Pathway to Japanese Literature

Apprentice Geisha

Everything seemed like a dream.
I had been escorted along the highway in a slow country automobile and entered phantom city streets that shimmered before my eyes.
I returned to my home’s entrance near spring twilight.
Weakly I pressed the doorbell where boxwood branches with unscented flowers brushed against it.

The elderly maid appeared and opened the glass-paned door with its latticework.
Under normal circumstances I would pass her by, step onto the stepping stone, clack my azuma clogs demandingly across it, and call upward toward the second floor: “I’m home!”

Then Issaku, my husband upstairs, would either put down his brush or brush away the dream from his nap and hurriedly come out to greet me.
"You’ve returned safely. Good, good."

Was this demand for my husband to greet me childish, or perhaps even an impolite gesture?
There were times when I couldn’t help but think about it.
Yet unless received like this, I couldn’t truly feel I had returned home.
My home wouldn’t become my own warm flesh.

If their kindness came with conditions, no matter how much my heart yearned to draw close, I would suppress it and remain silent in my loneliness.
If the other person permitted unconditionally, I would unleash my affections to the point of appearing tyrannical, trying to saturate their heart completely.
Such was the temperament of my lineage—never finding balance in dealings with others.
When I thought how unfortunately I too had inherited this trait and now manifested one side of it here, I grew sad.
But Issaku, on the contrary, rejoiced in this.
"You just do for me what I want to do but can’t."

At times like these, Issaku’s eyes brim with tears.

Today, leaving behind the elderly maid who eyed my uncharacteristic demeanor with suspicion—entering dejectedly through the entrance shoji without clattering my azuma clogs on the stepping stones or calling out “I’m home”—I climbed the stairs to Issaku’s room.

In a Western-style chamber of some twelve tatami mats with glass windows on two sides, tatami covered the floor completely.
Beside an unfinished painting sat Issaku cross-legged, peeling camellia leaves from tea sweets’ rice cakes and scrutinizing their hues in twilight’s pallid glow.

“This kind of color—you can’t reproduce it with paint.”

Muttering to himself, he carefully shifted his gaze from the glossy green camellia leaves to me, and when his eyes reached my face, he let out a sigh.

“So it didn’t work out after all.”
“—I see,” he said.

I gave a nod.
And by then, I had gradually sunk down to sit crouched on the threshold.
My head was hazy; tears did not fall.

I did not tell Issaku, who tended to worry, that witnessing my father’s death had heightened my palpitations, leading me to undergo bloodletting by my younger brother—the heir to our family and a medical scholar—nor that I had lain still for three days during the wake.
However, regarding my father,

“Even at seventy-two, his hair remained jet-black.”
“He didn’t seem to want to die.”

Then I told him how Father, after retiring to his retirement residence, maintained humility by only wearing my brother’s worn-out tabi and socks, and how he absolutely refused to formally take a second wife, saying he didn’t want to cause trouble for those left behind—matters that somewhat likened Father to Issaku.
Issaku listened with his arms crossed, but
“Did even that ordinary, timid landlord have such qualities?”
“People from old families really do have a certain distinction after all.”

he mused.
I continued to express my own thoughts,

“I believe my mind is quite steady now, but my body has stopped obeying...”
“This feels less like a bond of souls and more like some parent-child connection that’s seeped into the very flesh, I think,” I said.

Then Issaku uncrossed his arms, puffed out his chest, and declared, “Stop with this nonsense.”
“Instead of that—if you’re not exhausted—hey, let’s go out for dinner now.”
“Is what you’re wearing good enough?”

With that, he stood up.
I thought this too was one of Issaku's customary considerate gestures—preemptively yet discreetly propping up my weakened state should occasion demand—and while mentally bowing in reverence to him, I at last noticed and asked, "What about Ichirō?" concerning our son.

Issaku’s smile instantly crumbled.

“He still hasn’t come back. That guy’s probably stopped by Ginza on his way back from the institute and is arguing about Picasso with his friends in that stuffy-nosed voice again.”

While the temple bell of Bentendo struck six o’clock—the sound being unbearably close—I covered my ears with both hands.

This was the corner alcove of Renchū-an—a restaurant situated on Nakano Island within Shinobazu Pond.
Jutting out over the water, through a single opened shoji screen, one could see across to the neon-lit town at the pond’s edge.

Issaku shook my arm across the dining table,

“The bell’s toll is over,” he said, letting go and pointing at my ears,

“Listen well to the waterfowl’s cries as reference for composing poetry. It’s already the season when ducks, wild geese, and cormorants have all returned north,” he said.

There was a reason Issaku had brought me to Shinobazu Pond—venturing far from Yamanote instead of heading toward our usual Ginza or Nihonbashi areas—when he said he would take me out for dinner.
Eighteen years ago, Issaku as an art student and I as a young poetess had crossed Shinobazu Pond from Kangetsu Bridge on that same spring evening and dined in this very alcove of this very restaurant.
Afterward, Issaku had stormed into my family home and forcefully pressed his marriage proposal for me upon my parents.

“Do you remember the conversation we had here back then? That we would never lose these youthful hearts of ours.”

Concerned about me—showing signs of physical decline after Father’s death—Issaku was attempting to rekindle within me the essence of that conversation we had eighteen years earlier in this very alcove of this restaurant.
I too have steadfastly upheld that vow to this day.
But,

“If I’m not careful, my body turns hollow as a gutted fish—you know—”

When I realized Issaku was shielding me, I could finally feel at ease and shed copious tears for my deceased father.

Born the young master of a landed household, Father became its heir and—before facing any true hardship—merely lent his name to a local bank. When the bank collapsed, our family shouldered full responsibility, even offering up our storehouse to depositors. But as community sympathy swelled, it was deemed unnecessary to go that far. By his son’s generation—the doctor—our family fortunes had nearly recovered.

However, even if that period spanned seven or eight years, the regret over this disgrace of Father’s remained intense.
Father lost his beloved wife during this turmoil, along with three children around that age.
They must have been affected by this turmoil to some degree.
The fear of losing their household for those from old families who lived solely through their lineage could not help but affect their lives in some form.
In his later years, Father’s efforts to build for our hometown a bridge that was almost too splendid for his skills—attempting through it to at least etch our family name into the community—were nothing but a means to dilute this regret.

Issaku was a resolute man when it came to familial relationships.

“For artists—beyond their works and those who understand them—there are no family ties. Artists are society’s orphans,” he declared, maintaining his isolation from relatives through such pronouncements. Yet toward members of my family, he would mutter “They’re all too softhearted for their own good,” while secretly nursing sympathy.

“Truth be told, I’d take my old ma—the one who first spoke up about letting me have you—over you any day. But I suppose daughters really do cling to their fathers after all.”

Having said that, he let me cry as if urging me to weep my fill on this occasion.
In a trembling voice, I said, “It’s not entirely like that, but in this case—” and continued bringing the handkerchief to my eyes.

The food was brought out.
I began picking up the chopsticks, my mouth devoid of any taste.
As the aromas of tree buds, sea urchin, matsutake mushrooms, and other seasonal offerings thickened around the dining table, I grew increasingly sentimental.
For eighteen long years, following Issaku’s example, I had resolved never to show overt emotion toward my family’s vicissitudes, while Father, burdened by the clan’s fluctuating fortunes upon his shoulders, had been unable to share in my joys and sorrows.
Between Issaku and me—who had vowed never to lose our youthful hearts—there had once been a time of darkness in the realm of suffering, brought about by that very youth and poverty.
Overwhelmed with grief both physically and mentally, just once, I went to cling to my father.
Then Father stood blocking the entranceway and said with feigned concern, “Oh—what’s wrong?” before uncomfortably averting his eyes to stare off into empty space.
When I saw those eyes dominated by white, I retreated to my home—ashen and utterly cold at the time—without saying a word, consumed by despair.

