Dead Blossoms: The Third Geisha

by Richard Monaco

She shrugged.

  “Not yet.”

  She stood up and he just knelt there looking at her, admiring the slightly downtilted face and graceful neck. Her eyes were right on him and were moist. He had an idea she might be acting; had an idea she wasn’t. Wanted to keep holding her.

  She’s full of dreams, too, he thought. She just won’t show them to me…

  At the bottom of the scroll the petals were falling into a rushing stream like snowflakes, seeming to spin and dance in the bubbling current.

  “When I’ve finished what I’ve started,” he told her, “I’ll come for you.”

  Stood up and hugged her again. She responded, absently looking past his shoulder at the doorway.

  “That’s good,” she said.

  “We’ll take the money and vanish like two ninjas.” Frowned. Thought about trust. If he couldn’t trust her, what was the point? “I put the ring in your room. Leave it there. Give it up if you’re in danger. Don’t risk anything for it.”

  “In the false board?” She asked. He nodded, yes. “You test me? I won’t betray you. You are the best man I have ever known. A young girl’s foolish hope. If you are false, then what matter how or when I die?”

  He crushed her into himself so hard she gasped, a little.

  “We’ll be together,” he said. “I’ll come for you.”

  “Yes,” she murmured, “you’ll come for me.”

  He released her, not wanting to, and went out first. She watched him from the window as he crossed the garden on the bright white pebbled path. She was weeping.

  My poor, savage poet, she thought. You are so kind of heart that I would forgive you anything… for you, I might even forgive myself…

  She saw him turn and glance back and she bowed acknowledgement. Her tears made him seem an uncertain shadow in his dark robes against the bright path and background. A shade come back, she didn’t quite think, to view the world he was no longer a part of.

  Except I am the ghost, she thought. None of it is real for me… I am trapped but who is free? The monk on the mountaintop runs out of rock to climb…

  “I won’t serve them either,” she said as if he could have heard her, watching him go out the gate under the massed red and white camellias. “Not again. I won’t. Maybe I’ll kill him.” Meaning Tanba no Kami Sanayu.

  I have lain with many men and yet, this one… I delight in his small sighs and even his snores fail to irritate…

  *

  She waited for the client. She’d never met him and didn’t want Takezo to linger and maybe have to be introduced. The man had been recommended by the mistress of the house; she’d told Miou he was quiet and generous and liked to be entertained by soft singing and the Korean samisen, gently plucked.

  He came in the afternoon and they sat in one of the private gardens in the inner courtyard, each with its own mini-teahouse. She found him dull. He seemed satisfied just to sit and drink, snack on and listen. She didn’t recognize the clan markings on his green and gold kimono. When asked where he was from he named a place far north and west.

  “Are you visiting here for long?” she politely inquired, at one point.

  He was then leaning on one elbow, smoking a long, thin pipe she prepared for him. The sweetish scent of the spice-permeated tobacco blended with the “peach and apricot” afternoon incense that smoldered in a brass tray near the window, meant to enhance the pleasure of the smells from the flower-garden just outside the little structure. The hot, hazy afternoon was still, except for distant voices and the steady, spaced chirp of an unseen bird.

  “Maybe,” he said, neutrally, detached.

  He made her uneasy. Reminded her, faintly, of Tanba without the feline sexual magnetism. She’d been trained to study everyone she met and make mental notes; look for special characteristics, weakness and so on.

  She had a feeling this man cared little for love. Studied his face: pointed chin, high cheekbones, sharp-edged nose, eyes hard to see under bony brows. There was a sword-scar creasing one side of his skull where part of his left ear had been sliced off. A close call, she more or less thought. He was slim, like Tanba, too, medium but with very wide shoulders and big hands. He looked strong and had a careless manner more suited to a ronin, she thought, than a clan samurai. The damp, still air didn’t seem to bother him.

  “Is it ever this hot in the north, sir?” she asked, pouring out two cups of cool sake.

