Fifty Words for Rain(47)

“But think!” Kiyomi burst out, and finally, the tears fell. They fell down her rouged cheeks and pooled at her collarbone. “Think what kind of woman you could be.”

Nori had never, for one solitary second, thought of what kind of woman she could be.

“You . . . you told me to resign myself.”

“And now I am telling you to fight.”

Nori shook her head. “I can’t fight anymore.”

Kiyomi started to say something but broke off. Nori felt it too.

The car was slowing down. They kept their eyes locked on each other, breathless, saying so much with no words.

Nori squeezed Kiyomi’s hand. The sound of the engine winked out.

“I’m sorry,” Kiyomi whispered. “For all of it. I am sorry.”

Nori hesitated. She could hear that the driver had gotten out and was coming around to open her door. She had only seconds. She could not think what to say to this woman. Here they were, madam and whore, raised pauper and fallen princess, master and servant. But in this moment, they felt like none of those things. They were simply two women with their heads bowed against the wind. Nori decided that if it did not make them friends, it made them something.

“I’ll miss you, Kiyomi-san.”

It was absurd. But it was also true.

Her door opened. Without being asked, Nori got out of the car and blinked into the autumn sunlight. She knew where they were. Every child in Japan knew about this place.

Chiyoda-ku was the royal ward of Tokyo. All the government buildings, embassies, and monuments were here. And so were the richest, most powerful people in the country.

The house before her was not a palace, but it was close.

Nori found herself standing in an enclosed estate, with high walls of whitewashed stone. The house before her was old and grand, low and sprawling, with a tiled roof the color of red clay. There was a family crest she did not recognize emblazoned onto the gate behind her.

It looked old, but cared for. The only things neglected were the plants. There were some sad-looking plum trees, with leaves the same color as the roof, that had clearly seen better days.

Kiyomi came up to stand behind her. Nori knew she had to walk forward, into a house that did not welcome her, with people who would not love her.

She had been here before. She knew what to do.

And so she walked. The hem of her best kimono dragged behind her, stirring up the fallen leaves. Her hair was parted in the middle and allowed to fall free to signify her virgin state. Her skin was flushed and her heart was beating fast as a sparrow’s, but she was not afraid.

She walked up the wooden steps and through the sliding door to the antechamber, which a maid on the other side opened without a word.

She stopped to remove her shoes and then continued on, until a woman appeared before her, dressed in a kimono of sky blue silk.

“Douzo agatte kudasai,” she said. “Welcome.”

Nori bowed.

The woman did not even look at her. “Thank you for the prompt delivery. You may leave her things outside, someone will come and get them.”

Kiyomi hesitated. She could not speak freely now. She had a part to play, the same one she had played dozens of times before.

Nori turned to face her. Just for a moment, with her face hidden from the stranger with the veil of her hair, she allowed herself to smile.

“Arigatou. For all you have taught me.”

Kiyomi bowed low. “Goodbye, little princess.”

Nori felt a twist in her gut. For a moment, she wanted to reach out and cling to Kiyomi, the way she had never clung to her mother, to her grandmother.

The words bubbled up in her throat.

Don’t go.

Don’t leave me.

Don’t leave me, again.

Not again.

Please.

But she could not speak. Her lips closed on the words and she turned away. In a moment, Kiyomi had gone.

And, as she had been at the beginning, Nori was alone.



* * *





She was led to a large room with tatami floors. All other furniture had been removed, save for a lone silk pillow in the center.

“Wait here,” the woman said shortly.

Nori lowered herself onto the pillow with her knees folded underneath her. She knew how she was supposed to sit. Her mother had taught her when she was three. It was one of the few things Seiko had bothered with.

She waited until she heard the fusama-style doors slide shut.

Nori did not know how much time she had left. A few minutes, maybe. She imagined that her new owner was sitting behind a desk somewhere. Maybe he would have a drink or two before coming down to see her.

If she did not gather up her courage now, she never would.

So she had a few minutes. Six.

Five.

She didn’t know exactly—but she knew that it was not enough. She pressed her hands against her face. For the first time, she let herself feel the full injustice of everything that had brought her to this.

She wasn’t even fourteen years old and she had never had a day to herself, not one day that had not been dictated to her by someone else. She had never seen the summer festival, or made snow angels with other children in the winter. She had never been kissed, or acknowledged, or loved as in her storybooks.

Well . . .

Maybe, in a way, she had been loved. She held tight to that, clinging to that warm little feeling. She wrapped herself in every happy memory she could find.