The Blonde Geisha

A slight noise drew my attention and my eyes darted to the other side of the room. I heard a knock, then the sound of a rice-paper door sliding open. The heavy rains must have prevented the geisha from changing their screens and doors to summer bamboo screens, a custom routinely followed to ward off the summer heat and humidity. I stifled a giggle. I had also upset their routine. No wonder Simouyé wasn’t pleased.

A young woman entered on her knees through the paper door and bowed three times, her forehead touching the floor. She wore a dark blue silk kimono with a striped white-and-pink sash tied around her waist. She was plain-looking, but a sweetness about her drew my attention. Innocent, childlike.

The girl began serving tiny cups of tea, placing them on the low black-lacquered table, alongside a tray of sweetmeats shaped like fantailed goldfish. The sugar glistened on top like golden specks and made my mouth water.

The girl handed me a cup of tea, then a napkin, then a sweetmeat.

“Thank you,” I whispered in Japanese, then I bowed to the girl.

The girl blinked her eyes in surprise, then bowed again and said, “It is my pleasure.”

I started to bow again until I looked over at my father. I couldn’t put the tea to my lips or the sweetmeat in my mouth. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My father and Simouyé were standing in the corner in the shadows, their bodies so close they touched in a most personal manner. The woman seemed unaware of my presence nor did she push away from the intimate caress of the tall American. He stroked her face, then brushed her lips with his fingertips and held her chin in his hands. She didn’t pull away when he slid his hands down to her hips, massaging her firm thighs, her rounded buttocks. Then, slipping his hand in the fold of her kimono, he touched her breasts, playing with them. I sensed the power of her raised emotions was difficult for the woman to suppress as she was accustomed to doing. I had the feeling she couldn’t maintain her composure much longer, yet she continued to speak in a soft voice, accenting her words.

“How much have you told the girl?” Simouyé asked, pulling away from his caress, though she didn’t object when he put his hands on her shoulders, his breath close to her face, his lips brushing the nape of her neck.

I opened my mouth, ready to ask Father what he was keeping from me, but the girl sitting next to me cleared her throat. I stared at the young maid as she put her finger to her lips, warning me to keep silent.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her, somewhat confused. Had I broken the geisha rules?

“I’m most sorry and beg your pardon,” the girl whispered, bowing. “I didn’t wish to offend you.”

I bowed, saying nothing. How could I have let my excitement to become a geisha make me forget my manners? The girl saved me from losing face by speaking to my father in a situation where I was supposed to remain invisible.

My actions hadn’t escaped my father’s eyes.

His stare was fixed on me, making my heart beat wildly in my chest, fluttering like a butterfly caught in a jar. He was aware of my language skills, so I wasn’t surprised when he turned back to Simouyé and said, “She knows my life is in danger.”

“Does she know you’re returning to America?” Simouyé asked, the words catching in her throat.

This time I couldn’t suppress the fear leaping into my heart as quickly as a rabbit fleeing the arrow of the hunter. This wasn’t what I’d expected to hear. I panicked.

“It’s not true, Father, is it?” I cried out, jumping to my feet, not caring if I was breaking the rules. My father was more important to me than rules. I rushed into his arms and pressed my cheek against his chest, sobbing, “You’re not going away, are you? Youcan’t.”

“Shouldn’t you tell her the truth?” Simouyé asked. This time her voice was stern, demanding.

“No, she’d be in greater danger if she knew,” my father answered. “She must stay here with you, Simouyé-san, and learn to be a maiko. Leaving her here is the only way I can escape from the Prince’s devils.”

The woman bowed and I could see it was with great effort when she said, “As you wish, Edward-san.”

I didn’t want to believe this was happening to me. Couldn’t.

“I want to go with you, Papa,” I blurted out without thinking, pushing aside my dream to become a geisha, my heart speaking out to my father as I grabbed on to the sleeve of his coat. He noticed my use of the endearment and it startled him. I thought he was going to change his mind. Instead, he cupped my face in his hands and looked into my eyes. I couldn’t see his face through my tears, flowing as fast and sure as the rain beating down upon the wooden teahouse, but I could hear his words.

“I must return to America, Kathlene, until I can find a way to right the wrong I’ve done.”

“You’ve done no wrong, Father. You’re good and kind.”

“I wish it were true, Kathlene, but I’ve failed you this time. And for that reason, I must go.”

“Why can’t I go with you?” I cried out, my voice carrying throughout the teahouse, inviting peeping eyes through the paper doors, listening. Young, curious girls huddled together outside the half-open sliding door, staring out at me, the blond gaijin, but I paid them no attention. Yes, I wanted to be a geisha, but my father was moreimportant to me.

