Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha

A long moment passed. I was very aware that my face felt as though it had no expression on it at all, but simply hung from my head.

“No, sir,” I managed to say at last.

“I don’t suppose you would have. I’ll give you as much as you like. Come along.”

“Baron,” I said, “please, I’m quite sure I’m expected back at the inn.”

“Expected? Who is expecting you?”

I didn’t answer this.

“I said, who is expecting you? I don’t see why you have to behave this way. I have something to give you. Would you rather I went and fetched it?”

“I’m very sorry,” I said.

The Baron just stared at me. “Wait here,” he said at last, and walked back into the interior of the house. A short time later he emerged holding something flat, wrapped in linen paper. I didn’t have to look closely to know it was a kimono.

“Now then,” he said to me, “since you insist on being a silly girl, I’ve gone and fetched your present. Does this make you feel better?”

I told the Baron I was sorry once again.

“I saw how much you admired this robe the other day. I’d like you to have it,” he said.

The Baron set the package down on the table and untied the strings to open it. I thought the kimono would be the one showing a landscape of Kobe; and to tell the truth, I felt as worried as I did hopeful, for I had no idea what I’d do with such a magnificent thing, or how I would explain to Mameha that the Baron had given it to me. But what I saw instead, when the Baron opened the wrapping, was a magnificent dark fabric with lacquered threads and embroidery in silver. He took the robe out and held it up by the shoulders. It was a kimono that belonged in a museum-made in the 1860s, as the Baron told me, for the niece of the very last shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu. The design on the robe was of silver birds flying against a night sky, with a mysterious landscape of dark trees and rocks rising up from the hem.

“You must come back with me and try it on,” he said. “Now don’t be a silly girl! I have a great deal of experience tying an obi with my own hands. We’ll put you back into your kimono so that no one will ever know.”

I would gladly have exchanged the robe the Baron was offering me for some way out of the situation. But he was a man with so much authority that even Mameha couldn’t disobey him. If she had no way of refusing his wishes, how could I? I could sense that he was losing patience; heaven knows he’d certainly been kind in the months since I’d made my debut, permitting me to attend to him while he ate lunch and allowing Mameha to bring me to the party at his Kyoto estate. And here he was being kind once again, offering me a stunning kimono.

I suppose I finally came to the conclusion that I had no choice but to obey him and pay the consequences, whatever they might be. I lowered my eyes to the mats in shame; and in this same dreamlike state I’d been feeling all along, I became aware of the Baron taking my hand and guiding me through the corridors toward the back of his house. A servant stepped into the hallway at one point, but bowed and went back the moment he caught sight of us. The Baron never spoke a word, but led me along until we came to a spacious tatami room, lined along one wall with mirrors. It was his dressing room. Along the opposite wall were closets with all their doors closed.

My hands trembled with fear, but if the Baron noticed he made no comment. He stood me before the mirrors and raised my hand to his lips; I thought he was going to kiss it, but he only held the back of my hand against the bristles on his face and did something I found peculiar; he drew my sleeve above my wrist and took in the scent of my skin. His beard tickled my arm, but somehow I didn’t feel it. I didn’t seem to feel anything at all; it was as if I were buried beneath layers of fear, and confusion, and dread… And then the Baron woke me from my shock by stepping behind me and reaching around my chest to untie my obijime . This was the cord that held my obi in place.

I experienced a moment of panic now that I knew the Baron really intended to undress me. I tried saying something, but my mouth moved so clumsily I couldn’t control it; and anyway, the Baron only made noises to shush me. I kept trying to stop him with my hands, but he pushed them away and finally succeeded in removing my obijime . After this he stepped back and struggled a long while with the knot of the obi between my shoulderblades. I pleaded with him not to take it off-though my throat was so dry that several times when I tried to speak, nothing came out-but he didn’t listen to me and soon began to unwind the broad obi, wrapping and unwrapping his arms around my waist. I saw the Chairman’s handkerchief dislodge itself from the fabric and flutter to the ground. In a moment the Baron let the obi fall in a pile to the floor, and then unfastened the datejime -the waistband underneath. I felt the sickening sensation of my kimono releasing itself from around my waist. I clutched it shut with my arms, but the Baron pulled them apart. I could no longer bear to watch in the mirror. The last thing I recall as I closed my eyes was the heavy robe being lifted from around my shoulders with a rustle of fabric.

