Memoirs of a Geisha (29 page)

“He's tried to teach me about it over the years,” the Chairman said quietly to me, “but I'm a very poor student.”

“The Chairman is a brilliant man,” Nobu said. “He's a poor student of sumo because he doesn't care about it. He wouldn't even be here this afternoon, except that he was generous enough to accept my proposal that Iwamura Electric be a sponsor of the exhibition.”

By now both teams had finished their ring-entering ceremonies. Two more special ceremonies followed, one for each of the two
yokozuna
. A
yokozuna
is the very highest rank in sumo—“just like Mameha's position in Gion,” as Nobu explained it to me. I had no reason to doubt him; but if Mameha ever took half as much time entering a party as these
yokozuna
took entering the ring, she'd certainly never be invited back. The second of the two was short and had a most remarkable face—not at all flabby, but chiseled like stone, and with a jaw that made me think of the squared front end of a fishing boat. The audience cheered him so loudly I covered my ears. His name was Miyagiyama, and if you know sumo at all, you'll understand why they cheered as they did.

“He is the greatest wrestler I have ever seen,” Nobu told me.

Just before the bouts were ready to begin, the announcer listed the winner's prizes. One was a considerable sum of cash offered by Nobu Toshikazu, president of the Iwamura Electric Company. Nobu seemed very annoyed when he heard this and said, “What a fool! The money isn't from me, it's from Iwamura Electric. I apologize, Chairman. I'll call someone over to have the announcer correct his mistake.”

“There's no mistake, Nobu. Considering the great debt I owe you, it's the least I can do.”

“The Chairman is too generous,” Nobu said. “I'm very grateful.” And with this, he passed a sake cup to the Chairman and filled it, and the two of them drank together.

When the first wrestlers entered the ring, I expected the bout to begin right away. Instead they spent five minutes or more tossing salt on the mound and squatting in order to tip their bodies to one side and raise a leg high in the air before slamming it down. From time to time they crouched, glowering into each other's eyes, but just when I thought they were going to charge, one would stand and stroll away to scoop up another handful of salt. Finally, when I wasn't expecting it, it happened. They slammed into each other, grabbing at loincloths; but within an instant, one had shoved the other off balance and the match was over. The audience clapped and shouted, but Nobu just shook his head and said, “Poor technique.”

During the bouts that followed, I often felt that one ear was linked to my mind and the other to my heart; because on one side I listened to what Nobu told me—and much of it was interesting. But the sound of the Chairman's voice on the other side, as he went on talking with Mameha, always distracted me.

An hour or more passed, and then the movement of a brilliant color in Awajiumi's section caught my eye. It was an orange silk flower swaying in a woman's hair as she took her place on her knees. At first I thought it was Korin, and that she had changed her kimono. But then I saw it wasn't Korin at all; it was Hatsumomo.

To see her there when I hadn't expected her . . . I felt a jolt as if I'd stepped on an electric wire. Surely it was only a matter of time before she found a way of humiliating me, even here in this giant hall amid hundreds of people. I didn't mind her making a fool of me in front of a crowd, if it had to happen; but I couldn't bear the thought of looking like a fool in front of the Chairman. I felt such a hotness in my throat, I could hardly even pretend to listen when Nobu began telling me something about the two wrestlers climbing onto the mound. When I looked at Mameha, she flicked her eyes toward Hatsumomo, and then said, “Chairman, forgive me, I have to excuse myself. It occurs to me Sayuri may want to do the same.”

She waited until Nobu was done with his story, and then I followed her out of the hall.

“Oh, Mameha-san . . . she's like a demon,” I said.

“Korin left more than an hour ago. She must have found Hatsumomo and sent her here. You ought to feel flattered, really, considering that Hatsumomo goes to so much trouble just to torment you.”

“I can't bear to have her make a fool of me here in front of . . . well, in front of all these people.”

“But if you do something she finds laughable, she'll leave you alone, don't you think?”

“Please, Mameha-san . . . don't make me embarrass myself.”

We'd crossed a courtyard and were just about to climb the steps into the building where the toilets were housed; but Mameha led me some distance down a covered passageway instead. When we were out of earshot of anyone, she spoke quietly to me.

