Memoirs of a Geisha (35 page)

“This is a cotton swab that was drenched in your blood,” he said, “from the time you cut your leg, you’ll recall. I don’t normally save the blood of my patients, but I was . . . very taken with you. After collecting this sample, I made up my mind that I would be your
mizuage
patron. I think you’ll agree it will make an unusual specimen, to possess not just a sample of your blood collected at
mizuage
, but also a sample taken from a laceration on your leg quite a number of months earlier.”

I hid my disgust while the Doctor went on to show me several other vials, including Mameha’s. Hers contained not a cotton swab, but a small wadding of white fabric that was stained the color of rust and had grown quite stiff. Dr. Crab seemed to find all these samples fascinating, but for my part . . . well, I pointed my face in their direction in order to be polite, but when the Doctor wasn’t watching, I looked elsewhere.

Finally he closed his case and set it aside before taking off his glasses, folding them and putting them on the table nearby. I was afraid the moment had come, and indeed, Dr. Crab moved my legs apart and arranged himself on his knees between them. I think my heart was beating at about the same speed as a mouse’s. When the Doctor untied the sash of his sleeping robe, I closed my eyes and brought a hand up to cover my mouth, but I thought better of it at the last moment in case I should make a bad impression, and let my hand settle near my head instead.

The Doctor’s hands burrowed around for a while, making me very uncomfortable in much the same way as the young silver-haired doctor had a few weeks earlier. Then he lowered himself until his body was poised just above mine. I put all the force of my mind to work in making a sort of mental barrier between the Doctor and me, but it wasn’t enough to keep me from feeling the Doctor’s “eel,” as Mameha might have called it, bump against the inside of my thigh. The lamp was still lit, and I searched the shadows on the ceiling for something to distract me, because now I felt the Doctor pushing so hard that my head shifted on the pillow. I couldn’t think what to do with my hands, so I grabbed the pillow with them and squeezed my eyes tighter. Soon there was a great deal of activity going on above me, and I could feel all sorts of movement inside me as well. There must have been a very great deal of blood, because the air had an unpleasant metallic smell. I kept reminding myself how much the Doctor had paid for this privilege; and I remember hoping at one point that he was enjoying himself more than I was. I felt no more pleasure there than if someone had rubbed a file over and over against the inside of my thigh until I bled.

Finally the homeless eel marked its territory, I suppose, and the Doctor lay heavily upon me, moist with sweat. I didn’t at all like being so close to him, so I pretended to have trouble breathing in the hopes he would take his weight off me. For a long while he didn’t move, but then all at once he got to his knees and was very businesslike again. I didn’t watch him, but from the corner of my eye I couldn’t help seeing that he wiped himself off using one of the towels beneath me. He tied the sash of his robe, and then put on his glasses, not noticing a little smear of blood at the edge of one lens, and began to wipe between my legs using towels and cotton swabs and the like, just as though we were back in one of the treatment rooms at the hospital. The worst of my discomfort had passed by this time, and I have to admit I was almost fascinated lying there, even with my legs spread apart so revealingly, as I watched him open the wooden case and take out the scissors. He cut away a piece of the bloody towel beneath me and stuffed it, along with a cotton ball he’d used, into the glass vial with my misspelled name on it. Then he gave a formal bow and said, “Thank you very much.” I couldn’t very well bow back while lying down, but it made no difference, because the Doctor stood at once and went off to the bath again.

I hadn’t realized it, but I’d been breathing very quickly from nervousness. Now that it was over and I was able to catch my breath, I probably looked as though I were in the middle of being operated upon, but I felt such relief I broke into a smile. Something about the whole experience seemed so utterly ridiculous to me; the more I thought about it, the funnier it seemed, and in a moment I was laughing. I had to keep quiet because the Doctor was in the next room. But to think that the course of my entire future had been altered by this? I imagined the mistress of the Ichiriki making telephone calls to Nobu and the Baron while the bidding was under way, all the money that had been spent, and all the trouble. How strange it would have been with Nobu, since I was beginning to think of him as a friend. I didn’t even want to wonder what it might have been like with the Baron.

While the Doctor was still in the bath, I tapped on the door to Mr. Bekku’s room. A maid rushed in to change the bedsheets, and Mr. Bekku came to help me put on a sleeping robe. Later, after the Doctor had fallen asleep, I got up again and bathed quietly. Mameha had instructed me to stay awake all night, in case the Doctor should awaken and need something. But even though I tried not to sleep, I couldn’t help drifting off. I did manage to awaken in the morning in time to make myself presentable before the Doctor saw me.

