"So tell me my friend," Nitta said as he poured more sake into the small cup for Saitoh.  "Did you like your post in Kyoto?  Ten years is a long time to be there.   I would imagine the city had become dull after the Emperor left it and came here."

   Saitoh shrugged and drank the sake.  "It was a mistake for the Emperor to take a home to this graceless city," he said and gestured with his emptied porcelain cup at the roomful of drinking men in coarse yukata.

   Nitta laughed and re-filled his own cup and Saitoh's and shook his head.  "Not at all, Saitoh-san.  The best of everything followed our Emperor out of Kyoto and made themselves home here.  Together with a touch of decadence and danger, life had never been more exciting.  How long will you be in Tokyo, my friend?"

   "A month," Saitoh said and looked past Nitta's shoulder and at a small group of noisy men being entertained by a laughing young girl who poured their sake.  "And since I have been in town, I have yet seen anything that could be compared to the refined elegance of our former Capitol."

   Saitoh drank his sake and pushed himself away from the table.

   "This place annoys me," he said as he laid some coins on the table beside the sake bottle.

   Nitta took his last drink and hurried to walk out of the tea house with Saitoh. 

   "Then I should take you to a show," Nitta said and gestured at the sign that said "Ginza".

   "I rather not," Saitoh said and waved dismissively.  "Those things are for the peasants, Nitta-san.  I hoped you had kept true to your roots and not indulge in such a ridiculous waste of time."

   Nitta laughed and tugged at Saitoh's sleeve and guided him toward a sign drawn on assembled sheets of paper.   

   "This is a new era, Saitoh-san.  People like us should enjoy that kind of excess," Nitta said and touched the ink drawing of a beautiful woman.  "And dream of being in company of someone like this."

   Saitoh frowned as he read the description.

   "She is a man, Nitta-san.  An onnagata," Saitoh said evenly.  "I did not know you had been so inclined."

   Nitta laughed, his fingers remained on the ink drawing.  "Not at all.  He is different.  When he takes the stage, his beauty would have you fall in love with him in an instant.  You would not care if he is a man or a woman.  He is quite famous in Tokyo, you know.  Even the Emperor himself had invited him to the palace for private performances many times.  Ao's admirers lived with the fear that the Emperor would one day take him from the stage, and lock him in the palace so he would perform for no one but  him."

   "Yes, the appalling thought of it," Saitoh said dryly and took Nitta by his sleeve and dragged him away from the sign.  "What does your wife say about you squandering your wages to see this actor perform?"

   "Nothing," Nitta said with a smile.  "This is my own private affair of the heart with a person I shall never have.  It is quite difficult to buy the tickets for the show.  Men lined up for hours, sometimes for the full day, just to snatch up the tickets the wealthy had not already laid their claims to months before.  I can take you, but only on the fourteenth day of the month.  I have a friend who worked in the theatre.  He is in charge of the musicians and their equipment.  Anyway, he usually let me come inside and watch the show from the side corner of the stage for a small fee."

   Nitta lowered his voice. "And sometimes, Ao would exit the stage toward where I stood.  Once, he smiled at me as he passed.  The perfume that followed him was like being caught in a storm of sakura petals.  He was so beautiful that you would swear he could not be human."

   "I think you need to spend more time with your wife and children instead of being a star-struck young boy, Nitta-san," Saitoh said.  "Some day, the beauty of your dream will fade and become an ugly old man.  Then you would be miserable with regret of the wasted time that could have been better spent on things you already have."

   "You say this now because you have only seen him in some mediocre ink drawings," Nitta said.  "Come with me to see the show on fourteenth day.  I can bet you will forget even the most beautiful thing you have ever seen in Kyoto, and swear to spend the rest of your life in this city just so you can see him again."

   "Then on that day," Saitoh said.  "I will prove you wrong, Nitta-san."

 

    Since he had heard of the onnagata's name from Nitta, Saitoh heard the name again and again.  In his mind, the actor grew more attractive by each mention of his name and on the thirteenth day, Saitoh found himself curious to see the great beauty.  

