by Anthology
If youkai were real, would the snow make them cold? Or would they not feel it, burning as they are?
***
You cannot hear her, so it takes you too long to see her. It could also be because she is wearing white. Her robes and pale skin blend with the snow. Her hair, bound at the top of her head, is the only thing separating her from the landscape. As she approaches, snow muting the footfalls of her geta, you straighten up. Almost like you mean to salute her, which is stupid, but you never promised to be the ideal soldier. Only then do you notice the bent old woman next to her. You hasten to take the bag from the obasan’s back.
“She is one of our best,” the brothel auntie says to you. “She can play and sing better than any of those silly geisha in Edo. Ah, she is of great skill, our Someyama! I will admit that her dancing could be improved, but she has certainly mastered refinement in other pleasures. We are very grateful for your patronage.” Although the oiran has already been sold, the obasan seems determined to extol her virtues. She bows, although it makes almost no difference to her curved back. The oiran stands silently, assessing the pale green tents, the muted noise of men.
“We are grateful,” you say, suddenly too aware of her fate. The obasan motions to the oiran, who stoops toward her. They exchange quick, hurried words, and the oiran nods. The obasan walks away, back to the caravan that brought them here. Somehow you missed that, too. As you are puzzling over this, the oiran clears her throat.
“W-welcome,” you mumble. She has a pack on one shoulder and a wrapped instrument over the other. An uncanny reflection of the snow dances in the black pools of her eyes. Her robe, you notice, is very thin. And beneath it, her skin—so white. You swallow. “Aren’t you cold?”
She looks you up and down, then shakes her head. “What is your name?” she asks. Her voice is surprising. There’s a rough quality to it, a lack of pitch and affectation. And the way she stands with her narrow shoulders slumped is almost inelegant. She is nothing like Tamakoto, nothing like the others, lacking their grace and maturity. Perhaps, despite the obasan’s words, the brothel sent their worst to sing for your group out of spite, as all the oiran sent before have died or fled beyond return.
“Akira,” you answer. She half-smiles, sharp and dangerous. Suddenly, you feel sick: bile rising in your throat, tremors beneath your skin. Her smile slices through to your bone and reminds you that you are cruel, that you are part of the war; that all this fighting is designed to break you apart, burn the world with innocents in its midst. And she knows this. She knows all of it. It’s lined in her dry lips and unblinking eyes: all the poison in this nation of death. You stagger under the force of that violence.
Then just as suddenly that sensation is gone. “Are you all right?” she asks, but there’s another question in her eyes: do you know me? She frowns slightly, but when you nod in reply, her face relaxes. Her look of cunning may simply have been a trick of her pale face, the snow drifting before it. White against white.
You are tired, and it is cold.
“Kindly follow me,” you say. You lead her to your tent, and hold the flap open. She sets down her belongings, and you hand her the pack the obasan carried. She narrows her eyes at you, then draws the flap closed. “I’ll see you at dinner,” you almost say, but do not.
***
She makes quite the entrance in robes of deep navy gauze, stencil-dyed and embroidered with a pattern of waves. Her obi, tied at the front, is golden-yellow, and matches the pins she has carefully threaded through her hair. She holds her shamisen lovingly in her hands, the instrument’s circular body white as her powdered throat. Her simplicity from that afternoon is gone. Here, she is radiant and imperial, certain in herself.
The soldiers burst out cheering as she walks into their midst. She scans the table, and focuses on Taichou. Her demure grin disappears from view as she bows deeply, before gesturing with all the tentativeness of a skilled seductress at the empty space next to him.
“Of course,” he says. She takes her seat, and carefully positions her shamisen.
Her fingers skim the strings, and she plays as you walk around the tables, pouring sake for tonight’s celebration. This music is oddly familiar. It makes you think of Kaoru gasping as someone beats him, and how his pain must turn to laughter, how he must pretend to want it. It makes you think of feet getting pulled out of slippers as you run, everything turning to ash behind you: your mother’s smile, the paper doors that were your world. When you serve Gengoro your hands tremble. You spill a little sake, and he slaps you across the face.
The oiran lifts her head at the sound of his strike. She’s the only one who notices—everyone else is used to it. She catches your eye as you shuffle to a different table. Taichou’s hand is already drifting over her knee. She plays more furiously. She doesn’t smile, but the notes do. You are suddenly more afraid than you have been in a long, long time.
***
Taichou has her that first night, as you all expect him to, then it’s fair game. She’s a prostitute from Yoshiwara, like the other girls before her; but she’s also an oiran. A courtesan of her standing can choose who she lies with. That’s the air she puts on, even now, and the rest of the camp seems happy enough to comply. When she is not servicing someone, she shares your tent, because you’re the youngest and the least dangerous, or perhaps…because you know what it’s like to have your body damaged, the way hers is.
“Make him a man, why don’t you?” Tennosuke laughs, arm encircling her waist. She smiles at him, at you. They don’t think you’d ever lay a hand on her.
They know her name, but everyone simply calls her the oiran, which she says is fine. You think it isn’t right—that it debases her, somehow—but when you tried addressing her as Someyama she said, “Don’t call me that. It isn’t my real name.”
