A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding (19 page)

Ue-shita: One of the most important patterns that Japanese people are expected to recognise in human interaction is the relationship between the superordinate and subordinate. A subordinate is supposed to be respectful to a superordinate and the latter caring in a paternal way for the former.

I bought three kimonos with the money that Mama-san lent me. They came in shades of amber, teal and coral pink. I had never owned anything so exquisite and as I ran my hands over their silks I began to understand how beautiful possessions could change how you saw yourself and how others viewed you. The night I next met the captain, I was swathed in amber. Mother sat on a stool by our hearth as she watched me prepare for my night at the bar. I had been doing shifts for a month, with one day off a week. Mama-san had told me to wear minimal make-up and put my hair in a simple bun. My youth was the only decoration I needed, she said. I wound the cords and sashes around my body. Reflected in the mirror, I could see Mother looking at the kimono, an unhappy smile drawn across a face prematurely reddened and lined through too much alcohol and too little rest. She drank from a glass and told me her favourite story, how she could have been someone if my father hadn't trapped her in the wrong part of Nagasaki. Poor as we were, she could
still imagine another ending for herself. She was still alive enough to dream. She believed I had the chance to take us both from this place we were forced to call home. She talked of saving up what I earned and moving to a better part of the city. Bar Printemps was a tunnel to freedom, one she expected us to take together.

I looked around our cramped, damp quarters, the dishes of half-eaten food and the piles of unwashed clothes next to the futon where I slept in the main living area. She saw me as a way out when, in truth, I wanted to escape from her. Could she not see me pulling away? Wealth, class, culture, they could all be mimicked and perhaps even acquired; the hostesses had given me such hope, but I feared if Mother clung to me, I would end up like her. When I was ready to leave for the night I handed her some money. The evenings went better for us both if she could afford to spend some hours at the shack masquerading as a bar at the bottom of our street.

I arrived at Printemps and began collecting glasses from the previous night's business. One of the girls, a bitter melon called Akiko, began to bait me about Sakamoto. The hostesses had noticed the captain's interest in me and teasing me about his intentions became their new game. Akiko smiled conspiratorially at her dumpy stooge, Mika.

‘Hey, Amaterasu, how's that captain of yours? Has he placed an order yet? You're just his type. He likes his meat raw and bleeding.'

Akiko and Mika laughed as Karin arrived through the main door. Mika picked up a fried shrimp from one of the bowls and began eating with her mouth open. ‘Don't
worry, Amaterasu. Kimiko is more pimp than mistress these days, she'll be delighted with the rest.'

Karin shooed them away and Akiko sloped off with a bored pout. ‘You're no fun, Karin. Tell Amaterasu she should be grateful if Sakamoto shows any interest. He has power and wealth; he isn't some drunken merchant sailor or factory worker.'

Mika wiped her fingers on a cloth. ‘Yeah, tell her, she should be grateful.' She shot a sly glance at Akiko. ‘No matter if he smells of fermented soya bean or his skin is like wet tofu or he carries more fat than a farm pig.'

Karin collected a tray of dirty glasses. ‘Well, Mika, you've got that in common with him.'

Mika scowled but before she could respond Mama-san entered the bar. I followed Karin into the kitchen and helped her stack the glasses by the sink. ‘Don't listen to those girls, Amaterasu. They're jealous, that's all.'

I lit the stove. ‘I don't understand why.'

‘You could have anyone you wanted here, if you learn the game. Don't look so uncertain. It has happened. I've heard of hostesses living in fine apartments, wives in all but name. Why not you, Amaterasu? Or me?'

‘It sounds a fairy tale.'

She laughed. ‘Maybe, but let's just say, a certain client is coming here tonight, and he's asked for your company.'

Mama-san had made it clear I was not ready to sit with the customers. I filled my nights with cleaning duties, or making simple snacks for hungry clients. When I could, I studied the hostesses, the cadence of their voices, their posture, the way they refilled glasses with playful attentiveness. ‘I'm not able to entertain.'

Karin smoothed down her kimono. ‘Mama-san isn't keeping you away from the tables because you aren't ready. She's keeping you for the highest bidder. You're her latest prize. Make the most of it while it lasts.'

