Memoirs of a Geisha

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Memoirs of a Geisha Page 22

by Arthur Golden


  "Go take a bath," she said to me. "You've been perspiring a good deal, and your makeup hasn't held up."

  It was a warm fall day, you see, and I'd been working very hard.

  *

  Back at the okiya, Auntie helped me undress and then took pity on me by letting me nap for a half hour. I was back in her good graces again, now that my foolish mistakes were behind me and my future seemed even brighter than Pumpkin's. She woke me after my nap, and I rushed to the bathhouse as quickly as I could. By five, I had finished dressing and applying my makeup. I felt terribly excited, as you can imagine, because for years I'd watched Hatsumomo, and lately Pumpkin, go off in the afternoons and evenings looking beautiful, and now at last my turn had come. The event that evening, the first I would ever attend, was to be a banquet at the Kansai International Hotel. Banquets are stiffly formal affairs, with all the guests arranged shoulder to shoulder in a sort of U-shape around the outside of a big tatami room, and trays of food sitting on little stands in front of them. The geisha, who are there to entertain, move around the center of the room-inside the U-shape made by all the trays, I mean-and spend only a few minutes kneeling before each guest to pour sake and chat. It isn't what you'd call an exciting affair; and as a novice, my role was less exciting even than Mameha's. I stayed to one side of her like a shadow. Whenever she introduced herself, I did the same, bowing very low and saying, "My name is Sayuri. I'm a novice and beg your indulgence." After that I said nothing more, and no one said anything to me.

  Toward the end of the banquet, the doors at one side of the room were slid open, and Mameha and another geisha performed a dance together, known as Chi-yo no Tomo-"Friends Everlasting." It's a lovely piece about two devoted women meeting again after a long absence. Most of the men sat picking their teeth through it; they were executives of a large company that made rubber valves, or some such thing, and had gathered in Kyoto for their annual banquet. I don't think a single one of them would have known the difference between dancing and sleepwalking. But for my part, I was entranced. Geisha in Gion always use a folding fan as a prop when dancing, and Mameha in particular was masterful in her movements. At first she closed the fan and, while turning her body in a circle, waved it delicately with her wrist to suggest a stream of water flowing past. Then she opened it, and it became a cup into which her companion poured sake for her to drink. As I say, the dance was lovely, and so was the music, which was played on the shamisen by a terribly thin geisha with small, watery eyes.

  A formal banquet generally lasts no more than two hours; so by eight o'clock we were out on the street again. I was just turning to thank Mameha and bid her good night, when she said to me, "Well, I'd thought of sending you back to bed now, but you seem to be so full of energy. I'm heading to the Komoriya Teahouse. Come along with me and have your first taste of an informal party. We may as well start showing you around as quickly as we can."

  I couldn't very well tell her I felt too tired to go; so I swallowed my real feelings and followed her up the street.

  The party, as she explained to me along the way, was to be given by the man who ran the National Theater in Tokyo. He knew all the important geisha in nearly every geisha district in Japan; and although he would probably be very cordial when Mameha introduced me, I shouldn't expect him to say much. My only responsibility was to be sure I always looked pretty and alert. "Just be sure you don't let anything happen to make you look bad," she warned.

  We entered the teahouse and were shown by a maid to a room on the second floor. I hardly dared to look inside when Mameha knelt and slid open the door, but I could see seven or eight men seated on cushions around a table, with perhaps four geisha. We bowed and went inside, and afterward knelt on the mats to close the door behind us-for this is the way a geisha enters a room. We greeted the other geisha first, as Mameha had told me to do, then the host, at one corner of the table, and afterward the other guests.

  "Mameha-san!" said one of the geisha. "You've come just in time to tell us the story about Konda-san the wig maker."

  "Oh, heavens, I can't remember it at all," Mameha said, and everyone laughed; I had no idea what the joke was. Mameha led me around the table and knelt beside the host. I followed and positioned myself to one side.

  "Mr. Director, please permit me to introduce my new younger sister," she said to him.

