MOTHS
Memoirs of a Geisha
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any rights on Memoirs of a Geisha.
Maybe the whole thing caught fire even before the glass broke. The lamp hit the ground and fire was added to fire. The reverb painted lights similar to plots of gold on silk, like ornaments on a too valuable kimono. Even for her.
[Geisha are like marvellous moths]
The sound of breaking glass mingled with the screams of the other women, the crackling of burning wood and the screech of the falling tents devoured by fire, leaving only ashes in its wake.
But Hatsumomo heard nothing.
Her black eyes stared at the flames and saw something else, her ears perceived different sounds.
[When moths move their wings, they enchant and seduce]
When she realized that the fire was about to invade her room, she chased the light strips that flames left on the floor and threw open the shoji, deciding in that moment she would have witnessed steady at the show. If the fire was about to burn her whole life, then she would have been in the front row.
[But they are more fragile than it appears]
The first to catch fire were the clothes she had left around the ryokan, and then her soft futon that once [a long, long time ago] had dried, absorbed and hidden all her angry tears. Then it was the turn of the only kokeshi she managed to grab before they took her away from her home.
With her back to the wall, straight and proud like a queen of a world ready to vanish like a wisp, the yukata covering the thin body with tenderness, as if to protect her from the pain, she stood silent and quiet.
Hatsumomo heard nothing.
The flames enveloped the dispenser. Face powder, eye shadow, lipstick, perfume. All those colours with which geisha mask their faces [and their souls], making them living works of art ready to be unravelled by a hand that has gone too far. Her crimson lips slightly curled while she watched everything turn to ashes. Including Koiychi's shirt, the one she had so jealously preserved.
Burn it down all that's left of my life.
The smell of the night swept away the dull stink of burnt silk and charred wood. The screams of other women of the Okiya Nitta seem to have become distant memories, almost like they never existed.
She turn back only to see how much of the old house is still standing, and to cast an undecipherable glance. Hatred, sorrow, pain... have vanished. Slowly, reassembling her pace and raising her head, the lacquered zori grazing the pavement, she quietly disappear in the night.
[Geisha are like beautiful moths, they can be themselves only at night
Sunlight kills them.]