The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel (5 page)

'Better it was me, Yoshiko,' he said, leaving the bed and clapping his hands for his servant girls. 'I have been gentle with you, which is something that a young husband might fail at. I can promise you that it will never hurt as much again.'

There was a tiny trickle of blood on the sheet, which Teshima said I should be proud of as it proved II was now a woman. He returned to the bedside to scoop a finger of honey from the pot, clapping his hands and shouting for his servants on the way.

As I left his room feeling strangely sad and out of sorts, I passed his peasant girls hurrying to his side with water and soft cotton towels. Despite the pain, I had enjoyed the act, although given the choice I would not have chosen Teshima as my first lover. I have never blamed my greed for sex on that odd coupling, even though after it I could not wait to lie beneath a man again. Although I felt important, chosen, I think that in some hidden part of me, I knew that I had not only lost my virginity, but also my claim to be a child of the Kawashimas. Once again, but this time in a new way, I was being excluded from the care and support of a real family.

When I returned to Sorry, I showed her the present and laughed at the old man's foolishness. I said that we would do well to sell it as Teshima had implied that it was an original, and worth quite a bit. She asked me if there had been blood and I nodded. We decided to eat early as I was tired from my experience and Sorry thought that I looked pale. But in her secret way Shimako had decreed that no head in the Kawashima household would lie early on the pillow that night.

By the time the moon was waking and the house lanterns were lit, I had been served a good supper of chanko-nabe, the nourishing stew given to sumo wrestlers before an encounter. As a sign of respect on my birthday, Sorry added a bowl of steamed rice and red beans, the usual dish for auspicious occasions. The day had been an eventful one, for apart from Teshima's seduction of me, there had been an unusually long earth tremor just before the sun had set blood red. Sorry interpreted this to mean that my life was not destined to be a tranquil one, and I thanked the gods for that.

Later that night as I lay on a rug reading and smoking an American cigarette, I heard a thin, high-pitched wail from Natsuko's rooms. It was a dreadful sound, mournful as the call of a lone whale in the night sea. Sorry went running towards it and as I followed her, I felt excitement coursing through my blood at the thought that this special day had, it seemed, still more to offer.

Shimako had been found by the night watchman hanging from a beam in the wooden shrine near the carp pool. In the thin light of the moon, as he made his first round of the grounds, he had seen her body swaying gently over the Buddha shelf and had run to Kawashima with the news. Kawashima ordered that Shimako be cut down and taken to her own quarters where she could be laid to bed before Natsuko be allowed to see her.

At first the body did not look like hers for she was dressed most strangely, appearing more like a geisha than Natsuko's plain sister. Tightly wound into a ceremonial kimono, she had oiled her hair into three large rolls pierced with numerous hair sticks, her lips were painted crimson, her face rice white. She smelled of rose oil and might have looked serene had it not been for her tongue, which was the colour of a bruise and protruded rudely from her mouth. I was already familiar with death's strange stillness, yet I was transfixed by the sight of Shimako's dead body. It was hard to believe that she was gone, for lying on her bed so painted and peaceful, she looked complete. I began to shake and Sorry tried to pull me from the room but I refused to go.

Natsuko's wailing was awful, I begged her to stop but she did not hear me. It was only when surrounded by her children that her howling finally descended into a low moan.

It transpired that Shimako had retired to her rooms before the evening meal, complaining of a headache. She must have dressed in her finery and made her way in the dusk to the shrine knowing that she would not be seen while the family were eating. She had hung herself with an obi sash the same colour as her stained lips. As the beat of life had left her body, the wooden sandal from her good foot had fallen to the earth floor, its partner swung on her misshapen one as if to draw attention to it.

