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Geisha game: highly civilised
Goodbye Komomo Help
Goodbye Komomo
By CHARLES PARR
Komomo was 20, young in the trade but
fully trained. When i opened the door she
entered briskly, with all the assurance of a
district nurse. She was well develooed. as beau
tiful as one of those Japan Air Line hostesses
on the coloured brochures, and no Western girl
could have taught her anything about make-up
and hair styling.
She looked me over, took my jacket off, decided
my trousers would have to stay on, and helped me into
a thick brown kimono the obi (sash) of which she
tightened till I cried for mercy. Thus kitted out I
settled down into a cross-legged posture, with all the
grace of a pregnant elephant.
Booking a geisha is rather like ordering a taxi,
apart from one or two minor complications. To start
with, one can't just ring up a Geisha House and say:
"I'd like a young one who speaks .English, and make
it snappy". Due decorum must be observed. One needs
to find someone who already knows a geisha — a local
businessman is the best bet. But then, even if your,
intentions arc as pure as driven snow, you can't have
a geisha evening in your room in a western-style hotel.
Geisha entertainment is geared to the Japanese way
of life and can only take place in a ryokan (traditional
style) inn, or in the private room of a Japanese
restaurant, with low tables and tatami mats.
Anyway, there I was uncomfortably installed (my
knees were already giving me hell) in the matted room
of the Ryokan Ikedaya at Iizaka Spa, a charming little
mountain resort some 200 miles north of Tokyo. My
geisha, still very much in charge of the situation, was
already ringing down to the restaurant to order the
meal. Her only English was "herro" and "goodbye",
which didn't get us far, but luckily I'd arranged to
go halves in her with a Japanese friend, who arrived
just as the meal was brought in. Don't by the way,
expect to find an English-speaking geisha: their long
training leaves no time for linguistics.
I offered Komomo (the name means "Little
Peach") a dish of crayfish but this was a dreadful faux
pas and Yoshitaka put out a hand to stop me. A geisha
never shares a meal. Her role is to kneel at the table,
serve the food and entertain while you eat it. Komomo
arranged and mixed the sauces, and placed little
portions of food in my bowl. When she saw me chasing
a slippery Uzura-no-tamago (quail egg) she took my
chopsticks and delicately popped it in my mouth. She
kept our sake glasses filled, phoning for fresh supplies
at regular intervals, and accepted some herself from
time to time, graciously allowing me to pour for her.
For the musical part of the entertainment one
really needs three or four geishas, which is horribly
■expensive, but warmed up with sake Komomo did her
best, wailing haunting love songs, with Yoshitaka and
me as rhythm section, clapping hands. I asked; "Can
one play a game with a geisha?" and Yoshi said
"Baseball", which seemed a bit tricky in a ryokan
room, but this turned out to be the Japanese nickname
for the popular "Scissors — cuts paper — wraps stone
— breaks scissors". Komomo said yes, O.K. she'd play
with me, for forfeits. One two! — my fingers made
scissors, her's made paper. The forfeit, she primly told
me through Yoshitaka, was that I could touch her
shoulder. She was standing no nonsense. „
I asked if this attitude was typical. "If you have
what westerners call 'fun' " said Yoshi, "it's not a true
geisha". "What about those big parties one hears
about", I insisted, "with Japanese businessmen on
expense accounts?" He told me that when the sake
is flowing freely, with eight or ten geishas performing,
they sometimes agree to play "baseball" on a strip
poker basis, but since their elaborate traditional
costume consists of 23 separate kimonos, cords and
sashes, they never lose the game or even their dignity.
I asked Komomo if she too wore 23 bits and pieces
and she said yes, every geisha did. She modestly
displayed three or four outer layers.
In an alcoholic haze the time went quickly and
Komomo began giving sly little glances at her wrist.
Geishas don't come equippped with meters but since
they sell their services by the hour they're extremely
time-conscious. Soon Komomo indicated — oh so
graciously and sadly — that our four hours were up.
When I asked her when she'd had her last meal
she became unexpectedly human and gave an answer
which Yoshitaka translated as "a damn long time
ago". She absolutely refused to eat in the ryokan, since
this would break one of the basic rules of her calling,
but we .took her to a little eating house in the Spa,
where she knocked back a surprising helping of raw
fish and shark's eggs, after which we walked her home
to the Geisha House and bowed elaborate farewells.
Taken altogether it was a memorable and highly
civilised evening, and about as far removed from the
so-called "Geisha parties" laid on by the package tour
operators for foreign tourists, as birds' nest soup from
Irish stew. It's only fair to add that it costs a good
deal more, but I didn't grudge a yen of it.
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