Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha

During the summer of that year, 1939, I was so busy with engagements, occasional meetings with the General, dance performances, and the like, that in the morning when I tried to get up from my futon, I often felt like a bucket filled with nails. Usually by midafternoon I managed to forget my fatigue, but I often wondered how much I was earning through all my efforts. I never really expected to find out, however, so I was quite taken aback when Mother called me into her room one afternoon and told me I’d earned more in the past six months than both Hatsumomo and Pumpkin combined.

“Which means,” she said, “that it’s time for you to exchange rooms with them.”

I wasn’t as pleased to hear this as you might imagine. Hatsumomo and I had managed to live side by side these past few years by keeping away from each other. But I regarded her as a sleeping tiger, not a defeated one. Hatsumomo certainly wasn’t going to think of Mother’s plan as “exchanging rooms”; she was going to feel that her room had been taken away from her.

When I saw Mameha that evening, I told her what Mother had said to me, and mentioned my fears that the fire inside Hatsumomo might flare up again.

“Oh, well, that’s fine,” said Mameha. “That woman won’t be beaten once and for all until we see blood. And we haven’t seen it yet. Let’s give her a bit of a chance and see what sort of a mess she makes for herself this time.”

Early the next morning, Auntie came upstairs in the okiya to lay down the rules for moving our belongings. She began by taking me into Hatsumomo’s room and announcing that a certain corner now belonged to me; I could put anything I wanted there, and no one else could touch it. Then she brought Hatsumomo and Pumpkin into my smaller room and set up a similar space for the two of them. After we’d swapped all our belongings, the move would be complete.

I set to work that very afternoon carrying my things through the hall. I wish I could say I’d accumulated a collection of beautiful objects as Mameha probably had by my age; but the mood of the nation had changed greatly. Cosmetics and permanents had recently been banned as luxuries by the military government-though of course those of us in Gion, as playthings of the men in power, still did more or less as we pleased. Lavish gifts, however, were almost unheard of, so I’d accumulated nothing more over the years than a few scrolls, inkstones, and bowls, as well as a collection of stereoscopic photos of famous views, with a lovely viewer made of sterling silver, which the Kabuki actor Onoe Yoegoro XVII had given to me. In any case, I carried these things across the hall-along with my makeup, undergarments, books, and magazines-and piled them in the corner of the room. But as late as the following evening, Hatsumomo and Pumpkin still hadn’t begun moving their things out. On the way back from my lessons at noon on the third day, I made up my mind that if Hatsumomo’s bottles and ointments were still crowded together on the makeup stand, I would go ask Auntie to help me.

When I reached the top of the stairs, I was surprised to see both Hatsumomo’s door and mine standing open. A jar of white ointment lay broken on the hallway floor. Something seemed to be amiss, and when I stepped into my room, I saw what it was. Hatsumomo was sitting at my little table, sipping at what looked like a small glass of water-and reading a notebook that belonged to me!

Geisha are expected to be discreet about the men they know; so you may be puzzled to hear that several years earlier while still an apprentice, I’d gone into a paper store one afternoon and bought a beautiful book of blank pages to begin keeping a diary about my life. I wasn’t foolish enough to write down the sorts of things a geisha is never expected to reveal. I wrote only about my thoughts and feelings. When I had something to say about a particular man, I gave him a code name. So for example, I referred to Nobu as “Mr. Tsu,” because he sometimes made a little scornful noise with his mouth that sounded like “Tsu!” And I referred to the Chairman as “Mr. Haa,” because on one occasion he’d taken in a deep breath and let it out slowly in a way that sounded like “Haa,” and I’d imagined him waking up beside me as he said it-so of course, it made a strong impression on me. But I’d never thought for a moment that anyone would see the things I’d written.

“Why, Sayuri, I’m so pleased to see you!” Hatsumomo said. “I’ve been waiting to tell you how much I’m enjoying your diary. Some of the entries are most interesting… and really, your writing style is charming! I’m not much impressed with your calligraphy, but-”

“Did you happen to notice the interesting thing I wrote on the front page?”

“I don’t think I did. Let’s see… ‘Private.’ Well, now here’s an example of what I’m talking about with your calligraphy.”

“Hatsumomo, please put the book down on the table and leave my room.”

“Really! I’m shocked at you, Sayuri. I’m only trying to be helpful! Just listen for a moment, and you’ll see. For example: Why did you choose to give Nobu Toshikazu the name ‘Mr. Tsu’? It doesn’t suit him at all. I think you should have called him ‘Mr. Blister’ or maybe ‘Mr. One-Arm.’ Don’t you agree? You can change it if you want, and you don’t even have to give me any credit.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Hatsumomo. I haven’t written anything about Nobu at all.”

Hatsumomo sighed, as if to tell me what an inept liar I was, and then began paging through my journal. “If it isn’t Nobu you were writing about, I want you to tell me the name of the man you’re referring to here. Let’s see… ah, here it is: ‘Sometimes I see Mr. Tsu’s face blooming with anger when a geisha has been staring at him. But for my part, I can look at him as long as I want, and he seems to be pleased by it. I think his fondness for me grows from his feeling that I don’t find the look of his skin and his missing arm as strange and frightening as so many girls do.’ So I guess what you’re telling me is that you know someone else who looks just like Nobu. I think you should introduce them! Think how much they’ll have in common.”

By this time I was feeling sick at heart-I can’t think of any better way of describing it. For it’s one thing to find your secrets suddenly exposed, but when your own foolishness has exposed them… well, if I was prepared to curse anyone, it was myself for keeping the journal in the first place and stowing it where Hatsumomo could find it. A shopkeeper who leaves his window open can hardly be angry at the rainstorm for ruining his wares.

I went to the table to take the journal from Hatsumomo, but she clutched it to her chest and stood. In her other hand she picked up the glass of what I’d thought was water. Now that I stood close to her I could smell the odor of sake. It wasn’t water at all. She was drunk.

“Sayuri, of course you want your journal back, and of course I’m going to give it to you,” she said. But she was walking toward the door as she said it. “The trouble is, I haven’t finished reading it. So I’ll take it back to my room… unless you’d rather I took it to Mother. I’m sure she’ll be pleased to see the passages you’ve written about her.”

I mentioned earlier that a broken bottle of ointment lay on the floor of the hallway. This was how Hatsumomo did things, making a mess and not even bothering to tell the maids. But now as she left my room, she got what she deserved. Probably she’d forgotten about the bottle because she was drunk; in any case she stepped right into the broken glass and let out a little shriek. I saw her look at her foot a moment and make a gasping noise, but then she kept on going.