A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding

by Jackie Copleton

  Mother took me to Bar Printemps when I was fifteen. Father had died of an impossible mix of black lung and rice wine. She was too fond of sake herself. She said we needed the money and there was no shame in the work. She was too old but I was the perfect age. Maybe in time I would be introduced to a decent man, unlike her. She would bemoan the cruel fates that had thrown her in the path of my ‘feckless’ father. During slurred rows and thrown cups, I learned neither had wanted to marry the other, but my impending birth necessitated the union. She said her beauty had cursed her life with the attentions of this good-for-nothing but my looks could be put to better use.

  We lived close to Maruyama, the red-light district of Nagasaki known as Shian Bashi, or Hesitation Bridge. Anyone wanting a night of pleasure would have to cross this first point of entry. Once they had, they would then pass over, guilt-free or not, Omoikiri Bashi, Made Up Your Mind Bridge. Safe among the rows of wooden homes, where women lounged from balconies, visitors to the area had their choice of entertainment: tea houses, bars or dance halls. The customers came not just from Japan but Malaysia, Europe, China and India. Traders, sailors, merchant seamen, local workers and foreign diplomats could all be found drinking, talking and doing deals behind shoji screens. The modan gaaru, or modern girls, of the jazz age had not yet arrived, nor had the cafe girls, dressed in their kimonos and aprons with their fast flirtatious chat, but the men found plenty of variety to distract them. There were geishas, skilled in musical instruments or dance; there were women who could laugh and pour drinks; there were concubines to love and prostitutes who expected no such commitment. Girls driven from poor rural areas, or the textile factories with their low pay and harsh discipline, would head to this part of the city, targets for traffickers who would take them to the docks for transport across the water to the brothels of Shanghai.

  Rain battered the cobbles the day we arrived at the bar. The mama-san was looking at a ledger of accounts as she sat on one of the maroon velvet banquettes. She was probably older than Mother but with her gleaming hair pinned high, careful make-up and trim figure, her age was an elegant mystery. She saw us and checked her watch then closed her book. She gestured for us to come closer. Mother bowed very low and said, ‘This is my daughter, Amaterasu.’ Mama-san looked at my mother’s stained kimono and unwashed hair and then checked me up and down as you might a beast at the cattle market. She pointed to the seat opposite her and we sat down. She asked Mother questions, confirmed my age, my schooling. She studied me once more, asked me to turn my face to the side. She told me to smile and frowned when I did so. Did I know how to pour drinks? Could I light cigarettes? Could I hold a conversation? Mother said I was a quick learner. Mama-san said she would be the judge of that. She nodded as if she had come to a decision. She would loan me an initial sum to pay for kimonos and make-up. She expected rigorous hygiene. She looked at Mother when she said this. I must go to the baths more than once a week. She had a doctor she could recommend if I fell ill. If she found out I had been meeting customers on my own time, I would be fired. She wanted to be clear about these punishments. Mama-san told me to come back that evening. I could observe proceedings from the kitchen, which had a view of the bar.

  When I returned some hours later, Mama-san was perched at the mahogany bar, positioned so that she might keep a discreet eye on most of the tables save for the few designed to be more private in a smaller back room. The girls began to arrive and greeted her with careful respect. They were a rainbow of silk kimonos, their coils of hair glossy with oil, powder heavy on their faces. The lights were dimmed and they began to shimmer like a shoal of koi wriggling over one another for food. Some of them spotted me standing behind the glass beads that separated the main bar from the kitchen and I could hear them whisper and titter before they began to clean glasses or prepare jugs of sake. A girl, not much older than me, came up and introduced herself as Karin. She said not to look so scared; I would soon get the hang of the work, and the customers. Then the men came and with them the smoke, and noise, and transactions shrouded in low-lit lamps. Most of them stayed in the bar but some headed to the recess at the back and only after a long time would they return.

  I watched the girls smile and serve drinks and light cigarettes and flit around the bar gentle as butterflies freed from the cocoon. The hostesses held their hands to their mouths and giggled as their companions emboldened by alcohol slapped kimono-clad thighs if they dared or their own if they lacked the courage. The girls were able to chide them with taps of their folded fans on the end of a nose or a careful exit to replenish the men’s drinks. I saw envelopes passed and gifts exchanged and arrangements whispered.

