The Samurai's Daughter

by Sujata Massey

  “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?”

  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.

  7

  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.