    When the fourteenth day came, an anticipation he had not felt since his days as a captain of the Shinsengumi seized the core of his being.  It felt like the days when he wore daisho and walked through the streets of Kyoto with a purpose.  There was a strange sense of familiarity as the sense of expectancy grew, as a mousy little man Nitta knew led them through the backstage labyrinth.  They were pointed to a corner where the stage light from the lamps did not reach.  The little man reminded them not to move from the shadows or be in the way of the stage hands and actors when they walk past, then he scurried off to tend to his musicians.

    "Exciting, isn't it?" Nitta said as he nudged at Saitoh.  

    Saitoh shrugged and hid his interest from his friend.

    "Who are those men?" Saitoh said and gestured toward the front rows which had been reserved for the wealthy.  A group five of foreigners with yellow hair and dressed in western clothing took the seats where, had it been 10 years earlier, only someone with Daimyo's wealth could afford to sit in them.

    "Ambassadors from Britain," Nitta said.  "The word is, the chief consulate is quite taken with Ao and had pursued him since Ao first made his appearance on stage five years ago.  He had wanted to be Ao's sponsor, you know, and had offered quite a handsome fee for it.  Ao refused and it nearly drove Ao's master mad when he did.  A young actor with only his retired master's name to go on, refusing sponsorship was unheard of."

    "Perhaps he's not interested in being in the company of a foreigner," Saitoh said.

    "No," Nitta said.  "Ao had refused all offers of sponsorship.  He had not taken a single lover, not even for one night, in all of the years he had appeared on stage.  Ao had been a cursed object of many dreams of longing by the men who loved him."

    "No, I think he is a sly young man who understood his own worth and played it against men who falls into his trap," Saitoh said.  "The longer he is without a lover, the higher the men who court him would have to pay to be his first lover."

    Nitta sighed and shook his head.  "If what you say is true, I would never be looked at by him again."

    Saitoh laughed and slapped Nitta on one of his slumped shoulder.  

    "I do not think he would look at you, even if you are with money, Nitta-san."

    Musicians in plain blue kimono rushed by to take their instruments.  The crowd was still shuffling in.  The seats had been filled and now, the aisles were being stopped by the standing men who would watch the show from there.  

    "Ao only performs ten times a month," Nitta explained.  "That was all the theatre owner can afford to pay him...although the theatre owner did increase the price of the tickets three-folds."

    Saitoh shook his head disapprovingly.

    "The men would pay it not only to look at Ao but to have a chance to be invited to his garden party,"  Nitta added.

    "His what?"

    "Ao's garden's party's legendary and it is the only time his guests would see his true face.  Men who had seen it swore he was even more stunning than his painted, beautiful face most of us had seen and fallen madly in love with.  My theatre friend said when Ao performed, he would become more aware of the audience than his role.  He watched the audience, as intensely as they watched him.  Then he would send his invitations to the men he had selected from the audience and welcome to his exquisite home for tea after the show through his apprentices.  Then there were men who had become regular guests of Ao's home because of their social status, like the Ambassadors."

    "Just for tea?"

    Nitta smile grew and he leaned closer to speak in a lowered voice.

    "It is said that by the end of the night, when Ao excused himself to retire for the day, he would walk through a small garden to his quarters.  If Ao decide to take a lover that night, he would pluck a flower from his garden and have his favorite apprentice deliver it to the very fortunate man.  Ao often would pass through the garden without a glance at the blooming flowers. And even if he had plucked one, he would only smile at his waiting suitors and walk into his quarters with the picked flower between his fingers.  Five years he has done this, and to this date, men still wait for Ao to give him the flower from his garden eagerly."

    "I find it even stranger that men had not burst through his doors after years of being teased so mercilessly and rape him," Saitoh said evenly.

