while they ate-which is to say, I tried for a while to get 
Nobu to talk; but he wasn't in a talking mood; and then I tried to get the Minister to talk, but of 
course, it would have been easier to get a word or two out of the grilled minnow on his plate. 
So at length I gave up and just chattered away about whatever I wanted, until I began to feel 
like an old lady talking to her two dogs. All this while I poured sake as liberally as I could for 
both men. Nobu didn't drink much, but the Minister held his cup out gratefully every time. Just 
as the Minister was beginning to take on that glassy-eyed look, Nobu, like a man who has 
just woken up, suddenly put his own cup firmly on the table, wiped his mouth with his napkin, 
and said: 

"All right, Minister, that's enough for one evening. It's time for you to be heading home." 

"Nobu-san!" I said. "I have the impression your guest is just beginning to enjoy himself." 

"He's enjoyed himself plenty. We're sending him home early for once, thank heavens. Come 
on, then, Minister! Your wife will be grateful." 

"I'm not married," said the Minister. But already he was pulling up his socks and getting ready 
to stand. 

I led Nobu and the Minister up the hallway to the entrance, and helped the Minister into his 
shoes. Taxis were still uncommon because of gasoline rationing, but the maid summoned a 
rickshaw and I helped the Minister into it. Already I'd noticed that he was acting a bit 
strangely, but this evening he pointed his eyes at his knees and wouldn't even say good-bye. 
Nobu remained in the entryway, glowering out into the night as if he were watching clouds 
gather, though in fact it was a clear evening. When the Minister had left, I said to him, "Nobusan, what in heaven's name is the matter with the two of you?" 

He gave me a look of disgust and walked back into the teahouse. I found him in the room, 
tapping his empty sake cup on the table with his one hand. I thought he wanted sake, but he 
ignored me when I asked-and the vial turned out to be empty, in any case. I waited a long 
moment, thinking he had something to say to me, but finally I spoke up. 

"Look at you, Nobu-san. You have a wrinkle between your eyes as deep as a rut in the road." 

He let the muscles around his eyes relax a bit, so that the wrinkle seemed to dissolve. "I'm 
not as young as I once was, you know," he told me. 

"What is that supposed to mean?" 


"It means there are some wrinkles that have become permanent features, and they aren't 
going to go away just because you say they should." 

"There are good wrinkles and bad wrinkles, Nobu-san. Never forget it." 

"You aren't as young as you once were yourself, you know." 

"Now you've stooped to insulting me! You're in a worse mood even than I'd feared. Why isn't 
there any alcohol here? You need a drink." 

"I'm not insulting you. I'm stating a fact." 

"There are good wrinkles and bad wrinkles, and there are good facts and bad facts," I said. 
"The bad facts are best avoided." 

I found a maid and asked that she bring a tray with scotch and water, as well as some dried 
squid as a snack-for it had struck me that Nobu hadn't eaten much of his dinner. When the 
tray arrived, I poured scotch into a glass, filled it with water, and put it before him. 

"There," I said, "now pretend that's medicine, and drink it." He took a sip; but only a very 
small one. "All of it," I said. 

"I'll drink it at my own pace." 

"When a doctor orders a patient to take medicine, the patient takes the medicine. Now drink 
up!" 

Nobu drained the glass, but he wouldn't look at me as he did it. Afterward I poured more and 
ordered him to drink again. 

"You're not a doctor!" he said to me. "I'll drink at my own pace." 

"Now, now, Nobu-san. Every time you open your mouth, you get into worse trouble. The 
sicker the patient, the more the medication." 

"I won't do it. I hate drinking alone." 

"All right, I'll join you," I said. I put some ice cubes in a glass and held it up for Nobu to fill. He 
wore a little smile when he took the glass from me-certainly the first smile I'd seen on him all 
evening-and very carefully poured twice as much scotch as I'd poured into his, topped by a 
splash of water. I took his glass from him, dumped its contents into a bowl in the center of the 
table, and then refilled it with the same amount of scotch he'd put into mine, plus an extra 
little shot as punishment. 

While we drained our glasses, I couldn't help making a face; I find drinking scotch about as 
pleasurable as slurping up rainwater off the roadside. I suppose making these faces was all 
for the best, because afterward Nobu looked much less grumpy. When I'd caught my breath 
again, I said, "I don't know what has gotten into you this evening. Or the Minister for that 
matter." 