After breakfast, I saw Dr. Crab to the front door of the inn and helped him into his shoes. Just before he walked away, he thanked me for the evening and gave me a small package. I couldn’t make up my mind whether it might be a jewel like Nobu had given me or a few cuttings from the bloody towel of the night before! But when I worked up my courage to open it back in the room, it turned out to be a package of Chinese herbs. I didn’t know what to make of them until I asked Mr. Bekku, who said I should make tea once a day with the herbs to discourage pregnancy. “Be cautious with them, because they’re very costly,” he said. “But don’t be too cautious. They’re still cheaper than an abortion.”

*  *  *

It’s strange and very hard to explain, but the world looked different to me after
mizuage
. Pumpkin, who hadn’t yet had hers, now seemed inexperienced and childlike to me somehow, even though she was older. Mother and Auntie, as well as Hatsumomo and Mameha had all been through it, of course, and I was probably much more aware than they were of having this peculiar thing in common with them. After
mizuage
an apprentice wears her hair in a new style, and with a red silk band at the base of the pincushion bun, rather than a patterned one. For a time I was so aware of which apprentices had red hair bands and which had patterned ones that I scarcely seemed to notice anything else while walking along the street, or in the hallways of the little school. I had a new respect for the ones who had been through
mizuage
, and felt much more worldly than the ones who hadn’t.

I’m sure all apprentices feel changed by the experience of
mizuage
in much the same way I did. But for me it wasn’t just a matter of seeing the world differently. My day-to-day life changed as well, because of Mother’s new view of me. She was the sort of person, I’m sure you realize, who noticed things only if they had price tags on them. When she walked down the street, her mind was probably working like an abacus: “Oh, there’s little Yukiyo, whose stupidity cost her poor older sister nearly a hundred yen last year! And here comes Ichimitsu, who must be very pleased at the payments her new
danna
is making.” If Mother were to walk alongside the Shirakawa Stream on a lovely spring day, when you could almost see beauty itself dripping into the water from the tendrils of the cherry trees, she probably wouldn’t even notice any of it—unless . . . I don’t know . . . she had a plan to make money from selling the trees, or some such thing.

Before my
mizuage
, I don’t think it made any difference to Mother that Hatsumomo was causing trouble for me in Gion. But now that I had a high price tag on me, she put a stop to Hatsumomo’s troublemaking without my even having to ask it of her. I don’t know how she did it. Probably she just said, “Hatsumomo, if your behavior causes problems for Sayuri and costs this okiya money, you’ll be the one to pay it!” Ever since my mother had grown ill, my life had certainly been difficult; but now for a time, things became remarkably uncomplicated. I won’t say I never felt tired or disappointed; in fact, I felt tired much of the time. Life in Gion is hardly relaxing for the women who make a living there. But it was certainly a great relief to be freed from the threat of Hatsumomo. Inside the okiya too, life was almost pleasurable. As the adopted daughter, I ate when I wanted. I chose my kimono first instead of waiting for Pumpkin to choose hers—and the moment I’d made my choice, Auntie set to work sewing the seams to the proper width, and basting the collar onto my underrobe, before she’d touched even Hatsumomo’s. I didn’t mind when Hatsumomo looked at me with resentment and hatred because of the special treatment I now received. But when Pumpkin passed me in the okiya with a worried look, and kept her eyes averted from mine even when we were face-to-face, it caused me terrible pain. I’d always had the feeling our friendship would have grown if only circumstances hadn’t come between us. I didn’t have that feeling any longer.

*  *  *

With my
mizuage
behind me, Dr. Crab disappeared from my life almost completely. I say “almost” because even though Mameha and I no longer went to the Shirae Teahouse to entertain him, I did run into him occasionally at parties in Gion. The Baron, on the other hand, I never saw again. I didn’t yet know about the role he’d played in driving up the price of my
mizuage
, but as I look back I can understand why Mameha may have wanted to keep us apart. Probably I would have felt every bit as uncomfortable around the Baron as Mameha would have felt having me there. In any case, I can’t pretend I missed either of these men.

But there was one man I was very eager to see again, and I’m sure I don’t need to tell you I’m talking about the Chairman. He hadn’t played any role in Mameha’s plan, so I didn’t expect my relationship with him to change or come to an end just because my
mizuage
was over. Still, I have to admit I felt very relieved a few weeks afterward to learn that Iwamura Electric had called to request my company once again. When I arrived that evening, both the Chairman and Nobu were present. In the past I would certainly have gone to sit beside Nobu; but now that Mother had adopted me, I wasn’t obliged to think of him as my savior any longer. As it happened, a space beside the Chairman was vacant, and so with a feeling of excitement I went to take it. The Chairman was very cordial when I poured him sake, and thanked me by raising his cup in the air before drinking it; but all evening long he never looked at me. Whereas Nobu, whenever I glanced in his direction, glared back at me as though I were the only person in the room he was aware of. I certainly knew what it was like to long for someone, so before the evening was over I made a point of going to spend a bit of time with him. I was careful never to ignore him again after this.

