‘We’ll have to get past the guards first, but they’ll never let us by,’ he said. ‘We look like beggars. So in that case the only way is to get as close as we can to the bottom of the dyke then skirt along it till we get to the edge of the stockade. Then we’ll have to cross the Moat of Black Teeth and get over the wall. It won’t be easy, but we’ve got this far. We’ll manage somehow.’
‘Why not just wait till evening and walk in with everyone else?’ said Marlin. He was twitching with impatience. ‘All we have to do is get to the top of the dyke.’
Yozo looked at his friend, at his huge square face, lank brown hair and moustache and his long arms and legs poking incongruously out of his cotton jacket and leggings. It was the most preposterous thing he’d ever heard.
‘Merge with the crowd? You? There’ll be soldiers up there checking papers, and we haven’t got any.’
‘They know me,’ Marlin said airily.
‘They know you?’ Yozo laughed aloud.
‘Of course.’ Marlin was still grinning. ‘If anyone challenges us, I’ll say you’re my servant. Leave it to me.’
Yozo sighed. It was the craziest plan he’d ever heard but Marlin seemed sure of himself and he had never failed him yet. ‘We’d better lie low till nightfall,’ he said reluctantly.
They edged back from the top of the hummock, trying not to give themselves away by making the grass ripple, and found a patch of shade under a clump of fronds, then curled up there and waited while the sun beat down overhead.
The Yoshiwara. Yozo was a man of the world, he’d been to the West, but even so he couldn’t help feeling a thrill of excitement. When he was a boy it had been the most glamorous of places. Everyone had talked of its courtesans and geishas and bandied about the names of the most celebrated. Like every young man, Yozo had dreamed of being seen with a beautiful courtesan on his arm and admired as someone who knew his way around there.
‘So you know the Yoshiwara,’ he said to Marlin.
‘No better than you know the Pigalle or the Amsterdam red light district.’
‘My father first took me when I was thirteen,’ said Yozo. He closed his eyes. He could hear his father’s deep tones. ‘You have to learn how to be a man,’ he had said. Yozo had gone abroad after that and become part of a different world and since he’d been back he’d never once even thought of the Yoshiwara. There had been a war to fight.
But now, as the sun crawled across the sky, he let himself dream. What a place it had been for a young lad to see – the women in their gorgeous silks smiling and waving and beckoning, looking at him with knowing glances that made him blush to the roots of his hair. Then there had been that first encounter with a courtesan with trailing red skirts, wafting clouds of perfume. He remembered her smile and her soft white hands. Since then he’d known many women of her profession, but none so gentle and so consummately skilled. Dreamily he wondered what had become of her – and what the Yoshiwara could be like now. Surely the war must have touched it too.
Yet Marlin was right: it was the perfect place to hide. As a samurai he had had to leave his swords at the gate, he remembered, and his status along with them. As for merchants, outside the Yoshiwara samurai had looked down on them as vulgar creatures who soiled their hands with money, but inside they had all swum together. In fact, in the Yoshiwara, the merchants had been kings and flaunted themselves like nobles, hosting feasts and entertaining courtesans. Even peasants were welcomed if they had money to spend.
As dusk was falling Yozo and Marlin picked their way across the last stretch of marshland to the foot of the dyke. Yozo took a good look at the rough earthen wall, then started to scramble up it as nimbly as he could, searching for handholds and footholds. He was halfway up when there was a crash. Marlin had slithered to the bottom, taking with him an avalanche of rocks and earth. Yozo raised his head, expecting to see rows of eyes staring down at him, but there was so much bustle and tramping of feet above them that it drowned any noise the two of them could make.
At the top was a road lined with stalls, with food, woodblock prints, souvenirs and books laid out on display, along with any disguise a man might want, from a doctor’s robes to a false topknot. Lanterns lit the way. Men hurried by, sashes slung fashionably low around their hips, and bearers raced along carrying palanquins.
Shimmering in the distance was a huddle of buildings with banners of smoke rising from the close-packed roofs: the Yoshiwara. It rose out of the plain like a fairy city, floating in the darkness, dancing with lights, drawing men towards it like moths to a flame, as alluring as Amida Buddha’s western paradise. Above the tramp of feet, the tinkle of music and sounds of roistering drifted towards them.