“Nobu-san and the Chairman have been great patrons of mine over the years. Heaven knows Nobu can be harsh with people he doesn't like, but he's as loyal to his friends as a retainer is to a feudal lord; and you'll never meet a more trustworthy man. Do you think Hatsumomo understands these qualities? All she sees when she looks at Nobu is . . . ‘Mr. Lizard.' That's what she calls him. ‘Mameha-san, I saw you with Mr. Lizard last night! Oh, goodness, you look all splotchy. I think he's rubbing off on you.' That sort of thing. Now, I don't care what you think of Nobu-san at the moment. In time you'll come to see what a good man he is. But Hatsumomo may very well leave you alone if she thinks you've taken a strong liking to him.”

I couldn't think how to respond to this. I wasn't even sure just yet what Mameha was asking me to do.

“Nobu-san has been talking to you about sumo for much of the afternoon,” she went on. “For all anyone knows, you adore him. Now put on a show for Hatsumomo's benefit. Let her think you're more charmed by him than you've ever been by anyone. She'll think it's the funniest thing she's ever seen. Probably she'll want you to stay on in Gion just so she can see more of it.”

“But, Mameha-san, how am I going to make Hatsumomo think I'm fascinated by him?”

“If you can't manage such a thing, I haven't trained you properly,” she replied.

When we returned to our box, Nobu had once again fallen into conversation with a man nearby. I couldn't interrupt, so I pretended to be absorbed in watching the wrestlers on the mound prepare for their bout. The audience had grown restless; Nobu wasn't the only one talking. I felt such a longing to turn to the Chairman and ask if he recalled a day several years ago when he'd shown kindness to a young girl . . . but of course, I could never say such a thing. Besides, it would be disastrous for me to focus my attention on him while Hatsumomo was watching.

Soon Nobu turned back to me and said, “These bouts have been tedious. When Miyagiyama comes out, we'll see some real skill.”

This, it seemed to me, was my chance to dote on him. “But the wrestling I've seen already has been so impressive!” I said. “And the things President Nobu has been kind enough to tell me have been so interesting, I can hardly imagine we haven't seen the best already.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” said Nobu. “Not one of these wrestlers deserves to be in the same ring as Miyagiyama.”

Over Nobu's shoulder, I could see Hatsumomo in a far tier. She was chatting with Awajiumi and didn't appear to be looking at me.

“I know this may seem a very foolish thing to ask,” I said, “but how can a wrestler as small as Miyagiyama be the greatest?” And if you had seen my face, you might have thought no subject had ever interested me more. I felt ridiculous, pretending to be absorbed by something so trivial; but no one who saw us would have known that we weren't talking about the deepest secrets of our souls. I'm happy to say that at that very moment, I caught a glimpse of Hatsumomo turning her head toward me.

“Miyagiyama only looks small because the others are so much fatter,” Nobu was saying. “But he's very vain about his size. His height and weight were printed in the newspaper perfectly correctly a few years ago; and yet he was so offended he had a friend hit him on top of the head with a plank, and then gorged himself on sweet potatoes and water, and went down to the newspaper to show them they were wrong.”

Probably I would have laughed at nearly anything Nobu had said—for Hatsumomo's benefit, I mean. But in fact, it really was quite funny to imagine Miyagiyama squinting his eyes shut and waiting for the plank to come banging down. I held that image in my mind and laughed as freely as I dared, and soon Nobu began to laugh with me. We must have looked like the best of friends to Hatsumomo, for I saw her clapping her hands in delight.

Soon I struck upon the idea of pretending that Nobu himself was the Chairman; every time he spoke, I overlooked his gruffness and tried to imagine gentleness instead. Gradually I found myself able to look at his lips and block from my mind the discoloring and the scars, and imagine that they were the Chairman's lips, and that every nuance in his voice was some comment on his feelings about me. At one point I think I convinced myself I wasn't even in the Exhibition Hall, but in a quiet room kneeling beside the Chairman. I hadn't felt such bliss in as long as I could remember. Like a ball tossed in the air that seems to hang motionless before it falls, I felt myself suspended in a state of quiet timelessness. As I glanced around the hall, I saw only the beauty of its giant wooden timbers and smelled the aroma of the sweet-rice cakes. I thought this state might never end; but then at some point I made a comment I don't even remember, and Nobu responded:

“What are you talking about? Only a fool could think such an ignorant thing!”

