 toward me, I 
backed away. 

"Look," she said, and opened her hand. She was holding a number of folded bills-more 
money than I'd ever seen, though I don't know how much. "I've brought this from my room for 
you. You don't need to thank me. Just take it. You'll repay me by getting yourself out of Kyoto 
so I'll never have to see you again." 

Auntie had told me never to trust Hatsumomo, even if she offered to help me. But when I 
reminded myself how much Hatsumomo hated me, I understood that she wasn't really 
helping me at all; she was helping herself to be rid of me. I stood still as she reached into my 
robe and tucked the bills under my sash. I felt her glassy nails brushing against my skin. She 
spun me around to retie the sash so the money wouldn't slip, and then she did the strangest 
thing. She turned me around to face her again, and began to stroke the side of my head with 
her hand, wearing an almost motherly gaze. The very idea of Hatsu-morno behaving kindly 
toward me was so odd, I felt as if a poisonous snake had come up and begun to rub against 
me like a cat. Then before I knew what she was doing, she worked her fingers down to my 
scalp; and all at once she clenched her teeth in fury and took a great handful of my hair, and 
yanked it to one side so hard I fell to my knees and cried out. I couldn't understand what was 
happening; but soon Hatsumomo had pulled me to my feet again, and began leading me up 
the stairs yanking my hair this way and that. She was shouting at me in anger, while I 
screamed so loudly I wouldn't have been surprised if we'd woken people all up and down the 
street. 

When we reached the top of the stairs, Hatsumomo banged on Mother's door and called out 
for her. Mother opened it very quickly, tying her sash around her middle and looking angry. 

"What is the matter with the two of you!" she said, 

"My jewelry!" Hatsumomo said: "This stupid, stupid girl!" And here she began to beat me. I 
could do nothing but huddle into a ball on the floor and cry out for her to stop until Mother 
managed to restrain her somehow. By that time Auntie had come to join her on the landing. 


"Oh, Mother," Hatsumomo said, "on my way back to the okiya this evening, I thought I saw 
little Chiyo at the end of the alleyway talking to a man. I didn't think anything of it, because I 
knew it couldn't be her. She isn't supposed to be out of the okiya at all. But when I went up to 
my room, I found my jewelry box in disarray, and rushed back down just in time to see Chiyo 
handing something over to the man. She tried to run away, but I caught her!" 

Mother was perfectly silent a long while, looking at me. 

"The man got away," Hatsumomo went on, "but I think Chiyo may have sold some of my 
jewelry to raise money. She's planning to run away from the okiya, Mother, that's what I think 
. . . after we've been so kind to her!" 

"All right, Hatsumomo," Mother said. "That's quite enough. You and Auntie go into your room 
and find out what's missing." 

The moment I was alone with Mother, I looked up at her from where I knelt on the floor and 
whispered, "Mother, it isn't true . . . 

Hatsumomo was in the maids' room with her boyfriend. She's angry about something, and 
she's taking it out on me. I didn't take anything from her!" 

Mother didn't speak. I wasn't even sure she'd heard me. Soon Hatsumomo came out and 
said she was missing a brooch used for decorating the front of an obi. 

"My emerald brooch, Mother!" she kept saying, and crying just like a fine actress. "She's sold 
my emerald brooch to that horrible man! It was my broochl Who does she think she is to 
steal such a thing from me!" 

"Search the girl," Mother said. 

Once when I was a little child of six or so, I watched a spider spinning its web in a corner of 
the house. Before the spider had even finished its job, a mosquito flew right into the web and 
was trapped there. The spider didn't pay it any attention at first, but went on with what it was 
doing; only when it was finished did it creep over on its pointy toes and sting that poor 
mosquito to death. As I sat there on that wooden floor and watched Hatsumomo come 
reaching for me with her delicate fingers, I knew I was trapped in a web she had spun for me. 
I could do nothing to explain the cash I was carrying beneath my sash. When she drew it out, 
Mother took it from her and counted it. 

"You're a fool to sell an emerald brooch for so little," she said to me. "Particularly since it will 
cost you a good deal more to replace it." 

She tucked the money into her own sleeping robe, and then said to Hatsumomo: 

"You had a boyfriend here in the okiya tonight." 

Hatsumomo was taken aback by this; but she didn't hesitate to reply, "Whatever gave you 
such an idea, Mother?" 