When do hopes of a different life crystallise into plans? Was it that night or later? I know that I kept myself busy, not sure how I would react if the captain did appear. The hours ticked by until the customers stumbled to their beds. I felt a relief that Sakamoto had not come. Mama-san began to send some of the hostesses home as the bar emptied. I was working in the kitchen when she appeared at my side. She sighed as she surveyed my work. ‘Too many nuts, this is not a feeding zoo.' She ran one hand over her coiffured hair and then poured alcohol into a glass. She handed me the drink. ‘Swallow this. Sakamoto is here.' I walked to the curtain and peered through the beads. I saw him through the smoke, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, a half-smile on his lips. I looked back at Mama-san. ‘Don't look so nervous. Just follow his lead. And remember, smile.'

I made my way through the pirouettes of smoke past the figures shrouded by dimmed lamps. He stood when I reached his table. He told me to sit and poured me a glass of sake. I thanked him as he said, ‘Let me play hostess.' He asked what made me come to Printemps and I told him my mother had thought it a good idea. He asked if I liked the work. I said I felt like a bat, the late nights, sleeping through the day, the hours getting ready. ‘I can't remember the last time I saw the sun.' He asked what I made of the clientele. I hesitated and he answered for me. ‘Old and drunk?' This made me laugh, or rather,
I already knew to laugh at the joke. He asked if the men were well behaved. I told him the other girls were teaching me how to temper their excitement. He indicated that I should replenish his glass.

He shuffled nearer. ‘Let me tell you a secret, but if I tell you this secret, I will expect payment. This is a valuable gem of wisdom I offer you. Do you promise to repay me this kindness?' I giggled as the girls had shown me and said yes. ‘Good. A good deed for a good deed. Here is the secret you must learn. The hostesses are the ones in control, not the customers. These men and their wallets are at your mercy. Mere puppets. You pull their strings, remember this. Love and bars do not work well together. Mix the two, and you invite a broken heart. Try to keep your heart like stone. The men here are not looking for love. They want to drink and kiss the necks of pretty, young girls. They are not looking for wives. This is fantasy. See the men who come to these places? Some are lonely, some are thirsty, some are hungry, and not for food. Be warned: they will do anything to win your affections. They will buy you presents, they will tell you that, oh, they have never known such beauty, that they have never felt such love. Do not believe them.' He sipped some sake. ‘Take their gifts but do not believe them. Well, believe me, you are beautiful. That colour is exquisite on you.'

I recall this conversation now as an old woman with too many years behind me. He was telling me all I had to know about the city's entertainment district, but no doubt, like too many other young girls before me, I thought these rules would not apply to me. So while
I thanked Sakamoto for his kind words and advice, I did not appreciate them. He looked me over, as if he were in a shop, considering a purchase. He took a fresh cigarette from a gold tin and held the tobacco to his lips. ‘Please, let me.' I picked up his lighter but my fingers were clumsy and shaking and he held my hand in his to steady my hold.

‘You must call me Tetsu.' He leaned back in his seat, looked around the room and stretched. ‘Amaterasu, I am hungry. Would you mind making me some rice porridge?'

I nodded and slipped away, annoyed that I had said or done something that had displeased him. I dipped through the beads into the kitchen, where Mama-san was counting a pile of money. She glanced up as I moved to the sink. ‘Sakamoto wants some food.'

She looked at the clock behind her and tutted but continued her calculations as I opened a cupboard to find the rice. A minute, no more, must have passed when the smell of tobacco infiltrated the room. I turned around, and there he was, the captain, in the kitchen. He stood next to Mama-san but said nothing and I saw her look at me and then the money. She opened her mouth as if to say something before she gathered up the banknotes and, head bowed, left me alone with him. He walked up to the sink and dropped his cigarette with a fizz against its wet bottom. He smiled.

‘My apologies, I'm not hungry any more. I'm in the mood for something else. Good deeds deserve good deeds, don't you agree? Would you kneel for me, Amaterasu?'

I remember pushing the rice away. ‘I don't understand.'
He repeated the question. ‘I'd like you to kneel, just there, where you are, on the floor.'

I must have looked at the wooden floorboards. ‘But my kimono, it will get dirty.'

He moved closer. ‘I'll buy you a new one, a nicer one.' He ran his fingers over a crate of empty sake bottles stacked next to the sink.

‘But Mama-san?'

