time," Mrs. Okada replied. "Now, Mrs. 
Nitta, what was this about offering Mameha an additional ten percent? I assume you meant 
ten percent over the double you originally agreed to pay her." 

"If only I were in a position to do such a thing," Mother said. 

"But you offered it only a moment ago. Surely you haven't changed your mind so quickly?" 

Mrs. Okada wasn't gazing at the tabletop any longer, but was staring directly at Mother. After 
a long moment she said, "I suppose we'll let it be. In any case, we've done enough for one 
day. Why don't we meet another time to work out the final figure?" 

Mother wore a stern expression on her face, but she gave a little bow of assent and thanked 
the two of them for coming. 

"I'm sure you must be very pleased," Mrs. Okada said, while putting away her abacus and 
her accounting book, "that Sayuri will soon be taking a danna. And at only eighteen years of 
age! How young to take such a big step." 

"Mameha would have done well to take a danna at that age herself," Mother replied. 

"Eighteen is a bit young for most girls," Mameha said, "but I'm certain Mrs. Nitta has made 
the right decision in Sayuri's case." 

Mother puffed on her pipe a moment, peering at Mameha across the table. "My advice to 
you, Mameha-san," she said, "is that you stick to teaching Sayuri about that pretty way of 
rolling her eyes. When it comes to business decisions, you may leave them to me." 

"I would never presume to discuss business with you, Mrs. Nitta. I'm convinced your decision 
is for the best. . . But may I ask? Is it true the most generous offer has come from Nobu 
Toshikazu?" 


"His has been the only offer. I suppose that makes it the most generous." 

"The only offer? What a pity . . . The arrangements are so much more favorable when 
several men compete. Don't you find it so?" 

"As I say, Mameha-san, you can leave the business decisions to me. I have in mind a very 
simple plan for arranging favorable terms with Nobu Toshikazu." 

"If you don't mind," Mameha said, "I'd be very eager to hear it." 

Mother put her pipe down on the table. I thought she was going to reprimand Mameha, but in 
fact she said, "Yes, I'd like to tell it to you, now that you mention it. You may be able to help 
me. I've been thinking that Nobu Toshikazu will be more generous if he finds out an Iwamura 
Electric heater killed our Granny. Don't you think so?" 

"Oh, I know very little about business, Mrs. Nitta." 

"Perhaps you or Sayuri should let it slip in conversation the next time you see him. Let him 
know what a terrible blow it was. I think he'll want to make it up to us." 

"Yes, I'm sure that's a good idea," Mameha said. "Still, it's disappointing ... I had the 
impression another man had expressed interest in Sayuri." 

"A hundred yen is a hundred yen, whether it comes from this man or that one." 

"That would be true in most cases," Mameha said. "But the man I'm thinking of is General 
Tottori Junnosuke . . ." 

At this point in the conversation, I lost track of what the two of them were saying; for I'd 
begun to realize that Mameha was making an effort to rescue me from Nobu. I certainly 
hadn't expected such a thing. I had no idea whether she'd changed her mind about helping 
me, or whether she was thanking me for taking her side against Mother . . . Of course, it was 
possible she wasn't really trying to help me at all, but had some other purpose. My mind went 
on racing with these thoughts, until I felt Mother tapping my arm with the stem of her pipe. 

"Well?" she said. 

"Ma'am?" 

"I asked if you know the General." 

"I've met him a few times, Mother," I said. "He comes to Gion often." 

I don't know why I gave this response. The truth is, I'd met the General more than a few 
times. He came to parties in Gion every week, though always as the guest of someone else. 
He was a bit on the small side-shorter than I was, in fact. But he wasn't the sort of person 
you could overlook, any more than you could overlook a machine gun. He moved very briskly 
and was always puffing on one cigarette after another, so that wisps of smoke drifted in the 
air around him like the clouds around a train idling on the tracks. One evening while slightly 
drunk, the General had talked to me for the longest time about all the various ranks in the 
army and found it very funny that I kept mixing them up. General Tottori's own rank was shojo, which meant "little general"-that is to say, the lowest of the generals-and foolish girl that I 
was, I had the impression this wasn't very high. He may have played down the importance of 
his rank from modesty, and I didn't know any better than to believe him. 