“What should I call you, then?”
She lifted her palm to the corner of her mouth, smirking. “I wouldn’t give that away so easily, would I?”
***
The fourth night is the first she spends in your tent. She changes into a sleeping robe and removes the paint from her face, undoing her hair so that it flows over her shoulders. She combs it out with her fingers, and you try to look at anything but her. Sweat slicks your hands. You spend a long time gazing at the tent wall, but when you finally glance back she is watching you. What feels like eternities pass, as her fingers slip through her hair.
“Are you waiting for something, Akira-kun?” She finally asks. You haven’t spoken much since your initial meeting. The way she says your name makes you burn. You are surprised she remembers it. “Do you want me to start?”
“Start what,” you say, nervous laughter catching in your throat as she leans close, letting her hair fall against your knee. Her own knee pokes out from her robe, and is suddenly pressed against your groin. She takes your face tenderly in her hands. Her lips part. Her breath, wine-sweetened, is warm in the chill air, as she draws closer to your face. You brace your hands on your thighs. She’s beautiful, and breathing—so close to you—and you could just take her—but you don’t want to. You don’t.
You lift her hands from your face and push back, gently, until she is kneeling in seiza. You try not to notice how her robe gapes.
“I’m sorry,” you say. The apology is useless, but you want to give it anyway. “You don’t need to do this with me.”
She tilts her head. “I know how to work with anyone,” she says, still in that sweet coaxing voice. It’s different from the first voice you heard her use. She wasn’t in character yet then. “It will be fun, I promise.”
“No—I mean it. It’s really all right.” You sit back, trying to ease the discomfort between your legs.
She gathers the folds of her robe in one fist. “You really won’t touch me?”
“I won’t.”
She bursts out laughing. Its like icicles falling away, sharp and crushing—but you like this face better: her eyes crinkled, mouth gaping. It’s more human, less like
a doll. She stretches luxuriously, still grinning. “I knew you were one of those…your face is quite pretty.”
“I—no, it’s not like that. You—you’re from Yoshiwara, right?”
She nods, and resumes combing her hair. Her posture is no longer designed to seduce you; she sits comfortably, her legs folded to one side as she listens.
“I was—from the floating world, too. Shimabara. My brother and I were part of a teahouse. Um—I wasn’t one of the kagemajaya. Just a pageboy.” You shrug. “Kind of like what I am here.”
“Aren't you a soldier, too?”
“Well, yes,” you mumble. You were allowed the title by Taichou last summer—but you know it means nothing really, to these soldiers. You’re still their little servant, the best approximate to a woman when a real one is not around. You are not from a samurai family. They do not know your father’s name, nor would they care if they did. These are not the well-bred nobles of the warrior class; these are men who know how to fight. “They’ve taught me how to shoot, and wield a blade. But it isn’t really my choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“To be part of this war.”
She makes a disapproving sound. “When does one ever get to choose?”
You press your tongue to the roof of your mouth and say nothing more. Your hope is stupidly naïve. She casts her gaze down. “Don’t be too idealistic, Akira-kun. There’s no place for that in our world.” She sighs and lies on her futon, facing away from you.
You fall asleep that night listening to her breathe, wondering how to live.
***
The first few days, she does not run out of questions. She never helps you with your tasks, but often comes along. When you ask her why, she replies, “I’m bored.” But no sex before dinner, or so the unspoken rule goes. She keeps up with her practice, and plays splendidly every night, so they let her do as she pleases. In many ways this matches the idleness of Yoshiwara before evening. But there are no warm baths and no parades here, no other girls for her to pinch or tease. She sits and watches you, tossing and catching her bachi or plucking her shamisen, while you walk through the forest gathering wood, or beat the soldiers’ bedsheets out in the snow, or polish their guns and swords.
The soldiers scout for the enemy, await orders from the military, loudly argue about whether to trust the French. You know that the purpose of your unit is to be light and quick and trained with foreign weapons. Eight in a unit, stealth and speed as shields. You have seen the men do their work. You have tried to do the same.
But you are clumsy with the sword, and although you are now a decent shot, holding a gun still makes you anxious. You might fire more accurately if they did not snicker every time you tried. A year ago, Kazushige was appointed your trainer by Taichou—they don’t expect you to become one of them, but an extra set of hands and eyes is always welcome. Kazushige is one of the few who has never touched you. He still laughs at your mistakes and tentativeness, still hits if you do something wrong, but when he lifts your arms to position the rifle, you do not feel like he is about to grip you too hard. Sometimes you even think you like him.
The idea of liking anything is strange. Unreal. You remember Tamakoto; you remember Kaoru. As memories held apart to be revered, wondered at, they make sense; anything closer and your mind shuts off. The oiran’s shamisen makes an awful twang, and you return to the task at hand: checking that the traps set to capture wolves are still in place.
“No wolves are going to come, anyway,” the oiran says.
“How do you know?”
“Because of the oni,” she answers.
It is well known that the women of the floating world delight in storytelling. It is one of the skills they spend years honing.
“Like in the rumors? Those are lies.”
