The Printmaker's Daughter (39 page)

“It is Oei,” I said.

“Ei! My child. Remember the golden days of the Yoshiwara? Long ago, the streets were beautiful. And people came here to spend their money. Now the
bakufu
are going to shut us down.”

She must have had cataracts. She was an old lady now. But in the lamplight she was just as she had been when I was a child. Her eyes glowed strangely. Her skin was very white.

“Who is it with you? Is it your father?” she said, and then I knew she couldn’t see.

“No. It is Eisen, the painter.”

“Ah!” She withdrew into the darkness of her little shop. “Take care of the Old Man. The Old Man is in trouble. I knew he would be one day.”

“The Old Man is far away, safe, in the countryside.”

The doors were shuttered: people hurried in the gloom. Year by year the Yoshiwara was losing its allure. The great brothels were declining; there was competition from illegal houses in Shinagawa and other parts of town. It was no longer considered chic to spend all your money on a desperate love affair with a courtesan.

There was still, in the teashop, a display of bedding meant to tempt the yobbos—sumptuous red silk futons and sky blue sheets embroidered with rivers of gold thread—but it was covered in dust. We sat in the back, near the fire. Beside us was a courtesan begging her lover not to forsake her. She was watched by a patient young attendant. She was not young but not old—probably my age.

She was elaborately decked out, her hair high, greased and punctured with lethal hairpins. Her face was heavily painted white, and her feet shone a chalky white, too, in the dark teashop. Her toenails were reddened with fruit juice. She shrugged her kimono back, and I could see a name carved in her shoulder. She had made her own tattoo this way, filling the wound with black ink.

It was the name of the man who was leaving.

Large tears stood on her pasty cheeks. Courtesans were famous for their tricks to make themselves cry “for love.” They pulled out eyelashes and sniffed alum. But this one was sincere. He was probably her last hope.

But he thrust her away and stood up. Before he had gone three steps, the courtesan had given up on him. She buried her head in her hands. The lamplight fell on the gouged-out characters of her lover’s name above her collarbone.

Her attendant extended a finger to touch the black scar. “You’re gonna hafta change it now,” she piped.

“Yeah, yeah,” said the woman, rubbing it absentmindedly. “I’ll burn it with
moxa
and, once it heals, start over . . .”

And I thought, Here, I agree with the
bakufu.
The pleasure district is immoral. But not for the reasons they cited—that simple people enjoyed luxuries and forgot their woes. What was immoral was the suffering of the courtesans. Eisen read my mind.

“The doors of the Corner Tamaya are solid gold, but inside are plagues of flower and willow diseases. When the courtesans are sick, the owners put them in a chicken coop,” Eisen said.

Eisen himself ran a brothel for a time, but it burned down and he was not sorry: it was more than he could stomach, he told me. Anyway, he could not compete with the unprincipled ones.

“The brothel owners go out to sumo matches and the theater. While they’re gone, the managers let in thieves and murderers, whoever can pay.”

His eyes glittered. His hands were near mine on the table.

I said, “It is difficult to remain a decent person in these times.”

“Interesting point,” he said. “Would I have been more honorable if honor were easy to achieve? Would it still be honor?”

I laughed. “The difficulty is knowing the definition.”

“I’m sure you are right and there’s no hope for me,” he said, raising his glass.

Candor was his appeal. He was close to the muck and the mire; he felt its lure, and its horrors too. Despite it all, he still liked to paint beauties. We shared that.

“Here’s to the great art you would make,” he said, raising his sake cup, “if you were not held captive under your father’s thumb.”

He reminded me of Sanba. Was this the way to my heart, then? Through the traitors’ gate that hated my subservient position to the Old Man? We talked until the clients came out the brothel doors and headed for the gate. Then we followed. The lamps were like stepping-stones in a garden of black. I looked for stars, but they were invisible that night, from that place. I ground my teeth at his word for me—“powerless.” It made me think of my mother.

“I am not powerless. I refuse to be powerless,” I said.

He gallantly took my arm. “Ago-Ago,” he said with a laugh.

There it was again: Chin-Chin. My big chin. My self-will. My father’s teasing, which now came from Eisen’s mouth as fellow feeling.

Arm in arm, we walked through the Great Gate, over the bridge, and up the zigzag path on Primping Hill. Our four feet clattered together, companionable. It was something new. Always I walked alone or behind my father. Eisen coddled my elbow, and my thoughts drifted to Tomei, my ex-husband. They drifted to the woman, whoever she was, who was married to Eisen.

We came to the docks. A boatman stood by. His small, roofed wooden craft nudged the pier.

“Here,” said Eisen, pulling coins from his purse. “We’ll take her out for a paddle.”

I sat under the canopy and drew my cloak around me while Eisen pushed us out with the oar. We glided. The water was still and reflected the low, snow-filled clouds. He pushed us beyond the noisy restaurant boats with their gaudy lamps and past the scattered working boats that came and went all night long. We reached the center of the river, where a wide swath of water moved quickly and smelled of the deep. Wet snow drifted in thin lines and then sank.

It was colder there. Eisen put down the oar with the exaggerated care of a man who knew he was impaired. He stood and the boat rocked. I giggled. He made his way back, tucked his kimono under himself, sat beside me and pulled me into the warmth of his body.

I was not in charge. It was as if a spirit—slow, earthy, and amused—took hold of my blood and my bones from within. This was new. I was cold, but I was melting, deep red. Eisen braced himself to balance me, but not soon enough. We fell to the floor of the boat.

This in itself was ridiculous, not to mention painful. We coughed a little and spoke to each other in broken, courteous phrases, like strangers who had been riding in this conveyance and were forced on top of each other by an earthquake. We were restrained. We tested each other. Then we both gave up the act.

