Geisha Read online

  Mama Masako was also a frugal banker who oversaw how every yen of income was spent. Her one indulgence was home appliances. We always had the newest vacuum cleaner, the roomiest refrigerator, the biggest color TV. We were the first people in Gion Kobu to install an air conditioner.

  Unfortunately, her clearheaded common sense evaporated around men. Not only did she pick ugly ones, she was always falling in love with inappropriate men who didn’t love her back.

  Mama Masako wore her heart on her sleeve. When she was in love she glowed. When the relationship went sour she didn’t bother to fix her hair and cried a lot. I’d pat her shoulder: “I’m sure you are going to meet Mr. Right any day now.” She never stopped hoping. She never found him.

  One of Mama Masako’s first tasks as proprietress of the okiya was to prepare for my coming out.

  Misedashi, the term used for a maiko’s debut, means “open for business” and indicates that the maiko is prepared to begin working as a professional. I had my misedashi on March 26,1965. There were sixty-three other maiko working at the time. I was number sixty-four.

  I woke up at six o’clock in the morning, took a bath, and went to the hairdressers to have my hair done in the wareshinobu style. When I returned we had a special breakfast of red bean rice and sea bream. I drank as little tea and water as possible, because it is very difficult to go to the toilet once one is dressed.

  Mother Sakaguchi arrived at nine o’clock to put on my makeup. Custom dictates that one’s Onesan performs this task but, true to her word, Mother Sakaguchi refused to allow Yaeko near me. She did it herself. First, she prepared my throat, neck, upper back, and face by painting them with binsuke oil paste, a kind of pomade that acts as a foundation. Then she covered the area with white makeup, leaving three vertical strips on the back of my neck unpainted to accentuate its length and fragility. Maiko and geiko are given two lines on the neck when wearing “ordinary” costumes and three lines when wearing formal kimono.

  Mother Sakaguchi continued by painting my chin, the bridge of my nose, and my upper chest. She took peachy pink polishing powder and applied it to my cheeks and around my eyes, then reapplied the white powder over everything. She redid my eyebrows in red, then penciled them in with black. She put a spot of pink lipstick on my lower lip.

  Then she put in my hair ornaments. I had a red silk band called an arimachikanoko in my chignon, and at the crown, a kanokodome band and pins made from coral, jade, and silver, two silver flutters in front that had the family crest of the okiya worked into the design, and the tortoiseshell ornaments called chirikan. The chirikan are very special. They are only worn once in a maiko’s lifetime, during the first three days of her debut.

  Next I was dressed in the standard undergarments. The first two are rectangles of bleached white cotton, one worn tight around the hips and the other around the chest. This latter flattens and smoothes the line of the kimono. Next comes a long cotton hip wrap, like a half-slip, then a pair of long bloomers to preserve modesty should the front fold of the kimono open.

  Next comes the hadajuban, a loose blouselike garment that follows the lines of the kimono. A maiko’s hadajuban has a red collar. Over this I wore the full-length under-robe, the nagajuban. Mine was made from tie-died silk figured with a fan-shaped pattern and embroidered with an assortment of flowers.

  A maiko’s ensemble features a distinctive collar (eri) that is hand-sewn onto the nagajuban for each wearing. These red collars tell a story in and of themselves. They are made from silk that has been finely embroidered with white, silver, and gold thread. The younger one is the less dense the embroidery and the more visible red of the silk. As one matures, the appliqué becomes heavier until little red (a symbol of childhood) can be seen. The progression continues until the day one “turns one’s collar” from maiko to geiko and begins to wear a white collar instead of a red one.

  I had five collars made every year, two for summer out of silk gauze and three for winter out of crepe. Each one cost upwards of $2,000. I kept them and maintain the collection in my home. That first collar, the one I wore on my misedashi, was decorated with a “Prince Genji’s Carriage” motif done in silver and gold thread.

  After the nagajuban the dresser placed the formal crested hikizuri kimono over my shoulders. The robe itself was made of black figured silk covered in a floral Imperial Palace pattern. It was decorated with five crests: one on the back, two on the lapel panels, and two on the outer portion of the sleeves. Each family in Japan has a mon, or crest, which it uses on formal occasions. The Iwasaki crest is a stylized five-petalled bellflower.