  This was my cue to bow and say my name, and beg the director's indulgence, and so on. He was a very nervous man, with bulging eyes and a kind of chicken-bone frailty. He didn't even look at me, but only flicked his cigarette in the nearly full ashtray before him and said:

  "What is all the talk about Konda-san the wig maker? All evening the girls keep referring to it, and not a one of them will tell the story."

  "Honestly, I wouldn't know!" Mameha said.

  "Which means," said another geisha, "that she's too embarrassed to tell it. If she won't, I suppose I'll have to."

  The men seemed to like this idea, but Mameha only sighed.

  "In the meantime, I'll give Mameha a cup of sake to calm her nerves," the director said, and washed out his own sake cup in a bowl of water on the center of the table-which was there for that very reason-before offering it to her.

  "Well," the other geisha began, "this fellow Konda-san is the best wig maker in Gion, or at least everyone says so. And for years Mameha-san went to him. She always has the best of everything, you know. Just look at her and you can tell."

  Mameha made a mock-angry face.

  "She certainly has the best sneer," said one of the men.

  "During a performance," the geisha went on, "a wig maker is always backstage to help with changes of costume. Often while a geisha is taking off a certain robe and putting on another one, something will slip here or there, and then suddenly... a naked breast! Or... a little bit of hair! You know, these things happen. And anyway-"

  "All these years I've been working in a bank," said one of the men. "I want to be a wig maker!"

  "There's more to it than just gawking at naked women. Anyway, Mameha-san always acts very prim and goes behind a screen to change-"

  "Let me tell the story," Mameha interrupted. "You're going to give me a bad name. I wasn't being prim. Konda-san was always staring at me like he couldn't wait for the next costume change, so I had a screen brought in. It's a wonder Konda-san didn't burn a hole in it with his eyes, trying to see through it the way he did."

  "Why couldn't you just give him a little glimpse now and then," the director interrupted. "How can it hurt you to be nice?"

  "I've never thought of it that way," Mameha said. "You're quite right, Mr. Director. What harm can a little glimpse do? Perhaps you want to give us one right now?"

  Everyone in the room burst out laughing at this. Just when things were starting to calm down, the director started it all over by rising to his feet and beginning to untie the sash of his robe.

  "I'm only going to do this," he said to Mameha, "if you'll give me a glimpse in return..."

  "I never made such an offer," Mameha said.

  "That isn't very generous of you."

  "Generous people don't become geisha," Mameha said. "They become the patrons of geisha."

  "Never mind, then," the director said, and sat back down. I have to say, I was very relieved he'd given up; because although all the others seemed to be enjoying themselves enormously, I felt embarrassed.

  "Where was I?" Mameha said. "Well, I had the screen brought in one day, and I thought this was enough to keep me safe from Konda-san. But when I hurried back from the toilet at one point, I couldn't find him anywhere. I began to panic, because I needed a wig for my next entrance; but soon we found him sitting on a chest against the wall, looking very weak and sweating. I wondered if there was something wrong with his heart! He had my wig beside him, and when he saw me, he apologized and helped put it on me. Then later that afternoon, he handed me a note he'd written..."

  Here Mameha's voice trailed off. At last one of the men said, "Well? What did it say
?"

  Mameha covered her eyes with her hand. She was too embarrassed to continue, and everyone in the room broke into laughter.

  "All right, I'll tell you what he wrote," said the geisha who'd begun the story. "It was something like this: 'Dearest Mameha. You are the very loveliest geisha in all of Gion,' and so forth. 'After you have worn a wig, I always cherish it, and keep it in my workshop to put my face into it and smell the scent of your hair many times a day. But today when you rushed to the toilet, you gave me the greatest moment of my life. While you were inside, I hid myself at the door, and the beautiful tinkling sound, more lovely than a waterfall-' "

  The men laughed so hard that the geisha had to wait before going on.

  " '-and the beautiful tinkling sound, more lovely than a waterfall, made me hard and stiff where I myself tinkle-' "

  "He didn't say it that way," Mameha said. "He wrote, 'the beautiful tinkling sound, more lovely than a waterfall, caused me to swell and bulge at the knowledge that your body was bare...' "

  "Then he told her," the other geisha said, "that he was unable to stand afterward because of the excitement. And he hoped that one day he would experience such a moment again."

