a man and I’m a woman.”
“You must understand, Kathlene-san, it’s the way of all Japanese to put duty first.”
“What happens if a geisha falls in love with someone that doesn’t meet okâsan’s approval?”
Mariko shook her head. “A geisha would never allow herself to forsake duty for love.”
“Never?”
It was Mariko’s turn to be speak freely, something I could see was difficult for her, even when we were alone.
“If a geisha is found guilty of misconduct with a person of low rank, she is sent into exile.”
“And the man she loves? What happens to him?”
“He has violated the laws governing rank and must be executed.” Mariko paused a long moment, then added, “Some lovers immortalize their love by committing suicide.”
“Suicide,” I whispered, not wanting to accept the government’s edict of no social mixing.
“Yes, Kathlene-san. The doomed lovers drink sake from the same cup as if it’s a lovers’ pledge to seal their lips. Then the woman’s legs are tied together so she doesn’t die in an ungraceful manner when she plunges the knife into her throat. Her lover then follows her in death.” She paused long enough for the sight of the two lovers dying to have its effect on me, making me cringe, then she continued, “So you must understand while it’s true Hisa-don is most handsome, we must obey the rules.”
“Rules, always rules,” I shot back, not convinced. “I’ve followed all the rules and still okâsan won’t tell me why I can’t become a geisha.”
“We must have rules, Kathlene-san. It’s the only way Japan can be strong, that we can be strong when we become geisha.”
“I’m trying to understand, Mariko-san, for I want to be a geisha, but I can’t let go of my feelings.”
“In our world there are Japanese and gaijin. And you are gaijin.” She paused again, as if something weighed heavily upon her mind. “But I believe with all my heart you can be Japanese, Kathlene-san.”
“You do?”
“Yes. You’ve accepted many things since you came to live in the Teahouse of the Look-Back Tree. If you can accept how a geisha must act in the ways of love, you can become Japanese.”
“But you lose so much in your world of rules, Mariko-san, never experiencing a deep emotion, a profound joy, even pain.”
“That’s not true. I have known much joy since you came to the Teahouse of the Look-Back Tree,” she said, keeping her eyes lowered, “and much pain because I know you suffer so because your father hasn’t returned.”
I didn’t have an answer for that. I dropped my hands into my lap, lowering my head, letting my long blond hair hide my face. Hide my thoughts. Neither the sun nor the moon ever halt upon their journey, said an old Japanese proverb. In but a flicker of time, I was beyond the reach of my childhood, lost in the deep shadows behind the high walls of the geisha house. I had grown up practicing my art of dance, hoping someday to dance in the Spring Festival of the River Kamo Dances, as well as learning how to play the harp and the lute. I believed in my heart someday I would become an entertainer in the world of pleasuring men. I’d learned how to warm a bottle of sake, how to whisper erotic poems in a man’s ear and how to make him hard and rigid by slipping a ring on his penis, but not to turn my back to him like a mare in season.
I knew about the power of beauty and the weakness of passion, and how to forge promises while pretending to be indifferent, as well as the goodness and the evil in the hearts of men.
But I never forgot my father’s promise to return for me.
Time had passed and my father hadn’t set foot on Japanese shores again. What was not said was more powerful than words, Mariko had taught me. Though I never said it aloud to anyone, I believed my father would never return to the Teahouse of the Look-Back Tree. What else could I think? I hadn’t received one letter from him. If the world was flat as some believed, it was as if he’d fallen off the edge of the earth.
Why hadn’t he returned as he promised?
Sitting on a blue silk pillow, I tapped my fingertips on the edge of my folding fan. I mustn’t give up hoping Father would return, that he would see me become a geisha and be proud of me. To do so, I must officially enter the geisha sisterhood. This was a bond not easily broken and one I embraced.
Geisha sisters were dependent on each other for empathy and loyalty, and most important of all, friendship. That was why I wanted to go through the ceremony of sisterhood with Mariko and no one else. Mariko was the older sister because she’d lived in the teahouse longer than I, but we ate together, shared secrets and helped each other with our kimonos. Learning how to wear kimono wasn’t easy.
“A red silk slip?” I’d remarked, my hand going to my mouth when Mariko showed me what I’d wear under my kimono the day I formally entered the world of geisha.
“Yes, Kathlene-san, all geisha show a glimpse of red at their collar. Red is the color of passion. A geisha’s passion.”
“No more butterfly ties,” I said, referring to the ornate tying of my sash in the back that resembled a giant butterfly. I tied my sash too tightly at first, cutting off my breath, and it came apart soon after, sending us both into laughter. I’d learned how to fasten my kimono with its many ties and drape it over my body so it fell gracefully to the floor and trailed after me when I walked, as if it were water around my feet.
“When a geisha wears kimono she mustn’t stand out, Kathlene-san, but harmonize with her surroundings,” Mariko reminded me often.
She meant wa, harmony, the essential of the Japanese soul. I was overcome by a sentimental feeling inside my soul. Mariko reminded me of the soft, pink evening clouds with golden edges that stole over the horizon at sunset, chasing the heavy clouds of the day away and lighting the stars of the night. She could also be strong and fierce. I remembered the night she helped me when Youki cut off my hair. Mariko and I were like two petals that had fallen from the same rose and floated downstream side by side, going wherever the current carried us.
Why shouldn’t we become sisters?
That was why I sneaked out of the teahouse long before the rooster rose from his bed of straw and called the inhabitants of Ponto-chô awake. Then I hurried down the dark, narrow alleys along the canal, the wooden houses seeming to face inward rather then outward.
I hurried on my high clogs with bells to the shop where they sold the kokeshi dolls: crude, trunk-shaped dolls to look like a man with a roughly carved head with eyes, nose and mouth drawn on the doll and clothed in a brightly-painted kimono. The dolls were regarded as a symbol of protection for unattached females.
My face tightened at the thought of Mariko without a man to love her. Marriage meant security, position, home and children. If a geisha married, she must stop being a geisha. I had a deep feeling as much as Mariko wanted these things, she would never allow herself to stop being a geisha. She was trapped in her mind and body to serve one master. Duty.
I thought of her
