The Samurai's Daughter (6 page)

“Yes, and as the new boyfriend in town you can imagine how nervous I am.” Hugh glanced at his watch. “Actually, sir, Rei's mother is expecting us for shepherd's pie in ten minutes. We're going to have to beg your pardon.”

“Have you become a meat-eater, Rei?” Eric asked as I stood up to gather my things.

“No. I've gotten my family to use Quorn in place of ground beef. It's the most amazing, all-natural protein source—”

“It's a fungus that grows underground in England,” Hugh said, grinning. “The weird thing is it actually tastes good.”

“Uh-huh,” Eric said, looking about as unconvinced as Charles Sharp. “Anyway, you don't have to worry about serving that at the party. I'm bringing a tray of my famous vegetarian
lumpia
.”

“Which party?” Hugh asked, knitting his brow.

“The Shimuras invited me to their party,” Eric said, sounding triumphant. “ALL has a holiday gathering every year, and this year it's at their place.”

Feeling conscious of the one person in the cluster who had been left out, I said, “Mr. Sharp, our house is open to you as well. Please come—my parents would love to meet a neighbor.”

“Do you live in Pacific Heights?” He sounded surprised.

“Yes, on Green Street. You'll know the house from the flag waving out front.”

“The rising sun?”

“At the moment it's the Union Jack, because Hugh's with us.”

“Well, Miss Shimura, I'll try. I live over on Washington Street myself. We're not much for flag-waving there.”

“I'll take the elevator down with you,” Eric volunteered. When we got to the lobby, he didn't go his own way but waited around while the valet pulled up with my mother's SUV.

“Nice wheels, Rei.”

“Oh, they're my mother's.”

“You never have your own car. I remember your mother's old Camry well—the backseat especially.”

As Hugh turned to gape at me in horror, I snapped, “It was the backseat because we were fourteen years old and had to be driven places!”

I stormed over to the driver's side and slammed the door. I would have burned rubber getting out of there, if the valet hadn't been standing in the way because I'd forgotten to tip him.

“I'd laugh if it didn't hurt so much,” Hugh said. “Three weeks ago I was trying to make peace with your last ex-lover, and now I learn there's another one to get used to.”

“Eric wasn't technically my lover. We were just kids, believe me.”

“If that's true, what did your father walk in on that day in 1986 that was so damn marvelous Eric Gan's never forgotten it?”

“It's all goes back to those language classes,” I said, deciding that I would have to be forthcoming—but that I'd put things in the most gentle terms possible. “Eric and I were so far ahead of the others—Eric in terms of his
kanji
knowledge, and me because I spoke good colloquial Japanese—that we'd been given independent study assignments. We'd finished our projects early, but instead of telling the teacher we were done and needed more work, we played hooky. We would hang around my house, since my parents usually were out doing things together on Sunday afternoons. My parents were smart enough not to trust me with a house key, but they didn't realize that I was small enough to fit in through the milk door. On more than one Sunday, we slipped in that way. The last time we did this we were fooling around in the kitchen. We provided a real eyeful for my father, who it turned out had been home.”

Hugh was starting to smile. “Jesus. What happened then?”

“Unfortunately, Eric tried to escape through the milk door, but he moved too fast and got the rivets of his Levi's caught on a nail. He actually had to slip out of his jeans to get free, and in the process he got scratched on his bottom and started howling with pain. Ultimately my father got involved in examining the injury—”

“Oh, my God. There should be a law against that kind of thing.” Hugh was laughing so hard that I could see tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “In this politically correct city, maybe there is a law.”

“Thanks for understanding.” I kissed Hugh on his cheek. “I'm sure that Eric's coming to that party just to rib me, but you don't have to worry that he's any sort of threat. He's such a phony. The truth is that his famous vegetarian
lumpia
comes from a Filipino grocery, though he always tries to pass it off as his own. If you want to get back at him, you should ask him his recipe.”

“I'll try to take the higher road. But you can't blame me if I ask him if he's traveled through any milk doors lately.”

“Just don't say anything to my parents about this. I think they've forgotten.”

“I wouldn't dream of it.” But from the glint in Hugh's eyes, I knew he really wanted to.

 

“Here you are!” my mother trilled as she opened the front door to us. I had to knock because, even at my age, I still didn't have my own house key.

“The shepherd's pie smells divine. Far better than the frozen ones that have been sustaining me for the last few years away from home,” Hugh said, ambling toward the kitchen.

“We'll be eating in the dining room,” my mother called after him.

“I'll be there in a sec. Rei wanted to show me an architectural detail in the kitchen first.”

