Memoirs of a Geisha

Chiyo has now become set on finding her sister, though, as punishment for the incident with the kimono, she is confined to the okiya for fifty days. During this time, she finds ways of paying Hatsumomo and Granny back for their cruelty, such as mixing pigeon droppings in Hatsumomo’s face cream.

Yoko does not know that Chiyo has been confined to the okiya, as she asks her to take Hatsumomo’s shamisen to the Mizuki teahouse because Hatsumomo has lost a bet and will have to play a song on this instrument. Chiyo does as instructed, noting that the tea house is one of the most exclusive in Japan and that tea houses in general are places in which men are entertained by geisha. Looking through the window, she can see Hatsumomo and remembers the first time she peered into a teahouse with Mr. Tanaka’s daughter. She had taken Mr. Tanaka to be a kind man, before he sold her into slavery.

Once she is out of the okiya, Chiyo sets about finding her sister. Old women sit on stools along the street accompanied by prostitutes, and one of them helps Chiyo find the address provided by Hatsumomo. Here, she finds another older woman who is initially not forthcoming and accuses Chiyo of lying about being Satsu’s sister. However, Chiyo is determined and says, “If you’d be kind enough to tell her Chiyo is here, she'll pay you what you want” (49). The woman seems satisfied with this and sends her younger companion to fetch Satsu.

Once Satsu has finished seeing a customer, she is reunited with Chiyo. Satsu hates her new life and has made her mind up to run away. To this end, she has been stealing money and has stashed a train timetable under her bed. Chiyo says that she will accompany her, and Satsu concludes that they will run away next Tuesday. Chiyo is worried about getting away from the okiya, but Satsu impresses upon her that they have only one chance.

Chiyo returns to the okiya to find that that it is largely quiet; however, she notices movement and realizes that Hatsumomo and her boyfriend are engaged in another clandestine meeting. Upon spotting Chiyo, Hatsumomo’s boyfriend becomes annoyed and Hatsumomo tries to pacify him. She asks to see him again tomorrow, but he says that his wife keeps watch over him much of the time. Before leaving, he tells Hatsumomo that, one day, he will no longer visit her at all.

After her boyfriend leaves, Hatsumomo berates Chiyo for disobedience and for spying. However, she goes on to say that she would be glad if Chiyo ran away, and hands her some money to help her in this endeavor. Though Auntie had warned her never to trust Hatsumomo, Chiyo takes the money, only for Hatsumomo to grab her hair and bang on the door of Mother’s room, yelling that Chiyo has stolen some of her jewelry to raise money to run away. Mother orders Hatsumomo to search the girl, and Chiyo knows that she has fallen into a trap. Hatsumomo reveals the cash that she herself had given to Chiyo, which Mother tucks into her robe.

Mother subsequently accuses Hatsumomo of having had a boyfriend in the okiya that night, and Hatsumomo denies this. Mother then reaches between Hatsumomo’s legs; her finger emerges moist, and she slaps Hatsumomo across the face.

Being punished for ‘stealing’ accrues further debts for Chiyo, though this only strengthens her determination to run away. However, Mother now keeps the front door locked and only Auntie has a key. Chiyo consequently become despondent but, when carrying out her chores one day, she realizes that she could potentially escape via the roof.

The next evening, Chiyo glimpses Granny preparing to go to bed, and she wonders if Granny had once been sold into slavery like she had and whether it was the hardship of that life that caused her to become so mean. Chiyo does not want to go down the same path and so, when the coast is clear, she makes her way over the roof and across the other houses along the block. The building at the end of the block is another okiya, and, though Chiyo does not take pleasure in the idea of dropping into someone else’s house, she cannot see a better alternative. She has little choice, moreover, when one of her shoes falls into the courtyard and attracts the occupants’ attention. She tries to cling to the roof but slips and falls into a daze upon hitting the floor. She can hear voices around her, but her overriding thought is that she will miss her meeting with Satsu.

