The Salaryman's Wife

by Sujata Massey

  I didn’t feel nice. Yamamoto and I walked down-hill in silence until we reached the Miyakawa River. He needed to return to Minshuku Yogetsu to take care of Mr. Nakamura. I pressed on, following signs for a Shinto shrine. Soon I passed under a vermilion gate and found myself in the midst of a few hundred New Year’s worshipers, men wearing sensible down jackets while the women and girls froze in fancy kimonos topped only by short brocade jackets. A pair of teen-aged girls wearing the crisp cotton robes that were the uniform of shrine maidens beckoned from their souvenir stall. I shook my head, but the girls looked so disappointed I ultimately relented and bought their cheapest product, a paper fortune printed in English for international tourists. I opened the slim orange-and-white envelope to read the ironic message that I was the recipient of EXTREMELY GOOD LUCK.

  The fortune read like a grocery list of guidance. Disease: It will take a long time to get well. Believe in God. For Employment: Talk with the employer right away…Regarding Marriage Proposal: Remember to get married with your parents’ permission. I rambled through it without interest until I came to the statement He who listens to one side is kept in the dark. He who listens to all sides is in the know.

  All sides. Could that mean not parroting what Yamamoto wanted me to believe, or did it mean I should listen to him? What would these Confucian fortune writers have recommended for my specific case?

  I left the shrine and turned into the historic shopping and museum district. Because of the holiday, only a few antique shops were open. Although I had none of my usual enthusiasm for shopping, I decided to go into a place selling old blue-and-white china to keep from having to return to the minshuku. I moped around the shop examining everything until the owner finally exploded and threw me out, saving that if I was just looking, the museums would reopen tomorrow.

  In a dusty little shop next door, the owner was friendlier. I dug through a large tea crate filled with miscellaneous junk and retrieved a small pine letter box decorated with a geometric pattern of brown and cream inlaid woods. Judging from its metalwork, the box appeared to be early nineteenth century. The rusty iron clasp was locked, but when I shook the box, something rattled. I wondered about what it might be, given the fancy nature of the box: old coins, or maybe a carved ivory ornament.

  When it came time to talk price, I made a long face about the missing key while the shop owner argued in favor of the unknown riches inside. But he’d gone through the crate to search for it, gotten his hands dirty, and he wanted a sale to start the New Year correctly. In the end, he agreed to knock a thousand yen off his original quote. I agreed; six thousand yen, approximately fifty dollars, was a pretty decent price for something that old.

  Every Japanese restaurant in town appeared to be closed for the holiday, so unless I wanted to eat sushi from a Family Mart convenience store—something I did far too often in Tokyo—I’d have to shell out for a hotel meal. I decided to go for faux Swiss at the Alpenhof, a timbered chalet sparkling with Christmas lights. The restaurant served multicourse dinners heavy on meat that started at thirty-five dollars, so I almost gave up. The maître d’ confided that prices were lower in the bar across the lobby. I elbowed my way in through a mass of skiers getting drunk and singing along with The Pet Shop Boys.

  When I noticed Hugh Glendinning in the corner, I wasn’t surprised. This kind of Euro-themed bar was a home away from home for gaijin, the slightly negative name by which foreigners were known. There were no gaijin here outside of us, though, and as I looked closer, I saw Hugh had buried his face in his hands. There were two glasses beside him, both empty. I waited a few beats and as no one appeared to be joining him, I did.

  5

  “Another Macallan neat,” he said without looking up.

  “Alcohol won’t bring her back.” I offered him the pack of tissues I always carried and he tossed it back.

  “I’m just thinking. Trying to be alone, if you don’t mind.”

  Ignoring him, I sat down and signaled the waitress to bring me a menu. “We’ll both have tea,” I told her firmly in Japanese and went on to order grilled cheese, a rare treat, for myself.

  “You’re obnoxious. Has anyone ever told you that?” Hugh muttered.

  “Thanks for sending your assistant to stalk me. I almost had a heart attack!”

