The Samurai's Daughter (23 page)

I was home an hour later. It was twilight, and the light from inside my apartment cast a welcoming yellow glow out toward me. Still, I took a glance over my shoulder as I put the key in the lock.

Regardless of outside opinion, I liked the feeling of having Hugh in my home. When I opened the door, I was hit again with the reassuring knowledge he was there—a briefcase propped against the tea table, a coat discarded on a chair, and from behind the bathroom door, an aroma of mineral salts from Hakone and the sound of rushing water.

“May I join you?” I called, already beginning to unbutton my blouse as I knocked on the door with the other hand.

Hugh opened the door, surprising me; he was wet from the bath, but wearing a robe and shaving.

“You don't have to do that for me,” I said. “I like your rough side, especially at night.”

Hugh winked at me. “No time for that. I want you to come with me to a tea ceremony tonight. At Morita Incorporated.”

“Things must have gone fabulously if they're inviting you to a tea party,” I said.

“We'll be crashing it, actually. I convinced a friend from the British Consulate to give me his invitation.”

“What in the world—”

“I think what we might gain in knowledge of the corporate culture is worth the risk of any embarrassment. By the way, do you have a kimono that's ready to go? I don't know if they have to be ironed or anything like that—”

“No, they're just folded. But, Hugh, it's a tremendous amount of trouble to put one on. At least half an hour—”

“I'll help you, then.” Hugh put down his razor and swept out of the room to get dressed in the suit and fresh shirt lying on my futon. He began pulling on his clothes, and kept talking.

“So, today was relatively calm. Charles didn't ask me anything about my request to San Francisco for the transcript and tape. That probably means that his paralegal didn't bother to tell him.”

“Let's hope so,” I said. “What happened with the job offer?”

“Well, just for the fun of it, I asked Charles to elaborate on the terms. I shudder to tell you how good the money is.”

“How good?” I was bent over, putting on the tight silk socks that were the prelude to kimono dressing.

Hugh gave a quick laugh. “He offered me two hundred fifty thousand base, with bonuses tied to the success of the lawsuit. The COLA package per year—just our food and housing expenses, imagine—would be another four hundred thousand, if we live in Japan. And we'll both get business-class tickets to travel home to visit relatives each year. There's a children's private school tuition benefit as well, which wouldn't apply to us at this point, but maybe later—”

“You're not thinking of taking it. Are you?”

“Of course I won't, Rei. As I told you yesterday evening, I don't trust the fellow. Even if I were tempted, I couldn't go because I haven't been at Andrews and Cheyne for more than a year. If I left, I'd look like a promiscuous job hopper.” Hugh sighed heavily. “But I kept him talking, because I want to know why he wants me so badly, all of a sudden. Since I've come on board, all they've had are major setbacks. The only thing I haven't bollixed up was the meeting with Morita today.”

“Yes, tell me about that.”

“I will, once you start dressing—we're running out of time. Where's the kimono you're planning to wear?”

So Hugh was dead set on my dressing up. I sighed and went to the small Sendai
tansu
in the corner of my bedroom.

“This is the most appropriate one I have,” I said, pulling out a neatly folded rectangle of purple silk. It had been woven just before the war, I knew from the dyes used and the loopy floral styling of the robe. I thought the kimono would be perfect for the New Year because it was patterned with pine, bamboo, and plum, the New Year's trinity. There was a subtle stain on the side that I'd have to camouflage by stuffing that section into the obi sash. Ah, the obi. That would be harder to find, as I didn't have the original one meant to be worn with this kimono. I dug around in another drawer and came up with nothing. Then I remembered I'd hung a sash on the wall of my living-dining room, one patterned in red and gold chevrons with some green pine motifs embroidered throughout. It was not a perfect match, but a good enough one.

I slipped on a simple pink underrobe. When it came time to tie its belt, Hugh helped me with one of his crazy sailing knots. As tight as he made it, I knew it wouldn't come loose. And the fact was, I liked the feeling of his hands sliding against my skin, even though we were going out and it would be hours before he could untie the belt.

“Morita is based in Kawasaki, so we hired a car and rode out together,” Hugh said, seemingly oblivious to how much I was enjoying being dressed by him. “During the trip, Charles prepped me on what he wanted to accomplish. It was agreed that I'd do most of the talking.”

“Why you?” I didn't mean to sound rude, but I was startled. Charles had acted like Hugh's boss every time I'd seen him.

“Yes, that was a surprise to me, too,” Hugh said ruefully. “But I think Charles was right. He wanted to create an impression of power—that he was so important he didn't have to speak, except to make decisions at the end.”

