The Miko - 02 (49 page)

On the threshold of the pale green and caramel structure he paused, trembling. Rain pattered on the conical shelter of his
amagasa
and he looked up, watching it drip off the eaves just beneath the curved tiles of the roof. As the
samurai
in olden days had done he had disguised himself somewhat before setting out on his trek to the red-light district.

It was not that he was ashamed of coming here or that he wished to hide his presence at
Fuyajo
from his wife. On the contrary, it was to her that the Castle That Knows No Night sent the bills for his sojourns of pleasure.

Rather it was the unsettling political and economic climate within the bureaucracy that caused him to act with caution. As vice-minister of MCI he had many enemies and he had no wish to present his ill-wishers with fodder for his political demise.

A chill gust of wind bowled down the street, making him shiver and pull his long capelike raincoat closer about him. That SCAP hound, Colonel Linnear, was already sniffing around for incriminating bones and though Shimada was quite certain he had buried his deeply and well, he nevertheless refused to relax his vigilance, for he knew that in the wake of the war’s end he could not rely on his Prime Minister for refuge if the truth were to come out. In fact, knowing Yoshida, he would be among the first to deliver Shimada up as a sacrificial lamb to the
gaijin
war crimes tribunal.

War. The thought made Shimada shiver. Always it came back to the war. How he wished now that Japan had taken another course. In retrospect, he saw his own rabid ideas of expansionism, his close ties to those warmongers in the
zaibatsu
as tantamount to slashing open his own belly. And yet there was no dignity in the association. His hands were soiled by the clandestine work he had done for his friends in the
zaibatsu
both before the war and during it. Shimada had been a key figure within the Ministry of Munitions and had been saved from the war crimes tribunal by a mixture of his own cunning in hiding his past and the decision of his superior to break apart the ministry at the last moment, turning it into the Ministry of Commerce and Industry before SCAP had set itself up and begun its own purge.

Shimada looked down at his hands. His palms were slick with sweat. He took a deep breath, calming himself. He resolved to stop by the Shinto shrine on his way home and petition the gods and
kami
for the gift of confidence and the blessing of forgetfulness. If not for the
gaijin
Linnear, all would be peaceful, he knew.

Abruptly, the door to
Fuyajo
opened and cool illumination flooded over him like a spotlight. Shimada hurried inside.

At first he wanted nothing more from her than for her to serve him tea. The complex ritual of
chano-yu
was as soothing as a massage or a soak in a steaming tub.

Watching Ikan perform the ceremony just for him caused all the problems, fears, and doubts that snapped at his heels in the world beyond the happy field to dissolve like tears in a pool. In their stead he found himself filling up with a delicious contentment, a clarity of mind he had thought he could never achieve.

And because every movement Ikan made no matter how minute or trivial—turning a teacup or touching a wisp of her hair—was the epitome of grace and fluidity, he found his enjoyment multiplying geometrically as he unraveled each layer of meaning from what she did or spoke. For her words were never trivial or mundane. She made no small talk. Rather, each question she asked or each answer she gave to his questions were both fascinating and eloquent.

In the world beyond
Fuyajo
memories transformed Shimada like a growing cancer into a man old beyond his years. But here, Ikan had the ability to banish that haunted quality of his life and, like a serpent shedding its skin, he was reborn in her presence as he was enchanted by her awesome ethereal prowess.

For her part, Ikan never saw the man that Shimada was in the outside world for with her he had no need of scheming, he had no need of fiercely keeping his enemies at bay. She saw, rather, the man he might have been in another time, another place.

He was gentle with her, and warmhearted. And his obvious delight at all she did warmed her. She recognized in him a deep need to be nurtured and loved, and since it was her belief that all men were at their core nothing more than infants, she felt no need to probe too deeply into the source of this need.

But, it must be said that another factor entered into this self-deceit. Ikan knew there was something special about Shimada when on his second visit he brought her a set of old traditional
kanzashi
made of
tsuge
wood in a similar design as her
kushi.
Now she had a complete set for her hair.