  “Be quiet for a sec,” he said as the waitress returned with a slightly different order: two grilled cheeses, two glasses of whiskey and one cup of lukewarm water with a Lipton’s packet next to it. She was off to the next table before I could protest.

  “You may as well try it,” Hugh said, tapping his glass against mine.

  I sipped. The whiskey burned and I closed my eyes tightly. Hugh poured in half the water that had come in my teacup.

  “Sorry. I forget not everyone is accustomed. Try it again.” After I did, he said, “Yamamoto spoke to me after the fact. I didn’t ask him to bother you.”

  “Do you know his theory?” I asked.

  “The story about suicide spurred on by financial debt? Rubbish.” So he didn’t believe it, either. Despite my initial impression of him on New Year’s Eve, I was beginning to feel something of a bond. I decided to confide what I’d been thinking for the last few hours.

  “If I hadn’t made that scene last night, it might not have happened.” I drank a little more whiskey.

  “What scene?” Hugh’s voice was slurred.

  “Remember how we were talking in the hallway outside your room? Setsuko came out looking for you. She wanted you to bathe with her. My presence made you say no. Who knows what would have happened if you stayed with her?”

  “You’re suggesting I should have taken a bath with her?” Hugh sounded outraged. “What planet are you from? Oh, right, California. Perhaps in your society, married women bathe with their husband’s colleagues all the time.”

  “I want the police to get their investigation right,” I said, trying to stay on track. “If you hold something back, it could mean trouble for both of us.”

  “But you’re the policeman’s great pal!”

  “Hardly. I found the body. People who find bodies are usually the ones who fall under suspicion. As a lawyer, don’t you know that?”

  “I’m a solicitor, which means I don’t do criminal defense. Let me reassure you, though, that no one suspects you of any wrongdoing. And as for your supposed culpability, you’ve been reading far too many mysteries, I think.”

  “I have little time to read. Actually, all I do is work,” I blazed at him. “For me, this trip—my first in two years—has gone halfway to hell. To you it may be nothing, but I paid a lot to come here and it’s nonrefundable.”

  “Whereas in my case, I only lost one of my best friends in Japan.” He looked at me with disgust.

  I tried again. “So, ah, what was the basis of this friendship? All I’ve seen and heard is how she served you.”

  “I served her, too!” Hugh retorted, his face reddening as if he realized how bad that sounded. “I mean, she wanted to practice English.”

  “Her language skills were good enough that she hardly needed it. And for someone who likes speaking English, she had nothing friendly to say to me last night.” Irrationally, the burn was still there.

  “She should have. She had an absolute fascination with America. I used to help her go through the travel books in the library at Tack….”

  “What’s Tack?” I asked as the waitress arrived with two toasted sandwiches oozing cheese. I passed one to Hugh.

  “T.A.C.” He spelled it out. “The Tokyo American Club.”

  “Cute nickname for an intense place. How on earth did you get in?” Until now, I’d believed the astronomically-priced enclave was exclusive to Americans of the Tokyo Weekender genus.

  “Members represent over fifty countries, including Japan—and we’re mostly all there because our companies pay the initiation.”

  I had digressed. “How terrible do you think Setsuko’s life was with Mr. Nakamura? Could he have been beating her?”
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br />   “I doubt it. Nakamura would argue with her about the shopping, but that was all. Yamamoto definitely was being straight with you regarding her shopping mania.” Hugh made a face. “When we went into the shops, all the clerks welcomed her by name.”

  “You kept shopping with her, even after your apartment was finished?”

  “Yes, I, ah…” he faltered. “Occasionally, we shopped together.”

  “Even when you knew her husband didn’t want her to do it?”

  “It was okay. I paid,” he said shortly.

  “What did you buy her?” I was amazed.

  “We’re getting off the subject,” Hugh said.

  “Right.” I gave him a disbelieving look. “How wealthy are they, or is that a rude question?”

  “I don’t think money’s a rude subject at all.” He raised one eyebrow, a neat trick. “Nakamura earned about fourteen million yen per annum, depending on his annual bonus. They have a large house in the suburbs I’ve heard was devalued to a hundred-thirty mill, given the real estate slump.”

