“Or prison! Did he say he was all right?”
“He’s at home among all his dreamy luxury appliances and the view of Tokyo Tower.” Richard sighed. “I’m so annoyed you didn’t see the bedroom. I asked about it but he said no, you absolutely did not roll between the sheets.”
“You didn’t!” I was horrified.
“Of course I did. He said something terribly dry and British and laughed afterward. Very sexy laugh.”
“Richard, you’ve got to help me.” I drew him into a corner and told him about my need to leave. I couldn’t tell Mr. Katoh I had another farewell ceremony to attend. After a few minutes of bitching, Richard agreed to help. We were cementing the details when Mr. Katoh walked in.
I hadn’t expected to see him at an hour when he usually was closeted with the other section heads. I slid off the desk where I’d been sitting and threw myself into a bow. Mr. Katoh greeted both of us pleasantly, then fixed his attention on me.
“Bad weather today, isn’t it, Miss Shimura? Not like your California.”
“Well, rain at this time of the year, I’ve grown to expect it,” I said, sensing from his tone that something else was brewing. Richard caught it, too, and fled with some excuse about papers left in a classroom.
“Shall we go in the conference room? I have a problem I hope you can assist with. As you perhaps already know, our company plans to expand English instruction.”
“Are you hiring new teachers?” I sat down across from him on one of the nice leather chairs the senior executives used at their board meetings.
“Eventually. But it is a big expansion from just the Tokyo headquarters to our factory and offices in Osaka.”
Osaka was a booming business city, arguably the heart of capitalist Japan. Still, it had a crushing reputation for dullness. Nobody I knew would want to trade multicultural, cutting-edge Tokyo for Osaka. Still, my boss was counting on me.
“I could probably locate some potential teachers through the English Teachers’ Association,” I offered.
“That is considerate.” Something about my boss’ language told me that wasn’t precisely what he was after. “Miss Shimura, we are very happy with your work.”
“Thank you,” I said, ducking my head a bit to show appreciation.
“In fact, the company would like to offer you a promotion.” The miserable look on his face contradicted his words. “After your years of loyal service, we plan to upgrade your status from a contract worker to company employee with full benefits. We would like to start you in Osaka.”
“Permanently?” I croaked.
“Yes. You could live in the female employee dormitory.”
Great. From what I’d heard, shared corporate dorm rooms were minuscule, with barely enough room to hang clothes, let alone house my antiques. Living in the dorm would be like college revisited, with the addition of a curfew and a surly matron at the door.
“Why aren’t you sending Richard?” I felt overcome by bad fortune.
“Mr. Randall is not so comfortable with the Japanese culture. We especially thought of you.”
“It’s a lot to think about.” I didn’t ask about the money, because I found myself suddenly feeling that no amount would be enough to compensate for the loss of friends and relatives and the life I had painstakingly built.
“Miss Shimura, what do you think?” Mr. Katoh’s tired brown eyes pleaded with me.
“May I give you my answer later?”
“Of course.” Mr. Katoh sounded startled, which reinforced my feeling that his offer was actually an order that had come down from above.
I felt so stunned by Mr. Katoh’s proposal that my feigned physical collapse just before lunchtime was fairly realistic. Mr. Katoh became extremely upset and wanted to call an ambulance, but Richard came up with the perfect solution of putting me in a taxi ostensibly headed to St. Luke’s. The taxi stopped at the train station, per my request, where I hopped the Hibiya line over to Roppongi.
When Hugh opened the door to his apartment, I could tell the maid had been there. Tidy before, his living space was now fanatically organized. The CDs and magazines appeared alphabetized, the windows gleamed without a single streak, and the scent of pine cleaner was everywhere. If this was the kind of performance I had to imitate, I was in trouble.
“Why did you call me at the office? You could have blown everything,” I said, shaking my head at the cup of tea he was offering.
“I was trying to check your clothing size. You didn’t call me back, so I had to simply accept what Fumie brought me.”