Yozo brushed the dirt off his clothes and smoothed his hair. ‘It’s lucky it’s night time,’ he muttered. He wrapped a scarf around his head to conceal his face, so that only his eyes and nose were visible. He was expecting Marlin to put his hat over his head, but the Frenchman strutted off as arrogantly as any rake heading for a night on the town. ‘Remember, not a word,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Leave the talking to me.’
They joined the crowd of men hurrying along the road. Covertly Yozo surveyed them – southerners, most of them, from their accents, and bumpkins, for all their showy robes. The thought of these men not only occupying his country but sleeping with its women made him crazy with rage. He fingered the knife tucked in his sash. Then he felt Marlin’s touch on his arm. The big Frenchman sensed his fury.
They were nearly at the turning that led to the Yoshiwara when they saw a group of soldiers blocking the road, stopping everyone who went by. Marlin brushed through them as if they weren’t even there. Yozo bowed his head and was following when an ugly man with a round head and black uniform stepped into his path.
‘Papers,’ he barked in a thick southern accent.
Yozo gripped his knife but before he could move Marlin had swung round and grabbed him by the collar. ‘Idiot!’ he barked in English, giving him a shake. ‘You’re too damn slow. Get a move on.’
The guards’ jaws dropped. ‘Bloody halfwit,’ said Marlin, and cuffed Yozo round the head.
The guards backed off, bowing nervously, clearly in awe of the gigantic foreigner, and Marlin swaggered on. Yozo followed, grinning inwardly, rubbing his head and shuffling his feet like the most dim-witted of servants.
He was congratulating himself on their lucky escape when a couple of lanky foreigners strode up from behind and flanked them, one to each side. Yozo recognized their uniforms. English sailors, rough-looking characters with ruddy faces and that meaty smell that foreigners had.
They moved in close to Marlin and stepped right in front of him. It was obvious that for them Yozo and the guards didn’t even exist. Marlin moved to one side, then the other, but the sailors did too, blocking his path.
‘Frenchie, aren’t you?’ demanded one in English. ‘I thought they threw you lot out.’
‘What are you doing here, dressed like one of those monkeys?’ drawled the other.
He gave Marlin a shove and Marlin took a couple of steps back. It was too dangerous to start a fight here and Yozo knew that if they drew attention to themselves the guards would discover who they were.
‘You want to go to the Yoshiwara?’ Marlin snarled at the Englishmen. ‘They don’t let you in if you cause trouble.’
He stepped around them and headed quickly down the zigzag slope towards the Great Gate. Yozo followed at his heels. As if in a dream, he passed the swaying willow tree and saw the familiar tiled roof of the gate, the massive wooden doors pushed wide open and the huge red lanterns hanging on each side. The guard, a burly fellow with a neck as thick as a bull’s and massive arms covered in ornate tattoos, stepped forward as he saw Marlin and broke into a huge grin.
‘Shirobei,’ said Marlin. ‘You still here?’
‘Monsieur,’ said the guard. ‘Welcome back. We’ve been waiting for you. These men causing you trouble, are they?’
Suddenly Yozo was
through the gate. Swept up in the crowd, he stared around at the glittering buildings and the rows of red lanterns. He breathed in sweet perfumes and felt the touch of silken fabric as delicate creatures with white-painted faces floated past and lavishly dressed children threaded their way through the throng.
Ahead of him he could see Marlin’s brown head poking up way above the crowd as he pushed straight up the main street and swung down a back alley. Stunned, Yozo followed him.
23
Hana stood at the Great Gate of the Yoshiwara, bowing gracefully as she said farewell to a heavy-browed young man who was clambering into a palanquin. He poked his head in, then pulled it out again, turning to gaze at her with a look of almost comical despair while his attendants stood around exhorting him to hurry. People said he was a rising figure in the new bureaucracy and had an important position in the Ministry of Finance, but with her he behaved like a sulky little boy.
