Memoirs Of A Geisha

bt life would never again be the same. All I could think of was my confusion and misery; and I wondered day after day when I might see Satsu again. I was without my father

begin my training within a few months if I worked hard and behaved myself. As I learned from Pumpkin, beginning my training meant going to a school in another section of Gion to take lessons in things like music, dance, and tea ceremony. All the girls studying to be geisha

scabies, or to a shop on Shijo Avenue to fetch the rice crackers Auntie was so fond of. Happily the worst jobs, such as cleaning the toilets, were the responsibility of one of the elderly maids. But even thoug

nny summoned me I couldn't very well ignore her, for she had more seniority in the okiya than anyone

t girl! Send

y and hurry into the room wher

o me, after I'd bowed to her on my knees. "You o

ny. I didn't kno

I loo

I thought she looked more mean than hot, but I went directly to the window and o

at the fly with her chopsticks. "The other maid

told her I woul

o, you won't! You'll stand right here

aemon XIV, who had taken her hand during a moon-viewing party when she was only fourteen. By the time I was finally f

ssaging her was a good deal worse than you might think. I almost felt sick the first time she unfastened her robe and pulled it down from her shoulders, because the skin there and on her neck was bumpy and yellow like an uncooked chicken's. The problem, as I later learned, was that in her geisha days she'd used a kind of white makeup we call "China Clay," made with a base of lead. China Clay turned out to be poisonous, to begin with, which probably accounted in part fo

Hatsumomo, even though I hardly saw her because of the busy life she led. I worried about what might happen if she found me alone, so I always t

ave lived alone, but she certainly made enough mess for four people. When I went up to her room that day, in addition to the usual magazines strewn about, and brushes left on the mats near her tiny makeup stand, I found an apple core and an empty whiskey bottle under the table. The window was open, and the wind must have knocked down the wood frame on which she'd hung her kimono from the

hing. I see you've been straightening my room! Are you the one who ke

" I said. "I only move

umomo-san, why do you stink like an ignorant girl from a fishing village?' I'm sure you understand that, do

t. But at last I answered her. "Beca

?" "They'll say, 'Oh, Hatsumomo-san, you sme

will do. I can't see why you girls from fishing villages smell so bad. That ugly sister o

heard these words, I looked Hatsumomo right in the fa

here? She wanted me to give you a message about where she's living. Proba

umomo

rmation. When I think how, I'll tell you. Now get out." I didn't dare disobey her,

"If you would be kind enough to tell me what I wa

een a more astonishing-looking woman. Men in the street sometimes stopped and took their cigarettes from their mouths to stare at her. I t

out of my room, d

room, because the next thing I knew, I was slumped on the wood floor of th

came to help me to my feet.

ded it would be best if I slapped her for you. I th

The okiya's only telephone for calling outside Gion was mounted on the wall of her room, and no one else was permitted to use it. She'd left the earpiece lying

ce in her raspy voice. "Hatsumomo i

table, usually with an account book from the bookcase open before her and the fingers of one hand flicking the ivory beads of her abacus. She may have been organized about keeping her account books, but in every other respect she was messier even than Hatsumomo. Whenever she put her pipe down onto the table with a cl

d creature with a smashed face. He seemed to have only three pastimes in life-to bark, to snore, and to bite people who tried to pet him. After the maid had left again, Taku came and laid himself behind me. This was one of his little tricks; he liked to put himself where I would step on

tsu-momo lying. Just because she can get away with it doesn

her room, Mother," I sai

ccent, which I found difficult to do. When I'd fina

ow we can help Hatsumomo be successful as a geisha. Even Granny. She may seem like a difficult o

To tell the truth, I don't think she could have fooled a dir

rder you have to work." "Yes, Mother, I'll continue working very hard." "I don't want to hear that yo

e been wondering if anyone might know where my sis

with it I'd never seen her do before, which was to pinch her teeth together as though she wanted me to have a good look at

er this, she gave her coughing laugh a few more times, befor

ood a tank for collecting rainwater. The rainwater ran down by gravity to flush the little second-floor toilet near Mother's room, for we had no plumbing in those days, even in the k

weeks earlier; but it all seemed so far away from me now, there on the roof of the okiya. Auntie called up to me to pick the weeds from between the tiles before I came back down. I looked out at the hazy heat lying on the city and the hi

he teachers. Afterward, Hatsumomo would take me to someplace called the "registry office," which I'd never heard of, and then late in the afternoon I would observe her putt

aking me to the school the follow

you wake up," she told me. "If we're late, we

indow in her wooden shoes, I sometimes thought I could hear her crying. She hadn't taken to her lessons well-not well at all, as a matter of fact. She'd arrived in the okiya nearly six months befo