“No, they’re not,” she says. “I’ve seen one.” You glance at her, but she doesn’t meet your eyes. She strikes her shamisen, then grins so that you know she is teasing you. “It frightened the hell out of me.”
You keep your mouth closed, though really you are thinking: you frighten me, and I don’t know why. Then you realize: it’s because I want to protect you, and I don’t think I can.
The trap is empty, as it has been the last several days.
“The wolves aren’t coming,” she repeats.
Someone shouts for you to start getting dinner ready. As the two of you trudge back through the snow, you think: the wolves aren’t coming; they’re already here.
***
You grow used to her shadowing you. Her music still makes your blood race. She performs each night, even dancing sometimes (a beautiful silvery fan in hand, arms undulating like waves in the air); she does her duty. But those few evenings she spends in your tent, you talk freely, easily. She doesn’t bother with elegant language around you. From her tales, you imagine being a young girl in a smoky brothel, delivering love letters for the oiran you are apprenticed to, learning to play the favorite song of that fat old merchant who comes every night to see you. Learning not to flinch when he rests his fingers on your ankle.
She asks about your childhood and you think of the fire, and being brought to the teahouse; but instead you tell her about the times before then. Like that summer festival you attended as a young boy. How you took so long eating spun sugar that it melted and covered your fat fist; how Kaoru caught a firefly in his cupped hands, and together you watched its feeble glow. How your mother scolded you for buying the mask of an oni, and how she never let you wear it after that night.
“The mask of an oni?” The oiran’s smile is amused. You feel a little silly, but your thoughts turn to water when she palms the side of your face. “Would you wear it if you had a chance, now?”
“Maybe,” you say. But you’re tired of wearing masks, or maybe just tired. Her hands slowly cover your ears. “What are you doing?” You ask, though you feel you shouldn’t.
“One of these days, I’ll tell you a secret.” It’s as if she is saying something entirely different. “One of these days, I might sing you a song.”
Something about the way she doesn’t promise either of those things makes you hurt.
***
You don’t know if you prefer the encampments—set up throughout Northern Tohoku, often by larger units—or the villages. You’re aware that you bring a cloud of terror wherever you go, that the stricken faces of merchants and innkeep are never far behind when you advance. But sometimes, selfishly, you think it’s nice to see other people. To visit the market for real food, instead of eating rations, gathering plants, shooting rabbits. To wash in a bath rather than a stream, and to let someone else clean up for a change. It’s nice until you remember how terrible and narrow-sighted you’re being, and how you’re never going to stay, because once your men have had their fill of one village, they’re on the move again. Tokugawa’s secret army, ready to spring at a single word. The light cavalry; one of the few still standing.
Whenever you stop by a teahouse your chest tightens, and you wonder if by some chance you’ll see Kaoru—but of course it’s never the one you left, and you’re not even sure if he’s still alive. Even then, you can’t buy his freedom. Both of you have years of service left, to pay your relatives’ debts.
Why don’t you run away, you asked Kaoru once. Why don’t we run away?
Do you see that gate? He pointed. In the afternoon sun his skin looked almost translucent, as if he might suddenly fade. It is shut throughout the day, and only opens in the evening to let the customers through. And if we left, they would send a search party. There is no leaving this place.
Sometimes, when you look at the oiran, that same question echoes in your mind. You could leave in the middle of the night. The snow would keep your secret until dawn.
But you are not that brave, not that hopeful.
***
Fighting, the next day, from an enemy group that has surged ahead. Fighting doesn’t happen in your own base very often, but when it does, the camp moves like cl
ockwork. Guns come out like extended limbs and fire, fire, fire. Taichou shouts orders, and everyone follows. These soldiers have been marked by invincibility every year you’ve traveled with them; they don’t know fear.
You hold your rifle level and shoot. Your target falls backwards. The little spray of blood catches in the sunlight before landing in the snow. You suck in a breath; this is not the first man you have killed, nor will he be the last. That you are now a decent shot fills you with both terror and relief. Kentaro makes a strangled sound and rolls over, leaving a bloody smear in his wake. Gengoro, your resident medic—in the loosest sense of the word—curses, seizes Kentaro by the wrists, and drags him off. You shouldn’t be watching, you shouldn’t be distracted. You duck behind a carton of rations, and a second later it splinters at the corner.
Presently the gunfire dies down. You are exhausted, but you already know that the night will be spent planning for the move to the next checkpoint. Pressing on. You have come so far from Edo. You must never back down. You must be ready for battle and follow your orders; this is why you exist.
Everyone forgets the oiran. You remember her only when you have lain your rifle down and Taichou counts all the soldiers, still breathing. Fear builds inside you like rising steam. After being dismissed, you run back to your tent without pause. You burst inside to find her sitting in bed, tying her hair. She looks as if she is preparing for dinner, as always—but her breathing is shallow. A stripe of sweat shines on her neck. Her hands, holding her comb, are shaking.
You take the ornament from her fingers and tuck it into her knot. There is a strange gleam in her eyes when she looks up at you. You think it must be fear, and say nothing. The urge to grasp her shoulder swells then fades—you have no idea why it even comes to mind. To ground her, perhaps—hold you both there.
“Don’t be afraid,” you say. “It’s over now.”