ight," said Nobu. "Since it's a pleasant evening-" "Oh, Nobu-san, don't say that. I'd much 
rather you said, 'Since I've bumped into an old friend I haven't seen in so long, I can't think of 
anything I'd rather do than go on a stroll with her.'" 

"I'll take a walk with you," he said. "You may think whatever you like about my reasons for 
doing it." 

I gave a little bow of assent to this, and we set off together down the alley in the direction of 
Maruyama Park. "If Nobu-san wants me to believe he isn't angry," I said, "he should act 
friendlier, instead of like a panther who hasn't been fed for months. No wonder poor 
Takazuru is so terrified of you . . ." 


"So she's spoken to you, has she?" said Nobu. "Well, if she weren't such an infuriating girl-" 

"If you don't like her, why do you ask for her every time you come to Gion?" 

"I've never asked for her, not even once! It's her older sister who keeps pushing her at me. 
It's bad enough you've reminded me of her. Now you're going to take advantage of bumping 
into me tonight to try to shame me into liking her!" 

"Actually, Nobu-san, I didn't 'bump' into you at all. I've been strolling down that alley for 
weeks just for the purpose of finding you." 

This seemed to give Nobu something to think about, for we walked along in silence a few 
moments. Finally he said, "I shouldn't be surprised. You're as conniving a person as I know." 

"Nobu-san! What else was I to do?" I said. "I thought you had disappeared completely. I 
might never have known where to find you, if Takazuru hadn't come to me in tears to say 
how badly you've been treating her." 

"Well, I have been hard on her, I suppose. But she isn't as clever as you-or as pretty, for that 
matter. If you've been thinking I'm angry with you, you're quite right." 

"May I ask what I have done to make an old friend so angry?" 

Here Nobu stopped and turned to me with a terribly sad look in his eyes. I felt a fondness 
welling up in me that I've known for very few men in my life. I was thinking how much I had 
missed him, and how deeply I had wronged him. But though I'm ashamed to admit it, my 
feelings of fondness were tinged with pity. 

"After a considerable amount of effort," he said, "I have discovered the identity of your 
danna." 

"If Nobu-san had asked me, I would have been glad to tell him." 

"I don't believe you. You geisha are the most close-mouthed group of people. I asked around 
Gion about your danna, and one after another they all pretended not to know. I never would 
have found out, if I hadn't asked Michizono to come entertain me one night, just the two of 
us." 

Michizono, who was about fifty at the time, was a sort of legend in Gion. She wasn't a 
beautiful woman, but she could sometimes put even Nobu in a good mood just from the way 
she crinkled her nose at him when she bowed hello. 

"I made her play drinking games with me," he went on, "and I won and won until poor 
Michizono was quite drunk. I could have asked her anything at all and she would have told 
me." 

"What a lot of work!" I said. 

"Nonsense. She was very enjoyable company. There was nothing like work about it. But shall 
I tell you something? I have lost respect for you, now that I know your danna is a little man in 
uniform whom no one admires." 

"Nobu-san speaks as if I have any choice over who my danna is. The only choice I can ever 
make is what kimono I'll wear. And even then-" 


"Do you know why that man has a desk job? It's because no one trusts him with anything that 
matters. I understand the army very well, Sayuri. Even his own superiors have no use for 
him. You may as well have made an alliance with a beggar! Really, I was once very fond of 
you, but-" 

"Once? Is Nobu-san not fond of me any longer?" 

"I have no fondness for fools." 

"What a cold thing to say! Are you only trying to make me cry? Oh, Nobu-san! Am I a fool 
because my danna is a man you can't admire?" 

"You geisha! There was never a more irritating group of people. You go around consulting 
your almanacs, saying, 'Oh, I can't walk toward the east today, because my horoscope says 
it's unlucky!' But then when it's a matter of something affecting your entire lives, you simply 
look the other way." 

"It's less a matter of looking the other way than of closing our eyes to what we can't stop from 
happening." 

"Is that so? Well, I learned a few things from my talk with Michizono that night when I got her 
drunk. You are the daughter of the okiya, Sayuri. You can't pretend you have no influence at 
all. It's your duty to use what influence you have, unless you want to drift through life like a 
fish belly-up on the stream." 

"I wish I could believe life really is something more than a stream that carries us along, belly-
up." 

