Memoirs of a Geisha (48 page)

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means there are some wrinkles that have become permanent features, and they aren’t going to go away just because you say they should.”

“There are good wrinkles and bad wrinkles, Nobu-san. Never forget it.”

“You aren’t as young as you once were yourself, you know.”

“Now you’ve stooped to insulting me! You’re in a worse mood even than I’d feared. Why isn’t there any alcohol here? You need a drink.”

“I’m not insulting you. I’m stating a fact.”

“There are good wrinkles and bad wrinkles, and there are good facts and bad facts,” I said. “The bad facts are best avoided.”

I found a maid and asked that she bring a tray with scotch and water, as well as some dried squid as a snack—for it had struck me that Nobu hadn’t eaten much of his dinner. When the tray arrived, I poured scotch into a glass, filled it with water, and put it before him.

“There,” I said, “now pretend that’s medicine, and drink it.” He took a sip; but only a very small one. “All of it,” I said.

“I’ll drink it at my own pace.”

“When a doctor orders a patient to take medicine, the patient takes the medicine. Now drink up!”

Nobu drained the glass, but he wouldn’t look at me as he did it. Afterward I poured more and ordered him to drink again.

“You’re not a doctor!” he said to me. “I’ll drink at my own pace.”

“Now, now, Nobu-san. Every time you open your mouth, you get into worse trouble. The sicker the patient, the more the medication.”

“I won’t do it. I hate drinking alone.”

“All right, I’ll join you,” I said. I put some ice cubes in a glass and held it up for Nobu to fill. He wore a little smile when he took the glass from me—certainly the first smile I’d seen on him all evening—and very carefully poured twice as much scotch as I’d poured into his, topped by a splash of water. I took his glass from him, dumped its contents into a bowl in the center of the table, and then refilled it with the same amount of scotch he’d put into mine, plus an extra little shot as punishment.

While we drained our glasses, I couldn’t help making a face; I find drinking scotch about as pleasurable as slurping up rainwater off the roadside. I suppose making these faces was all for the best, because afterward Nobu looked much less grumpy. When I’d caught my breath again, I said, “I don’t know what has gotten into you this evening. Or the Minister for that matter.”

“Don’t mention that man! I was beginning to forget about him, and now you’ve reminded me. Do you know what he said to me earlier?”

“Nobu-san,” I said, “it is my responsibility to cheer you up, whether you want more scotch or not. You’ve watched the Minister get drunk night after night. Now it’s time you got drunk yourself.”

Nobu gave me another disagreeable look, but he took up his glass like a man beginning his walk to the execution ground, and looked at it for a long moment before drinking it all down. He put it on the table and afterward rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand as if he were trying to clear them.

“Sayuri,” he said, “I must tell you something. You’re going to hear about it sooner or later. Last week the Minister and I had a talk with the proprietress of the Ichiriki. We made an inquiry about the possibility of the Minister becoming your
danna
.”

“The Minister?” I said. “Nobu-san, I don’t understand. Is that what you wish to see happen?”

“Certainly not. But the Minister has helped us immeasurably, and I had no choice. The Occupation authorities were prepared to make their final judgment
against
Iwamura Electric, you know. The company would have been seized. I suppose the Chairman and I would have learned to pour concrete or something, for we would never have been permitted to work in business again. However, the Minister made them reopen our case, and managed to persuade them we were being dealt with much too harshly. Which is the truth, you know.”

“Yet Nobu-san keeps calling the Minister all sorts of names,” I said. “It seems to me—”

“He deserves to be called any name I can think of! I don’t like the man, Sayuri. It doesn’t make me like him any better to know I’m in his debt.”

“I see,” I said. “So I was to be given to the Minister because—”

“No one was trying to give you to the Minister. He could never have afforded to be your
danna
anyway. I led him to believe Iwamura Electric would be willing to pay—which of course we wouldn’t have been. I knew the answer beforehand or I wouldn’t have asked the question. The Minister was terribly disappointed, you know. For an instant I felt almost sorry for him.”

There was nothing funny in what Nobu had said. And yet I couldn’t help but laugh, because I had a sudden image in my mind of the Minister as my
danna
, leaning in closer and closer to me, with his lower jaw sticking out, until suddenly his breath blew up nose.