According to what Father’s second wife had told me during the wake’s vigil—

“After Father grew advanced in years, he would purchase your handwritten poetry cards from somewhere, occasionally taking them out to proudly show others or sighing to himself as he looked at them.”

“When I said that if he were to tell that child she could write as much as she wanted directly, he replied, ‘No—I can’t say anything to that girl.’”

“Since that girl managed to become what she is entirely on her own, he couldn’t ask a single thing of this family.”

“It’s enough just to be grateful in secret,” he had apparently murmured.

Even such matters came flooding back one after another.
The maid bringing food perhaps thought we middle-aged spouses were acting out some domestic tragedy, for she hurried her comings and goings through the sliding doors while avoiding eye contact with me as much as possible.

Compared to the seven o'clock bell, the eight o'clock bell grew more familiar to my ears.
Now I let it pass quietly without even covering them.
Through a gap in the slightly opened shoji screen, lacquer-black water revealed withered lotus stems and leaves submerged even darker against the surface.
Their undulations resembled mountain ranges one might survey from Ikaho's hot spring inn balcony - peaks coiling through Kami-tsu-geno and Shimo-tsu-geno.
At those undulations' farthest reaches, sparse lotus leaves dwindled until only bent stems remained - their forms above water and shadows below warped into countless O-shapes layered upon the pond's surface.
Long ago before our restaurant meal, I'd discovered every page of Issaku's art school sketchbook filled solely with these twisted O-shaped stems.
"You're such a slacker," I had said.
He answered:
"No.
Life feels too lonely - I've no heart left to sketch anything beyond these doodles."
"How's your father?" I pressed.
"Your mother?
And siblings?"
Issaku replied:
"Don't ask.
Even if they existed, I'd still feel an orphan."
He never explained this orphanhood, yet I somehow understood.
"Poor young man."

Startled by something unseen, waterfowl from the pond behind cried out—their sharp calls giving way to the splashing rhythm of three or four taking flight in quick succession.

In my loneliness, I hugged my chest with both sleeves and said.

“This time, we’ve both become true and proper orphans, haven’t we?”

“Yeah, we have.—But—”

There, Issaku looked down for a moment before saying offhandedly.

“We don’t want Ichirō alone to feel like an orphan even after we’re gone.”

I raised my eyes again and looked at the withered lotus stems arrayed in overlapping O-shapes.
Eighteen years of time hurriedly passed through the recesses of my mind.

When I suddenly noticed, there was a reason why the withered lotus stems had caught my eye.

As night deepened slightly and heaven and earth settled into stillness like black walls erected on all four sides, the flesh-toned cool lights of windows in the town across the pond’s edge and the neon illuminations crowning eaves and roofs like lacy halos of colored light gradually grew more vibrant.
In the town area near Yamashita Street’s tram tracks, bathed in the fierce neon glow from Omotecho Street, it seemed as if washed in the lingering embers of a fire.
A row of young trees encircled the pond’s edge.
Now that the town’s houses had collectively become a single luminous entity, under the nocturnal radiance emanating from them, these tree rows appeared shadow-blackened like processions of living figures.
The light saturated through the trees now reached brightly across the pond’s water, its reflection causing the O-shaped withered lotus stems to imprint themselves vividly upon my eyes.
Then came flooding into mind the nebulous span of human existence we would henceforth confront.

Had the waterfowl already gone to sleep? Peering through the glass-paned shoji doors, Ueno Forest appeared as though submerged in midnight’s depths. In contrast, the sound of the maid’s footsteps walking along the corridor grew busier, and the sound of string music began to be heard from banquet rooms two or three doors away. The restaurant’s characteristic nightlong activities seemed to be beginning to emerge now. At that moment, a maid’s voice sounded from afar,

“Miiiss Kanokooo—”

The call was heard.
That was a call bearing the same name as mine.
Kanoko and Issaku widened their eyes at each other and tightly pressed their lips into knowing smiles.

Once again,

“Miiiss Kanokooo—”

“Miss Kanokooo—” came the call.
Then, from the corridor outside the sliding doors—unexpectedly close—came a young girl’s voice deliberately feigning childish innocence,
“Coming riiight now!”

And then came the sound of truly innocent footsteps pattering away.
“The apprentice geisha.”
“I suppose so.”

(The author must here offer a brief disclaimer regarding certain matters.)
The protagonist of this story who has appeared here—Kanoko the apprentice geisha—shares her name with both this tale's co-protagonist (myself) and with its author.
This circumstance risks arousing suspicion in artistic discussions about the work.
Moreover, it might easily be taken as concealing some calculated intent.
At this thought, my brush hesitated.
Though I strove to reconsider multiple times, I found that altering this would extinguish all passion for writing the story entirely.
Therefore mustering my usual self-sacrificial courage, I resolved to press onward by sternly commanding the timid brush forward.
Very well—even if contrived, perhaps I shall martyr myself to the pathos that forms this work's motif.)

Even when urged to eat rice with seasonal green pickles—mustard greens, thin-rooted radish, pickled flowering greens—I could manage only a small bite.

While turning on the electric stove to warm the room and opening another shoji screen wider still, Issaku—who had been trying to accentuate my heartache through Shinobazu’s nocturnal spring hues that now seemed moistened with color under the rising moon—finally spoke as if throwing in the towel.

“Then there’s no telling whether your body’ll hold out till the funeral day.”

Issaku remained silently at a loss for a while, but suddenly, as if struck by a brilliant idea,

“How about this—should I hire that young Miss Kanoko, the apprentice geisha from earlier, to cheer you up?”

Issaku was a painter who employed an unconventional brushwork to distract himself from life’s loneliness.
The urbanite’s refined and penetrating wit was innate.
But fearing he might stray into unorthodox paths, he rarely employed it in daily life.
Very rarely, he used it in both painting and social dealings.
That unexpected approach worked with striking effectiveness.

Because I knew this, while I placed full trust in his spur-of-the-moment ideas, the notion of hiring an apprentice geisha felt far too frivolous for tonight’s occasion. Moreover, we had never done such a thing before.

“You mustn’t! You mustn’t! That’s going too far!”

My voice carried a slight edge of anger.

“You fool. You still don’t truly understand that old man’s heart.”

Thereupon Issaku began expounding from how my seventy-two-year-old father—with hair still jet-black—clung tenaciously to life:

“The old man desperately desired youth for this decaying house. That your mother, whom he loved so deeply, passed away—and yet despite being urged by others—a man they called a saint took a young second wife so soon? That’s the proof!”

Father also had an eldest son—a literature-loving young man who was my brother—who died young shortly after graduating from university. He built a splendid tomb for him, carved the words "Bachelor of Letters" in large characters across its face, and went day after day to gaze upon it with lingering attachment.

“For hundreds of years, our family spirit—clinging to an old clan that spread laterally across Musashi and Sagami soil like creeping pines despite possessing vigorous buried potential—never found worldly expression. This is what the old man lamented with his entire soul.”
“The old man’s regret was nothing more than that.”
“He himself might not have had the power to bring that into clear consciousness.”
“But in his later years, urged by that very impulse, he somehow came to rely solely on your talent.”
“This mystery becomes all too clear when examining his later years.”
“However, since he ultimately couldn’t voice his desires to you, you must discern them yourself.”
“Solve this mystery for him.”
“And take up that old man’s will to express youth and family spirit for him.”
“Otherwise, your family’s people are too pitiable.”
“The family itself is pitiable.”

Issaku shed tears for the first time at this point.

I let out an “Ah” and shuddered.
No longer could I muster any courage to oppose him.
The family-inherited conscience—that overly fastidious thing—would often torment me.
At such times, I would lay bare even its most scathing reproaches and let Issaku shoulder them instead.
And so in this instance too, I spoke.

“I’ll leave it to you. Then do as you see fit.”

