Memoirs of a Geisha

  For a time I knelt gazing out at the sunlit leaves and wishing I could appreciate the beautiful tropical afternoon. I kept asking myself whether I was fully sane to be considering this plan; but whatever misgivings I may have felt, they weren't enough to stop me from going ahead with it. Clearly nothing would happen until I succeeded in drawing the Minister aside, and I couldn't afford to call attention to myself when I did it. Earlier he'd asked a maid to bring him a snack, and now he was sitting with his legs around a tray, pouring beer into his mouth and dropping in globs of salted squid guts with his chopsticks. This may seem like a nauseating idea for a dish, but I can assure you that you'll find salted squid guts in bars and restaurants here and there in Japan. It was a favorite of my father's, but I've never been able to stomach it. I couldn't even watch the Minister as he ate.

  "Minister," I said to him quietly, "would you like me to find you something more appetizing?"

  "No," he said, "I'm not hungry." I must admit this raised in my mind the question of why he was eating in the first place. By now Mameha and Nobu had wandered out the back door in conversation, and the others, including Pumpkin, were gathered around the go board on the table. Apparently the Chairman had just made a blunder, and they were laughing. It seemed to me my chance had come.

  "If you're eating out of boredom, Minister," I said, "why don't you and I explore the inn? I've been eager to see it, and we haven't had the time."

  I didn't wait for him to reply, but stood and walked from the room. I was relieved when he stepped out into the hallway a moment later to join me. We walked in silence down the corridor, until we came to a bend where I could see that no one was coming from either direction. I stopped.

  "Minister, excuse me," I said, "but... shall we take a walk back down to the village together?"

  He looked very confused by this.

  "We have an hour or so left in the afternoon," I went on, "and I remember something I'd very much like to see again."

  After a long pause, the Minister said, "I'll need to use the toilet first."

  "Yes, that's fine," I told him. "You go and use the toilet; and when you're finished, wait right here for me and we'll take a walk together. Don't go anywhere until I come and fetch you."

  The Minister seemed agreeable to this and continued up the corridor. I went back toward the room. And I felt so dazed-now that I was actually going through with my plan-that when I put my hand on the door to slide it open, I could scarcely feel my fingers touching anything at all.

  Pumpkin was no longer at the table. She was looking through her travel trunk for something. At first when I tried to speak, nothing came out. I had to clear my throat and try again.

  "Excuse me, Pumpkin," I said. "Just one moment of your time..."

  She didn't look eager to stop what she was doing, but she left her trunk in disarray and came out into the hallway with me. I led her some distance down the corridor, and then turned to her and said:

  "Pumpkin, I need to ask a favor."

  I waited for her to tell me she was happy to help, but she just stood with her eyes on me.

  "I hope you won't mind my asking-"

  "Ask," she said.

  "The Minister and I are about to go for a walk. I'm going to take him to the old theater, and-"

  "Why?"

  "So that he and I can be alone."

  "The Minister?" Pumpkin said incredulously.

  "I'll explain some other time, but here's what I want you to do. I want you to bring Nobu there and... Pumpkin, this will sound very strange. I want you to discover us."

  "What do you mean, 'discover' you?"

  "I want you to find some way of bringing Nobu there and opening the back door we saw earlier, so that... he'll see us."

  While I was explaining this, Pumpkin had noticed the Minister waiting in another covered walkway through the foliage. Now she looked back at me.

  "What are you up to, Sayuri?" she said.

  "I don't have time to explain it now. But it's terribly important, Pumpkin. Truthfully, my entire future is in your hands. Just make sure it's no one but you and Nobu-not the Chairman, for heaven's sake, or anyone else. I'll repay you in any way you'd like."

  She looked at me for a long moment. "So it's time for a favor from Pumpkin again, is it?" she said. I didn't feel certain what she meant by this, but rather than explaining it to me, she left.

