Geisha in Rivalry

by Kafū Nagai

  Uttering a little cry of astonishment, Komayo stood there wavering between joy and bashfulness, unable for a moment to enter the room. The surprise was too great. The day before yesterday, in broad daylight in the corridor of the deserted Sanshun'en, she had found herself in a delightful dream. Where it had come from, what she had done in it, what had been done to her, there was no telling. But her companion in it, no matter what one might say, was an actor who had countless admirers, and she had taken it for granted that to him it was only casual fun. But even if he thought of it as only an affair of the moment, for her as a geisha it was an incomparable god-sent gift. And then, just as she was thinking this, to have him suddenly send for her before even three days had passed, and to do it quietly and discreetly, was utterly beyond anything she had hoped for. How could one describe such kind-hearted conduct? At the thought of it, Komayo's eyes filled with tears of happiness, and she was helpless to do or say anything.

  As if on purpose, he had been playing the ballad "Impatient, I Waited." Now, with the samisen still resting on his knee, he said: "It's coolest over here. Come and sit down."

  "Oh, thank you," she said almost in a whisper. Like an innocent young girl who has been brought to a marriage interview, Komayo was unable to lift her face.

  Segawa was completely delighted with this state of affairs. At the same time he began to be seized with an unforeseen curiosity. He had not thought that Komayo was so artless and honest a geisha. Since she was already twenty-four or twenty-five, she must certainly have slept with an actor or two. But what had begun as a casual escapade in broad daylight the day before yesterday at the Sanshun'en had unexpectedly developed into something else, and he felt that he could not put it aside and pretend that nothing had happened. For this reason, half out of his sense of obligation as an actor and half out of a desire to apologize, he had sent for her. When she saw him, he thought, she would show no trace of embarrassment at all. No doubt she would say something like "Well, niisan, aren't you the naughty boy!"

  But when he discovered that Komayo's manner was quite the opposite of what he had anticipated—that she had apparently become altogether infatuated with him —his masculine vanity was flattered, and this made him supremely happy. If a mere affair of the moment could produce results like this, there was no telling how much more he could excite her by following the same course. At this thought, more for the fun of it than for anything else, Segawa couldn't resist letting himself go and practicing upon her all the secret arts that his experience up to now had taught him. As for Komayo, enchanted was not the word; she had the feeling of dreaming within a dream. The effect of all this was to make her wonder if she hadn't been bewitched by a fox. She could neither speak nor raise a hand. The single thought of her joy and gratitude possessed her completely.

  After a while Segawa, always scrupulously careful in everything, straightened his clothing and sat down by the window, where an agreeable breeze was blowing. From far off there came the sound of a night watchman's wooden clappers. Evidently it was already past ten o'clock.

  "Koma-chan, please pour me a cup of tea."

  "It's cold by now. Let me go and ask for some fresh."

  She started to get up busily, but he took hold of her hand. "It's all right," he said. "We don't want the maid coming in here and bothering us now."

  "No, I guess not." Komayo, her hand still held in his, let herself drop casually to the floor and leaned against him. "I'm thirsty too," she said. "I can't help it. But I'm sure I didn't drink that much."

  "Look, Koma-chan. Is it all right? Promise you'll arrange to meet me without fail."

  "Without fail, niisan. And please promise me the same. If this is your wish, I'll show you that no trouble is too much for me."

  "If my mother weren't so demanding, I'd spend the night here, but things aren't that easy."

  "I know. But, niisan, when can you meet me next time? I'm always free after eleven o'clock."

  "But your danna mustn't find out that you're spending the night somewhere else. The main thing is to be as careful as you can."

  "There's nothing to worry about. My danna hardly ever stays all night. So it's probably harder for you to stay overnight than it is for me, niisan."

  "What? If I want to spend the night out, there's no reason why I can't.... Except that there are few women as conventional as my mother. But even she wasn't always so conventional as she is now. Anyway, Koma-chan, let's meet tomorrow evening. My rehearsal tomorrow will probably be over around eight or nine o'clock. I'll come straight here from the theater. This place is all right, isn't it? Or do you know a teahouse where people are less likely to see us?"