  Later still a man dressed in the dark green cavalry uniform of the Kempeitai arrived with a woman on his arm in a rush of night breeze from the entrance. He wore the white armband of the military police on his left arm but his katana sword was missing. Mama-san wriggled from her seat and led him to a reserved table. She told girls yet to be assigned to a customer to bring bottles of spirits. I watched the man’s companion as Mama-san fussed around him. She wore a gold kimono emblazoned with red-and-white koi, her hair was pinned in coils, but her face was free of make-up.

  They sat down and the man in uniform studied the line of the woman’s neck and the patch of skin between her hair and the top of her kimono. He said something and she twisted around and gave him a look of faux annoyance. I saw how she held his gaze for longer than necessary until she turned away as if the bar was imbued with new interest. She scoured the room and saw me, not quite hidden behind the glass beads. The man watched her and turned his head until they were both staring in my direction. Then my view was obscured by one of the hostesses carrying a tray of glasses and corn snacks. I stepped farther back into the kitchen and a few minutes later Mama-san rattled through the beads. ‘Someone wants to meet you.’ My heart thumped. I did not want to go into the bar, have eyes upon me in my drab clothes and clogs and the cheap scent my mother had insisted that I wear. Mama-san opened a cupboard and checked her face in a cracked mirror that hung on the inside of the door. ‘Just an introduction, nothing more. Even hidden away you have caught a customer’s eye. And not any customer . . .’

  When I walked up to them, the man was holding the woman’s wrist upwards and tracing the white line of an old scar with his thumb, a reminder of some childhood mishap, maybe. The woman smiled and her eyebrows arched up as she spoke to him.

  ‘Maybe not good, but I can be bad.’

  ‘Have you been bad, little one?’

  ‘Very,’ she replied, frowning with mock sombreness. She looked up and smiled. ‘Ah, your little guest.’ She patted the seat next to her and I sat down. She smelled of peony. ‘What a sweet young thing you are. How old are you?’ I told her. ‘So young. I remember that age. I was a little younger when I started working. And your name?’ She listened and smiled. ‘Most fitting. I’m Kimiko and this is Captain Sakamoto.’ I must have looked then. He was sitting back, watching me through a fug of smoke, an amused smile on his lips. He was not a handsome man, but I soon learned that he did not need to be. Wealth and his position secured him the best tables and girls in the bars and brothels of Maruyama.

  Kimiko poured a drink. ‘Here, little one, you must be thirsty.’ She offered me the glass and I put the liquid to my lips. Suddenly I was coughing and spluttering and Kimiko was laughing. ‘I’m sorry, I should have said. That isn’t water. Still, if you are to work here, you will need to acquire the taste.’ She poured from a different jug. ‘This is water.’ I knew Mama-san was watching and that I should smile but I just kept staring at the table. ‘Do you like my kimono, Amaterasu? A present from Sakamoto. He is a very generous man.’ She drank some sake. ‘Captain, do you like Amaterasu’s dress?’ He tapped his cigarette into an ashtray.

  ‘You’re teasing the girl, Kimiko.’

  She lit a cigarette. ‘I’m doing no such thing. I think you look beautiful, Amaterasu. A moth dancing too near the
flame. Wouldn’t you agree, Sakamoto? Isn’t our new little friend adorable?’

  The captain, obscured behind a haze of smoke, lifted up his drink in a toast, but said nothing.

  A Subordinate

  Ue-shita: One of the most important patterns that Japanese people are expected to recognise in human interaction is the relationship between the superordinate and subordinate. A subordinate is supposed to be respectful to a superordinate and the latter caring in a paternal way for the former.

  I bought three kimonos with the money that Mama-san lent me. They came in shades of amber, teal and coral pink. I had never owned anything so exquisite and as I ran my hands over their silks I began to understand how beautiful possessions could change how you saw yourself and how others viewed you. The night I next met the captain, I was swathed in amber. Mother sat on a stool by our hearth as she watched me prepare for my night at the bar. I had been doing shifts for a month, with one day off a week. Mama-san had told me to wear minimal make-up and put my hair in a simple bun. My youth was the only decoration I needed, she said. I wound the cords and sashes around my body. Reflected in the mirror, I could see Mother looking at the kimono, an unhappy smile drawn across a face prematurely reddened and lined through too much alcohol and too little rest. She drank from a glass and told me her favourite story, how she could have been someone if my father hadn’t trapped her in the wrong part of Nagasaki. Poor as we were, she could still imagine another ending for herself. She was still alive enough to dream. She believed I had the chance to take us both from this place we were forced to call home. She talked of saving up what I earned and moving to a better part of the city. Bar Printemps was a tunnel to freedom, one she expected us to take together.

