“It sounds as if you know about the town,” I said. “Do you recall its name?”
“I’m sorry. And actually, it’s hard for me to remember what it was that she told me and what I just remembered from growing up in Japan.”
“I can understand that challenge.” I was totally discombobulated sometimes, between my old life in Tokyo and my new life in Washington. “Anyway, it sounds like the life of an ama-san beats the daily grind of a salaryman slaving in an office, doesn’t it?”
“Well, because the women are so valuable, they are only allowed to marry men who are born into sea-diving families as well. The men usually drive the boats. It’s a matter of tradition,” Mr. Nagano said.
“There are reasons for that tradition,” Norie said. “Women simply find things more quickly than men. Underwater, while holding her breath, a diver must locate a mature abalone quickly, and then pry it off with a knife without killing any of the baby abalone growing nearby. That sensitivity is a woman’s special touch.”
Betty was nodding enthusiastically. “That makes perfect sense. And now I feel ashamed of myself for assuming that Sadako had been in the water trade.”
“But she was in the water,” I said, before realizing that the Japanese word Betty must have been thinking of was mizu-shobai, which meant prostitution and bars.
“Bars were where a lot of girls met their military husbands. We didn’t ask them, and they didn’t tell.”
“So she was a woman who was used to hard, honest work, and earning her own money. This transition to America, where she became a wife under the thumb of a man who was the sole provider, must have been very difficult—” I broke off, realizing that it sounded as if I was describing my own life.
“I remember that she’d never gone to a dentist, and refused to go, even though she now had all those military benefits,” Betty said. “Getting her to the doctor when she was pregnant was pretty hard. Someone either drove her or rode the bus with her, to make sure she really went.”
“Walter Reed Army Hospital is where Andrea was born,” I said. “And you know, on the day that Sadako disappeared, she was supposed to have had a doctor’s appointment. I wonder if she’d gone back to Walter Reed to see a psychiatrist or psychologist. Her life with her husband sounded pretty depressing.”
“I really wouldn’t be sure about that,” Betty said. “That visit we made was when the baby was only three months old. Andrea was already two when Sadako vanished, and two is a much easier age to cope with.”
“It is?” I was doubtful, thinking back on my chaotic moments in the restaurant with Kendall’s twins.
“Yes, Rei-chan! When you have a baby, you will see.”
“That’s right, you should be getting married soon.” Betty turned a warm smile on me. “And how is your fiancé, Henry, or—”
“Hugh,” I said. “He’s doing well. He was sorry to have missed the last dinner, but he should be there for Children’s Day.”
“I am organizing the wedding,” Norie said. “Without me, I fear it will never happen.”
“Is that so? How lucky for Rei.” Betty winked at me, as if she understood that this was a mixed blessing. “How many days will you be here, Shimura-san? I would like to visit with you again.”
“How kind. I will have plenty of time, as I plan to stay through the wedding,” Norie said.
I had to stop myself from gasping. Until the wedding? She’d be here for months. I’d never be able to keep up the ruse that Hugh’s apartment was mine, and he lived somewhere else.
Betty was opening the file drawer again, and Yuji Nagano mumbled something that I couldn’t quite make out.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that again, sir?” I asked.
“I said that you should bring Sadako-san’s daughter to meet us, at our home,” Yuji Nagano said.
“I’ll talk to her about it. Please be aware that she’s a little—prickly. All those years in foster care, I guess, left a permanent mark.” I began gathering up my bag to leave.
“We should have helped her,” Yuji Nagano said. “We should have returned to make sure she was all right.”
Betty cast her eyes downward for a moment, and I was silent as well, thinking. So many missed cues, so many mistakes. Andrea’s life could have been quite different.
Yuji Nagano spoke again. “Bring Sadako’s daughter to our house. We must see her to explain, to say that we are sorry.”
15
Now I was happy that we were going to Bento for dinner. I had so much to tell Andrea. I thought I could slip into the kitchen to talk to her, at which time I could introduce Norie to Jiro Takeda.