  "It's all right here. You can expect me to be waiting. In case there's an engagement I can't get out of, please be sure to wait for me till I'm free."

  "I promise." For the first time Segawa took her hand formally the way a young man about town would do. "Well, I must get them to call me a jinrikisha."

  While he waited for the jinrikisha to arrive, Segawa became all the more eloquent in his recital of endearments. Komayo, having seen him off, stopped at the desk of the teahouse to pay her respects. She had forgotten to order a jinrikisha for herself, but she decided to let it go. When she stepped outdoors, the early autumn night was cool and brilliant with stars, and the breeze played with the loose locks of her hair. It was a matchless evening.

  Shortly after passing in front of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, she turned in the direction of the Izumo Bridge. Walking slowly and scraping her wooden clogs along the pavement, she could think of nothing but the events of the evening just past, and she turned them over again and again in her mind. When she came to the bridge and saw beyond it the distant lights of the Ginza, she felt that she wanted only to be sunk once again in her thoughts, to think of nothing else, and so, with no idea at all of her destination, she wandered toward a lonelier district. Not only the lights in the upper stories of the machiai that she passed and the strolling street singers who came by, but everything that she saw and heard—the whole world, in fact— gave her the sensation of having changed completely from anything that she had known before.

  There was no room in Komayo's mind for the suspicion that there might be another woman in Segawa's life. She only knew that she was beside herself with happiness. If she had married again in Akita and had settled down there to grow old in the country, she would never have known that such happiness could exist in the world. At this thought, she was filled with inexpressible gratitude for the misfortunes she had known up to now, and it seemed to her that nothing was more incomprehensible than human fate. Realizing now that bitterness and pleasure alike were part of being a geisha, Komayo felt that she had tasted for the first time the true flavor of geisha life. Besides, even though she was still a geisha, she was no longer the one she had been yesterday. Now she had taken a tremendously popular actor for her lover, and her reputation as a geisha was established. Overnight she had raised her standing and acquired importance, and the thought of it filled her with an indescribable elation.

  Just at this moment, from the opposite direction, a geisha came riding in a jinrikisha. Seeing her, Komayo almost spoke aloud the words that spontaneously rose to her lips: "I wonder which house she's from." Then she thought: "If that geisha turns around to look back at me walking here in this dimly lit street, I won't be too timid to look right back at her."

  It was this kind of courage that had developed in Komayo.

  EVENING GLOW

  IT WAS the time of day when the sun, setting now but still glowing with summer heat, shone over the roofs of the houses opposite the Obanaya in Komparu-dori and dyed red the bamboo blinds that hung across the bay windows of the second floor front. From the foot of the stairway the voice of the scullery maid called out: "The bath is ready, everybody." Upstairs, lying awake and sprawled about as they rested, were five geisha: Komayo in a summer kimono made of toweling and tied with an undersash; Kikuchiyo in a calico nightgown; Hanasuke in an unbleached
cotton chemise and underskirt; the dancing girl Hanako; and Otsuru, who had just begun her apprenticeship and was still a child.

  Kikuchiyo—twenty-two or -three, short, and plump— lived up to the nickname of "Goldfish" that all the others had given her. Not only her face but also her eyes were round, and her nose was flat. Her neck was short and thick, and the way she had it shaved made her look from the back like a Buddhist priest. Her figure was not good, but her little almost-forgotten chin and her white throat gave her the appearance of a kitten that one would like to caress. She always wore her hair in tsubushi-shimada style, oiling it heavily and bringing it up over pads at the front and the sides so that she could make it puff out the way she wanted it. Even on the hottest summer days she wore make-up so thick that it seemed on the verge of peeling off, and she had a taste for wearing immoderately gaudy kimono. Because of all this, there was spiteful talk to the effect that she gave people the impression of a high-class prostitute when she appeared for a teahouse engagement and that, since it made her look younger at the same time, she was able to attract better patrons.