By now Mameha was telling Mother that the General had just taken a new position. He'd 
been put in charge of something called "military procurement"-though as Mameha went on to 
explain it, the job sounded like nothing more than a housewife going to the market. If the 
army had a shortage of ink pads, for example, the General's job was to make sure it got the 
ink pads it needed, and at a very favorable price. 

"With his new job," said Mameha, "the General is now in a position to take a mistress for the 
first time. And I'm quite sure he has expressed an interest in Sayuri." 

"Why should it matter to me if he's expressed an interest in Sayuri?" Mother said. "These 
military men never take care of a geisha the way a businessman or an aristocrat does." 

"That may be true, Mrs. Nitta. But I think you'll find that General Tottori's new position could 
be of great help to the okiya." 

"Nonsense! I don't need help taking care of the okiya. All I need is steady, generous income, 
and that's the one thing a military man can't give me." 

"Those of us in Gion have been fortunate so far," Mameha said. "But shortages will affect us, 
if the war continues." 

"I'm sure they would, if the war continued," Mother said. "This war will be over in six months." 

"And when it is, the military will be in a stronger position than ever before. Mrs. Nitta, please 
don't forget that General Tottori is the man who oversees all the resources of the military. No 
one in Japan is in a better position to provide you with everything you could want, whether 
the war continues or not. He approves every item passing through all the ports in Japan." 

As I later learned, what Mameha had said about General Tottori wasn't quite true. He was in 
charge of only one of five large administrative areas. But he was senior to the men who 
oversaw the other districts, so he may as well have been in charge. In any case, you should 
have seen how Mother behaved after Mameha had said this. You could almost see her mind 
at work as she thought about having the help of a man in General Tottori's position. She 
glanced at the teapot, and I could just imagine her thinking, "Well, I haven't had any trouble 
getting tea; not yet. . . though the price has gone up . . ." And then probably without even 
realizing what she was doing, she put one hand 
inside her obi and squeezed her silk bag of tobacco as if to see how much remained. 

Mother spent the next week going around Gion and making one phone call after another to 
learn as much as she could about General Tottori. She was so immersed in this task that 
sometimes when I spoke to her, she didn't seem to hear me. I think she was so busy with her 
thoughts, her mind was like a train pulling too many cars. 

During this period I continued seeing Nobu whenever he came to Gion, and did my best to 
act as though nothing had changed. Probably he'd expected I would be his mistress by the 
middle of July. Certainly I'd expected it; but even when the month came to a close, his 
negotiations seemed to have led nowhere. Several times during the following weeks I noticed 
him looking at me with puzzlement. And then one night he greeted the mistress of the Ichiriki 
Teahouse in the cur-test manner I'd ever seen, by strolling past without so much as a nod. 
The mistress had always valued Nobu as a customer, and gave me a look that seemed 
surprised and worried all at once. When I joined the party Nobu was giving, I couldn't help 
noticing signs of anger-a rippling muscle in his jaw, and a certain briskness with which he 
tossed sake into his mouth. I can't say I blamed him for feeling as he did. I thought he must 
consider me heartless, to have repaid his many kindnesses with neglect. I fell into a gloomy 
spell thinking these thoughts, until the sound of a sake cup set down with a tick startled me 


out of it. When I looked up, Nobu was watching me. Guests all around him were laughing 
and enjoying themselves, and there he sat with his eyes fixed on me, as lost in his thoughts 
as I had been in mine. We were like two wet spots in the midst of burning charcoal. 

Chapter twenty-six 

During September of that year, while I was still eighteen years old, General Tottori and I 
drank sake together in a ceremony at the Ichiriki Teahouse. This was the same ceremony I'd 
first performed with Mameha when she became my older sister, and later with Dr. Crab just 
before my mizuage. In the weeks afterward, everyone congratulated Mother for having made 
such a favorable alliance. 

On that very first night after the ceremony, I went on the General's instructions to a small inn 
in the northwest of Kyoto called Suruya, with only three rooms. I was so accustomed by this 
time to lavish surroundings that the shabbiness of the Suruya surprised me. The room 
smelled of mildew, and the tatami were so bloated and sodden that they seemed to make a 
sighing noise when I stepped on them. Plaster had crumbled near the floor in one corner. I 
could hear an old man reading a magazine article aloud in an adjacent room. The longer I 
knelt there, the more out of sorts I felt, so that 