The Plum Rains and Other Stories (7 page)

Ohasu felt like throwing her writing-brush out the window, but she’d just have to go downstairs and pick it up again. And the session scribe had informed her that although it was unlikely she would ever be accepted as a regular member, it wasn’t impossible that her provisional status might be extended. He had advised her to persevere.

Ohasu corrected her brush tip, musing on colours and textures, blossoms and dust, only to become distracted by an outburst of love-shouts from down the hall. A grade-two
back-worker
was entertaining a regular visitor Ohasu detested. The others had all gone off for an afternoon bath, and she had been obliged to serve the repulsive client herself. She found him perched on a stack of floor cushions with his robe open,
fondling
the squat red stump of his penis as if he thought she might become inflamed with desire at the sight of it.

Ohasu had distributed dishes of titbits and heated flasks of rice wine then checked the brazier and tossed in a few more chunks of charcoal. Will your honour require anything else?

What do you suggest? The client was a merchant who bought dried sardines to grind into fertiliser, and the stench of it never quite left him. You’re a dancer, aren’t you? How about a dance?

No performances in the afternoon.

How about dancing naked-islanders style?

Please enjoy yourselves leisurely. Ohasu had slapped closed their door a little more firmly than was necessary and scurried back to her room.

So, faded blossoms, blossoms drained of their colour…

But that had been said like that for hundreds and hundreds of years, the idea of blossoms yielding to their own transience.

And yet the flowers
did
get dusty. And dustiness meant something.
The blossoms at sunset, as they are in the dust of the world
…

She looked at what she’d written then added,
The blossoms as they are at sunset
, repeating the phrasing to herself but not happy with any of it.

Going! Going! I’m going, squealed the grade-two; and the fertiliser magnate began bellowing it out too, as if her faking of sexual frenzy might be authenticated by a similar fabrication of his own.

Ohasu checked back through her sequence of thirty-five stanzas, confirming that each was unique, each flowed out of the one before, with no awkward echoes or redundancies. Even if she remained only a provisional member, she would attend the formal sessions diligently and express her opinions when asked and never suggest that she felt unwanted in any way.

The shouts down the hall had reached their crescendo – the absurd volume meant to suggest that great gouts of love’s
bounty were being splashed about the room – and Ohasu bent over her low table and forced herself not to hear it, working out other variations, intoning, ‘… the dust of the world on the
blossoms
…,’ the idea what she meant but the words tired. Perhaps she should come at it more directly? Say what a thing is and trust that the saying in itself was sufficient?

Dusty blossoms at sunset, and the words for it also tired at the end of the day
…

Something like that? Dust and the word ‘dust’? But wasn’t that too much like a novice calling attention to herself? Her sequence had to end with a mood of tranquility, matching the sense of quiet expectation it had begun with and thus
bracketing
the turbulent middle sections where –

Writing smutty poems? The sardine-fertiliser client stood in her doorway, pulling up on his flaccid little man-stick to make it seem longer, his sack dangling, the maroon damsons deployed one below the other.

Is there something your honour needs?

What about what you need?

The grade-two had followed him as far as the hallway, where she hovered naked and shivering in the cold, her coif cocked off in a tangle as if she’d been dragged sideways through a hedge.

Is it more wine your honour requires?

How about you? A little wine help you relax?

Younger sister looks disappointed, Ohasu said. Did you have a misunderstanding with her? But surely, it must have been a very small one, Ohasu said brightly; and the client turned away, penis-stub retracting, and stalked back to his room. Bring a cloth! And come do a wipe-up!

So, the moment between the orange warmth of sunset in spring and the first cool blues of spring twilight. With the sun gone from the horizon but with its light still colouring the pale cherry blossoms, the orange of it filtering out their pinkness…
And the dust of the world … the dust of the world…

That had to go away. Dust, the word dust, the idea of it.

Ohasu regretted the loss then stopped regretting it. She gazed down at Middle Lane for a moment, an image needed, perhaps only a single word, the leafless boughs of the cherry trees wet and black in the settling twilight as early visitors
began
arriving, everyone bundled up against the cold, the samurai disguised in deep-brim basket hats or with head-cloths draped around cheeks and chins, priests fooling no one by costuming themselves as doctors or scholars, and the townsmen with their faces exposed, striding along like owners, which of course they were.

A few girls in their gaudy-robes fluttered like sparrows near the entryway to the baths. Some wore oversized obis with front-tied sash-knots in emulation of courtesans, and some still costumed themselves like serving maids. The little girls watched the older ones and tried to stand the way they stood, take short steps the way they did, copy how they tilted their heads when they glanced slyly at young samurai striding along in the dying winter sun.

Ohasu spotted the girls from her house returning. They would be up here with their chatter soon. Pink at dawn so
orange
at sunset? She had told Old Master Bashō that she wanted to write about what her life was like. She knew such a topic was inappropriate for
haikai
linked poetry yet he had surprised her by agreeing that a way might be found.

And wouldn’t the colour seem to fade in slanted light?

The entryway door was slapped open. She heard the rattle of girls kicking off their clogs, the sound of them bickering about who got to use the indoor privy and who had to go out to the communal facilities in the back garden.

Ohasu scanned one last time through the variations she had made then loaded her brush, corrected the tip, and wrote:

The slanted orange light of the setting sun presses pinkness out of the last of the blossoms.

And in the margin at the end of her sheet, she added the kana for O-ha-su just as her door was yanked open to cries of, She is! She’s still doing it!

K
ICHIJI TOOK THE SEAT CLOSEST
to the brazier and settled himself comfortably. How cold it is, he said.

The proprietor of the assignations teahouse bustled about adjusting things in a demonstration of sincerity.

Stop doing that, Kichiji said. Order some wine.

