Mother

"Stop crying, your face will run!"
The irony of the geisha world will forever remain a mystery to me. This quote embodies the true aspects of geisha: your face is not your face; your makeup is your face. Your Mother is your controller until she dies or until you do (socially, that is). Your Sister is the only one who matters, "If your honorable sister tells you to cut your leg, you cut your leg." And if you are publicly humiliated by a neighboring geisha, it is your duty to take revenge.
Memoirs of a Geisha is one of my favorite novels. The thing that really gets me is all of the metaphors. They take over the entire story. What woman is genius enough and smart enough and beautiful enough to be interviewed sixty years after the fact and STILL remember all that had happened to her?  A genius woman, that's who.
This novel was written by a Jewish boy from New York about the life of a real geisha.  Her memories are tapped into and expressed in a way that cannot be mistaken for any but her own. She refused to have the book published until after her death, but the beauty of the novel is the fact that it is written in such a modern way, you assume this character has been alive since the beginning of time and is immortal. Once you finish the book, you want to run to NYC to her little restaurant and meet her and tell her how wonderful of a woman she is, but you can't.  This was the hardest realization for me to grasp after I finished this novel.  I wanted to meet this magnificent woman, but she has been gone for many years now.
It doesn't matter- I've met this woman many times throughout her life, seeing in on how everything is going. It's a relief to know that I can meet her anew every time I open the book.