“Mr. Ishida, I’m sorry for keeping you waiting,” she said. “I’ve been busy since last week. Mrs. Sakamoto is sick, and she has no relatives, so I have to look after her.”
I assumed Mrs. Sakamoto was the cleaning lady, since I’d never seen a third employee around. “I hope she’s feeling better.”
“The doctor says she should be well in three, four days.” She gave me a confused look. “No luggage this time?”
“I’m not here to book a room. There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”
“With me?”
“Yes. It’s about Miyuki Katou and her mother, Haruna Katou.” I forced myself to look into her eyes. “I mean, Haruna Katsuragi.”
Her expression changed. After a few moments, she told me to follow her, leading me through the office behind the counter into a tea room.
We sat facing each other on the tatami floor, separated by a low table with a handcrafted tea set on top. The room was decorated with a calligraphy scroll and a simple flower arrangement. The kimono lady took out two ceramic cups and poured us green tea. Her technique was graceful, befitting the pale yellow kimono she wore.
Neither of us touched our cups. I didn’t want to rush her, so I waited. But after several minutes had passed and she continued to look down in silence, I knew I had to say something.
“Mrs. Katsuragi?”
She looked at me. “First of all, how did you find out about Haruna?”
“I found her maiden name written inside a book in the Katou household,” I lied, not wanting to implicate Mrs. Itano. “When I thought about the physical resemblance between the two of you, I figured you must be related.”
She nodded. “Haruna was my younger sister. I know you’re from Tokyo, so I’m not sure what your relationship with the Katou family is.”
“I’ve been staying at their house.”
“I see. Now I remember, there was talk of the late Miss Ishida having stayed there,” she said. “But I’m no longer related to Haruna or the Katsuragi family, let alone the Katous. I’m afraid there’s nothing to discuss.”
I cleared my throat. This wouldn’t be easy, but I had to try my best. “I believe you care about the well-being of your sister,” I said. “And right now, she’s harming herself.”
The kimono lady drew in a sharp breath. “Is that true?”
“Yes. The Katou family is downplaying her condition to avoid scandal. My apologies for being so direct, but you should get in touch with your sister before it’s too late. She needs help.”
She shook her head. “I wish I could, but I can’t. They’ve forbidden me from seeing her.”
“But she’s your sister.”
“It’s a long, complicated story.”
“Why don’t you tell me?” I said, sensing an opening. “I mean, if you don’t mind. I’ve got the time, and I want to hear what you have to say.”
She paused for a long while, before taking a deep breath and recounting the story of her life.
Her name was Natsumi Katsuragi. She was the first daughter of the Katsuragi family, who owned Akakawa Hospital, the biggest hospital in town.
The family didn’t have any male heirs. There were only two daughters, Natsumi and Haruna. Their mother could no longer conceive due to uterine cancer, which had forced her to undergo a hysterectomy.
The Katsuragi family had been running the hospital for generations, and figured a son-in-law would inherit the job. It was long decided that the successor would be Natsumi’s future husband, who would be selected from the pool of young doctors working at the hospital.
As the daughters of a hospital director, Natsumi and Haruna had a privileged upbringing. They went to a prestigious girls’ school, got good grades, and were well-behaved. Only three years apart, the two of them were inseparable.
At their father’s suggestion, Natsumi attended Tokyo Medical University and became engaged to a promising surgeon at the hospital. Haruna studied at Waseda University, where she met and was proposed to by the eldest son of the Katou family. Everything was going according to plan until Natsumi’s fiancé died of a heart attack. It came as a surprise, since he was young and had led a healthy lifestyle, but fate has a way of twisting one’s direction in life.
Her father arranged a list of alternate suitors, but Natsumi turned them all down. Though her relationship with her late fiancé had begun as an arranged marriage, the two had fallen in love with each other. She wouldn’t accept anyone else. The Katsuragi family was shocked, and what followed was a leadership crisis at the hospital. Getting Haruna to marry the next hospital director in her sister’s place was impossible without offending the Katou family. Left with no choice, Dr. Katsuragi adopted one of the young doctors into the family to make him his successor. Needless to say, he was dismayed with his eldest daughter’s disobedience and disowned her.
At age twenty-one, Natsumi Katsuragi had to leave the family home. Broken-hearted and depressed, she left with nothing but the family name and fond memories from before things had gone bad.
“Those days were the darkest days of my life,” the kimono lady said.
I nodded in understanding.
“I hadn’t graduated, and didn’t have the money to continue paying rent or tuition,” she continued. “Thinking back, perhaps my father thought I would agree to marry his adopted son once I learned how difficult it was to survive on my own. But he was wrong. I no longer cared about my life.”
Moving out of her luxurious apartment, Natsumi rented the cheapest place she could find, sharing it with illegal immigrants. Most of them washed dishes in restaurants, earning low wages, and she took on the same job. Natsumi’s mother couldn’t bear to see her living in poverty. Without her husband’s knowledge, she went every once in a while to visit Natsumi and give her some money. But a year later, Mrs. Katsuragi passed away.