  I looked around our cramped, damp quarters, the dishes of half-eaten food and the piles of unwashed clothes next to the futon where I slept in the main living area. She saw me as a way out when, in truth, I wanted to escape from her. Could she not see me pulling away? Wealth, class, culture, they could all be mimicked and perhaps even acquired; the hostesses had given me such hope, but I feared if Mother clung to me, I would end up like her. When I was ready to leave for the night I handed her some money. The evenings went better for us both if she could afford to spend some hours at the shack masquerading as a bar at the bottom of our street.

  I arrived at Printemps and began collecting glasses from the previous night’s business. One of the girls, a bitter melon called Akiko, began to bait me about Sakamoto. The hostesses had noticed the captain’s interest in me and teasing me about his intentions became their new game. Akiko smiled conspiratorially at her dumpy stooge, Mika.

  ‘Hey, Amaterasu, how’s that captain of yours? Has he placed an order yet? You’re just his type. He likes his meat raw and bleeding.’

  Akiko and Mika laughed as Karin arrived through the main door. Mika picked up a fried shrimp from one of the bowls and began eating with her mouth open. ‘Don’t worry, Amaterasu. Kimiko is more pimp than mistress these days, she’ll be delighted with the rest.’

  Karin shooed them away and Akiko sloped off with a bored pout. ‘You’re no fun, Karin. Tell Amaterasu she should be grateful if Sakamoto shows any interest. He has power and wealth; he isn’t some drunken merchant sailor or factory worker.’

  Mika wiped her fingers on a cloth. ‘Yeah, tell her, she should be grateful.’ She shot a sly glance at Akiko. ‘No matter if he smells of fermented soya bean or his skin is like wet tofu or he carries more fat than a farm pig.’

  Karin collected a tray of dirty glasses. ‘Well, Mika, you’ve got that in common with him.’

  Mika scowled but before she could respond Mama-san entered the bar. I followed Karin into the kitchen and helped her stack the glasses by the sink. ‘Don’t listen to those girls, Amaterasu. They’re jealous, that’s all.’

  I lit the stove. ‘I don’t understand why.’

  ‘You could have anyone you wanted here, if you learn the game. Don’t look so uncertain. It has happened. I’ve heard of hostesses living in fine apartments, wives in all but name. Why not you, Amaterasu? Or me?’

  ‘It sounds a fairy tale.’

  She laughed. ‘Maybe, but let’s just say, a certain client is coming here tonight, and he’s asked for your company.’

  Mama-san had made it clear I was not ready to sit with the customers. I filled my nights with cleaning duties, or making simple snacks for hungry clients. When I could, I studied the hostesses, the cadence of their voices, their posture, the way they refilled glasses with playful attentiveness. ‘I’m not able to entertain.’

  Karin smoothed down her kimono. ‘Mama-san isn’t keeping you away from the tables because you aren’t ready. She’s keeping you for the highest bidder. You’re her latest prize. Make the most of it while it lasts.’

  When do hopes of a different life crystallise into plans? Was it that night or later? I know that I kept myself busy, not sure how I would react if the captain did appear. The hours ticked by until the customers stumbled to their beds. I felt a relief that Sakamoto had not come. Mama-san began to send some of the hostesses home as the bar emptied. I was working in the kitchen when she appeared at my side. She sighed as she surveyed my work. ‘Too many nuts, this is not a feeding zoo.’ She ran one hand over her coiffured hair and then poured alcohol into a glass. She handed me the drink. ‘Swallow this. Sakamoto is here.’ I walked to the curtain and peered through the beads. I saw him through the smoke, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, a half-smile on his lips. I looked back at Mama-san. ‘Don’t look so nervous. Just follow his lead. And remember, smile.’

