Kimono Part 21

Geoffrey expected further introductions; but the time had not yet come. With a wave of the arm Mr. Ito added:

"Please step this way, Sir and Lady."

The Barringtons with Ito led the procession; and the mutes closed in behind them. Down endless polished corridors they pa.s.sed with noiseless steps over the spotless boards. The only sound was the rustling of silk garments. To closed eyes they might have seemed like the arrival of a company of dowagers. The women, who had at first received them, were still fluttering around them like humming-birds escorting a flight of crows. To one of them Geoffrey owed his preservation. He would have struck his forehead against a low doorway in the darkness; but she touched the lintel with her finger and then laid her tiny hand on Barrington's tall shoulder, laughing and saying in infantile English:

"English _danna san_ very high!"

They came to a sudden opening between paper walls. In a little room behind a table stood a middle-aged j.a.panese couple as stiff as waxworks. For an instant Geoffrey thought they must be the cloakroom attendants. Then, to his surprise, Ito announced:

"Mr. and Mrs. Fujinami Gentaro, the head of the Fujinami family.

Please walk in and shake hands."

Geoffrey and his wife did as they were directed. Three mutual bowings took place in absolute silence, followed by a handshake. Then Ito said:

"Mr. and Mrs. Fujinami Gentaro wish to say they are very pleased you both come to-night. It is very poor food and very poor feast, they say. j.a.panese food is very simple sort of thing. But they ask you please excuse them, for what they have done they have done from a good heart."

Geoffrey was mumbling incoherently, and wondering whether he was expected to reply to this oration, when Ito again exclaimed, "Please step this way."

They pa.s.sed into a large room like a concert hall with a stage at one end. There were several men squatting on the floor round _hibachi_ smoking and drinking beer. They looked like black sheep browsing.

These were joined by the mutes who followed the Barringtons. All of these people were dressed exactly alike. They wore white socks, a dark kimono almost hidden by the black cloak upon which the family crest--a wreath of wisteria (_fuji_) foliage--shone like a star on sleeves and neck, and by the fluted yellowish skirt of heavy rustling silk. This dress, though gloomy and sacerdotal, was dignified and becoming; but the similarity was absurd. It looked like a studied effect at a fancy dress ball. It was particularly exasperating to the guests of honour who were anxious to distinguish their relatives and to know them apart; but Ito alone, with his European clothes and his purple tie, was conspicuous and unmistakable.

"He is like Mrs. Jarley," thought Geoffrey, "he explains the waxworks."

In the middle of the room was a little group of chairs of the weary beast of burden type, which are requisitioned for public meetings. Two of them were dignified by cushions of crimson plush. These were for Geoffrey and Asako.

Among the black sheep there was no movement beyond the steady staring of some thirty pairs of eyes. When the Harringtons had been enthroned, the host and hostess approached them with silent dragging steps and downcast faces. They might have been the bearers of evil tidings. A tall girl followed behind her parents.

Mrs. Fujinami Shidzuye and her daughter, Sadako, were the only women present. This was a compromise, and a consideration for Asako's feelings. Mr. Ito had proposed that since a lady was the chief guest of honour, therefore all the Fujinami ladies ought to be invited to meet her. To Mr. Fujinami's strict conservative mind such an idea was anathema. What! Wives at a banquet! In a public restaurant! With _geisha_ present! Absurd--and disgusting! _O tempora! O mores_!

Then, argued the lawyer, Asako must not be invited. But Asako was the _clou_ of the evening; and besides, an English gentleman would be insulted if his wife were not invited too. And--as Mr. Ito went on to urge--any woman, j.a.panese or foreign, would be ill-at-ease in a company composed entirely of men. Besides Sadako could speak English so well; it was so convenient that she should come; and under her mother's care her morals would not be contaminated by the propinquity of _geisha_. So Mr. Fujinami gave in so far as concerned his own wife and daughter.

Shidzuye San, as befitted a matron of sober years, wore a plain black kimono; but Sadako's dress was of pale mauve color, with a bronze sash tied in an enormous bow. Her hair was parted on one side and caught up in a bun behind--the latest _haikara_ fashion and a tribute to the foreign guests. Hers was a graceful figure; but her expression was spoiled by the blue-tinted spectacles which completely hid her features.

"Miss Sadako Fujinami, daughter of Mr. Fujinami Gentaro," said Ito.

"She has been University undergraduate, and she speaks English quite well."

Miss Sadako bowed three times. Then she said, "How do you do" in a high unnatural voice.

The room was filling up with the little humming-bird women who had been present at the entrance. They were handing cigarettes and tea cups to the guests. They looked bright and pleasant; and they interested Geoffrey.

"Are these ladies relatives of the Fujinami family?" he asked Ito.

"Oh, no, not at all," the lawyer gasped; "you have made great mistake, Mr. Barrington. j.a.panese ladies all left at home, never go to restaurant. These girls are no ladies, they're _geisha_ girls.

_Geisha_ girls very famous to foreign persons."