Natsuko was beside herself with grief. Swaying back and forth she knelt on the floor by her sister's bedside weeping and moaning, her eyes red and swollen from crying. Her daughters fluttered round her like a cloud of moths, making strange sibilant noises of shock. Kawashima was visibly shaken by the odd sight Shimako made laid out in her gorgeous robes as if merely asleep. She was dressed and painted in a manner so out of character that it seemed shameful for us to be spying on her unfamiliar body. Kawashima considered her act of suicide to be one of extreme ingratitude, but he tried to comfort Natsuko with kind words.

'Perhaps she did not wish to leave your dead mother lonely,' he said, patting her lightly on the shoulder.

His wife, dutiful even in the face of such a tragedy, gave him a ghost of her old familiar smile and bowed briefly. It hurt my heart to see Natsuko in such terrible pain, but cut off from me as she was by her daughters, I was excluded from her circle. I walked with a weeping Sorry back to my rooms where we drank sake and whispered of the terrible drama of Shimako's act.

That night I dreamt that I watched Shimako as she stepped into the carp pool to swim. I could not bring myself to point out to her the dark shape of the shark waiting in the opaque water that devoured her before I woke. In all of my dreams of Shimako since that night I am in some way to blame for her death. Sorry said that I shouldn't feel guilty, I may not have loved Shimako but I had not wished her dead and that is no more than the truth.

Natsuko told her daughter Ichiyo that she was not surprised that the tragedy of her sister's death had taken place on my birthday, for I surely had the stench of bad luck about me. She said that I was fortunate that only women could smell it, otherwise my beauty would have been of little use to me. Natsuko was an old-fashioned woman full of such notions.

I thought Shimako's death by design an unnatural thing, like trees dropping their leaves in summer. No animal that I know of would choose to end its own life, even those caught in traps will leave a limb in order to break free and survive. Shimako had been as damaged in her heart as she had been in her body, a woman who had been filled with envy and anger. Well, it is a truth that we are all flawed in some way, yet still we must do the best we can for ourselves. If we sit back lamenting our fate we forget that we can influence it. She came from a wealthy and influential family. She could have managed her life better if she had been possessed of a bit more courage. When I went to Natsuko to formally offer my condolences I said something of my views to her, suggesting she pray that Shimako not be punished for her contempt of the gift of life. She was furious, her eyes narrowed and she could hardly bear to look at me. She said that even though Shimako had lived in a cold world she had achieved a pure death, with all debts honoured. She told me that if I had been truly Japanese I would have understood the honour in Shimako's act.

'You like to think of yourself as Japanese, Yoshiko,' she said. 'But your Chinese blood will always give you away. I know that you do not grieve for Shimako, who outshone you in life. How did you come to be so heartless a person? You do not take after your mother, who they say was a gentle woman.'

I wasn't angry with Natsuko, but she was wrong, I did grieve for Shimako. I missed the place she had occupied in my life. There is something uniquely sad about losing an adversary.

'Natsuko, my character has been formed by different forces than your own has been subject to,' I replied. 'While you experienced a loving father, I was given away by mine, simply because another man asked for me. I saw my mother's life made miserable by the jealousies of her fellow concubines, much in the way that you and Shimako attempted to affect mine. You rejected me even before you had met me.'

'Yes, all of that is true, Yoshiko,' she said. 'Yet you are a clever person, you could have made us like you.'

I told her that I had thought about that when I first came to Kawashima's house, but even then, all those years ago, it wasn't in my nature to beg for love.

'Ah yes, I see,' she said. 'By then you were already made.'

She may have been right, for to this day I cannot bear to court love. It seems to me that unless it is given freely it is worthless.

As often happens in families, a person's character becomes transformed by death. And so the legend of Shimako began, according to which she had been a person of infinite kindness, a shining example of purity and selflessness and one who delighted in peacemaking. For myself I would miss Shimako's deviousness, her skill at setting the household at odds with itself, and the soft dragging sound of her step which allowed you to know that she was coming.