“The danger is too great, Kathlene. I must travel quickly and not always in the most pleasant surroundings. You must stay here with Simouyé-san. She’s a good woman and will treat you like a daughter,” he said. Then he finished with, “You must do what she tells you, Kathlene, even if you don’t understand why. My life depends on it.”

“Is this the only way, Father?”

“Yes. I’ve never asked anything of you, Kathlene,” my father said, deepening his voice with a dark color I hadn’t heard before, ordering me not to disobey him. “But you know the ways of this land, and the importance of filial duty.” He stroked my hair with his fingers, pushing it away from my face and forcing me to look him in the eye. “Don’t bring disgrace upon us.”

Although I was often too curious for my own good, listening to Father speaking to me in such a demanding voice frightened me. Yes, I knew how important duty was in this land. The whole society was built on loyalty to one’s family.

I had no choice but to do as my father asked, though this was a strange proposition fate had dealt me. To achieve my dream to become a geisha, I must give up the one person in the world I loved the most. My father. What unholy trick were the gods playing on me?

With a tiny rattling in my throat, and though my self-control was barely holding, I managed to speak.

“I understand,” I said, feeling the weight of numerous pairs of dark eyes riveted on me, especially the young maid who’d held me back when I wanted to rush forth with my wild emotions.

“Are you certain you know what’s expected of you, Kathlene?” Father demanded, lowering his gaze to meet my eyes.

“I’ll do as you wish, Father,” I said with reverence, not understanding why I did so. Maybe it was because I was painfully aware of the importance of the situation, or the number of black-haired young girls peeping at me, their eyes taking in my uniqueness, their voices whispering. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I was pitted against something I could neither fully understand nor successfully defy. I couldn’t deny I was intrigued with the idea of joining these young women who so openly showed their curiosity of me.

They don’t believe I’ll stay. Americans are like butterflies flitting fromflower to flower, a Japanese poet once wrote, and as restless as the ocean. I must pull back my own restless feelings and wait. Wait for my father to return and wait for the day when I would become a geisha.

I let go of his coat.

My eyes blurred with tears I struggled not to let fall when my father kissed me on the cheek. Then without another word, he raced out the secret entrance of the teahouse and disappeared into the rain, into the night, into another world where I couldn’t go. The voyage back to America could take as long as eighteen days, Father had told me, the weather often cold and stormy. Although icebergs didn’t float down the shallow reaches of the Bering Strait, fierce winds blew through the gaps and passes in the Aleutian Islands and many ships were lost in the rough seas. I prayed my father’s ship wouldn’t meet such a fate.

I lifted my chin and pulled up my shoulders. It wasn’t the way of this land to show emotion in front of anyone. I forced myself to show courage and make my father proud of me.

Here at this late hour on this summer night in the Teahouse of the Look-Back Tree, I would begin my training to become a geisha. Geiko, as the geisha were called in Kioto dialect. I’d learn to be the perfect woman in an artificial world where such a woman was schooled in the erotic, her mouth sensuous, her smile winning but discreet, her eyes sparkling, ready to seduce as well as to entertain.

I’d be taught to have better manners than anyone else but to also speak my mind, to laugh inan engaging manner and to be flirtatious. Every dainty gesture—whether it be the lowering of my eyes, the tilt of my head to show the exposed back of my neck, the sway of my long fingers—would complement the meticulous stylization of my training. I’d exude the art of sexual sublimation and function as a living sculpture of the female ideal, polished to perfection.

And always, above everything else, I would make men feel good. I’d learn how to entice them with the curves of my body and bring them sexual excitement. Like a bee savoring its first taste of the nectar or a hungry bird pecking at the peach and melting the soft pulp in its mouth, so the world of pleasure would be my world, embracing me like a lost daughter.

Gathering up my curious and girlish spirit and putting it away into a secret spot in my heart until I could let it run free once more, I turned to Simouyé and bowed.

“I’m ready to begin my training to become a geisha.”

3

Snip-snip. Snip-snip.

My stomach clenched with fear. What was that noise? It sounded like scissors cutting. I tried to open my eyes to see what was going on. I couldn’t. I lay helpless, unable to move, as if I were under a spell.

Then I heard a different sound. A sigh, then another, followed by more snip-snips and a paper door sliding open. A girl’s voice asked, “What are you doing, Youki-san?”

“Cutting off her golden hair.”

My hair? Oh, no! I struggled, struggled, but I couldn’t raise my arm to protect my hair.