The Samurai's Daughter (7 page)

My father shrugged. “I'm sure that some are. We tried to start a
group therapy program in the seventies, but it ultimately floundered because so many of the women were too ashamed to voice their experiences. There is a cultural insistence on the purity of Asian women—as you must know,” my father added a bit archly.

Right on, Dad,
I said to myself.
Let Hugh think you believe I observe all the ancient Buddhist rules.

“About your patients,” Hugh said to my father, interrupting my thoughts. “They could receive significant financial benefits from joining the class action. May I share our recruitment letter with you and any colleagues you think have handled similar populations?”

My father shook his head. “Sorry, but that would be inappropriate.”

“Why?” I asked, because Hugh's skin had flushed and I could see he had been embarrassed and shocked by my father's response.

My father's eyes glinted in a way that I knew meant bad news, and he began speaking rapidly—so quickly that his Japanese accent became more prominent, a sure sign of his stress. “First, I worry this suit is like opening Pandora's box for patients who have, over the years, come to terms with their grief and learned to become high-functioning.” He paused. “I cannot encourage patients to become involved in an enterprise with no likelihood of a successful outcome. Finally, the whole enterprise is a conflict of interest, since it could potentially enrich my own family via my daughter.” My father cleared his throat. “That is, if you plan to marry her.”

“Dad!” I shot a reproving look at him and then said to Hugh, “You don't have to listen to this. You don't have to stay in this house, either.”

Hugh's face was now beet red, but he held up a cautionary hand. “Sorry, but it's my fault entirely. I asked a question, and your father was good enough to answer me candidly. I disagree entirely with his first and second points, but I do agree with him on the point of marriage.” He turned to me. “Of course I want to marry you. For ages I've wanted this.” He glanced at my parents and said, “I've asked her repeatedly. She's just, um, delayed her decision.”

“Please excuse me,” Manami blurted. “Then you may have your family moment.”

“Manami, I apologize. It was a lovely dinner, Mom. I'm sorry, but I have to take a break.” I stood up, ignoring the napkin that had fallen from my lap to the floor. I had to leave. I felt utterly humiliated that my father had called Hugh on the carpet about our relationship within an hour of their renewed contact. Now I was beginning to get a sense of why Eric Gan had been so terrified of the man he called the daimyo.

“Where are you going, honey? It's raining!” my mother called as I headed for the front door. Everyone else was frozen at the table.

“Anywhere but here!”

Hugh followed me to the door and caught me by the arm. “I'm not going out, and I wish you wouldn't either.”

“But what are you going to do alone with them?” I was aghast.

“I'm not alone—Manami's here, and I'll ask her to help me wash up. And then I'll make tea for everyone. After I've got enough caffeine and sugar in me, I'll try to find something to say to your father that might convince him I'm not a gold-digging, ambulance-chasing bastard.”

“Oh, Hugh. You don't need to try.” Even though we were clearly visible to my parents, sitting thirty feet away in the dining room, I gave him a quick kiss and whispered that I'd sneak up to his room later to find out how things had gone. Then, loudly, so they could hear, I said, “I'm just going to walk a few blocks to clear my head. I'll be back in fifteen minutes.”

“Is it safe to walk around here in the dark?” Hugh asked.

“Safe as houses. There's a carolers' group going around, anyway—I'll trail them.”

 

I walked around behind a bunch of people, half dressed in North Face jackets, the others in fur, singing “Good King Wenceslas”—it was an upscale caroling group, with an emphasis on English and Latin songs. Despite the mist, I didn't cool off. I knew I was going back to a house where my normally mild-mannered father was
planning to engage in a long, drawn-out process of tormenting both my lover and me.
God rest ye, merry gentlemen, indeed.

When I rapped on the door a half hour later and my mother opened it, everything was still. The dining room had been cleaned up, and I couldn't see my father or Hugh in the front parlor.

“Your father's reading in the library,” my mother said in a low voice. “Hugh went to bed. And so did Manami.”

“Not together, I hope.”

“What kind of a comment is that?” my mother demanded. “Manami's a nice girl.”

“So am I,” I retorted. “Why didn't you let Hugh stay in my room?”

My mother wrapped an arm around me. “Don't fret. It will just take time. Your father's seen himself as the primary man in your life for almost thirty years. And Hugh has his own issues to work through.”

“Such as?” Of course, Hugh wasn't perfect, but I was the only one allowed to say that.

