The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel by Maureen Lindley Page A

her own. It is a fallacy that Japanese women are happy for their husbands to own geishas. They are the same as women the world over and cannot bear rivals. She may have been able to bear more easily the convention that he kept a geisha, but that in her own home he chose my bed tore her heart to shreds.
    It was agreed that Natsuko would tell her doctor that she had a favourite servant who she wished to keep about her. The foolish girl had become pregnant by a man who was not free to marry her and wished to rid herself of the baby. If she had the child she could not work and would surely starve, a fate Natsuko would like to save her from. Of course, Natsuko did not expect such a distinguished man as Doctor Mura himself to perform the operation, but if he could suggest someone she would be eternally grateful. She told him that her husband would be furious if he found out and she feared the girl would be flogged half to death, so secrecy was of great importance. Doctor Mura said that although the girl probably should be flogged for behaving like a Tokyo street cat while under the care of such a fine mistress, he understood that Natsuko was acting from a kind heart and approved of her feminine tenderness. He recommended a recently qualified young man from the suburbs, and assured Natsuko that she could rely on his discretion.
    A few hours after Kawashima had left for Osaka, Sorry set a dried sea horse over the door as a charm against evil. She burnt orange incense to invigorate the air and made me sip strong black tea. When the doctor who would not tell me his name arrived, I noted that he was neither young nor, I suspect, from the suburbs. As he leaned over me I could smell his sweat, which was as unpleasant as his breath. He smelled sour, as though he never washed, which was peculiar as even in the meanest of circumstances the Japanese are a clean race. I took it as a bad sign that he did not wash his hands before beginning even though Sorry had brought him a bowl of steaming water and clean linen towels. It was a bad sign too that he called for saki and only removed the cheap local cigarettes that he chain-smoked from his mouth to drink deep drafts of it.
    To distance me from the pain, Sorry talked to me throughout the brutal procedure, reminding me of favourite poems and episodes from childhood. I bit into a cushion so that my cries would not give me away to the household. Just as I felt that I could not bear his exploration of my womb for one more minute, the nameless doctor finished, quickly rinsed his hands in the cooling water and, without a word to me, left the room.
    Days of fever and bleeding clotted blood followed and in their wake came an infection that made me delirious for a week. I remember being conscious twice in that time, once when the sky was grey and then again when it was the pale gold of evening and the crows were in flight.
    The inept doctor called once to check on my progress. He said that I would be well in ten days but that the infection had left me sterile. I would never again be with child, which he considered the practical bonus of his butchery.
    Natsuko could not disguise a hiss of satisfaction at such welcome news. As for me, I would never be a mother, never nurture an infant or experience the friendship of a daughter or the support of a son. Before this time I had not consciously desired motherhood but the fact that it was now denied me seemed shocking.
    With her customary parsimony Natsuko left me to settle the doctor's account. Sorry was heartbroken on my behalf and fussed around me with broths and strengthening foods. She said that with each new wound another layer thickens our carapace and strengthens our defences. In time all traces of the deed were removed, and I tried to remove myself from it too. But in sleep my mind went its own way and I suffered a recurring dream that disturbed me so much that I began to fear sleep. In this dream I would watch myself from a distance looking into a mirror