Geoffrey knew that he had made his first _faux pas_.

"Now," said Mr. Ito, "please step this way; we go upstairs to the feast room."

The dining-room seemed larger still than the reception room. Down each side of it were arranged two rows of red lacquer tables, each about eighteen inches high and eighteen inches square. Mysterious little dishes were placed on each side of these tables; the most conspicuous was a flat reddish fish with a large eye, artistically served in a rollicking att.i.tude, which in itself was an invitation to eat.

The English guests were escorted to two seats at the extreme end of the room, where two tables were laid in isolated glory. They were to sit there like king and queen, with two rows of their subjects in long aisles to the right and to the left of them.

The seats were cushions merely; but those placed for Geoffrey and Asako were raised on low ha.s.socks. After them the files of the Fujinami streamed in and took up their appointed positions along the sides of the room. They were followed by the _geisha_, each girl carrying a little white china bottle shaped like a vegetable marrow, and a tiny cup like the bath which hygienic old maids provide for their canary birds.

"j.a.panese _sake_" said Sadako to her cousin, "you do not like?"

"Oh, yes, I do," replied Asako, who was intent on enjoying everything.

But on this occasion she had chosen the wrong answer; for real ladies in j.a.pan are not supposed to drink the warm rice wine.

The _geisha_ certainly looked most charming as they slowly advanced in a kind of ritualistic procession. Their feet like little white mice, the dragging skirts of their spotless kimonos, their exaggerated care and precision, and their stiff conventional att.i.tudes presented a picture from a Satsuma vase. Their dresses were of all shades, black, blue, purple, grey and mauve. The corner of the skirt folded back above the instep revealed a glimpse of gaudy underwear provoking to men's eyes, and displayed the intricate stenciled flower patterns, which in the case of the younger women seemed to be catching hold of the long sleeves and straying upwards. Little dancing girls, thirteen and fourteen years old--the so-called _hangyoku_ or half jewels--accompanied their elder sisters of the profession. They wore very bright dresses just like the dolls; and their ma.s.sive _coiffure_ was bedizened with silver spangles and elaborately artificial flowers.

"Oh!" gasped the admiring Asako, "I must get one of those _geisha_ girls to show me how to wear my kimonos properly; they do look smart."

"I do not think," answered Sadako. "These are vulgar women, bad style; I will teach you the n.o.ble way."

But all the _geisha_ had a grave and dignified look, quite different from the sprightly b.u.t.terflies of musical comedy from whom Geoffrey had accepted his knowledge of j.a.pan.

They knelt down before the guests and poured a little of the _sake_ into the shallow saucer held out for their ministrations. Then they folded their hands in their laps and appeared to slumber.

A sucking sound ran round the room as the first cup was drained. Then a complete silence fell, broken only by the shuffle of the girls' feet on the matting as they went to fetch more bottles.

Mr. Fujinami Gentaro spoke to the guests a.s.sembled, bidding them commence their meal, and not to stand upon ceremony.

"It is like the one--two--three--go! at a race," thought Geoffrey.

All the guests were manipulating their chop-sticks. Geoffrey raised his own pair. The two slender rods of wood were unparted at one end to show that they had never been used. It was therefore necessary to pull them in two. As he did so a tiny splinter of wood like a match fell from between them.

Asako laughed.

"That is the toothpick," cousin Sadako explained. "We call such chop-sticks _komochi-hashi_, chopstick with baby, because the toothpick inside the chopstick like the baby inside the mother. Very funny, I think."

There were two kinds of soup--excellent; there was cooked fish and raw fish in red and white slices, chastely served with ice; there were vegetables known and unknown, such as sweet potatoes, French beans, lotus stems and bamboo shoots. These had to be eaten with the aid of the chop-sticks--a difficult task when it came to cutting up the wing of a chicken or balancing a soft poached egg.

The guests did not eat with gusto. They toyed with the food, sipping wine all the time, smoking cigarettes and picking their teeth.

Geoffrey, according to his own description, was just getting his eye in, when Mr. Fujinami Gentaro rose from his humble place at the far end of the room. In a speech full of poetical quotations, which must have cost his tame students considerable trouble in the composition, he welcomed Asako Barrington, who, he said, had been restored to j.a.pan like a family jewel which has been lost and is found. He compared her visit to the sudden flowering of an ancient tree. This did not seem very complimentary; however, it referred not to the lady's age but to the elder branch of the family which she represented. After many apologies for the tastelessness of the food and the stupidity of the entertainment, he proposed the health of Mr. and Mrs. Harrington, which was drunk by the whole company standing.

Ito produced from his pocket a translation of this oration.

"Now please say a few words in reply," he directed.

Geoffrey, feeling acutely ridiculous, scrambled to his feet and thanked everybody for giving his wife and himself such a jolly good time. Ito translated.

"Now please command to drink health of the Fujinami family," said the lawyer, consulting his _agenda_. So the health of Mr. and Mrs.

Fujinami Gentaro was drunk with relish by everybody, including the lady and gentleman honoured.