I've just described myself, somewhat contemptuously, as an old fox; but now that I think of it, I'm stunned to realize that I was only twenty-one at the time.

My brother asked me, "Sis, why aren't you going to work?" I made a joke of it.

"Well, I've been thinking I'd become a GI whore!"

He took me seriously and started crying. "Sis, if things are that bad, then I'll—I'll quit school and go to work."

My brother was everything to me. My dreams, my affections, they were all for him. He was my reason for living, the source of the courage that kept me going through bitter times. I can't count the humiliations I endured because I couldn't read or write. I wanted to educate my brother at least to the level of middle school. He needn't have a grand-sounding title or get rich and drive around in his own car. If he were to become that sort of a man—buying geisha, getting blind drunk, behaving barbarically, making people cry—what would be the point? I just wanted to make him into the sort of human being who could write his own name wherever he went, who worked honestly and didn't lack for three meals a day; someone who could walk down the main street holding his head high and swinging his arms with pride; someone who need never humble himself, no matter what the circumstances. That was all I asked. My life was already over; it was enough that I should be the soil from which he could grow. That I knew for sure.

When my brother was taken in by the plasterer, it was on the condition that they'd at least put him through primary school; but he'd been able to attend for only about half of every year and had fallen behind. This was why, when we first came to Chiba, my brother had said, "I don't want to go; I don't understand anything." But with a bit of scolding and a bit of encouragement, I made him go. I went to see his teachers and explained the situation, and I asked them to help make sure my brother wasn't bullied. After that he went cheerfully, but if I were then to set foot in the red-light district and have my brother quit school on me, it would be disastrous.

If my brother hadn't objected, I might well have gone back to the foul life I'd led before. This little boy, who had no experience of filth, begged me with those beautiful eyes, which seemed to see right to the bottom of my heart, not to go to work as a geisha or a GI whore, even if we had to eat scraps and dress in rags.

"Sis, I'll go straight to bed in the evenings; I don't have to eat. Come on, hurry up and get in bed. Once you're asleep you forget you're hungry."

Having said this, he would get into bed before it was dark and lie there staring vacantly at the ceiling. We didn't have any savings, and so we soon ran out of food. Everyday I went digging for clams to make into soup; and as we sipped it, we'd say to each other, "Wouldn't it be delicious if only we had some miso [bean paste] to put in it?"

Before long I heard from a neighbor that you could make money by going out to the countryside to buy food and then reselling it in town. I went to see Elder Sister Karuta [one of four older geisha at Masuda’s geisha house as a teenager] in Goi to borrow some start-up money and had myself included in the group.

But at that time you couldn't just go and buy a train ticket whenever you wanted; the whole business required extraordinary effort. First you would sleep squatting on the street with your arms around your knees; in the morning you'd finally get hold of a ticket and get on the first train; then you'd go way out into the country where no one else went, looking for things, walking for miles. You'd come back loaded with rice and your arms full of sweet potatoes and drive your weary body to Asakusa and Ochanomizu [well-known districts in Tokyo], where you'd make the rounds selling the things you'd brought back. I'll never forget the price of sweet potatoes: you'd buy them for 8 yen and sell them for 12. My little brother would look after me when I came home exhausted. Sometimes it would be as late as nine or ten at night, but he'd always be waiting up with something prepared for dinner.

We couldn't afford to buy charcoal, so we grilled, or rather smoked, our mackerel over twigs of kindling; day after day, we ate steamed sweet potatoes and that smoky mackerel. Still, when I think back to that period in my life, even now I'm overwhelmed with feelings of warmth. Sleeping on the street and buying the ticket was mostly my brother's job.

