airplane 
bound for Hawaii, where we spent a few remarkable days. The Chairman bought me a 
bathing suit-the first I'd ever owned-and I sat wearing it on the beach with my hair hanging 
neatly at my shoulders just like other women around me. Hawaii reminded me strangely of 
Amami; I worried that the same thought might occur to the Chairman, but if it did, he said 
nothing about it. From Hawaii, we continued to Los Angeles and finally to New York. I knew 
nothing about the United States except what I'd seen in movies; I don't think I quite believed 
that the great buildings of New York City really existed. And when I settled at last into my 
room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and looked out the window at the mountainous buildings 
around me and the smooth, clean streets below, I had the feeling I was seeing a world in 
which anything was possible. I confess I'd expected to feel like a baby who has been taken 
away from its mother; for I had never before left Japan, and couldn't imagine that a setting as 


alien as New York City would make me anything but fearful. Perhaps it was the Chairman's 
enthusiasm that helped me to approach my visit there with such goodwill. He'd taken a 
separate room, which he used mostly for business; but every night he came to stay with me 
in the suite he'd arranged. Often I awoke in that strange bed and turned to see him there in 
the dark, sitting in a chair by the window holding the sheer curtain open, staring at Park 
Avenue below. One time after two o'clock in the morning, he took me by the hand and pulled 
me to the window to see a young couple dressed as if they'd come from a ball, kissing*under 
the street lamp on the corner. 

Over the next three years I traveled with the Chairman twice more to the United States. 
While he attended to business during the day, my maid and I took in the museums and 
restaurants-and even a ballet, which I found breathtaking. Strangely, one of the few 
Japanese restaurants we were able to find in New York was now under the management of a 
chef I'd known well in Gion before the war. During lunch one afternoon, I found myself in his 
private room in the back, entertaining a number of men I hadn't seen in years-the vice 
president of Nippon Telephone & Telegraph; the new Japanese Consul-General, who had 
formerly been mayor of Kobe; a professor of political science from Kyoto University. It was 
almost like being back in Gion once again. 

In the summer of 1956, the Chairman-who had two daughters by his wife, but no son-
arranged for his eldest daughter to marry a man named Nishioka Minoru. The Chairman's 
intention was that Mr. Nishioka take the family name of Iwamura and become his heir; but at 
the last moment, Mr. Nishioka had a change of heart, and informed the Chairman that he did 
not intend to go through with the wedding. He was a very temperamental young man, but in 
the Chairman's estimation, quite brilliant. For a week or more the Chairman was upset, and 
snapped at his servants and me without the least provocation. I'd never seen him so 
disturbed by anything. 

No one ever told me why Nishioka Minoru changed his mind; but no one had to. During the 
previous summer, the founder of one of Japan's largest insurance companies had dismissed 
his son as president, and turned his company over instead to a much younger man-his 
illegitimate son by a Tokyo geisha. It caused quite a scandal at the time. Things of this sort 
had happened before in Japan, but usually on a much smaller scale, in family-owned kimono 
stores or sweets shops-businesses of that sort. The insurance company director described 
his firstborn in the newspapers as "an earnest young man whose talents unfortunately can't 
be compared with ----" and here he named his illegitimate son, without ever giving any hint of 
their relationship. But it made no difference whether he gave a hint of it or not; everyone 
knew the truth soon enough. 

Now, if you were to imagine that Nishioka Minoru, after already having agreed to become the 
Chairman's heir, had discovered some new bit of information-such as that the Chairman had 
recently fathered an illegitimate son . . . well, I'm sure that in this case, his reluctance to go 
through with the marriage would probably seem quite understandable. It was widely known 
that the Chairman lamented having no son, and was deeply attached to his two daughters. 
Was there any reason to think he wouldn't become equally attached to an illegitimate son-
enough, perhaps, to change his mind before death and turn over to him the company he'd 
built? As to the question of whether or not I really had given birth to a son of the Chairman's 
... if I had, I'd certainly be reluctant to talk too much about him, for fear that his identity might 
become publicly known. It would be in no one's best interest for such a thing to happen. The 
best course, I feel, is for me to say nothing at all; I'm sure you will understand. 

