 replied, "but I'd have difficulty arranging such 
a thing, since you haven't yet agreed to be Sayuri's mizuage patron. If her integrity is in doubt 
. . . well, Sayuri will be presenting ekubo to a great many men. I'm sure most will be skeptical 
of stories they hear from Hatsumomo." 

This seemed to have the effect Mameha wanted. Dr. Crab sat in silence a moment. Finally 
he said, "I hardly know the proper thing to do. This is the first time I've found myself in such a 
peculiar position." 

"Please accept the ekubo, Doctor, and let's put Hatsumomo's foolishness behind us." 

"I've often heard of dishonest girls who arrange mizuage for the time of month when a man 
will be easily deceived. I'm a doctor, you know. I won't be fooled so readily." 

"But no one is trying to fool you!" 

He sat just a moment longer and then stood with his shoulders hunched to march, elbow-
first, from the room. I was too busy bowing good-bye to see whether he took the ekubo with 
him; but happily, after he and Mameha had left, I looked at the table and saw they were no 
longer there. 

When Mameha mentioned my role on the stage, I thought she was making up a story on the 
spot to explain why Hatsumomo might lie about me. So you can imagine my surprise the 


next day when I learned she'd been telling the truth. Or if it wasn't exactly the truth, Mameha 
felt confident that it would be true before the end of the week. 

At that time, in the mid-1950s, probably as many as seven or eight hundred geisha worked in 
Gion; but because no more than sixty were needed each spring for the production of Dances 
of the Old Capital, the competition for roles destroyed more than a few friendships over the 
years. Mameha hadn't been truthful when she said that she'd taken a role from Hatsumomo; 
she was one of the very few geisha in Gion guaranteed a solo role every year. But it was 
quite true that Hatsumomo had been desperate to see Pumpkin on the stage. I don't know 
where she got the idea such a thing was possible; Pumpkin may have earned the 
apprentice's award and received other honors besides, but she never excelled at dance. 
However, a few days before I presented ekubo to the Doctor, a seventeen-year-old 
apprentice with a solo role had fallen down a flight of stairs and hurt her leg. The poor girl 
was devastated, but every other apprentice in Gion was happy to take advantage of her 
misfortune by offering to fill the role. It was this role that in the end went to me. I was only 
fifteen at the time, and had never danced on the stage before-which isn't to say I wasn't 
ready to. I'd spent so many evenings in the okiya, rather than going from party to party like 
most apprentices, and Auntie often played the shamisen so that I could practice dance. This 
was why I'd already been promoted to the eleventh level by the age of fifteen, even though I 
probably possessed no more talent as a dancer than anyone else. If Mameha hadn't been so 
determined to keep me hidden from the public eye because of Hatsumomo, I might even 
have had a role in the seasonal dances the previous year. 

This role was given to me in mid-March, so I had only a month or so to rehearse it. 
Fortunately my dance teacher was very helpful and often worked with me privately during the 
afternoons. Mother didn't find out what had happened-Hatsumomo certainly wasn't going to 
tell her-until several days afterward, when she heard the rumor during a game of mah-jongg. 
She came back to the okiya and asked if it was true I'd been given the role. After I told her it 
was, she walked away with the sort of puzzled look she might have worn if her dog Taku had 
added up the columns in her account books for her. 

Of course, Hatsumomo was furious, but Mameha wasn't concerned about it. The time had 
come, as she put it, for us to toss Hatsumomo from the ring. 

Chapter twenty-one 

I ate one afternoon a week or so later, Mameha came up to me during a break in rehearsals, 
very excited about something. It seemed that on the previous day, the Baron had mentioned 
to her quite casually that he would be giving a party during the coming weekend for a certain 
kimono maker named Arashino. The Baron owned one of the best-known collections of 
kimono in all of Japan. Most of his pieces were antiques, but every so often he bought a very 
fine work by a living artist. His decision to purchase a piece by Arashino had prompted him to 
have a party. 

"I thought I recognized the name Arashino," Mameha said to me, "but when the Baron first 
mentioned it, I couldn't place it. He's one of Nobu's very closest friends! Don't you see the 
possibilities? I didn't think of it until today, but I'm going to persuade the .Baron to invite both 
Nobu and the Doctor to his little party. The two of them are certain to dislike each other. 
When the bidding begins for your mizuage, you can be sure that neither will sit still, knowing 
the prize could be taken by the other." 

