Chiyo and Satsu reunite and plan their escape

Chiyo and Satsu reunite and plan their escape during Chiyo’s secret journey to the Tatsuyo, where she discovers that her sister is living as Yukiyo. The reunion briefly restores their bond in a place that makes Satsu’s vulnerability unmistakable; their decision to flee together gives Chiyo a concrete hope, but the plan depends on money, secrecy, and a meeting neither can be certain they will both reach.

The search in Miyagawa-cho

After making her way through Gion, Chiyo follows the streets behind the Minamiza Theater into Miyagawa-cho, a district she finds nearly empty and poorly lit. The wooden facades recall Gion, but the absence of trees, the Shirakawa Stream, and the district’s attractive entrances makes the neighborhood feel starkly different. In doorways, old women sit beside women dressed in kimono and hair ornaments. Chiyo does not understand the significance of their front-tied obi until she learns that it marks them as prostitutes: the sash is repeatedly taken off and put on during the night.

A woman helps Chiyo locate the Tatsuyo, a house at the end of a dead-end alley with only three other houses. Chiyo’s response to seeing its sign is physical and immediate: her body tingles with the intensity of her hope. The old woman at the entrance first denies that she has a girl named Satsu. Only after a younger woman explains that a little girl has come to speak with her does the old woman acknowledge Chiyo. The interruption of a customer makes the house’s demands plain: Satsu is not free to come out when Chiyo arrives.

The reunion behind the door

The younger woman eventually tells Chiyo that Yukiyo has a customer and that someone will summon her when he is finished. The old woman hides Chiyo in the shadows beside the entrance, where she waits, increasingly anxious that someone from her okiya will discover her absence. When the customer leaves, Satsu’s voice calls from the doorway. She appears in a garishly colored kimono, with bright lipstick, and ties her sash at the front like the women Chiyo saw in the street. Her changed appearance is a visible sign of the life Chiyo has only just begun to understand.

Satsu slips away from the old woman only after promising to return, and gives her several coins before taking Chiyo to a spare room. The room is tiny and dim, with a paper-covered window and a sliding door beneath the staircase that has come off its track. In the poor light, Chiyo initially mistakes Satsu’s movement for scratching her face; then she realizes that Satsu is crying. Chiyo cries too. They stumble toward each other and embrace, and Chiyo notices how bony Satsu has become. Satsu strokes Chiyo’s hair in a gesture that recalls their mother to her. Their reunion is at once joyful and painful: affection returns immediately, while the sisters’ separation and Satsu’s worsening circumstances are registered through their bodies and tears.

A plan made under pressure

Satsu tells Chiyo that she cannot remain in the Tatsuyo and must run away. Chiyo immediately offers to go with her. Satsu has already hidden a train schedule beneath the tatami mats upstairs and has been stealing money. She says she has saved enough to pay off Mrs. Kishino, explaining that the woman is beaten whenever a girl escapes and will not let her go unless she pays first. Flight therefore requires not only daring but also money to meet an imposed price and protect the person left responsible for the escape.

The sisters have little time to work out their arrangements. Satsu repeatedly has to return upstairs because customers are waiting, and she warns Chiyo to hide in a corner and remain quiet. When she comes back pale, she reports that it is Tuesday and that they will run away late at night, five days later. Chiyo asks where they will meet and at what time; Satsu can offer only one in the morning, without a location. Chiyo proposes meeting near the Minamiza Theater, but Satsu judges it too easy for others to find them. They agree instead on a place exactly across the river from the theater, using a recognizable landmark while trying to avoid a conspicuous rendezvous.

Separation and precarious hope

Satsu has only one chance, she tells Chiyo, and warns her to leave before the mistress returns: if Chiyo is caught there, Satsu may lose her chance to escape. Chiyo is left with unanswered questions about what will happen if she cannot get away or if the two sisters fail to meet. Satsu does not resolve those uncertainties; she insists only that Chiyo must be there. The plan’s emotional force rests on that insistence, while its practical fragility remains visible in the short time, the threat of discovery, and Satsu’s obligations inside the house.

The old woman pulls Chiyo back into the dark street after Satsu shuts the door behind them. Chiyo returns to her okiya relieved that she has not been caught, but the open door to the maids’ room and a rustling sound inside abruptly disturb that relief. The scene closes not with the sisters’ escape but with Chiyo’s fear that someone may be waiting inside. Their reunion has changed separation into a shared intention, yet the immediate return to surveillance and danger makes clear that the promised Tuesday rendezvous has not secured their freedom.