  Of course, everyone laughed, and I pretended to laugh too. But the truth is, I was finding it difficult to believe that these men-who had paid so considerably to be there, among women wrapped in beautiful, expensive robes-really wanted to hear the same sorts of stories children back in the pond in Yoroido might have told. I'd imagined feeling out of my depth in a conversation about literature, or Kabuki, or something of that sort. And of course, there were such parties in Gion; it just happened that my first was of the more childish kind.

  All through Mameha's story, the man beside me had sat rubbing his splotchy face with his hands and paying little attention. Now he looked at me a long while and then asked, "What's the matter with your eyes? Or have I just drunk too much?"

  He certainly had drunk too much-though I didn't think it would be proper to tell him. But before I could answer, his eyebrows began to twitch, and a moment later he reached up and scratched his head so much that a little cloud of snow spilled onto his shoulders. As it turned out, he was known in Gion as "Mr. Snowshowers" because of his terrible dandruff. He seemed to have forgotten the question he'd asked me-or maybe he never expected me to answer it-because now he asked my age. I told him I was fourteen.

  "You're the oldest fourteen-year-old I've ever seen. Here, take this," he said, and handed me his empty sake cup.

  "Oh, no, thank you, sir," I replied, "for I'm only a novice..." This was what Mameha had taught me to say, but Mr. Snowshowers didn't listen. He just held the cup in the air until I took it, and then lifted up a vial of sake to pour for me.

  I wasn't supposed to drink sake, because an apprentice geisha-particularly one still in her novitiate-should appear childlike. But I couldn't very well disobey him. I held the sake cup out; but he scratched his head again before he poured, and I was horrified to see a few flecks settle into the cup. Mr. Snowshowers filled it with sake and said to me, "Now drink up. Go on. First of many."

  I gave him a smile and had just begun to raise the cup slowly to my lips-not knowing what else I could do-when, thank heavens, Mameha rescued me.

  "It's your first day in Gion, Sayuri. It won't do for you to get drunk," she said, though she was speaking for the benefit of Mr. Snowshowers. "Just wet your lips and be done with it."

  So I obeyed her and wet my lips with the sake. And when I say that I wet my lips, I mean I pinched them shut so tightly I nearly sprained my mouth, and then tipped the sake cup until I felt the liquid against my skin. Then I put the cup down on the table hurriedly and said, "Mmm! Delicious!" while reaching for the handkerchief in my obi. I felt very relieved when I patted my lips with it, and I'm happy to say that Mr. Snowshowers didn't even notice, for he was busy eyeing the cup as it sat there full on the table before him. After a moment he picked it up in two fingers and poured it right down his throat, before standing and excusing himself to use the toilet.

  An apprentice geisha is expected to walk a man to the toilet and back, but no one expects a novice to do it. When there isn't an apprentice in the room, a man will usually walk himself to the toilet, or sometimes one of the geisha will accompany him. But Mr. Snowshowers stood there gazing down at me until I realized he was waiting for me to stand.

  I didn't know my way around the Komoriya Teahouse, but Mr. Snowshowers certainly did. I followed him down the hall and around a corner. He stepped aside while I rolled open the door to the toilet for him. After I had closed it behind him and was waiting there in the hallway, I heard the sound of someone coming up the stairs, but I thought nothing of it. Soon Mr. Snowshowers was done and we made our way back. When I entered the room, I saw that another geisha had joined the party, along with an apprentice. They had their backs to the door, so that I didn't see their faces until I'd followed Mr. Snowshowers around the table and taken up my place once again. You can imagine how shocked I felt when I saw them; for there, on the other side of the table, was the one woman I would have given anything to avoid. It was Hatsumomo, smiling at me, and beside her sat Pumpkin.

  chapter fifteen

  Hatsumomo smiled when she was happy, like everybody else; and she was never happier than when she was about to make someone suffer. This is why she wore such a beautiful smile on her face when she said:

  "Oh, my goodness! What a peculiar coincidence. Why, it's a novice! I really shouldn't tell the rest of this story, because I might embarrass the poor thing."