“When Hugh knew you in Japan, he thought you were a poor girl, didn't he?”

“Mom, nobody says ‘poor' anymore, they say ‘low income.' And I have no idea what he thought—”

“Well, in Tokyo you live rather modestly, but now he's entered your family home and been hit over the head with the understanding that you grew up with plenty of comforts.” My mother stroked a stray hair away from my forehead. “Put yourself in the poor man's place. He might feel he needs to prove that he's got the resources to care for you properly. The last thing he'd want to do is give us the feeling he's a sleaze.”

“Enough already!” I couldn't risk hearing more, so I hurried up the stairs, unsure of why I felt so agitated. We weren't rich. My parents had made a canny real estate investment in the seventies, but that was all. My mother drove an Infiniti, not a Lexus. My father clipped coupons. And my parents had made a bizarre gesture of taking in a foreign lodger for $100 a month.

We were a seriously odd family. Perhaps seeing my background, Hugh would decide I was more trouble than it was worth.

But when Hugh crept into my room later that night, whispering endearments and engineering me into a position that wouldn't rock the antique bed, I realized that I didn't need to worry.

He loved me, as I did him.

It would just take the rest of them some time to catch up to us.

Christmas morning. It was six, the hour I always awoke as a child. In the old days, I couldn't wait to get to the needlepoint stocking my Baltimore grandmother had made for me. But today, I knew that Hugh would be sleeping in, given his jet lag, and I didn't want to open my stocking alone, so I headed for the kitchen to make coffee.

My father had beaten me to the task. He looked up from his usual seat at the kitchen table. “Merry Christmas.”

“To you as well.” I didn't meet his eyes, just poured myself a cup of coffee.

“Why didn't you come to talk with me yesterday evening when you got home? I had no idea how long you were out in the streets.”

I dropped four sugar cubes in my coffee. “Couldn't you have asked Mom?”

“I did eventually. But I wanted to apologize to you myself for saying what I did about the marriage. It's not that I'm pushing for it, I hardly know the man at all—”

“You mean—you don't like him?”

“I do, chiefly because he seems to care a great deal about you. In fact, I'm sure that you could convince him to turn down this assignment.”

“You don't understand! He leapt at it as a way to go back to Japan—to be with me.”

“Why couldn't he return to the company he used to work for? He apparently had a good time working for Sendai, a top
zaibatsu
company—now he's seeking to bankrupt a company just like it. Manami's father works for a
zaibatsu,
as do most people's fathers, husbands, and sons. Can you imagine how an attack on a
zaibatsu
will play in the Japanese papers?”

“I certainly can.” My private thoughts from the previous day came back to me. My father had made some very logical points. And in fact, I'd had my doubts about the law firms' motives being completely altruistic. I'd argued that to Hugh, and now I was defending him to my father. Whose side should I be on? I couldn't decide. “Let's lay the matter to rest for the holiday, okay? I don't want to go through this with Mom and Hugh again.”

I heard footsteps coming down the stairs—my mother's light tread, followed by a heavier one and the sound of laughter. I went to the stereo and turned on the old recording of
Amahl and the Night Visitors
. Christmas was on.

Santa had filled everyone's stockings with fruits and homemade truffles. My parents were stunned by the opera tickets Hugh had given them; my gifts were smaller—a first edition of
Snow Country
for my father and a 1920s purple silk kimono for my mother—but they kissed me and said the gifts were perfect. I explained to Manami that the black cotton turtleneck I'd given her should enable her to pass for a real San Francisco hipster; she nodded and said it would keep her warm, anyway. Hugh had given her a map of San Francisco with all the bus routes outlined on it, since I'd told him she couldn't drive. My parents gave Manami a generous gift certificate to the Gap, and Hugh a new cell phone with our home number stored in memory. I had worried about Hugh's presents for a long time, and I gave him the new Bryan Ferry CD and an antique traveling gentleman's desk that I'd gotten at auction with my mother a few days before.

The things I received were all nice. My parents presented me with a huge set of engraved stationery—perhaps a hint that I should write more—and Manami shyly presented some bath salts
from Hakone. From Hugh, I received
The Rough Guide to Scotland
with a tartan G-string tucked inside that my mother blithely assumed was a bookmark. It was just as well.