‘Don't worry, little one. I'll show you what to do. Now, would you kneel for me?' The captain stood in front of me. I could smell his liquor breath. He stroked my face. ‘Don't be scared.' I could see the pores on his nose and the spider veins on his cheeks. ‘I'll play teacher. Kneel for me.' I did not think to say no. Perhaps I could have done so. Perhaps I could have run home, told Mother I would find another job. Perhaps I could have paid Mama-san back somehow. Perhaps I could have lived as my mother had and numbed myself with cheap sake. Perhaps those options were available to me but in that small kitchen, alone with the captain, I could not think of them. So I knelt. And as he promised, the captain showed me what to do. I never wore that amber kimono again.

Jorogumo: A mythical creature from the Edo period of Japan. A spider, usually an orb weaver, is given magical powers when it turns four hundred years old. The spider grows into a beautiful woman who lures men to a quiet spot by playing a Japanese lute called a biwa. She then ties up her victim with her silk threads and feasts on him. Sometimes she takes the form of a woman carrying a baby, which may be her egg sac. The word is also the name of a species of spider called Nephila clavata, or golden orb-web spiders such as the joro spider.

The captain sent a flurry of gifts to my home after that first night. Each parcel marked a new lesson dispensed by him, a new acquiescence on my part. Mother would watch me receive them, the air rancid with her envy. Much of the jewellery and furs she pawned but she let me keep a coral necklace. The present arrived in a tortoiseshell box with a white rose. She seemed to understand its significance. I was not yet sixteen but Sakamoto had given me a full education. His friendship improved our living standards. We ate better food, sat at a better table, but Mother was hungry for more. She wanted to know when we could move to a bigger home. I need only ask the captain nicely and he would provide, she said. Mother did not understand the game. Neither of us wanted to break the illusion that this physical contract was more
than some cheap transaction. Yes, I might move beyond the label of Maruyama companion if I was patient and clever but to force his patronage would be to ruin the false tale we spun: of a man and woman in love. Why would he set me up in a home when there were so many other hostesses to whet his appetite? I spent those first months trying to satiate his desire so he would need only me. I was a child but children learn fast, and Sakamoto had no hesitation in showing me where his tastes lay.

Of course, I did not love the captain, nor like him, but I appreciated his presence in my life, what his interest, sexual and therefore financial, might mean to me over the coming years. Our companionship had mutual benefits. He was the possibility of flight made flesh. The more he sought my company, the more the other hostesses dangled tales in front of me of women who lived in grand apartments paid for by their Maruyama lovers. Some had children and were de facto wives; others had saved enough money to run their own bars or businesses. The hostesses all saw what Sakamoto held in his hand: the key to doors beyond the entertainment district. Yes, he had claimed me too young but I refused to see myself as some victim. He sought satisfaction; I sought benefaction.

Timing was important. His companion, Kimiko, had disappeared, but vain as I was becoming, I suspected this vanishing act had little to do with me. I sensed the captain's interest had an unspoken time limit attached. I began to worry at some point Sakamoto would tire of me, as he had Kimiko. I had to show him due respect and consideration while I warranted so much of his attention. It would be folly to risk his patronage by allowing
another man into my bed. Few were held in higher regard than him, and what he had or owned, other men envied and coveted. I learned to spurn persistent admirers that nipped at his heels with a gentle diplomacy. The balance between not bruising their egos while encouraging their company was a delicate one. I could have had some fallback plan, some other man to pursue, but Sakamoto was the most likely, and the best placed, to take me from the streets of Maruyama and my mother. All I had to do was ensure he judged my companionship the finest to be found in the night bars. This is why I tolerated his hands and mouth and those other parts of him. I entertained all his predilections. I became a good actress. I faked desire to the point that I could almost believe myself in love with him. I learned to hide my yearning for something more than the captain's attentions underneath layers of insouciance and disregard of all matters serious. I was light as a Chinese windmill butterfly carried on a summer breeze.