The Baron seemed to have accomplished what he’d set out to do; or at least, he went no further for the moment. I felt his hands at my waist, caressing the fabric of my underrobe. When at last I opened my eyes again, he stood behind me still, taking in the scent of my hair and my neck. His eyes were fixed on the mirror-fixed, it seemed to me, on the waistband that held my underrobe shut. Every time his fingers moved, I tried with the power of my mind to keep them away, but all too soon they began creeping like spiders across my belly, and in another moment had tangled themselves in my waistband and begun to pull. I tried to stop him several times, but the Baron pushed my hands away as he’d done earlier. Finally the waistband came undone; the Baron let it slip from his fingers and fall to the floor. My legs were trembling, and the room was nothing more than a blur to me as he took the seams of my underrobe in his hands and started to draw them open. I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing at his hands once again.

“Don’t be so worried, Sayuri!” the Baron whispered to me. “For heaven’s sake, I’m not going to do anything to you I shouldn’t do. I only want to have a look, don’t you understand? There’s nothing wrong in that. Any man would do the same.”

A shiny bristle from his face tickled against my ear as he said this, so that I had to turn my head to one side. I think he must have interpreted this as a kind of consent, because now his hands began to move with more urgency. He pulled my robe open. I felt his fingers on my ribs, almost tickling me as he struggled to untie the strings holding my kimono undershirt closed. A moment later he’d succeeded. I couldn’t bear the thought of what the Baron might see; so even while I kept my face turned away, I strained my eyes to look in the mirror. My kimono undershirt hung open, exposing a long strip of skin down the center of my chest.

By now the Baron’s hands had moved to my hips, where they were busy with my koshimaki . Earlier that day, when I had wrapped the koshimaki several times around me, I’d tucked it more tightly at the waist than I probably needed to. The Baron was having trouble finding the seam, but after several tugs he loosened the fabric, so that with one long pull he was able to draw the entire length of it out from beneath my underrobe. As the silk slid against my skin, I heard a noise coming out of my throat, something like a sob. My hands grabbed for the koshimaki , but the Baron pulled it from my reach and dropped it to the floor. Then as slowly as a man might peel the cover from a sleeping child, he drew open my underrobe in a long breathless gesture, as though he were unveiling something magnificent. I felt a burning in my throat that told me I was on the point of crying; but I couldn’t bear the thought that the Baron would see my nakedness and also see me cry. I held my tears back somehow, at the very edge of my vision, and watched the mirror so intently that for a long moment I felt as though time had stopped. I’d certainly never seen myself so utterly naked before. It was true that I still wore buttoned socks on my feet; but I felt more exposed now with the seams of my robe held wide apart than I’d ever felt even in a bathhouse while completely unclothed. I watched the Baron’s eyes linger here and there on my reflection in the mirror. First he drew the robe still farther open to take in the outline of my waist. Then he lowered his eyes to the darkness that had bloomed on me in the years since I’d come to Kyoto. His eyes remained there a long while; but at length they rose up slowly, passing over my stomach, along my ribs, to the two plum-colored circles-first on one side, and then on the other. Now the Baron took away one of his hands, so that my underrobe settled against me on that side. What he did with his hand I can’t say, but I never saw it again. At one point I felt a moment of panic when I saw a naked shoulder protruding from his bathrobe. I don’t know what he was doing-and even though I could probably make an accurate guess about it now, I much prefer not to think about it. All I know is that I became very aware of his breath warming my neck. After that, I saw nothing more. The mirror became a blur of silver; I was no longer able to hold back my tears.