The Salaryman's Wife

by Sujata Massey

  So he was sending the same ironic commentary to everyone. She also had warranted a fax and I hadn’t. “Did Hugh mention any names of Setsuko’s relatives? Mother, father, what did she have?” The word child popped into my mind, but I didn’t think it would be wise to tell Hikari everything.

  “No parents living, as far as I know. This is the house. Please stop.” It was too dark to see Hikari’s expression, but in her voice I heard fear.

  13

  The kanji character for death glowed darkly on the surface of white paper lanterns flanking the Nakamura house. People wearing sober black suits and kimonos streamed past a small army of reporters clogging the street with bright lights and microphones. Some guests responded to their shouted pleas, but I kept my head down and followed Hikari inside, placing my kden on a tray monitored by a pair of mean-looking men in black suits. On the back of the envelope I’d written the amount being given, 5,000 yen, and my aunt’s maiden name, which I had decided to use as my cover.

  Setsuko’s good taste was as apparent in her home as it had been on her person. Calligraphy scrolls hung on the walls, and small antique ceramic and lacquer pieces were arranged on glossy tansu chests. The living room bustled with well-dressed guests and tuxedoed waiters offering whiskey and beer. The overall effect was of a very fashionable cocktail party.

  A second room with tatami flooring had been designated for mourning and was filled with flashy golden funeral trappings and the spicy scent of a few hundred potted chrysanthemums. More flowers bordered the frame of a large photograph of Setsuko, who surveyed us with her cool half-smile from atop the three-tiered golden altar decorated with bowls of apples and oranges, offerings meant for Buddha.

  Contemplating these decorations allowed me to delay approaching the brocade-covered box resting in front of the altar. It was closed, no doubt a necessity due to the gruesome slicing that would have been done in the course of two autopsies.

  Hikari and I followed the lead of a woman who went up to the altar and bowed before it, clapping her hands together soundlessly in prayer. It was all over within a minute. I guessed it would be up to her relatives to kneel and pray for hours at the funeral tomorrow. Not many seemed to be in attendance: as Hikari and I traveled back to the living room, she identified almost everyone as Sendai salarymen and their spouses.

  “Do you know all of them?” I was awed.

  “Almost everyone. Over there is the company president.”

  “Masuhiro Sendai?”

  “Yes. But it’s best if you don’t introduce yourself. He takes an interest in all his employees.”

  All except the ones in disgrace, I thought, looking at the doll-sized man with a thick shock of gray hair. He was conferring in a corner with a large foreigner, which made my hackles rise.

  “Who’s the gaijin?”

  “He doesn’t work at Sendai.”

  The man wore a Brooks Brothers suit and the smug, prosperous air of an expatriate executive in his early sixties. Maybe he was a lawyer, a contender for Hugh’s job.

  “Can I get a list of the people who gave kden?” I asked, thinking a foreigner’s name would pop right out.

  “Oh, no! That goes straight to Mr. Nakamura.”

  “How about a guest list?”

  “I doubt it. It is difficult to talk to Mr. Nakamura’s secretary.” Hikari looked unhappy, and I wondered what position she would move to now that Hugh was in prison. “Are you all right being alone for a while? I have some responsibilities.” Hikari gestured to a group of her fellow office ladies clustered in a doorway.

  I slipped back into the mourning room, figuring that anyone who really cared about Setsuko would be praying for her.

  The attractive woman I had seen earlier at the coffin was back and seemed unable to tear herself away. I lowered my glasses slightly to inspect her. She had the same sleek hair as Setsuko, and she wore a slim-fitting black suit that looked like a Hanae Mori design. A handkerchief was pressed to her eyes. I was mustering the courage to approach her when I heard my name spoken softly in my ear.

  “Miss Shimura.” It was Captain Okuhara, this time in a highly official-looking uniform. “I thought you didn’t know Mrs. Nakamura. It’s surprising to find you at her tsuya.”

  “I wish I could say the same for you.” Of course he would have spotted me; the question was whether he’d turn me in to Mr. Nakamura. If I could convince him I was on the guest list, maybe he would be thrown off. I ventured, “Mr. Nakamura has been so—reflective—about his wife’s final days, that I got word he wanted us all to come to say good-bye. Have you seen the others?”