“I see. I've seen that done in Japanese business settings.”

“Right, and it certainly was the modus operandi when we got there. Gorgeous skyscraper building, by the way—but you'll see it tonight. The boardroom was quite dark—a bottle-green color, with a black table that must have been twenty feet long. There was a lit
tle doily with a glass marking each place. When we went in, I counted them up right away and realized there were fifteen of them and only three of us. It was interesting, psychologically—it created the sense that we were supplicants.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, reaching out to caress his face.

“It was quite intense. Turn around, I'm still trying to tuck the robe so it's level.” I turned, and Hugh continued. “We had to wait for them—another clever move—and then they all came in. Business cards were exchanged. I was made aware that their most senior official in the room was the vice president for legal affairs.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So they were taking you seriously.”

“Yes. They had an interpreter, too, of course. He offered us greetings and good wishes right away, pointing out the longtime friendship between Morita Incorporated and the United States—they claim to be responsible for the employment of five thousand people in the U.S. Around the room, they had framed photographs of various magic moments, such as the many times their company presidents met various American presidents. I had a sense that we should have brought our own picture album, but what could it have shown—all of us together with your parents at Christmas, or perhaps you and I, frolicking together in the surf in Thailand a few years past?”

“What you could have shown would have been photos of the Morita Mine survivors,” I said severely. “Rosa, who looked so beaten-down and awful, and poor Ramon, with his eyes sewn shut.”

“But we have to protect their identities, remember?” Hugh said. “I got to the point. I started off just talking about the basis of the lawsuit we're working on, and they listened quietly. Then the vice president said, in the most sympathetic voice imaginable, that our firm is surely doing an honorable thing, but it has nothing to do with Morita—that the company never had mines in the Philippines. I then handed over some photocopies of old legal documents proving otherwise, and someone else at the table spoke up. They couldn't disagree that the documents were their own, but they stressed that after the war the company was reorganized, with new management and goals.”

“Complete denial.” Well, I wasn't terribly surprised.

“After that, I dropped the bombshell about our concern—and the police's—about the murder and the attempted murder of our plaintiffs. Either they really didn't know about it, or they knew too much. There was so much sweat in the room, Rei, that the walls were practically dripping. And this is in January, not the rainy season.”

“Ha-ha,” I said, not laughing. “Actually, you might have gone too far, if you embarrassed them that much.”

“They said they'd call to schedule another meeting. At their managing director's convenience.”

“This could go back and forth a long time. But time is what you need.” I was fully dressed now, and searching for a wrap.

“I suppose so. Unless, of course, the time we waste results in the deaths of more plaintiffs.”

I stopped. “Do you really think they're involved?”

“They have a very strong motive to want to suppress the truth about their past. But if they've hired someone to kill plaintiffs, they'll almost certainly be found out somewhere along the line. And I don't think they're stupid enough to commit corporate suicide.”

We walked out, headed toward the train station, my
zori
sandals making quiet clapping sounds against the pavement. It was an age-old sound that I loved. Suddenly, I felt as if I had gone back in time—the combination of kimono and shoes forced me into a slower, mincing gait. Hugh had gotten a half-block ahead of me before he realized I couldn't keep up.

“Sorry.” He walked back to me. “I've been running on too long. I imagine that you have things to tell me.”

So, I told him about everything, except my trip to the Imperial Hotel. I spent the most time on Ramon Espinosa's situation, because I thought Hugh could help with the power of attorney document. Hugh explained that due to his situation of being a foreign lawyer, he couldn't write a legally binding document. And it would be better for a Japanese lawyer to write a contract binding Japanese people, he thought. He gave me the name of Mr. Harada, a local lawyer he'd known for years.

“Good, I'll follow up on that tomorrow,” I said. “I also have your cell phone back from Chika. After I saw her, I visited Mr. Ishida. He showed me the
tansu
Charles is contemplating buying. It's an early-nineteenth-century, seven-foot-high staircase chest.”

“Sounds nice. Must be obscenely expensive, though.”

“Thirty thousand dollars. The lacquer is original, which is quite extraordinary, and it has another interesting feature, too: false bottoms underneath each step.”

“Really. Enough room to store a few ingots?”

“A few. But if there's really a treasure-load of gold somewhere, the
tansu
wouldn't have enough room.”

“He might just want it for the sake of collection,” Hugh said.

“Maybe. I heard he's still shopping around. Maybe he's going to buy multiple
tansu
chests with fake bottoms for storage purposes.” I changed the topic. “By the way, will Charles and Eric be meeting us tonight?”