My smile fell before I could stop it, just as if the strings holding it had been cut. Nobu was looking me square in the eye. Of course, Hatsumomo sat far away, but I felt certain she was watching us. And then it occurred to me that if a geisha or a young apprentice grew teary-eyed in front of a man, wouldn't most anyone take it for infatuation? I might have responded to his harsh comment with an apology; instead I tried to imagine it was the Chairman who had spoken to me so abruptly, and in a moment my lip was trembling. I lowered my head and made a great show of being childish.

To my surprise, Nobu said, “I've hurt you, haven't I?”

It wasn't difficult for me to sniff theatrically. Nobu went on looking at me for a long moment and then said, “You're a charming girl.” I'm sure he intended to say something further, but at that moment Miyagiyama came into the hall and the crowd began to roar.

For a long while, Miyagiyama and the other wrestler, whose name was Saiho, swaggered around the mound, scooping up salt and tossing it into the ring, or stamping their feet as sumo wrestlers do. Every time they crouched, facing each other, they made me think of two boulders on the point of tipping over. Miyagiyama always seemed to lean forward a bit more than Saiho, who was taller and much heavier. I thought when they slammed into each other, poor Miyagiyama would certainly be driven back; I couldn't imagine anyone dragging Saiho across that ring. They took up their position eight or nine times without either of the men charging; then Nobu whispered to me:

“
Hataki komi!
He's going to use
hataki komi
. Just watch his eyes.”

I did what Nobu suggested, but all I noticed was that Miyagiyama never looked at Saiho. I don't think Saiho liked being ignored in this way, because he glowered at his opponent as ferociously as an animal. His jowls were so enormous that his head was shaped like a mountain; and from anger his face had begun to turn red. But Miyagiyama continued to act as though he scarcely noticed him.

“It won't last much longer,” Nobu whispered to me.

And in fact, the next time they crouched on their fists, Saiho charged.

To see Miyagiyama leaning forward as he did, you'd have thought he was ready to throw his weight into Saiho. But instead he used the force of Saiho's charge to stand back up on his feet. In an instant he swiveled out of the way like a swinging door, and his hand came down onto the back of Saiho's neck. By now Saiho's weight was so far forward, he looked like someone falling down the stairs. Miyagiyama gave him a push with all his force, and Saiho brushed right over the rope at his feet. Then to my astonishment, this mountain of a man flew past the lip of the mound and came sprawling right into the first row of the audience. The spectators tried to scamper out of the way; but when it was over, one man stood up gasping for air, because one of Saiho's shoulders had crushed him.

The encounter had scarcely lasted a second. Saiho must have felt humiliated by his defeat, because he gave the most abbreviated bow of all the losers that day and walked out of the hall while the crowd was still in an uproar.

“That,” Nobu said to me, “is the move called
hataki komi
.”

“Isn't it fascinating,” Mameha said, in something of a daze. She didn't even finish her thought.

“Isn't what fascinating?” the Chairman asked her.

“What Miyagiyama just did. I've never seen anything like it.”

“Yes, you have. Wrestlers do that sort of thing all the time.”

“Well, it certainly has got me thinking . . .” Mameha said.

*  *  *

Later, on our way back to Gion, Mameha turned to me excitedly in the rickshaw. “That sumo wrestler gave me a most marvelous idea,” she said. “Hatsumomo doesn't even know it, but she's just been thrown off-balance herself. And she won't even find it out until it's too late.”

“You have a plan? Oh, Mameha-san, please tell it to me!”

“Do you think for a moment I would?” she said. “I'm not even going to tell it to my own maid. Just be very sure to keep Nobu-san interested in you. Everything depends on him, and on one other man as well.”

“What other man?”

“A man you haven't met yet. Now don't talk about it any further! I've probably said more than I should already. It's a great thing you met Nobu-san today. He may just prove to be your rescuer.”