  Hanasuke, the geisha clad only in her underwear, was a sturdily built woman with curly hair, a dark complexion, and lustreless eyes in a broad face. Although there was actually little difference in age between her and Komayo, no one who looked at her could think her much less than thirty. She herself had long been aware of this, and she knew quite well that when she mingled with the nearly one thousand other Shimbashi geisha neither her looks nor her style placed her much in demand. In keeping with her character, whenever she went to a teahouse engagement, she showed herself to be an even harder worker than the maids. In the company of pretty and popular young geisha, she modestly took a back seat, conducting herself with great tact and believing that if she made herself inferior to them, she would be called to other engagements. Consequently everyone thought well of her, and she was kept fairly busy with calls from the teahouses. Moreover, for the past two or three years she had been steadily kept by a moneylender who, interestingly enough, had singled her out exactly because she was not good-looking and was therefore less expensive to maintain. As a result, she was never troubled for money, and she was inseparable from her postal-savings passbook, which she wore inside her kimono like an amulet.

  Hanako and Otsuru, who had been practicing the Osome dance, now put the samisen away. Kikuchiyo, taking care not to disturb her coiffure, gave a wide and unglamorous yawn, while Hanasuke rose and stretched herself. Then all four of them took combs from the drawers of their small dressing tables and swept up the side tresses of their hair in preparation for the bath. Only Komayo made no effort to get up. She lay there awake with her face turned toward the wall.

  "What time is it? Is the bath water hot already?"

  "Come on and get up or I'll tickle you."

  "I'm sorry, but I'll have to be excused."

  "What's the matter with you? Are you in love? I'm really surprised. Look at her."

  "Komayo, ever since yesterday there's been something the matter with you. Last night you were talking in your sleep in such a loud voice that you scared me. At first I couldn't imagine who it was."

  "Really?" The involuntary look that came over Komayo's face seemed to say: "Have things really gone that far?" After something of an effort she sat up. "All right," she said, "I'll stand you a treat."

  "Komayo, something has really happened at last, hasn't it?"

  "Quick, isn't she, this girl?" She paused for a moment. "Thank you very much for your kindness at the Sanshun'en the other day," she said.

  "Stop trying to fool me."

  "I had drunk almost a whole bottle of whisky. Even now my head is still going around."

  "Koma-chan, what on earth are you planning to do? Our neisan seems to be worrying about you too, even though she hasn't said anything about it."

  "I... well, I'm really in a fix. This time I don't want to make a mistake... with him. At the same time, it would be a nuisance to have everybody gossiping about me and saying that I seemed about ready to quit. To tell the truth, I'm tired of the whole business."

  "Do you have an engagement this evening?"

  "No. I haven't heard from him since. But I feel sure he'll show up before long. The trouble is that I just don't know what answer to give him."

  There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and presently Osada, the hakoya of the geisha house, came in. She was a woman of about forty-five. Her slender figure, her large eyes, and well-shaped nose, and her oval face suggested that she had not been entirely overlooked in her younger days. But now her hair was thin and had already begun to turn gray at the front, and her complexion had the burned look that comes from overuse of cosmetics. All this, together with the way she wore her kimono, bore out the story that she had formerly been a prostitute in the Susaki quarter. At one time she had had a husband, but he had died. She had first been taken into the Obanaya some seven years ago as a maid of the lowest class, having come with an introduction from a servants' agency. By observation and imitation she had learned the duties of a hakoya, and just at this time her predecessor in the job was fired for tampering with the accounts. It was now about three years since she had taken over the work.

  When Komayo looked at Osada's face, she thought: "Speak of the devil...." Assuming that Osada had come with the news of Yoshioka's arrival, she burst out: "Osada-san, is it for me?"

