“What are you saying?”
“Okâsan knows nothing of your lateness. She is busy entertaining an important visitor.”
“Oh? And who can that be?”
“I don’t know his name but I’ve heard he is a personal retainer of an Imperial Prince of the blood,” Mariko answered, her eyes shining. “And as handsome as a god.”
“So that’s why no one is on the veranda.” I paused, thinking. “And who has okâsan chosen to entertain this man and his penis?”
Hisa laughed and continued rubbing his hand up and down the shaft of his noble mushroom. Mariko lowered her eyes, embarrassed by my boldness. He is but a servant, her actions said loud and clear. Hisa understood. He bowed, aware he was no longer welcome. In a playful manner, he shoved his penis at us as if to show us what we were missing, then he disappeared as all servants did when they weren’t needed.
Mariko would not let my naughty deed go unnoticed.
“How could you let Hisa-don touch you like you were a prostitute from Shimabara?” she scolded me, hustling me toward the back entrance of the teahouse.
“I found his touch most pleasurable,” I said, then added, “and he enjoyed playing with my dear little slit.” It wasn’t true. He never touched me down there, but I was tired of pushing back my feelings and needs.
“You shame all of us with your wild ways, Kathlene-san.”
“Haven’t you always told me it’s the way of geisha to entertain men?”
Mariko ignored my comment. “While the other maiko learn the matter of correct bowing and flower arranging, you spend your time learning how to brew agar-agar jelly and practice jamming it between your thighs.”
I cast a flirty eye toward her. “The jelly is said to have prophylactic powers and increases the size of a man’s penis—and keeps it hard longer.”
She ignored me. “You also have the habit of affecting the floating walk of a courtesan, with your body turned aside, your feet moving as though you’re kicking up dust with the tips of your toes.” Mariko stopped and took a big breath, then in a soft voice that indicated her disappointment, she continued, “It gives me great sorrow to say this, Kathlene-san, but you haven’t yet learned how to be a geisha. You’re upsetting harmony with your actions and that displeases okâsan.”
I understood what she meant. Harmony extended beyond friendship. It meant recognizing my role in the geisha house and accepting it, something I found hard to do. Simouyé kept too close an eye on me, never allowing me to pour sake at banquets like the other maiko or to visit other teahouses. Why? I asked her many times, but I never received an answer.
“I’ve tried to follow your ways, Mariko-san,” I said, not holding back how I felt. “But I can’t push my feelings down so deep inside me I can’t feel anything anymore.”
Mariko didn’t answer me, but said instead, “I once believed you would be my geisha sister, Kathlene-san, that we would experience the turning back of our collars together, but I was wrong.”
I looked away, questioning the truth of what she’d said. She was referring to the time when a maiko attained full geisha status by changing her red neck band for a white collar. Then she turned back part of her collar to reveal a small triangle of the red chemise underneath. I looked forward to experiencing this moment with her.
“You plunge the knife deep into my heart, Mariko-san,” I said, longing for the day when I would call Mariko older sister, as I did in my heart. “You’re acting unfair, judging me like that.”
“You are the one who is unfair, Kathlene-san, dismissing all okâsan has taught you. You’re throwing it all away on cheap pleasure with the jinrikisha boy, acting like a courtesan gobbling up salted clams and drinking sake while she beckons customers from her bamboo cage. You’re wasting your life like a cherry blossom scattering in the breeze with no time to fade on the bough. You have no feeling, no concern for anyone but yourself.”
“How dare you speak to me like that,” I said, raising my voice. I was hurt. Deeply hurt by Mariko’s words.
Mariko said, “I speak to you this way because I—I…”
She bowed her head low, her voice as silent as the sway of the nearby willow tree. I said nothing, then shook my head in dismay, knowing she wouldn’t say what she really felt. Mariko smiled at me instead. I couldn’t argue with that. The Japanese smile was often a sign of embarrassment, regret, discomfort or even anger.
I turned my back and walked away. I looked out at the mountains highlighted on the opposite bank of the river in the summer sun. From below, I could hear the sloshing against the banks, full and swollen by the late-summer rains as I left the little maiko standing under the sloping roof. Alone.
Later I realized I’d dropped the package containing the kokeshi doll. I made no effort to go back and retrieve it.
The afternoon sun tickled the puddles of rainwater with her magic beams, making them shimmer like liquid silver brocade. Nearby, I glimmered under her spotlight, quivering and swaying on the outdoor veranda to the sharp, musical sounds of the harp and the twanging, vibrant sounds of the lute. I wanted to dance my best today at practice to show Mariko I was serious abut my art.
But something else caught my eye. I was certain Hisa was hiding behind a six-leaf golden screen set up on the far corner of the veranda, the sun beating down on his nearly nude body. Hot. Unforgiving. He must want to see me dance badly if he was willing to wait in the steamy, red-hot sun. Shade was more important to the Japanese than warmth or food, though I believed Hisa was stronger than any ancient deity. I’d seen him peeking around the screen earlier, smiling at me, his naked chest glistening with sweat. I motioned for him to leave, but he ignored me.
I called on the goddess Benten, patron of music and dance, to guide me through my movements and give me the grace and courage of Lady Jiôyoshi. I glided over the mat with bent knees on my white-stockinged feet like kittens’ paws. My hands moved in a supple, gentle manner, expressing the emotion of the old Japanese love song about a castle and the moon, and two lovers who spent stolen hours together.
“My love is hiding in my heart like a white crane in a snow drift,” sang Mariko while she played the lute and Youki strummed the harp.
I fluttered my fan but I refused to look at Mariko, though she stared at me. Stared hard. I tried to concentrate on my dance, but I was angry with Mariko. Much to my displeasure, she had continued her harsh words later in our room, arguing back and forth with me, speaking in a hushed but irritated voice. I don’t understand what’s wrong with desiring a man, I insisted. I did nothing wrong.
She wouldn’t listen. She lunged at me, grabbing hold of my kimono collar and pulling me off my feet, my face glistening with a light veneer of sweat. Arms raised, our breasts heaving, we threw gold and blue silk cushions at each other, knocking over our brazier and spilling white ash all over the clean mats.
I was hurt by Mariko’s denouncement of me. She insisted I’d shamed us all with my bold display of speaking with Hisa, then letting him touch my breasts. Okâsan would punish me, she yelled, by making me sleep in the emergency baskets the geisha kept in the teahouse in case of fire. The baskets were oblong and woven of bamboo and about the size of a small trunk, making them very uncomfortable for sleeping. I cringed at the thought.
I called Mariko an indentured servant, the lowest form of apprentice, telling her she was fooling herself about becoming a geisha. Did I stop? No, I kept going like a hummingbird zipping from flower to flower, telling her she was destined to remain a seated one, rather than become a dancer, because Mariko wasn’t tall enough and would violate