Norie asked me for advice about what to wear, and I told her, with some regret, that Washingtonians wore practically anything out to dinner. My aunt chose a mulberry-colored silk suit and shiny black pumps. I wore a black sleeveless turtleneck that was tighter than I remembered, with a knee-length black-and-white zebra print-skirt. Once I’d zipped up the knee-high black suede boots I’d gotten from my mother, I thought I looked pretty good, but Norie shook her head and sighed.
“Now I understand your difficulties in finding a wedding dress that suits you. Ah, well, at least you are young and trendy.”
The walk from the Chinatown Metro station to the restaurant took a while, because my aunt was enthralled with the old, gaudy Chinatown gate spanning H Street. After she’d photographed me standing under it, we finally arrived at the restaurant. It was six-thirty.
Justin, the waiter who’d taken over Andrea’s hosting job, gave us a disapproving look. “I don’t see a reservation under your name.”
“I forgot to call, but can’t you fit us in?” I could see that about half the tables were unoccupied. I’d gotten a call from Hugh about half an hour earlier, saying he’d made it to the restaurant and was waiting for us. I couldn’t see him at any table, though.
“Is there a difficulty?” Norie asked in English.
“Not at all. Obasan, this is Justin, the waiter who is substituting at the host desk. Justin, this is my aunt Norie, who has traveled all the way from Japan and really would like something to eat. And I know that somewhere in this place the third member of our party is here. He might even have made a reservation under the name Glendinning.”
“You’re with the, ah, Scottish guy?” Justin’s hauteur evaporated.
Norie smiled and said, “He is her fiancé.”
“Well, luckily for you, he did book a table for three for seven-fifteen. He’s in the bar with some movers and shakers. Hmm, he’s really a doll. It’s a pity to think of him all buttoned up in flannel pajamas.”
“Pajama? What does he mean?” Norie asked in Japanese.
Justin was insulting the two of us for being square enough to be engaged, but the truth was, Hugh did own a few pairs of pajamas—regular cotton ones, but I’d been thinking about getting him some in warm German flannel for winter.
“He is talking about a new form of casual dress,” I said as I began guiding my aunt through the restaurant, toward the bar. “You know how fashionable Hugh is. Well, men here are starting to wear the clothes of other cultures—kurta shirts come from India, you know, as do pajama pants—”
Hugh was dressed rather more conservatively in one of his favorite Hugo Boss business suits. I spotted him on the outer fringe of a group of men surrounding Senator Snowden. Phong, the bartender, moved quietly behind the bar, making sure everyone had a drink. And these were serious drinks—not cute saketinis or mojitos, but glasses of whisky, bourbon, and the like.
I caught Hugh’s eye right away. He moved away from the circle of people who were listening raptly to the senator. The words “allocation” and “budget” floated out to me: the business of the nation, the things that made Washington what it was.
“Do you want to sample an oyster? They’re delicious with this wasabi sauce.” Hugh proffered a small plate to me.
“None for me, thanks.” He knew perfectly well that I hated oysters, I thought with irritation.
“Nor
ie-san, how about you? We can take the plate over to our table.”
“Where do these oysters come from?” Norie inquired.
“These are called Kumamoto oysters,” Phong interjected from his position behind the bar. “From the Pacific Northwest. They are among the plumpest and most delicious, supposedly.”
“Kumamoto is in Japan, but these days, it’s not a place where oysters are grown. Why not serve oysters from the Chesapeake Bay? I read about them in a Japanese food magazine,” Norie said.
Phong was tongue-tied, so I told my aunt what I’d heard about oyster populations having shrunk to near extinction in the Chesapeake Bay after having suffered two major diseases.
“The watermen want to implant new, hardy Asian oyster populations in the bay, but the verdict’s still out on whether that’s safe,” said a new voice, and I glanced away to realize that Senator Snowden had stopped talking about the federal budget and had joined our conversation. “The question is, is the risk of introducing an alien better than letting an ecosystem perish—especially since this so-called Asian oyster has been reproducing successfully in California and the Pacific Northwest for the last forty years. When does a foreign species become domestic? That’s the question that nobody can answer, and one of the few areas in which I sound like a pro-business Republican.”
