The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel (7 page)

The inept doctor called once to check on my progress. He said that I would be well in ten days but that the infection had left me sterile. I would never again be with child, which he considered the practical bonus of his butchery.

Natsuko could not disguise a hiss of satisfaction at such welcome news. As for me, I would never be a mother, never nurture an infant or experience the friendship of a daughter or the support of a son. Before this time I had not consciously desired motherhood but the fact that it was now denied me seemed shocking.

With her customary parsimony Natsuko left me to settle the doctor's account. Sorry was heartbroken on my behalf and fussed around me with broths and strengthening foods. She said that with each new wound another layer thickens our carapace and strengthens our defences. In time all traces of the deed were removed, and I tried to remove myself from it too. But in sleep my mind went its own way and I suffered a recurring dream that disturbed me so much that I began to fear sleep. In this dream I would watch myself from a distance looking into a mirror that was marked with age and seemed to be running with water. Although there were people around only I was reflected in the silvery glass, and as I gazed at myself I knew without doubt that it was a stranger looking back at me, a stranger of whom I was afraid.

The week that I lay recovering from my abortion, Tokyo was hit by a massive earthquake of such force that after the last tremor had faded every family knew someone who was a victim of the catastrophe. We were lucky to live so close to the commercial centre as it was one of the few areas left standing. Our gas supply was severed and we returned to candlelight and charcoal burners. I liked the mysterious quality the soft light lent to the house, which reminded me of my early years in China when I would lie in my mother's bed watching her braid her blue-black hair.

Natsuko believed that we were saved from the fury of the earthquake by the gold fish in our carp pool. She said they were of an unusually bright hue and were very lucky. 'Tokyo will never be as beautiful again,' she said sadly.

I could hear more than the pain of the loss of the city in her voice, see beyond the tears in her tea-black eyes. I know that Natsuko felt that she was powerless in her life, that she had suffered too much loss to ever regain the happiness of her youth. I wanted to tell her that she still had the power to choose where to love, that she could choose me. But as always when faced with Natsuko, I never spoke the words I wanted to; I was as locked in my nature as she was in hers.

How quickly things can change. One minute the landscape you know is there, the next it is gone. Kawashima, arriving back from Osaka after the earth's revolt, said that he felt that he had come to an alien city.

Once again Tokyo began to recreate itself with buildings to match the progress that electricity had brought. There was a buzz of energy in the air and everywhere you looked modern structures were going up.

A new breed of young woman seemed to have emerged too, secretaries, shop girls, beauticians and dressmakers who made cheap copies of popular western styles. Young women were needed to staff the hotels and business houses of the remodelled city. They came enthusiastically from their rigidly traditional homes to the equally strict conventions of the workplace. I think I envied them a little, although it has to be admitted that a princess seeks a different sort of freedom to that of a secretary or a shop girl.

At the beginning of the winter of 1924, when I was eighteen years old, Kawashima sent the young officer Yamaga to me and I discovered what it was to fall in love.

Yamaga's skin was the colour of copper, his eyes clear and unclouded, his lips as firm as apples. He was tender and arrogant in equal measure and it was not always easy to please him. I was half afraid of him yet I could not stop myself from loving everything about him. I adored the strength of his coarse dark hair, the uneven gap between his teeth, the way his uniform smelt of the black Russian tobacco he smoked. That bittersweet scent has the power to stir me to this day. I both loved and feared the churning feeling in my stomach that came whenever I saw him, a combination of elation and dread. I loved too the way he called me Yoshi and the way he danced me around, pulling me to him before kissing my lips or my hair. His touch emptied me of common sense.

For the first time in my life I loved someone more than myself and although it was unsettling, it intoxicated me and kept my blood singing. I could not eat and did not sleep much, but when I did I dreamt of little else but of making love with Yamaga.