  My obi was a work of art that had taken three years to create. It was made from handwoven damask embroidered with muted and bright golden maple leaves and was over 20 feet long. It cost tens of thousands of dollars. The obi was tied so that both ends dangled down almost to the ground. It was held secure with an obiage, a band of silk crepe that is worn on the outside. As customary, mine was made of red silk and embroidered with the crest of the okiya. (An obi clasp is not worn with a formal crested kimono.)

  I carried a handbag similar to the one I carried as a minarai. It held my fan, a hand towel, lipstick, comb, and small cushion. Every item had its own carrying case made from Eriman red silk and monogrammed in white with the characters for Mineko.

  A few of the items I wore that day had been in the Iwasaki okiya for generations, but many of them, twenty at least, were commissioned for the occasion. I don’t have the exact figures, but I’m sure one could have built a house for what it cost to put it all together. I imagine the sum was well over $100,000.

  When I was ready, a delegation from the okiya accompanied me on my round of formal visits. The dresser, as so often on ritual occasions, came with us to act as a kind of master of ceremonies. My first obligation was to pay my respects to the iemoto. When we arrived at Shinmonzen the dresser announced in a deep voice:

  “May I present Miss Mineko, younger sister to Miss Yaechiyo, on the occasion of her misedashi. We ask you for your recognition and best wishes.”

  “I offer her my heartiest congratulations,” Big Mistress announced from the foyer, followed by the felicitations of the rest of the staff. “We entreat you to work hard and do your best,” they chorused.

  “Yes, thank you, I will,” I said in my family’s Japanese.

  “There you go again,” Big Mistress caught it instantly. “A geiko says hei and ookini.”

  Thus chastised, I continued on my rounds. We went to pay our respects to the owners of ochaya, to senior geiko, and to important customers. I bowed and asked for everyone’s support. On that first day alone we called in at thirty-seven separate places.

  At one point we stopped at a hall to perform the osakazuki ritual by which Yaeko and I would formalize our bond. The Suehiroya had arranged the ceremony. When we entered the room, the dresser Suehiroya asked Mother Sakaguchi to take the place of honor in front of the tokonoma. He sat me next to her, mother Masako next to me, and then the heads of other branch houses. Yaeko, who normally would have been seated next to me, was assigned an inferior position. We carried on with the trading of cups. I’m sure the attendants were baffled by the seating arrangements. They didn’t understand that it was a privilege for Yaeko to be there at all.

  I wore the formal misedashi ensemble for three days, and then exchanged it for a new outfit marking the second phase of my debut. This outfit was not black and was not emblazoned with crests. The body of the outer kimono was made from periwinkle blue silk and was named Pine Wind. The hem of the train was the beige of a sandy beach, with tie-dyed pine trees and embroidered seashells scattered across it. The obi was deep orange satin damask patterned with golden cranes.

  My memory is usually acute, but the first six days of my misedashi are one long dizzying blur. I must have made hundreds of visits and appearances. The Miyako Odori opened seven days after I came out. I had to appear on stage in my first truly professional role. I felt overwhelmed, and remember complaining to Kuniko
. “Kun-chan, when am I going to have some time off?”

  “I have no idea,” she answered.

  “But when am I going to learn all I have to learn? I’m still not good enough. I don’t even know Gionkouta[‘the ballad of the Gion’]. Will I have to follow everybody else forever? How am I going to work up into a solo? It’s all going too fast.”

  But there was no way to halt the moving tide. It just kept pushing me forward. Now that I was an official maiko I no longer went to the Fusanoya to receive my assignments. Requests for engagements came in directly to the okiya and Mama Masako handled my appointments.

  The first request I received as a maiko to attend an ozashiki came from Ichirikitei, the most famous ochaya in Gion Kobu. A number of important historical meetings and incidents have taken place in the private rooms of the Ichirikitei, so much so that it has taken on a legendary quality. The Ichirikitei often appears as the setting for the action in novels and plays.

