The Education of Sumire Min is a previously unpublished novel by S. Jae-Jones. Chapters will be emailed every Friday at 5PM EST. If you do not wish to receive the next chapter, but want to remain subscribed for other updates, you may unsubscribe from the book here.
🚨 content warning: sexualized exoticization of underaged girls by white colonizers
It was almost too easy: dress the part, win the fascination of a prince. Sumire stopped round the Morita okiya after the party had broken up to ask for the use of one of their best kimonos. She had sent one of the Count’s maids around with her request, and was met at the entrance to the okiya by the dresser, a man named Yoshida, but whom they all called the Walrus for his unusual ability to grow prodigious facial hair.1 He currently wore a bushy waxed moustache that rivaled any seen on the faces of the British party.
“Mrs Morita wants to see you,” he said.
Sumire nodded, and followed the little man into the courtyard and through the house to Mrs Morita’s rooms. He knocked politely and she heard a curt come in from within.
“The answer is no,” said Mrs Morita before Sumire could even make her bows. The indomitable woman was at her desk, going over her account books, holding a pair of wire-framed spectacles to her face.
“My humblest apologies, Mother,” said Sumire, sinking to her knees and prostrating herself before Mrs Morita. Although Sumire no longer lived at the okiya either as a maid or potential apprentice, old habits were hard to shake, and she could no more call the woman “Morita-san” than she could call the Walrus by his given name. “But please hear me out before you refuse me.”
Mrs Morita sighed and put away her spectacles. “Sit up, child, and I’ll call for some tea. Yoshida-san, would you please fetch the maid?”
The dresser went to fetch the maid and Sumire knelt before Mrs Morita, hands folded demurely in her lap, eyes downcast. She could feel the woman’s hard, appraising stare bore into the top of her head, but resisted the urge to meet the proprietress’s gaze. Sumire admired Mrs Morita, who was as close to a foster mother as she ever had in her latest life and who had taught her everything she knew, but did not press her suit. Women, unlike men, did not tolerate impertinence as play. It was Mrs Morita who had taught her thus.
When the Walrus returned with the tea service, Sumire gauged it safe to lift her head. She poured the two of them a cup, and waited patiently as the steam rose into the silence between them.
“It isn’t as though I wish to deny you, Sumire-san,” said Mrs Morita, once the tea had cooled enough to sip. “But the okiya simply cannot afford to lend its kimono to outsiders.” She nodded at the Walrus, who sat on the tatami mats behind her.
“I had hoped, Mother, that I was still family enough for the privilege.”
The corner of Mrs Morita’s lip lifted slightly. “Oh, I have played favorites with you, to be sure, but the sort of indulgence you beg is too much. It would be different, of course, if you had accepted my offer of adoption.”
Sumire bit her lip. Before she had taken up employment in the Count’s household, Mrs Morita had offered her future ownership of the okiya by adopting Sumire as her own. It was a great honour, and one not to be turned down lightly, but in the end, Sumire couldn’t imagine spending the rest of her life hunched over account books, buying, trading, and selling young girls’ lives to make a living.
“I didn’t think it would have been fair to the others,” said Sumire. “I never made my debut.”
“No, but you’ve never been concerned with fairness,” Mrs Morita said wryly.
Sumire flushed. She wasn’t one to be easily embarrassed or abashed by less-than-kind comments on her character, but Mrs Morita was one of the few women—no, people—whom she esteemed without reserve.
“No, Mother,” she admitted. “But nevertheless, it is true. How could I run the okiya efficiently if I were to be resented for the rest of my life?”
Mrs Morita lifted an eyebrow. “As if it would have bothered you.”
Sumire said nothing.
The older woman closed her eyes and shook her head. “No, you were right to turn it down. You’re not suited to this life. You are ruthlessly pragmatic, a quality I’ve always cherished in you, but you lack compassion.”