“No, ah, I actually didn't mention what we were going to do tonight. Charles had already told me that he's busy with some appointments at antiques shops, and Eric will go with him to translate.”

I stopped and looked at Hugh. “That's a close relationship. Have you considered that they might be partnering in a hunt for gold?”

“I suppose it could be,” Hugh said. “It would go against all the ethics that lawyers are supposed to abide by…”

I snorted. “The average American would argue that dropping all ethics in pursuit of gold is
typical
conduct for a lawyer. The question is, Who would be holding the reins? I'd guess Charles, even though Eric might have been the one who came through with the information about where the gold lies.”

“Well, the culprit, if there is one, will become clear once the transcriptions arrive from San Francisco. But tonight, we have Morita Incorporated to investigate. I'm eager to get your impression.”

“How so? What do you want me to help you accomplish at the party?” I gestured toward my brilliantly colored kimono. Dressed like this, there was no chance of being a wallflower.

“I thought you might introduce yourself. Make the rounds, as I'll be doing.”

“Whom shall I say I am?” I mused. “Your fiancée? The prodigal daughter of an old Imperialist family? A struggling antiques dealer? None of it is particularly impressive.”

“Don't be so hard on yourself. But might I suggest that your past life as a part-time journo might serve nicely, especially since you're currently writing an article about Japanese history.”

“But that's just a family history project!”

“How will they know? And if it's good enough, maybe you'll publish it somewhere.”

“Hmm. I suppose I could hint that I'm delving into the history of wartime Japan. That might be enough to do the trick.”

The train came barreling in, so I wasn't able to meditate on whether this was the kind of white lie that was appropriate under Buddhist law, or something else altogether.

As Hugh had said, Morita's corporate headquarters were not in Tokyo, but Kawasaki—the more industrial city just to Tokyo's south. It made sense because of the electronic goods that Morita made; but it also raised my hackles some.

“Kawasaki. That's where you were steered by the phantom phone caller on the day you arrived in Japan,” I said as we rode in a taxi toward the address Hugh had on the invitation card he'd borrowed from his friend.

“Right. But that call was from an American woman,” Hugh pointed out.

“It could have been an American woman who works for Morita. Lots of Americans work for Japanese companies. We both did.”

The taxi slowed and finally stopped in front of a tall, mirrored skyscraper. I hadn't known buildings in Kawasaki could be as big as Tokyo's—that was my chauvinism at work. But this one, a perfect I. M. Pei design or imitation, was just as big and stylish as anything I'd seen in Tokyo's Minato-ku district: a glittering, inky pillar at night, though it must have been a dazzling silver earlier in the day. At present, it looked sinister and elegant—just the kind of place that made me feel as if I would trip in my zori going through the door.

There was a greeter at the door, a dour-faced man in a black
suit, who looked us over and finally nodded. I tried to pretend that we had been invited, and had the right to stand in the huge golden foyer filled with abstract art on the walls and a stunning, fifteen-foot arrangement of pine, bamboo, and plum in the center of everything. I walked forward a few paces to see the sign next to it, and blanched. The arrangement had been designed by Takeo Kayama, a past boyfriend who was the new headmaster of the Kayama School.

I hoped that we wouldn't see Takeo here. That would be all the stress I needed, on top of what I already felt. I kept my gaze down as we slowly snaked toward a door at the back of the lobby, from behind which I could hear strains of
koto
music. This was the tea ceremony room, I guessed.

The line of guests, who were overwhelmingly Japanese, moved at a slow pace toward the room. Practically everyone was silent, reminding me of the atmosphere on the subway in the morning. Here we were, a mass of people being moved at a deliberately slow pace, ostensibly to relax and renew with a cup of tea.

A few minutes later we were at the entrance to the tea ceremony room. I could see it behind a handsome room with birch cases designed to hold shoes: a huge room featuring green walls flecked with gold and spotless
tatami
mat flooring edged in orange-and-green brocade. People had seated themselves, husbands next to wives, in a proper kneeling position in an exact square. In the center of the room five women wearing simple yet expensive kimonos moved like slow butterflies to each of the waiting sitters. The women's steps were slow and deliberate; each was carrying a small earthenware teacup. The tea ceremony hostesses sank to their knees and each offered a cup to a guest, smiling and bowing almost to the floor. The guests bowed back with considerable ceremony and made a gesture of showing the cup to the person on their left, who reacted admiringly. Then the cup was picked up, rotated, and sipped.

“What are they doing?” Hugh whispered.

“Turn the cup three times counterclockwise, then drink it in a few sips. It's going to be bitter. But don't worry—they're giving everyone a sweet cookie to eat first.”

