Women of the Pleasure Quarters by Lesley Downer Page A

had little interest in geisha. But, to my surprise, the most unlikely people, when I told them I was researching the geisha, proved to have connections in the flower and willow world which they were eager to show off. One was a rather louche television producer I knew, in his forties, who one day whisked me off to Kagurazaka, literally “Slope of the Music of the Gods,” in the publishing district north of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. One of his directors came with us; the producer made sure I realized that the geisha connection was his, not the director’s.
    The first teahouses in Kagurazaka appeared 150 years ago, around the time that the American commodore Matthew Perry was steaming into Tokyo Bay with his black ships, breaching Japan’s closed society. Its geisha (there were sixty-three when I was there) were noted for their elegance and classy dancing, the producer told me as we clambered up the steep little street, brilliant with neon signs. Along the road were bars, restaurants, and pavement carts selling roasted sweet potatoes and grilled octopus. Red paper lanterns swung invitingly outside closed doors.
    Opposite the huge vermilion gates of a shrine we ducked into a shadowy cobbled lane. Around a dark corner, where outsiders would not stumble upon it, was a small wooden house with reed blinds swaying in front of the windows. We stopped to admire the intricate weaving of the blinds, then slipped under the linen curtain at the gate and followed stepping stones through a narrow mossy garden to a sliding door.
    Inside was a room just big enough for eight customers to sit squashed on high stools along two sides of the bar. The master of the house, a beaming, burly man in a bright red collarless shirt, greeted us. He and Kurota-san, my host, it transpired, were old college chums—which explained why a modern media executive like Mr. Kurota chose to frequent this particular bar in this particular area. He sat us down, plied us with beer and saké, and set about preparing a nonstop succession of succulent dishes of fish, vegetables, and rice.
    The real boss was ensconced at a table in the corner—his eighty-five-year-old mother, tiny, trim, and straight-backed, immaculate in a pale moss-colored kimono and an obi the color of dark moss into which was tucked a fob watch which she consulted from time to time. Her black hair was tied back in a bun, revealing a pinched, sharp-featured face with pale, finely lined parchment skin. In her time she had been one of the most celebrated geisha in Kagurazaka and was still a power in the geisha union, Kurota told me, sotto voce. Behind her, taking pride of place on the wall, was a painting of Mount Fuji rising out of gold-tinted clouds with a personal inscription by a famous artist of half a century ago.
    “He was one of my lovers,” sniffed the old geisha. “He painted it for me.”
    Another group of four businessmen crowded in, filling the tiny bar. Beyond were a couple of tatami rooms, the sliding doors removed from their grooves to make one big open-plan space, where two parties of rowdy businessmen were gathered, enjoying a noisy night out. As the saké flowed, the voices and laughter grew deafening.
    Kurota and his friend, loosening their ties as their faces flushed, were quizzing me about the Beatles as they picked at morsels of trout, boiled green soya beans, and tiny beautifully cut vegetables. They were in gray suits with uninspired haircuts though, as media men, they were allowed a degree of wackiness not granted to more buttoned-up executives. In any case, they were off duty, and off duty, once they have consumed a little saké, Japanese men are adept at throwing aside barriers.
    “I’m not going to ask your age,” began Kurota with a cheeky sideways glance. “But which musical era do you remember best? The Beatles? The Rolling Stones?”
    “Oasis,” I lied. “Blur, Suede, Primal Scream—they were around when I was young.”
    The master joined in. He had a