At that, Sumire couldn’t hide a derisive snort, and the Walrus’ impressive moustache twitched with amusement. Mrs Morita was many things—practical, unsentimental, and professional—but compassionate was hardly a word anyone would have used to describe her.
“Yes, compassion,” said Mrs Morita. “You are altogether too calculating and cold, Sumire-san, and you have no insight into the emotional depths of other women. For you, they are merely obstacles or stepping stones to your ambition.”
Sumire looked down at the cup of tea before her. Mrs Morita spoke nothing but the truth, and yet her words stung.
The proprietress smiled. "Yet despite this, you are singularly romantic about life."
"Mother!” Sumire protested, glancing at the Walrus, who was quietly listening in on their conversation. "I am not!" Unbidden, the image of warm brown eyes and freckles surfaced in her memory before disappearing, and she was left feeling even more disconcerted.
“I see I’ve found a sore spot.” Mrs Morita chuckled. “But you are, child. That is the real reason you’re unsuited to be my heir; despite everything, you hold romantic notions close to your heart, even if you don’t know what they are.”
Sumire scoffed. “Was I not called Winter’s Violet around the okiya? I’m not some silly girl to be taken in by foolish ideas about love.”
“Oh, I’m not speaking of love, whatever that may be,” the older woman said, waving her hand. “You are too cautious to let yourself be vulnerable to anyone, least of all a man. Or a woman, although I had wondered that about you then.” Sumire was unsurprised; relationships between women in the karyukai were not common, but were nevertheless an undeniable fact of life. “No,” Mrs Morita continued, “you hold something pure here,” she tapped Sumire’s breast, “in that tender organ of yours. A vision, a purpose, or even yourself. Whatever it is, you guard it closely, because you treasure it.”
Moments passed as Sumire lifted her now-cold tea to her lips, unable to think of a reply. The idea that she was a romantic was ridiculous; hadn’t she proven again and again that she held no illusions about what life would bring?
“We must not strain Yoshida-san’s goodwill,” she said instead, nodding at the Walrus. “So let’s resolve the matter of the kimono before the party this evening.”
Mrs Morita let out a long sigh. “I’ve already told you, Sumire-san; I cannot lend you a kimono from our stores. Discounting the matter of favoritism, I simply cannot countenance the expense.”
“You know I would take good care of it, Mother.”
“That is not the point,” said Mrs Morita, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Let us lay aside the friendship between us for a moment and consider what you are asking, Sumire-san. You are asking to borrow a robe that costs many times your yearly wage without offering up anything as collateral.”
“Is not the fact that I am bringing you untold income with this party, and indeed, many other parties to come, enough to warrant the use of a robe?”
“Facilitating cash flow is not the same as collateral,” said Mrs Morita sternly. “You know this. Unlike my girls, I get no return on you wearing one of the okiya’s kimonos. I know what this is for, Sumire-san; you would bewitch the heart of the British prince and dazzle his beauty-starved eyes with your robes. Well and good, I will not stand in the way of your ambition, but in order for you to borrow one of the okiya’s kimonos—and Yoshida-san’s services—I must ask you, what do I get out of this arrangement?”
The answer was nothing, and Sumire knew it. Mrs Morita was too shrewd a businesswoman to accept promise of repayment rather than an asset collateral or cold hard cash. Unlike Sumire’s transactions with the Count, Mrs Morita operated on strictly business terms, a fact which impressed and frustrated Sumire. The system of favors bestowed and owed was of no use here.
But she still had strings to pull with the Count, and his was a bond she could make good on.
“What is it you want?” she asked.
Mrs Morita smiled. “It isn’t what I want, but what you can give I’m interested in, child.”
“Name your price,” said Sumire. “I will see if I can match it.”
“Well,” the older woman tapped her teeth thoughtfully, “since we know that neither money nor comparable assets are yours to be had, perhaps we can figure out a percentage of your transactions with the prince which can account for the cost of the kimono.”
