It is very strange that His Majesty should have chosen so poorly.  He is in every other way a man of such exquisite taste.  One can only assume that he did not get a good look at her.

The other ladies laughed.  Very improper, of course, but the young fool was too stupid to know.  I held the mirror for her when we were done, but she barely looked in it.

Reminder:  My own mirror must be replaced.  It has warped so badly that my cheeks look sunken, which adds a very unattractive sharpness to my features.  When I first noticed it, I became so concerned that I placed a pickled plum in each cheek before presenting myself before His Majesty.  To my surprise this gave my speech a rather attractive, youthful lilt.  He looked at me very attentively and smiled.  The dear man.  I am convinced he is secretly captivated and only maintains his reserve out of respect for my husband.  Perhaps in time he will come to see that a woman whose husband has been stationed in distant provinces for more than a decade is free to take a lover.  To paraphrase a poetic line: “Though my pain is cruel, I cannot put him from my mind.”

There was that night two months ago when I thought he had decided to visit me under cover of darkness.  I was lying awake, wishing for just such a thing to happen when I recognized his step approaching my door.  My heart beat so I thought he must hear it through the shutters.  But Lady Dainagon’s miserable cat had taken to sleeping there and he must have stepped on the creature’s tail.  There was a great deal of noise, which woke up the other ladies and, when I opened the door to pull him inside, He had fled.

The next morning I paid one of the groundskeepers to take care of the cat, but His Majesty did not come back, though I often wonder if he is waiting somewhere in the corridor, wishing he could hold me in his arms.

Sadly I have been “waiting in vain night after night.”

Lady Dainagon wailed for weeks for her lost pet, and we all went on rather amusing searches, crying, “Here, kitty.  Here, kitty,” to the great entertainment of the young gentlemen, until Her Majesty forbade it.

And I, after “waiting in vain” for a whole month, went to see His Majesty.  Plums in place, I presented him with a poem and whispered, “I am entirely at your Majesty’s service.”

He looked surprised and very moved at my fervor.  I thought I saw tears of gratitude in his eyes, but matters of state interfered with our happiness once again — as in those terrible days when both Their Majesties, father and son were attacked.  The sacrilege of that!  I was never so frightened.  Soldiers everywhere.  Ladies screaming.  No doubt they were being raped, though none would admit to it later.  And His Majesty kidnapped from our midst, along with his son, who was only seventeen then.  Of course, they did this while our protector Kiyomori was on a pilgrimage.  I’ll give him this: he rushed back and rescued their majesties.

And now, just when we are settling down after Her Majesty’s departure, His Majesty has brought this young girl into the palace and instructed me to keep an eye on her and report to him.  I must think what to do.

Tooth Blackening

Toshiko was shown a place to sleep.  At home she had her own room and privacy.  Here was surrounded by other women.  When she returned from her interview with the emperor, they looked at her, then turned away.

Lady Sanjo, who had taken her to His Majesty, pointed vaguely toward a dark corner, and Toshiko went there.  She found several neck rests, took one, and lay down as she was, placing her head on the unfamiliar support and pulling her outer gown over her for warmth.  She was so tired that the humming voices of the others lulled her to sleep.

The sounds of steady, thrumming rain on the roof and the splashing on the stones outside woke her.  For a moment, the darkness was puzzling, then she remembered where she was, and desolation swallowed her again.  At home this would have been a delicious sort of waking, that moment of fusion of dream and reality when she hovered between both, half tempted to slip back into sleep, half curious about the new day.  But now reality brought only despair.  She opened her eyes to the grey obscurity of the hall and, like a frightened mouse, listened for human sounds.  When she heard none, she sat up.

Here and there on the dark glossy planks lay silken figures.  Their long hair writhed like black snakes across gowns whose colors looked faded in the faint light leaking through the shutters.  They seemed like dead people, as if she alone had been spared by some demon who had come in the night and killed the others.

Spared for what?  To be at the ogre’s mercy, captive and tormented until she died?

She thought of flight, of leaving this dark world of death and returning to her home — to life, to a world of sunshine and swaying grasses, of horses and falcons, and the freedom to ride with her brothers.

But she could not leave, not ever.  She, too, was dead -- dead to her family, as they were dead to her.

Gradually distant sounds of palace life penetrated the thrumming of the rain: a guard’s shout, quick footsteps passing on the covered veranda outside the shutters, subdued voices, a crash as something fell.

And slowly in the room, the dead women began to stir, to sit up, stretch, and talk to each other.  A shutter opened and a maid looked in.  Their day had begun.

Bemused, Toshiko watched from her corner as each of the ladies was greeted by her own maid who tended to her morning toilet while exchanging soft chatter.  Everywhere there were elaborate preparations with much running and fetching.  Someone called for more light, for food, and the shutters were raised, revealing an unrelenting gray sky and a slanting rain which made the world outside appear as if seen through silver gauze.  Maids rushed about with bowls and water pitchers or small trays with the morning rice gruel.  Here and there large round mirrors appeared, and candles were lit as the ladies applied cosmetics to their faces or fresh blackening to their teeth.

Lady Sanjo arrived suddenly at Toshiko’s side.  She cried, “Heavens, has no one seen to the new girl?  She must be made presentable.”

Toshiko, aware of her sleep-rumpled condition, got to her feet and looked about for her cosmetics box, her mirror, her combs.

Lady Sanjo glared at her.  “You have brought no maid,” she said accusingly.

Toshiko bowed her head.  “No.  I was told—”

“How stupid!”  The other woman snapped her fingers irritably, looked around, and fixed on a young lady nearby who was almost ready.  “Shojo-ben, do you mind sharing your maid until someone can be assigned?”

Lady Shojo-ben smiled and bowed, and Toshiko blushed with embarrassment and bowed back, murmuring her thanks.  A rather plain woman in a dark silk gown joined them and was told to get Toshiko’s boxes and hot water.

Lady Shojo-ben was small and very pretty.  Her hands were like fluttering butterflies as she asked if Toshiko had slept well.

“Yes, thank you.  I was tired.  It was a long journey and then to be called into the August Presence . . . it was exhausting,” bubbled Toshiko, grateful for the other’s friendliness.

Lady Sanjo made a hissing sound.  “Guard your tongue, girl,” she murmured, and Lady Shojo-ben blushed and lowered her eyes.

It became very quiet in the large room.  Toshiko felt confused and then realized that they must think — oh, no — they must think that she and he —.  She began to tremble with shame.  “It was nothing,” she cried, looking around at the listening women and their maids.  The room seemed to be full of ears, all avidly waiting for her next word.  “He didn’t . . . nothing happened.”  Lady Sanjo now looked as fierce as a demon and hissed again.  “We only talked,” Toshiko finished lamely.