shut without waiting for me to reply. 

The rain was falling more heavily now, so I ran, rather than walked, down a narrow alley 
alongside the teahouse. The door at the back entrance rolled open as I arrived, and the 
same maid knelt there waiting for me. She didn't say a word but just took the shamisen case 
from my arms. 

"Miss," I said, "may I ask? . . . Can you tell me where the Miyagawa-cho district is?" 

"Why do you want to go there?" 

"I have to pick up something." 

She gave me a strange look, but then told me to walk along the river until I had passed the 
Minamiza Theater, and I would find myself in Miyagawa-cho. 

I decided to stay under the eaves of the teahouse until the rain stopped. As I stood looking 
around, I discovered a wing of the building visible between the slats of the fence beside me. I 
put my eye to the fence and found myself looking across a beautiful garden at a window of 
glass. Inside a lovely tatami room, bathed in orange light, a party of men and geisha sat 
around a table scattered with sake cups and glasses of beer. Hatsumomo was there too, and 
a bleary-eyed old man who seemed to be in the middle of a story. Hatsumomo was amused 
about something, though evidently not by what the old man was saying. She kept glancing at 
another geisha with her back to me. I found myself remembering the last time I had peered 
into a teahouse, with Mr. Tanaka's little daughter, Kuniko, and began to feel that same sense 
of heaviness I'd felt so long ago at the graves of my father's first family- as if the earth were 
pulling me down toward it. A certain thought was swelling in my head, growing until I couldn't 
ignore it any longer. I wanted to turn away from it; but I was as powerless to stop that thought 
from taking over my mind as the wind is to stop itself from blowing. So I stepped back and 
sank onto the stone step of the entry-way, with the door against my back, and began to cry. I 
couldn't stop thinking about Mr. Tanaka. He had taken me from my mother and father, sold 
me into slavery, sold my sister into something even worse. I had taken him for a kind man. I 
had thought he was so refined, so worldly. What a stupid child I had been! I would never go 
back to Yoroido, I decided. Or if I did go back, it would only be to tell Mr. Tanaka how much I 
hated him. 

When at last I got to my feet and wiped my eyes on my wet robe, the rain had eased to a 
mist. The paving stones in the alley sparkled gold from the reflection of the lanterns. I made 
my way back through the Tominaga-cho section of Gion to the Minamiza Theater, with its 


enormous tiled roof that had made me think of a palace the day Mr. Bekku brought Satsu 
and me from the train station. The maid at the Mizuki Teahouse had told me to walk along 
the river past the Minamiza; but the road running along the river stopped at the theater. So I 
followed the street behind the Minamiza instead. After a few blocks I found myself in an area 
without streetlights and nearly empty of people. I didn't know it at the time, but the streets 
were empty mostly because of the Great Depression; in any other era Miyagawa-cho might 
have been busier even than Gion. That evening it seemed to me a very sad place-which 
indeed I think it has always been. The wooden facades looked like Gion, but the place had 
no trees, no lovely Shirakawa Stream, no beautiful entryways. The only illumination came 
from lightbulbs in the open doorways, where old women sat on stools, often with two or three 
women I took to be geisha on the street beside them. They wore kimono and hair ornaments 
similar to geisha, but their obi were tied in the front rather than the back. I'd never seen this 
before and didn't understand it, but it's the mark of a prostitute. A woman who must take her 
sash on and off all night can't be bothered with tying it behind her again and again. 

With the help of one of these women, I found the Tatsuyo in a dead-end alley with only three 
other houses. All were marked with placards near their doors. I can't possibly describe how I 
felt when I saw the sign lettered "Tatsuyo," but I will say that my body seemed to tingle 
everywhere, so much that I felt I might explode. In the doorway of the Tatsuyo sat an old 
woman on a stool, carrying on a conversation with a much younger woman on a stool across 
the alley-though really it was the old woman who did all the talking. She sat leaning back 
against the door frame with her gray robe sagging partway open and her feet stuck out in a 
pair of zori. These were zori woven coarsely from straw, of the sort you might have seen in 
Yoroido, and not at all like the beautifully lacquered zori Hatsumomo wore with her kimono. 
What was more, this old woman's feet were bare, rather than fitted with the smooth silk tabi. 
And yet she thrust them out with their uneven nails just as though she were proud of the way 
they looked and wanted to be sure you noticed them. 