She knew what Mrs Morita was insinuating, but did not agree. No money had or would change hands between Sumire and the prince; it would effectively strip her of any power for Mrs Morita to act as broker between Sumire and Prince George, regardless of the pay split. She would be in practice yet another geisha at the Morita okiya, but unregistered, and without any of its advantages, or its protections.
“No, Mother,” she said, shaking her head. “You know my answer to that.”
“It was merely a suggestion,” said the proprietress with a shrug. “Otherwise, the matter is in your hands.”
Sumire’s eyes fell to the accounting books still laid out on the low table. From experience she knew those books held tallies of income from each working geisha in the house, what each girl owed, what was spent on food, clothing, maids, and other miscellaneous expenses, including potential apprentices. Sumire had been one such potential apprentice once, performing a maid’s duties until Mrs Morita decided to invest in her training. It wasn’t often Mrs Morita bet on something and bet wrong, but Sumire had been one. Less interested in training in the arts, Sumire had found herself too quick-witted to languish in a career performing for men, and forged her own opportunities with the Count Inoue instead. Despite the mishap, the Morita okiya was still one of the most prosperous in Heian, and it was because Mrs Morita put what was necessary ahead of what was fair.
“All right then,” Sumire said. “If there is nothing you want, Mother, then what it is you need?”
Mrs Morita’s brows lifted. “Ahhhh,” she breathed. “Perhaps now we will get somewhere.”
Sumire knew she had to be vigilant. She had learned the fine art of negotiation, of haggling, and of favors given and withheld from Mrs Morita herself, and it had been years since she had literally been in debt to her foster mother. Since Sumire had left the okiya, their relationship had remained friendly, professional, and slightly distant; their interactions were usually of some mutual benefit to both.
She sighed. “You were the one who taught me that coyness, like impertinence, was lost on other women. Out with it, Mother. What is it you need?”
Mrs Morita smiled, but it was sad, and slightly regretful. “You know what it is I need, Sumire-san; I need an heir.”
It cost her nothing to promise everything, or so Sumire thought, but she was wrong. Confident in her ability to suggest everything but promise nothing, she had forgotten the most important lesson of all: women don’t play games for sport; they play for blood.
But tonight she was out for sport. Back at the Count’s to prepare for the evening, she left the Morita okiya with her coveted kimono and an unexpected maid in tow. While Sumire could have used the Walrus’s expertise in getting dressed, his services would be needed at the okiya for the night, so Mrs Morita had sent Sumire home with one of the senior maids.
“This is Hanako,” Mrs Morita said. “She often steps in when Yoshida-san is overworked.”
Expecting a young girl, Sumire had been surprised when Hanako turned out to be a slightly plump woman in her mid-forties, nearly as old as Mrs Morita herself. Maids did not stay long in the okiya system—they either became geisha themselves or found more profitable employment elsewhere, as Sumire had done. Still, Hanako’s fingers were deft, and Sumire was dressed in no time.
“What about your makeup?” Hanako had asked before helping Sumire slip into her underrobe.
Sumire had debated whether or not she would paint her entire face as the apprentice girls did, but decided against it. Despite the sumptuous kimono in Hanako’s hands, which was more a nod to the prince’s perceived tastes than her own, not to mention that she would only be playing the part of a geisha should she affect their costume, and she very much doubted her former sisters would appreciate her appropriation of their long years of training. So in contrast to the stark, white made-up faces of her peers, she would keep her face bare, save for a touch of rouge for her lips. Her hair too, was a simple low chignon at the nape of her neck, to distinguish her from the elaborate waxed hair styles the others would be wearing. Everything about her would be simple, spare, and elegant. And honest. Or at least as honest as she could bring herself to be.
“No makeup, no hair ornaments,” said Sumire.
“But you look so old this way,” Hanako complained.