I’ll bring it right away.

You have a girl here named Ohasu, the silk merchant said. Have her do it.

There are richer blossoms in our garden, deeper wells that –

Have
her
bring it to me.

Kichiji had long supplied the elegant robes and sashes worn in the pleasure quarters. The massive silk garments grand
courtesans
required were certainly lucrative for him, but Kichiji had realised that even richer profits would come from expanding the market. Great courtesans were rare. Reaching that level of female perfection required years of training. But the supply of young serving girls willing to display themselves seemed endless. Some floated through the quarters, some soared, some stumbled and fell. It didn’t matter. For Kichiji, their functionality was as
occupants
of robes. Replace a weak one with a better one, and the robe’s desirability would be renewed. The silk merchant trusted the idea of managed penetration. Control the costume and you own the gate to the market. New kimono patterns, new fabrics, new obi styles all could be launched in the pleasure quarters before being made available in the dry-goods emporiums that
were becoming popular in Edo. A girl who showed poorly could be stripped and discarded without loss since no investment in her had been made.

Kichiji had spotted inefficiencies in the assignations teahouse. Traffic was not optimised, turnover neglected, pricing static. Better management would double earnings, and he had quietly bought up the proprietor’s debts until he owned him.

The proprietor scurried back into Kichiji’s presence after
issuing
orders. But I beg to remind you that other girls are more lively and better able to delight guests…

Kichiji turned his heavy face towards the man. I am not your guest.

Of course not! I’m well aware of our –

Of course you are.

It is only meant as a term of respect, and to –

You talk too much.

And to indicate that our expertise in the ways of giving pleasure is –

And I don’t need you to tell me what happens here, said Kichiji.

The door slid open. Ohasu on her knees shoved a tray with titbits in small dishes and flasks of heated rice wine inside. She crawled in behind it and bowed deeply, touching her forehead to the tatami mat.

Shut the door, said Kichiji. There’s a draft.

Ohasu served the silk merchant then began to back out the doorway when he stopped her. The proprietor, too, was told to remain; and he and the pleasure girl knelt side by side against the far wall so as not to presume to benefit from the warmth of the brazier.

Kichiji drank then placed his empty cup beside the heated flask. Ohasu crawled forward to refill it for him then crawled back to where she had been. He emptied his cup again, obliging
her to crawl to him, but then poured it full himself when she got there, and she bowed and apologised for being too slow.

Kichiji smiled benignly and waited for Ohasu to return to where she was kneeling.

I’m going to tell you what I want, Kichiji said. And you’re going to do something you haven’t done before.

The silk merchant laid a recent woodblock-print gazette on the tatami mat. Portraits of courtesans were ranked according to desirability, with specific talents and unique charm-points listed, as well as price bands, current availability, and the most probable routes of access.

Your customers use this sort of thing to negotiate the
floating
world of desire, Kichiji said; but he had discovered that these gazettes were also being kept as souvenirs, and that the wives of night-visitors also studied them for the fashions and foibles of the pleasure quarters.

Even a dullard such as yourself can see the opportunity here, said the silk merchant.

The teahouse proprietor didn’t. You like pictures?

Kichiji pointed out that the supply of the purveyors of
gratification
for the emotions of love was restricted by the size of the pleasure quarters and the allotment of its venues. This produced a demand larger than could be satisfied. A strong economy generated a willingness to spend at all levels so that even those who were unable to participate in the more elegant pastimes at New Yoshiwara would nevertheless pay to know what that
participation
felt like.

I don’t understand, said the proprietor.

No. You seem not to.

What do I have to do?

Publish, said Kichiji, and he held out his wine cup for Ohasu to crawl over and refill.

I don’t know anything about making such things. The
assignations
man noticed that Ohasu had pulled the neckband of her robe up against the cold and he eased it back down to expose her nape. Nor about how to sell them.

You won’t have to.

I won’t?

The silk merchant explained that he was putting together a stable of painters, woodblock carvers, printmakers and page binders. They would work together at a single location and issue new volumes rapidly.

You’re not talking about linked poetry books?

Of course not, said Kichiji. He drank then held out his cup. Each page of our new gazette will have a single image, drawn in a lively style, and with a poem beside it. Kichiji nodded to himself, pleased by this explanation. It is the progression of the images that will create continuity.

The assignations teahouse proprietor looked back at him blankly, and Kichiji pulled out a sketch of a young woman
gazing
wistfully at the moon. Beside her was a poem about longing for an absent lover. The woman’s face was casually drawn and conventionally pretty, with fat round cheeks and slits for eyes; but her robe was rendered in meticulous detail, as was her obi and hair ornaments, all of which were currently fashionable.

The proprietor bent forward but didn’t dare to touch it. You’ve done a better job with the fabric than her face, he said.

Both are as they should be, said Kichiji. The world of desire is enriched by ambiguity, but the world of fashion requires
clarity
. That robe design is one of my most popular.

So you intend to make a series of these?

You will organise your girls and their poems, said Kichiji. Once that’s done, my artists will come out here and make their drawings.

Kichiji folded back his silk pongee sleeves to reveal a lining of rare ice-green Chinese satin that caught in the candle light with the silvery sheen of a winter moon. As the publisher, you will manage the process. The selling you can leave to me.

But these girls don’t write poems, said the teahouse
proprietor
; and Kichiji leaned forward and held out his cup. One of them does.

Kichiji wouldn’t spend the night in the pleasure quarters and he wouldn’t walk to the gate unescorted. Unsavoury types congregated there.

The proprietor sent one of his door touts to accompany him, but the silk merchant insisted that Ohasu come too.

Middle Lane was deserted, the night too cold for
promenading
although the insides of the assignations teahouses were filled with music and laughter.