A week or so after Nishioka Minoru's change of heart, I decided to raise a very delicate 
subject with the Chairman. We were at the Eishin-an, sitting outdoors after dinner on the 
veranda overlooking the moss garden. The Chairman was brooding, and hadn't spoken a 
word since before dinner was served. 


"Have I mentioned to Danna-sama," I began, "that I've had the strangest feeling lately?" 

I glanced at him, but I could see no sign that he was even listening. 

"I keep thinking of the Ichiriki Teahouse," I went on, "and truthfully, I'm beginning to recognize 
how much I miss entertaining." 

The Chairman just took a bite of his ice cream, and then set his spoon down on the dish 
again. 

"Of course, I can never go back to work in Gion; I know that perfectly well. And yet I wonder, 
Danna-sama . . . isn't there a place for a small teahouse in New York City?" 

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "There's no reason why you should want to 
leave Japan." 

"Japanese businessmen and politicians are showing up in New York these days as 
commonly as turtles plopping into a pond," I said. "Most of them are men I've known already 
for years. It's true that leaving Japan would be an abrupt change. But considering that 
Danna-sama will 
be spending more and more of his time in the United States ..." I knew this was true, because 
he'd already told me about his plan to open a branch of his company there. 

"I'm in no mood for this, Sayuri," he began. I think he intended to say something further, but I 
went on as though I hadn't heard him. 

"They say that a child raised between two cultures often has a very difficult time," I said. "So 
naturally, a mother who moves with her child to a place like the United States would probably 
be wise to make it her permanent home." "Sayuri-" 

"Which is to say," I went on, "that a woman who made such a choice would probably never 
bring her child back to Japan at all." 

By this time the Chairman must have understood what I was suggesting-that I remove from 
Japan the only obstacle in the way of Nishioka Minoru's adoption as his heir. He wore a 
startled look for an instant. And then, probably as the image formed in his mind of my leaving 
him, his peevish humor seemed to crack open like an egg, and out of the corner of his eye 
came a single tear, which he blinked away just as swiftly as swatting a fly. 

In August of that same year, I moved to New York City to set up my own very small teahouse 
for Japanese businessmen and politicians traveling through the United States. Of course, 
Mother tried to ensure that any business I started in New York City would be an extension of 
the Nitta okiya, but the Chairman refused to consider any such arrangement. Mother had 
power over me as long as I remained in Gion; but I broke my ties with her by leaving. The 
Chairman sent in two of his accountants to ensure that Mother gave me every last yen to 
which I was entitled. 

I can't pretend I didn't feel afraid so many years ago, when the door of my apartment here at 
the Waldorf Towers closed behind me for the first time. But New York is an exciting city. 
Before long it came to feel at least as much a home to me as Gion ever did. In fact, as I look 
back, the memories of many long weeks I've spent here with the Chairman have made my 
life in the United States even richer in some ways than it was in Japan. My little teahouse, on 
the second floor of an old club off Fifth Avenue, was modestly successful from the very 
beginning; a number of geisha have come from Gion to work with me there, and even 


Mameha sometimes visits. Nowadays I go there myself only when close friends or old 
acquaintances have come to town. I spend my time in a variety of other ways instead. In the 
mornings I often join a group of Japanese writers and artists from the area to study subjects 
that interest us-such as poetry or music or, during one month-long session, the history of 
New York City. I lunch with a friend most days. And in the afternoons I kneel before my 
makeup stand to prepare for one party or another-sometimes here in my very own 
apartment. When I lift the brocade cover on my mirror, I can't help but remember the milky 
odor of the white makeup I so often wore in Gion. I dearly wish I could go back there to visit; 
but on the other hand, I think I would be disturbed to see all the changes. When friends bring 
photographs from their trips to Kyoto, I often think that Gion has thinned out like a poorly kept 
garden, increasingly overrun with weeds. After Mother's death a number of years ago, for 
example, the Nitta okiya was torn down and replaced with a tiny concrete building housing a 
bookshop on the ground floor and two apartments overhead. 

Eight hundred geisha worked in Gion when I first arrived there. Now the number is less than 
sixty, with only a handful of appre