The Blonde Geisha

Without any shyness, Mariko said, “A geisha learns many ways to please a man, Kathlene-san. She presses her body against him and says something outrageous, then she allows him to slip his hand into the fold of her kimono and touch her bare breasts as she pours him sake.”

I knew my mouth was open, my eyes wide, but I couldn’t help it. I never expected to hear anything like this.

“What else does a geisha do?” I asked.

“A geisha must also master artistic skills like flower arranging and tea ceremony,” Mariko said without hesitation. “Okâsan says these skills are the most important treasure in a geisha’s life.”

“More important than falling in love?” I heard the plaintive cry in my voice, but I couldn’t help it. My image of the geisha as a fairy-tale princess was dissipating into thin air, like a wisp of smoke hanging from the end of an incense stick.

“Yes, Kathlene-san. Okâsan says geisha don’t fall in love with men. They fall in love with their art.”

An ongoing sense of apprehension settled over me, yet I couldn’t resist asking, “Do you think I can become a geisha?”

“That would be difficult, Kathlene-san. Okâsan is very strict with us.”

“She can’t be worse than the teachers at the missionary school,” I said, remembering the stodgy English women with their padded bustles widening their hips and woolen rats tucked into their hairdos.

“The stricter your teachers are, okâsan says, the more you will learn, and the better geisha you’ll become and…”

Mariko hesitated.

“And what?” I asked, hanging on to her words.

“You must follow our way of doing things…and the rules.”

“Rules?” I made a face. I found it hard to follow rules of any kind, having had no mother to guide me. “What kind of rules?”

After thinking a moment, Mariko rushed forth with a list that made my head spin. “Geisha must get up in the morning no later than ten o’clock, straighten their clothes, then clean their rooms, wash their bodies, paying special attention to their teeth and their dear little slits—”

“Their what?” I’d never heard that term before and it shocked me, but it also piqued my interest about obeying the rules of the teahouse.

“You know…down there.” She pointed to her pubic area. I nodded and she continued, “…making certain their pubic hair is properly clipped—”

I gasped, intrigued with this rule, but Mariko continued without drawing a breath.

“—fix their hair, pray to the gods, greet okâsan and their geisha sisters, then have breakfast of bamboo shoots and roots—”

“Is that all you eat for breakfast?” I dared to ask her.

Mariko hesitated, then shook her head. I smiled. So, she was teasing me. Her playful spirit surprised me. Life in the geisha house would be fun with her.

She continued with, “A geisha must also be careful not to have caked face paint under her fingernails or splotched on her earlobes. She mustn’t have smelly hair, for that is a geisha’s disgrace, and she must be sure to take her bath in the public bathhouse by three o’clock. And she can’t use familiar terms with her manservant who carries her lute, lest anyone sees them and forms a bad impression.”

“I’m afraid I’ve already made a bad impression on your okâsan, acting like I did,” I blurted out, getting to my feet. My movements were quick and not too graceful. Would I ever learn to move like a geisha? “And that girl, Youki-san, she doesn’t like me either.” I rolled my cut-off hair into a ball and tied it with my kimono ribbon. I had nothing to hold my kimono closed to hide my nudity, but I felt more naked without my hair.

“Youki-san wishes you no harm,” Mariko said, surprising me.

“How can you say that? Look what she did to my hair.” I held up my cut-off strands. Why would she protect the girl?

“She’s very frightened, Kathlene-san. If she doesn’t become a geisha, she can’t work off her debt.”

“Debt?”

“She was sold by her parents to a man who buys young girls for a great sum of money. She must earn that money back from her work as a geisha.”

“That doesn’t excuse what she did to me, Mariko-san,” I interrupted her.

Mariko bowed her head. “Yes, Kathlene-san, but if she doesn’t become a geisha and get a benefactor to help advance her career, she’ll be sent to the unlicensed quarters of Shimabara as a prostitute.”

I dared to ask, “What will happen to her there?”

“She’ll be put into a bamboo cage and made to blacken her teeth and shave the hair between her legs and pleasure the penises of many men in one night.”

“Are you certain of this?” I asked, putting my bundle of cut-off hair down to my side.

Mariko nodded. “It’s true. We can’t let this happen to her, although there are those in the teahouse who report everything to okâsan.” I had no doubt she meant Ai, the handservant. “Youki-san will be in big trouble when okâsan hears about what she’s done tonight.”

“What can I do?”

“Go to okâsan and tell her you accept Youki-san’s apology.”

I made a face. “What apology?”

Mariko smiled. “The one Youki-san will give you when she finds out you helped her.”

I shook my head. “I don’t understand, Mariko-san. You want me to accept an apology that’s not been offered yet?”

“You must try to understand us, Kathlene-san. It’s the way of the geisha to bond as sisters.” Mariko lowered her eyes. “It’s the root of our geisha society for the experienced one to become the big sister to the new geisha, no matter what their ages.”

I shivered. “I wouldn’t want Youki-san for my sister.”

“If you stay in the Teahouse of the Look-Back Tree, I would pray to the gods okâsan would choose another maiko for your sister.”

“Oh? And who’s that?”

Mariko bowed low. “I’m not worthy but I will soon become a maiko, Kathlene-san. I would be most honored to be older sister to you.”

“You, Mariko-san?”

“Yes, I would be both mentor and friend, but I’d also give you loyalty.”

Mariko looked directly at me, something she’d never do in ordinary circumstances, but for some reason I couldn’t understand, the girl wouldn’t change her mind about this sister thing. And helping Youki.

“You’ll go to okâsan and follow our tradition?” she asked, though it was more of a statement than a request.

I hesitated. I had to admit, I wasn’t happy about approaching Simouyé and giving her this phony apology story, but I’d do it if it was part of being a geisha.

I slid open the rice-paper door, apprehension tugging at my insides as I ran my fingers over the hand-painted crestlike circles of flowers on the paper screen, admiring their beauty, knowing I mustn’t mar that beauty.