Geisha Death series 7. The Memory

I wiped her hips, and father must have observed that I was stricken, as he wiped my blade.
"You are taken with her, I could see that."

He put his old hands on my sick shoulder, "The cut was perfect," as he tried to sink his comforting words into me. It was. But it didn't help, as I felt her neck blood dripped down my sleeves. "She didn't suffer much."

Seconds stretched awkwardly like hours. We were silent as the wind parted us,
the two of us, and the parts of her, together. Of the parts of her that now belonged to me*
Then, father straightened, sighed ruefully, and began to walk away

"Oh mine." He said.

"Just remembered I some...forgotten business to attend to, must not keep others waiting." He didn't look back
"Long business too, I think...it will probably take two days. Yes."
"Finish clean her, see what you can do for the body, and I'll be back to spit her head up by Sumida bridge."
Then, he was off, whistling a sad tune as he waded the sighing autumn reeds, he didn't look back still.

~
The room was warm and she was still pink in many places. Like her great body was only sleeping
Like when she was still sleeping in the next room so many damn years ago.
When she was just father's maid, and when she taught me to read words. 

When she was, what this family's dead women weren't able to be
Before she almost bore a child for the tattooed stranger, and taken into his clan,
Before she, as they say, "lost her virtues" and got those tattoos, in his gambling den

I could still remember that night, before she left, when I was but 7 or 8, couldn't remember,
I was watching the foams of the crushing waves beside that seaside cliff. And I saw her coming to it and hid, right beneath a thorny bush,
choking with tears on her swollen face. She was so naked and bruised, her clothes torn.
And though I didn't know it then in words, I knew she wanted to die, so I leapt out before her shocked eyes, and her hands trying to cover herself
and ran to her bare legs. Begged her, weeping, to live.

Now thinking back, I was not sure if any of it was good.
She comforted me, and promised me no such silly thing was going to happen.
Then...she was sent off.  She almost bore a child for the tattooed stranger, and taken into his clan,
Before she, as they say, "lost her virtues" and got those tattoos, in his gambling den.
Lost everything, and back beneath the two of us, and my blade.

I could still remember what she said to me earlier today, in the cold morning air.
A look of peace upon her aged face, forever immune to life's snares,

I could still remember her cold hands lifting mine, and squeezing back, then raised it to one of her naked breast, letting me feel
the heartbeat and the wonder beneath.

"I'm glad it was you."