I flinched when I saw one of the girls grab the small scissors out of the other girl’s hand and throw them away. I tried to grab them, but the scissors slithered across the slippery floor beyond my reach. The two girls paid them no attention, pulling and grabbing at each other for what seemed like long minutes, their buttocks shaking, me watching, feeling a fluttering along my spine, as if I were awakening from a bad dream.
I’ve got to get those scissors.
My knees shook when I tried to stand up again, then buckled beneath me. My shoulders bent under the heavy weight of the liquor dominating my will, but I forced my left hand to raise slowly. Then I crawled to the spot where the scissors lay and saw my cutoff hair spread on the floor. Forget about the scissors.
I grabbed my hair. The long, blond strands slid through my fingers, but I held on to them. I heard one of the girls gasping for air when I saw her slip on the mat in her stockinged feet, knocking the breath out of her. I looked up in time to see the other girl fleeing through the paper door and sliding it shut. Then I heard the sound of feet running away.
“I have deep sorrow and must apologize for what Youki-san has done, Kathlene-san,” the girl said, breathing hard, bowing, her forehead touching the mat. She struggled to get her breath back. I know her. She was the young maid who helped me save face with Father.
“You know my name?” I asked.
“Yes.” Silence, then the girl said, “I’m called Mariko.”
“Thank you, Mariko-san.” I also bowed, though not touching my head to the mat, my gaze fixed upon the girl instead. In the dim and fluttering light I saw the red, bruising marks of the fight on her wrists and arms.
“You speak our language most precisely, Kathlene-san.”
I smiled at her compliment. It pleased me. “I studied your language at missionary school.”
The girl sighed. “I’ve often wished I were a boy so I could attend the Tokio School of English,” Mariko said with great expression. Then believing she’d said too much, she bowed her head and said in a submissive voice, “But I’m not worthy of such an honor. I’m a girl and don’t have the brain to learn about commerce and business and other things as boys do.”
“Why do you say such things about yourself?” I admonished her. “You’re as smart as any boy.”
Mariko thought for a moment, then with her eyes still lowered she said, “It’s written in Shinto belief women are impure.”
“Are you certain of that?” I asked, not wanting to offend her, but curious.
She nodded. “Buddhist teachings proclaim if a woman is dutiful enough, she can hope to be reincarnated as a man.”
“Dutiful? What does that mean?”
“I must do as my superiors have decreed.”
“And what’s that?” I asked.
“I’m born to please men, to make them feel pleasure when they mount me like a leaping white tiger,” she said without embarrassment, “to mix my honey with their milk.”
I lowered my eyes. The girl’s overt declaration about pleasing men made me uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “I’m going to attend the Women’s Higher Normal School when my father comes back.”
“Please, I don’t wish to offend, Kathlene-san, but you’re pleasing your father by staying here,” Mariko offered without the least bit of sarcasm, “so are you not also pleasing men?”
I wanted to toss back a response but I was tired. Very tired. The girl’s puzzle resisted an easy answer. A more pressing question burst from my lips. “Why did you help me, Mariko-san?”
Mariko lowered her eyes, then shifted her slender body, allowing her shoulders to slump as if this was something she did at all times. “I know what it’s like to be separated from your family. It makes you different from the others.”
“Where’s your family?”
“Life in my country isn’t easy for anyone who is…dissimilar in any way,” Mariko said, not answering my question directly, which made me more curious about her. She didn’t explain what she meant, but I guessed what she was trying to tell me. Even in my small class of girls at missionary school, anyone who was different was pushed outside the accepted circle.
“I know all about your game of what you say, Mariko-san, and what you really feel.” I twisted my hair. It wasn’t all cut off, but I was still upset by what this Youki had done.
“To understand us, you must open your mind,” Mariko said, “and your heart.”
Following my instincts, I didn’t protest when Mariko bowed and motioned for me to sit down on my knees and remain there with the rustle of silk and the scent of jasmine in the air as I continued to stare at her. I wanted to learn about this strange new world of geisha and I sensed an ally in her.
I sat back on my heels, thinking. I didn’t believe anyone in the Teahouse of the Look-Back Tree but this girl wanted me to stay. Was she merely being polite to me, as was the Japanese way? I wouldn’t be surprised if later I found a knot tied in my clothes or lukewarm ashes under my bedding, common hints to urge unwanted guests to leave. But if I must be separated from my father until he came back for me, then I wanted to stay in the teahouse and become a geisha. Wanted it badly.
I wiped a hand across my face, hoping to stave off my weariness. I took a few breaths, shifting my weight, but still I suffered the inevitable onset of cramping in my legs. On the contrary, Mariko seemed relaxed and poised.
“Okâsan says Mallory-san won’t return for a long time.”
“That’s not true, Mariko-san,” I protested. “My father will come back for me. I know he will.” I clasped the small bundle of my shorn hair to my chest, my eyes filling with tears. I couldn’t help it. Let the girl think what she wanted. It wasn’t my cut-off hair that made me cry. It would grow back. It was the loss of my father that frightened me. Frightened me and made me sad.
“Okâsan says Mallory-san would never have left you in the floating world unless there was great danger.”
I squirmed. There was that word danger again. Mariko sat still, without moving, unnerving me further. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I rubbed my leg.
“Why do you call it ‘the floating world’?” I asked, hoping to take the girl’s attention away from watching me squirm in an uncomfortable position. Would I ever learn to sit as relaxed as she did?
“It’s simple, Kathlene-san. Our geisha world is like the clouds at dawn, floating between the nothingness out of which they were born and the warmth of the pending day that will disperse them.”
I didn’t understand what she was trying to tell me. My mind was dark and cloudy with worry. However curious I was about the geisha world, I couldn’t forget my father was on his way to Tokio then back to America.
“Okâsan says from this night forward we mustn’t speak of Mallory-san,” Mariko continued, then drew in her breath. Slowly.
I looked at Mariko, who was waiting for me to speak. Never speak of him again? I couldn’t. Couldn’t. Never speak of him again? I wasn’t ready to act as if my father never existed. I couldn’t dismiss the emotions pulling at my insides, so I asked her instead, “How long have you been in the Teahouse of the Look-Back Tree?”
“Since I was five years old.”
“How old are you now?”
“Fourteen.”
“Fourteen?” I said, surprised. “You look much younger.”
“Okâsan