“Your maid really wears this?” I held up the black polyester uniform with a ruffled white apron that looked straight out of an adult video.
“Don’t worry, it’s freshly washed.” He showed me into his room and left. I looked around and saw there actually was a triptych of sumo wrestlers on the wall, although I couldn’t discern the artist’s seal. Trying to get closer, I stubbed my heel on the corner of a rowing machine and swore.
The only other piece of furniture in the room was a massive sleigh bed. I sat down on the edge and began taking off my conservative work suit. Something was bothering me. I realized when I was fully undressed that it was my lack of goose bumps. I scanned the room and saw no space heaters. Hugh had central heating, the first I’d encountered in a Japanese residence.
I hung up my clothes in his closet and couldn’t help running my hand through his long row of suits, noting the fine textures and colors too expensive to be defined: taupish browns and bluish grays and charcoals. What did it say about him, that he chose such expensive things? I closed the closet and went out to the living room, hoping my face wouldn’t give away my snooping.
“That’s a good length for you,” Hugh said, looking at the too-short uniform. He had been making notes on the fold-out map, his bad ankle propped on the coffee table. A few inches of the bandage showed from underneath his gray flannel trousers. Although he’d come to the door without crutches, he still had a slight limp.
“Do you have a Bible?” I asked, suddenly inspired.
“Sorry, I’m rather lapsed in terms of religion!”
“One of those will do.” I went to the bookshelves and gave him a large, faux-leather-bound law book. “Now you look like a Jehovah’s Witness.”
As we loaded the car with a plastic bucket and cleaning supplies, I explained the concept. There was no good reason for a business-suited gaijin to roam a suburban neighborhood. Unless, of course, he had a religious mission.
“If I open my mouth, I’ll be lost,” Hugh groaned.
“Nobody will expect you to speak much Japanese. But if you’re supposed to be ex-American military, you’ll need to keep the Scottish accent to a minimum.”
“No way, man.” He practiced a California Valley boy accent which made me snicker until we entered the Shuto Expressway, where sudden lane changes sent me into a state of confusion. There was no time to read the kanji on the signs; here, Hugh guided me and I simply obeyed.
“How much longer? That wasn’t fun at all.” I rubbed at the tension in my neck and shoulders when we finally made it past the traffic jams of Yokohama and onto an uncrowded toll road.
“Judging from the signs, it’s about an hour. You can speed up, but you’ll see no one goes over one-hundred kilometers per hour.” Hugh hit his seat’s RECLINE button and stretched back.
“You’re one to talk, given all your tickets,” I said, accelerating.
“It’s only parking tickets. Why would I want to speed? If you pass one hundred, this obnoxious little bell rings. Listen, it’s happening now! Rei Shimura, I have a cell phone in hand. I could call the police right now!”
“You wouldn’t.” I stayed at 110 for a few minutes, slowing down when the bell started driving me crazy. The Toyota-installed Big Brother stuff really worked.
“You’re good for someone who’s never been on the left before. Not too much wavering into the shoulder, and your turns in the city were impressive,” Hugh told me.
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“Thanks.” I felt pleased in spite of myself.
“You should get your own car,” he continued. “Everyone sells after a few years to avoid the taxes, so you can get a bargain on something used. Although I reckon its hard to find a parking garage in your ghetto.”
“Find me something on the radio, will you?” Thinking about leaving Tokyo for Osaka was upsetting me.
Hugh clicked the radio to the station I woke up with every morning.
“Good afternoon, it’s two o’clock from the J-WAVE singing clock!” I sang along with the corny station identification, which was followed by a Spice Girls hit. The British pop group segued into an old favorite from Echo and the Bunnymen, and Hugh joined in with a rich tenor. Somehow, it didn’t surprise me that he could carry a tune. What did jolt me was the fact he knew the lyrics to “Lips Like Sugar” as well as I did.
“How old did you say you were?” I asked.
“Thirty-two. I’m ancient, remember? This is eighties music, I danced to it all over Germany and New York.”
“We’re five years apart.” Half a decade.
