Chapter 13 Chapter Thirteen

One day, Pumpkin puts on the costume of an apprentice geisha for the first time, and follows Hatsumomo to the Mizuki Tea House to attend their sisterhood ceremony. I can't wait to tell Mameha about Pumpkin's appearance.But she's been busier than ever lately, often going to Tokyo at her Dana's request, and we haven't seen each other for almost six months.After a few more weeks, she finally had time to call me to her apartment.The maid took a breath when I entered, and Mameha did the same when she came out of the back room after a while. "My God, has it been so long, Tatsumi?" she said to her maid, "I hardly recognize her."

I wondered very much what they were talking about.But it was clear that in the six months I hadn't seen them I had changed far more than I realized.Mameha made me turn my head from side to side, and kept saying, "My God, she's turned into a young woman!" She measured my waist and hips, and then said I said, "Well, there is no doubt that a kimono will fit on you like a sock on your feet." Finally, Mameha asked Tatsumi to take me to the back room to pick out a suitable kimono for me.I came to Mameha apartment in the blue and white cotton robe I wore to school in the morning, but what Ke Tatsumi changed into was a dark blue silk robe with bright red and yellow wheels on it. pattern.It's not the most beautiful kimono I've ever seen, but when Tatsumi tied a bright green obi around my waist, I looked at myself in the full-length mirror and, apart from my mediocre hairdo, looked like a A young apprentice geisha on her way to a banquet.Then, Mameha asked me to go out with her.

As we stepped onto the street, an elderly woman slowed down and bowed to Mameha, and then she turned to me, bowing to me in much the same way.I simply don't know what this means, because I've hardly been noticed in the street before.But within a few seconds, the same thing happened again—this time bowing to me was a young geisha I admired, who had never glanced in my direction before. As we walked along the main street, almost everyone we passed said something to Mameha, at least bowed to her, and then nodded to me or bowed as well.Several times, I stopped and bowed in return, so I fell a step or two behind Mameha.She saw that I was a bit overwhelmed, so she took me into a quiet alley and showed me the correct way to walk.My problem, she explained, was that I hadn't learned to separate my upper and lower body movements.When I need to bow to someone, I stop. "Slowing down is a way of showing respect," she said. "The slower you go, the more respectful you appear. When bowing to your teacher, you can stop completely, but you don't have to be too slow with others. Walk slowly, or you will never reach your destination. If possible, walk in a consistent rhythm and in small steps so that the hem of your kimono keeps fluttering. When a woman walks, there should be a sense of delicacy. The impression of being romantic on a sandbar.”

From then on, Mameha often took me around, so more and more people knew me. One day, Mameha told me that it was time for my official debut. "You'll make a good geisha," she said, "but you'll be an even better geisha if you use your eyes well." "I never thought I could talk with my eyes," I said. "The eyes are the most expressive part of a woman, especially to you. Stand here for a moment and I'll show you." Mameha turned the corner, leaving me alone in the alley.After a while, she came out again and walked past me, looking away, giving me the impression that she was afraid of what might happen if she looked my way.

"Well, if you were a man," she said, "what would you think?" "I would think you were so intent on avoiding me that you couldn't think of anything else." "Is it possible I'm just looking at the drainpipe at the bottom of the house?" "Even so, I think you did it just to avoid looking at me." "Here's what I'm going to say. A girl with stunning looks will never accidentally send an inappropriate message to a guy. But guys will notice your eyes and imagine you're giving them a hint, even if you don't. Didn't do that. Now, watch me do it again."

Mameha turned the corner again, and this time she walked back with her eyes on the ground, looking absent-minded.Then, as she approached me, she looked up at me for a moment, but quickly looked away again.I gotta say, I had an electric shock.If I were a man, I must have felt that she was trying to hide some strong emotion in her heart. "If I can achieve this effect with a pair of ordinary eyes," she said to me, "think about it, your special eyes can turn all living beings upside down. If you make a man faint in the street, I will also Wouldn't be surprised." "Miss Mameha!" I said, "If I had the power to make a man faint, I'm sure I would have known."

"I'm surprised you don't know it yourself. Let's make a deal that as soon as you wink at a man and stop him, I'll take you officially into society." I can't wait to step into the social world, and even if Mameha asked me to cut down a tree with my eyes, I would definitely give it a go.I begged her to walk with me a little way, and let me try it out on a few men, and she happily obliged.The first man I met was already very old, as old as bones in his kimono.He walked slowly down the street on crutches, his glasses were dusty, and I wouldn't be surprised if he bumped his head against the corner of a building.He didn't see me at all, so we continued walking towards Shijo Street.Soon, I saw two businessmen in suits, but I had no chance with them again.

Just as I was about to give up, I saw a delivery boy in his mid-twenties walking towards me with a tray full of lunch boxes.I caught Mameha staring at him, and she said: "Let him drop the tray." Before I could figure out if she was joking, she turned into a side road and went off. I don't believe that a fourteen-year-old girl can give a man a look that will make him drop something.I think this kind of thing can only happen in movies or novels.If I hadn't noticed two things, I would have given up without even trying.First, the boy was already staring at me like a hungry cat staring at a mouse.Second, most streets in Gion don't have curbs, but this one does, and this delivery boy was walking near a curb.If I could just stare at him so embarrassed that he had to step onto the sidewalk, he might trip over the curb and drop the tray he was holding.I first looked at the ground in front of me, and then I tried to imitate the eyes that Mameha had shown me a few minutes earlier.I raised my eyes, met the boy's eyes, and looked away quickly for a moment.After walking a few steps, I did it again.This time, he looked at me intently, probably forgetting the tray in his hand, and even the curb at his feet.As we got very close, I adjusted my course a little and moved closer to him so that he had to step over the curb and walk on the sidewalk if he wanted to pass me.Then I looked him in the eyes again, and as he tried to go around me, as I wanted, his foot caught on the curb and he fell to the ground, spilling his lunch box on the sidewalk.Ha, I couldn't help laughing out loud!To my delight, the boy laughed too.I helped him pick up the lunch box, gave him a smile, he bowed deeply to me, and started on the road again.This is the first time a man has bowed so deeply to me.

After a while, I joined Mameha, and she saw what had just happened. "I think you have everything you need," she said. I'm only fourteen, but I feel as if I've lived two lifetimes.The new life is just beginning and the old life ended some time ago.I picture a garden in my mind where the flowers are just coming out of the ground, so I don't know what the flowers will be like in the future.My heart was filled with excitement; in the center of my imaginary garden stood a statue of a geisha, which was exactly what I wanted to achieve.