  He shrugged.

  “Play some music,” he requested, seeming bored.

  It seemed almost as if, she considered, he’d come there as a duty; like a pilgrim who is obligated to visit a shrine or historical sight. This piqued her, naturally.

  “What music do you prefer in the north, sir?”

  “Well-played,” he said, sucked, gently, at the pipe; seemed not to be looking at anything but she couldn’t be sure. “Music is purity. Humans are all corrupt.”

  “So said the Compassionate One,” she put in.

  “Buddha? Bah. Who can feel compassion for corruption?”

  She inclined her head and picked up the stringed instrument beside her.

  Looked at the hanging scroll on the wall behind him. It was a loosely brushed black ink sketch of a fierce-looking hawk diving at a small swallow-like bird, the black claws about to lyrically hook home.

  This is strange, she thought. Who is he?

  “Do you know the most respected Tanba?” she tried, starting to pluck a tune.

  “Is he from the north?” was the flat, maybe, barely mocking response. She didn’t like that, either.

  “From many places, sir.” Played and studied the drawing rather than look directly at him: the plummeting predator in graceful, strong, exquisite strokes. She thought of Takezo and had a sudden, strange feeling she might never see him again. The graceful music hung, muted, in the heavy air… Her fingers went still, involuntarily, on the strings.

  We are all like that little bird, she thought, almost in the talons of the hawk…

  “Don’t know him,” he said, looking out the doorway at the garden where a vagrant breeze tugged at a mass of gold and white chrysanthemums. A big crow dropped in a swirl of darkness and landed, gripping a rocking pine branch, its eye a dark glitter like a polished stone. “Just play.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Later

  The sky was dead black over the city. There was rain in the air, again. In the distance lightning flashed, softly, too far for the thunder to be more than a hinted quiver in the heavy, hot, tense atmosphere. Now and then a breeze stirred vaguely in the garden and seemed to die of its own thickness.

  The client had left hours ago and she’d decided to nap in the tiny teahouse. When she opened her eyes the incense was out, the room was dark and a dim shape was standing over her where she was stretched out on the mat. She’d slept too long, she realized sitting up and drawing the long steel hairpin from her coiffure, just in case.

  “Miou,” a familiar woman’s voice said.

  “Oso?”

  “Yes.”

  The pretty young spy who’d helped Takezo knelt there.

  “Is he alright?” Miou asked.

  “I know nothing of that. I came to tell you Tanba is supporting Hideo.”

  “Ah. Tanba has been to Hideo’s castle?”

  “Yes. But he met only with the chamberlain, as far as I know.”

  “No doubt.” She replaced the deadly pin in her hair. “Hideo may know nothing about it,” she murmured. “Please, good Ono, find my love. Tell him these things.”

  “Yes.” Ono knelt. “Should I light a lantern?”

  “No.”

  “But won’t you see him yourself?”

  Miou sighed, faintly. She was looking at the wall with the drawing of the striking hawk except only a faint, long whitish blot showed where the scroll hung.

  “Maybe not,” she said. “I have a bad feeling.”

  Because she knew she’d come to a fork in the road and could go neither way. She was out of choices. Tanba Sand
ayu was no longer sure of her and she was a danger to Takezo.

  I can give myself to him, she thought. I trust him… for the first time I feel close to a man and when he’s inside me I feel like we’re truly one person… for a moment, at least… She felt, suddenly, cold and sick. He dreams of going away and I want to go with him… and… Ah, I do not want to die, now… how sad…

  “Would this not be a betrayal of Sandayu?” Ono asked.

  In their pale clothing they were formless shapes in the night. Detached voices, as if ghosts spoke, Miou thought. She felt strangely safe and comforted in the dark, though she knew it was a delusion.

  “How do you betray a man who is on no side?” she wondered.

  “Ah.”

  “I want Takezo to live. Forget his sword and write his poems. Tell him the money is where I left it. And the trinket men kill for.” Sat in silence for a moment. “I want him to live in a beautiful place in the mountains.”

