The Pillow Book of the Flower Samurai (16 page)

The stories allowed me to escape over the walls of the Village of Outcasts to somewhere wonderful or, at least, somewhere else – where I might redeem my family’s honour.

The stories served me better than her. I had discovered an honourable way to escape.

III. One Story

Tashiko and I went to Aya’s hut with my good news.

Aya hummed and played with little dishes and her doll on the floor of her hut. Her freshly shortened hair shifted with the rhythm of her song.

‘Aya.’ I knew I had to have her attention before I spoke to her.

She turned her head, her sweet smile offsetting the crossed eyes.

Tashiko and I sat on the floor next to her. ‘News.’

‘Madam Hitomi promoted me to Cleaner-of-Houses in the Women-for-Play’s working huts.’

She hugged me. ‘Hooray,’ she shouted, into my shoulder.

‘But I will not be working with you any more.’

Tears dribbled down Aya’s cheeks like slow rain. Tashiko lifted the rice cake, a gift from one of the Women-for-Play. Its scent floated up to me.

‘Here,’ Tashiko said. ‘We brought this for you. Kozaishō says this is your favourite.’

Aya mewled like a cat with its tail caught.

‘Is this not your favourite?’ I said.

That was the wrong question. The mewing increased to a whine, and the tears continued to flow.

Tashiko scowled at me and began to sing a calming
sutra
. I joined in.

Another wrong approach. Now howling, Aya bent her head down to the floor.

Such noise caused trouble. Tashiko cradled Aya, and I rubbed her back, my roughened hands catching threads on her smock.

A torrent of tears accompanied her bawling.

I looked at Tashiko, shrugged my shoulders and kept a hand on Aya’s back. ‘Do you know the story of the mirror?’

I waited and murmured in her ear, ‘Once . . . long ago . . .’

Aya’s head rose. She was sniffing, her little chest heaving. The wailing stopped.

Once, long ago, a couple had a beautiful little girl. When the father’s business called him away to a faraway city, he promised the little girl a special present. Returning, he opened a basket. He had brought cakes and a large doll for his daughter. He presented his wife with a metal mirror.

Soon the mother became ill and told her daughter, ‘My darling, when I am gone, take care of your father. When you miss me, and you will, take this mirror and look into it. You will always see me.’

After she had died, the little girl looked into the mirror and saw her mother. For years it comforted her, even after her father remarried and she had a new stepmother who cared for her.

The tears were flowing again. ‘I have no mirror to see you,’ Aya said, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

‘You remember how we saw ourselves in water buckets? When you look into the water buckets tomorrow, you will see yourself. Picture me next to you, as always.’

When Aya smiled again, Tashiko and I went to my new hut with the Women-for-Play. I would miss the stories but was relieved I would no longer have to push Aya.

‘You amazed me,’ Tashiko said, lifting her eyebrows, soft as a baby bird’s down. ‘Where did you learn how to tell such a story?’

A fist hit my stomach as I remembered the source. ‘From Chiba . . . and Akio and the other samurai.’

‘I heard stories too, but I do not recognise this one.’

‘I make some of them up or change them.’ I explained about Aya working faster and the story duels with Akio on the way to Madam Hitomi.

‘Tell some to me.’

To make my work easier, I told stories to stop the Women-for-Play squirming while I dressed them and applied their makeup. They asked for me to arrange their hair and clothes because of my stories. This I enjoyed, and their attention pleased me, too. A well-timed story discouraged slaps for small mistakes or forgotten details or, worse, Hitomi’s discipline.

Bigger mistakes brought Hitomi’s punishments, so I learned as quickly as I could. Tashiko crept into my hut and held me and the dolls to ease her terror. While salves lessened pain, no one spoke of what occurred in Hitomi’s hut, no matter how loud the shrieks.

At the beginning of each day Tashiko and I whispered together. The Women-for-Play served as subjects for conversation – prolonged discussions about the best way to rouge mouths that were as thin as chopsticks, to select complementary colours and arrange robes for a woman with a figure as bumpy as an aubergine or as thin as a burdock root.

After work, she and I continued to play the games we had played at Chiba’s. Go was my favourite, and sometimes I won. Akio played go with me, and my skill improved. Hitomi allowed this activity, and Akio always called attention to us when we were taking the Right Action.

Tashiko persisted in the reading lessons, writing the names of objects on small papers. My writing still resembled bird scratches, but I could read more and more characters. Akio taught us new ones, those for weaponry, new poses and strokes.

From one grateful woman, I received a partial copy of the
Kokinsh
ū
, a compilation of five-lined poems called
waka
. I copied them and later created my own. Tashiko did not appear jealous of my gifts for which I was thankful. I recalled her as a rival at the
sh
ō
en
.

The days ended with the evening meal and bathing. She and I murmured on into the night, until we were too tired to go on.

Months passed while I served the Women-for-Play, dressing, undressing, bathing, comforting, calming. I assisted with blackening their teeth, although the first few times I did not do it well. Those mistakes brought me to Hitomi’s special hut, but I did not cry out. My tongue and cheeks, bitten through, meant I could not chew food. Tashiko gave me cooled rice broth until I could eat again, often many days later. My fury with Hitomi lasted longer.

Tashiko explained, ‘If the work is not adequate, it is honourable to submit to whatever punishment Madam Hitomi decrees.’

I disagreed. Tashiko was trying to convince herself that our punishments were honourable. They were not, especially for honest mistakes or for someone like me who was learning. Whenever I was punished, I did whatever I had to stop myself crying out.

