Beauty and Sadness Read Free Page B

She had a longish slender neck, and charmingly shaped ears. Altogether, she was disturbingly beautiful. But she spoke quietly, in a rather reserved manner. He wondered if she knew what was between him and Otoko, something that had happened before she was born. Suddenly he asked: “Do you always wear a kimono?”
    “No, I’m not so proper,” she said, a little more easily. “At home I usually wear slacks. Miss Ueno said I should dress for the holiday, because New Year’s Day would come while we were out.” Apparently she was also to listen to the bells with them. He realized that Otoko was avoiding being alone with him.
    The car went up through Maruyama Park toward the Chionin Temple. Awaiting them in a private room at an elegant old tea house were two young apprentice geisha, besides Otoko herself. Again he was caught by surprise. Otoko was sitting alone at the
kotatsu
, her knees under itscoverlet; the two geisha sat across from each other at an open brazier. The girl who had brought him knelt at the doorway and bowed.
    Otoko drew herself away from the
kotatsu
to greet him. “It’s been such a long time,” she said. “I thought you might like to be near the Chionin bell, but I’m afraid they can’t offer anything elaborate here, they’re really closed for the holidays.”
    All Oki could do was thank her for going to so much trouble. But to have two geisha, besides her pupil! He could not even hint at the past they had shared, or let the way he looked at her betray it. His telephone call yesterday must have left her so upset and worried that she had decided to invite the geisha. Did her reluctance to be alone with him indicate the state of her feelings toward him? He had thought so the moment he was face to face with her. But at that first glance he felt he was still living within her. Probably the others did not notice. Or perhaps they did, since the girl was with her every day, and the geisha, though very young, were women of the pleasure quarter. Of course none of them showed the least sign of it.
    Otoko remained at one side, between the geisha, and had Oki sit at the
kotatsu.
Then she had her pupil take the seat opposite him. She seemed to be avoiding him again.
    “Miss Sakami, have you introduced yourself to Mr. Oki?” she asked lightly, and went on, as if formally presenting her: “This is Sakami Keiko, who’s staying with me. She may not look it, but she’s a bit crazy.”
    “Oh, Miss Ueno!”
    “She does abstract paintings in a style all her own. They’re so passionate they often seem a little mad. But I’m quite taken with them; I envy her. You can see her tremble as she paints.”
    A waitress brought sake and tidbits. The two geisha poured for them.
    “I had no idea I’d be listening to the bells in this sort of company,” said Oki.
    “I thought it might be pleasanter with young people. It’s lonely, when the bell tolls and you’re another year older.” Otoko kept her eyes down. “I often wonder why I’ve gone on living so long.”
    Oki remembered that two months after the death of her baby Otoko took an overdose of sleeping medicine. Had she also remembered? He had rushed to her side as soon as he learned of it. Her mother’s efforts to get Otoko to leave him had brought on the suicide attempt, but she sent for him nevertheless. Oki stayed at their house to help take care of her. Hour after hour he massaged her thighs, swollen and hard from massive injections. Her mother went in and out of the kitchen bringing hot steamed towels. Otoko lay nude under a light kimono. Still only sixteen, she had very slender thighs, and the injections made them swell up grotesquely. Sometimes when he pressed hard his hands slipped down to her inner thighs. While her mother was out of the room he wiped away the ugly discharge oozing between them. His own tears of pity and bitter shame fell on them, and he swore to himself that he would save her, that he would never part from her, come what