In the days and weeks after her death the truth of Shimako's life emerged. In her head and heart she had been a geisha. The chests in her rooms were found to contain the most exquisite kimonos and obi sashes of every colour. She had dozens of silk hair ornaments, phials of camellia oil, hair wax and pots of white and crimson make-up paints. In one cabinet, eight pairs of high okobo sandals of the kind she was wearing on the night of her death were found, unworn and in pristine condition. By her bedside in a stone jar she had kept crushed nightingale droppings, an ancient tool of the geisha class used to whiten the skin. Under her pillow she had secreted a bound book of her flower paintings. They were most delicately drawn, each page more perfect than the last. I remember a lily so purely depicted that you could almost smell it. A fat bee hovered over one of the flower heads, dropping little globes of pollen into the trumpet of the flower, and under this fertile coupling Shimako had written Kawashima's name. Although it had never occurred to me before, I thought then that she must have loved him. I imagined Shimako locked in her rooms at night performing the tea ceremony, conjuring up the image of Kawashima sitting opposite her, a smile of approval on his samurai face. Perhaps she dreamt that she was beautiful and desirable and that he loved her. I was surprised that I had known nothing of Shimako's night games. I told Sorry that Shimako's personal servant Junko certainly knew how to keep a secret. Sorry said simply, 'Junko loved her mistress.'

Once again the Kawashima household took on the colour of death. It was almost time for the maples to turn gold, and so the flower of Shimako's funeral was the white chrysanthemum. They were placed in front of the alcoves where the scroll paintings hung and made into bouquets with black and white ribbons. Special notices were sent out and condolence gifts of money began to arrive. Natsuko kept a proper account of each present knowing that a gift of equal value must be sent back. She set the green and yellow china lion dogs that had come as part of her own dowry at either side of Shimako's door to guard her dead sister's body. A week after the funeral a memorial service was held. So it was that by her own hand Shimako had decreed that the seasons would continue without her, she would not taste the new year's rice cakes and Natsuko would be left, the loneliest of sisters. In her haste to be gone she had not thought to make arrangements for her faithful servant Junko, who, left without a mistress to serve, was turned out of the house.

Soon after Shimako's memorial service, I became aware of feeling grown-up, with little if anything of the child left in my nature. To point this out to the Kawashima household I went to the newly opened beauty shop in the Ginza Hotel and had my hair cut short in the western fashion. In the following months I began to dress in men's clothes. Not only did I find them more comfortable but also more exciting. They had a sort of glamour about them that made me feel daring.

Natsuko told me to my face that she found the look disgusting. Imagine the contrast of my riding breeches and favourite knee-high boots to her traditional dress. I delighted in shocking Natsuko, perhaps because I knew that I would never win her love and it was a way of engaging with her. It was to be a difficult year for Natsuko. She was lonely without Shimako to spend her days with, and she did not like Taeko, the spoilt girl Kawashima had chosen to be Hideo's wife. Soon this indulged creature would be in her home, while one by one the daughters she loved were leaving to become part of their respective new husbands' households. Kawashima no longer made his way to her bed and Natsuko took on the faded look of a forgotten wife. Without her sister for company, or the affection of the husband she was so much in love with, Natsuko's days were miserable. And so it was that I came to observe at first hand that a dutiful life does not necessarily bring rewards.

Determined not to follow in Natsuko's obedient footsteps, I embraced the modern way wholeheartedly, hoping that it would lead me to a more exciting life in the world outside. But I knew that any freedom I obtained would not come easily. In the heart of the house and of the men in it, old Japan held sway, women had little say and whatever their desires were they could be thwarted with a single command.

I was not without optimism though. Kawashima had always been indulgent with me, and I hoped that he might allow me a portion of my dowry to travel a little before marriage. I hoped too that I might have a say in the choice of husband for myself. But if that was not to be the case, I was determined that whatever life Kawashima had planned for me I would eventually break free and go my own way. I began visiting the shrine by the winter plum trees, asking the gods not to let me be bartered like a chattel into an arranged marriage.