Chapter 38
Finally finished moving! As a great big thank you present for your patience, I'm uploading 3 chapters this week! Please enjoy & thank you again for waiting so patiently (or not-so patiently) for us to finally get through with Moving Hell.
Disclaimer - I own absolutely nothing from the original Memoirs of a Geisha book or movie.
Several days after my chat with Mother, Pumpkin and I sat in a dingy little teahouse across town called the Shirae. A few days prior, I managed to wheedle a list of the teahouses Mameha been billing to from Awajiumi; mostly the normal first- and second-class set that any geisha of consequence would patronize. But Shirae was the one name that I didn't recognize, with good reason – as I found later that same afternoon, the Shirae was one of the lowest class of teahouses you could possibly find in Gion. If the Mizuki and the Ichiriki were magnificent roses on the bush, the Shirae was more like a shriveled little leaf ready to fall off.
Yet Mameha could be found entertaining in such a place on an almost weekly basis for the past several months. Who on Earth with enough money to request the time of one of the most famous geisha in Gion would even think of seeing her here? And who in there was so important that Miss Perfect would agree?
I concluded that I'd never get any answers by just standing there dumbstruck, so I bravely lifted my head up high, marched right back to the school, grabbed Pumpkin just as classes were letting out, told her what to say, and sent her right in. I certainly wasn't about to be caught dead going in there. A sad-looking old woman in a yukata was there to greet her at the door; at first I thought she was a maid, but she actually turned out to be the mistress.
"E-excuse me," I heard her say, nervous as always. "My name is Mametani and I'm one of Mameha-san's younger sisters. I've been away recently and I heard that I could find her here. She has been coming by lately, hasn't she?"
"Oh, yes, she's been coming here to entertain the Doctor every week. But I'm sorry, she isn't here right now. Perhaps later tonight?" We weren't going to get anything further from her – I'd gotten the information I wanted anyway. I gave a little cough to let Pumpkin know that it was time to excuse herself and leave.
"She wasn't there…" Pumpkin bowed to me as soon as I hustled her out of earshot.
"I know that, I'm not deaf!" I snapped. "We'll stop by later tonight, to see if we can beat them here. Then we'll have a nice little chat with the Doctor."
I only knew of one man in Gion who Mameha would want to see with enough screws loose to patronize such a place and went by the title of "Doctor" – the infamous, mizuage-chasing Doctor from Shizuoka who bid for my own virginity and paid so much for Mameha's.
Between him and her constantly pushing Sayuri on Nobu, I knew exactly how she planned to catch that lightning-in-a-bottle kind of luck that allowed a girl to pay off her debts before she even turned her collar – by planting a lightning rod in the form of her mizuage. Normal men simply lust for the chance to be a girls' mizuage patron if they're especially taken with a certain apprentice; no one had any doubt in their mind that the Doctor would kill for it.
Of course, if he were to believe that a girl was no longer a virgin, a man like him would automatically lose all interest. I knew how the machine worked, I had the tools to dismantle it, now all I had to do was catch up to it.
We went to that wretched little teahouse two or three times before the mistress finally told us that yes, the Doctor was present, and no, Mameha and her little pet hadn't been through yet. Happy as a ripe plum at our good fortune, I let us be escorted into the room where we found the good Doctor sitting at a table enjoying a glass of sake.
"Why if it isn't Doctor Hara!" I cooed, using the Doctor's rarely-spoken family name; it was hardly ever used because he was so infamous that people would just refer to him as The Doctor. "Do you remember me? You treated my sister in Shizuoka for an…illness. Her name was Hatsuoki."
"Of course; Hatsumomo-san, isn't it? I so uncommonly get geisha as patients that I pride myself in remembering them all, especially back when I was just a simple country physician." I knew the real reason why he remembered me; if you'll recall, he bid for my mizuage back when he was just beginning his long list of conquests and lost. I was one of the first of his few failures.
"But it appears that you've become very successful in the many years since I last laid eyes on you. You've moved all the way out here to Kyoto where I hear that you're the head doctor of a hospital."
"And owner," he said, in a rare show of preening. "But what brings you to a humble place as this? Surely you're missing out on a party with some dignitary right now?"
"Oh, nothing of the sort," I waved, pouring him a glass of sake. "It's just that as soon as I heard that my old acquaintance Doctor Hara was back in town, I had to go and see him. That weekend in Shizuoka is one of my favorite memories, did you know? Well, except for that misfortunate incident with Hatsuoki…"
"Yes I was quite surprised myself. I never thought that I'd ever have to treat such a young girl for such a thing."
