Free Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden Page B

image in my mind of my poor, sick mother propping herself on one elbow upon her futon and looking around to see where we had gone. I didn’t want Mother to see me crying, but the tears pooled in my eyes before I could think of how to stop them. With my vision glazed, Mother’s yellow kimono turned softer and softer, until it seemed to sparkle. Then she blew out a puff of her smoke, and it disappeared completely.

 
    Â  chapter four
    D uring those first few days in that strange place, I don’t think I could have felt worse if I’d lost my arms and legs, rather than my family and my home. I had no doubt life would never again be the same. All I could think of was my confusion and misery; and I wondered day after day when I might see Satsu again. I was without my father, without my mother—without even the clothing I’d always worn. Yet somehow the thing that startled me most, after a week or two had passed, was that I had in fact survived. I remember one moment drying rice bowls in the kitchen, when all at once I felt so disoriented I had to stop what I was doing to stare for a long while at my hands; for I could scarcely understand that this person drying the bowls was actually me.
    Mother had told me I could begin my training within a few months if I worked hard and behaved myself. As I learned from Pumpkin, beginning my training meant going to a school in another section of Gion to take lessons in things like music, dance, and tea ceremony. All the girls studying to be geisha took classes at this same school. I felt sure I’d find Satsu there when I was finally permitted to go; so by the end of my first week, I’d made up my mind to be as obedient as a cow following along on a rope, in the hopes that Mother would send me to the school right away.
    Most of my chores were straightforward. I stowed away the futons in the morning, cleaned the rooms, swept the dirt corridor, and so forth. Sometimes I was sent to the pharmacist to fetch ointment for the cook’s scabies, or to a shop on Shijo Avenue to fetch the rice crackers Auntie was so fond of. Happily the worst jobs, such as cleaning the toilets, were the responsibility of one of the elderly maids. But even though I worked as hard as I knew how, I never seemed to make the good impression I hoped to, because my chores every day were more than I could possibly finish; and the problem was made a good deal worse by Granny.
    Looking after Granny wasn’t really one of my duties—not as Auntie described them to me. But when Granny summoned me I couldn’t very well ignore her, for she had more seniority in the okiya than anyone else. One day, for example, I was about to carry tea upstairs to Mother when I heard Granny call out:
    â€œWhere’s that girl! Send her in here!”
    I had to put down Mother’s tray and hurry into the room where Granny was eating her lunch.
    â€œCan’t you see this room is too hot?” she said to me, after I’d bowed to her on my knees. “You ought to have come in here and opened the window.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Granny. I didn’t know you were hot.”
    â€œDon’t I look hot?”
    She was eating some rice, and several grains of it were stuck to her lower lip. I thought she looked more mean than hot, but I went directly to the window and opened it. As soon as I did, a fly came in and began buzzing around Granny’s food.
    â€œWhat’s the matter with you?” she said, waving at the fly with her chopsticks. “The other maids don’t let in flies when they open the window!”
    I apologized and told her I would fetch a swatter.
    â€œAnd knock the fly into my food? Oh, no, you won’t! You’ll stand right here while I eat and keep it away from me.”
    So I had to stand there while Granny ate her food, and listen to her tell me about the great Kabuki actor Ichimura Uzaemon XIV, who had taken her hand during a moon-viewing party when