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telling me about a family newly arrived from Italy; they have one of the big houses the other side of the harbour . . .’
    The father was in the silk business and would be spending some time inspecting factories in the province. The Italian wife was looking for someone to help with two small children.
    ‘Sharpless-san could provide an excellent reference for you. This could be a fine opportunity . . .’ And so forth.
    The maid’s smooth, square face remained expressionless. She nodded. Suzuki needed no lessons in the nuances of social deviousness. She expressed her gratitude to Cho-Cho-san, and indeed to Sharpless-san for his kindness in mentioning the Italian family.
    ‘I will make enquiries without delay.’ She broke off to take the baby and prepare him for sleep. She knew what her employer was really saying, and Cho-Cho knew that she knew. But the form had been observed.
    A few days later Suzuki announced that she had found work. Not with the Italian family, but in a silk-reeling factory on the outskirts of town. She was grateful to Sharpless-san: his mention of the Italians had been of help to her. This was an excellent opportunity; she was grateful to Cho-Cho-san for drawing her attention . . . And so forth.
    Then, a hesitation; a diffidence: it would be a great kindness if Cho-Cho-san were to permit Suzuki to occupy her usual sleeping space at the back of the house – for a while.
    ‘Luckily the factory shifts are quite long so I will not be in your way.’ And so forth.
    Cho-Cho knew what her maid was really saying and Suzuki knew that she knew. Nothing was spoken, all was understood, and the transition was made: Suzuki would continue to spread her futon in a corner of the house, and asked permission to make ‘a trivial contribution’ to the household expenses. Cho-Cho insisted that she must stay until she found more comfortable lodgings. It was, of course, they agreed, a temporary arrangement.
    Next day, Suzuki put on her thick cotton work clothes and went out into the pre-dawn mist and the unknown territory of her new life.
    After the silk farmers had gathered the bulging cocoons from mulberry trees stripped bare to feed the ravenous larvae, they took them to the factory. Suzuki joined the line of girls waiting to take charge of the loaded baskets and carry them indoors to the cauldrons of boiling water, where the process began.
    When she stumbled home from the factory long after dark, too exhausted to eat, an odd reversal of roles took place: it was Cho-Cho who persuaded her to nibble a few grains of rice; who undressed and washed the dazed girl and helped her to the futon spread out for her while, half asleep, she tried to describe her day.
    ‘Poor worms! They work so hard, spinning threads, wrappingthemselves in their fat cocoons, and then they’re tipped into cauldrons and boiled alive. I have to pick out any that have become moths—’
    ‘But why?’
    ‘They crack open the cocoon, to get out. The thread is broken, useless.’ She yawned, too tired to cover her mouth. ‘When the cocoons are soft, we scoop them out of the water and very carefully start to wind the threads on to iron reels. They’re beautiful, as fine as cobwebs.’
    ‘It sounds difficult.’
    ‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘Difficult. I have acquired a skill.’
    But when Suzuki spoke of the awesome size of the silk workshop; the long lines of tables where the women worked; the impressive quantity of thread produced – ‘the thread from one cocoon can measure from the door to the shore’ – she said nothing of the boiling vats that spilled over, scalding her arms, the fingertip testing of water temperature, the dangers of unstable machinery.
    When she came home one night with bleeding hands, she shrugged away Cho-Cho’s alarmed questions.
    ‘Machinery can break down. Girls are injured.’
    Cho-Cho, distraught, spread healing ointment on the damaged fingers.
    ‘You must take greater care.’
    Together the two women clung to a