Her manner was calm, her smile sweet, small, and proper, her eyes properly downcast, her murmur of thanks soft and brief as he presented her with the magnificent gift. But inside her heart was pounding and she could feel her blood singing through her veins. This was a completely new feeling for her and she was inwardly bewildered.

But later than night, when she lay entwined with him on the lushly fabricked
futon
, as their sweat commingled, as she felt the double-beat pulse of his heart close to hers, as he gently entered her after the careful and delightful hours of sensuous preparations, Ikan knew what that feeling was. She was in love.

The decision to have the baby was entirely hers. It was her privilege as
tayu
—at least that was the custom established years ago by those who ran
Fuyajo.
The decision had been an entirely pragmatic one. Like champion racehorses who are put out to stud, it was felt that many of the
tayu
’s unique qualities were innate, needing only the proper training to emerge and be enhanced.

But this usually happened somewhat further on in a
tayu
’s career because there was fear of markings or disfigurement from the rigors of childbirth as well as the months of enforced idleness and thus lost revenue to think of. However, Ikan was of such stellar quality that the greed of those who ran
Fuyajo
eventually overcame their initial doubts.

Ikan was certain that she wanted to bear Shimada’s child. Already he insisted that she see no one else and paid for the privilege of her exclusivity through the nose. He did not care, although what his wife thought of the increasing level of the bills was quite another matter.

But Shimada’s wife was someone Ikan never thought of. Why should she? That woman was part of another world, a world in which Ikan could never participate. What use such thoughts? Too, she was acutely aware of how she affected Shimada, and she suspected that after the birth of their son—for she had no doubts that she would bear him a son—his elation would be so extraordinary that he would grant her any wish. And she had only one: to become his mistress. He would have to buy her freedom, of course, but he could well afford the price.

It never occurred to Ikan that she would bear a daughter who would bind her to
Fuyajo
forever, and who would herself be bound to the Castle That Knows No Night.

And yet it was a female child to which she gave birth, a squalling, hairless infant with nothing between its legs but a slit.

For three days Ikan wept on her
futon
, her dreams of a glorious future destroyed in an instant. She saw no one, spoke to no one, ignored all the notes sent up to her by a worried Shimada. These last she burned instantly as if by handling them she could be contaminated.

During this time she did not sleep. Rather, she lay curled on her left side, her face to the wall. Her shame was overwhelming, and her face burned with it. At first her hatred for her daughter was overwhelming, so powerful that she shuddered to its bitter taste in her mouth. And this, too, caused her to decline all food, wanting perversely to subsist wholly on her hate.

But by the middle of the second day, she found that she could no longer sustain such a harsh and cruel emotion. It went against all her training and, after all, the child was so helpless and alone.

She was weeping again, hot, bitter tears that swept down her cheeks, depleting her strength. For she began to understand—as one begins to see a red, swollen sun appear after a long, debilitating storm—that her hatred was for herself. A terrible despair began to engulf her, and with that awful feeling rose the shame, a black, baleful raven in her tortured mind.

Oh, how her love had warped her, how her own selfish desires had driven her to this shameful reality. For in her egotism she had been confident of bearing a male child—had she not spent two hours every day at the Shinto shrine two blocks away, propitiating the gods, seeking their aid?—and had thrust to the dark back recesses of her mind the consequences of bearing a daughter. For all female offspring of
tayu
became the property of
Fuyajo,
to train when they came of age to replace their mothers as new
oiran
and, if the gods favored them, eventually
tayu.

She spent all of the third day contemplating this, taking a little food now when it was offered to her but still wanting to see no one. And at the end of that time, after she had lit incense and prayed to the Amida Buddha for guidance, she asked to see her baby.

“There is no name as yet for this little one, lady,” the old woman who cooked for them and took care of them when they were ill said as she transferred the tiny bundle into Ikan’s trembling arms. “It is bad luck,” she added needlessly.