There were sixteen or seventeen of us in the foraging group. Along the way we'd split up into groups of two or three and head off into the farming villages. I used to go with two middle-aged women, but they weren't used to the work and weren't making a very good go of it. They would buy only what they needed, and then I'd buy up what they didn't want, the whole lot. But one day we couldn't get our hands on more than a few pounds of sweet potatoes. "It's not enough;' they said, "but it looks like today's just a bad day; we'll go back now." It would have been unbearably lonely being left there all by myself, so I went back to the station with them, almost in tears. The pain my brother had endured, sleeping all night on the street, the train fare that had wiped out what little money we had--now it would all be wasted. But just then, as luck would have it, one of our group, Yasu-san, spoke to me.

"What's wrong? Your rucksack's empty!"

"It was a bad day today" I was on the verge of tears.

"What a shame! And there was still stuff left over where I went.... Go on back there and buy it!"

The last train from Narita back to Chiba left a little after five. So long as I could catch it, I'd be all right, I thought, and off I trudged again. It was almost five miles to the place Yasu-san had told me about, and another five back to the station; all in all, I'd have to walk nearly ten miles. I'd just about had it. Then Yasu-san caught up with me and said he'd come along.

Sure enough, I managed to buy a pile of sweet potatoes. My rucksack was full and I should have left it at that; but then I bought almost twenty pounds of giant radishes, which I carried off in my arms. When I got on the train, I put the bundle of radishes on top of my rucksack and secured it to my neck. The train was packed; getting on and off was almost a battle to the death. Weighed down with baggage, pushed off balance by the crowd, I was the very last to board. Yasu-san gave me a shove, and finally I grabbed hold of a hand rail inside the carriage. Having pushed me on, there was no way Yasu-san could get through the doorway himself; he had to dash around to another door.

My feet were on the floor of the train and I clung to the rail with my hands, but bent like a bow, the rest of my body and all my baggage hung outside. The bundle of radishes on top of the rucksack slipped down and hung from my neck. I struggled desperately to work my way inside the carriage, but the people inside were pushing and shoving, and I knew that if I once let go, I'd fall out of the train. One of the station attendants spotted me.

"Let go! Let go immediately!"

As I was struggling I could hear him shouting at me. In a daze, I opened my hands and let go.

Thrown back onto the platform, I fell face up on top of the sweet potatoes. I hit my back so hard it knocked the wind out of me, and I couldn't get up again right away. The station attendant was coming toward me, jabbering incomprehensibly. I lay there ashamed and miserable, but when I lifted my head and looked up, trembling with fear, there was Yasu-san standing between me and the station attendant. He said he'd seen me fall and had jumped off himself.

That was the last train, they said; the first one in the morning would leave a little after five, and there'd be no more until then. With the help of the station attendant, we arranged to stay at an inn. At the inn, we got them to boil up some of our sweet potatoes, and we ate them together. So far so good, but then it came time to go to bed—in the same room. "Looks like more trouble!" I thought to myself.

Yasu-san began telling me the following story: A long time ago, I was a gangster, and I thought I was really big stuff. "Yasu the drinker," they called me. In 1939 I was called up, and being rather wild to start with, I did some horrible things in China. I raped Chinese women. I knew if it got out that I'd raped them, I'd be punished. So I killed them. In 1942 I became a squad leader. I had a guy under me who was utterly loyal tome. If I did something wrong, he'd feel the pain. Our position was bombed, and while we were pulling back to new positions, we went for more than twenty days without food. We turned into wild animals; but this guy, he would dig up tree roots and give them to me to eat. Everyone was frantic, searching for something for himself to eat; and I was completely shameless and ate whatever he gave me without a second thought. Before we made it to the next position, the enemy hit us again. This man of mine lay on top of me and protected me with his own body; it's thanks to him that I'm alive. But I lost my hearing and my tongue froze up: I still had my voice but I couldn't make any words. And all the flesh on my right palm was gone. I was repatriated, and I recovered, but my right hand was useless, so they discharged me. I cried. The guy who gave up his life for me was still in my thoughts, and I wanted to go back to the battlefield and fight. I hadn't kept a single thing to remember him by: that's the kind of guy I'd been. I couldn't even spare the energy to blame myself for it. I was a wretched specimen, just clinging to my own life. I'm trying to make amends for that now. I've given up drinking and women.