“Senator Snowden, hello!” I said, completely flustered. “I didn’t mean to distract you with our worries about the oysters—it sounded as if you were talking about the budget—”
“You weren’t distracting me. And I’m delighted to have met your future husband. Before you arrived, we were talking for a bit.”
I glanced at Hugh in surprise, and he smiled at me. “Kendall was here earlier on. She did the honors of an introduction. We were having a fascinating conversation, like you said, about the national budget, and how it differs from the way we fund things in the UK.”
“Who is this lovely lady with you, your older sister?” Harp Snowden nodded toward Aunt Norie.
Norie beamed as if she hadn’t understood he was handing her a standard line. Well, that was all right with me.
“I’d like to introduce my aunt Norie Shimura.” As I pressed my aunt forward, I murmured in Japanese that this was a senator she was meeting, one of the best-known men in the country.
“The no-gun senator,” she said, smiling at him. “You don’t like guns, do you? We heard about you on the Japanese news!”
“The No-gun Shogun.” Hugh repeated the line the Japanese media had used to describe him.
“It’s almost mortifying that I’m such an oddity for my stance.” Harp Snowden shook his head. “Are you from Japan, Mrs. Shimura?”
“Yes. I come from Yokohama, which is one-half hour south of Tokyo,” Norie said.
“Oh, yes. The lovely city with the famous iris gardens, and a Chinatown full of delicious restaurants—”
“You know it!” Norie beamed.
“I was in Japan first in the seventies, and it is still one of my favorite countries to visit,” Harp Snowden said. “I love all the traditions, how time seems to have stood still.”
A babble of men’s voices increased as if they wanted to move on to something really important. But Norie’s voice rose as clear as a shakuhachi flute above them. “How nice!” she said. “You must visit again. The women drive, the stoves have ovens and so on.”
“Excuse me?” The senator put down his glass and looked at her more closely.
“A mineral water, and a glass of the Horton viognier!” I blurted out, desperate to change the subject. But Phong ignored me, as if he’d become spellbound by the increasingly bizarre exchange between my aunt and the senator.
I turned back to the two conversationalists. “Actually, Senator, I’ve been wanting to apologize for bothering both you and your wife on the phone the other day. I was desperate to locate Kendall, as you know, and I saw your numbers in her little phone book and just dialed.”
“Don’t mention it.” Harp Snowden’s face flushed slightly, and I wondered what I’d said wrong; probably, that Kendall had his home numbers in her address book. “It all turned out for the best, didn’t it? Like your fiancé said, Ms. Johnson was here a few minutes ago looking very much alive. We were even talking about using Bento as a location for my dinner.”
“Kendall wanted me to tell you that she’s sorry, but she had to run home,” Hugh said. “And I made sure she got in her car safely; don’t worry about that!”
“Was she here to see Marshall?” I was still puzzled by the situation, and the way Harp, who’d seemed so close to Kendall before, was now calling her by her married name.
“In a manner of speaking.” Hugh turned the two of us slightly away, so our conversation wouldn’t be audible to the others. “I offered to serve as a mediator when she unexpectedly dropped in at my office this afternoon.”
“What do you mean, you offered to serve?” I felt my hackles rise.
“We came here about an hour ago, and we had a short but productive conversation with Marshall. He seemed a bit defensive, and, of course, your cousin wanted to vent about her treatment that night, but I like to think the crisis has been averted. She’s not going to sue.”
“But I thought you couldn’t represent her!” I said. “You do contract law, class actions, that kind of thing.”
“Mediation is a way of staying out of court, which is what I thought you wanted?” Hugh raised one eyebrow.
“It is, but…what’s Kendall getting out of it? There must be some payoff from Marshall.”
“He’s offering her the food at cost for Senator Snowden’s dinner.” Hugh turned from me to my aunt. “Norie-san, we’d better see about our table in the dining room.”
“Please don’t leave just yet, Mrs. Shimura,” Senator Snowden said to her. “I’d like to offer you a sample of an hors d’oeuvre the chef brought to us, a combination of yuzu and sweet potato.”
