asn't going to think of Mother's 
plan as "exchanging rooms"; she was going to feel that her room had been taken away from 
her. 

When I saw Mameha that evening, I told her what Mother had said to me, and mentioned my 
fears that the fire inside Hatsumomo might flare up again. 

"Oh, well, that's fine," said Mameha. "That woman won't be beaten once and for all until we 
see blood. And we haven't seen it yet. Let's give her a bit of a chance and see what sort of a 
mess she makes for herself this time." 

Early the next morning, Auntie came upstairs in the okiya to lay down the rules for moving 
our belongings. She began by taking me into Hatsumomo's room and announcing that a 
certain corner now belonged to me; I could put anything I wanted there, and no one else 
could touch it. Then she brought Hatsumomo and Pumpkin into my smaller room and set up 
a similar space for the two of them. After we'd swapped all our belongings, the move would 
be complete. 

I set to work that very afternoon carrying my things through the hall. I wish I could say I'd 
accumulated a collection of beautiful objects as Mameha probably had by my age; but the 
mood of the nation had changed greatly. Cosmetics and permanents had recently been 
banned as luxuries by the military government-though of course those of us in Gion, as 
playthings of the men in power, still did more or less as we pleased. Lavish gifts, however, 
were almost unheard of, so I'd accumulated nothing more over the years than a few scrolls, 
inkstones, and bowls, as well as a collection of-stereoscopic photos of famous views, with a 
lovely viewer made of sterling silver, which the Kabuki actor Onoe Yoegoro XVII had given to 
me. In any case, I carried these things across the hall-along with my makeup, 
undergarments, books, and magazines-and piled them in the corner of the room. But as late 
as the following evening, Hatsumomo and Pumpkin still hadn't begun moving their things out. 
On the way back from my lessons at noon on the third day, I made up my mind that if 
Hatsumomo's bottles and ointments were still crowded together on the makeup stand, I 
would go ask Auntie to help me. 

When I reached, the top of the stairs, I was surprised to see both Hatsumomo's door and 
mine standing open. A jar of white ointment lay broken on the hallway floor. Something 
seemed to be amiss, and when I stepped into my room, I saw what it was. Hatsumomo was 
sitting at my little table, sipping at what looked like a small glass of water-and reading a 
notebook that belonged to me!. 

Geisha are expected to be discreet about the men they know; so you may be puzzled to hear 
that several years earlier while still an apprentice, I'd gone into a paper store one afternoon 
and bought a beautiful book of blank pages to begin keeping a diary about my life. I wasn't 
foolish enough to write down the sorts of things a geisha is never expected to reveal. I wrote 
only about my thoughts and feelings. When 

I had something to say about a particular man, I gave him a code name. So for example, I 
referred to Nobu as "Mr. Tsu," because he sometimes made a little scornful noise with his 
mouth that sounded like "Tsu!" And I referred to the Chairman as "Mr. Haa," because on one 


occasion he'd taken in a deep breath and let it out slowly in a way that sounded like "Haa," 
and I'd imagined him waking up beside me as he said it- so of course, it made a strong 
impression on me. But I'd never thought for a moment that anyone would see the things I'd 
written. 

"Why, Sayuri, I'm so pleased to see you!" Hatsumomo said. "I've been waiting to tell you how 
much I'm enjoying your diary. Some of the entries are most interesting . . . and really, your 
writing style is charming! I'm not much impressed with your calligraphy, but-" 

"Did you happen to notice the interesting thing I wrote on the front page?" 

"I don't think I did. Let's see ... 'Private.'Well, now here's an example of what I'm talking about 
with your calligraphy." 

"Hatsumomo, please put the book down on the table and leave my room." 

"Really! I'm shocked at you, Sayuri. I'm only trying to be helpful! Just listen for a moment, and 
you'll see. For example: Why did you choose to give Nobu Toshikazu the name 'Mr. Tsu'? It 
doesn't suit him at all. I think you should have called him 'Mr. Blister' or maybe 'Mr. One-Arm.' 
Don't you agree? You can change it if you want, and you don't even have to give me any 
credit." 

"I don't know what you're talking about, Hatsumomo. I haven't written anything about Nobu at 
all." 