Sometimes we would lie together the whole night without making love, just holding each other and talking and sleeping. I think that I felt more loved on those nights than I ever had before, and more confident of his love. He never brought me gifts and it could often be weeks before he visited again yet I always believed that he would return to my rooms. I excused his long absences. I told myself that building a military career took time, and I was convinced that his dedication to his profession would carry him to the top. We were alike, he and I, and I believed that his feelings for me were as strong as mine were for him.

I told Kawashima that I did not want him to send me anyone but Yamaga. He shrugged his shoulders and said that I would soon tire of the boy and that he himself would find it no hardship. I was insulted by his indifference, as despite wanting only Yamaga my body missed the habit of my stepfather's cruel lovemaking, and I was surprised that he did not care about losing mine.

It was always a celebration when Yamaga came. He usually stayed the whole night, giving us time to eat and bathe together, to tell each other the stories of our lives and to laugh at the rest of the world. We made love and ate the good food that Sorry brought us, always apologising for her intrusion. We played cards for money and sometimes we fenced a little dangerously. Yamaga liked to win, it was important to him and, apart from myself, I have never since met anyone so competitive.

Those nights we shared were precious to me and I could not bear to waste them in sleep. I would watch Yamaga as he slept and delight in his even breathing. In an agony of love I would wake him with kisses and cry when he made love to me, so different was it to anything I had ever experienced before.

It seemed that the gods had at last smiled on me and sent the most beautiful and brave man in all of Japan to accompany me through life. There is nothing more splendid than a Japanese man at the peak of his powers. With my rich dowry and unusual beauty I thought that I would be as good a catch for him as he was for me. Freedom was no longer my aim. To be with Yamaga was all I desired. Marriage to him would be no sacrifice; he was a modern man, we would be equals. I liked the idea of choosing my own husband and decided that I would declare my love to him and suggest that he ask Kawashima to give me to him in marriage. After all, Kawashima had sent him to me and that must mean Yamaga had influence and was a person to be indulged.

On the day I proposed to Yamaga I woke in the dying dawn to the muffled sounds of the servants going about the house. Above the city the sky, a white vault streaked with pink, housed a solitary hunting hawk. It was cold, with a trail of snow in the air. I sensed that this was the day that Yamaga would come and even though I knew it would not be until nightfall, I was full of the disquiet of longing. Sorry served me a breakfast of persimmons steeped in honey, and a bowl of golden tea. I was too restless to eat, but I drank the tea and smoked two Turkish cigarettes. I went to the market and tried to occupy myself but I could not think straight and bought neroli oil instead of the rose one I wanted to scent my rooms. Neroli is too astringent a fragrance for lovemaking, while the soft musk of rose oil is perfect. The day passed slowly, as it will when every second is counted, and by dusk I was aching for Yamaga.

Before dark I began to dress, choosing a deep-blue underkimono of silk, embroidered with a border of white clover and red poppies. I took great care with my appearance, brushing my skin with pumice and sweetening my breath with liquorice wood. I softened my body with a peppery chrysanthemum oil that made my skin glow and hung Natsuko's black pearl between my breasts. At last Yamaga came, brushing the snow from the shoulders of his uniform, his hands stiff with cold. I sent Sorry scurrying to bring a foot warmer while I served him a shot of sake to heat his blood.

Our first lovemaking that night was passionate but over quickly, leaving us breathless and laughing at our haste. Later we shared a bath so hot that it made me dizzy. Yamaga bathed me, lathering my breasts with a green soap that smelt of ferns. His hands were firm and confident and as I mounted him in the water he pulled me close. I clasped my feet behind his buttocks and he moaned with pleasure. We fitted so well together, as perfectly as the carving that old man Teshima had given me on my fifteenth birthday.

Sex with Yamaga was unlike any that I had experienced before. Lips on lips, tongue on tongue, our arms around each other, our appetites equal, I could find no fault in him. I felt complete, a new experience for me, as usually after lovemaking I was ready for the next lover to fill the void that had previously accompanied me through life. I didn't doubt for one moment that Yamaga was as eager to spend his life with me as I was to spend mine with him. When he told me that I was so special that the world had only space for one Yoshiko, my confidence that he would agree to our marrying could not have been higher.