“Oh, so you find it funny, do you?” Nobu said to me.

“Really, Nobu-san . . . I’m sorry, but to picture the Minister—”

“I don’t want to picture the Minister! It’s bad enough to have sat there beside him, talking with the mistress of the Ichiriki.”

I made another scotch and water for Nobu, and he made one for me. It was the last thing I wanted; already the room seemed cloudy. But Nobu raised his glass, and I had no choice but to drink with him. Afterward he wiped his mouth with his napkin and said, “It’s a terrible time to be alive, Sayuri.”

“Nobu-san, I thought we were drinking to cheer ourselves up.”

“We’ve certainly known each other a long time, Sayuri. Maybe . . . fifteen years! Is that right?” he said. “No, don’t answer. I want to tell you something, and you’re going to sit right there and listen to it. I’ve wanted to tell you this a long while, and now the time has come. I hope you’re listening, because I’m only going to say it once. Here’s the thing: I don’t much like geisha; probably you know that already. But I’ve always felt that you, Sayuri, aren’t exactly like all the others.”

I waited a moment for Nobu to continue, but he didn’t.

“Is that what Nobu-san wanted to tell me?” I asked.

“Well, doesn’t that suggest that I ought to have done all kinds of things for you? For example . . . ha! For example, I ought to have bought you jewelry.”

“You have bought me jewelry. In fact, you’ve always been much too kind. To me, that is; you certainly aren’t kind to everybody.”

“Well, I ought to have bought you more of it. Anyway, that isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m having trouble explaining myself. What I’m trying to say is, I’ve come to understand what a fool I am. You laughed earlier at the idea of having the Minister for a
danna
. But just look at me: a one-armed man with skin like—what do they call me, the lizard?”

“Oh, Nobu-san, you must never talk about yourself that way . . .”

“The moment has finally come. I’ve been waiting years. I had to wait all through your nonsense with that General. Every time I imagined him with you . . . well, I don’t even want to think about that. And the very idea of this foolish Minister! Did I tell you what he said to me this evening? This is the worst thing of all. After he found out he wasn’t going to be your
danna
, he sat there a long while like a pile of dirt, and then finally said, ‘I thought you told me I could be Sayuri’s
danna
.’ Well, I hadn’t said any such thing! ‘We did the best we could, Minister, and it didn’t work out,’ I told him. So then he said, ‘Could you arrange it just once?’ I said, ‘Arrange what once? For you to be Sayuri’s
danna
just once? You mean, one evening?’ And then he nodded! Well, I said, ‘You listen to me, Minister! It was bad enough going to the mistress of the teahouse to propose a man like you as
danna
to a woman like Sayuri. I only did it because I knew it wouldn’t happen. But if you think—’ ”

“You didn’t say that!”

“I certainly did. I said, ‘But if you think I would arrange for you to have even a quarter of a second alone with her . . . Why should you have her? And anyway, she isn’t mine to give, is she? To think that I would go to her and ask such a thing!’ ”

“Nobu-san, I hope the Minister didn’t take this too badly, considering all he’s done for Iwamura Electric.”

“Now wait just a moment. I won’t have you thinking I’m ungrateful. The Minister helped us because it was his job to help us. I’ve treated him well these past months, and I won’t stop now. But that doesn’t mean I have to give up what I’ve waited more than ten years for, and let him have it instead! What if I’d come to you as he wanted me to? Would you have said, ‘All right, Nobu-san, I’ll do it for you’?”

“Please . . . How can I answer such a question?”

“Easily. Just tell me you would never have done such a thing.”

“But Nobu-san, I owe such a debt to you . . . If you asked a favor of me, I could never turn it down lightly.”

“Well, this is new! Have you changed, Sayuri, or has there always been a part of you I didn’t know?”

“I’ve often thought Nobu-san has much too high an opinion of me . . .”

“I don’t misjudge people. If you aren’t the woman I think you are, then this isn’t the world I thought it was. Do you mean to say you could consider giving yourself to a man like the Minister? Don’t you feel there’s right and wrong in this world, and good and bad? Or have you spent too much of your life in Gion?”

“My goodness, Nobu-san . . . it’s been years since I’ve seen you so enraged . . .”

