If I were to tell you that after my meeting with Nobu, my life became perfect, and I was given everything I wanted, well, it would sound quite lovely, wouldn't it?
It would also be a lie.
It is true that after Nobu's recommendation, my future as a geisha was all but assured. I had known it from the moment he had left Mameha's apartment. But it all happened much faster than I could have imagined.
Even after gaining Nobu's approval, I was still worried I wouldn't be able to become a geisha, because I knew it would be difficult to convince Mother to pay for my lessons. But miraculously, Nobu agreed to invest in my expenses for geisha training - an unheard of arrangement. Mameha announced that month I had a patron willing to pay for my geisha lessons, and the word surprise is inadequate to describe the reaction from everyone at the okiya. Mameha insisted on keeping my benefactor secret from everyone, even Mother. She had told Mother it was because "a gentleman prefers discretion," but everyone knew it was mostly because of Hatsumomo, who was furious. Pumpkin would sometimes ask me what I knew, and I would lie about how I didn't really know what stranger would care to help me. No one except Pumpkin believed my lies, but Mother never pressed. She didn't care as long as money flowed.
I wouldn't know until many years after Nobu's death that he had approached Mameha about helping me without being asked. Apparently, he had felt very sorry for me, and had been openly angry for a long time about the many girls who had gone through what I had ("Kidnapping girls from their homes to turn them into geisha or send them to Miyagawa-cho, this is barbaric!"). And since he couldn't help me escape, he figured that it would at least be better for me to be a geisha than a servant. He didn't even want to really be my danna at the time, and we barely saw each other during the time I was training. He only developed feelings for me later, to his great misfortune.
Sometimes, I wish it had happened differently. That instead, I had not impressed Nobu, and Mameha had said, "I'm sorry Chiyo-chan, but I can't help you become a geisha." What would my life have become? Perhaps I would have gone to the city and tried to enroll in the university. Or maybe I would have left Japan entirely to start a new life. Would I have been happier? Maybe. People are easily seduced by the dream of paths we don't take. If I had done something different with my life, I am sure I would have wondered about who I would have been as a geisha. Perhaps I'd feel the same sense of regret I feel now.
But at least if I did, my soul would have stayed intact. And Nobu would not have met his demise because of me.