Murder on the Cliff

by Stefanie Matteson

  Spalding harrumphed.

  Past the monument, they climbed a stone path lit by the red paper lanterns. Wind chimes hanging in the pines tinkled in the breeze. As they passed the stone lantern that stood guard at the entrance, their host emerged and descended the stairs to the stepping stone at their base. He was wearing an informal brown-and-black-striped kimono. Welcoming them, he bowed deeply in Japanese fashion.

  Marianne took the lead. “Hello, cousin Paul,” she said as she marched up the stairs past her host, her daughter in tow. “Thank you for inviting us.” The tone of her voice was acid.

  “I would appreciate it if you would remove your shoes, please,” said Paul as he caught sight of Dede’s sharply pointed high heels.

  “Oh, sorry,” said Dede sweetly. But as she paused to take off her spike heels, she was jerked forward by her mother, who made a production out of clomping up the stairs to the gallery, geta and all.

  Ignoring Marianne’s bad manners, Paul turned back to the other guests and welcomed them to the party.

  After removing their shoes and leaving them next to those of the earlier arrivals, they donned the one-size-fits-all slippers that had been provided for them, and climbed the stairs to the gallery.

  Skirting the building, Paul led them around to the rear of the gallery, which jutted out over the cliff. Several guests had already gathered, among them a Japanese woman who stood at the railing, gazing out to sea. The collar of her kimono dipped backward as if it were going to fall off, revealing the nape of her neck, which was coated with the traditional white makeup of the geisha.

  “I’d like you to meet my house guest, Okichi-mago,” said Paul, introducing the famous geisha who would host the Okichi Day celebrations.

  Okichi-mago slowly turned around, and then bowed to the new arrivals. Her slightest movement was possessed of infinite grace.

  Charlotte was taken aback at her beauty. Like the Okichi of the faded photograph, she had the long, oval face of the classical Japanese beauty. But even four or five generations hadn’t obliterated her Caucasian blood. Although she had the high cheekbones of the Oriental, her features were bolder than those of a pure Japanese and she had the round eyes so desired by stylish Japanese women, which they paid plastic surgeons hefty sums to create. They were also of a remarkable color: a rich, luminous sea-green flecked with turquoise, as deep and lustrous as the glaze of the sake cup displayed in the mahogany case inside the house.

  “It is a great pleasure for me to meet you,” she said. Her American accent was perfect, right down to the l in pleasure.

  She was made up in formal geisha style: her face was coated with thick white makeup and her heart-shaped mouth was outlined in carmine red. A circle of rouge marked the center of each cheek. Her kimono was one of the most beautiful Charlotte had ever seen. It was made of a shimmery navy blue silk embroidered with gold and silver seashells that were being lightly tossed by waves imprinted in gold leaf. Her brocade obi was tied with a cord of deep celadon-green and fastened with a clip ornamented with a huge baroque pearl. In her hair, she wore a cluster of red camellias.

  It was easy to see why she had become the most famous geisha in Japan.

  For a moment, they were all slightly dumbstruck. Spalding finally took the lead, greeting her in Japanese. Then he introduced Charlotte: “Okichi, meet Okichi,” he said. After Okichi-mago had chatted briefly with Charlotte, Paul introduced her to the other new arrivals.

  As he introduced her to Marianne, Charlotte noticed Marianne taking in every detail of her appearance—and for once, not critically.

  “Your kimono is very beautiful,” said Marianne.

  “Thank you,” Okichi-mago replied. “It’s very old.”

  And probably very valuable, thought Charlotte. Beautiful antique kimonos were considered works of art and were fabulously expensive. She wondered whether Tanaka had paid for it.

  Once they had all met Okichi-mago, Paul introduced them to the other guests, who included Tanaka; Tanaka’s assistant, a handsome young man named Takeo Hayashi; and Just-call-me-Ken. Just-call-me-Ken was taking pictures of Okichi-mago, who had resumed her place, with Marianne at her side.

  Another legacy of Okichi-mago’s Caucasian blood was her height. She was as tall as Marianne. In fact, from the back, they looked very much alike: both were tall, both wore navy blue kimonos, and both wore their hair in the smooth, upswept, bouffant style of the geisha.