  "No. It's for Kikuchiyo-san. It's a call from the Shimpuku house." She turned to Kikuchiyo. "Since your engagement at the Midoriya is at six, I suppose you can manage it?" Osada's tone was one that made her sound as if she were giving orders and asking for advice at the same time. Without waiting for Kikuchiyo's answer, she asked: "Is yesterday's kimono all right?"

  Kikuchiyo said nothing but went hurriedly downstairs to the bath.

  It could not be said that Kikuchiyo and Komayo were enemies. Still, Kikuchiyo, who had last year completed the contract under which all of her earnings went to the house, now worked under a profit-sharing agreement and enjoyed a position of seniority. She had two important patrons: a department chief in a certain ministry and a well-to-do Diet member from the provinces, and she had arrived at the point of wielding influence at the Obanaya. But when the reputation of a later arrival like Komayo threatened to put her into eclipse, she could no longer be at ease. This feeling naturally showed itself in her behavior, with the result that Komayo, adopting a manner of inward ridicule, thought to herself: "Such insolence! And from a fright like her!"

  Caught between the two of them, the unattractive but clever Hanasuke took sides with neither. Instead, she treated both of them cordially, calculating that every engagement to which she accompanied them meant a gain for her. Nevertheless, it was Komayo that she preferred, not only because they were closer in age but also because they had gone through the same kind of troubles. Since they could talk intimately, they got along quite well together. Hanasuke had formerly worked in the Yoshicho quarter, where one of her patrons had redeemed her and made her his mistress. But it was not long before he deserted her, and three years ago she had taken up geisha life again, this time in Shimbashi.

  When Yoshioka had brought up the idea of buying Komayo her freedom, the first person she had consulted was Hanasuke. "I can speak from experience," Hanasuke told her, and she went on to recite her story over and over again. Her conclusion was that men, when they were good, were very good indeed but that, once they changed their minds, they were thoroughly heartless. This gave strong support to Komayo's long-standing theories about masculine fickleness, and from then on, the two became all the more congenial. In their heart-to-heart talks, they decided that it was best not to count on any man but to go on working as long as they could, with the goal of one day becoming independent and comfortable in small businesses of their own.

  Although Komayo had become a geisha again after leaving the family circle in Akita and finding herself at a loss for any other plan of living, it was undeniable that she had been out of the profession
for six or seven years. Moreover, living far off in the country had made her strangely melancholy and somewhat stiff in her behavior. She tried to be merry and sparkling in her teahouse engagements and to put up with all sorts of behavior from guests who were good spenders, but the truth was that she didn't succeed very well in this respect. No matter how hard she tried, she was not the girl of her teens who had innocently said yes to everything and everybody. The behavior of provokingly arrogant teahouse maids and machiai mistresses who all but ordered her to take guests against her will struck deep into Komayo's heart, but until now she had slept with no guests at all except Yoshioka. Hanasuke, considering this from her own point of view, earnestly expressed the opinion that if she didn't make use of the present she would feel the loss in the future. "If I only had your good looks," she said regretfully. Komayo, however, had felt no particular need to drive herself and consequently lacked the courage to do so. But now, in a single night, both the need to earn more money and the courage to go out and get it had suddenly come upon her.

  After Kikuchiyo had left in a great hurry for her engagement at the Shimpuku house, Komayo and Hanasuke, coming up late from the bath, moved their small dressing tables from the still sunlit front window to the smaller window at the back that overlooked the roof and the platform where the laundry was dried. Sitting companionably beside each other, they began to put on their make-up.

  Suddenly Komayo said: "Hana-chan, haven't you been seeing that gentleman lately?"

  "Which gentleman?" Hanasuke was absorbed in the difficult task of smoothing the curly hair at the sides of her head.

  "Oh, you know the one I mean. The man that called us to the Chiyomoto house so often just after I came out again as a geisha."

  "You mean Sugishima-san and his crowd?"

  "Yes, that's it. Sugishima-san, of course. What business are those people in? Are they Diet members?"