  Silence and darkness; the sound of crickets outside in the humid, still air… the other girl whispered:

  “I am afraid for you.”

  “Go at once or I’ll be afraid for you, good Ono.”

  “I …”

  “Go!”

  And the girl, with a slight rustle and padding of bare feet, was gone. Miou just sat there, staring at the long blur on the wall where she knew there was a picture. She imagined it, and then considered that was the way she imagined Takezo when he wasn’t there. Smiled.

  What you imagine isn’t really anything, she said to herself. Sitting as if waiting, thinking about going away with him, trying to picture the most beautiful place she’d ever seen in the forests and wild mountains… Always wanted to leave the country so much… now I want to go back… and be there with him… so much…

  “It’s very sad,” she murmured. There was a slight sound and a vague movement in the little doorway. “Ono?” she asked. “What is it?”

  Except she knew it wasn’t Ono and so the familiar, purring voice didn’t really surprise her. She took a deep breath and stood up. Realized she’d actually been expecting him. In the distance there was a faint, wavering rattle and deep bong of thunder, again.

  “Okiku,” Sandayu said, with a sigh. Chrysanthemum.

  “You came yourself, Tanba.”

  She’d have to try it. Didn’t expect to succeed but that realization was somehow soothing. She didn’t have to worry about it. How long had he been listening?

  “You were right,” he told her, purring, “I cannot be betrayed. What you do against my left hand assists my right. That is the true art of governing.”

  Listening too long, she thought. Ah, poor Ono…

  “You have no center, Tanba,” she told him. Why not?

  “What color is the chameleon?” he asked, stepping closer.

  She made no useless attempt to avoid him; couldn’t tell if his sword was drawn. Probably not. He probably wouldn’t kill her himself unless she attacked.

  “Did you slay that poor girl?”

  “Maybe she assists my right hand.”

  “But you will slay me.”

  She could only see where he was standing by the faint luminosity in the doorway because he was in full black though she could tell his hood was open by his voice.

  He could feel her strange indifference. It vaguely troubled him. Being what he was he wished to understand it.

  “You think I will not?” he asked.

  “I know you will.” There was a shrug in her voice.

  “You want him to live so badly,” he said, sighed. “I warned you about love, Okiku.” Sighed again and she almost believed it. “Strangely enough, I want him to live.”

  “You can change colors,” she said, “but you are always only yourself. How can you be expected to understand love?”

  They were silent. He’d moved and she didn’t know where he was, now: a shadow within shadows. Outside the faint thunder was lost in the swish of a breeze in the garden. The faint outline of the door was in front of her.

  How good it would be, her mind said, to just walk outside and never have to look back…

  Like when she was a child going out into a summer evening, looking with wonder at the gleaming, moonlit rice fields, taking in the rich smells of earth in the cool mountain air, bare feet on the warm soil where the day’s heat lingered…

  Then, a single day seemed like many and if you didn’t sleep the nights seemed to have no end…

  “Understand love?” Sandayu reflected. “I don’t make swords but I use them.”

  His voice came from the side. His outline seemed to be partly blocking the vague blot of the long hunting hawk scroll.

  “To die for nothing,” she said, “is to have lived for nothing.”

  “Where is the ring?” he asked. “Don’t pretend.”

  “That again. That’s why Toshiro was spying in my bedroom.”

  “Is that why you put a pin hole in his head?”

  “Because of some stupid trinket? No, Sandayu.” She just looked through the doorway into the hush of night shadows. “Is it why I die?”

  “You knew where it was and said nothing. That is betrayal.”

  “Stupid to die for a bauble. Why so valuable?”

  “You don’t know. Neither does the deep seeing Takezo.”

