Apparitions: Ghosts of Old Edo by Miyuki Miyabe

Author:Miyuki Miyabe [Miyabe, Miyuki]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9781421571836
Publisher: Haikasoru/VIZ Media
Published: 2013-11-16T23:00:00+00:00

Thirty-odd years had already passed, she told me, since the event that occurred when Mother was sixteen.

At that time, Mother was working as a maid for a kimono wholesaler in Nihonbashi-Tōrimachi called the Jōshū’ya.

Actually, Mother was the illegitimate daughter of the master of the Jōshū’ya, born of a live-in maid with whom he had had an affair. Her mother, I’m given to understand, was well known for her conspicuous beauty, but rather than being a blessing to her, it instead awakened evil thoughts in the master of the Jōshū’ya. Mother said with a smile that no matter the roll of the dice women were made for hard lives.

“And my mother was hardly the only one to have such an experience. After all, the master of the Jōshū’ya was indiscriminate in his fondness for women. Aside from myself, he had three other children born to other women, all of them boys. In addition, he had one other son born to the mistress, which meant that later on there was no end of fighting over who would inherit the shop. Things did not end well, and ultimately the family fortune ran dry in the next generation, but, well, that’s not directly related to my life story, so let’s leave it aside.”

Mother’s mother, I’m told, died of puerperal fever shortly after giving birth to her. The master of the Jōshū’ya, being the sort of man he was, bore not one sliver of affection for the children of those maids he had laid hands on for sport. Mother was entrusted to the chief housekeeper, by whom she was raised to one day become a worker in the shop. In other words, she lost her mother when she was a baby, was essentially without a father, and from the very beginning was treated as a nuisance. Even so, as a baby she understood none of this herself, so all was as yet well with her. Things didn’t get hard until she reached early childhood and became aware of what was going on around her …

“The mistress of the Jōshū’ya was a woman harsh in her jealousy, who—in a twisted sort of payback—enjoyed taking her hatred of her philandering husband out on the children he had fathered with other women. When I look back on it now, I feel rather sorry for her on account of that, but be that as it may, as a child, I’d have been less frightened facing Lord Yama in the afterlife than I was facing the mistress of the Jōshū’ya.”

The lady of the house often chastised Mother, calling her abusive names like “rice weevil,” for eating their rice without contributing anything.

Well, she was a small child at the time; of course she could not work. She was a growing girl; that she got hungry was only natural. Even so, she was stuck on the notion that it was outrageous for anyone in the working class to just eat without doing anything. Mother grew up subjected to all manner of meanness

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