Four months later, on July 23, I asked Suehiroya to accompany me on a formal visit to the iemoto. When we entered the studio the iemoto was on stage by herself. She finished her dance and came to sit facing us. I put my fan down formally in front of myself.
“I have decided to retire from active service as a geiko on July 25,” I announced.
Big Mistress began to cry.
“Mine-chan, I have raised you like my own daughter. I have seen you through so much, from your illnesses to your successes. Won’t you please reconsider your decision?”
A thousand scenes flashed through my mind: her teaching me, rehearsing me, giving me permission to dance this piece or that piece in public. I was moved by her emotion, but she was unable to say the one thing I longed to hear. She couldn’t say, “Whatever you do, Mineko, please don’t stop dancing.” The system wouldn’t allow it. When I stopped being a geiko I would have to stop dancing.
My mind was made up. I bowed to Big Mistress and, with a steady voice, made my final declaration. “Thank you so much for the many years of kindness you have shown me. I will never forget how much I owe you. My heart is filled with gratitude.”
I touched my forehead to the floor. The dresser was speechless. I went home and told Mama Masako and Kuniko. They both burst into tears. I told them to get hold of themselves, because there was so much to do in the next forty-eight hours. We had to prepare parting gifts for everyone in the community.
Big Mistress must have alerted the Kabukai immediately, because the phone started ringing off the hook and didn’t stop for the next two days. Everyone wanted to know what was going on. The officers of the Kabukai demanded an explanation. They begged me not to quit. But they didn’t offer to change anything.
That night I went to my scheduled ozashiki. I pretended that nothing unusual was going on. Everyone asked me what was wrong, why was I leaving. Basically I just said, “Well, these fifteen years may have seemed short to you but they have been an eternity for me.”
It was well after midnight by the time I got to the Hollyhock. The place was packed. I was suddenly overcome with exhaustion. I took the microphone and announced that I was retiring from the profession. Saying it out loud like that made it seem more real. I asked everyone to please go home and then closed the place a few hours early.
I was at the Nyokoba by 8:20 next morning for my class. Big Mistress and I worked on the dance Yashima Island, one of the dances that may only be learned by those who have received certification. The lesson went on for much longer than usual. When I came down from the stage, she looked me in the eye and let out a big sigh.
There was nothing left to say.
I pulled into myself and bowed, deeply. This is really it, I thought. There is no turning back now. It’s over.
I took a second dance lesson from one of the little mistresses, as was my custom, then a Noh dance class and a tea ceremony class. I paid my respects to my teachers, bowed good-bye in the genkan, and walked out the door of the Nyokoba for the last time. I was twenty-nine years and eight months old and my life as a geiko of Gion Kobu was over.
As I expected, my retirement sent shock waves through the system. But not in the way I intended. In the three months after I retired, seventy other geiko also quit the business. I appreciated the gesture, though it seemed a little late to be showing solidarity with me at that point. And the powers that be didn’t change a thing.
37
IWOKE UP ON THE MORNING OF JULY 25 feeling free as a bird. I stretched out luxuriously in my bed and picked up a book. I didn’t have to go to class. The other women in the house were all taken care of. I just had to worry about my “real” dependents, Kuniko and Mama.
Kuniko’s dream was to open a restaurant. I promised to carry her for three years and she was busy planning the new enterprise. If the business were a success she could continue; if it were a failure we would close it down. She decided to name the restaurant Ofukuro no Aji, or Mother’s Home Cooking.
The only person who wasn’t getting ready to go out on her own was Mama Masako. I had patiently explained my plans to her over and over again, but she just didn’t get it. She was used to being dependent on other people and had no desire to make a life for herself. She basically liked things the way they were. What was I to do? I couldn’t kick her out. When I stood with her in court and proclaimed “I want to be adopted by the Iwasaki family” I took on a serious responsibility. I was honor bound to take care of her.
Mama Masako and I had slightly different opinions about what it meant to be the atotori. I understood my commitment to Auntie Oima to mean that I was obliged to carry on the name Iwasaki and maintain its artistic integrity. I didn’t equate this with a promise to manage the okiya indefinitely. Mama Masako wanted the okiya to continue.
“Mine-chan, you aren’t getting any younger. Have you begun to think about who is going to be your atotori?”
It was time to level with her. I spoke in no uncertain terms:
“Mama, please understand. I do not want to manage the okiya. I am tired of this business and want to quit. If it were just up to me I would close down the okiya tomorrow. However, there is another option. If you want to keep it going, I’ll give up my position and you can find someone else to be the atotori. I’ll give you whatever is in my savings account. You and your next heir can run the okiya and I’ll go back to being a Tanaka.”
“What are you talking about? You are my daughter. How could I ever replace you? If you want to close the okiya, then we will close the okiya.”
It wasn’t exactly what I was hoping she would say. I was half hoping she would accept my offer and I would be released from my responsibility to her and for the disposition of the okiya. But life is never that easy.
“Okay, Mama. I understand. Then let’s make a deal. You are welcome to stay with me, but on one condition. I want you to promise that you won’t interfere with my plans. Even if you think I’m making a mistake I need you to let me do things my own way. If you promise, then I will take care of you for the rest of your life.”