  One hundred and twenty yen to the U.S. dollar. I did some rough calculations on my napkin and came up with a minimum salary of $116,000, plus a house worth almost $1.1 million. Pretty cushy for a couple with no kids. “What about his wife’s net worth?”

  “Setsuko didn’t work, of course, and she brought no money to the marriage. She was, as you Americans say, a trophy wife. A decade younger and better looking than he deserved.”

  “You know a lot about them.” Yesterday he had come off like the Nakamuras’ new and naïve friend. Today he sounded like a spy.

  “Mr. Yamamoto is a huge gossip.” He grinned as if I also had an assistant at my beck and call.

  “What’s going on at Sendai?” I persisted. “Was anything brewing with Mr. Nakamura that might have led him to snap?”

  “Do you honestly think I’d tell you if there were?” His eyebrow rose again, and I lost my temper.

  “That’s right, you’re the company lawyer! Forget the fact that I saw you going through an emotional breakdown when I came in here, you’ve bounced back admirably. The Nakamuras had no problems outside of the wife who shopped until she dropped.”

  The Scotch must have loosened me. I had never delivered such a tirade to a stranger. The assertive American was re-emerging after three years of suppression.

  “If I told you what I’d done, you’d know it was my fault.” He sounded sullen.

  God, what was this, a confession? Oddly, I didn’t feel like running out. Taking his hand would be too forward, but I felt he needed encouragement. I closed my fingers around his wrist.

  “What? What could be so bad? Come on, I’ve been honest with you.”

  He was struggling with something. I waited, feeling his pulse throb underneath my fingertips. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat.

  “Divorce. She wanted one. I counseled against it. And now she’s dead.”

  Before I could react, he had twisted his arm away from me and was gone.

  The crisis must have sent Mrs. Yogetsu straight to her bed. I didn’t see a trace of her all evening. Her husband, on the other hand, had come through with flying colors for New Year’s Day supper. There were steaming bowls of miso soup, trays of fish and pickled vegetables, and chewy mochi cakes to round things off for dessert. I couldn’t bring myself to eat much, feeling headachy from the whiskey and what Hugh had told me. Neither he nor anyone from Sendai had shown up for the meal. When Yuki asked after them, Mr. Yogetsu whispered that a company delegation had arrived on the six o’clock train. They had holed up in the living room, the sliding doors closed so tightly only the scent of their cigarettes seeped out.

  I doubted Hugh would tell me what they were saying. The only communication I’d received since his flight from the Alpenhof was an envelope pushed under my bedroom door. Inside was 5000 yen and his bilingual business card with a note scrawled over the Japanese side: Tell me if I still owe you.

  He’d gotten the accounting right—the bill had been about forty dollars for the drinks and sandwiches. I calculated my share and slid 200 yen under his door with a note saying, Your change. I went back to my futon and tried reading. I’d forgotten to bring the Banana Yoshimoto novel a friend had given me for Christmas, but I did have Kodansha’s Pocket Kanji Guide. After a fruitless hour, I took my towel and toothbrush to the small women’s lavatory at the end of the hall. Just as I was putting my hand on the doorknob, the men’s door next to it banged open. Mr. Nakamura emerged, drying his hands with a handkerchief.

  This was the first time I’d seen him since the morning and he looked like a wreck. Although I knew toilets were hardly the places for small talk, I felt to say nothing would be worse.

  “About your wife…it was such a shock. I’m really very sorry.”

  “It can’t be helped.” Mr. Nakamura showed no reaction, just his usual displeased expression.

  “Excuse me, I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, I think you understand Japanese very well,” he snapped. “You understand how to manipulate situations and get people in trouble—“

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, staring him down.

  “The man you called a pervert and drove off the train. You picked the wrong one.”

  I hadn’t realized the Nakamuras had been on the same train. Rut it was obvious, given that his party had arrived just five minutes after me at the inn.

  “What do you mean? Who was it?” I remembered the man in the “Milk Pie” sweatshirt who had dashed off the train, and guilt flooded me.