I hurried after him, muttering under my breath, “Don't you believe me? The door is in the wall right behind the kitchen table—”

“It's not that I don't believe you—I want to see the size of the
door. I'm curious about exactly how small your bottom was at that time. Not to mention Eric's.”

“Yes, you can rib him about it if he gets obnoxious with you again,” I agreed.

The view under the kitchen table, though, was obstructed by a long red-and-green Christmas tablecloth—and by my father, who was seated at the table reading
The Annals of Psychiatry.

“Oh, hello, sir!” Hugh stopped short, and I bumped into his back. “I mean, Dr. Shimura. I apologize for the interruption—”

“Not at all,” my father said, rising and stretching his hand out to grasp Hugh's. “I've been hoping for your return, because Catherine's shepherd's pie came out of the oven five minutes ago. And please call me Toshiro. Otherwise, I'll feel as if we're having an office visit.”

“I hope that won't be the case. I mean, I've got my imperfections, but one of the things I pride myself on is good mental health, though Rei's the one I can credit for keeping me so happy.” Hugh gave me a fond look, which made me blush.

“Hugh, would you care to try a California cabernet?” my mother asked. “I've been waiting for the last two years to open a certain ‘97 from the Sonoma Valley.”

“It sounds scrumptious, but I'm likely to nod off if I have more alcohol. I had a small whisky at the hotel which hit me like a ton of bricks.”

“Don't worry, then, we'll save it for tomorrow's Christmas lunch,” my mother said.

“Mom! What about me?” I demanded.

“Wine? Oh, that's right, you're old enough to drink. I almost forgot. Manami never touches wine,” my mother said, giving a fond glance to the young woman, who had been quietly walking around the table pouring water into everyone's glass.

“Here, let me open the bottle,” Hugh said, taking the bottle from my mother, who was struggling with the fancy corkscrew I'd given her a few holidays back. “I'll take a taste, because who knows when I'll ever have the chance for a Sonoma ‘97 again?”

“Many more times, if you stay in this neighborhood. And pour a big glass for me—I've had quite a day.”

As we settled around the twenty-foot-long mahogany table—my mother had already put in the extra leaves, given that the ALL party was a few days away—she told us about her day. The problems had started when the plum pudding had arrived smelling off. The deliveryman was gone by this point, so she'd called Williams-Sonoma to arrange for a replacement, but they didn't know when he could come back. Then, while looking for Asian-themed cocktail napkins at Gumps, she'd also noticed a lavish display of Japanese kimono sashes. “Three hundred dollars per obi, Rei. While you're here, darling, you should go in and get an appointment with them, see if you could become their obi importer. Why, out of the collection you've amassed for yourself, surely there are a few dozen you could part with.”

The story of my mother's day irritated me; it seemed so trivial, given what we'd seen of Rosa's life. I frowned and said, “Right now, the thought of selling my own collection doesn't really appeal to me. I mean, we've lost so much of what Dad had.” I turned directly to my father. “Didn't you sell some old family possessions back in the seventies?”

“Why would I do that?” He frowned at me.

“Of course you did!” My mother rapped him playfully on the knuckles, then spoke to all of us. “We sold a few things that were worth money but didn't have deep emotional significance back in the mid-seventies to put together enough cash for a good down payment on this house. I sold an old Baltimore quilt that had belonged to a great-great-aunt, and Toshiro sold a document that belonged to his grandfather. Of course, it would be nice if we still had those things, but we had to do what we could to get a decent roof over our heads.”

“‘Decent' isn't the word for it,” Hugh cut in. “It's a beautiful house. And if you bought in the seventies, the appreciation in its appraised value must be tremendous.”

“Well, thank you for the compliment. And the truth is, the house
has
risen in value—much more than the quilt and the letter could have brought if we went to Hopewell's today. It would be unheard of today for people like us to be able to buy a house in
this neighborhood. It turned over mostly to computer people a few years ago, though now some of them have had to sell, so it's back to CEOs and lawyers again.”

“Speaking of lawyers, Charles Sharp lives around here,” I said. When my parents looked blank, I added, “Charles is one of the principals in Sharp, Witter and Rowe, the law firm Hugh's consulting with right now. Oops. Is it all right that I said that, Hugh?”

“Sure,” Hugh said. “I'd like to get their thoughts on the case as well. Although I must warn you, it's not a particularly pleasant dining topic.”

“Really? Do tell, we're all grown-ups here, it's all right!” my mother said, giggling. Clearly, the wine had gone to her head.