"Well, we all have our secrets, some more serious than others. For instance, there's a young apprentice at my okiya named Sayuri…" I would've continued on, but the Doctor gave a sudden jerk and say up straighter than a stalk of bamboo.
"You know Sayuri?" he said with a tone of such urgency that you'd have thought I just told him he was suddenly bankrupt. "Mameha's younger sister?"
"I just told you that she lives in my okiya, didn't I!" I teased. "Really, you have to pay attention when people are telling you things. Oh, but maybe I shouldn't say – after all the work I've put in covering up for her…"
"I assure you that any information that you have would be greatly appreciated and kept in the strictest confidence," he said gravely.
"Really, Doctor? That makes me feel so much better! Well, I've actually been keeping an important secret for her. There's actually a young man who's an apprentice to a wig maker in our neighborhood. He's really such a sweet young lad and you've seen yourself how lovely Sayuri is, so it's no wonder that they've become quite fond of each other.
"Mother has a strict policy against having boyfriends, as I'm sure all okiya mistress' do, but you know how innocent young love is, right? I thought she was being too strict on the girl, so I sometimes let them see each other in my room when Mother's out. Oh, but promise me that you'll keep it a secret! If Mother ever found out, not only will the both of us get into trouble, but all my hard work will be wasted."
"I assure you that I won't breathe a word of it to a soul," he said slowly. His face was as reserved and inexpressive as ever, but his tone sounded like he got hit in the stomach with a cannon. I tried chatting with him just a little more before I let my eyes flick upwards towards a clock mounted on the wall.
"Is it really so late?" I exclaimed. "I'm afraid that we really must be going, Doctor – Pumpkin and I are about to be late to an important engagement. But it's been fun talking to you after so long. We really must do this again." He simply bowed in our direction and mumbled something polite, but remained seated at the table almost morosely.
I waited until the door was shut behind us by the mistress before I let a wide, satisfied smile bloom across my face. Really, I must've looked like a cat with a bowl of cream. As far as I was concerned at that point, that night couldn't have gone any better. Or so I thought; in a show of immaculate cosmic timing, Mameha and Sayuri slid open the door just as we were slipping on our shoes. This night was officially perfect.
"Why good evening, Mameha-san. And if it isn't Sayuri, the apprentice the Doctor used to be so taken with!"
"Hatsumomo-san…" Mameha barely got out, stunned almost speechless. "I hardly recognized you. But my you're aging so well!"
"You can do better than that," I chided her. "But I don't think you have the time; the Doctor is inside waiting. Or at least, he was when I showed up. Let's hope he's still interested in seeing you. Good night!" I swept past them in the highest of spirits, almost skipping to our next engagement.
That week was easily one of the best in my life so far; not only did I manage to destroy Mameha's cherished plans but my own apprentice was adopted as the heir to the okiya, assuring me comfort and security for the rest of my career, possibly my life.
At the next few parties, I laughed, joked, and drank as freely as decorum allowed, determined to celebrate my victory. I would've encouraged Pumpkin to do the same, but she was still an apprentice and it wouldn't have been proper. Besides, I'd been the one doing all the work.
I spent that week in a feeling of complete supremacy, the feeling I'd lost several years earlier when I first heard of Mameha's intent to apprentice Sayuri to get rid of me. It was a wonderful to have it again, but unfortunately it was also short-lived. By the end of that week, Pumpkin's dance teacher came up to me and told me that she would not appear on stage in this year's "Dances of the Old Capital".
"I don't know what you were thinking, trying to get that girl on stage," she chided me in the hall. "She'd make a decent musician, but she's a disaster as dancer." I'd managed to convince her to give Pumpkin a trial run before she submitted her name to the geisha association as a last-minute addition, but of course she blew it from the very beginning. Missing cues, forgetting the steps, dropping the fans by accident; all were routine occurrences when dealing with Pumpkin.
I truly knew better than to think that she'd actually get into the Dances, but I'd hoped that her name would at least show up on the program as something to show Mother. But in the end, the vegetable couldn't even do that. I made sure to give her an earful later, but it couldn't change the fact that Mother would hear of our failure eventually.
It was at this point that I first considered quitting on her. Of course, I never wanted to take the girl on to begin with, but quitting in the middle of something important was simply not in my nature. I was detirmined to at least see her through until she turned her collar, but now I wondered if all my effort was even worth it.
This feeling became aggravated when I heard a few days later that Sayuri had gotten the solo role I was hoping would go – at least briefly – to Pumpkin. That evening, when I had to explain my earlier fib to Mother, was one of the most infuriating experiences in my life. But as bad as this was, it was only to get worse from here on out. My days of being the empress of Gion were numbered, and I think at least part of me knew it.