She agreed, and finally gave me permission to raze the okiya and build my dream for the future. I didn’t feel any guilt over my decision to close the okiya. I had given the Gion Kobu everything I had and it was no longer giving me what I needed. I had no regrets.
I bought a large apartment and we lived there while the new building was under construction. I wrapped up all the precious costumes and objects that the okiya owned and stored them safely in my new home. The building was completed on October 15, 1980. Due to Mama Masako’s suggestions (read interference), I had to change my plans and the building ended up having three stories instead of five. But it was certainly better than nothing.
I opened a new Club Hollyhock on the ground floor. Kuniko opened up Mother’s Home Cooking. We moved into an apartment on the second floor. I still hoped to open a beauty treatment clinic on the third, but in the meantime we used the space as guest quarters and for storage.
I was enjoying the relative ease of my new life. On a dare from some of my customers I took up the game of golf. I took private lessons for a few weeks and was soon scoring in the 80s and 90s. No one could believe it, but I think, like with basketball, golf came easy to me because dancing had heightened my sense of balance and given me an unusual degree of fine motor control.
I began to seriously research the business of beauty and to make plans for a beauty treatment clinic. I tested numerous products and met with a variety of experts in the field. One of my customers offered to introduce me to a master hairdresser in Tokyo who might be of help. My customer’s wife set up the meeting and agreed to make the introduction. I called Mrs. S. when I arrived in town to finalize the plans. She asked me to come by for a chat if I wasn’t busy, and, having time to kill, I decided to take advantage of her hospitality. Mrs. S. welcomed me warmly and ushered me into the living room. There on the wall was the most amazing painting I had ever seen. It was an exquisite image of a nine-tailed fox.
“Isn’t it a wonderful painting? We are keeping it here for the artist. His name is Jinichiro Sato. I’m studying with him. His career is just getting started, but I think he’s very talented.”
I was rocked by a sudden realization. I’m destined to introduce this artist to the world. I knew without a doubt that this was what I was meant to do. It was as if someone had given me a mission.
I asked my Mrs. S. all kinds of questions about the painter and soon it was time for me to meet Toshio for dinner. Over the past few years we had salvaged a friendship from the debris of our relationship. Mrs. S. and I weren’t meeting the hairdresser until later that evening.
“I’ll see you at the Pub Cardinal in Roppongi at ten-thirty,” I said as I thanked her for her hospitality and left.
Toshio and I had a nice dinner and then he brought me back to his office. He wanted my opinion on something he was working on. We watched a video of the footage and discussed it. Then he insisted on driving me over to Roppongi himself. I was a few minutes late. I saw someone who I thought might be Mrs. S. (like Kuniko, I am nearsighted), but the woman was sitting with two people, not one, so I thought I was mistaken. Then they all started waving me over so I smiled my way across the room to them. One of the men was very young and handsome.
Mrs. S. introduced me to the hairdresser. He wasn’t the one. And then she turned to the other man. “And this is Jinichiro Sato, the artist whose painting you admired earlier.”
“But you’re so young!” I blurted.
“I most certainly am not!” he countered forcefully. (He was twenty-nine.)
“I love that painting,” I said without hesitation. “Is there any way I could buy it from you?”
“Oh, you can have it,” he said. “Take it. It’s yours.”
I was dumbfounded.
“No, no, I couldn’t do that,” I said. “It’s much too valuable. Besides, if I don’t pay for it I won’t feel like its mine.”
But he wouldn’t hear of it. “If you like the painting that much I would really like you to have it.” He sounded completely sincere.
Mrs. S. agreed with him.
“Be gracious, my dear, and take advantage of his kind offer.”
“Well, in that case, I accept the painting gratefully and will return the favor to you somehow in the future.”
I had no idea how prophetic those words would turn out to be. Meanwhile, I spent so little time talking to the hairdresser that we had to reschedule our appointment for the following evening.
I met Jin a few more times in the next few weeks. He seemed to show up whenever I was meeting Mrs. S. Then I was invited to a house party at their home in early November and he was there. He spent a lot of time staring at me but I didn’t think anything of it. He was very sharp. Very funny.
On November 6 I got a call from Mrs. S. “Mineko-san, I have something important to talk to you about. Mr. Sato has asked me to speak on his behalf. He wants to marry you.”
I thought she was joking, and made some sarcastic reply. But she insisted that he was serious. “In that case,” I told her, “please tell him no. I won’t even consider it.”
She started calling me every morning at exactly ten o’clock to repeat his proposal. It was getting annoying. And apparently, she was doing the same thing to him! She was a clever woman. Jin finally called and yelled at me to leave him alone. I yelled back at him that this was none of my doing, and we ended up figuring out what Mrs. S. was up to. We were both embarrassed. Jin asked if he could come see me to apologize.
Instead of apologizing, he proposed. I refused. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He came back a few days later. He brought Mrs. S. with him. He proposed again. I refused. I must admit I was becoming intrigued by his cocky confidence. My refusals didn’t seem to phase him. He came again. He proposed again.