“The private present comes later,” he whispered in my ear before we sat down to breakfast. But when would there be time? It was off to Grace Cathedral after breakfast for the morning service. Hugh went eagerly—he'd grown up in the Church of Scotland, which was practically the same thing as Episcopalian, which my mother was. My father professed to follow no religion, like most Japanese, but over the years, attending occasionally with my mother, he'd made quite a few good friends at Grace. Manami went out of tourist curiosity. I had to confess I was the only one there who went out of duty.

While the choir sang in a single, ethereal voice about the arrival of Christ, I stood silently in the midst of them, thinking that I felt more at home at the Yanaka Shrine in Tokyo. The shrine was Shinto, part of Japan's ancient worship of ancestors and nature. Not God. A couple of Sundays a month I'd take myself through its faded crimson-orange
torii
gate and perform the ritual of washing my hands, clapping them twice, and then disappearing into myself for a few moments. Yes, I thought of my parents, and my grandparents before them, even though this was not our ancestral seat. I thought of everyone I loved. Overwhelmingly, though, the miracle of the shrine was its proximity, the fact that it was part of my ordinary life. It reminded me that I'd reached the goal I'd aspired to since childhood—living in Japan. That was what I wanted more than money or love.

After the service ended and people had dispersed, we walked the cathedral's famous labyrinth—a giant carpet woven with a medieval design of curving paths that people moved along in prayer, sometimes stopping to kneel. It was a copy of a real outdoor labyrinth in Chartres, France; Hugh had actually been there, and was describing it to my mother. My father stood at a spot where he could gaze out beyond Grace's heavy doors into the gray San Francisco day. I moved slowly along the carpet's path to the center, lost in thought.

If I loved Japan, how could I support Hugh's suit? Yesterday, I'd
been so moved by Rosa's story, and so excited by idea of the class action. I wanted justice for the comfort women and slaves—that was without question. But Hugh's work would create tension in my social circle. I would still have my good Japanese name, but I wouldn't be a samurai daughter anymore. Instead, I'd be an enemy of Japan Inc.

Manami wanted to buy postcards at the cathedral's gift shop, so we went downstairs and then finally back out to the car.

“Does it feel like Christmas?” my mother asked as my father steered us all back to Pacific Heights.

No,
I thought.
The day is gray and depressing and feels like a portent of more bad days to come.

“Rather!” Hugh said cheerfully. “It rains in Scotland. The only thing I'm missing is the bogs, but perhaps if I get a good close look at the Bay later on, that'll do it.”

“Have you called your parents yet?” my mother asked.

“Actually, no. I'll do it right away when we get back—they're nine hours ahead.”

 

On the short but hilly ride home, my anxiousness slowly turned to nausea. The backseat of the Infiniti, sandwiched between Hugh and Manami, was the wrong place for me. And my mother was talking about salmon, which made it all the worse.

I was the first out of the car when we got back to Green Street, gasping for cool, rainy air. I walked up the steps to the house, hoping against hope my mother hadn't chosen the salmon just for me, because I didn't know if I could eat it.

I waited by the door, deep-breathing, as Hugh came up behind me.

“Hey, what's the rush? Your father lent me his key ring—which one is for the door?”

“The old Yale one,” I said. But the moment I fit it into its keyhole, the door popped loose from the frame. “It's unlocked. Whose fault was that?”

“What?” my mother said, coming up behind me. “I'm sure I locked it earlier.”

“What a perfect time for a break-in,” I said. “Christmas morning, while the presents are lying around downstairs and the family's away at church. We must have been watched by someone.”

“You're jumping to conclusions,” my mother said, going straight into the house. “Let me count the silver in the dining room. You all can see if the presents are still here.” Yes, the silver was there. The ceramics were still in the cabinets and on the sideboard, the unwrapped presents were in the parlor, and in the kitchen a $20 bill was lying neatly on the Welsh dresser where my mother had left it. The checkbook was in the drawer.

Nothing was wrong.

My mother laughed with relief, although my father began chastising her for being careless enough to forget to pull the door all the way closed. She was the last one out the front door—she had to have been the culprit.

Feeling glad I wasn't the one to blame, I sank down in a soft sofa in the library.

“Well, now that it seems everything's all right, would anyone mind if I made a phone call? It's getting late in the evening in Scotland, and I usually talk to my parents on Christmas.”

“Oh, you must!” my mother exclaimed.

Hugh took his new cell phone out of his jacket pocket. “This really was awfully handy. Thanks again.”