  *

  I wasn't sure whether or not Pumpkin had agreed to help. But all I could do at this point was go to the doctor for my shot, so to speak, and hope that she and Nobu would appear. I joined the Minister in the corridor and we set out down the hill.

  As we walked around the bend in the road and left the inn behind us, I couldn't help remembering the day Mameha had cut me on the leg and taken me to meet Dr. Crab. On that afternoon I'd felt myself in some sort of danger I couldn't fully understand, and I felt much the same way now. My face was as hot in the afternoon sun as if I'd sat too close to the hibachi; and when I looked at the Minister, sweat was running down his temple onto his neck. If all went well he would soon be pressing that neck against me... and at this thought I took my folding fan from my obi, and waved it until my arm was tired, trying to cool both myself and him. All the while, I kept up a flow of conversation, until a few minutes later, when we came to a stop before the old theater with its thatched roof. The Minister seemed puzzled. He cleared his throat and looked up at the sky.

  "Will you come inside with me for a moment, Minister?" I said.

  He didn't seem to know what to make of this, but when I walked down the path beside the building, he plodded along behind me. I climbed the stone steps and opened the door for him. He hesitated only a moment before walking inside. If he had frequented Gion all his life, he'd certainly have understood what I had in mind-because a geisha who lures a man to an isolated spot has certainly put her reputation at stake, and a first-class geisha will never do such a thing casually. But the Minister just stood inside the theater, in the patch of sunlight, like a man waiting for a bus. My hands were trembling so much as I folded my fan and tucked it into my obi again, I wasn't at all certain I could see my plan through to the end. The simple act of closing the door took all my strength; and then we were standing in the murky light filtering under the eaves. Still, the Minister stood inert, with his face pointed toward a stack of straw mats in the corner of the stage.

  "Minister..." I said.

  My voice echoed so much in the little hall, I spoke more quietly afterward.

  "I understand you had a talk with the mistress of the Ichiriki about me. Isn't that so?"

  He took in a deep breath, but ended up saying nothing.

  "Minister, if I may," I said, "I'd like to tell you a story about a geisha named Kazuyo. She isn't in Gion any longer, but I knew her well at one time. A very important man-much like you, Minister-met Kazuyo one evening and enjoyed her company so much that he came back to Gion every night to see her. After a few months of this, he asked to be Kazuyo's danna, but the mistress of the teahouse apologized and said it wouldn't be possible. The man was very disappointed; but then one afternoon Kazuyo took him to a quiet spot where they could be alone. Someplace very much like this empty theater. And she explained to him that... even though he couldn't be her danna-"

  The moment I said these last words, the Minister's face changed like a valley when the clouds move away and sunlight rushes across it. He took a clumsy step toward me. At once my heart began to pound like drums in my ears. I couldn't help looking away from him and closing my eyes. When I opened them again, the Minister had come so close, we were nearly touching, and then I felt the damp fleshiness of his face against my cheek. Slowly he brought his body toward mine until we were pressed together. He took my arms, probably to pull me down onto the planking, but I stopped him.

  "The stage is too dusty," I said. "You must bring over a mat from that stack."

  "We'll go over there," the Minister replied.

  If we had lain down upon the mats in the cor
ner, Nobu wouldn't have seen us in the sunlight when he opened the door.

  "No, we mustn't," I said. "Please bring a mat here."

  The Minister did as I asked, and then stood with his hands by his side, watching me. Until this moment I'd half-imagined something would stop us; but now I could see that nothing would. Time seemed to slow. My feet looked to me like someone else's when they stepped out of my lacquered zori and onto the mat.