Hugh shook his head. “All right. In a nutshell, what's happened is that Andrews and Cheyne, the firm I work for in Washington, have joined up with the local firm Rei mentioned to mount a class action seeking reparations for the Asian and American victims who were slave laborers of Japanese
zaibatsu
during World War II.”

“But isn't a
zaibatsu
an animal? Pig or…” My mother drew her perfectly waxed brows together as she struggled to remember her basic Japanese.

Manami, who had been silent, was now hysterically laughing, her hand in front of her mouth as if that would hide it. She gasped, “Not
buta!
No, no!”

“What did I say?” my mother demanded.

“
Buta
is pig,” he began. “A
zaibatsu
is a superpowerful Japanese company such as Honda or Sony or my own former employer, Sendai,” Hugh explained. “But these companies aren't named in the suit—”

“Who is?” Manami asked.

Hugh shook his head and smiled. “That is something I can't tell you. At least, not until we've spoken with them and decided for certain to file the class action. I can tell you about our plaintiffs, though—these are very old women and men who suffered unthinkable abuse at the hands of the Japanese during the war.”

“We've always been interested in social justice,” my mother said, regaining her composure. “Rei was still a pea in the pod when we
were marching against U.S. involvement in Vietnam, but she was right there, bouncing along in a Snugli as we drew attention to injustices against Mexican farm laborers, Native Americans, and Angela Davis!”

Manami looked puzzled; clearly, these names and issues meant nothing to her. I resolved to give her a minicourse in seventies liberalism later on.

“I'm relieved to hear you're sympathetic to this project,” Hugh said. “I've been trying to stress that it's not an attack on Japan, but rather on the
zaibatsu
companies profiting from abuse of powerless people.”

“So what did these
zaibatsu
do?” my mother asked.

Hugh told them some of the details about Rosa—without mentioning her name—and about others who'd told their stories before, to other people, but who had passed away and were thus unable to reap any benefits from the class action.

My mother's eyes were large, and I saw her glance nervously at my father, who, despite the alcoholic flush on his cheeks, looked quite grave.

Manami had a similarly serious face. I sensed she wanted to say something, and when Hugh stopped talking, she did. “Actually, it is incorrect that the Japanese government forced the girls to do it. The facts remain that the brothel owners invited them. These people were not even Japanese. Some of them were Korean and Chinese—”

Hugh waved a dismissive hand. “Yes, the Japanese hired people who came from the comfort women's home countries and thus were more likely to be able to convince them to leave their own lands and go work in the brothels.”

“Well, then, why aren't
those
governments in trouble?” Manami, with her braids, looked like a child—but a feisty one. It was the first time I'd heard her disagree with anything, and I realized she was finally getting used to our family's open style.

“Manami has a point,” I said. “Hugh and the lawyers should go after the brothel owners as well—it would be another way for the comfort women to get reparations.”

“Even if a former brothel owner is alive—which I doubt—it's not likely that he'd have the kind of money to pay victims that the
zaibatsu
groups would. I'd like to follow every path possible for the victims, but this particular detour would simply waste time. The
zaibatsu
are sitting ducks. Or pigs, as your mother so aptly pointed out.”

“What do you think, Dad?” I turned to my father, who'd been quiet.

“Over the years, I've overseen the psychiatric treatment of some comfort women in my practice,” my father said. “But this business about the companies is new to me.”

“Nobody thinks about it,” Hugh said. “Not until the Holocaust victims rose up against the German companies that used them did this issue come to light and seem like a possibility for Japan.”

“But I thought you liked Japan.” Manami regarded Hugh with clear confusion.

“I do, Manami. I love the people, the way of life, the land. But there are people within the country that did horrible things to other people because they thought those people were subhuman. They thought they got away with it. Sixty years later, we're going to tell them that they can't.”

Hugh had been speaking so passionately and quickly that his Edinburgh burr had made his English hard to understand; I could tell from Manami's blank expression. So I translated in Japanese as best I could, and she nodded.

“You have a strong feeling, Hugh-san. Very strong.”

My father cleared his throat. “This is no doubt a shock for Manami, please remember this. The topic is not common conversation in Japan, now or when I was growing up. When I grew up in the postwar era, finding enough food, and heat, and hoping for a chance to rejoin the world economy were the things that my parents worried about.”

“Yes, as we say in Japan, water washes things away,” Manami said “We must concentrate on Japan being the strong caretaker of modern Asia, to build for the future.”

Hugh nodded politely, then turned right back to my father. “So you actually counseled female patients living in San Francisco who were comfort women? Do you know if any of them are still alive?”