Chapter 14 Chapter Fourteen

During the week when I was preparing to debut, my aunt made me put on a full geisha apprentice costume every afternoon and walk up and down the dirt corridors of the art hall to exercise my strength.At first, I could barely walk, always worried that I would fall backwards.Younger girls dressed more ornately than older women, which meant brighter colors, brighter fabrics, and longer sashes.The belt of mature women is tied on the back of the body. We call it the "drum knot" because it is in the shape of a neat little box, and it doesn't take a lot of fabric to tie this knot.But the wide belt used by young girls in their twenties must be more eye-catching.For an apprentice geisha, the sash is the crowning glory of her body, and she uses a "dangling sash"—a knot tied almost at shoulder blade height, with the end of the sash trailing almost to the ground.No matter how bright the color of the kimono, the obi is always more colorful.When an apprentice geisha walks ahead of you on the street, what you notice is not her kimono, but her colorful dangling obi—only a little of the fringe of the kimono is visible on the shoulders and sides of her body.To achieve this effect, the wide belt must be long enough to be dragged from one end of the room to the other.However, it was not its length that made the obi so difficult to tie, but its weight, as it was usually made of heavy brocade.It takes a lot of effort just to carry the belt up the stairs, so you can imagine what it's like to wear it on your body - the thick sash is like a terrible snake, tightening your grip The entire midsection, with heavy fabric hanging down the back, makes you feel as though someone has strapped a suitcase to your back.

Finally came the day when Mameha and I had a sisterhood ceremony.The sworn ceremony will be held at the Yiliting Tea House.The entire ceremony only lasted about ten minutes from start to finish.A maid brought several glasses of sake on a tray, and Mameha and I had to share one.I first took three sips from a glass of wine, then handed the glass to Mameha, and she also took three sips.We drank three glasses of wine in this way and the ceremony was over.From that moment on, I was no longer Chiyo, but Sayuri, a novice geisha.During her first month as an apprentice geisha, a young geisha is called a "novice" and cannot perform dances or entertain guests without her sister.

After lunch, Mameha took me into a room in Ikitei Tea House and asked me to pour her a cup of tea.The teapot was empty, but she told me to pretend to pour tea.She wanted to see how I coped with my big sleeves when I poured tea.I tried my best when performing the movements, but Mameha was still very dissatisfied with me. "First," she said, "whose cup are you pouring tea into?" "Your cup!" I said. "You don't have to try to please me. Pretend I'm someone else, so am I a man or a woman?" "Man," I said. "Okay, then, pour me another cup of tea."

I repeated the motion of pouring the tea again, and Mameha almost broke her neck just to see how I stretched my arm out of the sleeve. "What do you think?" she asked me. "If you raise your arms that high, something like this is bound to happen." I lowered my arms a bit and tried again.This time, she feigned a yawn, then turned to start talking to a geisha she fancied next to her. "I suppose you mean I bore you," I said, "but how can I bore you when I've only poured you a cup of tea?" "You may not want me to look up your sleeve, but you don't have to be so stiff! A man is only interested in one thing. While pouring tea, you can make him think he is allowed to see your body some parts of it, while no one else gets it, and he'll be happy. If an apprentice geisha behaves like you just did—like a maid pouring tea—then the poor man will Big disappointment."

So I continued to practice pouring tea over and over until I rolled my sleeves just right when pouring tea, allowing guests to see my arms without making them feel that I did it deliberately, and Mameha was satisfied.Mameha said that the most beautiful part of an arm is its inside, so when I lift the teapot, I have to make sure the man sees the inside of my arm and not the outside. She asked me to do it again, this time pretending to be pouring tea for the hostess of the Yiliting Tea House.I showed my arm in the same way, and Mameha's face immediately became unhappy. "For heaven's sake, I'm a woman this time," she said. "Why did you show your arms like that? Probably you're trying to piss me off."

"Annoy you?" "Then what am I supposed to think? You're showing me how young and beautiful you are, and I'm old. If you're not showing off, you're being rude..." So I practiced it a few more times, until I learned a more dignified and proper way of pouring tea, Mameha announced that we could go to Gion together, and introduced me to the teahouse hostess she knew. This evening, for the first time in my life, I went to the Kansai International Hotel for a banquet.A banquet is a very formal event in which all the guests sit side by side in a U-shape in a large room with tatami mats, and plates of food are placed on small tables in front of them.The host geisha moved in the middle of the room—the part where the U was recessed—kneeling for a few minutes before each guest, pouring him wine and chatting with him.Banqueting is not an exciting event, and as a novice, my job is even more boring than Mameha.I just followed her like a shadow, and whenever she introduced herself to guests, I bowed deeply and said, "My name is Sayuri. I am a newbie, please take care of me."

A formal banquet usually lasts no more than two hours, so we came out of the tea house before eight o'clock.Standing on the street, I was about to thank Mameha and say goodnight, but she said to me, "Well, I was going to send you home to bed, but you look energetic. I'm going to Komorita Chaya now. You come with me, and I will show you an informal gathering. Maybe we can help you get into society as soon as possible." I couldn't tell her that I was too tired to go, so I swallowed my true feelings and followed her. After we entered the tea house, a maid led us to a room on the second floor.When Mameha knelt down and opened the door, I glimpsed seven or eight men sitting around a table, accompanied by about four geisha.We bowed and went inside.According to Mameha's instructions to me in advance, we first greeted the other geisha, then greeted the host sitting at the corner of the table, and finally greeted the rest of the guests.

When I entered the room, I saw another geisha joined the party with an apprentice.Their backs were turned to me, and I saw their faces only later.You can imagine my shock when I saw them, because on the other side of the table sat the woman I was afraid to avoid - Hatsumomo.She smiled at me, with a pumpkin sitting beside her.