the first I would ever attend, was to be 
a banquet at the Kansai International Hotel. Banquets are stiffly formal affairs, with all the 
guests arranged shoulder to shoulder in a sort of U-shape around the outside of a big tatami 
room, and trays of food sitting on little stands in front of them. The geisha, who are there to 
entertain, move around the center of the room-inside the U-shape made by all the trays, I 
mean-and spend only a few minutes kneeling before each guest to pour sake and chat. It 
isn't what you'd call an exciting affair; and as a novice, my role was less exciting even than 
Mameha's. I stayed to one side of her like a shadow. Whenever she introduced herself, I did 
the same, bowing very low and saying, "My name is Sayuri. I'm a novice and beg your 
indulgence." After that I said nothing more, and no one said anything to me. 

Toward the end of the banquet, the doors at one side of the room were slid open, and 
Mameha and another geisha performed a dance together, known as Chi-yo no Tomo"Friends Everlasting." It's a lovely piece about two devoted women meeting again after a long 
absence. Most of the men sat picking their teeth through it; they were executives of a large 
company that made rubber valves, or some such thing, and had gathered in Kyoto for their 
annual banquet. I don't think a single one of them would have known the difference between 
dancing and sleepwalking. But for my part, I was entranced. Geisha in Gion always use a 
folding fan as a prop when dancing, and Mameha in particular was masterful in her 
movements. At first she closed the fan and, while turning her body in a circle, waved it 
delicately with her wrist to suggest a stream of water flowing past. Then she opened it, and it 
became a cup into which her companion poured sake for her to drink. As I say, the dance 
was lovely, and so was the music, which was played on the shamisen by a terribly thin 
geisha with small, watery eyes. 

A formal banquet generally lasts no more than two hours; so by eight o'clock we were out on 
the street again. I was just turning to thank Mameha and bid her good night, when she said 
to me, "Well, I'd thought of sending you back to bed now, but you seem to be so full of 
energy. I'm heading to the Komoriya Teahouse. Come along with me and have your first 
taste of an informal party. We may as well start showing you around as quickly as we can." 

I couldn't very well tell her I felt too tired to go; so I swallowed my real feelings and followed 
her up the street. 

The party, as she explained to me along the way, was to be given by the man who ran the 
National Theater in Tokyo. He knew all the important geisha in nearly every geisha district in 
Japan; and although he would probably be very cordial when Mameha introduced me, I 
shouldn't expect him to say much. My only responsibility was to be sure I always looked 
pretty and alert. "Just be sure you don't let anything happen to make you look bad," she 
warned. 

We entered the teahouse and were shown by a maid to a room on the second floor. I hardly 
dared to look inside when Mameha knelt and slid open the door, but I could see seven or 
eight men seated on cushions around a table, with perhaps four geisha. We bowed and went 
inside, and afterward knelt on the mats to close the door behind us-for this is the way a 
geisha enters a room. We greeted the other geisha first, as Mameha had told me to do, then 
the host, at one comer of the table, and afterward the other guests. 


"Mameha-san!" said one of the geisha. "You've come just in time to tell us the story about 
Konda-san the wig maker." 

"Oh, heavens, I can't remember it at all," Mameha said, and everyone laughed; I had no idea 
what the joke was. Mameha led me around the table and knelt beside the host. I followed 
and positioned myself to one side. 

"Mr. Director, please permit me to introduce my new younger sister," she said to him. 

This was my cue to bow and say my name, and beg the director's indulgence, and so on. He 
was a very nervous man, with bulging eyes and a kind of chicken-bone frailty. He didn't even 
look at me, but only flicked his cigarette in the nearly full ashtray before him and said: 

"What is all the talk about Konda-san the wig maker? All evening the girls keep referring to it, 
and not a one of them will tell the story." 

"Honestly, I wouldn't know!" Mameha said. 

"Which means," said another geisha, "that she's too embarrassed to tell it. If she won't, I 
suppose I'll have to." 

The men seemed to like this idea, but Mameha only sighed. 

"In the meantime, I'll give Mameha a cup of sake to calm her nerves," the director said, and 
washed out his own sake cup in a bowl of water on the center of the table-which was there 
for that very reason-before offering it to her. 

"Well," the other geisha began, "this fellow Konda-san is the best wig maker in Gion, or at 
least everyone says so. And for years Mameha-san went to him. She always has the best of 
everything, you know. Just look at her and you can tell." 

