n she was a geisha in Gion. 

When she had put down the bucket near me, Pumpkin retracted her tongue, and then 
brushed a strand of hair behind her ear while she looked me up and down. I thought she 
might say something, but she just went on looking, as though she were trying to make up her 
mind whether or not to take a bite of me. Really, she did seem hungry; and then at last she 
leaned in and whispered: 

"Where on earth did you come from?" 

I didn't think it would help to say that I had come from Yoroido; since her accent was as 
strange to me as everyone else's, I felt sure she wouldn't recognize the name of my village. I 
said instead that I'd just arrived. 

"I thought I would never see another girl my age," she said to me. But what's the matter with 
your eyes?" 

Just then Auntie came out from the kitchen, and after shooing Pumpkin away, picked up the 
bucket and a scrap of cloth, and led me down to the courtyard. It had a beautiful mossy look, 
with stepping-stones leading to a storehouse in the back; but it smelled horrible because of 
the toilets in the little shed along one side. Auntie told me to undress. I was afraid she might 
do to me something like what Mrs. Fidget had done, but instead she only poured water over 
my shoulders and 
rubbed me down with the rag. Afterward she gave me a robe, which was nothing more than 
coarsely woven cotton in the simplest pattern of dark blue, but it was certainly more elegant 
than anything I'd ever worn before. An old woman who turned out to be the cook came down 
into the corridor with several elderly maids to peer at me. Auntie told them they would have 
plenty of time for staring another day and sent them back where they'd come from. 

"Now listen, little girl," Auntie said to me, when we were alone. "I don't even want to know 
your name yet. The last girl who came, Mother and Granny didn't like her, and she was here 
only a month. I'm too old to keep learning new names, until they've decided they're going to 
keep you." 

"What will happen if they don't want to keep me?" I asked. 

"It's better for you if they keep you." 

"May I ask, ma'am . . . what is this place?" 


"It's an okiya," she said. "It's where geisha live. If you work very hard, you'll grow up to be a 
geisha yourself. But you won't make it as far as next week unless you listen to me very 
closely, because Mother and Granny are coming down the stairs in just a moment to look at 
you. And they'd better like what they see. Your job is to bow as low as you can, and don't 
look them in the eye. The older one, the one we call Granny, has never liked anyone in her 
life, so don't worry about what she says. If she asks you a question, don't even answer it, for 
heaven's sake! I'll answer for you. The one you want to impress is Mother. She's not a bad 
sort, but she cares about only one thing." 

I didn't have a chance to find out what that one thing was, for I heard a creaking noise from 
the direction of the front entrance hall, and soon the two women came drifting out onto the 
walkway. I didn't dare look at them. But what I could see out of the corner of my eye made 
me think of two lovely bundles of silk floating along a stream. In a moment they were 
hovering on the walkway in front of me, where they sank down and smoothed their kimono 
across their knees. 

"Umeko-san!" Auntie shouted-for this was the name of the cook. "Bring tea for Granny." 

"I don't want tea," I heard an angry voice say. 

"Now, Granny," said a raspier voice, which I took to be Mother's. "You don't have to drink it. 
Auntie only wants to be sure you're comfortable." 

"There's no being comfortable with these bones of mine," the old woman grumbled. I heard 
her take in a breath to say something more, but Auntie interrupted. 

"This is the new girl, Mother," she said, and gave me a little shove, which I took as a signal to 
bow. I got onto my knees and bowed so low, I could smell the musty air wafting from beneath 
the foundation. Then I heard Mother's voice again. 

"Get up and come closer. I want to have a look at you." 

I felt certain she was going to say something more to me after I'd approached her, but 
instead she took from her obi, where she kept it tucked, a pipe with a metal bowl and a long 
stem made of bamboo. She set it down beside her on the walkway and then brought from the 
pocket of her sleeve a drawstring bag of silk, from which she removed a big pinch of tobacco. 
She packed the tobacco with her little finger, stained the burnt orange color of a roasted yam, 
and then put the pipe into her mouth and lit it with a match from a tiny metal box. 