It was true that older geisha and matrons were not so ostentatious as young apprentices, but Sumire preferred simplicity to extravagance. Even the kimono she borrowed from the Morita okiya was rather understated: a beautiful watery blue-grey silk threaded with silver with a pattern of waves breaking against cliffs along the hem and sleeves. The underrobe was an even deeper blue with a pattern of bright red poppies, and the obi which Hanako helped tie about her middle was a sumptuous purple and black brocade.
She dabbed a bit of rose oil on her wrists and behind her ears, and tucked a fan and a tin of cigarettes into her obi. Hanako handed Sumire her accoutrements without a word, but Sumire could sense the hint of disapproval that lingered about the older woman like a funk. She smiled to herself.
The Count waited in the courtyard, sharply dressed in Western-style evening dress, complete with top hat and tails. He lifted a brow when he saw Sumire in her kimono.
“This is…different,” he remarked.
“It is a formal occasion, so I believed it best to appropriately attired.”
The Count coughed politely and Sumire suppressed the urge to smack him. Her reasoning sounded thin before someone who knew her outside the floating world of the karyukai. Sumire, like the Count, embraced Western influences in her life, so of course he would find her style of dress pointed and odd. But the Count was a good man, and polite, and knew when to keep his mouth shut and stop asking further questions—a trait which held him in good stead in his diplomatic career.
“Well,” he said. “I had thought to offer my arm to the lady, but now I am not so sure.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “Of course I will take your arm.”
She stepped into her tall shoes, and Hanako helped gather the excess material of her kimono so that it draped over her arm instead of dragging through the dust-choked streets of Heian. She wobbled as she shuffled towards the Count.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “You may need both your arms after all. For balance, if nothing else.”
Sumire glared at him, forgetting for the moment the pliant, decorous mask she was supposed to be wearing. He chuckled, not unkindly, and offered her his arm anyway. She accepted it with as much grace as she could muster, which was admittedly not much.
With the Count’s help, they managed to make it to the banquet hall, where they would be served dinner while the geisha entertained. If Sumire were completely honest, she was the most nervous about dinner, where she would have little opportunity to speak, or indeed, even do much of anything but sit off to the side and be a decorative element. This formal banquet would most certainly be for international diplomatic concerns, and while Sumire was certainly as well-educated on that front as any of the Ministers in the room, she was still a woman, still a secretary, still second-class.
But afterwards, when they moved to the teahouses, when sake began to flow, when ties became loosened, when games were played, Sumire knew the night would be hers.
The Count, Sumire, and the other Ministers arrived first, with the British party showing up a few moments later, young Mr Pryce among them. The boyish diplomat caught her eye and smiled, his face lighting up like lanterns at dusk. And like a mirror, she felt her own face reflect his delight, although she tried to dim her glee before the others.
The geisha were already assembled: Snow Peach kneeling with her shamisen, Plum Blossom Petal with the drums, and Little Snow, dressed in full apprentice regalia, ready to dance for the evening. As Sumire bowed to the Prince and his retinue, she noted how his eyes wandered to Little Snow. She felt an irrational stab of jealousy that she told herself was unwarranted, but in truth she was unaccustomed to being overlooked in favour of another beauty.
“You are a pretty girl,” Mrs Morita had hold her, “but there will always be others prettier than you. But beauty, now beauty, like a sea under a cloudy sky, can change and shift with the view. Beauty has nothing to do with prettiness, and everything to do with the illusion of allure.”
Little Snow was a classic Nipponese beauty, her oval face serene and placid as a figure from an ukiyo-e print. But nothing more than average intelligence animated those timeless features, and with neither charm nor wit to commend her, Sumire had always thought Little Snow forgettable, especially compared to some of the other geisha in the Morita okiya. Plum Blossom Petal was neither the prettiest nor the youngest, but she was the funniest and the most warm-hearted, which drew patrons to her again and again. She was easily the most popular geisha in the okiya.