I was feeling very tired, but for Mameha's sake I clapped my hands in excitement and said 
how grateful I was to her for coming up with such a clever plan. And I'm sure it was a clever 
plan; but the real evidence of her cleverness was that she felt certain she'd have no difficulty 
persuading the Baron to invite these two men to his party. Clearly they would both be willing 


to come-in Nobu's case because the Baron was an investor in Iwamura Electric, though I 
didn't know it at the time; and in Dr. Crab's case because . . . well, because the Doctor 
considered himself something of an aristocrat, even though he probably had only one 
obscure ancestor with any aristocratic blood, and would regard it as his duty to attend any 
function the Baron invited him to. But as to why the Baron would agree to invite either of 
them, I don't know. He didn't approve of Nobu; very few men did. As for Dr. Crab, the Baron 
had never met him before and might as well have invited someone off the street. 

But Mameha had extraordinary powers of persuasion, as I knew. The party was arranged, 
and she convinced my dance instructor to release me from rehearsals the following Saturday 
so I could attend it. The event was to begin in the afternoon and run through dinner- though 
Mameha and I were to arrive after the party was under way. So it was about three o'clock 
when we finally climbed into a rickshaw and headed out to the Baron's estate, located at the 
base of the hills in the northeast of the city. It was my first visit to anyplace so luxurious, and I 
was quite overwhelmed by what I saw; because if you think of the attention to detail brought 
to bear in making a kimono, well, that same sort of attention had been brought to the design 
and care of the entire estate where the Baron lived. The main house dated back to the time 
of his grandfather, but the gardens, which struck me as a giant brocade of textures, had been 
designed and built by his father. Apparently the house and gardens never quite fit together 
until the Baron's older brother-the year before his assassination-had moved the location of 
the pond, and also created a moss garden with stepping-stones leading from the moon-
viewing pavilion on one side of the house. Black swans glided across the pond with a bearing 
so proud they made me feel ashamed to be such an ungainly creature as a human being. 

We were to begin by preparing a tea ceremony the men would join when they were ready; so 
I was very puzzled when we passed through the main gate and made our way not to an 
ordinary tea pavilion, but straight toward the edge of the pond to board a small boat. The 
boat was about the size of a narrow room. Most of it was occupied with wooden seats along 
the edges, but at one end stood a miniature pavilion with its own roof sheltering a tatami 
platform. It had actual walls with paper screens slid open for air, and in the very center was a 
square wooden cavity filled with sand, which served as the brazier where Mameha lit cakes 
of charcoal to heat the water in a graceful iron teakettle. While she was doing this, I tried to 
make myself useful by arranging the implements for the ceremony. Already I was feeling 
quite nervous, and then Mameha turned to me after she had put the kettle on the fire and 
said: 

"You're a clever girl, Sayuri. I don't need to tell you what will become of your future if Dr. Crab 
or Nobu should lose interest in you. You mustn't let either of them think you're paying too 
much attention to the other. But of course a certain amount of jealousy won't do any harm. 
I'm certain you can manage it." 

I wasn't so sure, but I would certainly have to try. 

A half hour passed before the Baron and his ten guests strolled out from the house, stopping 
every so often to admire the view of the hillside from different angles. When they'd boarded 
the boat, the Baron guided us into the middle of the pond with a pole. Mameha made tea, 
and I delivered the bowls to each of the guests. 

Afterward, we took a stroll through the garden with the men, and soon came to a wooden 
platform suspended above the water, where several maids in identical kimono were 
arranging cushions for the men to sit on, and leaving vials of warm sake on trays. I made a 
point of kneeling beside Dr. Crab, and was just trying to think of something to say when, to 
my surprise, the Doctor turned to me first. 

"Has the laceration on your thigh healed satisfactorily?" he asked. 


This was during the month of March, you must understand, and I'd cut my leg way back in 
November. In the months between, I'd seen Dr. Crab more times than I could count; so I 
have no idea why he waited until that moment to ask me about it, and in front of so many 
people. Fortunately, I didn't think anyone had heard, so I kept my voice low when I answered. 

"Thank you so much, Doctor. With