We ate a supper of chicken and peppers and marvelled at how delicious food always tasted after lovemaking. I fed Yamaga the almonds preserved in salt that he loved and we shared one of my Turkish cigarettes. He always laughed when I smoked, saying that women smoking looked wrong somehow, like monkeys swimming.

I thought briefly that I might tell him of the abortion and grieve with him over what had become in my mind our joint loss, but we were so happy that I could not bear to spoil things. Against reason, I told myself that doctors are not always right and that women have a great capacity to heal. For once in my life I looked to the gods to shower me with luck and to so repair my past that it might never have been.

That night, as we lay together in my rosewood bed, I suggested that we should begin the plans for our marriage. Yamaga must go to Kawashima and formally ask for his permission. I spoke of my large dowry and joked that he would be getting a princess from a noble family, and I would be getting a soldier who would one day be a great Japanese hero. We would have a successful and wonderful life together in the new Japan.

Yamaga's body tensed and he rolled away from me and left the bed. There was a long, confusing silence only broken when he gave a short embarrassed laugh.

'You must know, Yoshi, that Kawashima would never agree to a marriage between us. It would be pointless to ask him,' he said.

'No, he will agree,' I cried. 'He cannot keep me here for ever, he must choose a husband for me, so why should it not be you, Yamaga? He admires you and desires your friendship. Why else would he have sent you to me?'

Already at a distance from me, Yamaga put his hands in front of him like a barrier between us.

'I do not love you, Yoshiko,' he said with a cutting honesty. 'Even if I did, I could not marry you. You are delicious and I desire you, but you are too brazen to be my wife. You are notorious in Tokyo and to marry you would bring shame on my father's house and break my mother's heart. I have obligations I intend to meet, and to do so I will marry a modest woman.'

I froze at his words, unable to move. My skin felt painfully thin and transparent. Yamaga must surely see my heart breaking, my blood pounding, veins, tendons, liver, all shrinking. Must surely take pity on me. He did not love me and suddenly, like Tokyo after the earthquake, the landscape of my life had changed. I had revealed myself to him and he had rejected me. He wanted a subservient wife who would defer to him in all things.

'How can it be that I am notorious?' I sobbed. 'I am Kawashima's daughter.'

Yamaga shook his head. 'Kawashima has not used you well,' he said. 'From the moment you were given to him, his plans for you were not those of an honourable father.'

I knew he spoke the truth, I knew too that my nature was different to that of Kawashima's daughters, and that despite being used by him I would not have wished for his daughters' powerless lives. I said as much to Yamaga and he smiled.

'Never underestimate the power of respectable women, Yoshiko,' he said. 'Those wives in Tokyo whose husbands come to you know it and despise you. You are too high born to be a geisha, and if not a geisha then what are you? To them you are the shame in Natsuko's household. They pity her and will never accept you into Japanese society.'

I sank to the floor. A few minutes before I had been truly happy, now I was only too aware of how thin the membrane is that divides bliss from misery. In that terrible moment all the pain I had suppressed in my life flooded my body and I was wracked with sobs. In Yamaga's rejection I relived the separation from my mother and my father's abandonment of me. I had always believed I was happy to be beyond the conventions of society, but now I knew that I was a victim of them. The wounds I had seemed to suffer so lightly in the past came back to burn like vitriol, and I felt that I would never recover. I had never before cared that, unlike Natsuko's daughters, I was not introduced to the visiting daughters of their guests. I had felt only relief at my exclusion, believing myself to be so much more sophisticated than those shy, proper young women. Now I knew that I had been perceived as unfit society, a soiled creature inhabiting the foreign wing of the house beyond the dark man-trodden passage.