“That’s best.”
“You should just focus on regaining your composure tonight.”

Issaku joked that if any punishment for unfilialness were to come of this he would take it upon himself，then ordered the maid to summon apprentice geisha Kanoko．
Fortunately，as she had not yet left and was still at the establishment，the maid went to put in what was called a ‘summons’ to that room．

“Good evening．”

The sliding door opened and closed, revealing a resplendent undulation of silk that bowed low. The clashing crimson-purple and egg-yellow hues had yet to resolve into any discernible pattern. Just as the large obi bow at her back and sleeves splayed wide began recalling the form of a Sambasō dancer, a white face—styled in a grand peach-split coiffure like a puppet’s—jerked upward from the chromatic turbulence. Planting her left hand smartly on her knee while thrusting her small right palm forward as if demanding inspection, she simultaneously affected a man’s voice and spoke.

“Ah, you there, pardon me.”

Her eyes were open but narrowed, their lids trembling as if against some dazzling light, while her pupils’ focus pierced through the banquet room to cast beyond toward the distant pond’s horizon.
That resembled how a timid person’s eyes move when telling a lie, though she was but a young girl.
After finishing this gesture, she laughed—as if both delighting in and obliterating what she’d done—with a shrill titter, then rose to her feet.
She continued laughing shrilly, came to the corner of the dining table by Issaku, and plopped down.

“Let me pour your drinks.”

In the meantime, I observed how large arrow feather patterns—using merely four or five motifs—covered her entire body with crimson-purple dappled designs, while the remaining egg-yellow spaces were filled with red-and-white dappled patterns. Comparing this to the apprentice geisha’s somewhat vulgar mannerisms, I found myself staring, thinking how unexpectedly meticulous her kimono’s proprietor had been in its preparation.

The apprentice geisha, seeing that our table had already been served up to the fruit course,

“Oh, it’s already the fruit course?”
“How prompt!”
“Then, the traditional sweets.”

With these words, she withdrew from the folds of her amber-colored dappled obi a small sweets container likewise bearing dappled patterns, opened it into a fan shape, and offered it to us.

“If you need a hand towel, it’s here.”

“What a precocious kid.”

Issaku, who had been leaning on one elbow with his cheek propped up and squinting as though observing a model ever since the geisha entered the room, laughed while rocking his body as he said this.

The apprentice geisha, without offering any resistance, directed a coquettish smile toward Issaku,

“You’re right about that,” she said.

I turned again to the apprentice geisha and said, “What beautiful attire.”

While laughing with his body rocking, Issaku—in his painter’s manner—appeared to have thoroughly observed and captured the apprentice geisha’s facial features. He turned to me and said:

“Not just in name—her face somehow resembles yours too. How strange this is.”

Even as I remained entranced by the kimono’s beauty, some part of me kept urgently trying to grasp whom this resembled—what aspect it mirrored. At last, Issaku’s words rescued me from that uncertainty.

“Oh, how true!”

My feelings here grew utterly exasperated, and for some reason, even as I found myself sinking into despondency once, the affection I held for my young namesake began seeping steadily toward the apprentice geisha.
I said to the apprentice geisha.

“Kanoko-san. Tonight, you don’t have to perform any more duties. Just enjoy yourself here.”

The apprentice geisha, who had been watching our exchange with eyes wide open like following a ping-pong volley, said “Oh!”, rose from Issaku’s side, came to me, and performed a quick bow.

“I know, madam. You’re Madam Kanoko, aren’t you? The skilled poet.”

And she said they’d told her in the banquet rooms about a famous poetess sharing her name, and that she’d seen her in a magazine’s frontispiece.

“I’d wanted so much to meet you—and now I have.”

Here she shed all apprentice geisha mannerisms, becoming like an untouched girl with her face stripped of artifice, gazing up at me as reverently as one might behold the Hase Kannon.

“You’re plumper than I imagined.”

I laughed and,

“So you thought I was such a slender woman?” As I spoke these words, my affectionate hand had come to rest on the apprentice geisha’s shoulder of its own accord.

“The banquet rooms must be hard on you.
Your guests must be quite demanding.
Staying up so late you can’t sleep.”

It flowed forth smoothly, as though it were a linked verse that had been prepared within my breast.
Then the apprentice geisha resumed the countenance of a young woman in her trade,

“Oh, not at all like that. It’s fun—”

She had gone that far in her response, but perhaps thinking she was rebuffing her sympathizer too bluntly,

“I don’t know why, but I’m still a child, right? So I feel like everyone’s kind enough to overlook most things about me. Plus, the senior geishas say that if you take this trade too seriously, you can’t keep at it—”

The apprentice geisha took my free hand with both of hers, pressed our palms together to examine the slight difference in size, then pressed the childlike dimple that still formed on my hand’s back regardless of age—all while displaying an incongruity between her precocious speech and guileless actions—before abruptly turning toward Issaku as if remembering herself.

“Big brother—”

However, sensing that this form of address had caused me concern, she immediately corrected herself with a "Hoi" to "Master."

“Master.”
“Do I not need to perform any dances?”
“If you want dancing, you should hire one of the senior geishas who’s free at our place.”

Having said that, she briskly walked over to Issaku.
Issaku, who had been smoking a cigarette while smiling across the dining table as he observed my conversation with the apprentice geisha, responded to this address by remarking,
“This young lady does quite some matchmaking for your establishment’s leftover senior geishas, doesn’t she?”
He parried with words, but the apprentice geisha would not yield.
Having settled beside Issaku, she bent her body into C-shapes and S-curves—“Come now, Master,”
“Do say yes, Master”—clutching his arm and threading fingers through his hair.
Yet more than these gestures—though veiled by her voluminous obi and sweeping sleeves—the girl nearing womanhood exuded from shoulders to torso, flanks to waist a youthful pliancy, dewy freshness and raw vitality that shimmered upward like heat haze, quivering toward Issaku in tangled flutters I could not feign to ignore.
I held my breath taut.

In his boyhood, Issaku had been the most handsome youth in all of Ueno-Yanaka.
But he was a youth who, like a chiseled stoneware pot, possessed only a striking exterior while his interior felt hollow.
The youth, unable to endure his own hollowness, wandered this neighborhood drinking.
The women overlooked the hollowness of the youth’s heart and indulged solely in his physical beauty.
By society’s measure, Issaku was first and foremost more than sufficiently a prodigal.
Though Issaku and I had been childhood friends, it was only for a brief span. When we neared adulthood and became acquainted as if meeting for the first time in these Ueno woods, Issaku—his cherry-blossom-hued face belying his demeanor—had already taken on the heart of a town elder.
When I remarked that he seemed far too weathered for a youth, he slipped one hand into the breast of his Satsuma kasuri kimono and, gazing skyward with apparent fondness for the verse’s offhand melancholy—though likely unaware it originated from the Danrin school—replied, “From fourteen I drank my fill to this day’s moon.”

From our marriage through the reckoning of Issaku’s prodigal years to a time in the realm of suffering—once these had passed, we gazed at one another’s faces bearing expressions of revival from the brink of expiration.
From then on, Issaku became a man who turned to his painting with a modest smile.
“I’ve always been hollow by nature—someone who needs others to fill me.
“You’re all substance—made to sustain others.”
“I finally understood,” he said at that time.

And then over ten years flowed quietly by.
Issaku had passed his forty-second inauspicious year without incident and was gaining momentum in his painting work.
"A quiet man—one who gives his all for me—"
Yet what have I done for him?
Inept at delicate maneuvering, I—bereft of any gestures—had no choice but to hurl my very soul and love headlong.
Even if Issaku rejoiced, saying "You simply do what I wish to do but cannot," might there not linger within him—within that ordinary male nature—some desire for the dutiful attentions an ordinary husband receives from an ordinary wife?
I sometimes thought such thoughts.