A month or so passed, and then one evening during a party, I happened to mention to Nobu that Mameha had arranged for me to appear in a festival in Hiroshima. I wasn’t sure he was listening when I told him, but the very next day when I returned to the okiya after my lessons, I found in my room a new wooden travel trunk he’d sent me as a gift. The trunk was much finer even than the one I’d borrowed from Auntie for the Baron’s party in Hakone. I felt terribly ashamed of myself for having thought I could simply discard Nobu now that he was no longer central to any plans Mameha might have had. I wrote him a note of thanks, and told him I looked forward to expressing my gratitude in person when I saw him the following week, at a large party Iwamura Electric had planned some months in advance.

But then a peculiar thing happened. Shortly before the party I received a message that my company wouldn’t be needed after all. Yoko, who worked at the telephone in our okiya, was under the impression the party had been canceled. As it happened, I had to go to the Ichiriki that night anyway for another party. Just as I was kneeling in the hallway to enter, I saw the door to a large banquet room down at the end slide open, and a young geisha named Katsue came out. Before she closed the door, I heard what I felt certain was the sound of the Chairman’s laughter coming from inside the room. I was very puzzled by this, so I rose from my knees and went to catch Katsue before she left the teahouse.

“I’m very sorry to trouble you,” I said, “but have you just come from the party given by Iwamura Electric?”

“Yes, it’s quite lively. There must be twenty-five geisha and nearly fifty men . . .”

“And . . . Chairman Iwamura and Nobu-san are both there?” I asked her.

“Not Nobu. Apparently he went home sick this morning. He’ll be very sorry to have missed it. But the Chairman is there; why do you ask?”

I muttered something—I don’t remember what it was—and she left.

Up until this moment I’d somehow imagined that the Chairman valued my company as much as Nobu did. Now I had to wonder whether it had all been an illusion, and Nobu was the only one who cared.

  chapter twenty-five

M
ameha may already have won her bet with Mother, but she still had quite a stake in my future. So during the next few years she worked to make my face familiar to all her best customers, and to the other geisha in Gion as well. We were still emerging from the Depression at this time; formal banquets weren’t as common as Mameha would have liked. But she took me to plenty of informal gatherings, not only parties in the teahouses, but swimming excursions, sightseeing tours, Kabuki plays, and so on. During the heat of summer when everyone felt most relaxed, these casual gatherings were often quite a lot of fun, even for those of us supposedly hard at work entertaining. For example, a group of men sometimes decided to go floating in a canal boat along the Kamo River, to sip sake and dangle their feet in the water. I was too young to join in the carousing, and often ended up with the job of shaving ice to make snow cones, but it was a pleasant change nevertheless.

Some nights, wealthy businessmen or aristocrats threw geisha parties just for themselves. They spent the evening dancing and singing, and drinking with the geisha, often until well after midnight. I remember on one of these occasions, the wife of our host stood at the door to hand out envelopes containing a generous tip as we left. She gave Mameha two of them, and asked her the favor of delivering the second to the geisha Tomizuru, who had “gone home earlier with a headache,” as she put it. Actually she knew as well as we did that Tomizuru was her husband’s mistress, and had gone with him to another wing of the house to keep him company for the night.

Many of the glamorous parties in Gion were attended by famous artists, and writers, and Kabuki actors, and sometimes they were very exciting events. But I’m sorry to tell you that the average geisha party was something much more mundane. The host was likely to be the division head of a small company, and the guest of honor one of his suppliers, or perhaps one of his employees he’d just promoted, or something along those lines. Every so often, some well-meaning geisha admonished me that as an apprentice, my responsibility—besides trying to look pretty—was to sit quietly and listen to conversations in the hopes of one day becoming a clever conversationalist myself. Well, most of the conversations I heard at these parties didn’t strike me as very clever at all. A man might turn to the geisha beside him and say, “The weather certainly is unusually warm, don’t you think?” And the geisha would reply with something like, “Oh, yes, very warm!” Then she’d begin playing a drinking game with him, or try to get all the men singing, and soon the man who’d spoken with her was too drunk to remember he wasn’t having as good a time as he’d hoped. For my part, I always considered this a terrible waste. If a man has come to Gion just for the purpose of having a relaxing time, and ends up involved in some childish game such as paper-scissors-stone . . . well, in my view he’d have been better off staying at home and playing with his own children or grandchildren—who, after all, are probably more clever than this poor, dull geisha he was so unfortunate as to sit beside.