“After the uterine cancer, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer,” the kimono lady said. “But this time, the doctors couldn’t save her.”
She sipped her tea for the first time, and I followed suit.
“I’d always been close to my mother. Unbeknownst to me, before she passed away, she had instructed Haruna to discreetly support me. My sister became my source of strength until I met my husband three years later.”
Natsumi’s husband owned the Japanese restaurant where she had been working. The man was by no means ideal husband material—he was a widower, and more than twice her age. His wife had been killed in a car accident, and he didn’t get along with his grown-up children. Thin and sullen-looking, he was the opposite of Natsumi’s late fiancé, but he had a sadness about him that attracted her.
It wasn’t incorrect to say that what she felt for him was more compassion than love. The death of a loved one had bound them together, and they were soon married. Around the same time, Haruna entered the Katou family registry.
When Natsumi and her husband went to the Katsuragi house to ask for her father’s blessing, Dr. Katsuragi didn’t take the union well. A man who appreciated family background and high education, he was furious that Natsumi’s husband possessed neither. And the fact that she was to become a second wife was an embarrassment for the Katsuragi family. Everyone was against the marriage, even Haruna. Natsumi and her husband were chased out of the house and told never to return.
In spite of that, Natsumi was content with her new life. Together with her new husband, she worked hard and made the restaurant flourish. Business was good. Though Natsumi didn’t have the same level of financial comfort that she’d had growing up, the couple had all they needed. Unfortunately, this happiness was short-lived.
Some said it was bad luck, others said it was destiny when Natsumi’s husband collapsed at work. They rushed him to Akakawa Hospital, but he fell into a coma. The doctor said he had a blood clot in his brain. Having once lost her fiancé, Natsumi was determined to make sure her
husband survived. She spent all her time taking care of him. Despite all her efforts, his condition didn’t improve.
Meanwhile, nobody watched over the restaurant, and its standards dropped. Regular customers stopped coming, and soon the business was running in the red. Eventually, the bank seized it. To make things worse, Natsumi had used up all of the couple’s savings for her husband’s treatments. Eventually, she had no choice but to ask her father for help.
“I swallowed my pride and went to my family’s house to ask to borrow money,” the kimono lady recounted. “I lowered my head, begged my father. But since he had already declared that I was no longer his daughter and he disapproved of my marriage, he refused to get involved.”
My chest felt heavy as I remembered my own parents disowning their daughter. “I’m sorry, did your husband . . .”
“He never woke up. After agonizing months with no progress, I made the decision to turn off his life support.” She looked into her cup. Her eyes were empty, and the tea had turned cold. She lifted the cup and held it steady with two hands. Her wrinkled fingers traced the roughness of the pottery. “After the funeral, I had no desire to remain in Akakawa with all of its painful memories. But with my husband’s passing, I somehow regained the will to live I’d lost after my fiancé’s death. I wasn’t about to waste it.”
Before he’d passed away, Natsumi’s husband had promised to take her to Kyoto for their honeymoon, but the plan had to be postponed when the business started to flourish. Now that they no longer had the restaurant, Natsumi made it her mission to fulfill their dream. Armed with a single suitcase, she went to Kyoto and stayed at the traditional Japanese inn her late husband had chosen. As fate would have it, the establishment was looking for a new attendant. Natsumi saw it as a sign for her to remain in Kyoto.
“I decided to work there, never intending to return to Akakawa. But fifteen years later, I received a call from one of the Katsuragi family lawyers,” the kimono lady said. “My father had passed away. In his will, he had left a sizeable inheritance for both my sister and me. I think it was his way of making amends.” She looked at me. “He wasn’t very honest with himself, was he?”
I mumbled in agreement.
“Behind the strong façade, my father was a softhearted person. He felt responsible for what had happened to my husband.”
Natsumi had ended up with enough money to sustain herself without ever working again. Using part of the inheritance, she bought bonds and stocks of reputable companies. The dividends alone were enough to cover her expenses without touching the capital. Even then, a considerable amount remained, and she wanted to buy back the restaurant she had once been forced to sell.
After the bank had seized it, a restaurateur bought the place, but the business never took off, and eventually folded. A real estate company then took over the restaurant and tore down the building with the intention of turning it into shops, but the company ran into financial difficulties and the project went unfinished. Rumors began to circulate that the land was cursed.
“I wanted to get it back by whatever means, and was prepared to pay above market rate,” the kimono lady said. “Luckily for me, the real estate company was eager to get rid of it. I ended up paying close to nothing,”
I recalled what Mrs. Itano had told me about the property.
“As an abandoned plot of land, I wouldn’t have much use for it. I had first thought of building another restaurant, but running that would have been too labor-intensive. I was getting on in years and wouldn’t have the energy for it. Building a business hotel was a good alternative, since I had the experience of working at a traditional inn.”
I nodded.
“Am I boring you, Mr. Ishida, with this old woman’s story?” she asked.
