The Tokaido Road (1991)(528p) Read Free Page A

beside the shelves.
    Butterfly hastily wrapped an apron around her wadded cotton sleeping robe, tied back her sleeves, and pondered this latest surprise. Cat never drew her own water. Old Jug Face employed a small army of maids and servants and apprentices to do that sort of work.
    Cat obviously wasn’t going to explain anything, and the child dared not ask more questions. She knelt behind Cat, who sat in front of the big round mirror on its lacquered stand. While Butterfly untied the hidden paper ribbons that held the tiers of coils and falls of Cat’s hairdo in place, Cat scrubbed the white makeup from her face.
    “How shall I fix it, mistress?” Butterfly asked softly. The soft, glossy mass of hair lay across her palm, and she continued combing it almost reverently.
    “Simply tie it.”
    Butterfly wound a flat, red paper ribbon around the hair, catching it just above Cat’s waist in a style no longer in fashion. It made her appear archaic, like a lady of the royal court.
    When Cat finished washing the layer of powder off her face, neck, arms, and hands, she dipped a brush into the jar of black paint and thickened her arched eyebrows. With her heavy eyebrows and the few freckles scattered across her nose, Cat looked like a demon, a very beautiful demon.
    The festivities next door had grown more boisterous. They were having so much fun, in fact, that the party on the other side of them slid back a section of the paper-paneled wall between the rooms and joined them. A guest had pulled the bumpy skin of a sea slug over his erect ano mono, “that thing.” One of the women had drawn a face on it with her teeth-blackening paint. Now it was preceding its owner, leading them all in a game of Follow the Leader. The drum beat steadily, and the paper walls vibrated as they danced in a long, tipsy, naked line around the enlarged room.
    “Help me drag him out of here.” Cat pulled the big, soiled quilt around the customer as efficiently as if she were changing dirty linen.
    The quilt was shaped like a large kimono, and Cat brought the bottom edge up between his spraddled legs and put it together with the sleeves. It formed a bulky sling with the customer’s skinny shins sticking out in opposite directions. With his staring eyes and his open mouth, he seemed about to protest the indignity.
    “I might wake him.” Butterfly inadvertently touched his hand. It was as rigid as a bamboo back scratcher. She squealed.
    “Only the Beloved Amida, Buddha Himself, can wake him now.” Cat rapped Butterfly lightly on the crown of her head with a folded fan to recall her from death’s distractions. “He certainly doesn’t care what you do. And I didn’t kill him. The fugu wasn’t cleaned properly.”
    Butterfly looked in horror at the flimsy tissue of blowfish whose edges were curling up slightly as it dried. A dead fly lay on it.
    When Cat and Butterfly dragged the body off the pile of mattresses, it landed with a thud and knocked over a tall iron candle holder. Trapped gas escaped in a noisome explosion from the guest’s bowels. Butterfly giggled nervously into the palms of her hands. Cat looked around in alarm.
    She needn’t have worried. Against the ranks of sliding paper wall panels receding into the brothel’s dim interior, the writhing shadows and rustlings of professional courtship went on unabated. The laughter and drumming continued. Distant music cascaded from a samisen.
    “See if anyone is in the storeroom.” Cat was much stronger than her slender body looked. She dragged the bundle across the slick tatami to the opening through which Butterfly had just disappeared. She peered into the narrow servants’ corridor. For once, she was glad Old Jug Face had spitefully assigned her these rooms at the rear of the house.
    Butterfly scurried back, her feet snapping the hem of her robe. “It’s empty.”
    “Now find a candle on the shelf next to the books. Light it and bring it.”
    “Will you hide him in there?”