Which is why Sumire had thought herself at an advantage. If she wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the room, then she was the most attractive by virtue of her charm, wit, and intelligence, but she had not anticipated being deprived of the opportunity to use them. Her virtues were useless in the face of Little Snow’s perfect features, and Sumire found herself sitting off to the side, forgotten and ignored as the men fixed their eyes on the dancing apprentice before them.
By the end of the banquet, Sumire was desperate to send Little Snow home. Ordinarily, an apprentice would follow her sister-mentor to the afterparty, but tonight Sumire was determined she would not be overshadowed by a teenaged girl with a painted face.
“Snow Peach,” Sumire murmured to the sister-mentor. “It is getting late and I don’t want Little Snow to overtire herself from excitement. Why don’t you send her back to the okiya for some rest?”
Snow Peach wrinkled her nose in confusion. “But you said you wanted all of us there, Sumire-san. Poor Little Snow will be so disappointed to miss her first adult party, and with a prince from another land, no less!”
“There will be other opportunities,” said Sumire. Once she had wrested the prince’s attention away from Little Snow for good. She could see the threads which were beginning to bind the apprentice and the prince together, and she longed to reach in and twist their fates to her own ambition. “But I fear this party will be rather dull for poor Little Snow; she speaks no Ænglish, and there will be drinking games and stories that she can’t participate in.”
“What of the rest of us? We don’t speak Ænglish either.”
“I will be there to translate for you and Plum Blossom Petal. But really, Snow Peach, you can’t possibly expect me to speak for all of you.”
“I suppose you are right,” Snow Peach with a sigh. “But the poor thing will be absolutely gutted.”
“Well, I am afraid that is the way of life. Little Snow better head home soon; there is no work like getting over a disappointment.”
Snow Peach went to inform her apprentice of the news and Sumire allowed herself a moment of revel and relief. The path ahead was clear; she had wrested control of its course.
The men inside the banquet hall began to rise to their feet, the prince himself assisted by Plum Blossom Petal and Little Snow.
“Arigatou gozaimasu,” the prince smiled at Little Snow. The young girl smiled back, fetchingly shy. Sumire’s feelings of revel and relief dropped sharply away, leaving her with the cold stone of jealousy in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps the apprentice was cleverer than Sumire gave her credit, and the sickening sensation of having made a grave error washed over her.
Having set the prince on his feet, Little Snow rushed to prepare his shoes. He continued to smile at the girl with an indulgent look on his face, as she tucked her chin into her robes with coy bashfulness. Sumire wondered whether this was natural cunning or the practiced simulacrum of it, but silently swore that she would never again let down her guard around Little Snow.
Smoothly (or as smoothly as Sumire could manage in her constricting kimono), she appeared by the prince’s side. “Do you need my assistance, Your Highness?”
“No, no, I do believe this young woman and I are getting along splendidly.” He beamed at Little Snow, who glowed with understanding, even if she did not comprehend his words.
“Little Snow,” said Sumire in a sweet voice. The apprentice looked up. “Your big sister has been looking for you.” She kept her tone even, calm, and a little approving, the tone of voice one would use to compliment a young girl on her dancing.
“She has?” Little Snow was surprised. “Did she say why, Sumire-san?”
Sumire let her smile grow bigger, her expression indulgent. “Why don’t you go find out yourself?”
Little Snow stiffened. In that moment, Sumire knew that the young apprentice was no fool, and that she had underestimated her. Lulled by Little Snow’s pretty face, Sumire had discounted the girl’s intelligence—the very same mistake so many others had made with Sumire. She would not be so careless again.
“Yes, Sumire-san.” Little Snow gave a little bow and fluttered away. Sumire watched her go, and made a note to tread lightly with this one.
“Where is she going?” the prince asked. “You haven’t scared her away, have you?”
“Back home, Your Highness,” said Sumire. “It is the hour when children should be in bed. The night is late, and she is young.”