“It's like taking Communion,” Hugh said, sounding more confident.

He was right. Tea ceremony was a form of a purification ritual; originally Buddhist priests had made the tea, not ladies who studied it as an art. I looked at the women, wondering who they were—no doubt longtime devotees of a tea school, perhaps many of them Morita wives. It would have seemed more natural for me to chat with the women than the men, but I guessed that their husbands kept all their business dealings from them; I probably wouldn't learn much.

“You are English?” a voice came suddenly from behind.

Hugh and I turned as one to look at a Japanese man, close to him in height, with a hawkish nose and thick, straight black hair mixed with gray. The man, who looked somewhere in his fifties, was wearing a good-quality black wool suit. Now I understood that this was the proper men's color for the event. Hugh had worn a wool-and-silk blended suit the color of
macha
—the thick, sludgy green tea that we would soon be drinking. I'd thought he looked very handsome an hour ago, but now I saw that he stuck out like a green thumb.

“Not quite,” Hugh said, looking at the man and smiling. “I'm from Scotland. My name is Hugh Glendinning. “

“I apologize for the error,” the man replied, inclining his head slightly.

“Sir. You are?” Hugh's voice was confident, but I felt suddenly weak and embarrassed. It was too blunt to demand a person's name like that.

“Hamazaki,” the man said, wrinkling the intense nose as he spoke.

“Oh, you are the managing director!” Hugh said, with a half-smile. I recovered from my embarrassment.

“Ah, yes.” Mr. Hamazaki stared in obvious surprise at Hugh. “But we don't know each other.”

“We have a meeting scheduled. I represent an American law firm.”

There was a sudden stillness in the line around us. I imagined that everyone was wondering what the business was about.

“I'm Rei Shimura,” I said, to break the silence. “Hugh's—uh—friend.”

“Rei, my wife to be, is a journalist who has written for a magazine—the
Gaijin Times.
I'm very proud of her for all those exposés—”

“Enough,” I said, blushing as I thought of the how-to pieces I'd written on fixing up antique furniture. “I'm currently working on a project on Japanese history.”

Mr. Hamazaki's nostrils flared again. “Well, the invitation here is for you to enjoy tea, not to do business. That is, if you actually received an invitation?”

“The invitation was in fact passed on to me by a friend at the British Embassy who had to send his regrets.”

“
Ah so desu ka
. Have you ever experienced a Japanese tea ceremony?” Mr. Hamazaki's innocuous question seemed to be a detour from the tension—but I felt an undercurrent of mockery in it.

“No, but I'm looking forward to it.” Hugh shot a glance at me, obviously seeking some kind of interruption.

“I have done it many times. My aunt is a member of the Urasenke Tea Society.” It was true, though I had never taken the time to study.

“Very good. I hope you will find our tea adequate—and congratulations on your upcoming nuptials. It looks as if it's time for you to go in. Please enjoy.”

He was gone, and we were pushed into the tea ceremony room before either of us had a chance to catch our breath.

“That went brilliantly,” Hugh muttered in my ear as we kneeled down in a line amidst the others.

“You've got to be joking,” I said, shaking my head as I watched Mr. Hamazaki move through the room, giving tight half-bows to various guests.

“He knows we're not here to play. That's what I wanted.”

“Shh, others can understand,” I mouthed at him. I was watching one of the tea ceremony servers, a woman my aunt's age in a beautiful green kimono decorated with a design of tall grasses. It seemed as if Mr. Hamazaki was indicating Hugh and me to her with a slight hand movement, because she glanced at us, then back at him.

“Did you learn from your friend at the embassy who the ladies serving the tea are?” I whispered as the woman in green went to the room's altar and poured hot water from a kettle sitting on an ancient brazier into a bowl.

“No, I didn't. But I'm sure they're too old to be Morita office ladies.”

I thought some more. “They must be members of a tea society to be doing this, but I imagine some of the society members are also Morita corporate wives. Tea ceremony is a valued skill among upper-middle-class wives.”

“Really? Are you telling me what you're going to spend the next ten years doing?”

I would have kicked him, but we were being ushered by another woman to step onto the
tatami
square, where tea was being served. I watched the woman in green tap tea powder into the bowl and mix it into a froth. Actually, she was too far away for me to see exactly what she was doing, but I'd been to enough tea ceremonies to know the ritual. Her role was to start the ceremony by bringing a cup to the highest-ranking person seated on the tatami. If Mr. Hamazaki had been seated, it would have gone to him; but since he had vanished back into the waiting crowd, the highest-ranking person would be someone else.