“Good at math, why don’t you teach that? Or music. I like your voice.”
We sang companionably for a while longer, Hugh doing an imitation of Robert Smith, The Cure’s mournful lead singer, that made me laugh so hard I almost missed the Hayama exit. I wondered why I could be so cheerful in the face of committing a crime and, as if on cue, got lost. It turned out the toll road entrance into Hayama was different than the taxi ride Hikari and I had taken. After driving aimlessly for a while, I admitted to Hugh I had no clue how to proceed.
“Hikari said to go north.” Hugh pulled out his map again.
“Hikari says a lot I don’t believe. I’d rather just stop at a police box to get directions,” I told him.
“Are you insane? Do you plan to register our names and faces with the police again?”
“Nobody knows me. I could go in and you could hide. Just get down low in the passenger seat. No, not with your head in my lap.” I pushed him off and kept driving. Where was the ocean? I was surrounded by hills. Finally I saw the convenience store I remembered as the turning point for Nakamura’s neighborhood.
“I’ll stay down in the car, so as not to blow your maid’s image.” Hugh looked like a giant, gray flannel-covered snail curled up between the car seat and floor. It would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous.
We went over the plan one last time. I would drive the car around to the back of the house and get out with the cleaning supplies. Hugh would wait a few minutes to ensure no one was looking, then drive on to a discreet parking place and return on foot.
A couple of neighborhood housewives were chatting and sweeping leaves from the street in front of the Nakamura house. I passed them, turning into the narrow alley running behind the block. I parked outside the Nakamura’s garden gate.
“If we get out of this unscathed, you owe me,” I said in parting.
“I offered you money before.” He peered up at me from his uncomfortable position.
“That’s not what I want.” I slid out and slammed the door.
22
My first feeling upon entering the Nakamura house was gratitude. Gratitude that the key had worked and no one was inside and the caterers had cleaned up the tsuya so well that my stab at cleaning would be minimal. Taking my shoes off and walking through the first floor, I decided the only place I’d have to expend serious energy was the kitchen.
Japanese kitchens were awful. It always amazed me that the zealous hygiene applied to the human body did not enter areas of food preparation. In the Nakamura kitchen, the small sink and counter were coated with grime. Oil-filmed cabinets were crammed every which way with boxes and jars. Atop the cabinets, blenders, and other small appliances had their cords hanging down, inviting accident. The drying rack was overloaded with a precarious array of dishes and cutlery; one false move and it could all crash down.
I switched on the hot water heater to fill my bucket. As I surveyed the dull linoleum floor, a steel-edged square in the middle caught my eye. The yukashita, the under-the-floor storage pocket, was a prime hiding place. I used the one in my kitchen to store favorite foods I didn’t want Richard to consume.
Prying the lid up, I looked into a neatly organized space containing a crock of miso and a bag of onions. There was also a very large, dead spider, which led me to breathe a little faster and slam down the lid.
I went through the cupboards, finding no secrets but enough space to store the dishes and cutlery from the counter. I was wiping everything down with a lot of detergent when the doorbell sounded.
I cracked open the back door and didn’t see Hugh. For some reason, he must have gone to the front. I padded out to the entryway and whispered a greeting into the intercom.
“Konnichiwa,” Hugh greeted me heartily, holding the large book aloft. “Jehovah’s Witness calling.”
I put my shoes on and walked outside, keeping my head down. There I bowed, opened the gate, and led him inward.
“Some housewives were staring at me when I parked the car, so I felt I had to stick to the main road. Remember how my head was down in the car? I never saw the house! It took me a while to identify the gate, but I recognized the name over the post box because the kanji is like the one in your surname.”
“Mura, which means village. What have you been doing, studying?”
“I can see my breath in here. It’s like Shiroyama.” Hugh strode into the dining room and switched on an electric heater mounted high on a wall. Warm, dry air rushed out. “Shall I start here?”
“As long as you remember to vacuum and dust.” I was determined that he clean along with me. When I came back half an hour later, my work in the kitchen done, I found him making faint dusting gestures around a tansu.
