Disclaimer: I do not own Memoirs of a Geisha.

A/N: Etsuko is not a Mary Sue. If you notice in the first page of Chapter 30 in Memoirs of a Geisha, Sayuri talks about her. This is a simple story about Etsuko and Sayuri, basically a little makeup moment between the two, and how Sayuri's story came to be first known.

Etsuko
By: Y.N.T. Gabriela
Writing as:
Nekomi Tekarine

At the age of nine my father sent me away to live in Kyoto with two old women who had come to shelter in our farm during the war. Many people would like to believe I was born in Kyoto, the illegitimate daughter of the famous Nitta Sayuri and her danna, Chairman Iwamura Ken, left behind when she fled to America. They think that I began my training in dance before I could walk, that I drank sake from the breast. That I was born a geisha. That is not the case.

I am the daughter of a simple farmer. During the summer, I would help my mother weave while my father was in the fields. In winter, we would tell stories by our tiny fire. This was my routine until the winter of my ninth year, when Nitta Kayoko and Nitta…well I just called her Auntie as she said she was always called, came to our humble farm.

They worked hard, and were very harsh. Mother and Father seemed to be interested in their talks of okiya and Gion, far away in Kyoto. Soon, when they left, my mother and father insisted I go with them. I had no choice.

I arrived at a gloomy old house, big by my standards, but dirty. The courtyard was overgrown with weeds, and some of the paper screens on the windows were torn to bits. The rooms were musty and full of cobwebs. I did not like it at all. I was immediately put to work by Kayoko-san, whom I was instructed to call "Mother". I was a maid, cleaning, cooking, washing, and doing many of the unpleasant work. It was fine, though. I was used to it back on the farm.

Then she came. When she walked into the okiya, Mother and Auntie seemed pleased and greeted her as warmly as I had ever seen them. She was tall, beautiful, and her eyes, those awesome eyes, were a startling gray that looked almost blue. So much water in her, I thought to myself. I was afraid of her, because I knew she was a geisha, out of my world as a simple maid.

That was when I met Sayuri. At the time, she was one of the most famous geisha in all of Gion. I was scared of her, but also fascinated. She was aloof, she did not pay me much attention, and I was awed by her presence. I did notice that a sadness seemed to hang around her, like a fine coat of mist. Still, whenever I saw her, I would immediately sprawl on the floor, a servant bowing to an illustrious geisha. Until one day…

"Little sister," she said to me, her voice kind, "You will become geisha soon. Do not bow like a pig farmer."

"Ma'am?" I said, still in my bowing position. She then came to kneel next to me. I was afraid that she would slap me or some such thing, but she simply moved my hands around.

"Fingers together…gently now. Move your hands to face each other, elbows in, no weight on your hands…uh huh…no…neck straight while you do that…there! Perfect." She said, satisfied. She patted me on the head, then left in a sadness and silk.

I was surprised by this, but I did not utter a word to Mother or Auntie. That afternoon, Auntie put me in my very first silk kimono. It was a brilliant blue with green grasses all along the bottom edge, and big, bright yellow-orange flowers on the sleeves and chest. She led me to Sayuri's room, very large. I could see her at her makeup stand, kneeling, with Western makeup cluttered on the desk. When she heard me coming in, she turned to face me. Powders were on her face, and they hid her thin frame. Her eyes were highlighted in gold, and her lips as deep red as blood. Her cheeks were a soft pink. It was obvious she had just finished, but when she saw me, she opened another box by her table, stroking it with sentimental gestures.

She handed a bottle of white paste to me, and I looked at it. "This was the white mask I used when I was still a maiko. You will be one too, if I can teach you." Out came a dozen brushes in various shapes. Some were like large fans, the others like chopsticks with hair. "My makeup brushes." She smiled as I took them in my hands. She then handed me three pigment sticks, hard as stone. "For my cheeks." She said. I then saw paulownia wood, which she burned and shaded her eyebrows in, for my benefit. She even showed me two bars of wax, very old, which she told me she once used under her makeup. Then she noticed the kimono I was wearing. She told me to stand, and she stood up as well.

"I…I wore this when I was a little girl, your age…" she said as she reached out to touch my cheek. I stood there, trembling, but then I saw a far-away look in her eyes. I knew, then, that she was looking back into her past. Had she worked as a maid like me, impressed by magnificent geisha? Had she come from a small village far away, missing her mother and father?

I thought of these things until Sayuri patted my cheek gently, with a soft smile. She told me to wait outside. A man came, Mr. Bekku I heard he was called, and I slowly watched as he began to dress Sayuri in a kimono, a beautiful russet, brown, and gold with autumn leaves flowing from a tree that sprouted from her feet embroidered on. Butterflies adorned the sleeves, and a woman slept at the hem of her kimono. Her obi was plum, with silver and gray threads in a diamond pattern. I was sick with jealousy, but then she turned to me.

"Someday Etsuko…someday you will be the newest star of Gion. You will wear beautiful kimono, and bring men to their knees with a single look." Her eyes looked sad as she said this. My eyes were wide in surprise, but I could see now past the makeup and the beauty, into those eyes of hers, and I knew she had a story to tell as well. I realize now that it was her way of blessing me.

That night, I heard Sayuri-sama crying in her room. Geisha do not normally show much emotion, but her sadness was so true, so much like my mother's tears, that I ran in and, in a fit of emotion, hugged her. Instead of throwing me away, Sayuri smiled, and wrapped her arms around me. Starting that night, she began to unravel, telling me her story, every word. She even gave me her diary. Amazingly enough, she trusted me. I never betrayed that trust.

Sayuri ran off to America with a Chairman Iwamura, not long afterward really. He was the man of her dreams, from her stories I knew. I had prayed that they would find each other, though I never let anyone know I did.

Soon after Sayuri left, the okiya closed down. Mother had to hand over every sen that Sayuri was entitled to, and that had drained the okiya dry. But before the okiya closed, I was found by Sayuri's onesan, Mameha, once the greatest geisha in Gion. She was married by then, but she had no daughter of her own, and she took me under even though by then she was quite old. I made my debut soon after, wearing, Mameha told me, the very same kimono Sayuri had worn on her debut.

When I asked why Mameha had gone through all the trouble to procure the kimono, she told me that Sayuri had secretly mailed her, telling her to do this. Touched by this gesture, I requested that instead of "Mame" from Mameha's name, I be given a name with an element from Sayuri-sama's. Because it was she who fostered my dream with so much kindness, even when I was with her only for a brief time.

My name was Etsuko, so many years ago that nobody really knows.

My name is now is Mayuri, Tachiwara Mayuri, and I am geisha.