Since quitting alcohol, his features had softened into gentleness; where once there had been the dazzling beauty of youth now stood a middle-aged dignity, with strands of white hair beginning to glimmer amidst his locks.

As I perceived the heat shimmer rising from the apprentice geisha’s youthful body—fluttering and tangling about Issaku with feverish intensity—the clouds of sorrow that had weighed upon me were swept away unnoticed, and in my heart too, buds of youthful vigor began sporadically blooming.
This did not kindle those fierce feminine flames called jealousy or rivalry.
She was far too childlike for that.
Moreover, there were aspects in the apprentice geisha’s lively gestures reminiscent of my own childhood self—said to have been somewhat mischievous.
That resemblance became entangled with Issaku.
I watched this with a smile, feeling as though faintly intoxicated by new tea’s fragrance.
The apprentice geisha, facing Issaku who persistently refused consent, thrust her hands into his neck and tried pulling him sideways.
Finally at wit’s end, Issaku pushed her away and straightened his posture to declare firmly.

“No matter what you say tonight won’t do.”
“We can’t dance or sing.”
“Because we’re currently observing mourning for Father.”

The gravity of his tone made even the apprentice geisha relent. She moved away from Issaku, came over to me, and placed her hands on my knees,

“Madam, I ask this of you.”
“Next time, you simply must hire us again.”
“And when that time comes, be sure to hire our senior geishas too, all right?”

she said.
I felt compassion rising within me. “Well, well, that’s fine,” I prepared the words of promise.

As if relieved, the apprentice geisha sat there vacantly for a moment; then suddenly crossing her arms and tilting her head as though muttering to herself—

“This way, there’s far too little work for an apprentice geisha.”
“This apprentice geisha is out of work.”

After making us laugh, she tapped her knee lightly with her small hand.

“Here’s something nice.”
“I’m good at massage.”
“There are quite a few elderly customers who ask me to give them massages.”
“Madam, how about it?”

With that she moved behind me.
Amused, I said “Now now—go to Master,” and pushed the apprentice geisha toward Issaku.

The ten o'clock bell rang out with a slight crispness.
Issaku, with his hands tucked into his sleeves as the apprentice geisha kneaded his shoulders, gazed drowsily with entranced eyes.
As I watched this scene, my old habit resurfaced—I began indulging in willful imaginings: what if I quickly found a girl about this age for my son Ichirō and kept her here to train as his bride? And wouldn't the scene of that daughter-in-law dutifully massaging her father-in-law's shoulders look something like this?

When we made to leave, the apprentice geisha joined the maids in seeing us off to the shopfront platform, and there, treading upon the moonlit shadows of the hazy night, called out toward our retreating figures.

“Madam’s Kanoko-saaan!”

I, too, found myself calling out my own name with inexplicable nostalgia.

“Apprentice geisha’s Kanoko-saaan!”

Though separated by pine shadows, the voices still—

“Madam’s Kanoko-saaan!”

“Apprentice geisha’s Kanoko-saaan!”

Finally,

“Kanoko-saaan!”

“Kanoko-saaan!”

I had never before experienced having my name called by another.
Now that I had called out, it proved unexpectedly nostalgic.
Alongside a shame that made my very being stiffen, there arose a vigorous stirring within me—as though some hidden essence of myself, long concealed, were being summoned forth.
Moreover, the one who made me call out like that not only resembled me but was also a young girl in the bloom of youth.

In our faint calling and responding, I suddenly found myself beginning to take on the youth of that apprentice geisha Kanoko-san.
Ah, could it be that my nerves had been fatigued by my father’s death?

On the day of the funeral, Issaku accompanied me to my family home.
He willingly took on the role of guarding his father-in-law’s coffin, donning a sedge hat and straw sandals as he walked in silent attendance.
In my eyes, he appeared as a dutiful son-in-law of old-fashioned virtue—one who had inherited what this parent had regretted, now walking while still listening to the whispered injunctions from his father-in-law within the coffin palanquin, contemplating how to assist the daughter about to embark on battle.

The Expression of Youth and Family Spirit.
When I first heard this term explained by Issaku at Renchū-an by Shinobazu Pond, I did not think much of it.
However, over the five days since then leading up to today, how astonishing it was even to myself that this spirit had so suddenly taken root and grown within me.
It made my consciousness feel as though awakening from a dream now, and also as though entering a new dream.
The physical lethargy had been pushed aside somewhere.
Even food—linking it to this theme—I persistently and powerfully bit through with thread-like teeth.

“There we go—Mom’s obsessive streak is kicking in again.”

My son Ichirō smiled wryly and occasionally came to check on the situation.

"I don’t know what you’ve come up with this time, Mom, but it must be painful. You should take things more lightly."

He advised with palpable anxiety.

The funeral procession departed from the town center and made a circuit through the streets.
The townspeople who had revered their neighborhood elder as a quasi-saint for decades set out incense burners at their doorsteps and offered prayers.
In F—— Town along the Tama River—a Tokyo suburb now boasting even a three licensed pleasure trades association—the spectacle took on the appearance of a temporary festival, with painted women mingling among the onlookers.
The procession reached the town’s edge and paused briefly at an embankment overlooking the long bridge spanning the river.

It was a cold, windy day for spring.
Yet the long embankment and the hill on the opposite bank were both quite suffused with bluish hues, and within that blueness, soft pale reds and sprouting yellowish-greens were blended across the entire vista.
In some places, the blended excess erupted into strong clumps of floral color.
Across the wide pebble-filled riverbed occupying most of the river’s width, the hues of young grass clusters began to soften.

Through gaps in the clouds that filled the restlessly shifting sky, an amber spring sun streamed haphazardly downward.
The concrete long bridge was laid out within that light.
The long bridge that Father, in lifelong atonement to the family spirit, had exerted himself to construct.

Father’s coffin palanquin lingered for a time upon the embankment’s young grasses and gazed desolately at this bridge.
The bridge, in a form resembling the white bones of a giant whale, gazed back desolately.
Beneath the spring sun that streamed down in scattered rays.

Is it not that all human encounters—these meetings and mutual understandings—ultimately find their truest possibility only in this form?
A desolate form and a void-like gaze—

Though it was a confrontation between withered bones and ash stones—devoid of any life or sentiment—life appeared to take some mysterious path, striving to be reborn from that world of dead ashes into one of vitality and emotion.
I remained unexpectedly calm—yet there was Issaku, his figure convulsed with wailing.
When I hurriedly approached and peered beneath his sedge hat, he—unable to contain the tears that kept welling up through his chest’s heaving—let them stream down from reddened eyes.
This was the first time I had ever seen Issaku weep so.
While taking a handkerchief from my sleeve to offer him,

“After all, men sympathize with men’s ambition for enterprise.”

When I asked this, Issaku—as if constricted by anguish—wrenched out a voice so pained it verged on madness, heedless of those around him.

“No—that’s not it.
That’s not it.”

Then he grabbed my shoulder violently, spat fresh saliva onto the embankment’s young grass, and spoke through gasps.

“That damned family spirit the old man left burdened—it won’t be satisfied with just this bridge! Now that hulking thing’s trying to stagger over and lean on you like some limbless infant!
Now I’ve started feeling its reality.
If that family spirit is pitiable, then so are you.
When I think of that, I become so heartsick I can’t bear it.”

There, Issaku called for water to be brought from the teahouse at the bridge’s end, then continued gasping.

“The you I tried to make into a jewel cradled in my hands and shape into the world’s happiest woman—your family’s spirit is trying to reclaim you.”
“Damn it!”
“It’s finally trying to tear apart the beautiful mandala of a life it attempted to have drawn by a living woman.”
“Damn it!”
“Damn it!”
“Damned family spirit!”

I felt Issaku’s hands gripping my shoulders and shaking them with force.