  She heard him sigh again and wondered if it really meant regret. She was already walking, not trying to see more than the hinted garden through the doorway, going out into the heavy, scent-laden night (not even pausing as a second shadow detached from the side of the little building) only paying real attention now to the wind in the leaves, following the curving white stone path that led to the main house, aware that both of them were now behind her… seeing a small sandal dark on the pale walking stone, obviously Ono’s, and saying flat and loud:

  “Coward!”

  The laconic, almost bored voice she recognized from the afternoon, saying:

  “This is what we do in the north.”

  She heard the whisper of the blacked, invisible blade ripping down between herself and death and her elevated awareness took it all in at once as if the striking sword were just a shadow too, that all these things were blurs and hints, insubstantial as the moon reflected in a pool… and she grasped it all with a speed and dexterity that seemed to fix the night, air and all movement in a dull, sluggish heaviness: we are all worlds in ourselves, her mind said, full of unknown wonders and reflections and we are cut down. We are always cut down.

  They were both close behind her and in one movement, turning in a swirl of loose robes, the long pin already in her hand and striking; she felt it stab into flesh and bone, heard an outcry even as the shadow blotted at her with an infinite weight of massive, darkness and she broke like a reflection in water under a cold impact, no pain, just a strange shock and she felt herself seem to collapse into gleaming fragments and then melt like mist billowing into the night… the silence… the clouds of herself folding and unfolding over the flowers, trees… up into the night… silence… the moonstreaked sky…

  And she saw Takezo (without memory of his name) and told him (without words) that she loved him and touched him with her meaning the way a mist touches… and was gone, the way mist is gone…

  Twenty-Eight

  Still later

  Takezo was surprised to meet Yazu at the street entrance to the Sanjuro House grounds. In the light of the lanterns by the gate he saw tears in his new student’s eyes.

  “Why are you here?” the ronin asked.

  “To find you, master.” His voice was thick with emotion.

  Takezo had a sudden, sick feeling.

  “You achieved your purpose,” he said.

  “A terrible thing,” croaked the thin, bent man. “I will go to the great father of the ward and beg him for vengeance!” Both bony fists were clenched and shook with feeling.

  “What happened?”

  “A foul thing, my master,” Yazu choked out and then fell to his knees at the other’s feet.
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  “What thing? Please speak.”

  “The great father will find him and then… and then …”

  “You don’t need the help of gang men,” Takezo said. “Whatever wrong has been done you, Yazu, I will right it, if I can, as well as any short-changing Tekiya.”

  Then he noticed a commotion by the front door and one of the women came out shouting and weeping. That was enough and he was already running up the path to the long darkwood porch.

  He half-charged into the first room where two of the girls were crouched on the floor by the screen showing Mt Fujiyama in the spring seen through a flowering cherry tree, a gust of blossoms and petals unfolding on an elegant curl of wind over the brush-stroked earth.

  “Where is she?” he demanded, with sinking horror, already sure.

  Yazu had followed him in; the women just looked at him; the room swam and all he could see through blurry eyes was the six-foot image of the great volcano and pink glory of the blossoms in the air.

  “So terrible,” one was saying.

  The other looked up and recognized him.

  “Ai, Takezo-san!” she cried, convulsed with grief.

  “Where is …” he started to say, already turning, going back outside, brushing past Yazu who was saying something, again, about punishing the “fool” who did it. Takezo distantly noted that he kept using that word.

  He just stood on the porch under the starless, moonless overcast sky; wet, yet rainless. Heavy mist flowed over the long pond; wisps and twists of it brushed past his face, too soft to feel. Across the garden the phallic guardian stone stood beside the round, flat female stone in the foggy swirls. He thought of the two famous “married” rocks on the seacoast, wed, in ritual, by the villagers.

  Lovers made of stone, he thought, eat time…

  Because he knew and was just putting off going back inside. Because from this point on there were no more plans or promises and he wasn’t ready to face that, yet either.

  Miou, I never showed you… I never… I… Like Seki, I did a wondrous seeming but I never really showed you my heart, my… Ah, always when the day is gone we regret the wasted afternoon…

  He felt Yazu behind him.