  This has not always benefited Gion Kobu. Some of the fiction has served to propagate the notion that courtesans ply their trade in the area and that geiko spend the night with their customers. Once an idea like this is planted in the general culture it takes on a life of its own. I understand that there are some scholars of Japan in foreign countries who also believe these misconceptions to be true.

  But I was innocent of all this as I made my entrance into the banquet room that night. The host of the ozashiki was the business magnate Sazo Idemistsu. He was entertaining the film director Zenzo Matsuyama and his wife, the actress Hideko Takamine. Yaeko was already there when I arrived.

  “This is your younger sister?” Ms. Takamine asked. “Isn’t she just adorable?”

  Yaeko drew her lips into that thin smile of hers.

  “Really? You think she’s adorable? Which part of her do you think is cute?”

  “What do you mean? Everything about her is precious.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s just because she’s so young. And, to tell you the truth, she’s not a very nice person. Don’t let her fool you.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I’d never heard of an “older sister” disparaging her “younger sister” in front of clients. I experienced a sharp stab of regret that Satoharu wasn’t my Onesan. She would never do something like this.

  My old flight mechanism took over and I excused myself. I was too old to hide in a closet so I went to the ladies room. I couldn’t stand being embarrassed this way in front of strangers. As soon I was alone I started to cry, but immediately forced myself to stop. That would never do. I got myself together, went back to the banquet room, and acted like nothing had happened.

  In a few minutes Yaeko attacked again.

  “Mineko is only here,” she said, “because she has some very powerful people behind her. She hasn’t done anything to deserve her good fortune, so I don’t expect she’ll last very long. I wouldn’t be surprised if she dies on the vine.”

  “Then you need to protect her,” Ms. Takamine said kindly.

  “Fat chance,” said Yaeko.

  At that point the head naikai of the ochaya, a good-natured woman named Bu-chan, called into the room. “Excuse me, Mineko-san, its time for your next appointment.”

  As soon as I got outside she looked at me quizzically and asked, “What in the world is wrong with Yaeko? She is your Onesan, right? Why is she being so mean to you?”

  “I wish I knew,” I answered. I had no way to begin to explain.

  “Anyway, the next guest is a regular patron here so you should be able to take it a little easier…”

  “Thank you. I mean, ookini,” I corrected myself.

  Bu-chan ushered me into another room.

  “May I introduce Mineko-chan. She has recently become a maiko.”

  “Well then, Mineko-chan, welcome. Let us have a good look at you. Aren’t you pretty? Would you like to have some sake?”

  “No thank you. It’s against the law to drink before you’re twenty.”

  “Not even a tiny bit?”

  “No I can’t. But I’m happy to pretend. May I have a cup please?”

  I was like a little kid at a tea party.

  “Here you go.”

  “Thank yo…oops, ookini.”

  I felt myself relax. And with the release came a renewed threat of tears.

  “Now, now, dear, what’s wrong? Did I do something to upset you?”

  “No, I’m terribly sorry. It’s nothing, really.”

  I couldn’t tell him it was own my sister who had made me feel this way.

  He tried to cheer me up by changing the subject.

  “What it is your favorite thing to do, Mine-chan?”

  “I love to dance.”

  “How nice. And where did you come from?”

  “From over there.”

  “Over where?”

  “From the other room.”

  He found this very amusing.

  “No I mean where were you born?”

  “Kyoto.”

  “But you speak such standard Japanese.”

  “I haven’t been able to lose my accent.”

  He smiled at my topsy-turviness. “I know, the Kyoto dialect is difficult to master. Feel free to speak to me any way you wish.”

  I got confused between the two and answered him in a mixed-up combination of both. He kept smiling.

  “Mine-chan, I think you’ve made a new conquest today. I hope you’ll consider me a friend, and a fan!”

  What a sweet man. I later learned that he was Jiro Ushio, the CEO of Ushio Electric. Ushio-san restored my mood and confidence for that evening, but I couldn’t escape the pall cast by Yaeko’s negative shadow. Our bond as maiko and Onesan was looser than most, but I still had to comply with the basic proprieties.

