Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha

Finally the homeless eel marked its territory, I suppose, and the Doctor lay heavily upon me, moist with sweat. I didn’t at all like being so close to him, so I pretended to have trouble breathing in the hopes he would take his weight off me. For a long while he didn’t move, but then all at once he got to his knees and was very businesslike again. I didn’t watch him, but from the corner of my eye I couldn’t help seeing that he wiped himself off using one of the towels beneath me. He tied the sash of his robe, and then put on his glasses, not noticing a little smear of blood at the edge of one lens, and began to wipe between my legs using towels and cotton swabs and the like, just as though we were back in one of the treatment rooms at the hospital. The worst of my discomfort had passed by this time, and I have to admit I was almost fascinated lying there, even with my legs spread apart so revealingly, as I watched him open the wooden case and take out the scissors. He cut away a piece of the bloody towel beneath me and stuffed it, along with a cotton ball he’d used, into the glass vial with my misspelled name on it. Then he gave a formal bow and said, “Thank you very much.” I couldn’t very well bow back while lying down, but it made no difference, because the Doctor stood at once and went off to the bath again.

I hadn’t realized it, but I’d been breathing very quickly from nervousness. Now that it was over and I was able to catch my breath, I probably looked as though I were in the middle of being operated upon, but I felt such relief I broke into a smile. Something about the whole experience seemed so utterly ridiculous to me; the more I thought about it, the funnier it seemed, and in a moment I was laughing. I had to keep quiet because the Doctor was in the next room. But to think that the course of my entire future had been altered by this? I imagined the mistress of the Ichiriki making telephone calls to Nobu and the Baron while the bidding was under way, all the money that had been spent, and all the trouble. How strange it would have been with Nobu, since I was beginning to think of him as a friend. I didn’t even want to wonder what it might have been like with the Baron.

While the Doctor was still in the bath, I tapped on the door to Mr. Bekku’s room. A maid rushed in to change the bedsheets, and Mr. Bekku came to help me put on a sleeping robe. Later, after the Doctor had fallen asleep, I got up again and bathed quietly. Mameha had instructed me to stay awake all night, in case the Doctor should awaken and need something. But even though I tried not to sleep, I couldn’t help drifting off. I did manage to awaken in the morning in time to make myself presentable before the Doctor saw me.

After breakfast, I saw Dr. Crab to the front door of the inn and helped him into his shoes. Just before he walked away, he thanked me for the evening and gave me a small package. I couldn’t make up my mind whether it might be a jewel like Nobu had given me or a few cuttings from the bloody towel of the night before! But when I worked up my courage to open it back in the room, it turned out to be a package of Chinese herbs. I didn’t know what to make of them until I asked Mr. Bekku, who said I should make tea once a day with the herbs to discourage pregnancy. “Be cautious with them, because they’re very costly,” he said. “But don’t be too cautious. They’re still cheaper than an abortion.”

It’s strange and very hard to explain, but the world looked different to me after mizuage . Pumpkin, who hadn’t yet had hers, now seemed inexperienced and childlike to me somehow, even though she was older. Mother and Auntie, as well as Hatsumomo and Mameha had all been through it, of course, and I was probably much more aware than they were of having this peculiar thing in common with them. After mizuage an apprentice wears her hair in a new style, and with a red silk band at the base of the pincushion bun, rather than a patterned one. For a time I was so aware of which apprentices had red hair bands and which had patterned ones that I scarcely seemed to notice anything else while walking along the street, or in the hallways of the little school. I had a new respect for the ones who had been through mizuage , and felt much more worldly than the ones who hadn’t.

I’m sure all apprentices feel changed by the experience of mizuage in much the same way I did. But for me it wasn’t just a matter of seeing the world differently. My day-to-day life changed as well, because of Mother’s new view of me. She was the sort of person, I’m sure you realize, who noticed things only if they had price tags on them. When she walked down the street, her mind was probably working like an abacus: “Oh, there’s little Yukiyo, whose stupidity cost her poor older sister nearly a hundred yen last year! And here comes Ichimitsu, who must be very pleased at the payments her new danna is making.” If Mother were to walk alongside the Shirakawa Stream on a lovely spring day, when you could almost see beauty itself dripping into the water from the tendrils of the cherry trees, she probably wouldn’t even notice any of it-unless… I don’t know… she had a plan to make money from selling the trees, or some such thing.

Before my mizuage , I don’t think it made any difference to Mother that Hatsumomo was causing trouble for me in Gion. But now that I had a high price tag on me, she put a stop to Hatsumomo’s troublemaking without my even having to ask it of her. I don’t know how she did it. Probably she just said, “Hatsumomo, if your behavior causes problems for Sayuri and costs this okiya money, you’ll be the one to pay it!” Ever since my mother had grown ill, my life had certainly been difficult; but now for a time, things became remarkably uncomplicated. I won’t say I never felt tired or disappointed; in fact, I felt tired much of the time. Life in Gion is hardly relaxing for the women who make a living there. But it was certainly a great relief to be freed from the threat of Hatsumomo. Inside the okiya too, life was almost pleasurable. As the adopted daughter, I ate when I wanted. I chose my kimono first instead of waiting for Pumpkin to choose hers-and the moment I’d made my choice, Auntie set to work sewing the seams to the proper width, and basting the collar onto my underrobe, before she’d touched even Hatsumomo’s. I didn’t mind when Hatsumomo looked at me with resentment and hatred because of the special treatment I now received. But when Pumpkin passed me in the okiya with a worried look, and kept her eyes averted from mine even when we were face-to-face, it caused me terrible pain. I’d always had the feeling our friendship would have grown if only circumstances hadn’t come between us. I didn’t have that feeling any longer.

With my mizuage behind me, Dr. Crab disappeared from my life almost completely. I say “almost” because even though Mameha and I no longer went to the Shirae Teahouse to entertain him, I did run into him occasionally at parties in Gion. The Baron, on the other hand, I never saw again. I didn’t yet know about the role he’d played in driving up the price of my mizuage , but as I look back I can understand why Mameha may have wanted to keep us apart. Probably I would have felt every bit as uncomfortable around the Baron as Mameha would have felt having me there. In any case, I can’t pretend I missed either of these men.

But there was one man I was very eager to see again, and I’m sure I don’t need to tell you I’m talking about the Chairman. He hadn’t played any role in Mameha’s plan, so I didn’t expect my relationship with him to change or come to an end just because my mizuage was over. Still, I have to admit I felt very relieved a few weeks afterward to learn that Iwamura Electric had called to request my company once again. When I arrived that evening, both the Chairman and Nobu were present. In the past I would certainly have gone to sit beside Nobu; but now that Mother had adopted me, I wasn’t obliged to think of him as my savior any longer. As it happened, a space beside the Chairman was vacant, and so with a feeling of excitement I went to take it. The Chairman was very cordial when I poured him sake, and thanked me by raising his cup in the air before drinking it; but all evening long he never looked at me. Whereas Nobu, whenever I glanced in his direction, glared back at me as though I were the only person in the room he was aware of. I certainly knew what it was like to long for someone, so before the evening was over I made a point of going to spend a bit of time with him. I was careful never to ignore him again after this.