  “No.” A smile tugged at the corners of the policeman’s mouth. “Actually, he is most interested in having his wife’s killer apprehended.”

  “I thought you already had your killer in custody.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice.

  “Did Glendinning tell you where he is?” Captain Okuhara demanded.

  “I heard it from his lawyer. You know you don’t allow him phone calls.”

  “If Glendinning would do some talking instead of leaving it all to his lawyer, things would go better for him. As things stand, I have a feeling he will be with us for a long time.”

  I felt hot and cold in the space of a few seconds and had to put my drink down. One of Hikari’s office lady colleagues thrust a napkin in my hand. I passed it over the wet spot I’d made on an antique Tansu chest.

  “It’s tough for you, isn’t it?” His voice lowered to a sadistic purr. “Tough to realize that Mrs. Nakamura and your boyfriend did more than shop together. We have sworn testimony from the Yogetsu wife that Glendinning bathed with Mrs. Nakamura on New Year’s Eve. She heard voices raised, voices speaking English.”

  “My voice and his.” I met his gaze squarely. “Hugh and I were together. Bathing became our hobby. Ask Mrs. Yogetsu! She caught us the last evening I stayed there.”

  “A cute story, but I don’t think it happened at eleven o’clock,” he said. “You were watching television with the Ikedas.”

  I couldn’t deny that, so I said, “I’d like to know how Mrs. Yogetsu could be snooping around the bath when she was busy serving me and the others. If you ask me, she just has a bad attitude toward all foreigners.”

  “Walls are quite thin in Japanese houses, and foreigners behave quite strangely. For instance, others heard you and our suspect—the man you claim not to have known—enjoying each other like, shall we say, old friends. First you played in the bath and then you rolled across the futon…”

  I swore under my breath in English, and Okuhara laughed.

  “You know a lot about our suspect, Shimura-san. I’d like to talk to you in more official circumstances.”

  I shook my head. “You twist everything I say to your own benefit.”

  “You’ll have to talk sometime, you know.”

  “I’m getting a lawyer.” I glanced out the side of my glasses to confirm who was entering the room. Yes, it was Seiji Nakamura looking in our direction. “Sayonara,” I said to the police chief and shot back into the hallway.

  I caught up with the good-looking mourner outside the powder room. In my breathiest Japanese, I gave my cover name and said I worked at Sendai. She introduced herself as Mrs. Matsuda, a friend who had been studying the tea ceremony with Setsuko at one of the posh tea societies in Tokyo.

  “I’ve always wanted to learn tea, but I hear it’s very difficult,” I said, disappointed she wasn’t Setsuko’s sister.

  “It’s a necessity if you plan to marry. Also, have you thought of trying contact lenses?” She added the last in a conspiratorial whisper.

  “Mmm,” I said, sizing her up. “But where do good looks take a woman, really? Mrs. Nakamura was lovely, but so unhappy.”

  “She could not have children. She tried everything. Finally, her age…it was too late.”

  “A woman’s greatest joy is a baby.” I employed one of Aunt Norie’s stock phrases.

  “Yes, thanks to God, I was blessed with
three. Setsuko was like an aunt to them, always bringing gifts and so on.” A tiny smile creased Mrs. Matsuda’s perfect maquillage.

  “She sounds like a very kind person. I feel badly for her husband, all alone now.”

  “Plenty of the office ladies will be feeling that way, I’m sure.” Her voice had an edge.

  “Of course, she was planning to leave him…the divorce…”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

  I realized then that they must have been friends who stayed strictly on the surface. I asked, “Are any of her family members here? I would like to express my sympathies.”

  “Just her aunt is left. A very sad lady. I don’t think she had seen Setsuko in years.”

  “She lives far away?”

  “Not at all. But who knows when a loved one’s life will be taken? It’s all so arbitrary, really.” She was drifting into the tearful state I’d first seen her in.

