to know when to 
giggle at a party, I'll go and ask her." 

Nowadays young girls, even in Japan, are accustomed to jumping up from the table and 
shouting at their mothers, but in my day we bowed and said, "Yes, ma'am," and apologized 
for having been troublesome; and that's exactly how I responded. 

"Leave the business decisions to me," Mother went on. "Only a fool would pass up an offer 
like the one Nobu Toshikazu has made." 

My heart nearly stopped when I heard this. I suppose it was obvious that Nobu would one 
day propose himself as my danna. After all, he'd made an offer for my mizuage several years 
earlier, and since then had certainly asked for my company more frequently than any other 
man. I can't pretend I hadn't thought of this possibility; but that isn't to say I'd ever believed it 
was the course my life would really take. On the day I first met Nobu at the sumo 
tournament, my almanac reading had been, "A balance of good and bad can open the door 
to destiny." Nearly every day since, I'd thought of it in one way or another. Good and bad . . . 
well, it was Mameha and Hatsumomo; it was my adoption by Mother and the mizuage that 
had brought it about; and of course it was the Chairman and Nobu. I don't mean to suggest I 
disliked Nobu. Quite the opposite. But to become his mistress would have closed off my life 
from the Chairman forever. 

Mother must have noticed something of the shock I felt at hearing her words-or in any case, 
she wasn't pleased at my reaction. But before she could respond we heard a noise in the 
hallway outside like someone suppressing a cough, and in a moment Hatsumomo stepped 


into the open doorway. She was holding a bowl of rice, which was very rude of her-she never 
should have walked away from the table with it. When she'd swallowed, she let out a laugh. 

"Mother!" she said. "Are you trying to make me choke?" Apparently she'd been listening to 
our conversation while she ate her lunch. "So the famous Sayuri is going to have Nobu 
Toshikazu for her danna," she went on. "Isn't that sweet!" 

"If you've come here to say something useful, then say it," Mother told her. 

"Yes, I have," Hatsumomo said gravely, and she came and knelt at the table. "Sayuri-san, 
you may not realize it, but one of the things that goes on between a geisha and her danna 
can cause the geisha to become pregnant, do you understand? And a man will become very 
upset if his mistress gives birth to another man's child. In your case, you must be especially 
careful, because Nobu will know at once, if the child should happen to have two arms like the 
rest of us, that it can't possibly be his!" 

Hatsumomo thought her little joke was very funny. 

"Perhaps you should cut off one of your arms, Hatsumomo," said Mother, "if it will make you 
as successful as Nobu Toshikazu has been." 

"And probably it would help, too, if my face looked like this!" she said, smiling, and picked up 
her rice bowl so we could see what was in it. She was eating rice mixed with red adzuki 
beans and, in a sickening way, it did look like blistered skin. 

As the afternoon progressed I began to feel dizzy, with a strange buzzing in my head, and 
soon made my way to Mameha's apartment to talk with her. I sat at her table sipping at my 
chilled barley tea-for we were in the heat of summer-and trying not to let her see how I felt. 
Reaching the Chairman was the one hope that had motivated me all through my training. If 
my life would be nothing more than Nobu, and dance recitals, and evening after evening in 
Gion, I couldn't think why I had struggled so. 

Already Mameha had waited a long while to hear why I'd come, but when I set my glass of 
tea down on the table, I was afraid my voice would crack if I tried to speak. I took a few more 
moments to compose myself, and then finally swallowed and managed to say, "Mother tells 
me that within a month it's likely I'll have a danna." 

"Yes, I know. And the danna will be Nobu Toshikazu." 

By this time I was concentrating so hard on holding myself back from crying, I could no 
longer speak at all. 

"Nobu-san is a good man," she said, "and very fond of you." 

"Yes, but, Mameha-san ... I don't know how to say it ... this was never what I imagined!" 

"What do you mean? Nobu-san has always treated you kindly." 

"But, Mameha-san, I don't want kindness!" 

"Don't you? I thought we all wanted kindness. Perhaps what you mean is that you want 
something more than kindness. And that is something you're in no position to ask." 

Of course, Mameha was quite right. When I heard these words, my tears simply broke 
through the fragile wall that had held them, and with a terrible feeling of shame, I laid my 


head upon the table and let them drain out of me. Only when I'd composed myself afterward 
did Mameha speak. 