We became rapacious—grasping and utterly selfish. I had known nothing like it. It went on—for how long I have no idea—and then it was over. I was dazed and very cold with melted snow and splash. Eisen too seemed shaken by the violent sequence. We both came back to ourselves slowly. The boat was rocking. The lamp at the prow was flickering. For anyone watching, it was a clear announcement. We laughed.

Eisen got to his feet, retying his kimono with dignity. I sat up and retied my obi. Another boat had drifted near. I could just make out two dark, urgent figures.

Eisen sat looking away from me at the water with the oar in his hand. The clouds had moved off. I could see stars buried deep in the river. We had drifted away from our boatman on shore. Eisen cursed. It would take a bit of rowing to get us back to the dock. I didn’t mind. I shook out my clothes and tied the warmest, driest parts to me. Then I sat and waited as he pulled against the current to get us back to dry land.

W
ITH MY FATHER
absent, I controlled our money. I counted it out carefully when I paid the vendors, unlike Hokusai, who tossed money at people’s feet because he felt it was beneath him to deal in it. Then, no fan of consistency, he would do the opposite and beg for it. I saved what we were paid and hid it with his seal in the tangerine box behind the statue of Saint Nichiren. I kept us alive; I did the commissions he found dull. Yet Hokusai hated me to manage us: he changed everything when he returned after months of absence.

It was two days before the new year. He strode in steaming from Uraga, full of fresh, cold air. I was cramped from sitting so long. I jumped up to greet him, surprised, too, by his condition. One leg was all pins and needles and buckled under me. I stumbled.

He laughed. “Oh, clumsy one! Oh, daughter mine, you don’t change!” he said.

Perhaps Eisen had spoiled me. He always said it was a pleasure to set eyes on me.

“I am sorry,” I said, in a not-so-sorry voice.

“Now don’t be sad! I’ve come to be with you for New Year’s. We will all be one year older. I will be seventy!”

And I would be thirty.

“We have our visits to make. And the monies to collect.”

“And bills to pay.”

“We must have money from the publisher.
Thirty-six Views
is so popular!”

He was very pleased with himself. And he looked healthy. A second youth was on him. I wished to be happy, but I simmered with resentment. Was he to have two lives and I none? He sat and called for tea, for sweets. I sent a student out to get some.

A feeling of festivity came over the studio. I lit a pipe. I drank sake. I watched Hokusai, full of stories, wagging his head, putting on a show.

“It’s all that
beru,
” I said. “It’s made you into a boy again.”

“Nonsense. I am the Old Man. I am the oldest man in the town.”

He showed me his latest drawings for the Fuji prints. He was expanding the series to forty-six; after that, he said, he would do one hundred more.

“But will you be able to think of so many? And each one different?”

“I will, I will. I am young again, didn’t you say it?”

It’s true he seemed his old self. His speech never slurred. His eyes were bright, and though I was beginning to think of sleep, he bounced with energy. I had something to tell him. I had told no one yet, and it pleased me very much.

“See what I will be working on in the coming year?” I said. I held out the note. It was from the publisher Suzanbo. “He is asking me to do the illustrations for a new edition of
100 Famous Poems by 100 Poets.
”

My father snatched the note from my hand and scanned it. “He has written asking that Oei do these illustrations?” he said. “And not her father?”

I cast my eyes down and set my head on an angle.

“There must be some mistake.”

Maybe his eyes were not so good after all. He had to read the note again and again. He looked up at me in quite comical confusion.

“Are you sure that is what it says? I don’t think so. I think they are asking you to arrange for me to do it.”

I had no need to look again. I had looked many times. “He commissions me.”

“But why? There must be some mistake. Why are they asking you and not me?” He seemed bewildered.

“Because they like my painting style, do you think?” I said drily.

“Your style? What do they know of your style? I know your style. I am your father. Your style is the style I give you. No one else knows your style.”

Now he was getting angry. He flung the note to the cats. He puffed out his chest and blew.

“Suzanbo knows my style,” I said, as mildly as I could. “People know, after all. I have my students here. I am busy while you are out of Edo. Where is that note?” I retrieved it from my friends the cats, who had been pawing it. “He’s asking me because he wants me to do it.”

“Oh, no. That’s not a good idea. I would do a much better job,” said my father.

“Different . . .” I allowed. “More expensive, for sure.”

“No.
Better.
Certainly better. For the
waka
poems? There is no question.”

I was angry. But I was not permitted anger. Anger belonged to him. I allowed my eyes to go dead.

Hokusai saw my feelings. He puffed a little more and then turned with the pivot of his heel from child to stern patriarch. “You know, Daughter, that I appreciate your style. I have said so. But trust me in this. I’ll take this commission. Give me the note. I’ll write back to Suzanbo and do these myself.”

29.

Laughing Pictures

M
Y FATHER APPEARED
one night.
Atanda, atanda-bate.
I heard him just outside the door. He came in but didn’t greet me. He circled the room, tossing up my cloak where it hung, looking for something.

“So it’s Eisen now, is it?” he said heavily.

How did he know?

“Don’t worry, Old Man. He’s not here,” I said, as Hokusai continued his restless search. I wanted our easy banter. But my father acted like a jealous lover.

He sat down finally and I got him tea. As he took it from my hands, I saw that I was forgiven but still to be chastised. “He’s married. You don’t learn,” he said.

They said Eisen and I made a strange pair. He was ten years older, a debaucher, a man of the town. I was the gloomy spinster and my father’s drudge. But how we laughed! When we could, we met at the theater. He wanted to be a playwright. But his work was too full of explanations. I told him so. “There’s nothing to say. The actors just want to strike a spectacular pose. They don’t need your thoughts!”