Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha

The next thing I heard was Yoko apologizing-for she had indeed fallen asleep-and then she carried on a long conversation with the switchboard operator. She had to be connected with several teahouses before she at least located Hatsumomo and left a message that the Kabuki actor Onoe Shikan had come to town. I didn’t know it at the time, but there was no Onoe Shikan; this was just a code.

After this, Yoko left for the night. She didn’t seem worried that a man was waiting in the maids’ room, so I made up my mind to say nothing to anyone. This turned out to be a good thing, because when Hatsumomo appeared twenty minutes later, she stopped in the entrance hall to say to me:

“I haven’t tried to make your life really miserable yet. But if you ever mention that a man came here, or even that I stopped in before the end of the evening, that will change.”

She was standing over me as she said this, and when she reached into her sleeve for something, I could see even in the dim light that her forearms were flushed. She went into the maids’ room and rolled the door shut behind her. I heard a short muffled conversation, and then the okiya was silent. Occasionally I thought I heard a soft whimper or a groan, but the sounds were so quiet, I couldn’t be sure. I won’t say I knew just what they were doing in there, but I did think of my sister holding up her bathing dress for the Sugi boy. And I felt such a combination of disgust and curiosity that even if I’d been free to leave my spot, I don’t think I could have.

Once a week or so, Hatsumomo and her boyfriend-who turned out to be a chef in a nearby noodle restaurant-came to the okiya and shut themselves in the maids’ room. They met other times in other places as well. I know because Yoko was often asked to deliver messages, and I sometimes overheard. All the maids knew what Hatsumomo was doing; and it’s a measure of how much power she had over us that no one spoke a word to Mother or Auntie or Granny. Hatsumomo would certainly have been in trouble for having a boyfriend, much less for bringing him back to the okiya. The time she spent with him earned no revenue, and even took her away from parties at teahouses where she would otherwise have been making money. And besides, any wealthy man who might have been interested in an expensive, long-term relationship would certainly think less of her and even change his mind if he knew she was carrying on with the chef of a noodle restaurant.

One night just as I was coming back from taking a drink of water at the well in the courtyard, I heard the outside door roll open and slam against the door frame with a bang.

“Really, Hatsumomo-san,” said a deep voice, “you’ll wake everyone…”

I’d never really understood why Hatsumomo took the risk of bringing her boyfriend back to the okiya-though probably it was the risk itself that excited her. But she’d never before been so careless as to make a lot of noise. I hurried into my position on my knees, and in a moment Hatsumomo was in the formal entrance hall, holding two packages wrapped in linen paper. Soon another geisha stepped in behind her, so tall that she had to stoop to pass through the low doorway. When she stood erect and looked down on me, her lips looked unnaturally big and heavy at the bottom of her long face. No one would have called her pretty.

“This is our foolish lower maid,” said Hatsumomo. “She has a name, I think, but why don’t you just call her ‘Little Miss Stupid.’ ”

“Well, Little Miss Stupid,” said the other geisha. “Go and get your big sister and me something to drink, why don’t you?” The deep voice I’d heard was hers, and not the voice of Hatsumomo’s boyfriend after all.

Usually Hatsumomo liked to drink a special kind of sake called amakuchi -which was very light and sweet. But amakuchi was brewed only in the winter, and we seemed to have run out. I poured two glasses of beer instead and brought them out. Hatsumomo and her friend had already made their way down to the courtyard, and were standing in wooden shoes in the dirt corridor. I could see they were very drunk, and Hatsumomo’s friend had feet much too big for our little wooden shoes, so that she could hardly walk a step without the two of them breaking out in laughter. You may recall that a wooden walkway ran along the outside of the house. Hatsumomo had just set her packages down onto that walkway and was about to open one of them when I delivered the beer.

“I’m not in the mood for beer,” she said, and bent down to empty both glasses underneath the foundation of the house.

“I’m in the mood for it,” said her friend, but it was already too late. “Why did you pour mine out?”

“Oh, be quiet, Korin!” Hatsumomo said. “You don’t need more to drink anyway. Just look at this, because you’re going to die from happiness when you see it!” And here, Hatsumomo untied the strings holding shut the linen paper of one package, and spread out upon the walkway an exquisite kimono in different powdery shades of green, with a vine motif bearing red leaves. Really, it was a glorious silk gauze-though of summer weight, and certainly not appropriate for the fall weather. Hatsumomo’s friend, Korin, admired it so much that she drew in a sharp breath and choked on her own saliva-which caused them both to burst out laughing again. I decided the time had come to excuse myself. But Hatsumomo said:

“Don’t go away, Little Miss Stupid.” And then she turned to her friend again and told her, “It’s time for some fun, Korin-san. Guess whose kimono this is!”

Korin was still coughing a good deal, but when she was able to speak, she said, “I wish it belonged to me!”

“Well, it doesn’t. It belongs to none other than the geisha we both hate worse than anyone else on earth.”

“Oh, Hatsumomo… you’re a genius. But how did you get Satoka’s kimono?”

“I’m not talking about Satoka! I’m talking about… Miss Perfect!”

“Who?”

“Miss ‘I’m-So-Much-Better-Than-You-Are’… that’s who!”

There was a long pause, and then Korin said, “Mameha! Oh, my goodness, it is Mameha’s kimono. I can’t believe I didn’t recognize it! How did you manage to get your hands on it?”

“A few days ago I left something at the Kaburenjo Theater during a rehearsal,” Hatsumomo said. “And when I went back to look for it, I heard what I thought was moaning coming up from the basement stairs. So I thought, ‘It can’t be! This is too much fun!’ And when I crept down and turned on the light, guess who I found lying there like two pieces of rice stuck together on the floor?”

“I can’t believe it! Mameha?”

“Don’t be a fool. She’s much too prissy to do such a thing. It was her maid, with the custodian of the theater. I knew she’d do anything to keep me from telling, so I went to her later and told her I wanted this kimono of Mameha’s. She started crying when she figured out which one I was describing.”

“And what’s this other one?” Korin asked, pointing to the second package that lay on the walkway, its strings still tied.

“This one I made the girl buy with her own money, and now it belongs to me.”

“Her own money?” said Korin. “What maid has enough money to buy a kimono?”

“Well, if she didn’t buy it as she said, I don’t want to know where it came from. Anyway, Little Miss Stupid is going to put it away in the storehouse for me.”

“Hatsumomo-san, I’m not allowed in the storehouse,” I said at once.

“If you want to know where your older sister is, don’t make me say anything twice tonight. I have plans for you. Afterward you may ask me a single question, and I’ll answer it.”

I won’t say that I believed her; but of course, Hatsumomo had the power to make my life miserable in any way she wanted. I had no choice but to obey.