Hatsumomo sighed, as if to tell me what an inept liar I was, and then began paging through 
my journal. "If it isn't Nobu you were writing about, I want you to tell me the name of the man 
you're referring to here. Let's see ... ah, here it is: 'Sometimes I see Mr. Tsu's face blooming 
with anger when a geisha has been staring at him. But for my part, I can look at him as long 
as I want, and he seems to be pleased by it. I think his fondness for me grows from his 
feeling that I don't find the look of his skin and his missing arm as strange and frightening as 
so many girls do.' So I guess what you're telling me is that you know someone else who 
looks just like Nobu. I think you should introduce them! Think how much they'll have in 
common." 

By this time I was feeling sick at heart-I can't think of any better way of describing it. For it's 
one thing to find your secrets suddenly exposed, but when your own foolishness has 
exposed them . . . well, if I was prepared to curse anyone, it was myself for keeping the 
journal in the first place and stowing it where Hatsumomo could find it. A shopkeeper who 
leaves his window open can hardly be angry at the rainstorm for ruining his wares. 

I went to the table to take the journal from Hatsumomo, but she clutched it to her chest and 
stood. In her other hand she picked up the glass of what I'd thought was water. Now that I 
stood close to her I could smell the odor of sake. It wasn't water at all. She was drunk. 

"Sayuri, of course you want your journal back, and of course I'm going to give it to you," she 
said. But she was walking toward the door as she said it. "The trouble is, I haven't finished 
reading it. So I'll take it back to my room . . . unless you'd rather I took it to Mother. I'm sure 
she'll be pleased to see the passages you've written about her." 

I mentioned earlier that a broken bottle of ointment lay on the floor of the hallway. This was 
how Hatsumomo did things, making a mess and not even bothering to tell the maids. But 
now as she left my room, she got what she deserved. Probably she'd forgotten about the 
bottle because she was drunk; in any case she stepped right into the broken glass and let 


out a little shriek. I saw her look at her foot a moment and make a gasping noise, but then 
she kept on going. 

I felt myself panicking as she stepped into her room. I thought of trying to wrestle the book 
from her hands . . . but then I remembered Mameha's realization at the sumo tournament. To 
rush after Hatsumomo was the obvious thing. I'd be better off to wait until she began to relax, 
thinking she'd won, and then take the journal from her when she wasn't expecting it. This 
seemed to me a fine idea . . . until a moment later when I had an image of her hiding it in a 
place I might never find. 

By now she'd closed the door. I went to stand outside it and called out quietly, "Hatsumomosan, I'm sorry if I seemed angry. May I come in?" 

"No, you may not," she said. 

I slid the door open anyway. The room was in terrible disarray, because Hatsumomo had put 
things everywhere in her efforts at moving. The journal was sitting on the table while 
Hatsumomo held a towel against her foot. I had no idea how I would distract her, but I 
certainly didn't intend to leave the room without the journal. 

She may have had the personality of a water rat, but Hatsumomo was no fool. If she'd been 
sober, I wouldn't even have tried to outsmart her right then. But considering her state at the 
moment ... I looked around the floor at the piles of underclothing, bottles of perfume, and all 
the other things she'd scattered in disarray. The closet door was open, and the tiny safe 
where she kept her jewelry stood ajar; pieces were spilling out onto the mats as though she'd 
sat there earlier in the morning drinking and trying them on. And then one object caught my 
eye as clearly as a single star burning in a black sky. 

It was an emerald obi brooch, the very one Hatsumomo had accused me of stealing years 
earlier, on the night I'd found her and her boyfriend in the maids' room. I'd never expected to 
see it again. I walked directly to the closet and reached down to pluck it from among the 
jewelry lying there. 

"What a wonderful idea!" Hatsumomo said. "Go ahead and steal a piece of my jewelry. 
Truthfully, I'd rather have the cash you'll have to pay me." 

"I'm so pleased you don't mind!" I told her. "But how much cash will I have to pay for this?" 

As I said these words, I walked over and held the brooch up before her. The radiant smile 
she'd worn now faded, just as the darkness fades from a valley when the sun rises on it. In 
that moment, while Hatsumomo sat stunned, I simply reached down to the table with my 
other hand and took the journal away. 

I had no notion how Hatsumomo would react, but I walked out the door and closed it behind 
me. I thought of going straight to Mother to show her what I'd found, but of course, I couldn't 
very well go there with the journal in my hand. As quickly as I could, I slid open the door to 
the closet where in-season kimono were kept and stashed the journal on a shelf between two 
robes wrapped in tissue paper. It took no more than a few seconds; but all the while my back 