I couldn’t help thinking, as I watched my aunt open her mouth and begin to chat knowledgeably about yuzu, that one of her favorite proverbs fit Harp Snowden perfectly: “It stinks, but it’s tai.”
Harp Snowden had acquired a patina of superficiality. Still, he was like tai—the best kind of fish, even beneath the oiliness that came from his time swimming among the sharks of Washington, D.C.
Hugh walked me with one hand on my back into the dining room. “Before your aunt joins us, I’d better mention that I won’t be sleeping at the apartment tonight. Kendall offered me her guest room, and given the circumstances, I think it’ll be easier.”
I stopped walking. “Easier? What are you talking about, she lives in Potomac!”
“Darling, you’ve made it clear to me that it’s critical your aunt not discover that we’re living together,” Hugh said, urging me toward the table where Justin was pointedly hovering with menu in hand. “So, to avoid the inevitable discovery, it’s probably easiest if I just stay away. You suggested Kendall’s place a while ago, anyway.”
“I changed my mind,” I said.
“Rei, she is still shell-shocked from the abduction. She doesn’t feel safe at home because Win stays out quite late. She was vastly reassured once I agreed to stay. Her face lit up like Christmas!”
“I can imagine other body parts igniting, too,” I said grimly.
“Darling, you’re not jealous of your own flesh and blood, are you?”
“Not exactly,” I said. I was more anxious about Hugh. He had strayed a couple of years ago, when we were separated by an ocean and countless misunderstandings. He was engaged to me now, but that didn’t make him invincible against a woman with an absentee husband and who had already expressed far too much interest in his underwear.
“All right, darling. I’ll see what I can do to suit both you and Kendall. But in the meantime, I’ll head over there tonight. When you and Norie are having dessert, I’ll duck out to the apartment to pack my kit. I’ll swing back here with the car and take you both home, then continue on to Kendall’s place.”
“Ah, but then you have to get out at Dupont Circle and make it the rest of the way. Two women walking that distance at night is a terrible idea.”
“Oh, really? I’ve done it before. And like you say, there will be two of us. Look, Norie’s coming over. Do me a favor and start talking about something else.”
We all settled around the table, menus in hand. Hugh and I were quiet, but Norie had enough to say for both of us while she showed off the stored picture on her digital camera that someone had taken of her with the senator. Then Marshall came over. I had just begun to introduce him to Aunt Norie when he cut me off.
“There’s trouble with the ladies’ room. I wonder if you could go in there for me and check it out.”
“Sure.” I just hoped it wasn’t a toilet problem. I jumped up, relieved to leave my aunt and Hugh.
“This day is shot to hell,” Marshall said. “The bartender quit, two of my line cooks called in sick, and one of the two dishwashers is in jail. His sub is so incompetent I’ve had to put Princess Andrea at the sink, and you can imagine how she’s enjoying that. Our monkfish delivery never came, and the five pounds of morel mushrooms meant for tonight’s special arrived disintegrated. Not to mention, we think the Post critic is at table 10.”
“Shouldn’t he be in disguise?” I asked.
“Yes, of course, but Justin saw the caller ID when the reservation was made a few days ago.”
“Wow,” I said. Justin was better at his job than I’d expected. I longed to ask Marshall about the dishwasher who was in jail, but I could see he was more upset about the kitchen chaos.
“I think there are some women in there,” Marshall said. “I’ll wait outside while you go in.”
“Is it the, ah, toilet or something? I have to warn you that I’m not a plumber.”
“Andrea said it was a problem with the vanities, and those, I believe, are your province. I was going to put in normal sinks, but you wanted tansu chests,” he added.
Marshall was being unfair, I thought as I slipped my kuginuki, a special Japanese tool I always carried, out of my bag. When I went into the bathroom, I saw the problem. Water had leaked from the cold handle on one vanity and colored its beautiful red-brown paulownia surface whitish, right at the back. I turned off the water and did some work with the tool, but it was really better for prying off nails than unscrewing a faucet. What was needed was a wrench, and a real plumber.
The Pearl Diver Page 15