Between my time spent with the captain and at the bar, Karin and I would visit the city's bathhouses and scrub ourselves clean. We would hang our kimonos on pegs, buy small towels and soap from an assistant, and find stools next to one another. We gossiped about the clients we liked, the ones who could not hold their alcohol and those with straying hands. We created a code language. Sakamoto was
dango
, dumpling; Mama-san was
kitsune
, fox, or benevolent guardian; Akiko was
mimi-kaki
, ear pick, because her laughter was like a stabbing pain in our ears. Karin was from Sasebo, in the north-western tip of Kyushu. Her family had worked in the coal fields that fuelled the naval base. She had fallen in
love with a metalworker and run away to Nagasaki. When I asked what had happened to him, she would shake her head mournfully. ‘I don't know. I woke up one day and he was gone.' Mama-san had found her loitering outside a restaurant, with no money for food, and had taken her in. As we talked and imagined the lives we could lead outside Maruyama, I poured buckets of hot water over my skin and wiped off Sakamoto's saliva, his sweat and his semen.

Clean once more, Karin and I took walks by the harbour before our shifts. We would stroll to the water to watch the sun set. Nestling between lamp posts and pallets of cargo, joro spiders would sit in their orb nests, which shone gold in the low, dying light. Karin hated those creatures but I loved their beauty, their stomachs marked with a flash of red, legs striped yellow and dark blue, the unashamed boldness of them compared to the ordinary brown spiders that scuttled around the ground. I admired their patience and cunning and began to understand what it took to tease the silk from hidden glands and build a home that was also a trap. I thought of the Jorogumo, a seducer impossible to resist. She was the one who feasted on men, not the other way around. Could I be her? I dressed for work in my bright kimonos and tried to see a different future. Be irresistible, patient and resolute, I told myself. Become a joro spider.

A year passed and still the captain favoured my company but not enough to free me from the bar. When he did not visit Printemps, other clients courted my attention. One night, a literature professor who thought himself more in love with me the more brandy he drank
slouched forward, his body chastised by alcohol and whispered, ‘How is my Clarissa this evening?' I asked him what he meant and he smirked but said no more. On his next visit he brought me a book,
Clarissa
by Samuel Richardson. ‘Here we go, my caged princess.' He had bookmarked one page, with a quote highlighted in pencil. ‘
I am but a cipher, to give him significance, and myself pain.
' I asked the professor if the book was a love story and he laughed. ‘Depends on your point of view.' I understood that he was mocking me. Unrequited desire had that effect. ‘Come now, Amaterasu, you must be an expert in love. You see it bloom here every night.'

What I saw in the bar was not love. The hostesses were paid to be surrogate wives, or lovers, or even mothers, only we fed our charges with sake not breast milk. Most conversations consisted of sexual innuendo or bawdy jokes. We spent hours listening to our customers' woes, nodding sympathetically while pouring more drinks so that they might abandon their fumbled attempts at seduction and forget what grievance had brought them to our door. I told the professor I could not begin to know what love was, although it seemed to make people more miserable than happy and was probably best avoided. He shook his head, muttering, ‘My sweet girl, you know nothing. Love is wondrous, rainbows, sunlight on a waterfall, dew on a petal, a wild horse galloping on an empty beach. What a sad little thing you are. I will show you what love is outside this dreary bar.' I told him that sounded delightful but he should realise I was only a figment of his imagination, a night spirit conjured up by alcohol when the sun set. I did not exist in daylight. I refilled his
drink and he asked if I was happy. I replied as gaily as I could, ‘Why would I not be? You are here to keep me company, to tell me about love even if I am cursed never to know it.'

‘You are admired, yes, but will you recognise love when it arrives? Will you allow it into your life?' He put down his glass of brandy. ‘I am drunk. I must abandon you to these foul beasts, dear princess.'

The professor stood up with exaggerated care and made his way to the exit, no doubt in search of other Clarissas in nearby bars. He bumped into a man as he walked through the door and raised his hand in apology. The professor drew my gaze to this new customer but something more than his strong features and bearing held my attention. How to describe that feeling? The bar drew still and I felt sucked into a vacuum as I watched him walk toward Mama-san. He did not arrive with wild horses or rainbows, but a companion, a little shorter and stouter than him. If I had not seen this man at that moment on that night, what would have happened? Would Sakamoto have moved me to an apartment? Would I have become another mama-san? Would I have ended up another version of my mother? I cannot say. This new customer came and scored his presence indelibly in my life. I did not know his name. Later that night he would introduce himself. Jomei Sato. His friend? Kenzo Takahashi.