In spite of myself, I started to think about it. I hardly knew the man, yet he had the qualities I was looking for. I was searching for some way to keep the polished aesthetic luster of the Iwasaki name going. Bringing a great artist into the family was one way to accomplish that. And Jin was an extraordinary painter. Of that I had no doubt. I believed then, as I do today, that Jin will someday be designated a National Living Treasure. And it wasn’t just that he was talented. He had earned a masters degree in art history from the best art school in Japan, Tokyo’s Geidai, and had a profound knowledge of the field.
I wasn’t getting any younger. I wanted to have children. I wanted to see what it was like to be married. And Jin was so likable. There wasn’t anything objectionable about him.
I decided, once again, to make an entirely fresh start.
The fourth time he proposed I accepted, on one condition. I made him promise that he would divorce me in three months if I wasn’t happy.
We got married on December 2, twenty-three days after we met.
Afterword
WHAT happened next?
Since I was to become head of the household, Mama Masako adopted Jin into the family and he took the name of Iwasaki.
I applied for and received a license to be an art dealer. I spoke to my backers in the club and explained what I wanted to do. Everyone gave me his or her blessing. I met with surprisingly little resistance from Mama Masako. It didn’t hurt that Jin was such a charmer and so good-looking. Mama soon developed a big soft spot in her heart for him that she had forever.
I never did open that beauty spa. The instant I saw Jin’s painting my carefully laid plan vanished and another took its place. That one painting entirely changed my future.
I sold the new building. I closed the club. Jin and I moved to a house in Yamashina. I got pregnant.
Mama continued to live in Gion Kobu and work as a geiko. Kuniko was not a good businesswoman and hadn’t made a success of the restaurant. She gracefully accepted the change in circumstance and moved home with me. She was very excited about the birth of the baby.
My beautiful daughter Kosuke was born in September. Mama continued to work, but came to visit us every week and was very much part of the family.
Jin is not only a great painter. He is also an expert at art restoration. I was fascinated by this aspect of his work, by the deep knowledge of art and technique that it entailed. I asked to study with him and he accepted me as a pupil. Kuniko wanted to learn too, and joined in the lessons after she put the baby down at night. Both of us went on to gain certification.
In 1988 we built a spacious home in Iwakura, a northern suburb of Kyoto, with large studios for all of us to do our work. My daughter thrived and grew into an elegant and graceful dancer.
I think this was the happiest time of Kuniko’s life. Sadly, she wasn’t around very long to enjoy it. She died in 1996 when she was sixty-three years old.
In the late 1980s Mama Masako’s eyes began to bother her and we agreed that she should retire. She was in her mid-sixties and had worked long enough. She too enjoyed her sunset years and died in 1998, when she was seventy-five.
On June 21, 1997, I was awakened at 5:45 by a searing pain in my throat. A little while later the phone rang.
It was one of Toshio’s assistants, calling to tell me that Toshio had died early that morning from throat cancer.
Toshio’s last years were not happy ones. They were beset with bankruptcy, drug problems, and illness.
I tried to help him where I could, but he had some serious issues. Mutual friends counseled me not to get involved and I took their advice.
Toshio asked me to come see him three months before he died. So at least I had the chance to say good-bye. Now he was saying good-bye to me.
Yaeko retired two or three years after I did. She sold her house in Kyoto and gave the money to her son Mamoru to build a house in Kobe so she would have somewhere to live. Instead, he used his wife’s money to build a house and spent the money his mother gave him on women. When Yaeko moved into her new h
ome she learned to her chagrin that she was not lady of the manor. Her daughter-in-law gave her a room the size of a closet and later threw her out altogether.
In recent years Yaeko developed Alzheimer’s disease and became more impossible than ever. None of my six remaining siblings or I am in communication with her any longer. I’m not even sure where she is living. It’s a sad situation, but I can’t help feeling that she is merely getting what she deserves.
My own days are unrestrained and unfettered. I am no longer ruled by the dictates of the Inoue School. I dance when I want. I dance how I want. And I dance where I want.
I am grateful for all the blessings and happiness in my life. It has been an extraordinary journey. I am indebted to my father for the pride and integrity that have guided me safely to this peaceful shore. And to Mother Sakaguchi, Auntie Oima, and Mama Masako for teaching me to be independent and free.
I am often invited to return to Gion Kobu. But now I am graciously welcomed as a guest, rather than a performer, and take great delight in the refined pleasure of attending an ozashiki. I feel nostalgic when the young maiko and geiko don’t recognize my face. But they definitely know who I am. When I tell them my name is Mineko they invariably fly into a tizzy and ask, “Are you the real Mineko? The legend?” It is wonderful to spend time with them.
The karyukai is changing. When I retired, there was no lack of expansive and generous patrons who were well schooled in the aesthetic intricacies of the metier. Sadly, this is no longer the case. It is not clear what lies ahead for Japanese society, but it is safe to say that there are not as many truly wealthy individuals as there once were, people with the leisure and the means to support the “flower and willow world.” I am afraid that the traditional culture of Gion Kobu and the other karyukai will cease to exist in the near future. The thought that little will remain of the glorious tradition beyond its external forms fills me with sorrow.
April 15, 2002
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