Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper.
Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha
Flor Sin Retoño
The night was frigid, the apartment dark save for the light of the candles on a low table in the corner of the room. Crystal tears fell from her soft chocolate colored eyes, smearing her kohl and leaving wet trails down her white painted face revealing the skin beneath and falling onto the table on which her head lay. He wasn't coming back, she knew for he left her a long time ago, but somewhere deep within her soul she held onto the childish fantasy that he would return to her. Her danna, a sob escaped her, her danna no longer wanted her, after so many years of serving him of endless devotion he tossed her aside like a broken doll. Her makeup ruined, her elaborate hair in total disarray, her life wasted, while her cream colored kimono with emerald and gold vines and plumb colored obi remained perfect and unmarred with tears, she wanted to keep that little bit of dignity. While it was true that she was still able to work and that none of her skills in dancing, playing the shamisen and all the other training she received was still intact, without a danna advancing her career was nearly impossible.
"Danna-san mata yo, ne?" she whispered into the darkness for her maid was dismissed hours earlier, told to find new work and never return. Whatever meager wages she earned from the point her danna stopped supporting her she needed in order to purchase kimono, going to the hairdresser, vanities such as her makeup, her dresser, and all other manner of expenses. Her spacious apartment, the length of six tatami mats, needed to be sacrificed along just as she sacrificed her maid, the money to keep it was far more than she made without a danna. Before, while she was still an apprentice, a simple Maiko, she never believed in the importance of a danna, regardless of her "older sister's" insistence that she needed one in order to advance in her career and thus leave the okiya she was bound to. Of course, there was still her collection of kimono and each kimono sold for at least 1150 yen, but she loathed to part with them for he gave them to her, even the ones she no longer wore the ones meant for an apprentice. Her jewelry, perhaps if she sold her ornaments, but with unadorned hair, the chance of ridicule increased tenfold, bad enough that she was without a danna but to also be without ornaments for her hair as well it was unacceptable. The loss of her danna was not such a terrible thing, however, she committed the worst type of mistake for a woman in her career she fell in love with a man, a man that was chosen as her danna over all the other men who vied for that position.
She remembered the first time she met her danna, at the age of fourteen when she was at her first engagement as a novice, she remembered how handsome he was but what truly entrapped her was his eyes, the color of liquid gold but as cold as the snow covering the ground outside the teahouse. Those eyes, such an unusual color (that was her opinion all those years ago), she remembered their calmness, void of any type of emotion as the others performed dances, sung songs, and attempted to draw him into conversations. However, unlike his companions who appeared to enjoy the company of so many women, this man appeared to be bored with the whole affair never acknowledging any advances in conversation. In truth she doubted that he was there of his own free will, later on she learned that he was there due to obligation and other more personal reasons that he never confided in her about. She remembered that from that moment on, from the moment she first laid eyes on him, she was bound to him in a way that was indescribable, he plagued her dreams and every time she performed she always imagined that she was performing for him. She pretended that it was his tea or sake that she was poring, she pretended that she was conversing with him, such foolish naïve dreams that perhaps he was the one that was willing to pay the highest amount for her mizuage, for he appeared to like her. She was the only woman with whom he treated with a little dignity and did buy her several presents, a ruby that she asked gave to her "Mother," a trunk for her to use when she went on trips outside of her district, a parasol, and other little items more than any other woman received from him. She remembered her "older sister" saying that no man was interested in a young fourteen-year-olds conversation what he truly wanted was her mizuage, and it seemed that that was what the Golden-eyed Man did want- her mizuage for he did make bids on it. However, once the price came to 900 yen, he dropped out, this was not to say that the price was too high for he possessed enough wealth to pay four times that amount, it became apparent to her that whatever this man found attractive in her it wasn't her mizuage. Her mizuage sold for an amazing 13500 yen, bought by a the owner of a large company whose headquarters where in Tokyo, and the experience was one she never wanted to remember, after that one night she rarely saw the man again. However, she continuously saw the Golden-eyed Man many nights afterward, she was always the one to serve him and thus always sat next to him even though he rarely spoke to her or gave any indication that he heard her words. Sometimes he called her comments foolish and she was sure that he was angry with her but he never chose another woman to entertain him even though there were countless others willing to do so, for that she was grateful.
One month after her eighteenth birthday and when her apprenticeship was completed her Mother informed her that a man offered to be her danna, her shock instantly turned into enthusiasm when she learned that her danna (if chosen by Mother) was the Golden-eyed man. She knew his name by that time, but she never called him by it when she was alone for he was always the "Golden-eyed Man" in her mind and nothing was capable of changing the title.
The tears stopped, but she kept her head on the table without the smallest amount of energy to raise her head and certainly none to fix her ruined makeup, rearrange her hair ornaments, and leave for a teahouse to entertain men for at least an hour or so. Everything was so meaningless now that he was gone, what purpose did she have to live for her life was him, he was her reason for existing, her reason for excelling at her art the reason that she never ran away when she was still an apprentice, even when life was unbearable. She no longer possessed a reason for living, she felt empty and cold without him, she felt worthless and felt that perhaps death was a better solution than fading into obscurity and falling deeper and deeper into poverty as the days passed. It was certainly a much better option, in her mind, than becoming a prostitute and living in a poor jorou-ya and spending the rest of her days as a plaything for men who reeked of sweat. She lifted her head and spied a small hand mirror, the last gift he gave her and at the time she treasured it above all the others now she refused to look at it for the image reflected in the black lacquered mirror decorated with gold vines mocked her. She moved slowly, her petite frame traveling languidly through the semi-darkness, sleepily almost, she picked up the mirror and removed its cover placing it gently on the table she stared at her reflection once before throwing the mirror onto the floor and watched it shatter- like she shattered.
In the end, however, who we are born as and who we die as does not matter neither does the social level we are born into and ultimately die in for each has one indisputable thing in common: a corpse is a corpse regardless of its heritage, wealth, skin color, gender, or race. She stared at the broken pieces of glass and in each fragmented piece she swore that she saw pieces of her life memories of a time before, before the white makeup, even before the lessons, to a time when she was merely a normal girl running around barefoot through her village in an old tattered robe. She gently picked up a shard of the broken mirror, taking care not to cut her fingers - there were only two things she wanted to cut that night nothing more. The blood that seeped into the sleeves of her kimono spread, staining the delicate silk and as the blood continued to flow she laid her head once more on the table, sleepy dimly noting that the night grew colder and colder or perhaps it was just her she mused before darkness enveloped her, the candles burned out blanketing the room in complete darkness.
Outside, on the snowy ground a crimson ribbon lay abandoned on the ground appearing like blood against the purity of the snow or like red lips against a white painted face.
