Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha

“I will tell you one thing,” Mameha said, leaning forward a bit, from what I took as excitement. “You and I will be going to an engagement together in the next two weeks at a place Hatsumomo will never find us.”

“May I ask where?”

“Certainly not! I won’t even tell you when. Just be prepared. You’ll find out everything you need to know when the proper time comes.”

When I returned to the okiya that afternoon, I hid myself upstairs to look through my almanac. A variety of days in the next two weeks stood out. One was the coming Wednesday, which was a favorable day for traveling westward; I thought perhaps Mameha planned to take me out of the city. Another was the following Monday, which also happened to be tai-an -the most auspicious day of the six-day Buddhist week. Finally, the Sunday after had a curious reading: “A balance of good and bad can open the door to destiny.” This one sounded most intriguing of all.

I heard nothing from Mameha on Wednesday. A few afternoons later she did summon me to her apartment-on a day my almanac said was unfavorable-but only to discuss a change in my tea ceremony class at the school. After this an entire week passed without a word from her. And then on Sunday around noon, I heard the door of the okiya roll open and put my shamisen down onto the walkway, where I’d been practicing for an hour or so, to rush to the front. I expected to see one of Mameha’s maids, but it was only a man from the druggist’s making a delivery of Chinese herbs for Auntie’s arthritis. After one of our elderly maids took the packet, I was about to return to my shamisen when I noticed the delivery man trying to get my attention. He was holding a piece of paper in one hand so that only I could see it. Our maid was about to roll the door shut, but he said to me, “I’m sorry to trouble you, miss, but would you mind throwing this away for me?” The maid thought it odd, but I took the paper and pretended to throw it away in the maids’ room. It was a note, unsigned, in Mameha’s hand.

“Ask Auntie’s permission to leave. Tell her I have work for you to do in my apartment and come here no later than one o’clock. Don’t let anyone else know where you’re going.”

I’m sure Mameha’s precautions were very sensible, but in any case, Mother was lunching with a friend, and Hatsumomo and Pumpkin had gone to an afternoon engagement already. No one remained in the okiya but Auntie and the maids. I went straight up to Auntie’s room to find her draping a heavy cotton blanket across her futon, preparing for a nap. She stood shivering in her sleeping robe while I spoke to her. The moment she heard that Mameha had summoned me, she didn’t even care to know the reason. She just gave a wave of her hand and crawled beneath the blanket to go to sleep.

Mameha was still attending a morning engagement when I arrived at her apartment, but her maid showed me into the dressing room to help me with my makeup, and afterward brought in the kimono ensemble Mameha had set out for me. I’d grown accustomed to wearing Mameha’s kimono, but in fact, it’s unusual for a geisha to lend out robes from her collection this way. Two friends in Gion might trade kimono for a night or two; but it’s rare for an older geisha to show such kindness to a young girl. And in fact, Mameha was going to a great deal of trouble on my behalf; she no longer wore these long-sleeved robes herself and had to retrieve them from storage. I often wondered if she expected to be repaid somehow.

The kimono she’d laid out for me that day was the loveliest yet-an orange silk with a silver waterfall pouring from the knee into a slate-blue ocean. The waterfall was split by brown cliffs, with knotted driftwood at the base embroidered in lacquered threads. I didn’t realize it, but the robe was well known in Gion; people who saw it probably thought of Mameha at once. In permitting me to wear it, I think she was rubbing some of her aura off onto me.

After Mr. Itchoda had tied the obi-a russet and brown highlighted with gold threads-I put the final touches on my makeup and the ornaments in my hair. I tucked the Chairman’s handkerchief-which I’d brought from the okiya as I often did-inside my obi, and stood before the mirror gaping at myself. Already it was amazing to me that Mameha had arranged for me to look so beautiful; but to top it off, when she returned to her apartment, she herself changed into a fairly plain kimono. It was a robe the color of a mountain potato, covered with soft gray hatchmarks, and her obi was a simple pattern of black diamonds on a background of deep blue. She had the understated brilliance of a pearl, as she always did; but when we walked down the street together, the women who bowed at Mameha were looking at me.

From the Gion Shrine, we rode north in a rickshaw for a half hour, into a section of Kyoto I’d never seen. Along the way, Mameha told me we would be attending a sumo exhibition as the guests of Iwamura Ken, the founder of Iwamura Electric in Osaka-which, incidentally, was the manufacturer of the heater that had killed Granny. Iwamura’s right-hand man, Nobu Toshikazu, who was president of the company, would also be attending. Nobu was quite a fan of sumo and had helped organize the exhibition that afternoon.

“I should tell you,” she said to me, “that Nobu is… a bit peculiar-looking. You’ll make a great impression on him by behaving well when you meet him.” After she said this, she gave me a look as if to say she would be terribly disappointed in me if I didn’t.

As for Hatsumomo, we wouldn’t have to worry about her. Tickets to the exhibition had been sold out weeks before.

At last we climbed out of the rickshaw at the campus of Kyoto University. Mameha led me up a dirt path lined with small pine trees. Western-style buildings closed in on both sides of us, with windows chopped into tiny glass squares by strips of painted wood. I hadn’t realized how much Gion seemed like home to me, until I noticed myself feeling out of place at the university. All around us were smooth-skinned young men with their hair parted, some wearing suspenders to keep up their pants. They seemed to find Mameha and me so exotic that they stopped to watch as we strolled past, and even made jokes to one another. Soon we passed through an iron gate with a crowd of older men and a number of women, including quite a few geisha. Kyoto had few places a sumo exhibition could be held indoors, and one was Kyoto University’s old Exhibition Hall. The building no longer stands today; but at that time it fit with the Western structures around it about like a shriveled old man in kimono fits with a group of businessmen. It was a big box of a building, with a roof that didn’t seem quite substantial enough, but made me think of a lid fitted onto the wrong pot. The huge doors on one side were so badly warped, they bulged against the iron rods fastened across them. Its ruggedness reminded me so much of my tipsy house that I felt sad for a moment.

As I made my way up the stone steps into the building, I spotted two geisha strolling across the gravel courtyard, and bowed to them. They nodded to me in return, and one said something to the other. I thought this very odd-until I looked at them more closely. My heart sank; one of the women was Hatsumomo’s friend Korin. I gave her another bow, now that I recognized her, and did my best to smile. The moment they looked away, I whispered to Mameha:

“Mameha-san! I’ve just seen a friend of Hatsumomo’s!”

“I didn’t know Hatsumomo had any friends.”

“It’s Korin. She’s over there… or at least, she was a moment ago, with another geisha.”

“I know Korin. Why are you so worried about her? What can she possibly do?”