As he finished, he showed me his hand, its fingers curled up like a bear's claw. Then he turned his back to me and fell fast asleep. I was ashamed I'd felt even the slightest bit wary of him.

After that, I always went with Yasu-san on foraging expeditions. Not once did he ever bother me or do anything cruel; he always looked after me kindly.

It was around the time when controls on foraging in the countryside had become tight, and I was picked up by a policeman. He took me back to the police station and told me he was going to confiscate my potatoes.

"If you think you're going to take these away, just try it! I'll hang myself right here in front of you, that's what! You think I do this for the fun of it? If I lose these we'll starve to death! Give them back!" My nose began to run, and I wailed and cried.

"That's no way for a nice girl like you to behave—here now, blow your nose!" The policeman handed me a tissue and sent me on my way. "But don't let us catch you at this again. I'm only doing my job; if I see you I can't let you get away with it. Today we'll pretend I didn't see you."

When I was a geisha and a kept woman, I did know how terrifying other people could be, but I didn't know just how painful it was to work hard. As I've said before, working at the sawmill near my aunt's place was my first shock. Up until then, despite all else, I'd assumed that as long as I had a rice bowl, there'd be food to put in my mouth. But then I discovered that food was something that could be had only if you worked until you dropped.

The strain of working too hard finally took its toll, and in March of the year after I'd begun foraging in the countryside, I took to my bed for a week. I don't remember clearly what happened after that. At any rate, foraging for food to sell was heavy physical work; it was obvious that my body couldn't take it any longer.

One day when I was walking through the grounds of Chiba Shrine, I ran into Matsumura-san, a Korean I knew slightly, so I asked him if there wasn't some way I could make a bit of money. I felt like I was grasping at straws, but I got him to let me sell soap. In the grounds of the shrine was a lively outdoor black market, and most of the stall operators were Koreans. I fell in with them.

"Right this way! Right this way! Top-class luxury soap for sale! Gentle to your hands! Look how rich and foamy it is!," I'd cry out, stopping people in their tracks and showing them how it foamed up. At first I found it hard to get my voice out. And although I claimed it wouldn't hurt your skin, in fact it did, so badly that it peeled off in sheets. It was terrible stuff that turned to mush in the space of three days. I bought it for 15 yen and sold it for 20.

The market was right on the border between heaven and hell. If you failed to grab a spot right in the center but were a little off to the side, you'd find yourself square in the middle of hell. It fairly teemed with terrifying goings-on such as you'd never see on the right side of the world.

"Hey girl! Got any smokes?" With an opening line something like this, one or other of a group of wannabe gangsters would come over and try to strike up conversation. My heart starts to pound, but if you let your fear show, it'll do you no good in the long run. I answer him with all the courage I can muster.

"I might have a few. But who are you with?"

"Don't give me that stuff! You're new here, aren't you girl?" "Me? I'm not with anyone. I don't swing the kind of weight you guys do, either. Matsumura said I could set up here, that's all." "Oh, I get it. You're his little piece of ass, eh?" one of them says, cocking his little finger at me knowingly.

"What's it to you, dearie? Here, want one?" I offer him a cigarette and take one for myself; but I can hardly keep my hand from trembling as I light it.

Almost every day there'd be an argument so violent it'd make the likes of me cringe with fear. But after a couple of months had passed, I became completely used to the life. I got the hang of making the pitch and was selling more and more soap.

Once I got to know the Koreans, I found them easy to get along with. When a group of them got together, they'd talk in booming voices, full of confidence; but on their own they were timid. Like a dog with its ears drooping and its tail between its legs, they'd shrink back as if to say, I surrender. I came to feel as if I were one of them. When they'd lose a fight, I'd be the one who'd feel bitter. "Give it another go!" I'd say, stamping my feet on the ground. "The bastards! If only I were strong enough!"