  Almost at once, the Minister kicked off his shoes and was against me, with his arms around me tugging at the knot in my obi. I didn't know what he was thinking, because I certainly wasn't prepared to take off my kimono. I reached back to stop him. When I'd dressed that morning, I still hadn't quite made up my mind; but in order to be prepared, I'd very deliberately put on a gray underrobe I didn't much like-thinking it might be stained before the end of the day-and a lavender and blue kimono of silk gauze, as well as a durable silver obi. As for my undergarments, I'd shortened my koshimaki-my "hip wrap"-by rolling it at the waist, so that if I decided after all to seduce the Minister, he'd have no trouble finding his way inside it. Now, when I withdrew his hands from around me, he gave me a puzzled look. I think he believed I was stopping him, and he looked very relieved as I lay down on the mat. It wasn't a tatami, but a simple sheet of woven straw; I could feel the hard flooring beneath. With one hand I folded back my kimono and underrobe on one side so that my leg was exposed to the knee. The Minister was still fully dressed, but he lay down upon me at once, pressing the knot of my obi into my back so much, I had to raise one hip to make myself more comfortable. My head was turned to the side as well, because I was wearing my hair in a style known as tsubushi shimada, with a dramatic chignon looped in the back, which would have been ruined if I'd put any weight on it. It was certainly an uncomfortable arrangement, but my discomfort was nothing compared with the uneasiness and anxiety I felt. Suddenly I wondered if I'd been thinking at all clearly when I'd put myself in this predicament. The Minister raised himself on one arm and began fumbling inside the seam of my kimono with his hand, scratching my thighs with his fingernails. Without thinking about what I was doing, I brought my hands up to his shoulders to push him away... but then I imagined Nobu as my danna, and the life I would live without hope; and I took my hands away and settled them onto the mat again. The Minister's fingers were squirming higher and higher along the inside of my thigh; it was impossible not to feel them. I tried to distract myself by focusing on the door. Perhaps it would open even now, before the Minister had gone any further; but at that moment I heard the jingling of his belt, and then the zip of his pants, and a moment later he was forcing himself inside me. Somehow I felt like a fifteen-year-old girl again, because the feeling was so strangely reminiscent of Dr. Crab. I even heard myself whimper. The Minister was holding himself up on his elbows, with his face above mine. I could see him out of only one corner of my eye. When viewed up close like this, with his jaw protruding toward me, he looked more like an animal than a human. And even this wasn't the worst part; for with his jaw jutted forward, the Minister's lower lip became like a cup in which his saliva began to pool. I don't know if it was the squid guts he'd eaten, but his saliva had a kind of gray thickness to it, which made me think of the residue left on the cutting board after fish have been cleaned.

  When I'd dressed that morning, I'd tucked several sheets of a very absorbent rice paper into the back of my obi. I hadn't expected to need them until afterward, when the Minister would want them for wiping himself off-if I decided to go through with it, that is. Now it seemed I would need a sheet much sooner, to wipe my face when his saliva spilled onto me. With so much of his weight on my hips, however, I couldn't get my hand into the back of my obi. I let out several little gasps as I tried, and I'm afraid the Minister mistook them for excitement-or in any case, he suddenly grew even more energetic, and now the pool of saliva in his lip was being jostled with such violent shock waves I could hardly believe it held together rather than spilling out in a stream. All I could do was pinch my eyes shut and wait. I felt as sick as if I had been lying in the bottom of a little boat, tossed about on the waves, and with my head banging again and again against the side. Then all at once the Minister made a groaning noise, and held very still for a bit, and at the same time I felt his saliva spill onto my cheek.

  I tried again to reach the rice paper in my obi, but now the Minister was lying collapsed upon me, breathing as heavily as if he'd just run a race. I was about to push him off when I heard a scraping sound outside. My feelings of disgust had been so loud within me, they'd nearly drowned out everything else. But now that I remembered Nobu, I could feel my heart pounding once again. I heard another scrape; it was the sound of someone on the stone steps. The Minister seemed to have no idea what was about to happen to him. He raised his head and pointed it toward the door with only the mildest interest, as if he expected to see a bird there. And then the door creaked open and the sunlight flooded over us. I had to squint, but I could make out two figures. There was Pumpkin; she had come to the theater just as I'd hoped she would. But the man peering down from beside her wasn't Nobu at all. I had no notion of why she had done it, but Pumpkin had brought the Chairman instead.