"What did you expect, Sayuri?" she asked. 

"Something besides this!" 

"I understand you may find Nobu difficult to look at, perhaps But-" 

"Mameha-san, it isn't that. Nobu-san is a good man, as you say. It's just that-" 

"It's just that you want your destiny to be like Shizue's. Is that it?" 

Shizue, though she wasn't an especially popular geisha, was considered by everyone in Gion 
to be the most fortunate of women. For thirty years she'd been the mistress of- a pharmacist. 
He wasn't a wealthy man, and she wasn't a beauty; but you could have looked all over Kyoto 
and not found two people who enjoyed each other's company as they did. As usual, Mameha 
had come closer to the truth than I wanted to admit. 

"You're eighteen years old, Sayuri," she went on. "Neither you nor I can know your destiny. 
You may never know it! Destiny isn't always like a party at the end of the evening. 
Sometimes it's nothing more than struggling through life from day to day." 

"But, Mameha-san, how cruel!" 

"Yes, it is cruel," she said. "But none of us can escape destiny." 

"Please, it isn't a matter of escaping my destiny, or anything of that sort. Nobu-san is a good 
man, just as you say. I know I should feel nothing but gratitude for his interest, but . . . there 
are so many things I've dreamed about." 

"And you're afraid that once Nobu has touched you, after that they can never be? Really, 
Sayuri, what did you think life as a geisha would be like? We don't become geisha so our 
lives will be satisfying. We become geisha because we have no other choice." 

"Oh, Mameha-san . . . please . . . have I really been so foolish to keep my hopes alive that 
perhaps one day-" 

"Young girls hope all sorts of foolish things, Sayuri. Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want 
to wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one." 

I was determined not to lose control of my feelings again. I managed to hold in all my tears 
except the few that squeezed out of me like sap from a tree. 

"Mameha-san," I said, "do you have . . . strong feelings for the Baron?" 

"The Baron has been a good danna to me." 

"Yes, of course that's true, but do you have feelings for him as a man? I mean, some geisha 
do have feelings for their danna, don't they?" 

"The Baron's relationship with me is convenient for him, and very beneficial to me. If our 
dealings were tinged with passion . . . well, passion can quickly slip over into jealousy, or 
even hatred. I certainly can't afford to have a powerful man upset with me. I've struggled for 
years to carve out a place for myself in Gion, but if a powerful man makes up his mind to 


destroy me, well, he'll do it! If you want to be successful, Sayuri, you must be sure that men's 
feelings remain always under your control. The Baron may be hard to take at times, but he 
has plenty of money, and he's not afraid to spend it. And he doesn't want children, thank 
heavens. Nobu will certainly be a challenge for you. He knows his own mind much too well. I 
won't be surprised if he expects more of you than the Baron has expected of me." 

"But, Mameha-san, what about your own feelings? I mean, hasn't there ever been a man ..." 

I wanted to ask if there had ever been a man who brought out feelings of passion in her. But I 
could see that her irritation with me, if it had been only a bud until then, had burst into full 
bloom now. She drew herself up with her hands in her lap; I think she was on the point of 
rebuking me, but I apologized for my rudeness at once, and she settled back again. 

"You and Nobu have an en, Sayuri, and you can't escape it," she said. 

I knew even then that she was right. An en is a karmic bond lasting a lifetime. Nowadays 
many people seem to believe their lives are entirely a matter of choice; but in my day we 
viewed ourselves as pieces of clay that forever show the fingerprints of everyone who has 
touched them. Nobu's touch had made a deeper impression on me than most. No one could 
tell me whether he would be my ultimate destiny, but I had always sensed the en between 
us. Somewhere in the landscape of my life Nobu would always be present. But could it really 
be that of all the lessons I'd learned, the hardest one lay just ahead of me? Would I really 
have to take each of my hopes and put them away where no one would ever see them again, 
where not even I would ever see them? 

"Go back to the okiya, Sayuri," Mameha told me. "Prepare for the evening ahead of you. 
There's nothing like work for getting over a disappointment." 

I looked up at her with the idea of making one last plea, but when I saw the expression on 
her face, I thought better of it. I can't say what she was thinking; but she seemed to be 
peering into nothingness with her perfect oval face creased in the corners of her eyes and 
mouth from strain. And then she let out a heavy breath, and gazed down into her teacup with 
what I took as a look of bitterness. 

A woman