Authors: Sujata Massey
Thanking Fumiko profusely, I copied the information onto a napkin and snuggled it in the cell phone holder. I gave her back the student roster and declined her attempt to help pay the lunch check.
“Please, it’s on me. You’ve been very, very helpful,” I said.
“Why? What are you going to do?” Fumiko looked at me anxiously.
“I’m not sure exactly. But I’d like to talk to Ramzi.”
“If I’d known you were going to talk to him, I would never have told you anything—”
“Why? Are you scared of him?”
She shook her head. “Of course not! But he was always hanging around, trying to spy on her during the times she was with Takeo. He’s a little bit strange. He will be upset if he knows I was talking about him.”
“Thanks for the warning. I’ll be quite careful,” I said as we parted. And I would be, because a new theory was forming in my mind. Ramzi and Emi had a plan for the future, but it had been dashed by Emi’s growing attraction to her betrothed. Who would want to stand by while a beloved girlfriend prepared to marry—and then have all hopes of seeing her again forever dashed by her death? Ramzi had probably stormed the memorial because he wanted to say something to her parents, make them pay for what they’d done.
Omote-sando had always been my aunt Norie’s idea of shopping heaven. There wasn’t much I could afford on the long boulevard lined with tall zelkova trees. It had become a satellite Paris; the street was home of the highest-grossing Louis Vuitton store worldwide, and there were also lavish boutiques devoted to Chanel, Yves St. Laurent, and Christian Dior, very close to an older, Japanese-owned tourist haunt, the Oriental Bazaar—which obviously had been named in less politically correct times.
Normally, I would have passed the Oriental Bazaar by, but today I paused between the huge porcelain lion-dogs that guarded its entrance. There were a few things inside that might be of use to me, and the prices would definitely be the best on the block.
I hurried past the furniture sections crowded with Korean-made replicas of old Japanese chests and into the books section, where almost everything was published in English. I skimmed the new edition of
Born to Shop Tokyo
and came up with the town, Umeda, where the Japanese sculptor Kazu Sakurai was based. The author recommended that foreigners visit his shop by making an appointment ahead of time and bringing plenty of cash—a minimum of $3,000 for the smallest piece. Well, that was the value of being a Living National Treasure, I thought wryly, scribbling down the phone number on a shopping circular and sliding it into the cell phone case. Maybe I could live without a backpack after all, I thought, leaving the books section in search of toys for my niece and nephew in Washington. Having mixed-sex twins to shop for was a challenge, but I ultimately settled on a pair of Japanese police officer dolls—one a man and one a woman, a sign of political progress. And the dolls weren’t just for play—they would teach fine motor skills. Win especially would have fun taking off the dolls’ black lace-up shoes, though he’d need his mother’s help to put them on again.
How soon would it be until I saw Kendall and the twins again? I wondered as I tucked the package containing the dolls into my backpack and continued on my trail to Ramzi Birand’s address. I had to come up with something here. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but if I didn’t find it, I didn’t know when I’d ever get home.
For now, my business was the Birand family. The address was easy to find, because it was in a pretty lane that ran behind a small street containing my favorite coffee shop, Appetito, right across from the Hanae Mori building. Right now, stretched across the street’s entrance, there was a huge banner stretched bearing the cryptic acronym FCUK. It wasn’t till I got to the other side that I learned that this stood for French Connection United Kingdom.
I’d try to get Ramzi to come out to Appetito with me for a quick private talk. If he lived nearby, it was probably his favorite place. While Japanese students lived and died for
okonomiyaki
, foreign students were addicted to coffee and pastry.
When I reached 17-11-2A Kawashima, a couple of turns past Appetito, it didn’t look like the apartment I expected. The address was that of an antiques shop named Treasures of Tabriz, according to the curly gold letters on the door. Ali Birand, proprietor, was the name listed underneath. Ali, not Osman.
I peered through the plate glass window at a ceiling dripping with baroque-style light fixtures. Under the soft electric candlelight I caught sight of a tasteful grouping of Ottoman and French regency furniture. The floor was covered by an Oriental rug with a minute hand-knotted pattern of flowers in delicate creams and blues.
My mother would have gone mad for this shop. It was her decorating taste exactly. I didn’t believe in lusting after things too rich for my budget—I’d gotten into trouble that way before. Still, it wouldn’t be hard to feign enthusiasm for what was in stock at Treasures of Tabriz.