“But here—there remains a single path.”
“You must never falter.”
“You must not lose!”
“And you must deliver this burden resolutely to where it needs reaching.”
“Looking aside would only let the burden crush you—that’s perilous.”
“The family spirit declares—if you express me fully as I desire, I shall press three fingers down and bow deeply before you all.”
“Thereafter I shall protect your ancestral home and descendants eternally—so it vows.”
“Hear this.”
“Suffering inevitably accompanies this labor.”
“I’ll shoulder what I can, but you yourself must never flee!”
“Only through suffering’s depths lies beauty beyond doubt.”
“And none crave elegance and loveliness like your clan’s family spirit—”

How could such words about life’s grand schemes come flashing forth from Issaku—a man neither fond of reading nor inclined toward deep contemplation? Could it be that hollow people conversely reveal clearer signs of vitality? Though this thought frightened me somewhat, the oppression assailing me through the reality before my eyes—like some intangible monolith—filled me with even greater terror, sending violent tremors through my body. Without thinking, I clung to Issaku and—using the pet name I always called him at home—

“Papau! Papau!”

With her tear-streaked face wailing, she desperately pressed herself into Issaku’s embrace.

“I had been searching for a glass, you see, which made me terribly late,” said the old woman from the teahouse as she brought water on a tray. While Issaku drank it down, she kept stealing glances at the two of them,

“That’s right—you two should cry your hearts out together as daughter and son-in-law.”
“That is the greatest memorial offering you can make to your father.”

She said with a self-satisfied look.

Under other circumstances, our conduct would have seemed theatrical and been perceived as quite peculiar; but given the nature of the occasion, the pallbearers, relatives, and funeral procession members all appeared to share the same sentiment as the old teahouse woman—keeping a respectful distance from us save for the children—allowing our tragic theatrical act to conclude unimpeded before resuming their duties.
And with Issaku finishing his water and returning the cup to the tray as the cue, the funeral procession began moving toward the temple.

The family temple stood nearly diagonally across from my ancestral home, which occupied what had been the town’s main administrative complex during the Edo period.
Given how close it was—though part of the reason was that the funeral procession had circled through the town—we ultimately reached the temple’s funeral hall.

I shall not feign novelty in describing the funeral hall’s appearance now.
However, regarding those ancestral mortuary tablets lining the side steps of the main altar’s shrine—which I gazed upon during the rites for the first time in years—I will briefly recount only those historically curious accounts about them that elders had repeated to me since childhood.

Gonnōjō was the restorer of my family in the early modern period.
His financial power and talent were sufficient to influence the domain administrations of Edo-period feudal lords, yet his status remained merely that of a samurai-class individual granted permission to wear swords.
He even suppressed that, living his entire life as a straw sandal-clad man who never rode in palanquins.

There were mortuary tablets for those two daughters.
They had been peerless beauties, but both sisters were crippled.
Gonnōjō built a separate residence deep within the premises, secretly hid the sisters there, and resolutely attended to the pitiable girls’ circumstances each morning and evening.

There was a family head named Itarō from three or four generations back.
At the end of the shogunate era, he had been one of many displaced retainers who sought refuge in our ancestral home; being handsome, he caught the eye of a daughter of the house, married into the family, and became its head.
By nature a timid man, his lifelong wish had been to somehow sing aloud just once.
Someone suggested he go to the Tama River’s dry bed and sing where no one could hear.
Itarō followed this advice and went alone to the riverbed, but ultimately returned without having sung a single note.

The storehouses numbered forty-eight—one for each iroha syllable—and it was said that for three or four ri around, one could not venture beyond without stepping on our family’s land. Tenpō coins were left unused, tied with rope, and buried under the floors of each building. While possessing such robust material power, how full of shadows—pitifully corroded by their own human possessors—it all was. And how those being corroded also had such ties to beautiful things!

Issaku aptly observed, “Your family’s spirit has a taste for elegance and beautiful things.”
And he added:
“That beauty—its essence can only be grasped through relentless pursuit of suffering.”
Ah—was I truly a woman capable of enduring this?

Here lay a single mortuary tablet referred to as Okano-san.
This concerned a female pillar who, during that critical moment when our family lineage had neared extinction and its fortunes teetered on collapse between our now-interred father and his predecessor, had been selected from among the clan to avert impending ruin.
They said my name, Kanoko, had been bestowed to commemorate this female pillar.
And yet—how utterly!—my own character proved unworthy of commemorating that female pillar through its deficiency of her fortitude.
Ever since gaining awareness of my surroundings, whenever I looked upon this mortuary tablet, I would always love the name inscribed upon it and revere the person it represented—even as I found myself compelled to smile wryly at my own inadequacy.

The sutra chanting continued.
Mourners overflowed the tatami rooms and veranda, standing on the bare earth surrounding the main hall.
I scanned the relatives' seats among the mourners.
And there I found, through tangible manifestation, the pent-up family spirit of our clan that remained unexpressed even here.

Spanning from Itabashi in Tokyo’s northern suburbs to Sagami-Atsugi in the south, they had spread far and wide; in each locality, representatives of my ancestral home’s relatives—all prominent old wealthy families—had gathered in full.

Among them were middle-aged individuals who, while earning vast annual land revenues, were made by generations-old custom to inherit the household headship upon completing roughly middle school education.

There was also an old man who had devoted himself to land development during the Yokohama Port Opening era and possessed deep knowledge of Confucianism and *haikai* poetry yet remained entirely unknown to the world—his heir having taken mere cunning stratagems as a golden rule for worldly success to multiply their assets.

There were also provincial gentlemen who squandered their energies maintaining concubines while seeking to secure family assets.

But still, even there, something pertaining to beauty clung and would not depart.
In various places among those households, quite a number of daughters were born who were called such-and-such Komachi or such-and-such Otohime.
However, when it came time for them to marry, they would retreat into rustic obscurity, grow weary from bearing many children, and gradually fade from life under the name of some old woman from this or that place.
How this must have robbed the beauty-loving family spirit of its vigor and grieved it so!

The funeral had concluded.
Only close blood relatives accompanied Father’s coffin to the cemetery.
I shall omit even a detailed explanation of this scene here.
I will simply record that after Father’s remains had been buried, I felt my chest grow warm upon seeing Issaku bowing long before my mother’s grave, hands pressed together as though speaking or praying.

Mother kept sleeping with me in her arms until I turned fourteen or fifteen, murmuring, “This child clings with such pitiable tenacity.” Through this same mother’s prompt approval, Issaku gained leave to take me into his care. How he must have esteemed it as a moral triumph—that she bestowed her cherished firstborn upon him despite his libertine reputation. Like some exposed infant ignorant of worldly sustenance, I had passed from embrace to embrace, forever seeking breasts. What might my birth mother and Issaku—that fatherly guardian—be speaking of regarding me at this very moment?

During that time, I visited the grave of my literature-enthusiast brother—who had doted on me, his sister, to such an extent that had he been a man, he would have even snatched away friends’ letters—and divided flowers and incense between the graves of one younger brother and one younger sister.

That younger brother graduated from school and began working on ships; while aboard, drawn by the rapture of the sea’s color, he went to the sea’s depths.
That younger sister was such a timid girl that even when she occasionally met the older sister, she could express her longing only through tears.
She found a deathbed several times more fitting to her existence than life itself and died of illness with apparent joy.

The wind ceased.
Along the Tama River’s banks, a thin mist settled as dusk approached with raw warmth.
Cherry blossoms fluttered down softly by the graves.
Supported by Issaku’s arm while my brother the doctor briefly checked my pulse, I merely record that I hurriedly boarded the rickshaw home—after just letting the five opening characters of a poem, “surviving this body,” drift through my heart—and shall now swiftly conclude this bitter, melancholy scene’s description.

“Madam’s Kanoko-saaan!”

