A light snow fell on the red lanterns and cobbled alleys of the Yoshiwara, the pleasure quarter of Edo. Ice broke thinly beneath the high, damask sandals of the courtesan as she swayed silkily past the raucous tea shops and restaurants, the gaudy posters of kabuki actors, and the many strolling men. They lowered their eyes when she boldly appraised them. She recognized a priest despite his merchant disguise. Rice brokers and silk traders and saké brewers or their sons argued drunkenly over where they would spend large amounts of money next, and called out lewdly to the street women in robes so loose they exposed the shoulders, sometimes a breast. Some of the men were disheveled, too, their drab cotton clothes revealing the brilliant lining of silk that the aristocracy could no longer afford and that the merchants could not display under the sumptuary laws. A lower-ranked prostitute, little more than a waitress, pulled at the shabby sleeve of a young man and offered her services for free. The courtesan recognized him as a striving writer, a hanger-on of one of her patrons, a celebrated poet whose image was in many a woodblock-print shop. She smiled and drew her short coat closely around the layers of her kimono.
It was the late 17th century. The 18-year-old Emperor was sequestered in Kyoto, and the Shogun ruled from Edo, casting a net of steel and spies over the land. In this era of peace and unmatched wealth, merchants enjoyed a life of pleasure and art thanks to the underclass of actors and courtesans. Officially disdained by polite society, they were richer, more self-indulgent, and freer than the fading aristocracy and the ascetic, Confucian samurai, and even the merchants. This was the floating world—the ukiyo.* A word that once evoked the sad impermanence of earthly things now meant all that was fashionable and nouveau. The strains of drinking songs and bits of ribaldry hovered in the cold air, and the courtesan lifted her smooth face to the snow, feeling it on her eyelids, grateful that she lived in this floating—if fleeting—world of color, luxury, and excess.
The drunken men dared not accost her. They knew who she was and where she was going. At the edge of the pleasure quarter was a quiet alley and a teahouse different from all the others. It appeared dark and quiet. It did not even have a split curtain over the gate announcing its name—just a stone lantern that cast short shadows on the snow. It was the Tora—the Tiger. An unusual name for a teahouse, but it was an unusual teahouse.
A guard slid opens the wooden gate, and the courtesan stepped into a silent stone courtyard. Another door and another slid open. Suddenly she was in a world of brilliant lanterns and song and samisen music and drunken merriment. Leaving her sandals on the stones, she stepped up to the creaking wooden floor in her white split-toe socks, carefully gathering her many skirts. A servant took her coat, and she smoothed her long, wide sleeves.
She was the only courtesan of the Tora, in the whole of Edo, in fact, whose hair was not elaborately sculpted and lacquered. Her hair flowed, stopped loosely in the middle of her back by a black silk ribbon, and flowed again to below the waist, a long, thick ink stroke against gold and purple. She shook the snow from her hair and the tendrils brushed her cheeks. She was also the only courtesan in Edo who did not mask her face in white powder; her features were accented, not disguised.
The Tora's Master, her business partner, had requested her presence. The occasion was special and she would work for free. She could not decline, nor did she wish to. It was part of an arrangement—one that brought in no direct profit to the Tora but allowed it to prosper.
The highest-ranking generals of the Shogunate regularly came to the Tora. Here they did not suffer the indignity of wearing a disguise but arrived proudly on horseback, their crests emblazoned on their uniforms. The Shogun himself had graced the Tora, and the courtesan entertained him then, interpreting for him and a Portuguese emissary. Educated like a male, she was prized by the Tora for her language skills and the ease with which she could converse with playwrights and military strategists, painters and bankers.
Her privileges were extensive. She need not shed her clothes, for she could decide upon whom she would bestow earthly pleasure. She could decline the Shogun himself despite the sheer power and intelligence he exuded as he sat silently, taking in much through his hooded eyes. He was, in any case, more interested in her translation skills than her charm, and valued her opinion when he asked for it in private, usually at the Castle. The other courtesans provided the generals with sensual entertainment. Some generals, however, were escorted by young, beautiful warriors—the ones that her patron Saikaku described in The Comrade Loves of the Samurai—seeking only a place that looked kindly upon their unnamed love and offered luxurious diversions.
The letter she received that day from the Tora's Master simply said that the guest was a general and an adviser of the Shogun. That was not unusual, but the name was strange, and the letter said that the general was a gaijin, a foreigner. Why, she wondered as she soaked in her bath, would the Shogun have a barbarian in his inner circle? The Tora's Master hinted that the general was skilled in European weapons and was helping the Shogunate train the samurai in their use. He also said that the general was learned in various healing arts. She had never heard of such a combination of skills. She had never even heard of the general's land. Was it, perhaps, an unknown province of China? A new kingdom in Europe, that land of endless tribal warfare?
She had dressed carefully, holding her arms up patiently as her servant wound the wide green sash around her several times, tight enough to keep the layers of silk together but loose and low enough to allow the lapels to fall open if necessary. She hoped that he was not Dutch, who were permitted to live in Nagasaki. She had no wish to be in the company of the pale-eyed, who, it was said, urinated like dogs, one leg lifted, and did not bathe.
Now she stood outside the Room of Clouds. Her eyes cast down, she slid the door open to enter, and closed it. She sank to her knees, placed her delicate fingertips on the straw matting, and bowed deeply.