"Just another three weeks, you know, and I'm not coming back," she was saying. "The 
mistress thinks I am, but I'm not. My son's wife is going to take good care of me, you know. 
She's not clever, but she works hard. Didn't you meet her?" 

If I did I don't remember," the younger woman across the way said. "There's a little girl 
waiting to talk with you. Don't you see her?" 

At this, the old woman looked at me for the first time. She didn't say anything, but she gave a 
nod of her head to tell me she was listening. 

"Please, ma'am," I said, "do you have a girl here named Satsu?" 

"We don't have any Satsu," she said. 

I was too shocked to know what to say to this; but in any case, the old woman suddenly 
looked very alert, because a man was just walking past me toward the entrance. She stood 
partway and gave him several bows with her hands on her knees and told him, "Welcome!" 
When he'd entered, she put herself back down on the stool and stuck her feet out again. 

"Why are you still here?" the old woman said to me. "I told you we don't have any Satsu." 

"Yes, you do," said the younger woman across the way. "Your Yukiyo. Her name used to be 
Satsu, I remember." 

"That's as may be," replied the old woman. "But we don't have any Satsu for this girl. I don't 
get myself into trouble for nothing." 


I didn't know what she meant by this, until the younger woman muttered that I didn't look as if 
I had even a single sen on me. And she was quite right. A sen-which was worth only one 
hundredth of a yen-was still commonly used in those days, though a single one wouldn't buy 
even an empty cup from a vendor. I'd never held a coin of any kind in my hand since coming 
to Kyoto. When running errands, I asked that the goods be charged to the Nitta okiya. 

"If it's money you want," I said, "Satsu will pay you." "Why should she pay to speak to the 
likes of you?" "I'm her little sister." 

She beckoned me with her hand; and when I neared her, she took me by the arms and spun 
me around. 

"Look at this girl," she said to the woman across the alley. "Does she look like a little sister to 
Yukiyo? If our Yukiyo was as pretty as this one, we'd be the busiest house in town! You're a 
liar, is what you are." And with this, she gave me a little shove back out into the alley. 

I'll admit I was frightened. But I was more determined than frightened, and I'd already come 
this far; I certainly wasn't going to leave just because this woman didn't believe me. So I 
turned myself around and gave her a bow, and said to her, "I apologize if I seem to be a liar, 
ma'am. But I'm not. Yukiyo is my sister. If you'd be kind enough to tell her Chiyo is here, 
she'll pay you what you want:" 

This must have been the right thing to say, because at last she turned to the younger woman 
across the alley. "You go up for me. You're not busy tonight. Besides, my neck is bothering 
me. I'll stay here and keep an eye on this girl." 

The younger woman stood up from her stool and walked across into the Tatsuyo. I heard her 
climbing the stairs inside. Finally she came back down and said: 

"Yukiyo has a customer. When he's done, someone will tell her to come down." 

The old woman sent me into the shadows on the far side of the door to squat where I couldn't 
be seen. I don't know how much time passed, but I grew more and more worried that 
someone in the okiya might discover me gone. I had an excuse for leaving, though Mother 
would be angry with me just the same; but I didn't have an excuse for staying away. Finally a 
man came out, picking at his teeth with a toothpick. The old woman stood to bow and 
thanked him for coming. And then I heard the most pleasing sound I'd heard since coming to 
Kyoto. "You wanted me, ma'am?" It was Satsu's voice. 

I sprang to my feet and rushed to where she stood in the doorway. Her skin looked pale, 
almost gray-though perhaps it was only because she wore a kimono of garish yellows and 
reds. And her mouth was painted with a bright lipstick like the kind Mother wore. She was 
just tying her sash in the front, like the women I'd seen on my way there. I felt such relief at 
seeing her, and such excitement, I could hardly keep from rushing into her arms; and Satsu 
too let out a cry and covered her hand with her mouth. 

"The mistress will be angry with me," the old woman said. "I'll come right back," Satsu told 
her, and disappeared inside the Tatsuyo again. A moment or so later she was back, and 
dropped several coins into the woman's hand, who told her to take me into the spare room 
on the first floor. 

"And if you hear me cough," she added, "it means the mistress is coming. Now hurry up." 

I followed Satsu into the gloomy entrance hall of the Tatsuyo. Its light was brown more than 
yellow, and the air smelled like sweat. Beneath the staircase was a sliding door that had 


come o