Read Online The Printmaker's Daughter by Katherine Govier - Free Book Online

most of them were a few years older than that.
    “The skin must be pale pink, like cherry blossoms.”
    Their skin was not pink but sallow; they never went outside.
    “The eyes must be the shape of a melon seed. Nose depends on the face—not too large, not too small. Mouth should be very narrow across, and lips puffed as if a wasp has stung them. Eyes large and very black in the center. Eyebrows close together.”
    The girls fell silent, each one reflecting on how far away she was from the ideal. I did too.
    “The teeth must be white and the nose must be gradual. The ears must be long and far away from your face, not fleshy.”
    “Oooh.”
    They curdled at the thought of fleshy ears.
    “When you lift up your hair, the nape should be clean and your neck long.”
    “How do you know all this?” said Shino.
    “ ’S written in a tablet, and we’re measured. We’ve all bin assessed.”
    “Waist must be very narrow and legs long in proportion to the back. Top of the head flat, like you can rest a plate on it.”
    A couple of them stood up and put plates on their heads and tried walking. The plates slid off.
    “And don’t forget the feet—a lovely arch.”
    “And the toes should curl up!”
    Here all the women put their hands over their mouths and giggled. Shino didn’t get the joke. Neither did I.
    Fumi whispered, “ ’F yu have curled-up toes, it means that yur a wanton woman.”
    “I am not,” said Shino indignantly. “Izn it?”
    Everyone roared. Fumi patted her leg. “Good girl,” she said.
    I looked at Shino and she looked at me. Her eyes were nothing like the shape of a melon seed. They were flat on top and curved on the bottom: they looked like little boats sailing across a placid sea. And her nose—the slope was not gradual at all but rather hasty. It had a big bump in it too. I put my hand on my chin to cover it because I knew how it stuck out.
    “Fingers!” said the nice one. “Fingers must have tapered ends and be long and supple.”
    “Got that one.” Shino had graceful long fingers. We all looked at them. They didn’t seem enough somehow.
    “The yakko will become more beautiful as she gets a little older,” said Fumi.
    “Not possible. Your basic face can’t change.”
    “Yeah, but the rules c’n change. F’r instance, it used to be yur eyebrows had to be far apart, and now, it’s easy to see, the most beautiful thing iz to have the eyebrows close together,” continued the older courtesan. “We can pluck some and get them to grow t’wards each other. I’ve seen it done.” She paused. “And yur face will grow into this nose.”
    Shino did not look hopeful.
    “Wait. Doan give up,” said Fumi. “Think of those hands.”
    Shino held up her hands. They looked very nice to me.
    “They are large,” said the courtesan dubiously. She bent a finger back. “But so flexible!”
    “I play the koto.”
    “And she makes paintings,” I said. “She can write many Chinese characters too.”
    “There, already ’z better news! It’s as Kana says—you have talents! We poor girls have no talent, nuthin’. Probly you write poetry?”
    “I like to write down my thoughts . . .” Shino ventured shyly.
    They all fell over laughing.
    “Oh, no. No, no. No one wanz to hear a prostitute’s thoughts.”
    Shino led me back to my father and let go of my hand. He was crouched as usual and chuckling to himself as he copied the antics of a trainer and his monkey with his darting brush.
    “Go,” she said, pushing me. “I will see you again soon.”
    “But, Shino,” I whined loudly. I wanted to see my father’s reaction when he knew she was near. And sure enough his head came up, his face colored and softened. He put down his brush—he never did that for anyone else—and scrambled to his feet. He was barely taller than her, and while she made herself taller, like a sapling straining for sun, he made himself shorter, swaying and bending his knees.
    “It is the beautiful yakko