Only six months after my promotion to Cleaner-of-Houses, Tashiko shook my shoulder to awaken me. ‘Madam Hitomi. For me.’

‘Am I in trouble, too?’ As a punishment, Hitomi always fetched the offender herself. She appreciated seeing the fearful faces.

‘I do not know.’

I returned back to sleep, thinking of my twelfth birth anniversary and what the day might bring – gifts or abuse.

IV. Advancement

All the next day I did not see Tashiko. Before the evening meal she came into my hut with a smile.

I had been fearful for her all day, but it appeared her punishments had not been too terrible. However, the three Women-for-Play for whom I had worked after midday were especially irksome. They ordered me to redo all my tasks. I had to tell a different story to each one to soothe her temper.

The last thing I craved before the evening meal was a grinning religious zealot. ‘What is it?’ I asked Tashiko, in a sharper manner than usual.

‘Wonderful news.’

‘Not another revelation about some
sutra
.’

Tashiko said nothing.

A moment later, I said, ‘Yes?’ in a more neutral tone, but did not change the fatigue on my face. My practice with Akio had been poor. In the second movement, my three-cross relationship – shoulders, hips and feet – would not align properly. Akio had been disappointed.

‘You are to become one of us.’

‘One of whom?’

Tashiko grinned like a happy monkey. ‘Women-for-Play. Like me.’

‘Women-for-Play? Truly?’ I sat upright on the
futon
. She had played tricks before.

‘Yes.’ She opened her arms wide, in expectation of some excitement, perhaps.

Tashiko fetched my house shoes, putting them on my feet.

‘Now what are you doing? Don’t tease me.’

Her eyes dimmed like ponds under a dark moon.

I prodded her shoulder with a finger. ‘Stop it. Not on my birth anniversary. You are treating me like one of those – those women.’

She lowered her eyes in the way she did when there was unpleasant news. ‘I am doing what Madam Hitomi wishes.’

I rose from the
futon
, changed my mind and sat again. Cold dread moaned through the hut.

‘I am totally unworthy.’ I said the expected words. This was no game. Perspiration seeped around my neck and down my back. The walls whirled, and my stomach tossed bile into my throat. I grabbed the
futon
and sought Tashiko’s eyes. Do not let this happen. My contented life was diving into a nether world.

Grabbing Tashiko’s hands, I swallowed the bitterness and said, ‘I am not ready to stop serving others, telling the stories and arranging the clothes.’ I checked her eyes. They withdrew, turning dark chestnut.

She stood up and pulled away her hands. ‘Kozaishō, there is nothing to be done.’

I had hurt her without meaning to. I wanted to be far away, although she was my friend and confidante. Apprehension raced through my limbs, like a strong stream after a sudden torrent in dry times.

I loved the stories and clothes, the songs and dances and makeup, but I despised the work. The work was the painful thing Goro had wanted to do to me. I had heard about it from the others, but Tashiko did not speak of it. I pushed at those shadows, but they would not go away. Everything was a dangerous wet snowstorm, a howling wind, no winter’s end.

Tashiko plopped beside me and touched my cheek. ‘It will hurt a little, at first, but you have never minded pain or hard work.’ She grinned. ‘Later you might enjoy it.’

‘Enjoy?’ What was she talking about?

‘And we will have more time together.’

‘Yes, well . . .’

‘And you will have more time for Akio and your training.’

‘Yes, well . . .’

‘It is what Madam Hitomi has ordered.’

‘The right action . . . and therefore honourable.’ I said, defeated.

‘Yes, Kozaishō.’

I guffawed with disdain and sighed loud and long. ‘Oh, Tashiko.’ Tears filled my eyes, and I turned away my face.

Her hand grasped my shoulder. ‘In the fullness of time, Kozaishō, you will find serenity, even joy, in taking the right action.’

‘Never. Not possible.’

She placed her arms around me, and her scent of brush clover and pinewood soothed me.

‘I want to go and light incense,’ I said to her, but kept holding her. Her eyes were hopeful – I believed she thought this to be a good thing – so I remained where I was. I would pray later to the Goddess of Mercy, I told myself, wondering if Tashiko could hear my mumblings.

Combing my hair with her fingers, she told me the story of Otsumae, how an emperor’s prayers allowed her to be reborn in Paradise.

‘We will say the Lotus Sutra,’ Tashiko added. ‘It will not be so bad. Remember honourable Hiroshi?’ She hugged me. ‘I will teach you. It will not hurt as much as you think. It did not for me.’

A cloud of sadness passed over her face. I ignored it, but remembered it.

We held each other, and I cried in the only way permitted: weeping without sounds.

‘Madam Hitomi directed me to prepare you. I will take you. She said I could attend you. Soon Women-for-Play – together.’

‘Thank you,’ I whispered, and embraced her.

‘The first one will be selected . . .’ she pulled away so we were face to face ‘. . . with care.’

I nodded, not believing her.

‘You are to tell each of them a story.’

‘A story? Not sing or dance? One of
my
stories?’

‘Yes. With the dances and your beautiful voice. Dressed as a character. It will not be so bad, with a musician outside and me as your serving girl – for now.’

‘Truly?’

‘Yes . . . We will learn the thirteen stringed
koto
. When you graduate from the six-string, we can play duets.’

Cleverness ruled Madam Hitomi’s actions.

For a short time, Tashiko would no longer serve men. That delighted her. She helped with my bath, just as if we were at Chiba’s, but with softness. She did not cry. I took this as a good sign. Like Akio, she directed me: ‘Not like Lesser House. No eye contact. Bow frequently. First to the man and second to Madam Hitomi. Smile often. Do not cry. Keep your face blank.’