  I made my way through the pirouettes of smoke past the figures shrouded by dimmed lamps. He stood when I reached his table. He told me to sit and poured me a glass of sake. I thanked him as he said, ‘Let me play hostess.’ He asked what made me come to Printemps and I told him my mother had thought it a good idea. He asked if I liked the work. I said I felt like a bat, the late nights, sleeping through the day, the hours getting ready. ‘I can’t remember the last time I saw the sun.’ He asked what I made of the clientele. I hesitated and he answered for me. ‘Old and drunk?’ This made me laugh, or rather, I already knew to laugh at the joke. He asked if the men were well behaved. I told him the other girls were teaching me how to temper their excitement. He indicated that I should replenish his glass.

  He shuffled nearer. ‘Let me tell you a secret, but if I tell you this secret, I will expect payment. This is a valuable gem of wisdom I offer you. Do you promise to repay me this kindness?’ I giggled as the girls had shown me and said yes. ‘Good. A good deed for a good deed. Here is the secret you must learn. The hostesses are the ones in control, not the customers. These men and their wallets are at your mercy. Mere puppets. You pull their strings, remember this. Love and bars do not work well together. Mix the two, and you invite a broken heart. Try to keep your heart like stone. The men here are not looking for love. They want to drink and kiss the necks of pretty, young girls. They are not looking for wives. This is fantasy. See the men who come to these places? Some are lonely, some are thirsty, some are hungry, and not for food. Be warned: they will do anything to win your affections. They will buy you presents, they will tell you that, oh, they have never known such beauty, that they have never felt such love. Do not believe them.’ He sipped some sake. ‘Take their gifts but do not believe them. Well, believe me, you are beautiful. That colour is exquisite on you.’

  I recall this conversation now as an old woman with too many years behind me. He was telling me all I had to know about the city’s entertainment district, but no doubt, like too many other young girls before me, I thought these rules would not apply to me. So while I thanked Sakamoto for his kind words and advice, I did not appreciate them. He looked me over, as if he were in a shop, considering a purchase. He took a fresh cigarette from a gold tin and held the tobacco to his lips. ‘Please, let me.’ I picked up his lighter but my fingers were clumsy and sha
king and he held my hand in his to steady my hold.

  ‘You must call me Tetsu.’ He leaned back in his seat, looked around the room and stretched. ‘Amaterasu, I am hungry. Would you mind making me some rice porridge?’

  I nodded and slipped away, annoyed that I had said or done something that had displeased him. I dipped through the beads into the kitchen, where Mama-san was counting a pile of money. She glanced up as I moved to the sink. ‘Sakamoto wants some food.’

  She looked at the clock behind her and tutted but continued her calculations as I opened a cupboard to find the rice. A minute, no more, must have passed when the smell of tobacco infiltrated the room. I turned around, and there he was, the captain, in the kitchen. He stood next to Mama-san but said nothing and I saw her look at me and then the money. She opened her mouth as if to say something before she gathered up the banknotes and, head bowed, left me alone with him. He walked up to the sink and dropped his cigarette with a fizz against its wet bottom. He smiled.

  ‘My apologies, I’m not hungry any more. I’m in the mood for something else. Good deeds deserve good deeds, don’t you agree? Would you kneel for me, Amaterasu?’

  I remember pushing the rice away. ‘I don’t understand.’ He repeated the question. ‘I’d like you to kneel, just there, where you are, on the floor.’

  I must have looked at the wooden floorboards. ‘But my kimono, it will get dirty.’

  He moved closer. ‘I’ll buy you a new one, a nicer one.’ He ran his fingers over a crate of empty sake bottles stacked next to the sink.

  ‘But Mama-san?’

  ‘Don’t worry, little one. I’ll show you what to do. Now, would you kneel for me?’ The captain stood in front of me. I could smell his liquor breath. He stroked my face. ‘Don’t be scared.’ I could see the pores on his nose and the spider veins on his cheeks. ‘I’ll play teacher. Kneel for me.’ I did not think to say no. Perhaps I could have done so. Perhaps I could have run home, told Mother I would find another job. Perhaps I could have paid Mama-san back somehow. Perhaps I could have lived as my mother had and numbed myself with cheap sake. Perhaps those options were available to me but in that small kitchen, alone with the captain, I could not think of them. So I knelt. And as he promised, the captain showed me what to do. I never wore that amber kimono again.