The shoulders in the purple silk kimono with the girlish shoulder-tucks seemed to shrink together as Suga, kneeling and bowing low to the floor, stumbled through the greeting in precisely the form that her mother in Tokyo had taught her. A young girl of fifteen sacrificed for the sake of her family’s fortunes, her only instructions were that she would be going into service for life with the Shirakawa family in Fukushima. She was to wait on the master as his maid, but as to the nature of the service she had been told nothing. The one thing she dreaded above all was a reprimand, being resolved all her days to observe her mother’s solemn injunction that she look after her master well and never disobey his wishes whatever might happen. Luckily, she had struck up a friendship with the nine-year-old daughter Etsuko during their two or three days together in Tokyo, and the mistress too, she was relieved to find, was in no way an unkind person despite the formality typical of people from the provinces. That left only the most important person of all, the master, who was certain to be an awesome figure since he was far older, it seemed, than his wife and, as chief secretary or some such important-sounding position in the prefecture, sometimes stood in for the governor himself. Whatever would she do if he were to scold her in a loud voice? In Tokyo, there would at least have been a home she could run back to, but the thought of such a thing happening in Fukushima untold scores of miles away made her unutterably wretched …

‘ “Suga,” eh? A good name. Tell me, how old are you?’

‘Fifteen, sir.’

She replied for all she was worth, then sat with tense features as though she might burst into tears at any moment. With the straight lines of her unnaturally thick eyebrows contracted very slightly and the sharply defined lids of her large eyes wide open as though in surprise, her face in the yellowish light of the lamp was sharply etched like an actor’s on the stage. Shirakawa was reminded of the extraordinary facial beauty of a well-known courtesan called Imamurasaki, seen long ago one night in cherry-blossom time, parading with her retinue through Yoshiwara.

‘You must find it lonely here in the country after a busy place like Tokyo?’

‘Oh no, sir.’

‘Do you like Kabuki?’

‘Yes, sir,’ she replied and went rigid with doubt lest this had not been the right thing to say.

‘Just like Tomo,’ he said laughing. ‘We have a theater here in Fukushima, you know. I believe an Osaka actor called Tokizō is playing there at the moment, so I’ll take you as soon as we get back.’

Although the master was in a good mood, each mild phrase he uttered fell on Suga’s ears with hidden menace.