 if so, I'd be pleased to have it. Wouldn't it look 
charming in my apartment, Sayuri?" 

When Uchida heard this, he tore the picture from the board and said, "You like it, do you? All 
right, I'll make you two presents of it!" And then he tore it into two pieces and gave them to 
her, saying, "Here's one! And here's the other! Now get out!" 

"I so wish you hadn't done that," Mameha said. "I think it was the most beautiful thing you've 
ever produced." 

"Get out!" 

"Oh, Uchida-san, I can't possibly! I wouldn't be a friend if I didn't straighten your place a bit 
before leaving." 

At this, Uchida himself stormed out of the house, leaving the door wide open behind him. We 
watched him kick the broom Mameha had left leaning against the tree and then nearly slip 
and fall as he started down the wet steps. We spent the next half hour straightening up the 
studio, until Uchida came back in a much improved mood, just as Mameha had predicted. He 
still wasn't what I would call cheerful; and in fact, he had a habit of chewing constantly at the 
mole in the corner of his mouth, which gave him the look of being worried. I think he felt 
embarrassed at his earlier behavior, because he never looked directly at either of us. Soon it 
became apparent that he wasn't going to notice my eyes at all, and so Mameha said to him: 

"Don't you think Sayuri is just the prettiest thing? Have you even bothered to look at her?" 

It was an act of desperation, I thought, but Uchida only flicked his eyes at me like brushing a 
crumb from a table. Mameha seemed very disappointed. The afternoon light was already 
beginning to fade, so we both rose to leave. She gave the most abbreviated bow in saying 
good-bye. When we stepped outside, I couldn't help stopping a moment to take in the sunset, 
which painted the sky behind the distant hills in rusts and pinks as striking as the loveliest 


kimono-even more so, because no matter how magnificent a kimono is, your hands will 
never glow orange in its light. But in that sunset my hands seemed to have been dipped in 
some sort of iridescence. I raised them up and gazed at them for a long moment. 

"Mameha-san, look," I said to her, but she thought I was talking about the sunset and turned 
toward it with indifference. Uchida was standing frozen in the entryway with an expression of 
concentration on his face, combing one hand through a tuft of his gray hair. But he wasn't 
looking at the sunset at all. He was looking at me. 

If you've ever seen Uchida Kosaburo's famous ink painting of the young woman in a kimono 
standing in a rapturous state and with her eyes aglow . . . well, from the very beginning he 
insisted the idea came from what he saw that afternoon. I've never really believed him. I can't 
imagine such a beautiful painting could really be based on just a girl staring foolishly at her 
hands in the sunset. 

Chapter nineteen 

That startling month in which I first came upon the Chairman again-and met Nobu, and Dr. 
Crab, and Uchida Kosaburo-made me feel something like a pet cricket that has at last 
escaped its wicker cage. For the first time in ages I could go to bed at night believing I might 
not always draw as little notice in Gion as a drop of tea spilled onto the mats. I still had no 
understanding of Mameha's plan, or of how it would lead me to success as a geisha, or 
whether success as a geisha would ever lead me to the Chairman. But every night I lay on 
my futon with his handkerchief pressed against my cheek, reliving again and again my 
encounter with him. I was like a temple bell that resonates long after it has been struck. 

Some weeks passed without word from any of the men, and Mameha and I began to worry. 
But at last one morning a secretary from Iwamura Electric phoned the Ichiriki Teahouse to 
request my company for that evening. Mameha was delighted at this news, because she 
hoped the invitation had come from Nobu. I was delighted too; I hoped it was from the 
Chairman. Later that day, in Hatsumomo's presence, I told Auntie I would be entertaining 
Nobu and asked her to help me choose a kimono ensemble. To my astonishment 
Hatsumomo came along to lend a hand. I'm sure that a stranger seeing us would have 
imagined we were members of a close family. Hatsumomo never snickered, or made 
sarcastic comments, and in fact she was helpful. I think Auntie felt as puzzled as I did. We 
ended up settling on a powdery green kimono with a pattern of leaves in silver and vermilion, 
and a gray obi with gold threads. Hatsumomo promised to stop by so she could see Nobu 
and me together. 