I bit my lip when the woman in green brought a tray with two cups on it to Hugh and me. In a fluid movement, she kneeled down, placed the tray on the tatami, and bowed her head.

Hugh bowed in return—too slightly, in my opinion, but he was a real novice. He took the cup, but didn't sip, just looked at me. Great. He was expecting me to go first.

The woman in green then placed a cup before me. I made a big show of bowing lower than Hugh, and then turned the cup three times in my hands. As I turned, I looked into the pea green depths and inhaled the aroma. Then I stopped.

I'd caught a glimpse of something white rearing itself from under the foam. White. What in the world was something white doing in a cup of green tea? I turned the cup again, and I didn't see it anymore. Either it had dissolved or I'd been seeing things.

I brought the cup to my nose and sniffed the aroma again. It
didn't smell like the type of tea I'd had at the Urasenke Society. Perhaps the blend was different.

I began to sweat under the kimono, and glanced nervously at Hugh. He hadn't drunk his tea either, but was watching me for guidance.

I shook my head at him.

“What?” he whispered.

“Don't,” I mouthed, and shook my head again. I avoided saying that I was scared because I realized that Mr. Hamazaki might have given instructions to the woman standing right before our eyes. Did potassium chloride have a color? I knew it was supposed to be quite salty—would the natural bitterness of green tea mask it?

“What's wrong?” Hugh asked, his eyes boring into me.

Unable to answer without being overheard, I placed my teacup down on the
tatami
mat in front of me. After a second's hesitation, Hugh followed my lead. By now, the two people to our right had been served; they drank their tea without delay. The tea service went on, almost interminably; at every moment, I was aware of the full cup before me, and the apparent strangeness of my action.

The women came around again and took the cups from everyone; at us, they paused, as if they thought we were waiting to drink.

“Please,” the woman whispered. The command she'd used was one of hospitality, but it sounded desperate.
Please drink.
Was it because she wanted to save the ceremony, or because Mr. Hamazaki had told her to make certain we drained our cups?

“Allergies,” I said quietly in Japanese. “So sorry. My fiancé and I both suffer.”

“Oh, I am sorry.” She added our cups to her tray.

Everyone was looking at us. My face burned, and I realized that in all my years in Japan, this was the most heinous etiquette violation I'd ever committed. Not to take tea with the others—not to follow the ritual—and then to come up with such an unbelievably lame excuse…oh, it was too embarrassing. Aunt Norie had been worried about Hugh embarrassing the family, but I'd done the job entirely on my own.

 

We hit the street five minutes later. It wasn't that we'd been thrown out of Morita headquarters, but it was clear that nobody wanted to talk to us after the tea-drinking debacle. We'd become larger than life—the foreigner who had been blunt with the company president, and his Japanese-American mistress. I knew that's what people thought, because I caught whispers of it behind my back.

“So what was in the tea?” Hugh asked as he raised a halfhearted arm to flag down a taxi. They were all passing us by, and it had started to rain. I pulled the light kimono coat over me, hoping that neither it nor my vintage robe would be ruined.

“I thought I saw something white in it. It could have been nothing but foam, but with the poisonings of Rosa and Ramon, I felt I just couldn't drink. And I didn't want you to risk drinking it, either.”

“But Ramon wasn't poisoned,” Hugh said.

“Oh, will we ever know?” I paused, trying to fight back tears. “I'm sorry. Probably there was nothing in the tea, but I just had an ominous feeling.”

“Better safe than sorry, I guess.”

“But it's so embarrassing! Do you know what I overheard someone calling us? The bizarre foreigner and the
nisei
whore who thinks she's too good to drink Japanese tea.”

Hugh laughed. “And I thought this event was all about manners. Well, live and learn. And I'm hungry—how about you? Why don't we get supper somewhere?”

“Whatever. But I can't believe you can think of food at a time like this,” I said as we headed back to Kawasaki Station.

“Just because I'm sensible enough to want supper doesn't mean I'm not concerned. Hey, I was attempting to launch a powerful image that's been sadly deflated. Now they'll all think the negotiator from the U.S. is too squeamish to even drink tea.”

“But at least you're still alive,” I said. “Think about it that way.”

“All right,” Hugh said softly. “I will.”

 

Sleep. It was what I really wanted, after the long trip back from Kawasaki. Hugh had brought take-out Chinese food from the train
station, and while it had tasted good at first, I'd gotten kicked in the stomach by its high MSG count. I had Hugh unwrap me as quickly as possible from the constrictive bindings of the kimono, and then I lay down on my futon, knees curled to my chest. I sank into an exhausted slumber just after midnight, but then the telephone shrilled.