I felt completely at home in the role of gang moll. One day, one of the gangsters, a guy of about thirty-four or thirty-five whom everyone looked up to as "Boss Gan'' came over and for no good reason began to pick a fight with me.

"You want me to dump all this stuff on the ground for you?" he said, thumping his fist on the stand where I had the soap laid out.

If gangsters were always hanging around in front of my stall, no customers would come near me. I knew I had to have a word with him about this. So I put on my best imitation of a brazen face and said:

"So you're Gan, the big boss around here, eh? Well Boss, how's it gonna look if word gets around that big boy's been picking on little girls like me? What say you meet me at eight tonight at Inohanayama?" Inohanayama was around behind the shrine.

"All right, then. How many of you coming?" he answered.

"What the hell are you on about? I'm not coming to pick a fight with you! I'm coming to put a proposition to you. One to one. I just wanna talk to you, one human being to another; that's why I'm asking you."

If we couldn't reach an agreement that evening, I was determined to play my last card. Being the mistress of a gangster boss might be all right. I certainly had no sense of feminine virtue. I'd never been taught any. And even if I had, in the world I'd been living in, it would've been worth about as much as an empty pack of cigarettes.

Inohanayama was a heavenly place, full of camellias in bloom. I threw myself on the ground at Gan's feet. "Boss, I beg you! I've got a little brother who means more to me than my own life. You don't know how I've suffered for not having any education. I want to give my brother enough schooling so he can at least write his own name. Once I've done that, I don't care what happens to me. Until then, I want to stick to the straight and narrow. If I don't keep at it now, my brother'll quit school. I beg you, please, stand by me! It's the truth." I pressed my forehead into the dust.

"You know what pisses me off that you, a Japanese, are the mistress of a Korean, that's what."

"I'm not! It's Matsumura's old lady who looks after me, not him. If you think I'm lying, go ask her! Until my little brother can stand on his own two feet, I've renounced men."

"All right, then. I'm with you. But if you're lying and I find out you've got a guy on the side, you won't get off lightly."

We parted and I returned home. That evening, I hacked off at the roots the waist-length hair that'd been so dear to me for so many years, and I offered it up to who-knows-which god at a small shrine that still survived in the burned-out remains of the main shrine. "No men until my brother can stand on his own two feet," I vowed. Unawares, my brother slept peacefully through all this, but the next morning he was wide-eyed with astonishment.

"Sis, what have you done? Even your hair? It meant so much to you!"

"It's going to get hot; it'll just get in the way," I said nonchalantly and went off to the hairdresser to have it trimmed.

There's nothing you can't do if you throw yourself into it with all your heart. I managed to gain the support of those guys we call gangsters. Even they, once you get to know them, are good people. They're quick to anger, but if you treat them decently, more than likely they'll put their own head in the noose for you. I decided to throw a big party outside in the grounds of the shrine, and I invited all the gangsters and treated them to grilled dried cuttlefish and a big bottle of cheap liquor. Once my liquor was gone, they got together and brought out another big bottle; they laughed and sang and seemed to enjoy themselves. I played the gang moll and sat with my legs crossed, pretending I could drink as much as the best of them, but that liquor didn't agree with me at all.

I never let any of the guys I was friendly with come near the house; my brother was sensitive and I wanted to spare him any hurt. Yasu-san was the only one who was a good friend to my brother. He'd set a good example for him, I felt, and he'd be careful not to teach him anything bad.

One morning, about a year or so after I'd fallen in with this group, I went to work as usual, only to find everyone in an uproar because Gan had been stabbed. I found out which hospital he was in and hurried there. Gan was groaning in pain, and his girlfriend Masako was sitting, downcast, by his bed. The story was that the night before, three guys were passing on the street when suddenly they stabbed him and ran away. Luckily they'd got him in the appendix, so his life wasn't in danger, but Masako said she was worried because his intestines had been cut, too. Gan opened his eyes briefly and saw me, then began groaning in pain again.