  “I didn’t appreciate your help as a translator this morning,” he continued in the same hard voice.

  “I didn’t mean to intrude. Glendinning-san just asked about your wife—”

  “Keep talking with the police, will you? It’s important for them to know where all the foreigners were. Given that my wife was murdered.”

  “Really?” I forced myself to keep my voice level. “Do the police have some theory about it?”

  “We’ll see, won’t we? I’m sure you’ll stay involved.” Mr. Nakamura bowed mockingly and went downstairs.

  In the lavatory, I stared at myself in the mirror, trying to understand what had taken place. Nakamura had made it clear he considered me both intrusive and worthy of suspicion. And he had voiced the word murder, which I’d been thinking but not saying, as if it were something I could push away.

  The police hadn’t said anything about foul play, but Nakamura had. He knew something. My heart pounded in my ears, reminding me of what my doctor-cousin Tom had said when I worried one of my headaches might be a brain tumor: When you hear hoof-beats, think of horses, not zebras. Look for the obvious, not the arcane. And the obvious choice in the murder of an unhappily-married woman would be her husband.

  6

  “This is where they torture women. Or, I should say, torture women and men. Rei-san, can you understand how this terribly painful chair works?”

  Taro was obviously enjoying our tour of the Shiroyama city hall’s punishment room. Given the black mood I was in, it was a mistake for me to have come along. I would have checked out of the minshuku and said good-bye to Taro and Yuki were it not for Mrs. Yogetsu announcing there would be no refunds for anyone who wanted to leave based on irrational fears following the “freak accident.” After all, the police didn’t think anyone needed to leave.

  I desperately wanted to tell Captain Okuhara what Hugh had said about Setsuko wanting a divorce. I planned to ask Hugh for his permission, but he had gone off somewhere with his colleagues. I was left with the Ikedas and Mrs. Chapman. And the chair.

  The seat in question looked normal except for the sharply pointed pyramid spiking up from the center of the wooden seat. As Taro began explaining in his excellent English exactly where it went, Yuki shushed him.

  “No, no, Taro! I am afraid Mrs. Chapman and Rei-san will be sickness.”

  “Someone with a samurai name like Shimura would have been cross
-examined on tatami,” Taro continued, giving me a puckish glance. “Common people sat on the cold stone floor.”

  “What about foreigners?” Mrs. Chapman asked.

  “Foreigners? At this point in history, Japan was closed to the world. There were no foreigners, certainly none in prison!” Taro reassured her.

  Today, plenty were around. A Belgian tour group that had arrived from Kyoto were enjoying Taro’s commentary about a wall decorated with whips. Soon he had hijacked half of them and the stories were only getting wilder.

  “Rei? I’m feeling poorly.” For once, Mrs. Chapman’s florid face was pale.

  Yuki and I exchanged glances and took her across the freezing courtyard to more neutral civil buildings. I became interested in a group of storehouses where rice was once kept as tax revenue for the shogun; the buildings were decorated with exquisite stamped metal nail covers that looked like long-eared rabbits. I asked Yuki if they were fertility symbols and she giggled as if I’d said something naughty.

  “No! The brochure says it symbolizes the power of the shogunate, that its ears are long and can hear everything that happens here, no matter the distance.”

  Like Sendai Electronics, sensing trouble and coming directly to stifle it. I thought of the corporate officers who had come down last night and were now sleeping next door to me, smoking nonstop. They made rotten neighbors; I hoped they wouldn’t stay all week.

  After the museum, we decided to have lunch in a modest snack shop that the Ikedas enjoyed during their last trip. I had a vegetarian sautéed noodle dish and was glad to see Mrs. Chapman liked her crispy pork cutlet, the first food I’d seen her finish. We ate in enthusiastic silence, and as I sipped my second cup of tea, I decided to bring up what we had suppressed from our conversation all morning. “So, what do you think is going to happen with Mrs. Nakamura’s death?”

  “It depends whether they rule it murder or suicide,” Taro promptly replied.