It was nothing more than unlined cotton decorated with a childlike design of squares; I'm sure I looked no more elegant than a

a worried look. I was just about to slip my feet

face sagged like wax that had melted. "I'll be late

al entrance hall. As it turned out, she didn't keep me more than ten or fifteen minutes; but by then tears were well

"Make sure you put your hands in a dish

ould I

ause my mother brushed up against a demon that passed her on the road one morning, and that's why she

if we could have. But our chores kept us so busy we hardly had time even for meals-which Pumpkin ate before me because she was senior in

m Kyoto? Your accent

as five, and my father sent me here to live with an uncl

run away to S

and died last year. I can't run

said, "you can come with us

ssed it in silence. This was the same avenue that had been so crowded the day Mr. Bekku had brought Satsu and me from the station. Now, so early in the morning, I could see only a single stree

id ones. You won't make it on your own in the world. I'm sending you to a place where people will tell you what to do. Do what they say, and you'll always be taken care of.' So if you want to go out on your own, Ch

something behind me, on the ground. "Oh, my goodness,

or door, but I could see nothing else there. And then my eye fell upon it. Outside the entryway, just at the edge of the street, lay a wooden skewer with a single bite of charcoal-roasted squid remaining. The vendors sold them from carts at night. The smell of the sweet basting sauce was a torment to me, for maids like us were

omach making noises from hunger that sounded like an enormous door rolling open. Still, I didn't think she w

n's sake, take the sweet-rice cake from that sh

"Besides, it would be sacrilege to eat

his, she bent down t

as four or five, but only because someone tricked me. But to see Pumpkin standing there holding that piece of squid on a stick, with grit from th

aid. "You might as well drag your

ue, and gave it a long, careful scrape along the ground. My mouth fell open from shock. When Pumpkin got to her feet again, she looked as though she herself couldn't quite

pine trees surrounded a decorative pond full of carp. Across the narrowest part of the pond lay a stone slab. Two old women in kimono stood on it, holding lacquered umbrellas to block the early-morning sun. As for the buildings, I didn't understand w

which even now can make my stomach tighten as though I'm on my way to lessons once again. I took off my shoes to put them into the cubby nearest at hand, but Pumpkin stopped me; there was an unspoken rule about which cubby to use

o me, even though there were only a few pairs. "If you step on them and one of

girls. I felt a jolt when I set eyes on them, because I thought one might be Satsu; but when they turned to look at us I was disappointed. They all wore th

black strokes. My reading and writing were still poor; I'd attended school in the mornings in Yoroido, and since coming to Kyoto had spent an hour every afternoon studying with Auntie, but I could read very fe

d a form of singing we call nagauta. Pumpkin was so troubled about being the last student in all of her classes that she began to wring the sash of her robe as we left the school for b

en neck that has three large tuning pegs at the end. The body is just a little wooden box with cat skin stretched over the top like a drum. The entire instrument can be taken apart and put into a box or a bag, which is how it is carried about. In any case, Pumpkin assembled her shamisen and began to tune it with her tongue poking out, but I'm s

s Teacher Mizumi, and this is what we called her to her face. But her surname of Mizumi sound

students bowed to her in unison and told her good morning, she just glowered back at them without spe

ay. In a minute or two Teacher Mouse told the girl to stop and said all sorts of unpleasant things about her playing; then she snapped her fan shut and

nts began looking at one another, for no one could tell what piece she was trying to play. Teacher Mouse slapped the table very loudly and told them all to face straight ahead; and then she used her folding fan to tap out the rhythm for Pumpkin to follow. This didn't help, so finally Teacher Mouse began to work instea

dent. Because now the girl with the disheveled hair, who'd been rushing to th

Mouse squeaked at her. "If you hadn't slept so late this mor

p too late in the mornings. How do you expect me to teach you, when you can't take the trouble to come to scho

in led me to the front of the room

r," Pumpkin said, "and ask your indulgence in instruc

way people spoke back then, when they wanted to be p

r and then said, "You're a clever girl. I can see it just from look

was talking

"Keep quiet in the classroom. I tolerate no talking at all! And your eyes m

his, she d

. I began to worry that perhaps I would never see her again, and grew so upset that o

What's trou

nd to make good on this-for the sake of the girls around me, w

e result that no one stood out. Pumpkin wasn't by any means the worst dancer, and even had a certain awkward grace in the way she moved. The singing class later in the morning was more diffi

ed me to the teacher. One of them said to me, "

a," for Nitta was the family name of

ou live with

is the only geisha in

bout singing," she said, "so lo

d as though she'd made a grea