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Authors: Katherine Govier
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herself,” he said. “She has kindly returned my daughter.”
“She is much obliged to you for letting Ei entertain her in her quiet life,” said Shino.
They both laughed softly. I could feel the currents running between them. “I wonder if you would be walking on the boulevard some afternoon,” he said, “and I could thank you properly.”
She inclined her head just slightly. She seemed to think about this. “My time is not my own. But it is just possible I could find myself getting tea and treats for Fumi the day of the coming festival. She is very fond of the tea in that shop where we first met.”
7.
The Mad Poets
I T WAS THE eighth month, and one of those warm days before the cold set in. The Mad Poets group sat on the bank above the Sumida. My father was there, with Tsutaya the publisher, Utamaro the artist, and a jack-of-all-trades writer called Sanba. Sanba had the best cosmetics store in Edo, where he sold the white lead paint the actors put on their faces. He also wrote plays and critiques of the actors’ performances. And to ensure it all flourished, he had invented and sold a popular elixir of immortality. He made a lot of jokes and kept the others laughing. There was also Kyoden, author of yellow-back novels, which he sold along with smoking materials at his tobacco store. And Waki the tattooist, who now made beautiful little drawings and poems, too.
The courtesan Yuko carried a telescope; she kept lifting it to her eyes. It was trained on the distant racecourse at the edge of town. She murmured the name of the horse her lover had bet on. If it won, her lover would buy out her contract and free her. She believed that. She was silly and a bit pathetic but not a bad poet.
Like a courtesan’s
vowels the green strands
of a willow tree
stretch out extra long.
It wasn’t true what the brothel-keepers said: that people did not want to hear courtesans’ thoughts. Courtesans were very stylish. All Edo was keen to know the details of their lives in the Yoshiwara. And everyone went there, even though it was forbidden. People from all walks of life came in disguise. The pleasure district was a great vat of soup that way, and even though the bakufu insisted that the higher classes disdain us, it turned out that the samurai wanted to mingle with merchants, and their daughters found it exciting to sit down with peasants.
Because they were so strange, these proximities were titillating. Waki the tattooist sat beside Akemi, a merchant’s daughter. Her father was paying the bill, which meant we had plenty to eat. Everyone was drinking wine from stemmed glasses, making like Europeans. They were planning their next publication: the poets would write and the artists would illustrate a book, which the publisher would print. It was all very convenient.
Below us in the riverbed were wide, dry spaces on either side of the water. A dance troupe had set down a mat, and the women were tuning up their instruments. From our position on the bank above we had a good view.
I rolled in the weeds listening to the cicadas and the crickets. Their lifetime was nearly over; soon cold would silence them. On the rare occasion that someone would look at me, I would cross my eyes. The Mad Poets were completely involved with themselves, timid when sober but now drunk and boasting. And the serving girls—all about my age—didn’t want to wait on me. The poems were always about sex. “More so than the maiden flower which is charming from the front I prefer the purple trouser plant best seen from the rear.”
It was my father’s verse that made the poets laugh: purple trouser plant, ha, ha. I laughed along with them.
Hokusai looked up as if he’d just remembered I was there. Did he think I was too young for little rhymes about men who flee women? I made a face at him. I heard this kind of stuff all the time. It was nothing to me.
He went back to his composition.
I decided to make a painting. I grabbed a brush and paper and
“She is much obliged to you for letting Ei entertain her in her quiet life,” said Shino.
They both laughed softly. I could feel the currents running between them. “I wonder if you would be walking on the boulevard some afternoon,” he said, “and I could thank you properly.”
She inclined her head just slightly. She seemed to think about this. “My time is not my own. But it is just possible I could find myself getting tea and treats for Fumi the day of the coming festival. She is very fond of the tea in that shop where we first met.”
7.
The Mad Poets
I T WAS THE eighth month, and one of those warm days before the cold set in. The Mad Poets group sat on the bank above the Sumida. My father was there, with Tsutaya the publisher, Utamaro the artist, and a jack-of-all-trades writer called Sanba. Sanba had the best cosmetics store in Edo, where he sold the white lead paint the actors put on their faces. He also wrote plays and critiques of the actors’ performances. And to ensure it all flourished, he had invented and sold a popular elixir of immortality. He made a lot of jokes and kept the others laughing. There was also Kyoden, author of yellow-back novels, which he sold along with smoking materials at his tobacco store. And Waki the tattooist, who now made beautiful little drawings and poems, too.
The courtesan Yuko carried a telescope; she kept lifting it to her eyes. It was trained on the distant racecourse at the edge of town. She murmured the name of the horse her lover had bet on. If it won, her lover would buy out her contract and free her. She believed that. She was silly and a bit pathetic but not a bad poet.
Like a courtesan’s
vowels the green strands
of a willow tree
stretch out extra long.
It wasn’t true what the brothel-keepers said: that people did not want to hear courtesans’ thoughts. Courtesans were very stylish. All Edo was keen to know the details of their lives in the Yoshiwara. And everyone went there, even though it was forbidden. People from all walks of life came in disguise. The pleasure district was a great vat of soup that way, and even though the bakufu insisted that the higher classes disdain us, it turned out that the samurai wanted to mingle with merchants, and their daughters found it exciting to sit down with peasants.
Because they were so strange, these proximities were titillating. Waki the tattooist sat beside Akemi, a merchant’s daughter. Her father was paying the bill, which meant we had plenty to eat. Everyone was drinking wine from stemmed glasses, making like Europeans. They were planning their next publication: the poets would write and the artists would illustrate a book, which the publisher would print. It was all very convenient.
Below us in the riverbed were wide, dry spaces on either side of the water. A dance troupe had set down a mat, and the women were tuning up their instruments. From our position on the bank above we had a good view.
I rolled in the weeds listening to the cicadas and the crickets. Their lifetime was nearly over; soon cold would silence them. On the rare occasion that someone would look at me, I would cross my eyes. The Mad Poets were completely involved with themselves, timid when sober but now drunk and boasting. And the serving girls—all about my age—didn’t want to wait on me. The poems were always about sex. “More so than the maiden flower which is charming from the front I prefer the purple trouser plant best seen from the rear.”
It was my father’s verse that made the poets laugh: purple trouser plant, ha, ha. I laughed along with them.
Hokusai looked up as if he’d just remembered I was there. Did he think I was too young for little rhymes about men who flee women? I made a face at him. I heard this kind of stuff all the time. It was nothing to me.
He went back to his composition.
I decided to make a painting. I grabbed a brush and paper and
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