  For example, one of a maiko’s duties is to regularly tidy up her Onesan’s vanity table. Accordingly, soon after my misedashi, I stopped by her house on Nishihanamikoji Street one day on the way home from school. I had never been there before.

  I went in the house and saw a maid bent over cleaning something. She looked vaguely familiar. It was my mother! She cried out, “Ma-chan!” just as Yaeko walked into the room and screamed, “This is the bitch who sold us and killed Masayuki!” I felt a sharp pain in my chest. I was about to hurl back, “I’m going to kill you!” when my mother caught my eye and I knew to stop before I made it worse. I started to cry and then simply ran out of the house.

  I never went back. Some proprieties were just not worth it.

  20

  FOR YEARS I CONSIDERED MYSELF to be a busy person, but now things were spinning out of control. Between attending classes at the Nyokoba, rehearsing for public dance performances, and entertaining every evening at ozashiki, I barely had time to breathe. My days began at dawn and didn’t end until 2 or 3 A.M. the following morning.

  I set my stereo for 6 A.M. to play some classical music or spoken text. I listened for a while before I got up. The first thing I did was rehearse whatever dance I was working on, to focus my mind on the tasks ahead. It was an unusual life for a fifteen-year-old. I wasn’t interested in boys. Mamoru had ruined that for me. I didn’t have any friends, besides Big John. I didn’t trust any of the other girls enough to get close to them. The truth is, all I ever thought about was my career.

  I never ate breakfast because it impaired my ability to concentrate. I left for the Nyokoba at 8:10. Let me tell you the story of how the Nyokoba came into existence.

  In 1872 a Peruvian ship named the Maria Luz docked in the port of Yokohama. It was carrying a number of Chinese slaves who managed to escape their captors and apply to the Meiji government for asylum. The government, saying it did not have a policy of recognizing slavery, set the men free and sent them back to China. This brought a storm of protest from the Peruvian government, who claimed that Japan had it’s own de facto system of slavery in its licensing of women who worked in the pleasure quarters.

  The Meiji government, which was striving to
enter the world stage as a modern country, was extremely sensitive to international opinion. In order to pacify the Peruvians, it issued an Emancipation Act that abolished the obligatory terms of service (nenki-boko) under which many of the women worked. In the process, the perception of the role of the oiran (courtesan) and the geisha (entertainer) became intertwined and confused. It still is.

  Three years later, in 1875, the matter came up formally before an international tribunal that was presided over by the czar of Russia. It was the first time Japan had ever been involved in human rights litigation and it won the case, but it was too late to correct the misconception that geiko were slaves.

  In response to the Emancipation Act, Jiroemon Sugiura, ninth generation of the ochaya Ichirikitei; Inoue Yachiyo III, iemoto of the Inoue School; Nobuatsu Hase, governor of Kyoto; and Masanao Uemura, councilor, founded an association known as the Gion Kobu Female Professional Training Company. The name was shortened to the Kabukai, or Performers Association. The organization’s charter was to advance the self-sufficiency, independence, and social position of women working as artists and entertainers. Its motto was “We sell art, not bodies.”

  The Gion Kobu is run by a consortium of three groups: the Kabukai, the ochaya association, and the geiko association.

  The consortium founded a vocational school to train the geiko. Before the war, girls who began professional training at six (five by modern reckoning) were allowed to enter the school after they finished the fourth grade. In those days, a girl might become a maiko or geiko as young as eleven or twelve. After the war, in 1952, the foundation became an educational foundation and the name of the school was changed to the Yasaka Nyokoba Academy. Due to educational reform, girls now had to graduate from junior high school before entering the Nyokoba and could not become maiko until they turned fifteen.

  The Nyokoba teaches the disciplines a geiko is required to master: dance, music, comportment, calligraphy, tea ceremony, and flower arrangement and is annexed to the Kaburenjo Theater. Its teachers rank among the greatest artists in Japan. Many of the faculty were designated “Living National Treasures” (like the iemoto) or “Important Cultural Assets.” Unfortunately, it teaches no academic subjects.