Every so often, though, I was privileged to overhear a geisha who really was clever, and Mameha was certainly one of these. I learned a great deal from her conversations. For example, if a man said to her, “Warm weather, don’t you think?” she had a dozen replies ready. If he was old and lecherous, she might say to him, “Warm? Perhaps it’s just the effect on you of being around so many lovely women!” Or if he was an arrogant young businessman who didn’t seem to know his place, she might take him off his guard by saying, “Here you are sitting with a half-dozen of the best geisha in Gion, and all you can think to talk about is the weather.” One time when I happened to be watching her, Mameha knelt beside a very young man who couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty; he probably wouldn’t have been at a geisha party at all if his father hadn’t been the host. Of course, he didn’t know what to say or how to behave around geisha, and I’m sure he felt nervous; but he turned to Mameha very bravely and said to her, “Warm, isn’t it?” She lowered her voice and answered him like this:

“Why, you’re certainly right about it being warm. You should have seen me when I stepped out of the bath this morning! Usually when I’m completely naked, I feel so cool and relaxed. But this morning, there were little beads of sweat covering my skin all the way up my body—along my thighs, and on my stomach, and . . . well, other places too.”

When that poor boy set his sake cup down on the table, his fingers were trembling. I’m sure he never forgot that geisha party for the rest of his life.

If you ask me why most of these parties were so dull, I think probably there are two reasons. First, just because a young girl has been sold by her family and raised from an early age to be a geisha doesn’t mean she’ll turn out to be clever, or have anything interesting to say. And second, the same thing goes for the men. Just because a man has made enough money to come to Gion and waste it however he chooses doesn’t mean he’s fun to be around. In fact, many of the men are accustomed to being treated with a great deal of respect. Sitting back with their hands on their knees and big frowns on their faces is about as much work as they plan to do in the way of being entertaining. One time I listened to Mameha spend an entire hour telling stories to a man who never even looked in her direction, but just watched the others in the room while she talked. Oddly enough, this was just what he wanted, and he always asked for Mameha when he came to town.

*  *  *

After two more years of parties and outings—all the while continuing with my studies and participating in dance performances whenever I could—I made the shift from being an apprentice to being a geisha. This was in the summer of 1938, when I was eighteen years old. We call this change “turning the collar,” because an apprentice wears a red collar while a geisha wears a white one. Though if you were to see an apprentice and a geisha side by side, their collars would be the last thing you’d notice. The apprentice, with her elaborate, long-sleeved kimono and dangling obi, would probably make you think of a Japanese doll, whereas the geisha would look simpler, perhaps, but also more womanly.

The day I turned my collar was one of the happiest days of Mother’s life; or at least, she acted more pleased than I’d ever seen her. I didn’t understand it at the time, but it’s perfectly clear to me now what she was thinking. You see, a geisha, unlike an apprentice, is available to a man for more than just pouring his tea, provided the terms are suitable. Because of my connection with Mameha and my popularity in Gion, my standing was such that Mother had plenty of cause for excitement—excitement being, in Mother’s case, just another word for money.

Since moving to New York I’ve learned what the word “geisha” really means to most Westerners. From time to time at elegant parties, I’ve been introduced to some young woman or other in a splendid dress and jewelry. When she learns I was once a geisha in Kyoto, she forms her mouth into a sort of smile, although the corners don’t turn up quite as they should. She has no idea what to say! And then the burden of conversation falls to the man or woman who has introduced us—because I’ve never really learned much English, even after all these years. Of course, by this time there’s little point even in trying, because this woman is thinking, “My goodness . . . I’m talking with a prostitute . . .” A moment later she’s rescued by her escort, a wealthy man a good thirty or forty years older than she is. Well, I often find myself wondering why she can’t sense how much we really have in common. She is a kept woman, you see, and in my day, so was I.

I’m sure there are a great many things I don’t know about these young women in their splendid dresses, but I often have the feeling that without their wealthy husbands or boyfriends, many of them would be struggling to get by and might not have the same proud opinions of themselves. And of course the same thing is true for a first-class geisha. It is all very well for a geisha to go from party to party and be popular with a great many men; but a geisha who wishes to become a star is completely dependent on having a
danna
. Even Mameha, who became famous on her own because of an advertising campaign, would soon have lost her standing and been just another geisha if the Baron hadn’t covered the expenses to advance her career.