  chapter thirty-four

  I can scarcely remember anything after that door opened-for I think the blood may have drained out of me, I went so cold and numb. I know the Minister climbed off me, or perhaps I pushed him off. I do remember weeping and asking if he'd seen the same thing I had, whether it really had been the Chairman standing there in the doorway. I hadn't been able to make out anything of the Chairman's expression, with the late-afternoon sun behind him; and yet when the door closed again, I couldn't help imagining I'd seen on his face some of the shock I myself was feeling. I didn't know if the shock was really there-and I doubted it was. But when we feel pain, even the blossoming trees seem weighted with suffering to us; and in just the same way, after seeing the Chairman there... well, I would have found my own pain reflected on anything I'd looked at.

  If you consider that I'd taken the Minister to that empty theater for the very purpose of putting myself in danger-so that the knife would come slamming down onto the chopping block, so to speak-I'm sure you'll understand that amid the worry, and fear, and disgust that almost overwhelmed me, I'd also been feeling a certain excitement. In the instant before that door opened, I could almost sense my life expanding just like a river whose waters have begun to swell; for I had never before taken such a drastic step to change the course of my own future. I was like a child tiptoeing along a precipice overlooking the sea. And yet somehow I hadn't imagined a great wave might come and strike me there, and wash everything away.

  When the chaos of feelings receded, and I slowly became aware of myself again, Mameha was kneeling above me. I was puzzled to find that I wasn't in the old theater at all any longer, but rather looking up from the tatami floor of a dark little room at the inn. I don't recall anything about leaving the theater, but I must have done it somehow. Later Mameha told me I'd gone to the proprietor to ask for a quiet place to rest; he'd recognized that I wasn't feeling well, and had gone to find Mameha soon afterward.

  Fortunately, Mameha seemed willing to believe I was truly ill, and left me there. Later, as I wandered back toward the room in a daze and with a terrible feeling of dread, I saw Pumpkin step out into the covered walkway ahead of me. She stopped when she caught sight of me; but rather than hurrying over to apologize as I half-expected she might, she turned her focus slowly toward me like a snake that had spotted a mouse.

  "Pumpkin," I said, "I asked you to bring Nobu, not the Chairman. I don't understand-"

  "Yes, it must be hard for you to understand, Sayuri, when life doesn't work out perfectly!"

  "Perfectly? Nothing worse could have happened... did you misunderstand what I was asking you?"

  "You really do think I'm stupid!" she said.

  I was bewildered, and stood a long moment in silence. "I thought you were my friend," I said at last.
>
  "I thought you were my friend too, once. But that was a long time ago."

  "You talk as if I've done something to harm you, Pumpkin, but-"

  "No, you'd never do anything like that, would you? Not the perfect Miss Nitta Sayuri! I suppose it doesn't matter that you took my place as the daughter of the okiya? Do you remember that, Sayuri? After I'd gone out of my way to help you with that Doctor-whatever his name was. After I'd risked making Hatsumomo furious at me for helping you! Then you turned it all around and stole what was mine. I've been wondering all these months just why you brought me into this little gathering with the Minister. I'm sorry it wasn't so easy for you to take advantage of me this time-"

  "But Pumpkin," I interrupted, "couldn't you just have refused to help me? Why did you have to bring the Chairman?"

  She stood up to her full height. "I know perfectly well how you feel about him," she said. "Whenever there's nobody looking, your eyes hang all over him like fur on a dog."

  She was so angry, she had bitten her lip; I could see a smudge of lipstick on her teeth. She'd set out to hurt me, I now realized, in the worst way she could.

  "You took something from me a long time ago, Sayuri. How does it feel now?" she said. Her nostrils were flared, her face consumed with anger like a burning twig. It was as though the spirit of Hatsumomo had been living trapped inside her all these years, and had finally broken free.