Free Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

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:
    â€œWhat are you looking at!”
    â€œI’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.
    â€œSo you like it, do you?” she