Though summer was at its height, I found myself lying in my study in an uncharacteristically gloomy state, having spread no bedding but only placed a pillow beneath me.
This was unusual behavior for me.
To the ear resting upon that pillow came a voice from the entranceway.
I immediately recognized it as belonging to the apprentice geisha Kanoko.
I rose and hurried down to the entrance.
When the apprentice geisha Kanoko saw me, she turned to the elderly servant and—

“Just look there.”
“But Madam is right here, isn’t she?”
“Liar!”

Thrusting out her small chin and casting a sidelong glance at the elderly servant’s protesting demeanor,

“May I come up?”
“I just stopped by.”

she said to me.

I lightly admonished the apprentice geisha—explaining that the elderly servant turning away unfamiliar guests was a household custom not to be reproached—then with a “Come now,” led Kanoko to my second-floor study.

Upon taking her seat, the apprentice geisha presented a folded paulownia-wood box of Shinbashi Kohagido’s millet cakes as a gift.

“Though mind you, this is just something I received at the garden party—I’ll repurpose it as a gift.”

Saying this, she first drew out my laughter.
As I said, “My, how lovely,” taking the sleeve of the apprentice geisha’s kimono—with its characteristic feminine flair—and examining it, she explained that today there had been a garden party at Count K——’s estate diagonally behind here, where she had gone to assist alongside senior geishas and seven or eight colleagues at the request of a Yanaka-based painter who frequented the household. She then told how, upon inquiring at its gate on her return and learning that my home was nearby, she had suddenly felt compelled to visit, parting from her group to drop by.

“A garden party in midsummer seems rather gauche, don’t you think?”
“But they say it’s some sort of anniversary, so there’s no helping it.”
“Some committee members wore winter morning coats and drank beer while sweating profusely and puffing away.”

She began recounting observations characteristic of an apprentice geisha in meticulous detail.
When I asked her if she had any desire for refreshments,

“Well then, um—some of that coarsely shaved ice water.”
“Just plain water over ice.”
“If you happen to have any nearby... I’d truly be obliged.”

she suddenly turned timid and pleaded.

Four months had passed since my own father died.
In my heart—as thirty-five days became forty-nine days and then a hundred days after his funeral—the grief faded imperceptibly yet steadily.
His advanced age of seventy-two made accepting our parting easier; moreover though I’d never known it while he lived—that he’d unconsciously counted my modest poetic achievements among expressions of our family spirit—this secret validation increasingly eased my resignation.
Of course those poems hadn’t been created for such purposes—
Still—better this than nothing.

And with that, his presence in my heart became significantly lighter. It was precisely because of this lightness that once the hundred-day memorial had passed, I recalled the words we pledged to the apprentice geisha Kanoko that night after Father’s wake at Renchū-an on Nakano Island in Shinobazu Pond, and taking the initiative to draw Issaku out, went to hire her. “You needn’t be so stubbornly earnest about keeping that sort of promise,” Issaku initially tried to stop me, but when I said, “It’s not just that,” he made a puzzled face, muttered “Is that so,” and simply came along. Our son Ichirō said, “You’ve turned into quite the delinquent madam,” while seeing me off with an approving gaze—as if some part of my nature, too constrained for an artist to know how inconveniently I must live, might find release through such means.

At Renchū-an, true to our promise, we hired her and—just as we had pledged in words—not just one but several of the senior geishas who kept her company.
To the shamisen of those senior geishas, she danced two or three dances.
Though she was but a young girl, they were strikingly vivid.
When I praised her, the senior geisha let slip, “Well, you see, this girl’s real father is a somewhat renowned dancer.”
Then she put a finger to her lips with a “shh,” first demanding silence from the senior geisha.
Then, mixing in theatrical gestures, she delivered the trite pun: “High voice, low price!”

The senior geishas honored their benefactor—the apprentice geisha who had secured clients for them—and laughed with shrill cackles to smooth things over.
However, in how she silenced them—through those playful antics—I sensed something genuine.

That night, the apprentice geisha had a banquet engagement to attend and left before we did.
As it was summer, through the window with its shoji opened wide, I kept watch on the pilgrimage path connecting Nakano Island to the pond’s edge.
Through the pine shadows, I saw the apprentice geisha returning home accompanied by her attendant, wooden clogs clattering against stepping stones.
When she reached a position where her voice might carry to my window, she began.

“Madam Kanokooo—”

I answered.

“Miss Apprentice Geisha Kanokooo—”

And just as on that previous night,

“Kanokooo—”

“Kanokooo—”

When we reached this point of calling out to each other, her white figure was shoved aside under the moonlight, and I heard her being berated by the attendant.

“What are you dawdling for, you silly girl? That hem’s dragging—how slovenly can you be?”

Though unclear in precise wording, the attendant likely hurled such reproaches, for the apprentice geisha—now silent—tucked her kimono hem high above her waist, making her lower half look unsightly. Even so, her figure, being prodded repeatedly in the back by the attendant as they went on their way, soon vanished behind clusters of tall lotus leaves.

Unable to bear it after about a week had passed, I once again persuaded Issaku to take me to Renchū-an.

“You’ve developed a bit of an apprentice geisha mania, haven’t you?”

Issaku said this with a wry smile, but knowing how I had been lately—unable to compose poetry and sunk in gloom—he protected me by coming along.

It was a windless, sultry night.
The three of us—the two of us and the apprentice geisha—drank orangeade we had ordered in jugs while fanning ourselves incessantly with the electric fan.
When Issaku offered again to hire your tea-pulling group, the apprentice geisha said tonight was too hot and she didn’t want to dance, so no thanks.

When I timidly began to indirectly inquire about how the attendant from the other night had treated her so cruelly, the apprentice geisha intuited my meaning and said, “That sort of thing happens all the time. But don’t worry—I give as good as I get, so I’m not losing out.”

With that, she immediately dispelled my concerns.

Seeing that I appeared both relieved and deflated, the apprentice geisha—roughly grabbing the cuff of her large sleeve as if mimicking an elementary schoolgirl practicing embroidery—seemed to consider whether this was the right moment to speak out or if it remained too soon. Then she said only this:

“Those things aren’t hard at all, but—”

She left the rest a mystery, looked down, and sniffled two or three times.
Issaku made a puzzled face.

I felt a sense of disgust, as if I’d been ensnared in some trap laid by the young girl who had exploited my own timid nature, yet given how things had unfolded, I couldn’t help but press on with my questions.

“Is there something else painful?”
“Do go on and tell me.”
“I’ll listen to you.”

Then, the apprentice geisha reverted to an almost maidenly demeanor and fidgeted,

“Since meeting you, and then looking at brides in magazine frontispieces and photos of new households, I’ve come to want to become a proper bride myself now.”
“But doing this kind of work, I wonder if I can ever become a proper bride—that’s what.”

Cutting herself off, she then and there threw herself down heavily.

Issaku glanced briefly at my face and deepened his puzzled expression.

No matter that she was an apprentice geisha, I couldn’t possibly say, “That’s not the case at all.
I couldn’t bring myself to declare outright, “If you secure a good partner to ransom you, you could become a splendid bride.”
And so, I simply—

“Well now—”

And nothing more—I sank into thought.

Then, perhaps having given up on this consultation, the apprentice geisha sat up and slipped out of the room.
Issaku uncrossed his arms and, knocking his forehead with his right fist, muttered, “Ugh, this is getting putrid.” In the time it took him to exhale those words, the apprentice geisha—having apparently fixed her tear-streaked face in the washroom—returned once more with a radiant expression.
When she took her seat, she demurely placed her fingers on the tatami mat and said, “Forgive me.”
She took the painted fan that was right there and briskly set about fanning the two of them.
Her manner had become like that of a tamed and docile domestic animal.