"All right, if it's a stream, you're still free to be in this part of it or that part, aren't you? The 
water will.divide again and again. If you bump, and tussle, and fight, and make use of 
whatever advantages you might have-" 

"Oh, that's fine, I'm sure, when we have advantages." 

"You'd find them everywhere, if you ever bothered to look! In my case, even when I have 
nothing more than-I don't know-a chewed-up peach pit, or something of the sort, I won't let it 
go to waste. When it's time to throw it out, I'll make good and certain to throw it at somebody 
I don't like!" 

"Nobu-san, are you counseling me to throw peach pits?" 

"Don't joke about it; you know perfectly well what I'm saying. We're very much alike, Sayuri. I 
know they call me 'Mr. Lizard' and all of that, and here you are, the loveliest creature in Gion. 
But that very first time I saw you at the sumo tournament years ago-what were you, 
fourteen?-I could see what a resourceful girl you were even then." 

"I've always believed that Nobu-san thinks me more worthy than I really am." 

"Perhaps you're right. I thought you had something more to you, Sayuri. But it turns out you 
don't even understand where your destiny lies. To tie your fortunes to a man like the General! 
I would have taken proper care of you, you know. It makes me so furious to think about it! 
When this General is gone from your life, he'll leave nothing for you to remember him by. Is 
this how you intend to waste your youth? A woman who acts like a fool is a fool, wouldn't you 
say?" 


If we rub a fabric too often, it will quickly grow threadbare; and Nobu's words had rasped 
against me so much, I could no longer maintain that finely lacquered surface Mameha had 
always counseled me to hide behind. I felt lucky to be standing in shadow, for I was certain 
Nobu would think still less of me if he saw the pain I was feeling. But I suppose my silence 
must have betrayed me; for with his one hand he took my shoulder and turned me just a 
fraction, until the light fell on my face. And when he looked me in the eyes, he let out a long 
sigh that sounded at first like disappointment. 

"Why do you seem so much older to me, Sayuri?" he said after a moment. "Sometimes I 
forget you're still a girl. Now you're going to tell me I've been too harsh with you." 

"I cannot expect that Nobu-san should act like anyone but Nobu-san," I said. 

"I react very badly to disappointment, Sayuri. You ought to know that. Whether you failed me 
because you're too young or because you aren't the woman I thought. . . either way you 
failed me, didn't you?" 

"Please, Nobu-san, it frightens me to hear you say these things. I don't know if I can ever live 
my life by the standards you use for judging me . . ." 

"What standards are those, really? I expect you to go through life with your eyes open! If you 
keep your destiny in mind, every moment in life becomes an opportunity for moving closer to 
it. I wouldn't expect this sort of awareness from a foolish girl like Takazuru, but-" 

"Hasn't Nobu-san been calling me foolish all evening?" 

"You know better than to listen to me when I'm angry." 

"So Nobu-san isn't angry any longer. Then will he come to see me at the Ichiriki Teahouse? 
Or invite me to come and see him? In fact, I'm in no particular hurry this evening. I could 
come in even now, if Nobu-san asked me to." 

By now we had walked around the block, and were standing at the entrance to the teahouse. 
"I won't ask you," he said, and rolled open the door. 

I couldn't help but let out a great sigh when I heard this; and I call it a great sigh because it 
contained many smaller sighs within it-one sigh of disappointment, one of frustration, one of 
sadness . . . and I don't know what else. 

"Oh, Nobu-san," I said, "sometimes you're so difficult for me to understand." 

"I'm a very easy man to understand, Sayuri," he said. "I don't like things held up before me 
that I cannot have." 

Before I had a chance to reply, he stepped into the teahouse and rolled the door shut behind 
him. 

Chapter twenty-seven 

During the summer of that year, 1939, I was so busy with engagements, occasional meetings 
with the General, dance performances, I/ and the like, that in the morning when I tried to get 
up from my futon, I often felt like a bucket filled with nails. Usually by midafter-noon I 
managed to forget my fatigue, but I often wondered how much I was earning through all my 
efforts. I never really expected to find out, however, so I was quite taken aback when Mother 


called me into her room one afternoon and told me I'd earned more in the past six months 
than both Hatsumomo and Pumpkin combined. 

"Which means," she said, "that it's time for you to exchange rooms with them." 

I wasn't as pleased to hear this as you might imagine. Hatsumomo and I had managed to live 
side by side these past few years by keeping away from each other. But I regarded her as a 
sleeping tiger, not a defeated one. Hatsumomo certainly w