Ordinarily she saw her clients off at the house but he had begged her so pathetically to come to the gate that in the end she’d agreed. Thinking that it was early and there would be few men around to see her, she had thrown an old haori jacket over her night robes and run out with only the lightest of make-up.
Until now Hana had taken care not to look through the Great Gate. She belonged in the Yoshiwara and she knew all too well that the outside world was closed to her. But today she glanced through, wondering if she might see a messenger running down the slope with a letter from Oharu and Gensuké. More than a month had passed since she had given Fuyu a note for them but still there’d been no reply.
Beyond the trees on the other side of the gate she could see the winding track that led up to the Japan Dyke. In the distance the embankment loomed like a great wall cutting across the plain. Figures hurried along the top, silhouetted against the pale sky, appearing and disappearing between the straw-walled stalls which shimmered in the sun. A cock crowed, breaking the morning hush. The weather had turned refreshingly cool.
The wind that blew through the gate brought smells of the city, scents she’d almost forgotten, and odd clatterings and bangings and children’s voices. Geese wheeled above the marshes, shrieking. Here in the Yoshiwara she was confined to a grid of five streets, but she remembered now with a pang of longing that out there beyond the Great Gate the world went on and on for ever. An hour’s march across marshland and paddy fields would bring her to the city of Edo, which she now had to remember to call Tokyo, and, several days beyond that, across endless hills and valleys, to Kano, where she had grown up. Unexpectedly she found herself picturing her parents’ house with its ramshackle gate and big entrance porch and huge shady rooms. At this time of year the rain doors would still be pushed back, leaving the house open to the breezes.
It had been on a sunlit morning like this that she had said goodbye to her parents. She remembered them waving as she peeped out of the wedding palanquin, her father tall and stern, her mother small and round, huddling in his shadow, blinking back tears. She was so proud, she had said, that Hana had made such a good marriage, and Hana had replied that she’d do her best not to make them ashamed of her. She remembered how she’d watched them growing smaller in the distance. She thought of them now with such longing that tears came to her eyes.
A crow landed on the stockade beside her with a harsh caw, bringing her back to earth with a start. Around her, women were bowing to their lovers who were scuffling up the slope, dragging their feet with a great show of reluctance, kicking up clouds of dust, turning at the Looking Back Willow for a last look at the woman they’d spent the night with. The young man stepping into his palanquin had turned once more to gaze at her.
‘I can’t bear it,’ he said fretfully. To Hana’s eyes his western style tight-fitting trousers and jacket looked incongruous above his neatly tied straw sandals and white tabi socks. ‘You’ll forget me the moment I’m gone, I know you will. You’ll be busy with all those other lovers of yours.’
She smiled at him like a mother at a recalcitrant child. ‘You’re such a silly,’ she said, laughing. ‘You know you’re the only one I love. I have to see the rest, it’s my job, but you’re the only one I care for. I won’t sleep a wink till I see you again. I’ll be thinking about you all the time.’
‘You say that to everyone,’ he said ruefully but he smiled all the same. She watched as he bent down and clambered into the wooden box, taking off his sandals and folding his legs underneath him. Porters heaved the palanquin on to their shoulders and set off up the slope at a trot. Hana stood bowing till it disappeared.
With the last of their clients gone, the women at the gate looked at each other and smiled. For a few precious hours they could be themselves. Hana yawned and turned towards the Corner Tamaya. She was looking forward to a couple of hours of undisturbed sleep. A bell tolled in the distance and the shrill of the cicadas swelled then faded then rose to a clamour again. There was an autumnal tone to their burr now. From the houses along the alleys came the rhythmic thump of the papermakers’ mallets. The whole of the Yoshiwara seemed ready to sink into slumber.
Hana was passing the Chrysanthemum Teahouse when the curtains over the door flew open.
‘Hanaogi-sama! Hanaogi-sama!’ called a voice.
Hana stifled a gasp. Mitsu had on a shabby cotton kimono and jacket. She was usually immaculate, even in the morning, but today she wore not a speck of make-up. Her ageing face was the colour of parchment, her eyes half hidden inside folds of skin and her hair bushed out in a white mane around her head, but to Hana’s amazement she was positively dancing with excitement. She glanced up and down the street as if to check that no one was within hearing distance then scurried up to Hana with tiny pigeon-toed steps.
