Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha

“When you give it to her,” she went on, “you must be especially sweet and say, ‘Mother, I really have no need for a jewel like this and would be honored if you’d accept it. I’ve caused you so much trouble over the years.’ But don’t say more, or she’ll think you’re being sarcastic.”

When I sat in my room later, grinding an ink stick to write a note of thanks to Nobu, my mood grew darker and darker. If Mameha herself had asked me for the ruby, I could have given it to her cheerfully… but to give it to Mother! I’d grown fond of Nobu, and was sorry that his expensive gift would go to such a woman. I knew perfectly well that if the ruby had been from the Chairman, I couldn’t have given it up at all. In any case, I finished the note and went to Mother’s room to speak with her. She was sitting in the dim light, petting her dog and smoking.

“What do you want?” she said to me. “I’m about to send for a pot of tea.”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mother. This afternoon when Mameha and I left the theater, President Nobu Toshikazu was waiting for me-”

“Waiting for Mameha-san, you mean.”

“I don’t know, Mother. But he gave me a gift. It’s a lovely thing, but I have no use for it.”

I wanted to say that I would be honored if she would take it, but Mother wasn’t listening to me. She put her pipe down onto the table and took the box from my hand before I could even offer it to her. I tried again to explain things, but Mother just turned over the box to dump the ruby into her oily fingers.

“What is this?” she asked.

“It’s the gift President Nobu gave me. Nobu Toshikazu, of Iwamura Electric, I mean.”

“Don’t you think I know who Nobu Toshikazu is?”

She got up from the table to walk over to the window, where she slid back the paper screen and held the ruby into the stream of late-afternoon sunlight. She was doing what I had done on the street, turning the gem around and watching the sparkle move from face to face. Finally she closed the screen again and came back.

“You must have misunderstood. Did he ask you to give it to Mameha?”

“Well, Mameha was with me at the time.”

I could see that Mother’s mind was like an intersection with too much traffic in it. She put the ruby onto the table and began to puff on her pipe. I saw every cloud of smoke as a little confused thought released into the air. Finally she said to me, “So, Nobu Toshikazu has an interest in you, does he?”

“I’ve been honored by his attention for some time now.”

At this, she put the pipe down onto the table, as if to say that the conversation was about to grow much more serious. “I haven’t watched you as closely as I should have,” she said. “If you’ve had any boyfriends, now is the time to tell me.”

“I’ve never had a single boyfriend, Mother.”

I don’t know whether she believed what I’d said or not, but she dismissed me just the same. I hadn’t yet offered her the ruby to keep, as Mameha had instructed me to do. I was trying to think of how to raise the subject. But when I glanced at the table where the gem lay on its side, she must have thought I wanted to ask for it back. I had no time to say anything further before she reached out and swallowed it up in her hand.

Finally it happened, one afternoon only a few days later. Mameha came to the okiya and took me into the reception room to tell me that the bidding for my mizuage had begun. She’d received a message from the mistress of the Ichiriki that very morning.

“I couldn’t be more disappointed at the timing,” Mameha said, “because I have to leave for Tokyo this afternoon. But you won’t need me. You’ll know if the bidding goes high, because things will start to happen.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What sorts of things?”

“All sorts of things,” she said, and then left without even taking a cup of tea.

She was gone three days. At first my heart raced every time I heard one of the maids approaching. But two days passed without any news. Then on the third day, Auntie came to me in the hallway to say that Mother wanted me upstairs.

I’d just put my foot onto the first step when I heard a door slide open, and all at once Pumpkin came rushing down. She came like water poured from a bucket, so fast her feet scarcely touched the steps, and midway down she twisted her finger on the banister. It must have hurt, because she let out a cry and stopped at the bottom to hold it.

“Where is Hatsumomo?” she said, clearly in pain. “I have to find her!”

“It looks to me as if you’ve hurt yourself badly enough,” Auntie said. “You have to go find Hatsumomo so she can hurt you more?”

Pumpkin looked terribly upset, and not only about her finger; but when I asked her what was the matter, she just rushed to the entryway and left.

Mother was sitting at the table when I entered her room. She began to pack her pipe with tobacco, but soon thought better of it and put it away. On top of the shelves holding the account books stood a beautiful European-style clock in a glass case. Mother looked at it every so often, but a few long minutes passed and still she said nothing to me. Finally I spoke up. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mother, but I was told you wanted to see me.”

“The doctor is late,” she said. “We’ll wait for him.”

I imagined she was referring to Dr. Crab, that he was coming to the okiya to talk about arrangements for my mizuage . I hadn’t expected such a thing and began to feel a tingling in my belly. Mother passed the time by patting Taku, who quickly grew tired of her attentions and made little growling noises.

At length I heard the maids greeting someone in the front entrance hall below, and Mother went down the stairs. When she came back a few minutes later she wasn’t escorting Dr. Crab at all, but a much younger man with smooth silver hair, carrying a leather bag.

“This is the girl,” Mother said to him.

I bowed to the young doctor, who bowed back to me.

“Ma’am,” he said to Mother, “where shall we…?”

Mother told him the room we were in would be fine. The way she closed the door, I knew something unpleasant was about to happen. She began by untying my obi and folding it on the table. Then she slipped the kimono from my shoulders and hung it on a stand in the corner. I stood in my yellow underrobe as calmly as I knew how, but in a moment Mother began to untie the waistband that held my underrobe shut. I couldn’t quite stop myself from putting my arms in her way-though she pushed them aside just as the Baron had done, which gave me a sick feeling. After she’d removed the waistband, she reached inside and pulled out my koshimaki -once again, just as it had happened in Hakone. I didn’t like this a bit, but instead of pulling open my robe as the Baron had, she refolded it around me and told me to lie down on the mats.

The doctor knelt at my feet and, after apologizing, peeled open my underrobe to expose my legs. Mameha had told me a little about mizuage , but it seemed to me I was about to learn more. Had the bidding ended, and this young doctor emerged the winner? What about Dr. Crab and Nobu? It even crossed my mind that Mother might be intentionally sabotaging Mameha’s plans. The young doctor adjusted my legs and reached between them with his hand, which I had noticed was smooth and graceful like the Chairman’s. I felt so humiliated and exposed that I had to cover my face. I wanted to draw my legs together, but I was afraid anything that made his task more difficult would only prolong the encounter. So I lay with my eyes pinched shut, holding my breath. I felt as little Taku must have felt the time he choked on a needle, and Auntie held his jaws open while Mother put her fingers down his throat. At one point I think the doctor had both of his hands between my legs; but at last he took them away, and folded my robe shut. When I opened my eyes, I saw him wiping his hands on a cloth.