This must have been exactly the wrong thing to say, because all at once Nobu’s face flared in anger. He grabbed his glass in his one hand and slammed it down so hard it cracked, spilling ice cubes onto the tabletop. Nobu turned his hand to see a line of blood across his palm.

“Oh, Nobu-san!”

“Answer me!”

“I can’t even think of the question right now . . . please, I have to go fetch something for your hand—”

“Would you give yourself to the Minister, no matter who asked it of you? If you’re a woman who would do such a thing, I want you to leave this room right now, and never speak to me again!”

I couldn’t understand how the evening had taken this dangerous turn; but it was perfectly clear to me I could give only one answer. I was desperate to fetch a cloth for Nobu’s hand—his blood had trickled onto the table already—but he was looking at me with such intensity I didn’t dare to move.

“I would never do such a thing,” I said.

I thought this would calm him, but for a long, frightening moment he continued to glower at me. Finally he let out his breath.

“Next time, speak up before I have to cut myself for an answer.”

I rushed out of the room to fetch the mistress. She came with several maids and a bowl of water and towels. Nobu wouldn’t let her call a doctor; and to tell the truth, the cut wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. After the mistress left, Nobu was strangely silent. I tried to begin a conversation, but he showed no interest.

“First I can’t calm you down,” I said at last, “and now I can’t get you to speak. I don’t know whether to make you drink more, or if the liquor itself is the problem.”

“We’ve had enough liquor, Sayuri. It’s time you went and brought back that rock.”

“What rock?”

“The one I gave you last fall. The piece of concrete from the factory. Go and bring it.”

I felt my skin turn to ice when I heard this—because I knew perfectly well what he was saying. The time had come for Nobu to propose himself as my
danna
.

“Oh, honestly, I’ve had so much to drink, I don’t know whether I can walk at all!” I said. “Perhaps Nobu-san will let me bring it the next time we see each other?”

“You’ll get it tonight. Why do you think I stayed on after the Minister left? Go get it while I wait here for you.”

I thought of sending a maid to retrieve the rock for me; but I knew I could never tell her where to find it. So with some difficulty I made my way down the hall, slid my feet into my shoes, and sloshed my way—as it felt to me, in my drunken state—through the streets of Gion.

When I reached the okiya, I went to my room and found the piece of concrete, wrapped in a square of silk and stowed on a shelf of my closet. I unwrapped it and left the silk on the floor, though I don’t know exactly why. As I left, Auntie—who must have heard me stumbling and come up to see what was the matter—met me in the upstairs hallway and asked why I was carrying a rock in my hand.

“I’m taking it to Nobu-san, Auntie,” I said. “Please, stop me!”

“You’re drunk, Sayuri. What’s gotten into you this evening?”

“I have to give it back to him. And . . . oh, it will be the end of my life if I do. Please stop me . . .”

“Drunk, and sobbing. You’re worse than Hatsumomo! You can’t go back out like this.”

“Then please call the Ichiriki. And have them tell Nobu-san I won’t be there. Will you?”

“Why is Nobu-san waiting for you to bring him a rock?”

“I can’t explain. I can’t . . .”

“It makes no difference. If he’s waiting for you, you’ll have to go,” she said to me, and led me by the arm back into my room, where she dried my face with a cloth and touched up my makeup by the light of an electric lantern. I was limp while she did it; she had to support my chin in her hand to keep my head from rolling. She grew so impatient that she finally grabbed my head with both hands and made it clear she wanted me to keep it still.

“I hope I never see you acting this way again, Sayuri. Heaven knows what’s come over you.”

“I’m a fool, Auntie.”

“You’ve certainly been a fool this evening,” she said. “Mother will be very angry if you’ve done something to spoil Nobu-san’s affection for you.”

“I haven’t yet,” I said. “But if you can think of anything that will . . .”

“That’s no way to talk,” Auntie said to me. And she didn’t speak another word until she was finished with my makeup.

I made my way back to the Ichiriki Teahouse, holding that heavy rock in both my hands. I don’t know whether it was really heavy, or whether my arms were simply heavy from too much to drink. But by the time I joined Nobu in the room again, I felt I’d used up all the energy I had. If he spoke to me about becoming his mistress, I wasn’t at all sure I would be able to dam up my feelings.