“Come see what’s in this chest.” He slid open the ornamental front panel to show a steel safe.
“Can’t you open it?” I asked.
“I’m not that kind of spy.”
“Wait a minute.” In my handbag, I had a scrap of paper with the code Mariko had found in Setsuko’s address book. I elbowed Hugh aside and tried it three times without success.
“What was that all about?” Hugh’s voice was impatient. “There’s nothing more we can do in here. I have to hurry if I’m going to find the discs.”
“Try Mr. Nakamura’s study. End of the hall, to the right.”
“Thanks.” He hobbled away and I went into the room where the coffin had been. All funeral trappings were gone, and a low table was in the center, stacked with a few magazines and photo albums. I set aside the one with the oldest-looking pictures to look at later.
Upstairs, I started in a small bedroom that was probably designed for a child—or husband, judging from the single bed that was unmade. I changed the sheets and straightened up before attacking the bookcase. I paged through some Japanese classics and thrillers I decided were Mr. Nakamura’s books, and the ones I guessed were Setsuko’s: international and Japanese travel guides, Shizuko Natsuki mysteries, and a few books on Japanese art and antiques. I began methodically going through her collection, shaking each book open to look for hidden papers. When I found a book of wood-blocks by Utamaro, the foremost painter of courtesans in the Edo period, I paged more slowly. I paused at a picture of a lovely young woman with a glass of sake in one hand and a steamed crab in the other. The translated title was something like “Young Hussy Viewed Through the Moralizing Spectacles of Her Parents.” I smiled.
“This isn’t a library.” Hugh spoke in my ear, making me jump.
“You’re finished downstairs?” I slammed the book shut.
“Yes madam. I found a cache of discs, none labeled the way Yamamoto had described, but I’ve copied it all to go through at home.”
“I’ve found a lot of travel books on California, Florida, the East Coast…also England and Scotland. Were you planning to take Setsuko back to the UK?”
“No! How many times must I
tell you we weren’t together?” Hugh sounded irate.
“There are also a couple of American phone books from Dallas and San Diego. Maybe she was looking for someone in America,” I quickly said.
“But you told me she knew her father.” Hugh took the Dallas book from me and looked at the spine. “Damn it, these were taken from the TAC library. They’ll have my head.”
“Maybe her father’s name is inside…or some other family members?”
“Well, there’s no time for reading now.” He loaded the books into an opaque trash bag.
This master bedroom was utterly Setsuko, furnished only by a bed set on a black lacquered platform and covered in mauve silk. A long, gilded screen painted with butterflies and summer grasses hung over the bed, which was flanked by a couple of low tansu chests. Very Zen, very elegant. A thin layer of dust over the furniture and the tucked-in covers told me Mr. Nakamura probably hadn’t slept there in a while.
I went through the chests, finding toiletries and Setsuko’s undergarments, soft swirls of silk and nylon that were a lot nicer than anything I owned. We surveyed the closet. Nakamura’s side was obvious: suits, shirts, and golf clothes. A black lace teddy was tucked in with them which Hugh pulled out with a flourish.
“You think he’s a cross-dresser?” Hugh asked.
“Too small. This is practically my size,” I said.
“But the fabric’s too cheap to have been something of Setsuko’s, and her unmentionables are in the chest.” Hugh eyed me as I sniffed at the underarms, which bore traces of a powdery deodorant. When the telephone rang, we both jumped.
“Maybe it’s someone from the neighborhood, checking.” Despite the cold, I felt myself start to sweat in the black polyester uniform.
“The answering machine should kick in,” Hugh said.
It didn’t. I counted six peals before the caller hung up.
“We should get out of here,” I said, but Hugh continued as deliberately as before, moving on to Setsuko’s side of the closet. I watched his hands move gently through the pale silk blouses and the delicate knit suits. As if they were still a part of her, I thought with a sick lurch in my stomach.
The Salaryman's Wife Page 21