"Don't mention that man! I was beginning to forget about him, and now you've reminded me. 
Do you know what he said to me earlier?" 


"Nobu-san," I said, "it is my responsibility to cheer you up, whether you want more scotch or 
not. You've watched the Minister get drunk night after night. Now it's time you got drunk 
yourself." 

Nobu gave me another disagreeable look, but he took up his glass like a man beginning his 
walk to the execution ground, and looked at it for a long moment before drinking it all down. 
He put it on the table and afterward rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand as if he were 
trying to clear them. 

"Sayuri," he said, "I must tell you something. You're going to hear about it sooner or later. 
Last week the Minister and I had a talk with the proprietress of the Ichiriki. We made an 
inquiry about the possibility of the Minister becoming your danna." 

"The Minister?" I said. "Nobu-san, I don't understand. Is that what you wish to see happen?" 

"Certainly not. But the Minister has helped us immeasurably, and I had no choice. The 
Occupation authorities were prepared to make their final judgment against Iwamura Electric, 
you know. The company would have been seized. I suppose the Chairman and I would have 
learned to pour concrete or something, for we would never have been permitted to work in 
business again. However, the Minister made them reopen our case, and managed to 
persuade them we were being dealt with much too harshly. Which is the truth, you know." 

"Yet Nobu-san keeps calling the Minister all sorts of names," I said. "It seems to me-" 

"He deserves to be called any name I can think of! I don't like the man, Sayuri. It doesn't 
make me like him any better to know I'm in his debt." 

"I see," I said. "So I was to be given to the Minister because-" 

"No one was trying to give you to the Minister. He could never have afforded to be your 
danna anyway. I led him to believe Iwamura Electric would be willing to pay-which of course 
we wouldn't have been. I knew the answer beforehand or I wouldn't have asked the question. 
The Minister was terribly disappointed, you know. For an instant I felt almost sorry for him." 

There was nothing funny in what Nobu had said. And yet I couldn't help but laugh, because I 
had a sudden image in my mind of the Minister as my danna, leaning in closer and closer to 
me, with his lower jaw sticking out, until suddenly his breath blew up my nose. 

"Oh, so you find it funny, do you?" Nobu said to me. 

"Really, Nobu-san . . . I'm sorry, but to picture the Minister-" 

"I don't want to picture the Minister! It's bad enough to have sat there beside him, talking with 
the mistress of the Ichiriki." 

I made another scotch and water for Nobu, and he made one for me. It was the last thing I 
wanted; already the room seemed cloudy. But Nobu raised his glass, and I had no choice but 
to drink with him. Afterward he wiped his mouth with his napkin and said, "It's a terrible time 
to be alive, Sayuri." 

"Nobu-san, I thought we were drinking to cheer ourselves up." 

"We've certainly known each other a long time, Sayuri. Maybe . . . fifteen years! Is that right?" 
he said. "No, don't answer. I want to tell you 


something, and you're going to sit right there and listen to it. I've wanted to tell you this a long 
while, and now the time has come. I hope you're listening, because I'm only going to say it 
once. Here's the thing: I don't much like geisha; probably you know that already. But I've 
always felt that you, Sayuri, aren't exactly like all the others." 

I waited a moment for Nobu to continue, but he didn't. 

"Is that what Nobu-san wanted to tell me?" I asked. 

"Well, doesn't that suggest that I ought to have done all kinds of things for you? For example 
... ha! For example, I ought to have bought you jewelry." 

"You have bought me jewelry. In fact, you've always been much too kind. To me, that is; you 
certainly aren't kind to everybody." 

"Well, I ought to have bought you more of it. Anyway, that isn't what I'm talking about. I'm 
having trouble explaining myself. What I'm trying to say is, I've come to understand what a 
fool I am. You laughed earlier at the idea of having the Minister for a danna. But just look at 
me: a one-armed man with skin like-what do they call me, the lizard?" 

"Oh, Nobu-san, you must never talk about yourself that way . . ." 

"The moment has finally come. I've been waiting years. I had to wait all through your 
nonsense with that General. Every time I imagined him with you . . . well, I don't even want to 
think about that. And the very idea of this foolish Minister! Did I tell you what he said to me 
this evening? This is the worst thing of all. After he found out he wasn't going to be your 
danna, he sat there a long while like a pile of dirt, and then finally said, 'I thought you told me 
I could be Sayuri's danna! Well, I hadn't said any such thing! 'We did the best we could, 
Minister, and it didn't