deep breath as if to prove her conviction. “I’m gonna finish out my contract. I stay here for four years and then I get enough money to go get my sister. I can settle nearby, keep working. Raise her right.” She laughed. “I’m gonna make sure she learns to write a lot better than me, that’s for sure.”
Nori didn’t know what to say to this. Besides, this conversation was making her think of Akira. And that was absolutely forbidden. She would never see him again. She told herself this and swallowed down the agony of it. She would never see him again.
She stood up. “I should go to bed now.”
Miyuki stood up also. “I didn’t mean to bother you none.”
Nori forced herself to smile. “You didn’t bother me, Miyuki-san.”
Miyuki smiled back, revealing her gap. “Oh, just Miyuki is fine. I should get back to trying to write this dumb letter anyway.”
She turned and started off, shoving her hands in the pockets of her robe. Nori watched her cross the yard. Something caught in the back of her throat.
“Ano . . . Miyuki-chan?”
The other girl turned, her pretty hazel eyes wide-open. “Yes?”
“Did you . . . maybe want help writing that letter?”
Miyuki’s grin widened. “Eh, Hontoni? You’d really help me?”
“Yes, well. I’m not really tired. So if you wanted help . . .”
Miyuki darted forward and seized Nori’s wrists, yanking her forward before she had a chance to blink.
“Noriko-chan! That’s great!”
“It’s nothing—” But Nori didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence.
“Can you write in English too?”
“What? Sukoshi. Just a little.”
Miyuki barreled towards the house, dragging Nori with her. Nori was already wondering why she had offered to help. She had to get up early in the morning to help Kiyomi arrange flowers, and frankly, she thought it was a waste of time to write a letter to someone who couldn’t read.
But she did not try to take back her hand.
* * *
Everything about their duties kept them apart, but they found ways to be together. Nori had lessons with Kiyomi in the morning, and in the evening she practiced her violin. During the afternoon, Kiyomi begrudgingly allowed her to take a few hours for reading. Nori was keeping up with her studies as much as she could. She’d been allowed a few books that Kiyomi had found lying around. Though Kiyomi scoffed and smacked her lips and went on at great length about how useless it was, she had provided Nori with some paper and pens. The only thing Kiyomi encouraged was Nori’s interest in learning English, citing that it might prove useful one day.
Miyuki’s life was very different. She woke up at dawn and went to help in the kitchens. In the afternoon she was sent to scrub the wide, wraparound wooden porch until it shone. Apparently, this was because Kiyomi deemed her too clumsy for dusting or other inside chores. This was an old house, and though it was well-kept, with new flooring and freshly painted walls, it needed constant care. There were private rooms for the guests, but those were not for daily use. The girls slept in the smaller rooms in the west wing of the house, which was not as well maintained. Miyuki shared a room with two others. “It’s not so bad,” Miyuki was quick to say. “Me and Nanako, at the orphanage, we shared a pallet. I have more space here than I’m used to.”
Only at night did the tasks end and the two girls find time to be together, to share their secrets and fears. Nori didn’t know if they were truly friends. She didn’t know anything about friends outside of what she’d read in books. Besides, they never would have met if not for the misfortunes in their lives, and they had next to nothing in common except for bad luck.
Well . . . maybe it was more than that. And even if it wasn’t, maybe that was enough.
They met in Nori’s isolated room and huddled on the floor by the light of two candles. “Lights out” was one of the more lax rules, but it was still a rule. Nori always made sure to have a platter of treats ready for Miyuki. The older girl said that she was constantly hungry and Kiyomi never let her get enough to eat.
“She thinks I’m fat.” Miyuki laughed, shoving some mochi into her mouth. “Of course, she’s right. Ma always did say she didn’t know how I managed to be so fat with so little food around.”
Nori nodded. As usual, Miyuki was doing most of the talking. Neither of them seemed to mind it that way. She took a sip of her tea and then kept the cup between her hands, letting it warm her through. Some needlework lay forgotten at her side.
Miyuki scrunched up her nose. “Maybe I shouldn’t eat so much. Get better clients. Richer. Get outta here faster.”
Nori tried to be supportive, though talking about the real business that went on there still made her gut churn. “I’m sure eventually—”
“I’m not like you, Nori,” Miyuki burst out suddenly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“What?”
“I’m not pretty.” It was not a plea for sympathy or a question. It was just a fact.
Nori sighed and put her tea down. “I’m no expert on prettiness.”
“But you’re still pretty. And you’re smart. You’ve been helping me with my writing and my reading, even though I’m not any good at it. You can read poetry; you can read English.”
Nori crossed her arms. “I had lots of free time in the attic. I had nothing to do but read. And my English is dreadful. It’s just . . . I like to try. And Akira-san . . . he was really brilliant, you know, and I wanted him to be . . .”
Proud.
“He sounds wonderful,” Miyuki mused, propping her chin up on her hands.