This time, I was the one who couldn’t endure it. "Come here, come here," I summoned the apprentice geisha to my side and, stroking her back while earnestly advising her never to lose heart or succumb to despair for the sake of her hopes, finally added:

“When something happens, I’ll help you through it again—just don’t ever feel alone, all right?”

And then, it happened.
It was then that the apprentice geisha promptly took out a pocket notebook from that small makeup bag and wrote down my home’s address.

That night, we were the ones who left first.
As usual, the apprentice geisha who had gone out to see us off among the maids at the entrance platform—the voices we exchanged now carried an even more heartfelt resonance, tangible in their warmth.

“Madam’s Kanoko-saaan!”

“Apprentice Geisha’s Kanoko-saaan!”

“Kanoko-saaan”

“Kanoko-saaan”

We walked along the lakeside path toward Sanmai Bridge Street.
It was a dark night heavy with somber air.
As we walked, Issaku said:
“Was it really all right for you to let the conversation get that deep?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, nagged by lingering regret.
Yet I pressed on with this explanation:

“Somehow these days—it feels like both my mind and body are changing. Nothing I do seems to hold together.”
“But when I think—if we’d had even one daughter of our own, perhaps my heart wouldn’t grow so numb over another’s child like this—”

Issaku exhaled deeply—“Hmm”—before speaking with grave understanding.
“Ah... A daughter.”

Because there had been such a stage before, I still found myself eagerly waiting, thinking that once the apprentice geisha finished her iced drink, she would bring up some personal story or consultation. However, she showed no such signs; instead, she kept looking around the house while giggling softly,

“It’s stylish but unexpectedly small, isn’t it?”

With that remark, she looked up at the straight grain of the ceiling boards, leaned against the railing facing the back alley, and gazed at the windows of the elementary school across the way—vacant during summer break.

My house still remained in this period of remaining inconspicuous.
After passing through a time in the realm of suffering, we had chosen houses in secluded locations—whether cliff bases in Shiba no Shirogane or Imazato, or spots beneath solitary trees.
There was something resembling the psychology of someone emerging from a cave—shielding their brow with a hand for fear their eyes might be harmed when suddenly exposed to sunlight.
Though this house in Aoyama Minami-chō now seemed to have shed those lingering psychological shadows, we still didn't feel inclined to adorn our dwelling with any splendor.

Moreover, Issaku had been working out all particulars together with a woman—a distant relative who had begun supporting me several years earlier while claiming to be my aunt—to prepare funds for my overseas journey.
As for this journey abroad, there had been a time when I—amidst that realm of suffering where provisions dwindled, intimates disappeared, and hopes dissolved—while struggling to entertain my son Ichirō in his crawling prime, had uttered these words as if chanting through a haze of spiritual delirium:

“Let us go to Paris and see the marronnier blossoms someday.”
“Let us ride in a carriage along the Champs-Élysées.”

It was like a painfully confused delirium of words whose meaning even I myself could no longer grasp.
My innocent son, despite this, was listening with his “Ah—ah” responses.

Later, when Issaku heard this story, he seemed to have made a profound resolution tinged with regret.
“I’ll definitely show you and our son Paris,” he said.
Issaku, with his old-fashioned Edo townsman’s temperament of settling all matters of grievance and obligation, now resolved to act—and once he had resolved, its eventual execution was inevitable.
But for our household—now incapable of taking interest in anything unless all three of us were strung together like prayer beads—even just the financial aspects of preparing for overseas relocation were no simple matter.
Issaku was diligently yet nonchalantly handling all of this.

“Though it’s unclear when we’ll depart, this is our modest dwelling for that purpose at any rate.”

After briefly explaining the situation to the apprentice geisha and looking around the house, I said, "That's why this is a rented house, you see."

Then the apprentice geisha,

“I want to go abroad with you too. Please! Come on, Madam. Ask Master for me!”
“Definitely!”
“Oh, Madam.”
“Ask Master for me!”

With both hands, she took hold of my sleeve and shook it vigorously from side to side.

This apprentice geisha—who had previously wished to become a proper bride and establish her way of life—now wanted to travel overseas with us.
Her words seemed fickle, mere whims of the moment.
After all, an apprentice geisha belongs solely to herself as an apprentice geisha.
No longer finding it worth consideration, I simply laughed.
Yet when I thus severed my concern and observed her with detached eyes, the apprentice geisha was dazzlingly beautiful.

It was upon the blue Bingo-omote tatami mats. Upon the coarse-textured ground of light-blue crepe were brought water plantain and swirling currents, rendered so powerfully in ink-black and ochre-red that they threatened to overwhelm the very body they clothed. And upon closer inspection, these patterns proved less painted than densely filled with countless large and small Hikita-style deer-speckle tie-dye motifs—the particles of Hikita dots arranged themselves against each other, canceling each other out, colliding to create volumetric vibrations. The summer water plants and swirling currents were elevated into something more vivid than nature itself.

As if flying through that sky, four or five jet-black dragonflies were given their place upon the silver ground by the obi’s design.

Though the waterfall’s form remained unseen, the white silk obi’s knot—as a single stream flowing from the basin’s hem—surged like water spray, concealing the thunderous roar of its cascading source, while three or so large and small water droplet patterns leapt forth in a design so clever it bordered on vexing.

Though I had been observing this, however, the essence of the apprentice geisha clad in these garments was by no means overshadowed by her attire.
I proceeded to look up from the collar to her face.

In that whiteness—like pure snow from the northern hinterlands that falls eternally unseen, vanishes unseen, only to fall and accumulate anew—there existed an ultimate, unrelenting tension which paradoxically intensified through its very lack of boldness. From the pinched tip of her chin to the curve of her round face, a shadow of exquisite beguilement lurked discreetly—one that deceived people, yet they welcomed being thus deceived. Even when composed, there lingered a semblance of smile—perhaps because her full yet tenderly fresh vermilion lips tilted slightly like a waxing crescent moon. It was a smile, yet a smile that preceded smiling itself.

The nasal bridge was slightly overshadowed by the rest of her face. However, it seemed the world could carry on even if such a young girl—being merely a woman—did not come to symbolize those nauseating forces of power and vigor at humanity’s very core. That of the apprentice geisha appeared endearingly approachable.

Eyes! Western poets describe these as stars. East Asian poets liken them to blue lotuses. Each forbidden name—I leave their assignment to you. May their essence never stray from truth. As I see them, they are midsummer lake waters. The pair, each steeped in the main peak’s shadow, coalesced with the very sky itself. Yet they held no autumn chill. Behold—between sidelong glances and shifting gazes, an alluring haze trails along lengthy lashes toward those who meet her gaze.

When my gaze reached her eyebrows, I suddenly felt my breath catch.
They pressed too closely from both sides, and what’s more, were too thickly and perfectly shaped, as if drawn using a stencil.
They were eyebrows that somehow suggested a tragic fate.
The forehead too was beautiful yet narrowed.

Today, she had styled her hair into a Western coiffure—the front slightly curled and arranged to flow like water-sleeked tresses.

Perhaps it was my imagination, but compared to the apprentice geisha Kanoko I had first met at Renchū-an by Shinobazu Pond on that spring evening after my father’s wake, her body now swelled with a supple vitality of flesh nearly unrecognizable from before—the natural allure of her approaching womanhood permeating even her seated demeanor, shining through any pretense.
I thought: this was not a courtesan’s allure.
Might it not be that since meeting me, the apprentice geisha had, through some fleeting impulse, awakened to a woman’s sorrow and tasted life’s melancholy?
A woman’s true allure emerges only through possessing sorrow.
Could it be that the apprentice geisha was now reverting to maidenly sentiments?
I would gaze and scrutinize, at times becoming so enraptured by her beauty that I forgot my surroundings; together with the apprentice geisha upon the blue tatami mats, we found ourselves adrift—unaware of what era or distant shore we inhabited—compelled to wander as just the two of us.