Ikan dropped her gaze to the tiny face of her daughter, still wrinkly and red skinned.

“Reiko, one of the
kamuro
who failed her examination, has been nursing her,” the old woman said softly as she gazed up into the troubled face of her lady. “This is a hungry little one.” The old woman giggled, hoping to break through the oppressive atmosphere she had sensed when she entered this chamber.

Ikan nodded absently. It did not really matter who nursed the baby; she would not be allowed to.

“I have lit many sticks of incense,” the old woman went on. “I have done what I could to protect this innocent from bad
karma.
But, lady, forgive me, she must have a name.”

Ikan heard, but it was impossible to say what was going on in her mind. She felt enwrapped by her guilt. And now, face to face with the tiny creature she had borne, knowing what kind of a life her unthinking actions had condemned it to, she felt sick at heart.

Her pale lips opened and she whispered, “Yes, old one. A name. I will give you a name.” There was a sighing in the room as if the autumn wind outside had somehow crept through a crack in the window sash and now swirled around them.

Ikan’s eyes were filled with tears so that the tiny face blurred and became indistinct. Her whisper could barely be heard. “Call her Akiko.”

She was an exceptionally healthy child, strong and fully as robust as a boy. She was up and walking early, as if somehow even at that early age she suspected she would need to rely on her own resources to survive. And for all that Ikan grew to love the child, she showed very little overt emotion. Rather she left the supervision of the infant to the old cook and the other girls, all of whom were enchanted with the new baby.

She hung back as if she were afraid of the child, especially during those times when those who ran
Fuyajo
congregated in the infant’s room, leaving their gifts near the sleeping form.

Often Shimada would come to the Castle That Knew No Night and, as before, he would spend the long, languorous nights with Ikan. But the one request she continually denied him was to look at his daughter, to hold her, to speak his first words to her so that she would know that he was her father.

She took exceptional pleasure in keeping Akiko from him. Outwardly she would be attentive, responsive to his every wish, often without his having to utter a word of direction—that was a courtesan’s greatest skill, after all. But all the while she would be gloating inwardly at the unique kind of pain she brought him, and like sadist and masochist, this became a kind of bond between them that somehow brought them closer together—or at least afforded them a more intimate understanding of the essence of one another.

Akiko recalled meeting her father only once, and that was on an unseasonably warm spring day when she was midway between her third and fourth birthdays. She had been playing with Yumi, the old cook, and had returned to her mother’s room as she always did at this time of the day. But instead of her mother waiting for her to comb her hair, she found a man in a chocolate brown suit. He had slightly stooped shoulders, thick features, a grayish mustache no thicker than a pencil, thick, tufty eyebrows like clouds. He smiled when he saw her and she saw his slightly yellowed teeth.

“Akiko-chan,” he said, bowing.

She returned the gesture. She was close enough to smell the halo of cigarette smoke that seemed to envelop him. She wrinkled up her nose and rubbed it with her finger.

“I’ve brought you a present, Akiko-chan.” He bent toward her and held out his hand. Nestled within his palm was an exquisitely carved
netsuke
of a horse with its head down, its forelegs raised as if set for flight or to ward off some unseen advance. It was made of tulipwood.

Akiko stared at it but made no move to take it.

“It’s for you. Don’t you want it?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

So he reached out and, taking her hand, deposited the
netsuke
into her small fist, curling up the fingers around its cool girth. “Now this is just from me to you. Our secret.”

She nodded.
“Domo arigato.”

He smiled down at her and took her other hand. “Now we have the entire afternoon to ourselves.”

It was the time of
hanami
and he took her by train to a small park on the outskirts of the city with gently sloping contours dressed with lines of old cherry trees.

She remembered the smell of the train, an agglomeration of luncheon foods, and could still feel after all those years the tightly packed claustrophobic sensation of being pressed in with so many people. Shimada held her hand tightly but still she was uncomfortable and began to weep silent tears until he picked her up in his arms and held her rocking gently with the motion of the train against his chest.