He was.
“You can fix your reading,” Nori said, changing the subject as she always did when it went this way. She found herself talking about Akira more than she should with Miyuki, but it was too painful. Her survival hinged on her ability to forget. “But you can’t help that Atsuko and Mina have been the only thing anyone’s interested in this month. There are not enough new clients, even with the economy doing so well, with our prices being what they are, and the regulars have had their favorites for years in some cases.”
Miyuki grinned. “How do you know all this? Kiyomi-san doesn’t hardly let you say ‘boo’ to the rest of us. You’re always by yourself.”
“Kiyomi mentions things during our lessons,” she responded flatly. “She slips up, I think, and talks to me sometimes like we’re . . .” She couldn’t say “friends.” She knew they weren’t friends.
Miyuki looked around the well-appointed bedroom. Her eyes settled on a rope of pearls hastily thrown onto the vanity. “That’s lucky.”
Nori shut her eyes to quell her frustration. There was
no point in getting mad at someone who had it far worse than she did. When she spoke, she made sure her voice was level. “I am a pig being fattened for slaughter, nothing more. My rarity, my foreignness, my cultivated isolation is what they will use to sell me like so much—” She broke off and did not finish.
Miyuki squirmed. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t,” Nori assured her. “You didn’t. I can’t complain to you.”
Miyuki showed that gap-toothed grin of hers. “It’s okay. I wasn’t getting anything out of it before. There were boys, but they never did what they promised me. At least it’s better this way. I can get something out of it, for me and for Nanako.” Suddenly her bright face crumpled. “You know, I can’t think what else anyone would want me for. And I wouldn’t mind doing this, but . . .” She faded off. She didn’t want her sister exposed to this life, and Nori couldn’t blame her.
Nori racked her brain for something supportive to say. This was not her area. “People would want you for something else. You learn fast. And I bet you’re wonderful with children. You could be a teacher or . . .” She thought of Akiko briefly before shoving the memory back down. “There’s lots of things you could do. I believe that.”
Miyuki smiled sadly. “You are special, Nori. And not in the way they mean. I can tell, in a different kind of world, you could’ve been just about anything. But I’m not like that. I don’t have much about me that’s special. Looking after Nanako is just about the only thing I ever see myself doing right, and right now I can’t even do that.”
Nori reached forward and took Miyuki’s hands in her own. Unlike her own, they were covered in calluses. “You’ll get her back,” Nori said, as if she had any power to make this happen. Nothing had given her any evidence that this was true either, but she found herself saying it. “You will. And that’s special enough. Loving someone . . . that much . . .” Akira’s wry smirk and stormy gray eyes appeared before her. She had to stop. Breathe. Start again.
“When you have that, you don’t need anything else.”
Miyuki blinked back tears. “I wish I could help you.”
Nori smiled, though there were tears in her own eyes now. “It’s okay.”
They were both crying now.
“No, it’s not,” Miyuki whispered, finally admitting what they both knew but never acknowledged. She was not smiling anymore. She was making no attempts to qualify her pain.
Nori nodded. “I know.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
TREE SONG
September 1953
KIYOMI
As usual, she is late. I take a moment to adjust myself in the mirror. The shadows under my eyes tell me that I am overworked, which is nothing new. The amount of concealer that I have to dab on to cover them up tells me that I’m losing my looks, and my resigned smile tells me that I’m getting old. I am thirty-two this year, older than I thought I would live to see. I pull down the front of my kimono a little. Nobody will notice the bags now. I glance at the door, but there is still no sign of my most troublesome asset. I go into the hallway and snap my fingers at her friend, Miyuki, who is chatting with an older girl. It’s not warm inside, but Miyuki’s face is glistening with sweat. I have told the kitchen to stop giving her treats, but they swear they aren’t. At sixteen, she has not blossomed as I hoped she would. She is the least asked for of all my girls. Clearly, a poor investment for me, but there is no returning her now.
She turns to me and flushes. “Kiyomi-san?”
I cross my arms and look at her; we’ve been through this enough times for her to know what I want. She points outside. “She’s out there.”
I feel a great sigh leave my body, and the two girls hurry out of my way as I move past them and out onto the patio. It’s high noon and the sun is blazing down. I cross the yard in swift strides, making my way to the pleasure grove that I worked so hard to make beautiful for the guests who come here to get away from their busy city lives, to spend a weekend in the countryside. It doesn’t take me long to spot her, kneeling beside the little man-made pond, throwing bits of bread at the ducks.
She isn’t even wearing a hat. “Ojosama,” I snap, “how many times have I told you? Are you determined to ruin your complexion?”
She doesn’t so much as look back at me. She breaks off the last chunk of bread she is holding and flings it towards the smallest duck in the pond. Only when she has watched him eat it before his brothers and sisters come charging forward to take it from him does she turn around.