A soft chime announced my arrival as I opened the door and stepped inside. I hadn’t seen anyone through the window, but once I’d made myself known, a slender woman who looked like a Japanese equivalent of my mother—expensive fur-trimmed sweater, stylish boot-cut pants, and socialite pageboy—popped up from behind a large cardboard box. With her long manicured fingers, she’d been uncrating an ancient-looking terra-cotta horse from a wooden box. Wood shavings spilled over its edge, marring the perfection of the shop. It even smelled expensive here, I thought, taking a whiff. It smelled like Russian tea, a blend of orange and cloves and black tea that had been all the rage in San Francisco when I was younger. I remembered my mother and her book club in the living room with a pot of Russian tea on a Chippendale table, discussing Toni Morrison’s novels. I looked around Treasures of Tabriz for a teapot, but saw none except for a gorgeous blue-and-gold Sèvres piece set on a high shelf amid an entire tea service for twelve.
“Welcome,” the woman said, her voice politely modulated but a bit curious, perhaps because of my appearance. The only kind of woman my age who would walk into an elegant antiques shop wearing Asics running shoes, a cashmere hoodie, and yoga pants would be a confused backpacker or a wealthy expat wife who didn’t yet understand how women were supposed to dress for shopping in Tokyo.
“I came from Waseda.” A semitruthful statement. “Is this—is this the place where Ramzi Birand lives?”
“He lives upstairs with his uncle—the owner of this shop.” She inclined her head gracefully, revealing sparkling diamond studs. “I am so glad that you came to visit. Ramzi’s been very sad, and we are worried that he has no friends. Would you care for some tea while I call him?”
“I don’t want to put you to the trouble,” I said. But, of course, I did. A cup of tea would hit the long-lost Russian tea receptor in my brain, and it would also busy her for a minute so that I could inspect the shop more thoroughly.
“It’s no trouble at all. Please, wait just a minute.” She disappeared behind a hanging tapestry.
I strolled around the room. There were plenty of nineteenth-century European antiques of the sort that used to be sold in Baltimore’s Howard Street shops where Grand took me, every now and again during my childhood visits, to educate my eye. In the Birand shop, these pieces of furniture were nicely offset by Middle Eastern serving pieces of filigreed silver and brass, which bore hefty price tags that signified either valuable metal or age.
I walked back to look at the Chinese terra-cotta horse that was standing on the counter. It had a stick-on price tag on it that said 6,000Y. Was that yen or yuan? I didn’t know the current value of Chinese currency, and the box was stamped as coming from Shanghai. As I bent to look at it, I saw the ears of another horse sticking up through wood shavings. Without looking any further, I knew the horses were reproduction pieces, because real Tang dynasty horses sold for about $500,000 a piece.
“May I help you?” A man’s voice this time, in what I would call newcomer’s Japanese—slow, measured, accented with the sounds of another land. I straightened my posture and turned to regard the speaker: an olive-skinned man with closely cropped hair, a hooked nose, and piercing hazel eyes. Fifty-something and foreign, I decided, looking at the fine business shirt he wore tucked into wool gabardine slacks.
“Hello, sir. May I ask if you are Mr. Ali Birand?” I asked in excessively courteous English, trying to make up for the way I looked.
“Yes, I am. And you, who are you?” He beamed, as if the English I’d used had been a welcome surprise. As he spoke, he picked up the box of horses and moved it back behind the counter.
“My name is Rei Shimura. I was in the States before, but I’m at Waseda right now.” Again, very close to the truth.
“Ah, that explains your so beautiful English.” His smile deepened. “So you came to see Ramzi?”
“Yes, we’ve all been quite worried about him. I’ve brought some papers for him from class.”
“Really?” The thick brows pulled together. “I wasn’t aware he had many friends. In Istanbul, he was so popular, but here—he just hasn’t tried enough, I think.”
The danger would be if Ramzi emerged and looked at me without recognition. I had to prepare myself. “Actually, he doesn’t know me very well at all. I’m an older student, you know—”
“And he only had eyes for one girl, didn’t he?” Ali Birand sounded rueful. “With age there is wisdom—something my nephew certainly lacks, in his own character and those of the friends he’s chosen.”
Ali Birand’s allusion to Emi made me want to jump right into some questions, but the saleswoman interrupted us. She was carrying a tray containing two tall Middle Eastern tea glasses, each resting in an engraved brass holder. Mr. Birand took the tray in his own hands and settled it down on a marble-top table in front of a pale blue velvet sofa. He indicated that I should sit down.
“That’s for sale, isn’t it? I don’t want to make it dirty.” The bottom half of my pants were still damp with dirty pond water.
“Please, please! You are an honored guest. You must enjoy Miss Iwada’s tea. It is something I have taught her.”