    Nitta laughed.  "Oh, no no, my friend.  The thought of committing such a barbaric act on a delicate creature is--" Nitta paused to think of a word.  "...just inconceivable.  His company is like a fine, rare wine and each drop had to be savored.  You must select only the best cup to pour the wine into, then you must find an exceptional time to drink it.  And when you drink it, you take the smallest of the small sips so you may taste each drop as it dissolve sweetly onto your tongue.  That is how you can remember it exactly how it tasted.  To take him against his will, would be like drinking the wine hurriedly, like it is some cheap sake."

    "Of course, the effect of the wine is all that made the drinking worthwhile."

    "Perhaps, but some of us enjoy the taste of the wine as well," Nitta said.  He pointed at the packed crowd.  "I think it is about to start.  I don't think a single man could be pressed into that floor."

    Then the musicians with their instruments hurried by and took their place on the pillows set along the side of the stage.  The audience fell into a silence when the musicians appeared.  Three stage hands scurried past them and lit paper lanterns that had been set around the foot of the stage, then  lit the three tall lamps set to toward the rear of the stage.  After a few more preparation on the stage, the musicians began to pluck at their instruments while one sang, signaling the entrance of the actors.

    The first actor to enter was the hero of the tale.  He was a samurai who had fallen into hard times. After his master was slain, the land confiscated by the Shogun because the daimyo was without a male heir.  All who had served the daimyo were dismissed from service.  Without status or money,  he sent away his wife and child to live with his wife's family.  Then he wandered through Edo, seeking a new master who would strip him of the horrid ronin name and return him to the samurai class.  After he had been rejected again and again, the hero had given into utter despair and decided to take his own life one night.  

    Saitoh heard Nitta drew in a breath, and he thought he heard it from the audience as well, when an ashen figure cloaked in a cascade of white silk flowed onto the stage soundlessly.  The specter had interrupted the ronin's suicide, as it composed a poem in a voice even silkier than the kimono it wore.  The ronin watched, mesmerized by ghost so completely that he had forgotten about the dagger in his hand or his purpose at the lake that night.  Then the ronin wept, as he listened to the poem in which the pale princess lamented over being forced to marry a man she secretly hated, and she had come to the lake that night also to seek solace in death.  The ronin spoke and shouted out his love for the princess just as she touched the waters with her foot.  The two found sanctuary in each other and became partners in their world of misery.  They met each night to profess their love for each other--their feelings grew stronger one night to the next.

    Saitoh barely noticed the story.  He watched the princess carefully and studied her movement and her voice as if she was a piece of intricate art.  She was, in some way.  A thing that he had never seen before.  She moved with the grace that was as  sinuous as a seasoned geisha.  Her hair, long and smooth, cascaded along her back like a waterfall.  She wore little make-up, except for the whitened face and the small mouth painted in red.  She was as perfect and as beautiful as she had been said to be.  

    However, there was more to the beauty that made the onnagata appeared to be some celestial creature.  The way she spoke.  The way she gestured or walked or turned.  The way she looked at the men she had bewitched.  Saitoh drew in a breath, his distant memory touched suddenly by all of what he saw in the princess.  

    "I know her..." Saitoh said out loud.

    "Of course you do," Nitta said, his eyes remained unmoved from the stage.  "She is drawn by every artist in this city.  Her pictures is every where."

    "No, I think I had seen her before," Saitoh said.  "Sometime long ago, in the time of the Bakumatsu."

    Nitta took his eyes off the stage only for one moment to look at Saitoh.

    "It is unlikely," Nitta said.  "Ao's master, Saya, had said Ao had been one of the former Emperor's catamite.  He had been raised and sequestered in the Kyoto palace until the end of the war, when he and others like him, were then freed back into their families.  Ao's family had perished in the war and he had refused to be adopted into his distant relations' families for his own reasons.  He then shed his family name, and sought his own life in Tokyo.  Perhaps he had wanted to follow the new Emperor.  One night, while Saya was returning from his sponsor's mansion in the mountain, he saw an unscrupulous tea house owner trying to convince Ao to become a prostitute for him.  Saya instantly interrupted and took Ao away with him.  Soon, he was adopted by Saya and who taught him to be an onnagata like himself.  Perhaps you might have seen him by chance one day, after the war and before he came to Tokyo."