  Connie, too, was intrigued by the beautiful geisha.

  “Paul, she’s exquisite,” she said. “How on earth did you ever find her? Did you know that Okichi and Townsend Harris had a descendant?”

  “I heard about her two years ago when I was in Kyoto, or rather I heard about a geisha who went by the name of Okichi-mago and who was said to be a descendant of Okichi and Townsend Harris’s love child. But I thought then that she was just someone trying to take advantage of a famous name. Then I met her …” He looked wistful. Charlotte wondered if he was in love with her himself. “It turned out, of course, that she was for real.”

  “What’s her background?” asked the ever-inquisitive Connie.

  “She’s the great-great-granddaughter of Okichi’s daughter. Her mother, who was also a geisha, died in childbirth, and she was raised by a guardian in a geisha house in Kyoto. Beyond that, her background is somewhat mysterious. Her guardian had no money, but she was brought up as if she was from the finest of families. Apparently there was a mysterious benefactor in the background somewhere. She’s been trained from her youth in the traditional geisha arts.”

  “Judging from her English, it looks as if she received a good education in other subjects as well,” said Connie.

  “Oh yes. She’s had a topnotch education. All the best schools. She’s one of the few geishas to have attended university.”

  “Has she ever revealed who her mysterious benefactor was?”

  “No. It was always assumed he was her father, whoever he might be. Of course, Mr. Tanaka’s been paying the bills in recent years, but I understand that his relationship with her is over now.” He looked over at Shawn, who had just arrived, and who had already lured Marianne away from Okichi-mago.

  He wore a formal kimono jacket, with crests on the shoulders and sleeves, over a long, culotte-like skirt of the type worn by samurai warriors. As before, his hair was pulled back into a topknot.

  As Lester seethed in silence, Marianne affixed herself to Shawn’s side like … Charlotte was reminded of the greedy octopus.

  For a while, everyone took in the view, which was magnificent. With the exception of a single pine—which had managed to take root in the face of the cliff, and whose wind-contorted silhouette lent just the right Oriental note—the view of the ocean was unobstructed on all three sides.

  Charlotte walked over to the railing. Sixty feet below, the waves lapped gently against the rocks at the base of the cliff.

  After a few more minutes of chatting and exchanging business cards—the favorite social pastime of the Japanese—they removed their slippers, and went inside to the temple hall.

  Inside, as well, the temple was an exact replica of the Shimoda temple. The hand-hewn beams were made of cypress aged to a warm honey tone, the movable walls of paper stretched on wooden frames. The smell of sandalwood from an incense burner mingled with the sweet smell of the tatami mats.

  “It’s beautiful,” Connie exclaimed as they entered.

  One by one, Paul seated the guests on square, flat cushions on either side of a long, low lacquer table with a black and gold checkerboard surface. To Charlotte’s surprise, her host steered her to the seat of the guest of honor at the end of the table. “In recognition of Okichi Day,” he said.

  Charlotte suspected, however, that it was simply the most politic solution. He’d scarcely bestow such an honor on a family member, nor was he likely to bestow it on Tanaka, who had managed to aggravate even a Japanophile like Paul by his anti-American remarks.

  In Japanese rooms, the guest of honor was se
ated in front of the tokonoma, an alcove in which a flower arrangement and a scroll painting were displayed. In this case, the theme was camellias: a simple cluster of red camellias in a shallow black ceramic bowl and an ink painting of a single camellia blossom.

  “I see that you’ve put a lot of thought into the tokonoma,” Charlotte said as he showed her to her seat. “Did you arrange the flowers yourself?”

  “Yes,” Paul replied. “In honor of Okichi-mago.” His words had a bitter ring, as if she hadn’t lived up to his expectations in some way, though how that could be, Charlotte couldn’t imagine.

  After thanking him, Charlotte slowly lowered herself into a kneeling position on the cushion. She dreaded the effect the position would have on her joints. Even in her youth, she’d found it hard to maintain for more than a few minutes.

  As they were being seated, more guests arrived: Aunt Lillian, looking like an angel in a gossamery taffeta kimono the color of spun sugar; Marianne’s brother Billy, who, like Dede, had inherited Connie’s good looks; the mayor of Shimoda and his petite wife; and Justin Ogilvie, Nadine’s handsome older son.