“Unfortunately, it's not on an international calling plan yet,” my father apologized. “I thought you might want to choose the carrier you were using before?”

“I did that already,” Hugh said, smiling. “Before we went to the cathedral, I took a few moments.”

“But you must use our home phone. We signed up for an excellent international calling plan when Rei went overseas—”

“Even to the U.K.?” Hugh looked dubious.

“Ten cents a minute. We'll be offended if you don't use it.”

“Thanks,” Hugh said, and began dialing the old black-and-white phone that had been in the library for as long as I could remember.

“I'm going to be sick,” I said. “Sick from nerves.”

Hugh grinned at me. “They'll love you just as much as I do. But speak slowly, hey? The Yank accent will throw them.”

Hugh talked for the first ten minutes, and then handed the phone to me. I shouldn't have worried because I could barely get a word in edgewise. Which was fine with me—Hugh's mother had a gorgeous lilt that was similar to Hugh's, but more charmingly colloquial. “Happy Christmas, but why aren't you here with us?” she began. “When are you coming to visit? We need to finally clap eyes on the gal that's stolen our eldest son's heart—”

“Stolen,” I heard echoing somewhere else, with a Japanese accent.

Stolen?

I turned my head to see that Manami and my parents had entered the room. My mother was pantomiming for me to end the phone call.

“Pardon me, Mrs. Glendinning, my mother has something to say to me.” I rolled my eyes at my mother, completely irritated.

“My name's Lydia, dear. Please use it if you like and—”

Hugh took the phone from me. “Mum, there's a small problem here, so we're going to have to ring off. No, don't worry, I'll get back to you in a few—oh, right, it's the middle of the night. I'll call you tomorrow. Right. Lots of love to everyone.”

“Someone has been in my room,” Manami said in a small but angry voice when the phone had been hung up at last. “The papers on my desk are disorganized. And someone looked inside my backpack!”

“It's very strange,” my mother said.

“Manami, I hope you don't suspect me,” Hugh said. “Catherine showed me your door, so I knew not to go inside it—”

“I did not mean to lay blame that way,” Manami said, but she kept her eyes to the ground.

“Remember, everyone, the front door was unlocked,” I said. “We thought a thief would be interested in the valuables on the first floor, but maybe not. Maybe it was someone who has a thing for Manami—you know, a person from the hospital—”

I looked at Manami with her schoolgirl braids, and, on this day, in honor of the holiday, her neat gray skirt. She was not overtly sexy, but she might appeal to someone who liked the fifties schoolgirl look.

“Before we jump to conclusions, let's look in all our rooms,” my mother said. “And the bathrooms, too—most house-breakers are junkies.”

“Good point,” I said, already halfway up the stairs. “Someone might very well know there are two doctors in the house and expect them to have hoards of Xanax.”

That theory didn't pan out. My room was untouched, as was my parent's. But when Hugh came down from the third floor, his face was serious. “Just as Manami said, someone was up there and went through my suitcase and the drawers of the desk. I can't figure out what's gone; I'll have to spend a few hours searching.”

“Your briefcase? Was that touched?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Fortunately not, because that's where all my legal notes are. I'd brought it downstairs earlier because I had to find the information on my telephone account. After I was through linking the cell phone to the provider, it was time to go to church. I didn't have time to go up to the third floor, so I left it under the Christmas tree. See? It's still there.”

“It looks like a Christmas present,” I said, regarding the oxblood leather briefcase half-hidden by some torn wrapping paper.

Hugh picked it up and opened it. “I'll go through it carefully, but it seems as if everything's here.”

“Do we still keep a key under the hibachi on the front steps?” my father asked my mother.

She nodded. “Yes, I put it back out when Manami came to live with us, just in case she came home when we weren't here one day and was missing a key.”

“I have not used it at all,” Manami said.

“I'll see if it's in its proper place.” My father went out of the house, and then came back in. “It's gone.”

I glanced at Manami, whose face had gone pale. All of a sudden I felt what she had to be feeling—that this place that she'd thought was safe really wasn't.

“You should call the police,” I said.

“Oh, I feel like such a fool to have left the key there. The police are going to scold me, aren't they?” my mother fretted.

“They're not going to be happy to come out on Christmas, espe
cially if nothing was stolen but a house key,” my father said. “They were so annoyed with us last month when we called about that loud group of teenagers. I hope we don't get the same officer.”