No more than three weeks after I turned my collar, Mother came to me one day while I was eating a quick lunch in the reception room, and sat across the table a long while puffing on her pipe. I’d been reading a magazine, but I stopped out of politeness—even though Mother didn’t seem at first to have much to say to me. After a time she put down her pipe and said, “You shouldn’t eat those yellow pickles. They’ll rot your teeth. Look at what they did to mine.”

It had never occurred to me that Mother believed her stained teeth had anything to do with eating pickles. When she’d finished giving me a good view of her mouth, she picked up her pipe again and took in a puff of smoke.

“Auntie loves yellow pickles, ma’am,” I said, “and her teeth are fine.”

“Who cares if Auntie’s teeth are fine? She doesn’t make money from having a pretty little mouth. Tell the cook not to give them to you. Anyway, I didn’t come here to talk with you about pickles. I came to tell you that this time next month you’ll have a
danna
.”

“A
danna
? But, Mother, I’m only eighteen . . .”

“Hatsumomo didn’t have a
danna
until she was twenty. And of course, that didn’t last . . . You ought to be very pleased.”

“Oh, I am very pleased. But won’t it require a lot of my time to keep a
danna
happy? Mameha thinks I should establish my reputation first, just for a few years.”

“Mameha! What does she know about business? The next time I want to know when to giggle at a party, I’ll go and ask her.”

Nowadays young girls, even in Japan, are accustomed to jumping up from the table and shouting at their mothers, but in my day we bowed and said, “Yes, ma’am,” and apologized for having been troublesome; and that’s exactly how I responded.

“Leave the business decisions to me,” Mother went on. “Only a fool would pass up an offer like the one Nobu Toshikazu has made.”

My heart nearly stopped when I heard this. I suppose it was obvious that Nobu would one day propose himself as my
danna
. After all, he’d made an offer for my
mizuage
several years earlier, and since then had certainly asked for my company more frequently than any other man. I can’t pretend I hadn’t thought of this possibility; but that isn’t to say I’d ever believed it was the course my life would really take. On the day I first met Nobu at the sumo tournament, my almanac reading had been, “A balance of good and bad can open the door to destiny.” Nearly every day since, I’d thought of it in one way or another. Good and bad . . . well, it was Mameha and Hatsumomo; it was my adoption by Mother and the
mizuage
that had brought it about; and of course it was the Chairman and Nobu. I don’t mean to suggest I disliked Nobu. Quite the opposite. But to become his mistress would have closed off my life from the Chairman forever.

Mother must have noticed something of the shock I felt at hearing her words—or in any case, she wasn’t pleased at my reaction. But before she could respond we heard a noise in the hallway outside like someone suppressing a cough, and in a moment Hatsumomo stepped into the open doorway. She was holding a bowl of rice, which was very rude of her—she never should have walked away from the table with it. When she’d swallowed, she let out a laugh.

“Mother!” she said. “Are you trying to make me choke?” Apparently she’d been listening to our conversation while she ate her lunch. “So the famous Sayuri is going to have Nobu Toshikazu for her
danna
,” she went on. “Isn’t that sweet!”

“If you’ve come here to say something useful, then say it,” Mother told her.

“Yes, I have,” Hatsumomo said gravely, and she came and knelt at the table. “Sayuri-san, you may not realize it, but one of the things that goes on between a geisha and her
danna
can cause the geisha to become pregnant, do you understand? And a man will become very upset if his mistress gives birth to another man’s child. In your case, you must be especially careful, because Nobu will know at once, if the child should happen to have two arms like the rest of us, that it can’t possibly be his!”

Hatsumomo thought her little joke was very funny.

“Perhaps you should cut off one of your arms, Hatsumomo,” said Mother, “if it will make you as successful as Nobu Toshikazu has been.”

“And probably it would help, too, if my face looked like this!” she said, smiling, and picked up her rice bowl so we could see what was in it. She was eating rice mixed with red adzuki beans and, in a sickening way, it did look like blistered skin.

*  *  *

As the afternoon progressed I began to feel dizzy, with a strange buzzing in my head, and soon made my way to Mameha’s apartment to talk with her. I sat at her table sipping at my chilled barley tea—for we were in the heat of summer—and trying not to let her see how I felt. Reaching the Chairman was the one hope that had motivated me all through my training. If my life would be nothing more than Nobu, and dance recitals, and evening after evening in Gion, I couldn’t think why I had struggled so.