There was a long pause, and then Mother said to Auntie, "Hold her arms." 

Auntie took Hatsumomo by the arms and held her from behind, while Mother began to pull 
open the seams of Hatsumomo's kimono at the thigh. I thought Hatsumomo would resist, but 
she didn't. She looked at me with cold eyes as Mother gathered up the koshimaki and 
pushed her knees apart. Then Mother reached up between her legs, and when her hand 


came out again her fingertips were wet. She rubbed her thumb and fingers together for a 
time, and then smelled them. After this she drew back her hand and slapped Hatsumomo 
across the face, leaving a streak of moisture. 

Chapter eight 

Hnatsumomo wasn't the only one angry at me the following day, because Mother ordered 
that all the maids be denied servings of dried fish for six weeks as punishment for having 
tolerated Ha-tsumomo's boyfriend in the okiya. I don't think the maids could have been more 
upset with me if I'd actually stolen the food from their bowls with my own hands; and as for 
Pumpkin, she began to cry when she found out what Mother had ordered. But to tell the 
truth, I didn't feel as uneasy as you 'might imagine to have everyone glowering at me, and to 
have the cost of an obi brooch I'd never seen or even touched added to my debts. Anything 
that made life more difficult for me only strengthened my determination to run away. 

I don't think Mother really believed I'd stolen the obi brooch, though she was certainly content 
to buy a new one at my expense if it would keep Hatsumomo happy. But she had no doubts 
at all that I'd left the okiya when I shouldn't have, because Yoko confirmed it. I felt almost as 
though my life itself were slipping away from me when I learned that Mother had ordered the 
front door locked to prevent me from going out again. How would I escape from the okiya 
now? Only Auntie had a key, and she kept it around her neck even while she was sleeping. 
As an extra measure, the job of sitting by the door in the evenings was taken away from me 
and given to Pumpkin instead, who had to wake Auntie to have the door unlocked when 
Hatsumomo came home. 

Every night I lay on my futon scheming; but as late as Monday, the very day before Satsu 
and I had arranged to run away, I'd come up with no plan for my escape. I grew so 
despondent I had no energy at all for my chores, and the maids chided me for dragging my 
cloth along the woodwork I was supposed to be polishing, and pulling a broom along the 
corridor I was supposed to be sweeping. I spent a long while Monday afternoon pretending to 
weed the courtyard while really only squatting on the stones and brooding. Then one of the 
maids gave me the job of washing the wood floor in the maids' room, where Yoko was 
seated near the telephone, and something extraordinary happened. I squeezed a rag full of 
water onto the floor, but instead of snaking along toward the doorway as I would have 
expected, it ran toward one of the back corners of the room. 

"Yoko, look," I said. "The water's running uphill." Of course it wasn't really uphill. It only 
looked that way to me. I was so startled by this that I squeezed more water and watched it 
run into the corner again. And then . . . well, I can't say exactly how it happened; but I 
pictured myself flowing up the stairs to the second-floor landing, and from there up the 
ladder, through the trapdoor, and onto the roof beside the gravity-feed tank. 

The roof! I was so astonished at the thought, I forgot my surroundings completely; and when 
the telephone near Yoko rang, I almost cried out in alarm. I wasn't sure what I would do once 
I reached the roof, but if I could succeed in finding my way down from there, I might meet 
Satsu after all. 

The following evening I made a great show of yawning when I went to bed and threw myself 
onto my futon as though I were a sack of rice. Anyone watching me would have thought I 
was asleep within a moment, but actually I could hardly have been more awake. I lay for a 
long while thinking of my house and wondering what expression would form itself on my 
father's face when he looked up from the table to see me standing in the doorway. Probably 
the pockets at his eyes would droop down and he would start to cry, or else his mouth would 
take on that odd shape that was his way of smiling. I didn't allow myself to picture my mother 
quite so vividly; just the thought of seeing her again was enough to bring tears to my eyes. 


At length the maids settled down onto their futons beside me on the floor, and Pumpkin took 
up her position waiting for Hatsumomo. I listened to Granny chanting sutras, which she did 
every night before going to bed. Then I watched her through the partly opened door as she 
stood beside her futon and changed into her sleeping robe. I was horrified by what I saw 
when her robe slipped from her shoulders, for I'd never seen her completely naked before. It 
wasn't just the chickenlike skin of her neck and shoulders; her body made me think of a pile 
of wr