Memoirs Of A Geisha

there most mornings when the weather was right. Satsu came too sometimes, wearing a scratchy bathing dress she'd made from our father's old fishing clothes. It wasn't a ver

is shoulder to signal that she should follow, and she always did. I didn't expect to see her again until dinner-time, but as I neared the house I caught sight of her on the path ahead of me, leaning against a tree. If you'd seen wha

d to be the very thing the Sugi boy found fascinating about them. He jiggled them with his hand, and pushed them to one side to watch them swing back and settle against her che

e you squatting the

een swimming; and considering that as yet I had no shapes or textures on my

g my nakedness with my arms as best I could-there stoo

d. "And over there, that looks like the Sugi boy.

ster, Mr. Tanaka. I'm wa

nning away down the path. My sister must have run away too, for Mr. Tanaka told me I could go home and

old me. "Don't listen to Dr. Miura if he tells you they're worthless. Have your sister make tea with them a

that case, sir. My sister is

r sister can't even be trusted to make tea! With your father so old,

ke care of mys

s father died. The very next year his mother died, and then his older brother

k as if to say that I sh

by the Tanaka family at the age of twelve. After I got a bit older, I was married to the daughter and adopted. Now I help run the fam

man on earth. I believed he knew things I would never know; and that he had an elegance I would never have; and that his blue kimono was finer than anything I wou

ne would ever want

Naming your house a 'tipsy house.' Sayin

es look li

Chiyo-chan," he said. "You want lunch, don't you? Perhaps if your sis

the houses to guide the spirits home, we gathered on the festival's final night at our Shinto shrine, which stood on rocks overlooking the inlet. Just inside the gate of the shrine was a clearing, decorated that evening with colored paper lanterns strung on ropes between the trees. My mother and I danced together for a while with the rest of the villagers, to the music of drums and a flute; but at last I began to feel tired and she cradled me in her lap at the edge of the clearing. Suddenly the wind came up off the cliffs and one of the lanterns caught fire. We watched the flame bur

nd Mr. Tanaka sitting across from my father at the little table in our house. I knew they were talking about somet

hat do you think

father. "I can't picture th

f, and so would you. Just see to it they co

ve. I pretended I was just arriv

than Yoroido. I think you'd like it. Why don't you and Satsu-san come there tomorrow? You'll see my house and meet my little daughte

d; but another part of me was very much afraid. I felt horribly ashamed for even imagining I might live somewhere besides my tipsy house. After Mr. Tanaka had left, I tried to busy myself in the kitchen, but I felt a bit like Satsu, for I could hardly see the things before me. I don't know how much time passed. At length I heard my father

boiler compartment from an old steam engine someone had abandoned in our village; the top had been sawed off and the inside lined with wood. I sat a long w

t he looked toward me and Satsu, and then afterward wiped his face on the sleeve of his shirt. Somehow his features looked heavier to me than usual. The men carried the full baskets to Mr. Tanaka's horse-drawn wagon and arran

of Senzuru, little fishies

onto the bench of the wagon with him. I sat in the middle, close enough to feel the fabric of Mr. Tanaka's kimono against my hand. I cou

de quite suddenly. One of the sea bass was thrown out and hit the ground so hard it was jolted back to life. To see it flopping and gasping was more than I could bear. I turned back around with tears in

s them, but if she has to cook a crab, or anything els

of prayer-that I thought his wife had invented. She sa

i yo

u shit

ss, oh li

rself to

e sang it to a flounder in the back lying in a low basket by itself

o, ii ka

a maki

o hits

nemu

wa mad

o hik

, kono

p, you goo

l are s

birds and

ens and in

rs this

their go

the w

at the world outside Yoroido, and I didn't think I'd missed much. I could see the thatched roofs of the town around an inlet, amid dull hills, and beyond the

odor, as if all the fish in it were rotting. Around the legs of the P

ir timbers cracked; they looked to me as

But down at the end, to my surprise, was an office, lovely to my nine-year-old eyes. Inside the doorway, Satsu and I stood in our bare feet on a slimy floor of stone. Before us, a step led up to a platform covered with tatami mats. Perhaps this is what impressed me so;