“Of course not. Your life is fascinating,” I said. “But there’s one thing I don’t understand; why did you name the hotel after your father’s family instead of your late husband’s?”
“In a way, the hotel is a tribute to my father. The inheritance he left allowed me to buy this plot of land and spend the rest of my life in peace, knowing I would have nothing to worry about financially.”
I stole a glance at my watch. We had been talking for nearly an hour, but the question I had come to ask hadn’t been touched on. “Based on what you’ve said,” I began, “you’ve mended fences with the Katsuragi family. But why did you say earlier that you would have nothing to do with your sister and her family?”
She paused, taking the time to pick the right words. “By the time I returned to Akakawa for my father’s funeral, fifteen years had passed. I hadn’t been in contact with my sister since her opposition to my marriage—in fact, I still haven’t.”
“You don’t know anything about her life here, then?”
“I heard she had a daughter who spent her entire life in and out of the hospital. I don’t know much about Miyuki—I never met her.” The kimono lady sighed. “The child passed away before I came back to Akakawa.”
“Do you happen to know why Miyuki was hospitalized?” I asked.
“I heard she had a rare, incurable illness, but I don’t know what it was. I assumed it eventually caused her death.”
So she didn’t know firsthand what had happened to her niece. “When was the last time you saw your sister?”
“The day I was exiled from the Katsuragi family,” the kimono lady said. “Haruna didn’t even attend our father’s funeral. After her daughter’s death, she went into a severe depression, refusing to leave the house or see anyone.”
“Did you ever try to visit her?”
The kimono lady looked down. “I went to the residence a few times, but Kosugi Katou always asked me to leave. At first, he was civil about it, but eventually, he gave me a stern warning to stop coming.”
I could very well imagine Mr. Katou doing such a thing.
“I ignored his words until a fire broke out at the hotel. Luckily, no one was hurt, and the damage was minimal. I filed a police report, but my intuition told me something was amiss. The authorities seemed reluctant to pursue any leads, even though it was a clear-cut case of arson.”
Natsumi had received a call from Mr. Katou a day after the incident.
“I heard there was a fire at the hotel,” he said.
“Thank you for your concern,” she said. “I’m all right.”
“I’m relieved to hear that. Now, listen. You’re currently in a comfortable position that allows you to live in peace. Things like the fire wouldn’t happen if you stopped meddling in others’ private affairs. There’s an old saying: Never wake a sleeping tiger. I hope for your sake that you’ll take this to heart.”
The brief call confirmed her suspicions, but she had no way to prove the incident was the work of the Katou family. Even if she did manage to find any incriminating evidence, the police would be reluctant to act on it. The politician’s family held considerable influence in Akakawa.
“After that, I stopped trying to reach Haruna,” the kimono lady said.
“I can understand why,” I said, “but your sister needs you.”
She gave me a thin smile. “It was kind of you to come all the way here, Mr. Ishida. But after abandoning Haruna for so long, I have no right to step in as her sibling.”
“That’s not true. No matter what’s happened, she’s still your sister.”
“I don’t wish to go against Mr. Katou. He’s a dangerous man. It’s in your interest not to know too much about the family’s personal affairs. My apologies, but I’m afraid I can’t be of further help.”
I sensed she was withholding important information, something I wouldn’t be able to get to simply by asking the right questions. “I’ll be taking my leave now,” I said. “Thank you for your time.”
“Not at all.”
The kimono lady escorted me out. I deliberately slowed my pace, hoping she would say somethin
g else, but she didn’t. I left the hotel and headed to the bus stop.
Halfway there, I heard her calling after me. I turned around and saw her walking hastily down the deserted street. I waited for her to catch her breath before she spoke.
“There’s one last thing I should have told you, Mr. Ishida,” she said. “I have the feeling Miyuki’s death was unnatural.”
I frowned. “What makes you think so?”
“At my father’s funeral, I met his adopted son. According to him, Haruna had refused to send Miyuki to Akakawa Hospital.”
“Maybe she thought the other hospital was better.”
She shook her head. “Akakawa Hospital is the most advanced medical institution in the area. As granddaughter of the hospital’s former director, Miyuki would’ve received nothing but the best treatment. Despite that, Haruna chose to send her daughter to a smaller clinic outside of town.”
“When did Miyuki die?”
“Six years ago,” she said. “In May.”
“And how old was she?”
“If I’m not wrong, around six or seven.”
Hearing that, I was almost sure Miyuki Katou was Pigtails.
“What are you planning to do, Mr. Ishida?” the kimono lady asked.
“Nothing yet. But please consider reaching out to your sister.”
She sighed. “I’ve been marked by the Katous. It’s too hard for me to get close to Haruna.”
“Since I’m staying in the house, perhaps I could help in some way?” I neglected to mention the impending move.
“Mr. Ishida, I know you’re a good person, but you’re getting yourself into trouble. Please listen to this old woman. Try not to get too close to the Katou family.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said before we parted ways.
My plan had been to return to the Katous’ house that afternoon and finish packing, but I decided to go elsewhere.
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