  “This isn’t going to be easy,” said Connie as Paul showed her to her seat next to Tanaka, who was seated at Charlotte’s left. Spalding had already been seated at the other end of the table between the mayor’s wife and Tanaka’s assistant, Hayashi, where his fluent Japanese would be put to good use.

  The seat at Charlotte’s right had been assigned to Shawn, who lowered himself effortlessly onto his knees, sitting with his legs slightly apart and his hands resting on his thighs. A position that it would have taken Charlotte several awkward adjustments to achieve was accomplished in one fluid motion.

  “I envy you your flexibility,” she said. “I always thought wrestlers were supposed to be muscle-bound.”

  “Not sumo wrestlers. We do exercises to increase our leg flexibility,” he replied. “Eighty percent of a sumo wrestler’s power is in his legs. Every sumo wrestler does sumo splits every day, which consist of sitting with your legs in a spread-eagle position and bending forward until your chest is on the ground.”

  “It sounds painful,” said Charlotte.

  “It is, at the beginning. But you get used to it—you have to. We’ll be demonstrating some sumo training exercises at the match tomorrow. Will you be coming?”

  “Yes, with Spalding. He’s followed your sumo career very closely. He tells me that you’ve been interested in Japanese culture since you were a teenager. What originally prompted your interest?”

  “It’s funny that you should ask me that question,” he replied. “Actually, my interest was prompted by a rerun of an old movie I saw on television.” He smiled—he had perfect white teeth. “A movie about Japan.”

  “Soiled Dove?”

  Shawn nodded. “I saw it when I was about thirteen, and fell in love with everything Japanese. Fortunately, my parents supported my interest: they enrolled me in aikido classes, bought me all kinds of books …”

  Charlotte wasn’t surprised. The lavish production had launched a mania for Japanese culture. It was hard to understand now, when there was a sushi bar on every block, but at that time Japanese culture was still exotic to most Americans.

  “It was also when I saw Soiled Dove that I decided Okichi was the woman for me. Unfortunately, the beautiful actress who played Okichi was a little too old for me”—he smiled again—“but I was lucky enough to end up with her successor.”

  They both looked over at Okichi-mago. In keeping with her role as geisha, she knelt to one side of the host’s seat at the head of the table, and slightly behind it.

  “I would say you’re a lucky man indeed,” said Charlotte. “Pity that the actress who played Okichi was a little too old for you.”

  “Pity indeed,” said Shawn. “Anyway, I spent my junior year in high school as an exchange student in Osaka, where I studied calligraphy. Then, when I went to Yale, I majored in Asian studies.”

  “He’s also translated several books of classical Japanese poetry,” interjected Marianne, who had plopped herself down beside Shawn in the seat that Paul had reserved for Aunt Lillian, forcing him to seat her elsewhere.

  Obviously, Connie still hadn’t told Marianne that Shawn was already taken. Or if she had, Marianne was ignoring it.

  By ten past seven, all the guests were seated. After sliding the wooden doors shut, Paul lit the candles in the low wroughtiron stands on the floor. Then he took a seat at the far end of the table next to Nadine, his arm resting on a padded armrest. “I guess we’re ready to begin,” he announced, clapping his hands softly. At his summons, a parade of soft-footed Japanese waiters appeared from behind a screen, bearing hand-towels in little wicker baskets which the guests used to wipe off their hands and faces. The washcloths were followed by lacquer trays with sake and beer. Charlotte was familiar with the geisha party routine from the time she had spent in Japan. Though a squeeze or a pat here and there wasn’t unusual, the geisha party wasn’t an erotic affair, but rather an opportunity for a wealthy businessman to entertain his friends or clients. It hadn’t been common thirty years ago, but, today, Charlotte knew, it wasn’t unusual for women to attend geisha parties, as they were this evening.

  Once the drinks were poured, the geishas arrived. Sliding the wooden doors aside, they sank onto their knees in a low bow. When they stood up, it was as if the barren room had burst into bloom, so lovely were the colors of their kimonos. Like Okichi-mago’s, their lacquered jet-black hair was piled high on their heads and ornamented with various combs, hairpins, and flowers. But unlike Okichi-mago, who looked to be around thirty, these geishas were very young. They were also petite: none of them topped five feet.