  “Could you please show this lady to me? I would like to offer my respects…”

  “She’s getting a glass of sake over there—do you see the old lady with the bad back? I have been trying to tell her to sit down, but she is very determined. You know how ridiculously proud the elderly are.”

  I practically mowed down a trio of waiters carrying a large iced salmon in my efforts to catch up with the small woman whose figure was curved like a question mark.

  “Excuse me, but were you Nakamura-san’s aunt?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes! Are you Mariko-chan?” Her weak voice filled with joy. It was too bad I had to introduce myself as Norie Fujita, a new office lady at Sendai.

  “Forgive me, but I think you are probably the age of my great-niece. My name is Ozawa, and I am so pleased to meet you.”

  Mrs. Ozawa bowed dangerously low, and I reached out my hand to steady her elbow and asked, “Would you sit down with me for a minute, Mrs. Ozawa? I’d like to find a place where it isn’t so crowded.”

  “Yes, it’s a very well-attended event, isn’t it?” she sounded proud. “All these high-class people and television cameras. Setsuko would have liked it…”

  My thoughts exactly. We walked together down the hallway, and I located a room without guests, a tiny study where cheap plywood bookcases were filled with old electronics magazines, and a Sendai laptop computer like Hugh’s rested on a desk scattered with papers. It had to be Mr. Nakamura’s study. There was a small tweed couch which looked like a good place to put Mrs. Ozawa, so I coaxed her in and closed the door.

  “I am ashamed to say I have never seen my great-niece, but I imagine she must be very similar to you. You are also a konketsujin?”

  “Mmm. I grew up in the United States,” I said, thinking she’d probably caught my slight accent.

  “You grew up like a princess, then.” Mrs. Ozawa gave a brief, tinny-sounding laugh. “No trouble with the neighbors. For Harumi, who was Setsuko’s mother, it was very hard. After the war, when Japanese women delivered half-American babies, they were treated like refuse. The smart ones managed to get their sailors to take them to America.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Harumi was married to my brother Ryu, and they had Setsuko while living with our family. Ryu passed away in the early 1950s—old war injuries, you know. After he was gone, it was very hard for our family. And there was so little food…Harumi and Setsuko were considered a burden.”

  “I suppose Harumi worked to help your family?” I asked, feeling sorry for the widowed, beleaguered daughter-in-law.

  “Yes, the poor woman went to work near the American navy base in Yokosuka. She shined sailors’ shoes, but my parents thought there was more to it.” She lowered her voice and said, “Harumi became pregnant. It was unmistakable after a while, so she left the household.”

  “You mean she was cast out?” I was horrified.

  “Yes, because they knew it was an American sailor after the birth of their daughter, Keiko. Unbelievably, the American stayed with her. He could not marry her, but he set her up in a small house which had, of all things, a washing machine!”

  “Did Setsuko’s mother live forever after with this man? Why isn’t he here?”

  “He was shipped back to the United States after two years. Harumi sold me her washing machine because she could not keep the house, and she returned to shine shoes near the base again. The last time I saw her, she had both Setsuko and Keiko sleeping in a cardboard box at her side.”

  So the woman I’d thought was born privileged had once slept under cardboard just like the vagrants in my neighborhood. It was unfathomable.

  “I continued visiting from time to time to bring old clothes and so on. But they were growing up in a terrible environment, it killed Harumi and Keiko both!”

  “How?” I nearly jumped on her.

  “Harumi was killed by a drunk American driving on the wrong side of the road. I was very worried about the daughters, but by then I had married and was living with my husband’s family, so I could not take care of the girls. Harumi had a friend who raised them in Yokosuka.”

  “How did Setsuko’s sister, Keiko, die?” I wanted to stay on track.

  “Setsuko told me that in her teens, Keiko became very wild. She gave birth to Mariko outside of marriage and spent her time in the bars taking drugs with the American sailors. One time she had a bad reaction. She jumped off a building, and that was it.”

  “And Keiko’s little daughter Mariko?” This was one of the saddest stories I’d ever heard.

  “Setsuko made sure she was taken care of, and she is now working at a bank…quite a suitable place for a young lady. Of course. I haven’t seen her. I would like to, now that she is the only one left.”

