Free Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

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 fire before it has even begun. Won’t that be nice, Granny? You won’t have to worry any longer about our storehouse burning with all our kimono in it.”
    Granny, as I went on to learn, was more terrified of fire than beer is of a thirsty old man.
    “Anyway, she’s rather pretty, don’t you think?” Mother added.
    “There are too many pretty girls in Gion,” said Granny. “What we need is a smart girl, not a pretty girl. That Hatsumomo is as pretty as they come, and look at what a fool she is!”
    After this Granny stood, with Auntie’s help, and made her way back up the walkway. Though I must say that to watch Auntie’s clumsy gait—because of her one hip jutting out farther than the other—it wasn’t at all obvious which of the two women had the easier time walking. Soon I heard the sound of a door in the front entrance hall sliding open and then shut again, and Auntie came back.
    “Do you have lice, little girl?” Mother asked me.
    “No,” I