  After greeting the guests, they rose and glided into the room with a rustle of silk. Their names were Keiko, Fujiko, and Sumire. Keiko took a seat between Charlotte and Shawn, kneeling with her feet tucked under her. She was the only geisha, besides Okichi, who spoke English. She had a round face with no chin and tiny slits for eyes, which reminded Charlotte of the face of a tiny white kitten.

  “I am very pleased to make the acquaintance of the other Okichi,” she said demurely. As she bowed her head, the silver ornaments in her hair flashed in the flickering light from the candles. “May I pour you some sake, please?” Her English was perfect.

  “Thank you,” said Charlotte, holding out her cup.

  Keiko proceeded to pour the sake, each movement practiced to graceful perfection. In contrast to her face, which was whitened with the traditional geisha makeup, her hands were lightly tanned.

  “Okichi-san is my big sister,” said Keiko, in a soft, highpitched voice. “Perhaps you would like to be my big sister too. I would like very much to have a big sister in America,” she added sweetly.

  Under the geisha system, each geisha was introduced to the intricate etiquette of this special world by an older and more experienced geisha, her older sister. Ideally the older sister was both mentor and friend.

  “I would be delighted,” said Charlotte.

  Keiko bowed her head again. Then, getting up as gracefully as she had knelt down, she moved on to Shawn and Marianne.

  “Tell me,” said Marianne as Keiko knelt beside her. “Is it true that the nape of the neck is the most erotic part of a woman’s body to a Japanese man, just as the breast might be to an American?” As she spoke, she reached back with one hand and pulled down the collar of her kimono to display her long white neck.

  Keiko giggled, revealing a charming set of dimples and an equally charming snaggletooth. She had a high-pitched, girlish giggle. “I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to your question. I think you will have to ask a Japanese man.”

  “How about an American man who lives in Japan?” Marianne replied, staring brazenly at Shawn. “Would he do as well?”

  It was ironic that someone whose fashion designs were the epitome of understated style and sophistication could be so coarse. She had all the subtlety and reserve of a kamikaze pilot.

&
nbsp; “I wouldn’t know,” said Shawn curtly. “I’m a leg man myself.”

  Meanwhile Lester was quietly seething in his seat across the table. Connie was chatting with Tanaka on one side of him and Justin was flirting with Dede on the other, which left Lester with nothing to do but watch Marianne and Shawn.

  Once the geishas had poured the drinks, the first course was brought out: a rich, delicious miso soup. After the soup came the appetizers: smoked fish, pickled vegetables, raw oysters, seaweed, and caviar. The foods were served in dainty little dishes that reminded Charlotte of a doll’s tea party.

  For some time, the guests ate and chatted, the geishas using their considerable skills at drawing people out to get the party off to a good start. Language didn’t seem to matter: the geishas who didn’t speak English were doing just fine with pantomime and pidgin English.

  After the appetizers, the sashimi course was brought out: squid slices in green nests of seaweed strands, sea urchins in cucumber baskets, tuna fillets cut to resemble multi-petaled flowers—all almost too pretty to eat. Then there was another round of beer and sake followed by a baked quail course accompanied by a side dish of two tiny hard-boiled quail eggs.

  Once the guests had finished the quail course, Paul gave a discreet signal and the three young geishas glided up to the front of the room. Sumire knelt at the center, Keiko and Fujiko to one side. Keiko held a small drum, and Fujiko a samisen, a long-necked stringed instrument. As Keiko and Fujiko played, Sumire removed a fan from her obi and began to dance.

  By now Lester, who was drinking Scotch, had given up being angry—even Marianne’s suggestive remarks about the aphrodisiac properties of raw oysters hadn’t provoked him—and was getting drunk instead. “Brava, brava,” he shouted as Sumire’s deft hands transformed the fan into a falling leaf, a rippling waterfall, a branch waving in the wind.

  “Brava, brava,” echoed the mayor of Shimoda.

  After Sumire’s dance, Paul tapped a chopsick against a porcelain cup and called for his guests’ attention. “Fujiko is now going to sing a classical Japanese love song called ‘Rain on the Willows,’ about Okichi,” he announced.