  “Which bank?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but it is a good one in Tokyo.” Mrs. Ozawa paused. “The last time we met, Setsuko asked me to consider leaving some inheritance for Mariko. She said the Ozawa family’s pattern of casting off women must be broken. At the time, I said to her, dear niece, I am sympathetic, but the young woman in question is not any kind of blood relation.” She blinked back tears. “I was wrong. Setsuko walked out on me when I told her I wouldn’t help Mariko. I never heard from her again.”

  In the space of this conversation, my picture of Setsuko Nakamura had altered. If Mariko really existed—I reminded myself that Mrs. Ozawa had never seen her, and Mariko’s mother, Keiko, was conveniently dead—Setsuko had tried to do a great thing for her.

  “I am not feeling so well. I would like some more sake…” Mrs. Ozawa was struggling to stand. I helped her up and commandeered her out the room, thinking more sake was probably not a good idea for a depressed woman who weighed less than ninety pounds. I would have to watch over her. Hearing brisk steps coming toward us, I looked up and saw Mr. Nakamura.

  “What is it?” Mrs. Ozawa asked, not understanding why I’d stopped moving.

  “Please go ahead, Mrs. Ozawa. I’ll meet you,” I said, going into a deep bow and mumbling the customary funeral greeting Hikari had told me would be correct should I come face to face with the impossible.

  “Fujita-san? Thank you for coming. Have you spoken to Arae-san?” he said softly, not at all his usual manner.

  “Eh to…” I hedged.

  “Well, please see her about what to do. The toilet room needs to be cleaned up, fresh soaps and towels set out…”

  If I were a Sendai employee, I’d obey him without question. Maybe this was some sort of test. I murmured my agreement and kept bowing until he turned on his heel. When Hikari had run off to the kitchen to take care of responsibilities, I had thought it strange. Now I understood the reality of O.L. Hell.

  I found the powder room in the hallway near the front door. Rummaging below the sink, I came up with a powdered cleanser. Just behind the toilet was a little brush in a stand decorated with a snowman. I knelt to dislodge the brush and was drenched by a jet of water that shot up from the center of the toilet.

  Water continued to spray upward as I sprang back, reali
zing I’d set off the toilet’s bidet function. I found the STOP button on the side of the seat a few seconds too late. The floor, cabinet, and walls were sprayed with water. Karen’s suit, too.

  I mopped it all up with the three tiny towels Mr. Nakamura had asked me to replace and cast about in vain for fresh towels. Someone knocked on the door and I knocked back, signaling my occupation.

  “Rei?” Hikari’s voice at the door led me to crack it open at last.

  “I’ve created a flood here,” I said needlessly as she looked in and gasped.

  “People have been noticing you!” Hikari moaned. “Miss Arae asked me who you were. I told her you were from the daughter of somebody in Mrs. Nakamura’s tea society, but she heard from somebody else that you were a Sendai O.L.!”

  “Who’s Miss Arae?” I was lost.

  “Miss Arae is head of the secretarial group. She is talking to Mr. Nakamura right now. I’ll get the coats. We’ve got to get out.”

  Hikari and I jogged down the cul-de-sac slowly because of our high heels and caught a taxi on the main road. Once inside, Hikari pulled a small red leather book out of her handbag. “Setsuko’s telephone book. I found it in the kitchen.”

  I flipped on the taxi’s dome light and began leafing through tiny pages filled with handwritten kanji. “Thanks. I can follow up on anyone who looks interesting.”

  “Don’t you want me to look at it first?” Hikari sounded crushed.

  “Well, I’m sure I have more time to work on it than you. Maybe I should go through it myself.” I didn’t trust her to know the things I wanted to find.

  “Really? I heard you had to have the autopsy translated.”

  “Well, medical language isn’t my thing, but personal names are easy. I’ve studied kanji for years.” Not very successfully, but she didn’t need to know that.

  “May I see the book once more?”

  “Sure.” I handed it back, thinking that I couldn’t believe we were fighting over it. Maybe we were fighting about something else.

  She returned the book after a minute and I slipped it into my purse.