Arthur Golden - Memoirs of a Geisha

In any case, around nine o’clock that night, we crossed the river to the Pontocho district. Unlike Gion, which sprawls over many blocks, Pontocho is just a single long alleyway stretched out along one bank of the river. People call it an “eel’s bed” because of its shape. The autumn air was a bit chilly that night, but Shojiro’s party was outdoors anyway, on a wooden verandah standing on stilts above the water. No one paid us much attention when we stepped out through the glass doors. The verandah was beautifully lit with paper lanterns, and the river shimmered gold from the lights of a restaurant on the opposite bank. Everyone was listening to Shojiro, who was in the middle of telling a story in his singsong voice; but you should have seen the way Hatsumomo’s expression soured when she caught sight of us. I couldn’t help remembering a damaged pear I’d held in my hand the day before, because amid the cheerful faces, Hatsumomo’s expression was like a terrible bruise.

Mameha went to kneel on a mat right beside Hatsumomo, which I considered very bold of her. I knelt toward the other end of the verandah, beside a gentle-looking old man who turned out to be the koto player Tachibana Zensaku, whose scratchy old records I still own. Tachibana was blind, I discovered that night. Regardless of my purpose in coming, I would have been content to spend the evening just chatting with him, for he was such a fascinating, endearing man. But we’d hardly begun to talk when suddenly everyone burst out laughing.

Shojiro was quite a remarkable mimic. He was slender like the branch of a willow, with elegant, slow-moving fingers, and a very long face he could move about in extraordinary ways; he could have fooled a group of monkeys into thinking he was one of them. At that moment he was imitating the geisha beside him, a woman in her fifties. With his effeminate gestures-his pursed lips, his rolls of the eyes-he managed to look so much like her that I didn’t know whether to laugh or just sit with my hand over my mouth in astonishment. I’d seen Shojiro on the stage, but this was something much better.

Tachibana leaned in toward me and whispered, “What’s he doing?”

“He’s imitating an older geisha beside him.”

“Ah,” said Tachibana. “That would be Ichiwari.” And then he tapped me with the back of his hand to make sure he had my attention. “The director of the Minamiza Theater,” he said, and held out his little finger below the table where no one else could see it. In Japan, you see, holding up the little finger means “boyfriend” or “girlfriend.” Tachibana was telling me that the older geisha, the one named Ichiwari, was the theater director’s mistress. And in fact the director was there too, laughing louder than anyone.

A moment later, still in the midst of his mimicry, Shojiro stuck one of his fingers up his nose. At this, everyone let out a laugh so loud you could feel the verandah trembling. I didn’t know it at the time, but picking her nose was one of Ichiwari’s well-known habits. She turned bright red when she saw this, and held a sleeve of her kimono over her face, and Shojiro, who had drunk a good bit of sake, imitated her even then. People laughed politely, but only Hatsumomo seemed to find it really funny; for at this point Shojiro was beginning to cross the line into cruelty. Finally the theater director said, “Now, now, Shojiro-san, save some energy for your show tomorrow! Anyway, don’t you know you’re sitting near one of Gion’s greatest dancers? I propose that we ask for a performance.”

Of course, the director was talking about Mameha.

“Heavens, no. I don’t want to see any dancing just now,” Shojiro said. As I came to understand over the years, he preferred to be the center of attention himself. “Besides, I’m having fun.”

“Shojiro-san, we mustn’t pass up an opportunity to see the famous Mameha,” the director said, speaking this time without a trace of humor. A few geisha spoke up as well, and finally Shojiro was persuaded to ask her if she would perform, which he did as sulkily as a little boy. Already I could see Hatsumomo looking displeased. She poured more sake for Shojiro, and he poured more for her. They exchanged a long look as if to say their party had been spoiled.

A few minutes passed while a maid was sent to fetch a shamisen and one of the geisha tuned it and prepared to play. Then Mameha took her place against the backdrop of the teahouse and performed a few very short pieces. Nearly anyone would have agreed that Mameha was a lovely woman, but very few people would have found her more beautiful than Hatsumomo; so I can’t say exactly what caught Shojiro’s eye. It may have been the sake he’d drunk, and it may have been Mameha’s extraordinary dancing-for Shojiro was a dancer himself. Whatever it was, by the time Mameha came back to join us at the table, Shojiro seemed quite taken with her and asked that she sit beside him. When she did, he poured her a cup of sake, and turned his back on Hatsumomo as if she were just another adoring apprentice.

Well, Hatsumomo’s mouth hardened, and her eyes shrank to about half their size. As for Mameha, I never saw her flirt with anyone more deliberately than she did with Shojiro. Her voice grew high and soft, and her eyes swished from his chest to his face and back again. From time to time she drew the fingertips of her hand across the base of her throat as though she felt self-conscious about the splotchy blush that had appeared there. There wasn’t really any blush, but she acted it so convincingly, you wouldn’t have known it without looking closely. Then one of the geisha asked Shojiro if he’d heard from Bajiru-san.

“Bajiru-san,” said Shojiro, in his most dramatic manner, “has abandoned me!”

I had no idea who Shojiro was talking about, but Tachibana, the old koto player, was kind enough to explain in a whisper that “Bajiru-san” was the English actor Basil Rathbone-though I’d never heard of him at the time. Shojiro had taken a trip to London a few years earlier and staged a Kabuki performance there. The actor Basil Rathbone had admired it so much that with the help of an interpreter the two of them had developed something of a friendship. Shojiro may have lavished attention on women like Hatsumomo or Mameha, but the fact remained that he was homosexual; and since his trip to England, he’d made it a running joke that his heart was destined to be broken because Bajiru-san had no interest in men.

“It makes me sad,” said one of the geisha quietly, “to witness the death of a romance.”

Everyone laughed except for Hatsumomo, who went on glowering at Shojiro.

“The difference between me and Bajiru-san is this. I’ll show you,” Shojiro said; and with this he stood and asked Mameha to join him. He led her off to one side of the room, where they had a bit of space.

“When I do my work, I look like this,” he said. And he sashayed from one side of the room to the other, waving his folding fan with a most fluid wrist, and letting his head roll back and forth like a ball on a seesaw. “Whereas when Bajiru-san does his work, he looks like this.” Here he grabbed Mameha, and you should have seen the astonished expression on her face when he dipped her toward the floor in what looked like a passionate embrace, and planted kisses all over her face. Everyone in the room cheered and clapped. Everyone except Hatsumomo, that is.

“What is he doing?” Tachibana asked me quietly. I didn’t think anyone else had heard, but before I could reply, Hatsumomo cried out:

“He’s making a fool of himself! That’s what he’s doing.”

“Oh, Hatsumomo-san,” said Shojiro, “you’re jealous, aren’t you!”

“Of course she is!” said Mameha. “Now you must show us how the two of you make up. Go on, Shojiro-san. Don’t be shy! You must give her the very same kisses you gave to me! It’s only fair. And in the same way.”