I’d never thought anyone could out-Japanese the Japanese at courtesy. Giving up, I took the glass and settled down, making sure to stretch my legs out so they didn’t rub against the sofa.
The tea had been brewed at least ten minutes earlier, I judged by the rich taste of orange and cinnamon and the drinkable temperature. It seemed almost as if they’d been expecting a visitor.
“I hope it’s not too hot,” Miss Iwada, the salesclerk, said to me in Japanese. I could tell from her face that she was figuring out which side of the Pacific I really belonged to.
“It’s delicious. I must say that I didn’t expect this beautiful shop, and to have tea as well. Thank you so much.” I spoke in Japanese to her, wondering how much Mr. Birand understood.
“Oh, no, I am so glad you are here. Ramzi-san has missed all his classes since the—accident,” Miss Iwada said. “His uncle told him to go, but he just refuses. He would stay in his room all the time if he could.”
“It’s so convenient to have the apartment over the shop. What a beautiful space it is—for how long have you been here?” I switched back to English, so I could better include Ali Birand.
“We’ve had the building for a year, but it took a lot of renovations to make a place for the shop—which opened last month. But it’s not our only place; my brother and I have other antique stores in Istanbul and Cairo and, once upon a time, in Baghdad.” He smiled wryly. “I’m afraid your army put a dent in that business.”
“I can certainly understand why you would want to be here, in Tokyo. And I’m intrigued by the store name. Isn’t Tabriz a city in Iran?”
“It was the cultural center of old Persia. The rug near the window was made in Tabriz one hundred years ago. It took eight artists two years to create it.”
I sighed in appropriate admiration, then said, “But are you Turkish?”
“We are. But you know, everyone in Japan thinks of Turkey just for rugs, not for high-class antiques. So we chose the name Tabriz, and we offer treasures from all over the Middle East, including Turkey. Not just the Middle East, but Italy and France and England—that is an Italian marble table, where you just put your glass.”
“Ooh, sorry!” I picked it right up. “I hope I didn’t damage anything. It looks so antique!”
“That table will be fine.” He smiled graciously. “My brother acquired it from the Italian ambassador, whose family had owned it for two hundred years. Other objects—like the tea glasses and rugs—were made recently but by skilled artists carrying out a generations-old tradition.”
“And the terra-cotta horses you were unpacking?” I couldn’t resist asking.
“I was just opening them when you arrived,” Miss Iwada said, turning to look at Mr. Birand, as if for guidance.
“A Chinese museum has fallen into some financial difficulty, so we were able to purchase these Qin dynasty horses. They are quite valuable, so I thought I would bring them to this market first. But if they don’t sell here, I’m sure they will be of interest to our clientele abroad.” Ali Birand spoke so confidently that for a minute I almost believed him. But if these were real warrior tomb horses, they would have been hand-carried by Mr. Birand himself from China instead of shipped by crate with the price tags still affixed, and he’d know their real value. He obviously thought I knew nothing about Asian antiques.
“Oh, dear. I fear that I could never afford anything here, except maybe a tea glass.” I ran a finger along the glass, and it made the light singing sound of fine crystal.
“You chose a nice reproduction set. We have a special price. Ten thousand yen for a set of five,” Ali Birand said.
One hundred dollars for five gorgeous tea glasses. Aunt Norie would like them, and none of the other housewives in the neighborhood would have anything comparable. Tea glasses would be the perfect present for me to bring after my mysterious day away from her home; hopefully they would distract my aunt from asking what else I’d done in Tokyo.
“I’ll take the set,” I said, fishing into my backpack for my wallet.
“For a student, you have exceptional taste. Now, I fear, I have an appointment across town. It was lovely to meet you, Miss Shimura.”
Mr. Birand pulled on an inky black cashmere coat and disappeared out the front door and down the street. I watched him set off, thinking about the charming, poised way he’d presented himself. And what of Ramzi? He had the Birand looks, with the advantage of youth. But last night, when he’d been thrown out of the Haradas’ house, he had been awkward, unsophisticated, emotional—the very opposite of his uncle.
The salesclerk was dexterously wrapping up the package in gold paper when Ramzi finally slouched into the room. He wore a stained rugby shirt and Levi’s that hung low at the waist, exposing a flash of boxers with an American flag pattern. He looked around expectantly, then settled his lazy, long-lashed eyes on me.
“Ramzi-san! How are you doing?” I asked, looking him over. He was lean, but not too thin. He didn’t look at all like my idea of a drug user.
“Iwada-san, didn’t you say a friend was here?” He looked blankly from me toward the saleswoman.
The Japanese Ramzi had spoken was broken—understandably, because it was still a very new language for him. I switched to English.