That evening I knelt in the hallway of the Ichiriki feeling that my whole life had led me to this 
moment. I listened to the sounds of muffled laughter, wondering if one of the voices was the 
Chairman's; and when I opened the door and saw him there at the head of the table, and 
Nobu with his back to me . . . well, I was so captivated by the Chairman's smile-though it was 
really only the residue of laughter from a moment earlier-that I had to keep myself from 
smiling back at him. I greeted Mameha first, and then the few other geisha in the room, and 
finally the six or seven men. When I arose from my knees, I went straight to Nobu, as 
Mameha expected me to do. I must have knelt closer to him than I realized, however, 
because he immediately slammed his sake cup onto the table in annoyance and shifted a 
little distance away from me. I apologized, but he paid me no attention, and Mameha only 
frowned. I spent the rest of the time feeling out of sorts. Later, as we were leaving together, 
Mameha said to me: 

"Nobu-san is easily annoyed. Be more careful not to irritate him in the future." 

"I'm sorry, ma'am. Apparently he isn't as fond of me as you thought ..." 


"Oh, he's fond of you. If he didn't like your company, you'd have left the party in tears. 
Sometimes his temperament seems as gentle as a sack of gravel, but he's a kind man in his 
way, as you'll discover." 

I was invited to the Ichiriki Teahouse again that week by Iwamura Electric and many times 
over the weeks that followed-and not always with Mameha. She cautioned me not to stay too 
long for fear of making myself look unpopular; so after an hour or so I always bowed and 
excused myself as though I were on my way to another party. Often while I was dressing for 
these evenings, Hatsumomo hinted she might stop by, but she never did. Then one 
afternoon when I wasn't expecting it, she informed me she had some free time that evening 
and would be absolutely certain to come. 

I felt a bit nervous, as you can imagine; but things seemed still worse when I reached the 
Ichiriki and found that Nobu was absent. It was the smallest party I'd attended yet in Gion, 
with only two other geisha and four men. What if Hatsumomo should arrive and find me 
entertaining the Chairman without Nobu? I'd made no headway in thinking what to do, when 
suddenly the door slid open, and with a surge of anxiety I saw Hatsumomo there on her 
knees in the hallway. 

My only recourse, I decided, was to act bored, as though the company of no one but Nobu 
could possibly interest me. Perhaps this would have been enough to save me that night; but 
by good fortune Nobu arrived a few minutes afterward in any case. Hatsumomo's lovely 
smile grew the moment Nobu entered the room, until her lips were as rich and full as drops of 
blood beading at the edge of a wound. Nobu made himself comfortable at the table, and then 
at once, Hatsumomo suggested in an almost maternal way that I go and pour him sake. I 
went to settle myself near him and tried to show all the signs of a girl enchanted. Whenever 
he laughed, for example, I flicked my eyes toward him as though I couldn't resist. 
Hatsumomo was delighted and watched us so openly that she didn't even seem aware of all 
the men's eyes upon her-or more likely, she was simply accustomed to the attention. She 
was captivatingly beautiful that evening, as she always was; the young man at the end of the 
table did little more than smoke cigarettes and watch her. Even the Chairman, who sat with 
his fingers draped gracefully around a sake cup, stole glimpses of her from time to time. I 
had to wonder if men were so blinded by beauty that they would feel privileged to live their 
lives with an actual demon, so long as it was a beautiful demon. I had a sudden image in my 
mind of the Chairman stepping up into the formal entrance hall of our okiya late one night to 
meet Hatsumomo, holding a fedora in his hand and smiling down at me as he began to 
unbutton his overcoat. I didn't think he'd ever really be so entranced by her beauty as to 
overlook the traces of cruelty that would show themselves. But one thing was certain: if 
Hatsumomo ever understood my feelings for him, she might very well try to seduce him, if for 
no other reason than to cause me pain. 

Suddenly it seemed urgent to me that Hatsumomo leave the party. I knew she was there to 
observe the "developing romance," as she put it; so I made up my mind to show her what 
she'd come to see. I began by touching my fingertips to my neck or my hairstyle every so 
often, in order to seem worried about my appearance. When my fingers brushed one of my 
hair ornaments inadvertently, I came up with an idea. I waited until someone made a joke, 
and then while laughing and adjusting my hair, I leaned toward Nobu. Adjusting my hair was 
a strange thing for me to do, I'll admit, since it was waxed into place and hardly needed 
attention. But my purpose was to dislodge one of my hair ornaments-a cascade of yellow and 
orange safflowers in silk- and let it fall into Nobu's lap. As it turned out, the wooden spine 
holding the ornament in my hair was embedded farther than I'd realized; but I managed to 
slip it out at last, and it bounc