‘I have wonderful news,’ she said, hiding her smile with her hand. ‘Saburo has returned!’
Hana looked at her, puzzled, wondering what news could be so thrilling as to make Mitsu behave in such an extraordinary fashion. ‘Saburo?’ she repeated.
‘Saburosuké of the House of Kashima,’ said Mitsu, emphasizing each syllable with a nod of her head. She laughed her high-pitched, fluting laugh. ‘The quarter’s coming back to life! We’re in business again!’
‘Saburosuké Kashima …’
Even in the countryside Hana had heard of the Kashimas. Before she married, her mother had sent a servant to the Kashima store in Osaka to order the red silk for her wedding dress. No one had finer silks, she had said firmly. The Kashimas were said to be rich beyond imagining and hugely powerful. She had heard that they had funnelled money to both sides in the civil war to make sure that no matter who won, they would come out on top.
‘Naturally his clerk came straight to me, to the Chrysanthemum Teahouse,’ Mitsu crowed, patting Hana’s arm. ‘He’s a man of taste, you see. He knows which is the best teahouse in town.’
She beamed at Hana, her eyes sparkling. ‘He was our best patron before the war began. He once booked every girl in the Yoshiwara, all three thousand of them, and had the Great Gate closed for the night so he could have a party. Our chefs were busy for days! He sampled all the top girls and always said he was looking for the perfect woman. But then the war came and he went down to Osaka like all our best clients. And now he’s back. And you know what his clerk said to me? The very first thing?’
Hana shook her head.
‘He said, “Mitsu-sama, who is this Hanaogi we keep hearing about? The master wants to meet her. You must book her for him straight away.” You see, even in wartime your fame has spread right across the country.’
A hush seemed to fall over the street. Hana felt a surge of apprehension. ‘But I’m fully booked,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ve been booked up for months.’
‘I’ve moved your appointments around,’ said Mitsu briskly. ‘You’re to see him tonight.’
Two children in bright kimonos darted by, chasing each other, shrieking and giggling.
‘But …’ Masaharu, her favourite customer and the man who had paid for her début, had book
ed her that night. Hana always reminded herself of Otsuné’s advice: never to forget that for him she was just a plaything. He paid for his pleasure and that was all there was to it and she always took care to maintain a distance and not to lose her heart to him. But despite all her efforts she couldn’t help looking forward to his visits. ‘What will my clients say when they arrive and find their appointments cancelled?’
‘Not cancelled, postponed. It’s good to make them wait; it makes them hungrier for you.’
‘But Masaharu’s my long-standing client.’
‘That’s as it may be. Masaharu is a newcomer to the quarter and although he has plenty of money to splash around, Saburo is a far more important customer. Your Auntie and Father know Saburo very well and Tama does too. They’ll be delighted.’ She laughed shrilly. ‘Saburo back! It’ll be like old times. It makes me feel young again!’
Hana had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. ‘I don’t have to lie with him if I don’t like him,’ she muttered. ‘He’ll have to woo me like all the others.’
Mitsu wrinkled her forehead. Like all the women she had no eyebrows, only a shadow where they had been shaved off.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ she said. ‘Liking doesn’t come into it. You haven’t been here long, I always forget that. He’s a very important man.’
Hana swallowed. ‘Is he old or young?’ she demanded. ‘Is he handsome? Is he clever?’
‘He’s rich, that’s all you need to know. Go home and sleep. You’re going to need all your energy tonight.’
Before Hana could say another word Mitsu had pattered back into her teahouse, leaving the curtains flapping.
Reluctantly Hana took a few steps towards the Corner Tamaya. She could imagine the excitement there. Auntie and Father would be insisting she lie with this man; Tama would be telling her what a great opportunity it was. She kicked at the dust. Just as she had begun to imagine she was mistress of her destiny, something always happened to remind her that she was still a slave. For all her fine clothes, she belonged to these people.
The Courtesan and the Samurai Page 19