  I hoped Mameha would excuse herself and take me with her. But she only gave me an anxious glance. She must have felt that leaving Hatsumomo alone with these men would be like running away from a house on fire; we'd be better off to stay and control the damage.

  "Really, I don't think there's anything more difficult than being a novice," Hatsumomo was saying. "Don't you think so, Pumpkin?"

  Pumpkin was a full-fledged apprentice now; she'd been a novice six months earlier. I glanced at her for sympathy, but she just stared at the table with her hands in her lap. Knowing her as I did, I understood that the little wrinkle at the top of her nose meant she felt upset.

  "Yes, ma'am," she said.

  "Such a difficult time of life," Hatsumomo went on. "I can still remember how hard I found it... What is your name, little novice?"

  Happily, I didn't have to respond, because Mameha spoke up.

  "You're certainly right about it being a difficult time of life for you, Hatsumomo-san. Though of course, you were more awkward than most."

  "I want to hear the rest of the story," said one of the men.

  "And embarrass the poor novice who's just joined us?" Hatsumomo said. "I'll tell it only if you promise that you won't think about this poor girl as you listen. Be sure to picture some other girl in your mind."

  Hatsumomo could be ingenious in her devilishness. The men might not have pictured the story happening to me earlier, but they certainly would now.

  "Let's see, where was I?" Hatsumomo began. "Oh, yes. Well, this novice I mentioned... I can't remember her name, but I ought to give her one to keep you from confusing her with this poor girl. Tell me, little novice... what is your name?"

  "Sayuri, ma'am," I said. And my face felt so hot from nervousness that I wouldn't have been surprised if my makeup had simply melted and begun to drip onto my lap.

  "Sayuri. How lovely! Somehow it doesn't suit you. Well, let's call this novice in the story 'Mayuri.' Now then, one day I was walking along Shijo Avenue with Mayuri, on our way to her older sister's okiya. There was a terrible wind, the sort that rattles the windows, and poor Mayuri had so little experience with kimono. She was no heavier than a leaf, and those big sleeves can be just like sails, you know. As we were about to cross the street, she disappeared, and I heard a little sound from behind me, like 'Ah... ah,' but very faint..."

  Here Hatsumomo turned to look at me.

  "My voice isn't high enough," she said.
"Let me hear you say it. 'Ah... ah...' "

  Well, what could I do? I tried my best to make the noise.

  "No, no, much higher... oh, never mind!" Hatsumomo turned to the man beside her and said under her breath, "She isn't very bright, is she?" She shook her head for a moment and then went on. "Anyway, when I turned around, poor Mayuri was being blown backward up the street a full block behind me, with her arms and legs flailing so much she looked like a bug on its back. I nearly tore my obi laughing, but then all of a sudden she stumbled right off the curb into a busy intersection just as a car came zooming along. Thank heavens she was blown onto the hood! Her legs flew up... and then if you can picture this, the wind blew right up her kimono, and... well, I don't need to tell you what happened."

  "You certainly do!" one of the men said.

  "Don't you have any imagination?" she replied. "The wind blew her kimono right up over her hips. She didn't want everyone to see her naked; so to preserve her modesty, she flipped herself around and ended up with her legs pointing in two different directions, and her private parts pressed against the windshield, right in the driver's face..."

  Of course, the men were in hysterics by now, including the director, who tapped his sake cup on the tabletop like a machine gun, and said, "Why doesn't anything like this ever happen to me?"

  "Really, Mr. Director," Hatsumomo said. "The girl was only a novice! It's not as if the driver got to see anything. I mean, can you imagine looking at the private parts of this girl across the table?" She was talking about me, of course. "Probably she's no different from a baby!"

  "Girls sometimes start getting hair when they're only eleven," said one of the men.

  "How old are you, little Sayuri-san?" Hatsumomo asked me.

  "I'm fourteen, ma'am," I told her, just as politely as I could. "But I'm an old fourteen."

  Already the men liked this, and Hatsumomo's smile hardened a bit.

  "Fourteen?" she said. "How perfect! And of course, you don't have any hair..."

 

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