    "Perhaps," Saitoh said.

    On stage, the lovers met on the eve of the princess' wedding day.  The princess had agreed to go through with the marriage as a promise she had made to her dying father.  As a final pact and also an act of protest against the fate that had turned against them so cruelly, the princess gave to the ronin her virginity.  And he gave her, a child.  On the wedding day, the ronin composed a poem for the princess, and wished her a good life.  He then slit open his belly, and died with his last letter to his love carefully folded in his hands.  

    "What a despicable story," Saitoh said.  "The woman married one man with another man's child in her belly.  And such a foolish man, to die for a woman that was never his."

    Nitta laughed.  "It is the modern times, Saitoh-san.  Scandalous stories like these are what people want to hear."

    "Then I wonder if we had made any kind of advancement since the Bakufu time, if we resort to this kind of trash as entertainment."

    Nitta's smile grew bigger.  "Oh, this story is only a minor point why any of the men packed into the theatre tonight."

   Saitoh looked past Nitta and watched Ao bent slightly to speak to one of the yellow-haired foreigners.  Theatre attendants pushed back the men who were rows behind, and tried to come close to the princess.  Ao smiled brilliantly as the foreigner presented him with a red velvet box tied with a red ribbon.  Ao stroked the fabric of the box.  He did not open it.

    Nitta followed Saitoh's stare and nodded.

    "The foreign devil always give Ao a present each time he came to see him," Nitta said.  "I would imagine it is some jewel from Britain."

    "Five years of gifts," Saitoh said.  "His house must be full."

    "Actually, Saya kept them.  Saya then must have sold them," Nitta said.  "A retired onnagata who is used to living in a mansion and having a herd of servants, but no longer attractive enough to keep a sponsor, must collect as much money from his investment while he can."

    Ao leaned in closer and whispered into the foreigner's ear.  A smile grew over the foreigner's thin lips and he nodded.  Ao bowed down to him, then straightened.  He panned his eyes over the disbursing audience, catching most of them looking fixedly at him, then he turned and as fluidly as he entered onto the stage, he exited it.

    "He is coming this way," Nitta said as he smoothed down the front of his kimono.  "Do you think he would remember me?"

    "Doubtful," Saitoh said.  "You don't have a memorable face.  And don't be childish.  He's just an actor."

    Nitta open his mouth to speak, and they remained open as Ao passed them.  Ao's feet made no sound.  Only the slightest rustling sound of the silk could be heard.  Suddenly, Ao stopped and looked over his shoulder at both of them.

    "You are...?" Ao said as he walked to them.

    "Friends of the stage manager," Saitoh said finally, when Nitta did not answer.  "You performed splendidly."

    Ao gave him a nod.  "I am pleased to know you enjoyed the show."

    "May I ask if you had been in Kyoto in your younger years?"

    Ao's small painted mouth smiled.  

    "I was born and raised there, yes," Ao said.  "Do I appear to be familiar to you?"

    Saitoh did not answer immediately.  There was a hint of mockery in Ao's tone and it sounded more like a seduction.  The kind actors like him plied on men.  A surge of anger came over Saitoh in that instant, and the onnagata read the rage in him the moment it came. 

    "Perhaps your memory will be clearer when you see my true face tonight," Ao said.  "My apprentice will send you an invitation to my house.  I would be most grateful if you would come and have tea."

    Saitoh looked at the perfect red mouth as it offered the invitation.  An uncomfortable sensation lanced through him then.  Saitoh found himself wanting to taste the mouth and bite into the slim throat until blood ran down the white skin.

    As if he knew what had gone through Saitoh's mind, Ao laughed softly.

    "I will see you tonight, honored sir," Ao said then left.

    "Like being caught in a storm of sakura petals," Saitoh said to Nitta, and laughed as he pulled along his stunned friend by his sleeve out of the theatre.

End Winter Moon Part 1