My friends persuaded themselves that I had fallen for the apprentice geisha and they invited her to our banquets as often as possible. I flushed every time she appeared. The winks and stifled laughs that my brother officers exchanged irritated me, though they also inspired an obscure feeling of pride and happiness.
Sunlight was shy and always left quickly after she had sung, but as time went by she agreed to serve us food and to have a drink. She had tiny hands, and her fingernails were like antique pearls. When she brought her glass up to her lips, the sleeve of her kimono slipped down her arm, revealing a dazzlingly white wrist. Would it be like gazing on a snowfield to see her naked?
My pay at the time only just allowed for me to arrange the occasional dinner and I was in no position to keep a geisha. Time went by and my ardor cooled; I needed more accessible women to brighten the austerity of military life.
Politically that year was like a leaden sky: we dreamed that the storm would break, letting the sun shine through once more. As soldiers, we could neither take a step back nor shy away from the situation, and a number of lieutenants [12] chose martyrdom. There were more and more assassinations, and the young assassins would then hand themselves over to the authorities to prove their loyalty. But neither their own terror nor these voluntary deaths could do anything to jolt our ministers out of their inertia. They were so afraid of a return to the Kamakura era [13] that their only thought was to keep the military as far from power as possible.
We were coming close to the moment of ultimate sacrifice: in order to conquer the world we had to cross a bridge made of our own flesh and blood. Seppuku [14] became fashionable again, a noble form of suicide that requires a long period of mental preparation, and this turned my thoughts away from the apprentice geisha.
One spring day I received a mysterious letter written in a beautiful calligraphy that betrayed its writer’s rigorous education. A woman I did not know asked me to meet her in a teahouse by the Bridge of Willows. Intrigued, I went to the rendezvous. With night falling, I could hear music and laughter in the distance, but the rustling of silk just the other side of the door suggested geishas were passing behind it. Then the screens drew apart and a woman of about forty greeted me with a bow. She wore a kimono in grayish-pink silk with glimpses at the neck of a second, olive-green kimono. A hand-painted cherry tree in blossom scattered its petals over her kimono right to the very ends of her sleeves.
She introduced herself as Sunlight’s mother and welcomed me. I had heard that she herself was a former geisha and that she owned a large teahouse. She told me that she had known my father; I knew that he had been very much in love with a geisha, and asked whether it was she.
She stared at me intently for a moment, then lowered her eyes.
“You have met my daughter,” she said. “Have you enjoyed the evenings you have spent in her company?”
I told her that I very much admired her talents as a musician.
“My daughter is seventeen. She should have moved on and been confirmed as a geisha last year. As you probably know, in this profession an apprentice geisha cannot be given an artist’s status until she has undergone the mizuage ceremony. My own experience was worse than a nightmare and I have decided to spare my daughter from a similar calamity. I have asked her to choose her man, and she has chosen you. I have taken the liberty of finding out about you, and you have been spoken of most highly. You are on the threshold of a great military career, but you are young and you would never be able to pay the sum required for this ceremony. That does not matter; I have chosen for my daughter to be happy and I offer her body to you. If you accept this humble request, I shall be eternally grateful to you.”
I was completely astonished by what she had said, and I did not say a word. She came towards me on her knees and bowed low.
“I beg you to consider it,” she said. “Do not trouble yourself with the financial details, I shall take care of that. Consider it, please…”
She stood up and disappeared behind the screens. I found the room oppressively dark. According to tradition, an apprentice geisha should be deflowered by a rich stranger. This initiation is expensive, but it is the crowning status symbol for a man of the world. No apprentice geisha has ever chosen the man who should ravish her, and I had just been asked to transgress this custom scandalously.
I was tormented with doubt and could not give my answer straightaway.
<a l:href="#_ftnref12">[12]</a> On May 15, 1932, nine officers managed to get into Prime Minister Inukai’s residence. They assassinated him before handing themselves over to the police.
<a l:href="#_ftnref12">[13]</a> The Kamakura era: 1192-1333. While the Emperor continued to preside over a symbolic court in Kyoto, the shogun in Kamakura actually wielded power over the entire country.
<a l:href="#_ftnref14">[14]</a> A form of suicide accessible only to samurais (and, therefore, only to men). It follows a precise ritual: death is achieved by disembowelment with a small saber.