Now she took a close look at me for the first time, puffing on her pipe while the old woman 
beside her sighed. I didn't feel I could look at Mother directly, but I had the impression of 
smoke seeping out of her face like steam from a crack in the earth. I was so curious about 
her that my eyes took on a life of their own and began to dart about. The more I saw of her, 
the more fascinated I became. Her kimono was yellow, with willowy branches bearing lovely 
green and orange leaves; it was made of silk gauze as delicate as a spider's web. Her obi 
was every bit as astonishing to me. It was a lovely gauzy texture too, but heavier-looking, in 
russet and brown with gold threads woven through. The more I looked at her clothing, the 
less I was aware of standing there on that dirt corridor, or of wondering what had become of 
my sister-and my mother and father-and what would become of me. Every detail of this 
woman's kimono was enough to make me forget myself. And then I came upon a rude shock: 
for there above the collar of her elegant kimono was a face so mismatched to the clothing 
that it was as though I'd been patting a cat's body only to discover that it had a bulldog's 
head. She was a hideous-looking woman, though much younger than Auntie, which I hadn't 
expected. It turned out that Mother was actually Auntie's younger sister-though they called 
each other "Mother" and "Auntie," just as everyone else in the okiya did. Actually they weren't 


really sisters in the way Satsu and I were. They hadn't been born into the same family; but 
Granny had adopted them both. 

I was so dazed as I stood there, with so many thoughts running through my mind, that I 
ended up doing the very thing Auntie had told me not to do. I looked straight into Mother's 
eyes. When I did she took the pipe from her mouth, which caused her jaw to fall open like a 
trapdoor. And even though I knew I should at all costs look down again, her peculiar eyes 
were so shocking to me in their ugliness that I could do nothing but stand there staring at 
them. Instead of being white and clear, the whites of her eyes had a hideous yellow cast, and 
made me think at once of a toilet into which someone had just urinated. They were rimmed 
with the raw lip of her lids, in which a cloudy moisture was pooled; and all around them the 
skin was sagging. 

I drew my eyes downward as far as her mouth, which still hung open. The colors of her face 
were all mixed up: the rims of her eyelids were red like meat, and her gums and tongue were 
gray. And to make things more horrible, each of her lower teeth seemed to be anchored in a 
little pool of blood at the gums. This was due to some sort of deficiency in Mother's diet over 
the past years, as I later learned; but I couldn't help feeling, the more I looked at her, that she 
was like a tree that has begun to lose its leaves. I was so shocked by the whole effect that I 
think I must have taken a step back, or let out a gasp, or in some way given her some hint of 
my feelings, for all at once she said to me, in that raspy voice of hers: 

"What are you looking at!" 

"I'm very sorry, ma'am. I was looking at your kimono," I told her. "I don't think I've ever seen 
anything like it." 

This must have been the right answer-if there was a right answer-because she let out 
something of a laugh, though it sounded like a cough. 

"So you like it, do you?" she said, continuing to cough, or laugh, I couldn't tell which. "Do you 
have any idea what it cost?" 

"No, ma'am." 

"More than you did, that's for certain." 

Here the maid appeared with tea. While it was served I took the opportunity to steal a glance 
at Granny. Whereas Mother was a bit on the plump side, with stubby fingers and a fat neck, 
Granny was old and shriveled. She was at least as old as my father, but she looked as if 
she'd spent her years stewing herself into a state of concentrated meanness. Her gray hair 
made me think of a tangle of silk threads, for I could see right through them to her scalp. And 
even her scalp looked mean, because of patches where the skin was colored red or brown 
from old age. She wasn't frowning exactly, but her mouth made the shape of a frown in its 
natural state anyway. 

She took in a great big breath in preparation to speak; and then as she let it out again she 
mumbled, "Didn't I say I don't want any tea?" After this, she sighed and shook her head, and 
then said to me, "How old are you, little girl?" 

"She's the year of the monkey," Auntie answered for me. 

"That fool cook is a monkey," Granny said. 

"Nine years old," said Mother. "What do you think of her, Auntie?" 


Auntie stepped around in front of me and tipped my head back to look at my face. "She has a 
good deal of water." 

"Lovely eyes," said Mother. "Did you see them, Granny?" 

"She looks like a fool to me," Granny said. "We don't need another monkey anyway." 

"Oh, I'm sure you're right," Auntie said. "Probably she's just as you say. But she looks to me 
like a very clever girl, and adaptable; you can see that from the shape of her ears." 

"With so much water in her personality," Mother said, "probably she'll be able to smell a 