Haywood - 90-Day Geisha

PEGASUS BOOKS

NEW YORK

This is a true story. Everything that happens in these pages is an account of what really took place, according to my perception. For reasons of respect and gratitude certain names and details have been changed, but these are real people, real conversations and real events. Unless of course you happen to be my mother, in which case everything in this book is a figment of my imagination, none of these people exist and none of this ever happened.

Itadakimasu.

The yellow line lay obediently at my feet. A shiny canary yellow, it was impossibly perfect. You couldnt have painted a more perfect, candy-coated line, unless you were a robot. It must have been a robots work, but then again, maybe not. Everything around me had the same quality as that yellow line. The antiseptic voice broadcasting in high definition through a spotless ceiling. The orderly lines filing like clockwork through a row of identical counters. Everyone perfectly groomed. Perfectly poised. Perfectly patient. The way I was summoned to step over that yellow line. A quick flick of the wrist. Come this way, please. No translation needed. It all had that same immaculate polish.

He looked startlingly young for the crisp severity of his uniform, every strand of a symmetrical bowl-cut glistening under fluorescent lights. He was the first immigration officer Id ever seen whose eyes sparkled. A slight bow brought his pin-straight hair falling forward and I nodded slightly in return, surrendering my passport into a starched white glove.

Good morning. What is the purpose of your visit, please?

Ummm, tourism, I smiled innocently. My response was automatic. It might have been inaccurate, but I doubted I would get one step further if I told him the truth.

And where will you be staying?

The Hotel Sunroute, Shinjuku.

Flipping through my passport, the immigration officer stopped briefly to look up and compare the live version of myself to the colour photo on page 2. I smiled again. Satisfied, he flattened a sticker precisely onto the lower-left corner of page 8:

JAPAN IMMIGRATION INSPECTOR. LANDING PERMISSION.

Date of Permit: 30 AUG 2004. Until: 28 NOV 2004. Duration: 90 days

Nathans in a meeting. Hell be with you when hes through.

The room reminded me of an old vaudeville theatre. Slightly run down, slightly done up. It was the deep-buttoned velvet decor. Brass poles on a mirrored stage. The way the ridiculously low lighting buffered the edges, the faces, made everything soft and threw the corners into darkness. It was a mood that permeated even to the waiters, handsome but gaunt as they were.

The club had yet to open and there were maybe ten men in the room. Some Japanese, some Caucasian. I shifted my weight on the bar stool, sitting up straighter to focus on two suits in conversation at the far end of the room. It was for one of them I was waiting, and with little else to do I watched the smoke gather in a faint haze above them.

Thirty minutes passed. The two men disappeared, and soon I was joined by a nervous Israeli at the next table. Hopeful-job-applicant-of-the-evening #2, she had long raven curls that overpowered her delicate bone structure. Her English was laboured and difficult to understand, so we sat in silence as bottle-blondes began to strut in on four-inch heels, clutching designer handbags beneath acrylic French-tipped nails. They were the first to arrive of the reported seventy hostesses who worked at One Eyed Jack Tokyos most prestigious international hostess club and I watched as they gathered in groups to chain smoke the elasticity of their skin away.

These tawdry glamour girls were nothing like my memories of the girl Id met on top of a mountain in Nepal. I had been sixteen and it was my first trip overseas. She had been travelling around the world for years on her own. She was beautiful. She was intelligent and carefree. But most intriguingly of all, she was funded by the most unlikely of benefactors: the male Japanese customers of a Tokyo hostess club.

Since then Id met other girls whod hostessed in Japan. Their stories were just as fascinating. Id noticed that theyd talk it up at first, but mid-spin they became jaded. I wondered what had caused almost all of them to leave Tokyo with an unpleasant aftertaste of everything Japanese. Was it one drink too many, one gram too much? Was it the men? Even more intriguingly what caused them to go back? Because many of them did.

These ambitious young women seemed to have something in common, apart from a First World nation imprinted on their certificate of birth. Were they the lost ones, seeking distraction from lacklustre lives, a string of bad relationships, or the reality that theyd spent four years earning a degree they didnt know what to do with? Perhaps they were the adventurous ones, looking for something different. Or was Tokyo just the best thing going at the time?

For me it was a conscious decision. I am thoroughly prepared. I am rock solid, and I must admit, I have a bit of an agenda. Since the early eighties, I would guess that hundreds of thousands of women have come to Japan to temporarily work in Tokyos lucrative hostess clubs. All of them had a motive. All of them had a story. Yet a persons desire to hear these stories could not be satiated by even one personal account. No one had written about their experiences. Why not? Well, this may sound brash, but from what I could tell, everyone who might have had the inclination had just got too fucked up. So Id decided to do it myself.

Another thirty minutes passed. Where the hell was this Nathan? There wasnt a speck of dirt left under my fingernails. Id surveyed the entire room from top to bottom. My second complimentary cranberry on ice was now just ice, and a scratch was developing in my throat. I was just about to consider walking out when he walked in, on a direct path towards me.

Immaculately dressed, Nathan wore a suit you couldnt buy at a department store and shoes that shone like polished marble. His hair was spiked and glossed. His eyes were sharp, his eyebrows perfectly shaped. A commanding, utterly confident air oozed from his every molecule. In the realm of first impressions, the man was a machine. Excuse me, Im sorry to keep you waiting. Im Nathan. Please come with me. He shook my hand firmly but briefly as his eyes locked onto mine, and I followed him across the room to a circular, thirties-style lounge. Sliding around to the back, he undid the only button on his suit jacket and straightened the points of a stiff collar in what seemed like one motion. Then he glanced over the application Id been left with an hour ago.

It covered all the basics, plus the statement:

Anyone working for One Eyed Jack Co. must obey company rules and all Japanese laws. Anyone underage or without proper permission may not work. Anyone participating in illegal acts will be immediately dismissed without pay.

Curiously, Do you have a working visa: Yes/No had already been circled Yes.

Okay, Chelsea. Youre interested in working as a hostess. Where are you from?

Canada.

Oh. I was guessing the States. I grew up in New York. My father, hes Italian-American, but my mother, shes Japanese. Ive been in Tokyo the past eight years. It just grabs hold of you, sucks you in. I love it, and theres absolutely nowhere Id rather be, but sometimes you have to wonder what the hell youre doing here. How old are you?