"I don't get it. The great Gan down and out just because of a little cut? You ought to be ashamed of yourself! I've been hurt much worse, but I didn't cry or moan. Look at this!" I said, pushing my leg with its scar right up in front of his eyes.

Masako was the one who was shocked. "How on earth did you get that?"

“This? Well, when I was small, there was this demon, you see, and this demon threw me down a flight of stairs. See, here's proof. There really are demons in this world, and they left this here to prove it." I'd grown so bold I could say things like that with a straight face; I had to chuckle at how pleased I was with my own daring. "Pull yourself together! You're not gonna die!" I said to him as I left the hospital.

Matsumura-san's old lady was worried about me. "You better not get too involved with these people, you know. What'll you do if you can't get away from them?"

I smiled and told her not to worry. "I'll be all right. I know what I'm up to. It's not as if I've drunk a pledge of allegiance to them or even agreed to be their gang moll. They're just looking after me, that's all."

In fact, as long you took things as they came without fretting too much about it, you could get them to see your point of view. There was more of the sweetheart in them than the swaggerer. It's true, though, that they were a bit short of intelligence. But the really tough types wouldn't be hanging around the grounds of some shrine; they'd be doing something a bit more profitable. These guys would blow in a single night the tiny bit of cash they'd earned in prison; then, flat broke, they'd break into an empty house, steal something, try to pawn it, and get caught. Then they'd steal a locked bicycle, hoist it onto their shoulders, stagger away, and get caught again. They'd spend the night at an inn, and the next morning get caught walking out with the bedding on their backs: one more offense. With this careless crime and that, some of them had six or more convictions to their credit.

There was this orphan called Sute-chan, "Little Foundling," who worked for a Korean shoe peddler. The kid often said how much he hated the shoe man, so I arranged for him to be taken on by a seaweed shop in Goi. The day that he left, I said to him, "You're not to come back here, OK? If something happens and you just can't take it, you tell me first." Wishing him good luck, I sent him off with a bundle of my little brother's old underwear and clothing. Some six months later, word came that he'd been picked up by the police. They say that he and his friends had stolen something from the seaweed shop, sold it, and were carousing on the proceeds when they were caught.

I ran to the police, but they sent me away, saying that visiting hours were over. At eight the next morning I went again, and after being kept waiting for ages, was finally permitted to see him. The police station was a grim place; just a table and three chairs in a room, and a policeman keeping watch from the side as Sute and I sat facing each other. "Might we ask you to leave us alone?" I asked; but the policeman only made a sour face and shook his head. There was no way I could say what I wanted to say. I looked Sute-chan in the eye and said, "All right, tell me the truth. You won't lie to me, Sute-chan, will you? If you stole something, that's OK. I promise I won't be angry. Tell me why you did it. All I want is to hear what's on your mind."

Sute-chan began crying bitterly. "Me? I didn't steal nothing. The older boys told me they'd treat me to something nice to eat,” he said hesitantly. "I just went along with them." His eyes told me this was the truth.

The policeman told me my ten minutes of visiting time was up. I glared back at him and continued talking. "Sute-chan, were you drinking?"

"Drinking? No way! I was just eating."

"That's what I thought. I believe you. Don't you worry."

Once I'd heard the full story from Sute-chan, I went to the room where the policemen gathered to sort things out. "Could you possibly tell me exactly what it was that Sute did?"

"Who the hell are you?"

"Sute's older sister."

"Sute doesn't have any relatives."

"What's that you say? I'm his older sister. You mean we can't be brother and sister unless we have the same parents and are listed in the same family register? There are people born of the same parents who get on worse than strangers! But if you care for each other as we do and think of yourselves as brother and sister, then you are brother and sister. I know this kid better than anyone else. You've got to investigate this fully!"

"What're you going on about? We brought him in from the place where he and his friends were carousing."

"Carousing? You mean Sute was drinking?"

