Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha

“The girl is intact,” he said.

“Well, that’s fine news!” Mother replied. “And will there be much blood?”

“There shouldn’t be any blood at all. I only examined her visually.”

“No, I mean during mizuage .”

“I couldn’t say. The usual amount, I should expect.”

When the young silver-haired doctor had taken his leave, Mother helped me dress and instructed me to sit at the table. Then without any warning, she grabbed my earlobe and pulled it so hard I cried out. She held me like that, with my head close to hers, while she said:

“You’re a very expensive commodity, little girl. I underestimated you. I’m lucky nothing has happened. But you may be very sure I’m going to watch you more closely in the future. What a man wants from you, a man will pay dearly to get. Do you follow me?”

“Yes, ma’am!” I said. Of course, I would have said yes to anything, considering how hard she was pulling on my ear.

“If you give a man freely what he ought to pay for, you’ll be cheating this okiya. You’ll owe money, and I’ll take it from you. And I’m not just talking about this!” Here Mother made a gruesome noise with her free hand-rubbing her fingers against her palm to make a squishing sound.

“Men will pay for that,” she went on. “But they’ll pay just to chat with you too. If I find you sneaking off to meet a man, even if it’s just for a little talk…” And here she finished her thought by giving another sharp tug on my earlobe before letting it go.

I had to work hard to catch my breath. When I felt I could speak again, I said, “Mother… I’ve done nothing to make you angry!”

“Not yet, you haven’t. If you’re a sensible girl, you never will.”

I tried to excuse myself, but Mother told me to stay. She tapped out her pipe, even though it was empty; and when she’d filled it and lit it, she said, “I’ve come to a decision. Your status here in the okiya is about to change.”

I was alarmed by this and began to say something, but Mother stopped me.

“You and I will perform a ceremony next week. After that, you’ll be my daughter just as if you’d been born to me. I’ve come to the decision to adopt you. One day, the okiya will be yours.”

I couldn’t think of what to say, and I don’t remember much of what happened next. Mother went on talking, telling me that as the daughter of the okiya I would at some point move into the larger room occupied by Hatsumomo and Pumpkin, who together would share the smaller room where I’d lived up to now. I was listening with only half my mind, until I began slowly to realize that as Mother’s daughter, I would no longer have to struggle under Hatsumomo’s tyranny. This had been Mameha’s plan all along, and yet I’d never really believed it would happen. Mother went on lecturing me. I looked at her drooping lip and her yellowed eyes. She may have been a hateful woman, but as the daughter of this hateful woman, I would be up on a shelf out of Hatsumomo’s reach.

In the midst of all of this, the door slid open, and Hatsumomo herself stood there in the hallway.

“What do you want?” Mother said. “I’m busy.”

“Get out,” she said to me. “I want to talk with Mother.”

“If you want to talk with me,” Mother said, “you may ask Sayuri if she’ll be kind enough to leave.”

“ Be kind enough to leave, Sayuri ,” Hatsumomo said sarcastically.

And then for the first time in my life, I spoke back to her without the fear that she would punish me for it.

“I’ll leave if Mother wants me to,” I told her.

“Mother, would you be kind enough to make Little Miss Stupid leave us alone?” Hatsumomo said.

“Stop making a nuisance of yourself!” Mother told her. “Come in and tell me what you want.”

Hatsumomo didn’t like this, but she came and sat at the table anyway. She was midway between Mother and me, but still so close that I could smell her perfume.

“Poor Pumpkin has just come running to me, very upset,” she began. “I promised her I’d speak with you. She told me something very strange. She said, ‘Oh, Hatsumomo! Mother has changed her mind!’ But I told her I doubted it was true.”

“I don’t know what she was referring to. I certainly haven’t changed my mind about anything recently.”

“That’s just what I said to her, that you would never go back on your word. But I’m sure she’d feel better, Mother, if you told her yourself.”

“Told her what?”

“That you haven’t changed your mind about adopting her.”

“Whatever gave her that idea? I never had the least intention of adopting her in the first place.”

It gave me a terrible pain to hear this, for I couldn’t help thinking of how Pumpkin had rushed down the stairs looking so upset… and no wonder, for no one could say anymore what would become of her in life. Hatsumomo had been wearing that smile that made her look like an expensive piece of porcelain, but Mother’s words struck her like rocks. She looked at me with hatred.

“So it’s true! You’re planning to adopt her . Don’t you remember, Mother, when you said you were going to adopt Pumpkin? You asked me to tell her the news!”

“What you may have said to Pumpkin is none of my concern. Besides, you haven’t handled Pumpkin’s apprenticeship as well as I expected. She was doing well for a time, but lately…”

“You promised, Mother,” Hatsumomo said in a tone that frightened me.

“Don’t be ridiculous! You know I’ve had my eye on Sayuri for years. Why would I turn around and adopt Pumpkin?”

I knew perfectly well Mother was lying. Now she went so far as to turn to me and say this:

“Sayuri-san, when was the first time I raised the subject of adopting you? A year ago, perhaps?”

If you’ve ever seen a mother cat teaching its young to hunt-the way she takes a helpless mouse and rips it apart-well, I felt as though Mother was offering me the chance to learn how I could be just like her. All I had to do was lie as she lied and say, “Oh, yes, Mother, you mentioned the subject to me many times!” This would be my first step in becoming a yellow-eyed old woman myself one day, living in a gloomy room with my account books. I could no more take Mother’s side than Hatsumomo’s. I kept my eyes to the mats so I wouldn’t have to see either of them, and said that I didn’t remember.

Hatsumomo’s face was splotched red from anger. She got up and walked to the door, but Mother stopped her.

“Sayuri will be my daughter in one week,” she said. “Between now and then, you must learn how to treat her with respect. When you go downstairs, ask one of the maids to bring tea for Sayuri and me.”

Hatsumomo gave a little bow, and then she was gone.

“Mother,” I said, “I’m very sorry to have been the cause of so much trouble. I’m sure Hatsumomo is quite wrong about any plans you may have made for Pumpkin, but… may I ask? Wouldn’t it be possible to adopt both Pumpkin and me?”

“Oh, so you know something about business now, do you?” she replied. “You want to try telling me how to run the okiya?”

A few minutes later, a maid arrived bearing a tray with a pot of tea and a cup-not two cups, but only a single one. Mother didn’t seem to care. I poured her cup full and she drank from it, staring at me with her red-rimmed eyes.

When Mameha returned to town the following day and learned that Mother had decided to adopt me, she didn’t seem as pleased as I would have expected. She nodded and looked satisfied, to be sure; but she didn’t smile. I asked if things hadn’t turned out exactly as she’d hoped.