The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel

The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel Read Online Free PDF Page A

Book: The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel Read Online Free PDF
Author: Maureen Lindley
Tags: Fiction, General, Romance, Historical
me to have more lustre than ever before. She held it out to me tentatively as though she was feeding a tiger. I should have said, 'Oh Natsuko, save me. Do not give me the pearl. Give me your love instead.' But I didn't. I hung the dark globe on its silken thread where it lay between my breasts, a good-luck charm to remind me that information is power. I was twelve years old.
    When Shimako, getting fatter and plainer as she aged, found out about Natsuko's gift to me she said, 'A black pearl to complement your nature, eh, Yoshiko?'
    A year later I began my monthly bleeds. Sorry told me that I was becoming a beauty of the kind that did not need fine silks or hair combs to be noticed. She stood me in front of a mirror and told me to look at myself. 'What do you see, Little Mistress?' she asked. I looked and saw a girl with eyes the shape of the sloes that bear fruit in winter, a soft pink mouth and small teeth that were very white and even. I had my mother's skin, paler than that of my Japanese sisters. Like my mother's my breasts were round and well matched. I had slim hips not made for childbearing, and beautiful unbound feet with toenails like pearlescent shells.
    I no longer trailed after the boys but left them to their own devices. In no time at all they began to seek my company and instead of me playing their games they began to play mine. They offered me full membership of the 'Secret Sake Club' but I declined the offer, saying that I had grown out of the childish games they played. To test my powers I would set them against each other, showing Hideo more affection than Nobu, delighting in their misery and their competitiveness. Just as they had negotiated my entrance to their rituals by the intimacies they took with me, I now took payment in kind from them. An ivory letter knife might secure a second of my tongue in their mouth, a goldfish fashioned in jade the run of my hand along the length of their member.
    Sorry sold my trophies to the shopkeepers in the back streets near the house, and I gave her a share of the proceeds so that her old age might not be too hard. She often bought opium from the Chinese shopkeepers and I frequently smoked it with her. The Japanese do not care for opium and most never enjoy the pleasure of an opium dream. For me it has been a lifelong delight, its musky smoke redolent with memories and the promise of oblivion.
    My life in the household continued as though it would never change. I spied on the Kawashima family and prided myself on knowing their secrets. I allowed the brothers their privileges, sparred with Natsuko and occasionally crossed swords with Shimako. I smoked opium with Sorry and Turkish and American cigarettes when alone. I listened to western music on a record player that I bought second-hand from a college friend of Hideo's. Hardly a day passed that I did not venture into the labyrinth of Tokyo's streets. I did not think of myself as an ambitious person, only as one with an enthusiasm and lust for life.
    Kawashima was a member of Japan's prestigious intelligence network and often entertained visitors who came to discuss politics with him. Through his numerous connections he distributed patronage to those prepared to further his own cause, which he claimed was to sustain the glory of Japan. The men who came were themselves powerful, with strings of their own to pull and information to share. Like Kawashima they came from the Samurai class and included politicians, businessmen and the odd high-ranking officer, usually from the Imperial Guard. I loved their talk of honour and the way they linked the ideas of courage and loyalty to Japan, rather than to their families. I suppose it made me feel more like them, less like the orphaned outsider that I now realise I was.
    With no thirteenth sister around, spying on the meetings was an easy matter. I would conceal myself between the bamboo-andpaper wall screens, or behind the fruit trees in summer when the screens were open to the fine
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