Mameha made a mock-angry face. 

"She certainly has the best sneer," said one of the men. 

"During a performance," the geisha went on, "a wig maker is always backstage to help with 
changes of costume. Often while a geisha is taking off a certain robe and putting on another 
one, something will slip here or there, and then suddenly ... a naked breast! Or ... a little bit of 
hair! You know, these things happen. And anyway-" 

"All these years I've been working in a bank," said one of the men. "I want to be a wig 
maker!" 

"There's more to it than just gawking at naked women. Anyway, Mameha-san always acts 
very prim and goes behind a screen to change-" 

"Let me tell the story," Mameha interrupted. "You're going to give me a bad name. I wasn't 
being prim. Konda-san was always staring at me like he couldn't wait for the next costume 
change, so I had a screen brought in. It's a wonder Konda-san didn't burn a hole in it with his 
eyes, trying to see through it the way he did." 

"Why couldn't you just give him a little glimpse now and then," the director interrupted. "How 
can it hurt you to be nice?" 


"I've never thought of it that way," Mameha said. "You're quite right, Mr. Director. What harm 
can a little glimpse do? Perhaps you want to give us one right now?" 

Everyone in the room burst out laughing at this. Just when things were starting to calm down, 
the director started it all over by rising to his feet and beginning to untie the sash of his robe. 

"I'm only going to do this," he said to Mameha, "if you'll give me a glimpse in return . . ." 

"I never made such an offer," Mameha said. 

"That isn't very generous of you." 

"Generous people don't become geisha," Mameha said. "They become the patrons of 
geisha." 

"Never mind, then," the director said, and sat back down. I have to say, I was very relieved 
he'd given up; because although all the others seemed to be enjoying themselves 
enormously, I felt embarrassed. 

"Where was I?" Mameha said. "Well, I had the screen brought in one day, and I thought this 
was enough to keep me safe from Konda-san. But when I hurried back from the toilet at one 
point, I couldn't find him anywhere. I began to panic, because I needed a wig for my next 
entrance; but soon we found him sitting on a chest against the wall, looking very weak and 
sweating. I wondered if there was something wrong with his heart! He had my wig beside 
him, and when he saw me, he apologized and helped put it on me. Then later that afternoon, 
he handed me a note he'd written . . ." 

Here Mameha's voice trailed off. At last one of the men said, "Well? What did it say?" 

Mameha covered her eyes with her hand. She was too embarrassed to continue, and 
everyone in the room broke into laughter. 

"All right, I'll tell you what he wrote," said the geisha who'd begun the story. "It was something 
like this: 'Dearest Mameha. You are the very loveliest geisha in all of Gion,' and so forth. 
After you have worn a wig, I always cherish it, and keep it in my workshop to put my face into 
it and smell the scent of your hair many times a day. But today when you rushed to the toilet, 
you gave me the greatest moment of my life. 

While you were inside, I hid myself at the door, and the beautiful tinkling sound, more lovely 
than a waterfall-' " 

The men laughed so hard that the geisha had to wait before going on. 

"'-and the beautiful tinkling sound, more lovely than a waterfall, made me hard and stiff where 
I myself tinkle-' " 

"He didn't say it that way," Mameha said. "He wrote, 'the beautiful tinkling sound, more lovely 
than a waterfall, caused me to swell and bulge at the knowledge that your body was bare . . 
.'" 

"Then he told her," the other geisha said, "that he was unable to stand afterward because of 
the excitement. And he hoped that one day he would experience such a moment again." 

Of course, everyone laughed, and I pretended to laugh too. But the truth is, I was finding it 
difficult to believe that these men-who had paid so considerably to be there, among women 


wrapped in beautiful, expensive robes-really wanted to hear the same sorts of stories 
children back in the pond in Yoroido might have told. I'd imagined feeling out of my depth in a 
conversation about literature, or Kabuki, or something of that sort. And of course, there were 
such parties in Gion; it just happened that my first was of the more childish kind. 

All through Mameha's story, the man beside me had sat rubbing his splotchy face with his 
hands and paying little attention. Now he looked at me a long while and then asked, "What's 
the matter with your eyes? Or have I just drunk too much?" 

He certainly had drunk too much-though I didn't think it would be proper to t