The Blonde Geisha

“Why, Youki-san? She’s so beautiful.”

“Don’t you understand, Mariko-san? She’ll ruin everything for us with her hair the color of silken gold threads.”

Ruin what? I kept trying to open my eyes, move my arms, my legs. I couldn’t. My lids weighed so heavy on my eyes while the rest of my body lay helpless like the cold, slimy fish I’d seen tossed up onto the pier when Father took me down to the wharf to meet the ships arriving from across the sea.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move. I lay on my back on a scratchy mat digging into my skin, shielded from its prickly weave by what I perceived to be a sheer kimono underrobe, its silkiness hugging my body. A cool breeze swept over my skin when someone walked near me. I heard the swish of long robes on the tatami mat and the glide of soft feet. Salty drops of perspiration wet my lips and drizzled down my chin. I let out my breath and relaxed. The girls had gone.

Where am I? What happened?

I remembered following Simouyé down a shining corridor and upstairs to a long, low room divided into three sections by screens of dull gold paper. Before she could stop me, I ran to the open balcony of polished cedar and looked out into the night, hoping to see my father. But he had vanished.

My heart ached so, I couldn’t help but sink down to my knees in front of a wall screen and claw at the delicate branches painted on it, crying. I prayed the gods wouldn’t look unkindly on my actions, but I had the strange feeling I’d never see my father again. My loss brought up so much anger in me, so much sorrow, I pushed aside everything the missionaries taught me. In my anguish, I grabbed the flower vase out of the alcove in the wall and threw it across the room to vent my fury. Simouyé stood and watched, her face showing no emotion, as was the way of the geisha. Panting, out of breath, my emotions spent, I stood there, watching her watching me. It was the most spiritual moment of my life up to that point. Strange, but that lack of emotion calmed me down, made me dry my tears.

I shivered now as the coolness played tag over my bare breasts, bringing my nipples to hardness like the buds of a cherry tree. A pleasant feeling washed over me as I began to move my fingers, then my toes. Were the gods releasing me from the sleep of dead spirits? If so, I must escape before the two girls returned. I wiggled my hips and the silk robe fell away from my belly. My entire body quivered as if I’d been touched by a probing hand. I spread the palm of my hand between my legs to cover myself and the softness of my bare skin slid under my fingers, then—

A gasp caught in my throat, pressing into my brain a truth I didn’t want to believe.

My pantaloons were gone. I was naked down there.

Where were my clothes? Yes, I remembered. Simouyé had called her house servant, Ai, to help me remove my wet garments. Ai said little, except to criticize anything done differently from the way it was done in the Teahouse of the Look-Back Tree, and this included my request to keep my clothes. They disappeared along with the servant when I wasn’t looking. I was so embarrassed, standing naked in the cool room.

Was this part of my geisha training?

I wrapped myself up in the futon and, racing into the corridor, bumped head-on into the old servant woman. Mumbling about “stinking foreigners,” she gave me a white silk robe and a cup of tea with a strange taste that burned my lips. With Ai watching me, I finished the green tea—laced with rice wine, I’m sure—then fell into a deep sleep. I awakened when I heard the sound of the scissors.

I tried to sit up, but my muscles stiffened. I cursed the gods who tied me to the floor with invisible bonds from the effects of the strong drink. I tried to move again. Nothing. My breathing became sharper when I heard voices. Girls’ voices.

They were coming back.

“She’s done us no harm, Youki-san. Why do you wish to make her lose face?”

“Is your brain as soft as duck feathers, Mariko-san?” the girl named Youki scolded. “Don’t you know what the emperor has decreed?”

Mariko answered in a timid voice, “No.”

“He has much august respect for the ways of the Westerners and he has expressed his wish our men marry white women.”

I could hear Youki rattling on about how everything was changing because of these Westerners, these speakers of English, who talked nothing but politics at geisha parties and ignored the geisha and her accomplishments. I wanted to tell her what I thought, but the effects of the rice wine made me sluggish and fuzzy-headed.

“What can we do if the emperor wishes these marriages?” Mariko asked. “We’re servants.”

“I will soon become a maiko. And if the gods smile upon your plain face, Mariko-san, someday you’ll also be a maiko.”

“I wish to be a maiko with all my heart.”

“Then why do you want this girl to get all the attention, Marikosan? What will happen to us?”

“Don’t worry, Youki-san,” Mariko assured her. “As long as men have sexual desire, there will be geisha.” Her voice was childlike yet silky, soft and smooth. I detected a longing for fulfillment in the young girl that matched my own. I squeezed my eyes shut harder, saying a prayer she would help me.

“Okâsan, mama-san, says this girl is also going to be a maiko. That means someday she’ll be a geisha,” Youki said, her words filled with ire and contempt for what she saw as a direct threat to her future.

“Are you certain this is true, Youki-san?”

“You wait and see, Mariko-san. She will capture the hearts of all the men who come to the Teahouse of the Look-Back Tree, and you and I will have nothing.”

“Nothing?” Mariko asked, her voice not believing. I began to lose hope she would help me.

“Nothing. No benefactor to give us a teahouse of our own when we’re old. We’ll be poor and worth nothing more than a sack of bones to be tossed to the dogs for their dinner. Is that what you wish, Mariko-san?”

Mariko was silent for a long moment, then she said, “The blond gaijin won’t do this to us, Youki-san. I know so in my heart.”

“I’m warning you, Mariko-san, we must rid ourselves of this girl or we’ll all pay a price to the gods who rule our fortunes.”

“No, Youki-san, I won’t let you do this terrible thing to her.”

“You can’t stop me—”

“I will stop you!”

A great rumbling followed, making my whole body shake, as if the teahouse were being torn apart by two wild animals. With great effort, I forced my eyes open.

It was true.

Two girls.

Fighting.

In spite of my drugged stupor, I could see the hazy shapes of the girls wrestling with each other, their long hair coming unbound, flowing down their backs like capes unraveling in a tempest storm. The pale yellow silk of one girl’s underrobe swirled around the pink damask kimono of the other as they pulled on the kimonos until they came undone and flew about them like the wings of birds trying to take off into flight.

Flashes of their nude skin startled me. I’d never seen girls my own age naked. My father wouldn’t allow me to attend the public baths. Bare young breasts, slim thighs, silky dark tufts of hair between their legs, they continued grappling at each other, pulling, tugging. Nothing could stop them. I suspected every inch of their beings was involved in gaining control of the other.

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.”