The bigger boy looked the other way and kept eating, ignoring the whole thing. The way he had ordered tempura soba just for himself, without a thought for his younger friend, despite their both coming in together, had made Oriku angry. That was why she did it.
“Who can those two be?” she wondered as she left. Respectable shop boys would not have been going out to eat soba at that time, and besides, there was something a little too casual about their dress. An odd pair! However, she soon forgot all about them. Enchō had already mounted the dais when she entered the theater, through the back. Shiobara Tasuke ended that night. The master’s daughter fell in love with Tasuke, the two were married, and the scene in which she cut off a long, trailing sleeve to demonstrate the depth of her feeling provoked merry laughter. It all ended very happily. Oriku, who had come from the Yoshiwara seven days in a row to hear the great Enchō in his declining years, felt glad and fully satisfied.
“Now I have at last reached my sixtieth milestone,” Enchō said after concluding the piece. “This is the year when I must bid farewell to the Tasuke you have loved so long. I am extremely grateful to all of you for coming to hear me, and particularly to a certain lady who has come from afar every day for seven days. To her, from the storyteller’s dais, I offer my special thanks.”
He bowed in the direction of Oriku, and the audience, who had no idea who she was, applauded. Blushing, Oriku left her seat and expressed her heartfelt thanks to Enchō. That was the last time she heard the master. He passed away two years later, in 1899. He was sixty-two.
So Enchō was gone; but Enshō, his star pupil, was very good indeed, and people said he even surpassed his teacher at The Peony Lantern, which he had inherited directly from him. Oriku’s trips to the music hall, which had begin with Shiobara Tasuke, continued. She became a fan not only of Enshō, but after him of Ensa, En’u, and Enkyō, and, on the Yanagi side, of Bunji and Tamasuke. When the Namiki Theater was built on Hirokōji, near the Kaminari Gate, she went there three days a month or so, to hear her favorite artists. Then she left the Yoshiwara and opened her Shigure Teahouse, and those same artists turned up there, one after the other. Enshō had died, but Enkyō, Enkitsu, and Ryūshi IV came; so did, more assiduously than any of the others, the young Kosanji and Bafū. They frequented the Silver Flower, and when they took the ferry across the river, on their way home in the morning, they would stop by for chazuke. Both loved their saké, and they drank plenty of it there, too.
“We’re both broke today, so we’re each going to perform for your guests instead—that’ll get us off, I hope.” The words were slurred.
“Fine, but you can’t possibly perform this drunk. So forget today. Just go home. You can do it some other time.”
“Come on, be serious. I don’t care how drunk I am, I’m sober when I perform. Get all your people together in the main room. Tell your annex guests, too, if you have any. Tell them Kosanji and Bafū are each going to do a turn—oh, some of them will come, I know they will.” The speech was still slurred.
Kosanji and Bafū were both popular young storytellers, and both were certainly good. Kosanji was fine-featured and slender, Bafū red-faced and roly-poly. The two together would make an amusing pair.
Every one of the restaurant staff gathered in the big main room, and the guests staying in the annexes gladly joined them when they heard what was going on. Among them were some handsome, elegant couples who pleased the two especially. Kosanji decided on Five in a Night, his special favorite, while Bafū chose Old Bones. Their quintessentially Edo art perfectly suited their audience. Drunk or not, when the time came, each sat up straight and sounded exactly as he did in the theater. They gave a wonderful show, and the delighted audience took up a collection for them.
“Oriku, this is all yours. Now we’re even, I trust.” They held out the bag with the money in it.
“Nonsense! A bill’s a bill; a gift’s a gift. You promised to pay your bill by performing. Whatever the audience wants to give you is something else. Take it! All right, I won’t contribute myself, but Five in a Night and Old Bones certainly cover the bill!”
“I just knew you’d say that!” said one.
“You’re a real child of Edo, you are!” said the other.
“Now, now,” said Oriku, laughing, “calm down! Have a good time, by all means, but in moderation! You’re the current Yanagi stars. The whole line depends on you. Your art’s important, but so is your health. Please don’t ruin it with drink!”
She put her opinion bluntly enough, but they were hardly the men to heed it meekly, and they kept stopping by. Kosanji seemed to have a crush on Oriku, but that was about the time when Monnosuke warned her against involvement with music-hall artists, and she had no desire to oblige Kosanji. Still, Yanagi and San’yū artists kept coming as before, crowding into the Shigure Teahouse for parties to celebrate promotion to principal artist, assumption of a new name,or succession to a great name from the past. The Namiki Theater was just on the other side of the river, across the Azuma Bridge, and that was where Oriku went whenever duty required her to attend an artist’s performance.
The performers’ names were written on lanterns hung in a row near the entrance to the narrow street, on the main avenue from the Kaminari Gate to Komagata. The ground nearby was paved with flag-stones always kept gleaming wet. “Welcome!” the attendant who took charge of the customers’ footwear would call out as you entered the door. It was a very comfortable theater.
Whatever other obligations she might have, Oriku always put her business first, and she went to hear a music-hall storyteller only during the day. The Shigure Teahouse had been going for three years when there was a special performance to celebrate the promotion of a young man named San’yūtei Shinkyō to principal artist. Oriku had never even heard of him, but he nonetheless took the trouble to come in person to Mukōjima in order to deliver the illustrated, block-printed invitation.
He left the following message: “I gather that Mistress Oriku goes to the theater only during the day. Three of us among the young principal artists have therefore organized a daytime performance at the Namiki Theater, and we would be most grateful if she were kind enough to come.”
This happened while Oriku was away at the Yoshiwara, on a visit to the Silver Flower. She supposed she might recognize Shinkyō, since the invitation identified him as a disciple of Enshō IV—after all, Enshō had visited the Silver Flower often, to perform in Enchō’s place. She felt sorry for the young man, reflecting that things could hardly have been easy for him after his teacher’s death, and she looked forward to seeing whether he had inherited Enshō’s skill, or whether anything at all of Enchō lived on in him. So, on the appointed Sunday, at one o’clock, she entered the narrow street leading to the Namiki Theater. Her face was well known, and everyone there knew how many artists frequented her place.
“Good afternoon, and welcome,” the attendant greeted her. “I’ll put your footwear in a separate place.” He did not give her the chit that others received so as to be able to reclaim their geta later on. Not to get that chit at a music hall meant that you were an honored habitué. Oriku’s generous tips had put her in good standing. She liked that. Asakusa did not generally favor daytime performances, and the theater was only about two-thirds full, many of those present being in any case invited guests. Cushions, each provided with tea and an ashtray, were placed before the pillar to the left of the dais for the three young performers: Enju, Kinraku, and Shinkyō. Not that they were really all that young, each being thirty or so and thoroughly skilled. Enju did Mind’s Eye and Flattery, and Kinraku A Tight Game and Pale Blue Cotton. They were very good. At last it was Shinkyō’s turn. The program announced Blossom-Viewing Broke. Oriku could not really place him, even after he mounted the dais. Small, round-faced, and nice-looking, he inspired little confidence, but he obviously felt at home on the dais and seemed indeed to belong there.
“I realize it was presumptuous of me to arrange this three-man performance, and that I may have earned your displeasure,” he began, “but I want you to know how grateful I am for the stature you have given me.” He spoke sincerely, without a trace of affectation.