The apprentice geisha had initially exposed her form to my inspection with an attitude of feigned ignorance—neither that of a courtesan’s professional charm nor obligation—but from the moment summer’s pre-dusk sunlight struck the elementary school’s wooden wall, its refracted rays entering through the window with an otherworldly focus to fill the room with delicate brightness, she seemed to sense some dreamlike erosion; gradually shedding her stiffly performative awareness in demeanor, she began revealing the innate helplessness of a woman born to fragility.
Her eyes vacant as they gazed obliquely upward, she began to murmur in a small, chanting voice.

“Madam’s Kanoko-saaan”

Strangely enough, I didn’t find this call abrupt and answered like an echo would.

“The apprentice geisha’s Kanoko-saaan”

After exchanging calls two or three times, the apprentice geisha and I gradually softened our voices.

“Kanoko-saaan”

“Kanoko-saaan”

And when that voice set aquiver a single thread in my heart that had never before been touched, before I knew it, I took both of the apprentice geisha’s hands.
The apprentice geisha, seemingly of the same heart, tightly gripped back the hands that were taken.
With our hands still clasped together, both the apprentice geisha and I now shed tears without reservation.

“Kanoko-saaan”

“Kanoko-saaan”

After finishing wiping away my tears and letting out a deep breath, I asked with a touch of nostalgia.

"How is your father doing?"
"How is your mother doing?"
"And your siblings?"

Then, the apprentice geisha folded her chest forward limply and, fumbling with her sleeve,

“Madam, please don’t ask about that.”
“After all, we apprentice geishas have been orphans from the moment we entered this life—”

I realized this answer nearly matched what Issaku had said in his youth, and could only grow more despondent.
And why must such lonely, desolate souls keep being drawn to me? I even came to loathe this strange magnetism of mine.

“No, no. From now on, I’ll teach you everything and be there for you, so think of this house as your bride school—feel free to come whenever you have time.”

Then the apprentice geisha said.

“To tell the truth, Madam—I’d rather die than live apart from you. That’s how much I want us to stay together, I do.”

I now came to feel this apprentice geisha was like a true daughter to me.
In response to this, I recounted the origin of my name as derived from my family home’s lineage, explaining that according to it, both our names carried the lineage of strong women, and declared with conviction:

“Stay strong.
We will surely become as we wish.”

The sun shaded over, and a breeze arose.

The sound of Issaku waking from his nap in the adjacent studio could be heard.

“Hey, Ichirō, get up. It’s evening now.”

His father’s annex now serving as a living room, Ichirō, who had been napping there, also seemed to have awoken.

The two of them slid open the fusuma and emerged, then upon seeing the apprentice geisha, widened their eyes in curiosity.
The apprentice geisha greeted them politely.

“So you’ve found yourself a nice fellow and came to ask Madam how it went?”
While he teased her with such remarks, Ichirō, having boldly circled around the apprentice geisha to inspect her appearance, blurted out:

“Tch, this one’s got a face like someone squashed Mom sideways and puffed it up.”

Then the apprentice geisha,

“Yes, yes, very well—if you insist on calling it a puffed-up face.”
“I’ll just ask your mother to make me your bride then.”

Even the boy from a respectable household couldn’t withstand this retort and flushed slightly,
“What the—this one—”

He said nothing more after that, merely fidgeting awkwardly.

The apprentice geisha then tucked her long sleeves into the front of her obi, had the old maid help bring water in a metal basin and hand towels, and busily tended to Issaku and his son as they washed their faces on the second-floor veranda with its overhanging balcony.
Though she seemed to have reverted to being a businesslike apprentice geisha, I no longer doubted the sincerity of her heart.

Before darkness fell, the apprentice geisha explained that she needed to return home, hurry to the bathhouse, finish her evening meal, and wait for her banquet engagements to begin, so Issaku gave her a monetary gift and called a car to send her off.

We then went to our son’s room to look at his unfinished sketches.
Our son had been continuing his practical exam preparations for art school at home during his research institute’s summer break with a plaster statue set up as his model.
He adjusted the lamp,
“The shape here’s off—fix it like this.”
As Issaku began carelessly erasing lines with his kneaded eraser his son grabbed his hand—

“Ah, ah, don’t! Don’t just erase everything recklessly like you always do, Dad!”

One tried to stop the erasing; the other kept erasing.
Between father-teacher and student, a playful bout of roughhousing began.

I gazed upon this as something of utmost beauty.

Then ten days went by—twenty days went by—and still the apprentice geisha did not come.
I began to worry she might have conceived thoughts unbecoming of a businesswoman—that her owner had discovered her intentions and severed contact with our household.
I implored Issaku.

“In the end, we cannot leave that girl in that kind of society for long.”

“So you mean—” Issaku asked back, then immediately relying on his intuition:

“Are you saying we should just buy out her contract ourselves?”

He blinked two or three times to gather his thoughts.

“Very well. If you consider it my apology for not letting you bear a daughter, then it’s nothing at all. If circumstances allow—let’s do it.”

Issaku was a man who could even find interest stirring in such extraordinary schemes.
"If we postponed our trip abroad by a year, that would free up enough money."

Having settled this resolve between us, we decided to visit Renchū-an again to attempt meeting the apprentice geisha once more.
Beforehand, as precaution, we took care to prepare calling the geisha house she had told us about—the establishment that held her contract.
Then came word that the apprentice geisha had returned to her parents' home, claiming illness.
When we inquired after this family residence and sent a letter, it came back bearing a slip stating the forwarding address was unknown.

However, I never severed those thoughts.
I couldn't help feeling I would surely meet again someday somewhere with that girl bound to me by such profound vows.
While clutching this thread of memory in one hand, I devoted myself to solving how I might fulfill the great duty weighing on my shoulders since Father's death.

Youth and the Expression of Family Legacy.
This problem I clamped between the teeth of my mind like chewing gum, gnawing and gnashing through it day after day.

The distant relative who styled herself my patron aunt found my over a year of idle days without composing poetry both frustrating and incomprehensible. She concluded there was no recourse but to dispatch us abroad posthaste for stimulation. Aunt contributed her reserved savings and resolved to send my family overseas as though hustling us out.

This matter was announced in the newspaper.

Among the numerous farewell letters was one bearing an unfamiliar woman’s name. When unfolded, it read thus in clumsy characters.

Madam.
“Kanoko” is no longer Kanoko.
I have become an ordinary geisha bearing a different name.
Upon learning of Madam’s glorious journey abroad, I pondered what token of gratitude or parting gift I might offer in return for the compassion you showed me then.
With tearful resolve, I return to you that cherished name from my apprentice days, and with it relinquish the sixteen years of youth that received your kindness—praying everlastingly that Madam may retain her youth and devote herself to work.
As our eternal farewell, I now beg leave to voice the heartfelt entreaty I could not utter then.
With your permission, I shall cry out.

Mother, Mother

The former apprentice geisha's
From Kanoko
To Madam Kanoko

As I read this, tears streamed down my face while something I could not contain—a surge of anger—welled up within me.
I cried out in my heart:
Spineless little girl!
Alright, I’ve taken your youth.
I will use this to finally wage battle against whatever in life prevented me from making you my daughter.
You live an ordinary life according to your station.

I resolved once more and finally declared to Issaku my intention to express the family spirit through the scale of novels rather than poetry.

Issaku considered for a moment before saying,

“Someone once said—if you lack the resolve to lie naked in the shape of a great character ‘dai’ at Nihonbashi’s center, you cannot write novels. Are you truly prepared for this?”

Trembling violently as I leaned against him,

I replied,

“If only Papa would stay by my side when that time comes.”

Issaku tightly gripped my hand.

“I’ll be there. Alright, do it.”

The son who had been listening to this beside them,
“Wow, this is awesome!”
he exclaimed.