The prince frowned. “How young?”
Sumire said nothing, her features frozen in a theatre mask smile, to be interpreted as the audience will.
“Ahem, well,” he said, clearing his throat. “She is a sweet little thing.”
Her frozen smile thawed into a genuine one. “That she is, my prince.”
She finished helping him into his shoes and let him lean on her as they made their way through the courtyard and out into the streets, into the night, towards the teahouses, and towards each other’s arms.
But the path before her was not entirely clear, and they were stopped at the threshold by Little Snow.
“Sumire-san,” said Little Snow, bowing very deeply before her. “Before you go, may I ask if I have offended you somehow?”
“I thought you said she should be in bed,” said the prince.
“She came back to ask for directions,” said Sumire. Switching to Nipponese, she asked the apprentice, “What is it?”
“I had hoped to accompany Sumire-san and my older sisters out tonight, and I had been led to believe that my performance was pleasing. Have I made a mistake?”
Sumire sighed. “No, Little Snow, but I didn’t think it was appropriate for an apprentice who would not be a full-fledged geisha for another four years to be out with a royal party from an empire across the sea.”
Little Snow flicked her eyes from Sumire and the prince, from one to the other.
“What is it?” the prince asked. “Does she need help? I can get one of my men to escort her home.”
Sumire could see Little Snow take note of the way Prince George’s eyes settled on her face, her painted lower lip, the bright colours of her robe, and glittering hair ornaments; the way Sumire’s hands resting on his arm was less symbol of support than a possessive gesture; and the way the prince was not looking, not once, in Sumire’s direction, despite the fact she stood by his side.
“Hai, Sumire-san,” said Little Snow with another bow. “I shall not stand in your way. I have no intention of usurping your place by his side.”
Sumire’s grip on the prince’s arm tightened, and she felt the man flinch beneath her.
“We are of two different worlds, Sumire-san,” the apprentice continued. “And what your aims are with the prince I don’t know, and I don’t care. But please understand, Sumire-san, before you come and play in my world, that the rules of engagement differ, and the stakes are not the same. I only ask for the opportunity to rise in my okiya, as I thought I had been given tonight.” Little Snow considered Sumire with her understated robes and bare face. “You may be beautiful, the most beautiful woman I have ever met, but if you think to win the heart of your prince, then play by your rules. You will only lose when you play by mine.”
And with that, the apprentice disappeared down one of the small, dark side streets of Heian, leaving a bewildered prince and a troubled young woman in her wake.
author’s note ✍🏻
To be honest, this chapter makes me squirm to reread now, not just because everything I write makes me squirm when I reread it, but because it’s so painfully obvious that I have no idea what I’m talking about. The world of the karyuyai is closed to outsiders, so everything I am doing with Sumire and the okiya feels…inappropriate, and while I address the sexualized exoticization in the next chapter, just having it…there…and also reading how Sumire both plays into and chafes at it makes me itch.
Perhaps it’s because I still remember that feeling of itchiness very vividly when I was playing into and chafing at such sexualized exoticization myself. In some respects, I was luckier than many of my other femme East Asian-American siblings because I looked so young well into my 20s, so I was infantilized rather than sexualized. But is that truly luckier? I’m not sure. The rare occasions I did experience such things, I felt that same combination of validation and irritation and even jealousy that Sumire feels so acutely. I hated it then, I hate it now, and I hate to reread it tbh.
Sumire thinks she knows so much of the world, in much the same way I thought I knew of the world then. Only now I’m old enough now to understand that there is so much more I need to learn.
The first nine chapters will be available for free, after which the content will go behind a paywall. Next week will be the last free chapter, and the birthday promotion on yearly subscriptions will expire in three days, so grab it while you can!
So I didn’t know this at the time, but the Ainu—one of the indigenous peoples to the Japanese islands—are some of the hairiest peoples in East Asia, and are able to grow some incredibly prodigious facial hair.