nd cranky-looking, and I don't think you could ever meet anyone who fidgeted more. When she wasn't smoothing her kimono, she was wiping somethin

r, "This is Chiyo-cha

su-

e biggest sigh she'd given yet, and began to pick with one hand at a crusty patc

e you?" she said. But she w

d-my sister. "Wh

. Fidget was addressing, so I answered fo

did it in a most peculiar way, by poking me several times in the

Just look at her forehead." Here she turned to my sister again and said, "Now, then. The yea

fingertips. She spent a long while checking Satsu's nose from different angles, and her ears. She pinc

you. What a great deal of water you have! Eight, white; the pl

these same fingers. Soon she got to her feet and came down onto the stone floor where we stood. She took a while getting her crooked feet into her z

ch a state of shock, I could barely bring myself to watch. I'd certainly seen Satsu naked before, but the way Mrs. Fidget handled her body seemed even more indecent to me than when Satsu had held

f your pant

ad no time to wonder about it either, for in an instant Mrs. Fidget had put her hands on Satsu's knees and spread them apart. And without a moment's hesitation she reached her hand between Satsu's legs. After this I could no longer bring myself to watch. I think Satsu must have resisted, for Mrs. Fidget gave a shout,

ore seating me on the platform and pulling my pants off my legs. I was terribly frightened of what she would do, and when she tried to spread my knees apart, she had to slap me on the leg just as she'd slapped Satsu, which made my throat begin to burn from holding back my tears. She put a fing

ble. Both of them are intact. The older one has far too much wood, but the younger one has a goo

way," he said. "Why don't we talk about it while

the ceiling. Because of the shape of her face, tears were pooled along the tops of her nostrils, and I burst into tears myself

orrible woman?"

obably Mr. Tanaka wants to learn

he look at us in

rstand?" I said. "Mr. Tana

bug had crawled into her eye. "What are you talk

s sick, I think Mr. Tanaka is worried about our f

g was going to take us from our tipsy house. She was squeezing out the things I'd told her in the same way you might squeeze water from a sponge. Slowly her face be

up into his entryway he left his shoes right where he walked out of them, because a maid came and stowed them on a shelf for him. Satsu and I had no shoes to put away, but just as I was about to walk into the house, I felt something strike me softly on my backside, and a pine cone fell onto the wood floor between my feet. I turned to see a young girl about my age, with very short hair, running to hide behind a tree. She peered out to smile at me with a triangle of empty space between her front

'd laid out rocks and pine cones to make rooms. In one she pretended to serve me tea out of a cracked cup; in another we took turns nursing her baby doll, a little boy named Taro who was really nothing more than a canvas bag stuffed with dirt. T

naka-all began to seem almost insignificant to me in comparison. The difference between life here at the Tanakas' house a

of a ceiling high above me, with electric lights hanging down over our heads. The brightness of the room was startling; I'd never seen such a thing before. Soon the servants brought our dinner-grilled salted sea bas

l. After dinner she and Satsu began playing a game of go, and Mr. Tanaka stood and called a maid to bring his kimono jacket. In a moment Mr. Tanaka was gone

lowing my daddy. I do it every

peered in, I heard the sounds of laughter and talking, and someone singing to the accompaniment of a shamisen. At length she stepped aside so I could put my own eye to the hole. Half the room inside was blocked from my view by a folding screen, but I could see Mr. Tanaka seated on the mats with a group of three or four men. An old man beside him was telling a story about holding a ladder for a young woman and peering up her robe; everyone was laughing except

almost every night. I don't know why he likes it so. The women pour drinks, a

oroido owned anything more sophisticated than a cotton robe, or perhaps linen, with a simple pattern in indigo. But unlike her clothing, the woman herself wasn't lovely at all. Her teeth protruded so badly that her lips didn't quite cover them, and the narrowness of her head made me wonder if she'd been pressed between two boards as a baby. You may think me cruel to d

st. The sky was extravagant with stars, except for the half blocked by limbs above me. I could have sat much longer trying to understand all I'

gan to swell inside me, and I whispered to Kuniko, "Did you know I'm going to come and live with you?" I thought the news would shock her into opening her eyes, or may