“Gomenasai,” she apologizes flatly, and it is wholly insincere. She stands up and brushes the grass off her pale pink dress.
I just give her a tired look. At thirteen, Noriko Kamiza is strikingly attractive, albeit not in a conventional way. She hasn’t grown an inch—I suppose she will always be tiny—but her curves have filled out and she is shaped like a finely blown glass bottle. She keeps her necklines high, but there’s no hiding that her bosom is already as large as mine. She’s learned how to straighten her hair, and it falls in a thick, glossy sheen down to the small of her back. Rich amber-brown eyes that look champagne in sunlight, a button nose, and full lips that always seem to have a secret on them make it impossible not to look at her when she walks into a room.
But she’s still difficult.
“You’re late for your lesson.”
“I know how to pour tea, Kiyomi-san. And dance, and arrange flowers, and flutter a paper fan. After two years you get the hang of it.”
She has a point, but I don’t show it. There’s not much I can do with her, though, and I need to keep her busy. Nori is smart. Smart people with free time are dangerous. I point towards the house. “Go inside. Have you forgotten that Tanaki-san is coming to see you tomorrow?”
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I haven’t forgotten. I just don’t care.”
I clench my fists. “You will be respectful to him,” I warn, though he is a vile little lecher and I don’t like him any more than she does. “He hasn’t seen you since—”
“Since he dragged me out of my house,” she finishes for me. She looks sleepy and bored. “I’ll put on my show for him, Kiyomi-san. Don’t worry. I won’t shame you.”
I relax a little. I’ve been working for Syusuke Tanaki for six years. He is, for lack of a more elegant term, a slaver. He deals in women, mostly, but he is not above selling poor little boys to sick old men. He works for Noriko’s grandfather, who is the shadow king of a criminal empire that is only getting stronger. Tanaki spends his days acquiring girls—by bribing them, bribing their families, or just taking them as he finds them. Under the guise of running a travel agency, he ships them all over the world. The ones he doesn’t, he sends to me. I like to think these are the lucky ones, and I try to make their lives as pleasant as possible. I don’t expect anyone will ever call me a saint. But I have been on the receiving end; I have had a man’s boot pressed to my cheek. I don’t hit my girls, and I don’t allow anyone under thirteen to touch a man. I don’t deal in nine-year-olds, unlike the men who dealt with me.
Nori comes up to me and squeezes my hand. “I won’t give him cause to hurt you, or me, or any of the other girls. I know what I have to do.”
I am shocked by her perception. I have never told her I feared this. She smiles up at me with the smile I taught her, but her eyes are ever honest. She’s afraid.
“Will he visit one of the girls?” she whispers carefully.
I don’t bother lying. Of course she’s heard the gossip. I have dealt with men like him all my life, men whose pleasure comes in forms that most women would never even speak of. Those who don’t mind hurting us or, worse, enjoy it.
I hesitate before speaking. “I won’t give him Miyuki.”
She nods and goes into the house.
* * *
—
The next morning I tell Miyuki to stay out of sig
ht for the rest of the day and assign her to help in the kitchen, which I know will only make her fatter, but it cannot be helped. I need Nori’s best today, and I know I will have a better chance of getting it if she is not worried about her friend.
Once I am dressed and ready, I go to Noriko’s room to make sure she looks presentable. She is wearing an elaborate gold kimono I got her last year, with red dragons embroidered all over it. Her hair is up in a bun. She looks quite pretty.
“Put some makeup on,” I urge, though there isn’t any real need for it; her honey-caramel skin is smooth as a pearl. “At least some lipstick.”
She sighs. “I hate lipstick. It tastes awful.”
“It’s not for eating,” I say crossly. “And it makes you look older.”
She crosses to her vanity and does as I say, pulling out her lone tube of lipstick and brushing it over her lips. “It doesn’t make a difference,” she grumbles. “I still look horrible.”
I sigh because she really believes this. Her abandonment has scarred her, her grandmother has brainwashed her, and she will always see something in the mirror that is not there.
“Hurry up. He doesn’t like to wait.”
She looks at me with blank eyes. “Has my grandmother ordered this?”
I stiffen. “Of course not, she has quite forgotten about you. This is to assess your progress.”
“I have poured tea, I have arranged flowers, I have danced and played the violin,” she goes down the list. “I have quite mastered the art of being useless wallpaper.”
I cannot help but smirk at her sharp cynicism. “But you know nothing about men.”
She shrugs. “I don’t need to know anything about men. I just need to know how to listen.”
She is wrong about this, but I don’t tell her. “Come on.”
She follows me down the hall and into the study, where Tanaki is already waiting for us. He is seated in a high-backed leather chair with Kaori, one of the new girls, perched uncomfortably on his lap. She’s no innocent, I got her from a different brothel, but she’s a pretty thing, and it turns my stomach to see his greasy hands on her.