"Drinking or not, he was with them. His friends have admitted the crime. You've no grounds for complaint."

Even this doesn't faze me. From my days as a geisha, I'm used to nonentities who put on airs of importance. We argue back and forth until finally one of them loses his temper. "Listen, you! You're guilty too, right? You seem awfully full of yourself. You wanna stay here for two or three days until you cool off?"

"If you think you're gonna put me away, just try it. I've come here to rescue someone, and not in ten or twenty years am I gonna be stopped. As soon as I get out, I'll go to a higher authority, and if they won't listen to me, I'll go tell the whole world how great the Japanese police are! Acting like you're pulling on the legs of a hanged man-you'll regret it. Treat Sute as a criminal, just try it! I'll bring the wrath of heaven down on you, instantly! Some of you here must have kids of your own. Have you ever thought how you'd feel if this happened to one of them? Beasts! I thought the police would understand, but I was wrong." I totally lose my temper and can't stop my rage from boiling over.

One of them says soothingly, "Now, now, there's no point in getting so excited. We'll investigate things to your satisfaction, so you go on home now." There were some whose job it was to get angry and some who were there to appease you—I was impressed with how cleverly the police managed things.

Two days later I was summoned by the police. "We'll release Sute. In return, he's your responsibility. If Sute does anything wrong, you'll be charged with the same crime," they threatened. I nodded obediently. You be careful what you say, they told me; and to whatever else they said, I bowed and scraped, gushed thanks and empty compliments, until finally I scurried out with my tail between my legs.

That night I had Sute stay over at our place, and the next morning I met with the owner of the seaweed shop and managed to persuade him that Sute wasn't guilty of anything. The whole business had wasted two days of my time, but I was as happy as if I'd made a million yen. For dinner that night my little brother made do with the seaweed they'd given me, and then after he'd got into bed, he said thoughtfully, "Compared with Sute-chan, I'm lucky."

"Why's that?"

"Because I've got you, Sis. When I finish school, I'm gonna work real hard and pay you back. Poor Sute-chan, he's all alone in the world."

"No one's all alone, you know. Aren't we all surrounded by lots of good people?" I spoke as if I didn't know what he really meant, but I couldn't help myself and was weeping uncontrollably.

I spent two and a half years selling soap at Chiba Shrine, becoming totally involved in the lives of Matsumura-san and the other Koreans, sharing their joy and anger, sadness and pleasure. I became used to their flamboyant domestic disputes, their custom of wailing at the top of their voices when someone died; and I learned how to make beaten barley cakes and distill liquor.

My brother finished school without incident. Around that time the high-quality soap used by the Occupation Forces began to appear on the market, with the result that the inferior stuff, which turns to mush after only three days, became harder to sell in town. I took my brother with me and went to sell it out in the country.

On the first day, we took a chance and hopped the first bus that turned up at Chiba Keisei station. At the end of the line we got off and separated, each of us setting out in a different direction to sell our soap. The last bus back was at ten past six, so we decided we'd meet again at half-past five at the place where we'd parted.

"Need any soap today?" I'd say as I stepped through the gate.

"Nope!" I was refused at every house, with looks as if they were chasing away a thieving cat. By the time I'd been turned away from the third house, my face should have grown skin as thick as a cast-iron griddle; but when I came to the next house, I began to falter. It was one in the afternoon, and I hadn't sold a single bar. The June sun beat down relentlessly, and I began to feel tired and fed up. My poor brother, out hawking for the first time! How wretched and humiliated he must feel. He may even have gone back to the pine grove where we're to meet, I thought; so when one house bought two bars, I took that as my cue to go back and have a look. He wasn't there. I ate my lunch and then lay down flat on my back, arms outstretched, looking up at the sky through the pine needles, wondering what on earth had become of him. All I could hear was the sighing of the wind in the branches. What a tranquil place this is, I thought; how pleasant it would be to go to sleep forever in a place like this; and in the midst of this reverie, I fell sound asleep. When suddenly I woke, it was already four o'clock.