The maid is sent to ascertain which house Chiyo had come from and Chiyo finds herself confronted by Auntie, who beats her furiously and tells her that she will never become a geisha. The next day, Mother informs her that Satsu has run away, and Chiyo wants to feel happy for her sister but cannot. She apologizes for her own escape attempt, but Mother becomes enraged and says, “If I could sell off your bones to pay back some of your debts, why, I’d rip them right out of your body!” (109).

After being dismissed from Mother’s room, Chiyo sees that Hatsumomo is crying. Chiyo can guess why: Hatsumomo’s boyfriend has stopped seeing her since Mother banned him from the okiya. Chiyo hopes to pass by without being spotted, but Hatsumomo sees her and says that she does not have to ruin Chiyo’s life anymore—Chiyo has done so herself and will spend the rest of her days as a maid.

In the following months, no one speaks to Chiyo unless it is to give an order, and Chiyo continues to wonder what has happened to her family. She imagines that she has run away with Satsu and is walking along the cliff near her home, though, even in her fantasies, she never reaches the house itself, as she is worried what she will find there. 

In spring, Chiyo receives a package from Mr. Tanaka. Upon opening it, she learns that her mother died six weeks after she left for Gion and her father died a few weeks later. Satsu, meanwhile, had arrived at Yoroido but ran away again with Mr. Sugi’s son. In his letter, Mr. Tanaka also writes that he is glad that Chiyo at least has a safe place in which to live and that “The swan who goes on living in its parents' tree will die; this is why those who are beautiful and talented bear the burden of finding their own way” (113).

The package contains Buddhist mortuary tablets for each of Chiyo’s parents, and Chiyo asks Auntie to place them somewhere where she will not see them. She had been clinging to the hope that her mother was still alive, and, now, she is devastated. Auntie, however, insists that she remember her ancestors.

Chiyo has grown to perceive her fateful meeting with Mr. Tanaka as both the best and worst day of her life. Elaborating on this, she explains that her life would have been simple and predictable had she not met him. He had sent her out into the world, but, even so, she has struggled to leave her old life behind and has felt lost since her parents’ deaths.

By the time she is twelve, Chiyo is starting to look slightly more womanly and to attract attention—something that she finds strange after having been ignored for so long. One day, she awakes from a dream about a bearded man whose features are a blur to her, and she feels somehow changed after this experience. She is dwelling on this dream when, suddenly, she remembers something that she had not thought about since her first week in Kyoto. Shortly after entering the okiya, she had brushed away a moth that had landed on her arm. She had expected it to fly away but it drifted to the floor where it lay dead. Chiyo did not know whether she was responsible, but its death touched her and she had admired its wings. 

Chiyo had wrapped the moth in a rag and hid it under the house. Now, she retrieves and unwraps it only to find the moth still as lovely as ever. She is struck by the thought that, while her existence is ever-changing, the moth has not changed at all. However, when she touches it, it turns to ash. She now understands that the past is gone and there is nothing she can do to change it. This prompts her to realize that she herself is not gone but is looking in a different direction; in short, she is looking toward the future, though she does not know what it holds. The bearded man in her dream, however, had told her to look out for a sign.

Chiyo’s thoughts are interrupted by Auntie, who has found some hair ornaments. She gives these ornaments to Chiyo, telling her to find Hatsumomo and determine who they belong to. As Chiyo explains, hair ornaments are intimate articles to geisha, and Auntie does not even want to touch them: she has wrapped them in silk, and this reminds Chiyo of the moth. Still, she notes that signs do not mean anything unless one knows how to interpret them.

When Chiyo returns the ornaments, Hatsumomo takes the opportunity to insult her once again by saying that she will never become a geisha. Chiyo feels that this is the cruelest thing that Hatsumomo could say; not because she wants to become a geisha specifically but because she does not want to remain a maid. 

Chiyo remains lost in thought once she is alone, regarding herself as “an abandoned island in the midst of the ocean, with no past, to be sure, but no future” (121). Her thoughts are interrupted by a man who tells her that it is “too pretty a day to be so unhappy” (121) and, for a moment, she feels as though she is looking into a different world—a world in which people are kind and fair. She regards the man’s face, which is as calm and similar to that of a Buddha, but his elegance makes her blush and look away.

