Memoirs of a Geisha | Page 7

Mommy is going to die-"
"This pot is cracked. Look!"
"It isn't cracked," I said. "That line has always been there."
"But how did the water get out just then?"
"You sloshed it out. I watched you."
For a moment I could tell that Satsu was feeling something very strongly\
, which translated itself onto
her face as a look of extreme puzzlement, just as so many of her feeling\
s did. But she said nothing
further to me. She only took the pot from the stove and walked toward th\
e door to dump it out.
Chapter two
The following morning, to take my mind off my troubles, I went swimming \
in the pond just inland from
our house amid a grove of pine trees. The children from the village went\
there most mornings when the
weather was right. Satsu came too sometimes, wearing a scratchy bathing \
dress she'd made from our
father's old fishing clothes. It wasn't a very good bathing dress, becau\
se it sagged at her chest whenever
she bent over, and one of the boys would scream, "Look! You can see Moun\
t Fuji!" But she wore it just

the same.
Around noontime, I decided to return home for something to eat. Satsu ha\
d left much earlier with the
Sugi boy, who was the son of Mr. Tanaka's assistant. She acted like a do\
g around him. When he went
somewhere, he looked back over his shoulder to signal that she should fo\
llow, and she always did. I
didn't expect to see her again until dinner-time, but as I neared the ho\
use I caught sight of her on the path
ahead of me, leaning against a tree. If you'd seen what was happening, y\
ou might have understood it
right away; but I was only a little girl. Satsu had her scratchy bathing\
dress up around her shoulders and
the Sugi boy was playing around with her "Mount Fujis," as the boys call\
ed them.
Ever since our mother first became ill, my sister had grown a bit pudgy.\
Her breasts were every bit as
unruly as her hair. What amazed me most was that their unruliness appear\
ed to be the very thing the
Sugi boy found fascinating about them. He jiggled them with his hand, an\
d pushed them to one side to
watch them swing back and settle against her chest. I knew I shouldn't b\
e spying, but I couldn't think
what else to do with myself while the path ahead of me was blocked. And \
then suddenly I heard a man's
voice behind me say:
"Chiyo-chan, why are you squatting there behind that tree?"
Considering that I was a little girl of nine, coming from a pond where I\
'd been swimming; and
considering that as yet I had no shapes or textures on my body to concea\
l from anyone . . . well, it's easy
to guess what I was wearing.
When I turned-still squatting on the path, and covering my nakedness wit\
h my arms as best I could-there
stood Mr. Tanaka. I could hardly have been more embarrassed.
"That must be your tipsy house over there," he said. "And over there, th\
at looks like the Sugi boy. He
certainly looks busy! Who's that girl with him?"
"Well, it might be my sister, Mr. Tanaka. I'm waiting for them to leave.\
"
Mr. Tanaka cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, and then I hea\
rd the sound of the Sugi boy
running away down the path. My sister must have run away too, for Mr. Ta\
naka told me I could go
home and get some clothes now. "When you see that sister of yours," he s\
aid to me, "I want you to give
her this."
He handed me a packet wrapped in rice paper, about the size of a fish he\
ad. "It's some Chinese herbs,"
he told me. "Don't listen to Dr. Miura if he tells you they're worthless\
. Have your sister make tea with
them and give the tea to your mother, to ease the pain. They're very pre\
cious herbs. Make sure not to
waste them."
"I'd better do it myself in that case, sir. My sister isn't very good at\
making tea."

Dr. Miura told me your mother is sick," he said. "Now you tell me your s\
ister can't even be trusted to
make tea! With your father so old, what will become of you, Chiyo-chan? \
Who takes care of you even
now?"
I suppose I take care of myself these days."
I know a certain man. He's older now, but when he was a boy about your a\
ge, his father died. The very
next year his mother died, and then his older brother ran away to Osaka \
and left him alone. Sounds a bit
like you, don't you think?"
Mr. Tanaka gave me a look as if to say that I shouldn't dare to disagree\
.
"Well, that man's name is Tanaka Ichiro," he went on. "Yes, me . . . alt\
hough