I trudged off toward the bus stop. He wasn't there either. It was after five o'clock when he came back, grinning from ear to ear and dripping with sweat, carrying a load on his back that towered above his head.

"Hey sis! How about a sweet potato? I thought, sweet potatoes, oh no! They're so heavy! But I made the trade anyhow."

"That's all sweet potatoes?"

"Of course not. There's rice and beans and all sorts of stuff" After we got on the bus, he rummaged around for a bit and then said, "Want one?" holding out a steamed sweet potato wrapped in newspaper. It was completely squashed and shapeless, but as I ate it I was deeply touched by the realization that my brother was now a grown-up. That night, even after we'd eaten, he was still lining up the things he'd managed to get hold of all by himself.

"Sis, if we take these to Matsumura-san's tomorrow, they're sure to buy them. In my experience, you know, rich people in big houses are no good. It's the small houses that'll buy. Business is perseverance, isn't it?" he said, crowing with delight. "It's not luck, that's for sure" Seeing my brother in such a mood, I too felt spurred to new efforts.

It was about this time that Elder Sister Karuta suddenly announced that she was going back to Shinshū. Her danna [employer] had been paralyzed by a stroke, and his wife was the jealous type, endlessly fretting and fuming. It was just one irksome problem after another, and she couldn't put up with it any longer. If he were to die, everything she had invested in him would be lost. It'd be wiser, she said, to take whatever money she could lay her hands on now, even though it wasn't much, go back to the town where she was born, and do something there.

"Why don't you two come along? If you go back home, surely there'll be some way of making a living;” she said. But to me, Shinshū meant nothing but bitter memories. Even the recollection of him, the man I'd loved as if my very life depended on it, now aroused no more than an occasional prick of pain deep within my breast. All I hoped for was that my little brother and I could save up enough money to buy a stall in the market, no matter how small, where we could start a business of some sort.

We'd got used to beaten barley cakes and cheap liquor, to taking whatever we could get our hands on into the countryside and trading it for anything we could bring back and sell. In those days, I'd become a perfect demon for money: anything I thought would make money, I'd do. People seemed to find me rather useful; if I was asked to get them some rice by a certain day, or some barley, I'd get it. In this way, we survived.

Then I heard that if you collected the heads of forty-nine funerary laths, each one from the middle lath of a set of seven, your wish would be granted. My brother and I went out collecting them in the middle of the night. It's no easy task to find the middle lath of a set of seven, but we were determined to have a stall in the market, and finally we collected them. I still have the ashes from when we burned them.

It had been five years since I'd severed my ties with rouge and face powder, but perhaps there was still a trace of femininity about me. For occasionally someone would make eyes at me, squeeze my hand, and say, "Look love, someone as young as you shouldn't have to work so hard. There are easier ways, you know, any number of `em."

When that happened, I'd fend them off politely. "I'm very grateful for your kindness, but please don't touch my hand. My body is rotting and your hand will rot, too." But if they persisted, I could put some fight into it. "Don't mess with me, you bastard. Keep your filthy hands off me or I'll throttle you."

And so I managed to save up a bit of money, little though it was, and it looked as if our hopes were just on the point of materializing. Then, in the summer of 1952, my brother suddenly said that his stomach hurt and took to his bed. At first I was so engrossed in making money that I didn't pay much attention; but he seemed to have a fever, too, so I had the doctor come round and examine him. It was intestinal tuberculosis, he said, and if he wasn't admitted to hospital soon, he could die. I had him admitted to the Chiba Medical School Hospital just as quickly as I could manage it, and for a while I stayed with him there; but in no time at all our savings had evaporated, and I had to leave my brother alone in the hospital and go to work.

Masuda, Sayo. Autobiography of a Geisha. Ch. 7. “A Dream for my Little Brother.” Trans. G.G. Rowley. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003; 111-128; also 109-110, 129-130.