Geiko, Maiko and Danna
Without knowing exactly how it happened, I found myself sitting in a taxi next to Mizuki. I was a cocktail shaker of ominous sensations and desires more difficult to separate than the ingredients in the Stigmata Martyr I’d just had.
As the taxi climbed to an outlying neighborhood in the foothills of one of the mountains surrounding Kyoto, I glanced at this woman who was pulling me into her private abyss.
Any man in my situation would have tried to spend an unforgettable night with her but, for better or worse, I was full of reservations. I went through each one in my head as the taxi left the city center behind and entered the residential neighborhoods.
If she was still married, that was sufficient reason to keep my distance. I could put myself in the place of her abandoned husband. Even if she’d come back to Kyoto, I would have been deeply wounded to discover she’d gone to bed with a foreigner she’d just met.
Then there was the question of whether I was free to do what I wanted.
Gabriela had asked for a break, but without specifying how long a break.
Did that mean I had to wait and be faithful to her in the meantime?
Was she still with me, in Paris or wherever she was?
Or had she lied when she’d said there was no other man?
Wrapped up in these musings, which only made me feel bad, I felt Mizuki’s cold fingers caressing the side of my neck.
“I can see you’re tense,” she whispered in my ear. “You should relax. I don’t have any expectations about what might happen between you and me, if that’s what you want to know. I’m living for the moment. When we were in Namida no Café, I just wanted to be somewhere quieter with you. That’s all.”
“I’m flattered,” I said, trying to hide my nervousness. “This trip has been a revelation. I’m beginning to see that I’m a man who doesn’t know how to enjoy the pleasures of life. That’s why my partner left me, and that’s why you’re going to be disappointed at the end of the night.”
In response, Mizuki raised her index finger to her nose and smiled. Then she pointed at a small house next to some traffic lights where we’d stopped.
I was amazed to see a geisha coming out carrying something that looked like a lute and then getting into a car with tinted windows. Her movements were so graceful she hardly seemed to touch the ground.
“That’s the second one I’ve seen since arriving in Kyoto.”
“You’ve been lucky then. You don’t often see them, especially at night.”
“Really? I thought they’d be working at private functions at night.”
“They do, but they move around with the utmost discretion, as you’ve just seen. They very rarely work so late at night, like the one we’ve just seen.” She gave me a provocative look. “Unless they’re modern geisha like me.”
“Do you see them more often in the morning?”
“Yes. Although there are only about a thousand in Japan now, you can see them early in the morning in Gion, doing errands with their maiko.”
“What are maiko?”
“Apprentice geisha. In Tokyo they start when they’re eighteen, but here fifteen is seen as old enough to start learning the arts of the geiko, which is what geisha are called here.”
“Geiko and maiko . . . And what else do they do, apart from playing the lute? I mean, aside from dressing and styling themselves in incredible ways and mastering traditional Japanese arts?”
“Are you insinuating that geiko are prostitutes?”
“Please . . .” I threw up my arms to protest my innocence. “Nothing was further from my—”
“Even though they flirt in accordance with the old rules and joke with men, their profession always precludes any kind of sexual relationship. What they do traditionally have is a danna—a lover-protector who pays for their very expensive training and the other expenses incurred in becoming a geisha.”
Just then, the taxi pulled up in front of a two-story house. Taking the keys from her bag as the car drove off, Mizuki announced, “Now you’re going to find out what a modern geiko does.”