This man is accompanied by two younger men and a geisha. The geisha refers to him as “Chairman,” but Chiyo knows that he cannot be a typical chairman or of high standing, otherwise he would not have stopped to talk to her. The man then tells his companions to continue on while he continues to speak to Chiyo. Noting her sheepishness, he infers that someone has been cruel to her or life itself has been cruel. He adds that no one finds sufficient kindness in the world, and, as she lets herself glance up at him, Chiyo feels an acute sense of longing. 

The man then gives Chiyo a coin wrapped in a handkerchief, which once again reminds her of the moth. She is grateful to find that there is something other than cruelty in the world, and, as a result of this brief encounter, she feels a new sense of purpose. For the first time, she finds herself envying a geisha, as this role would enable her to spend time with a man like the Chairman. 

After the Chairman had departed, Chiyo uses the coin that the he gave her to buy a cone of shaved ice. She is left with three coins as change, but, rather than using them to run away, she deposits them at the Gion Shrine and prays to become a geisha.

When Chiyo smells a horrible odor coming from Granny’s room one morning, she knows something is wrong. It transpires that Granny has died from an electric shock due to a fault with her heater. In the wake of the tragedy, numerous people come to pay their respects, one of whom is Mameha: the geisha whose kimono Hatsumomo ruined. Luckily, Mameha does not mention this incident.

After the funeral, Auntie moves into Granny’s room and Pumpkin begins practicing the arts she will need to master in order to become a geisha. She has a sweet disposition but is a slow learner. Chiyo, meanwhile, is praying for the Chairman to change her life somehow.

A month after Granny’s death, Mameha’s maid visits the okiya and tells Chiyo to meet her the next day. She will not disclose the reason, but Chiyo does as instructed and the maid leads her to the apartment where Mameha resides. Mameha reassures Chiyo that she is not going to scold her and that she is aware of Hatsumomo’s spiteful nature. Chiyo apologizes for the ruined kimono, but Mameha says that they should put the incident behind them. What she wants to know is why Chiyo is no longer training to be a geisha, and Chiyo tells her about the debts she has accrued. 

Mameha then asks Chiyo if she has tried to run away, and Chiyo replies that she has, adding that she wishes she could undo her mistakes. Mameha observes that Chiyo has a lot of water in her personality and struggles to wait patiently. However, she also cites water as the most versatile element and says that it has numerous strengths that Chiyo has not drawn on. Chiyo compares herself to a river that has come up against a dam, but Mameha responds that a river can sometimes wash a dam away.

Chiyo suspects that Mameha is looking to use her in order to get back at Hatsumomo, but Mameha notes that nothing will change unless Chiyo is allowed to resume her training. She says that Chiyo should concentrate on finding the prudent time to do so, emphasizing the importance of finding the right time and place for things. She then asks Chiyo if she has consulted her almanac, and Chiyo says that she has not. Mameha wants to know the date that Chiyo and Satsu had arranged to run away, and, consulting her almanac, concludes that travel on that day was very unwise for someone of Chiyo’s zodiac sign.

While people often have doubts about fortune-telling, Chiyo is convinced after Mameha looks up Satsu’s sign and recites that the date in question was “‘A good day for travel in the direction of the Sheep’” (141). She then looks at a map, which shows that Yoroido lies to the north northeast of Kyoto and corresponds with the zodiac sign of the Sheep. Consequently, Chiyo realizes that Satsu must have consulted her almanac.

This new knowledge makes Chiyo realize how unaware she herself had been up to this point, and that human beings are virtually powerless in the great scheme of the universe. She resolves that all one can do is try to “understand the movement of the universe around us and time our actions so that we are not fighting the currents, but moving with them” (141).

Mameha then selects various dates that are suitable for significant change before sending Chiyo back to the okiya and telling her to keep their meeting a secret.