Free The Printmaker's Daughter by Katherine Govier Page B

contract would have been up, but she had debts and she had to work until she paid them off. No matter how careful a courtesan was, the debt built up and ate the earnings. She was always tired, but she tried to teach me manners. Right now she was telling me not to peek around the screen that divided her room from Fumi’s. But I was doing it anyway.
    I saw Fumi’s bare back. I saw fat fingers parting the hair on her beautiful nape and beginning to knead her flesh. She had called in the masseur. It was the blind man I had often seen in the crowds watching the courtesans’ parade. I poked my head farther in. His pear-shaped face wore an expression of rapture. I doubted it was because of her matted and stiff hair or her thin shoulders. I doubted it was even her smell.
    “Ei, away from there,” Shino hissed. “Here—tea! Sit and we will have conversation.”
    I withdrew and sat squinting though the crack. The blind man’s backside looked like a big sack of rice and his fingers were pale parsnips. His white eyes rolled up. He smiled as he heard Shino, confirming my suspicions. However softly she spoke to me, her voice caused that look to drift across his otherwise remote face.
    His hands moved down the senior courtesan’s spine. Fumi grunted. He pushed his thumbs in between the bones. She made a soft moan. Shino pulled me away. We sat across from each other with our teacups while she tried to lead me in a polite exchange: it was her mission to teach me charm.
    “The cup of tea is so very warm in my hands and helps to keep the cold at bay.”
    “It does, and so does your smile on a winter afternoon,” I answered automatically. I added, “I hate the blind man.”
    “You will regret that. The gods do not smile on those who despise the afflicted.”
    I could have argued that I didn’t hate all blind men, only this one. He was trying to steal her. Shino belonged to my father, even though he could not pay to be her client. And to me. I knew they met. I didn’t know how or where; they were secretive. But she was right that I regretted my hatred. It was so fierce and hot it had drawn the blind man here. It was like a branding iron, which, as it hissed, clamped to its target.
    The blind man’s footfall came from the corridor.
    “Where is the yakko ?” he said, though he knew. His voice was penetrating, making up for his blank eyes. “I have something for her.”
    Shino gave me a glance. She tucked her heels under her hips and rose, with perfect grace, opening our screen. He pulled a sack from his bag. “It would please me if you would take this and prepare yourself a meal,” he said.
    “You are kind,” Shino said, “but it is quite impossible for me to take a gift.”
    “It’s a fish,” he said.
    I heard a giggle come from behind the screens. I knew what the other girls would be saying: “Hear that? He brought a fish !”
    Little whoops of merriment echoed down the hall.
    “Smelly, izn it? ”
    “He’z in luv . . . He wants her, izn it? ”
    He heard, of course. He was blind, not deaf. The mockery made Shino even more polite.
    “It is so considerate of you,” Shino said. “A fish is the one thing I could not refuse. If I had a place to cook it. But alas I do not . . .”
    “You will find someone to cook it for you.” He thrust the packet at her and she took it from his hands, bowing low, although he could not see.
    He stumped along the corridor and felt his way down the stairs, hilarity following.
    “You can’d cook that thing in yur room! Id’ll stink, wone it?” some girl shouted through the wall.
    Shino professed delight with her gift. Then she presented it to me.
    “Take it home. Your mother will prepare it.”
    “I wone eet’ id, ’cause it came from that. ” I knew it infuriated her when I talked brothel talk.
    I took the damned fish and put on my padded jacket. We went into the hall. In the next room two shinzo were playing a game of cards. A man emerged from a closed screen at the far