“Shimura-sensei, do you think Mr. Glendinning is well enough for another visitor?” she chirped, all the while gazing at me.
“Who is it?” Hugh interrupted.
“Nakamura-san from Sendai Limited.”
“That’s fine. I need to get on with my rounds.” Tom swept out without looking back. I knew he was furious.
“Ta!” Hugh waved after Tom and then whispered to me, “Please stay. I’m useless without you.”
Seiji Nakamura had aged a decade in the three weeks since I’d first seen him at Minshuku Yogetsu. His skin had a sallow cast, and the bags under his eyes had deepened into pouches. I had written off the lines around his mouth to smoking but now realized it was due to his deep, permanent frown. He delivered it to me like a present before bending solicitously over Hugh.
“Glendinning-san has had so much trouble lately.” He made a sudden movement with his hands, which he had kept behind his back. I laughed inwardly as he set down a leather briefcase and proffered the real gift: a box of five jumbo-sized peaches, each cosseted in a protective foam girdle. What had I been expecting, a knife?
“These are grown in a special hothouse, but probably Glendinning-san does not care for peaches…” He was going through all the right motions, showing the obvious value of his gift while deprecating it, the hated ritual I knew by heart.
“Rei will like it. She just eats fruits, nuts, that kind of thing,” Hugh said instead of thanking him in a straightforward manner. I took the peaches, since Hugh appeared unwilling to, and placed them on the tray alongside the Indian carryout meal.
“I read the newspaper this morning. I was sorry to hear about my friend’s terrible injury,” Nakamura said.
“Being here’s really quite pleasant and relaxing,” Hugh replied. “When I was searching for Yamamoto on the slopes and then thrown into prison in Shiroyama, that’s when I needed a friend.”
“Circumstances were difficult for me—”
“Your wife had passed away,” I murmured, shooting Hugh a reproving glance. “You had enough trouble of your own.”
“That is why I am here tonight.” Mr. Nakamura gave me a get-out-of-here look that probably worked with his office ladies. “I made many prayers to resolve things, but my troubles keep increasing.”
“How’s that?” Hugh’s voice was deceptively casual.
“We started out with a simple suicide verdict. Then this nosey girl became involved, and it turned to murder. Half the people invited to the farewell ceremony did not show up. Mostly the wrong ones came.” He glared at me. “Like you, Shimura-san. Don’t think I didn’t recognize you with those impertinent eyes and that teen-ager’s body.”
“You must have been very angry,” I said, feeling Hugh’s body tense under the blanket. I knew that I had not deceived Mr. Nakamura that night, just as I hadn’t gotten away with the housecleaning.
“Why do you think I made you clean the toilet? I could not cause a scene at my house, but what I wanted to do!”
I began moving uneasily on the edge of the cot.
“And then I saw her again three days ago, hiding in my garden.” He widened his eyes at Hugh in an expression of mock incredulity. “What have I done? Why can’t I get this young woman out of my life?” He looked at me. “What is it? Do you want to become my second wife?”
“I would never be a salaryman’s wife! I have far too much ambition.” I was still thinking about the cheap teddy in his bedroom closet. It was small for Keiko, but I did have evidence he knew her. Now seemed like a good time to bring that up. “You’ve spent time at a place called Club Marimba recently, where Setsuko’s sister works.”
“My wife’s sister is dead.” His delivery was bland.
I shook my head. “Keiko’s alive and well and in bed with the mob. Which means you are, too.”
“What are you, crazy?”
“What’s crazy is the way you thought you could get away with killing her.” I spoke without fear, given the phalanx of nurses and orderlies just outside.
Nakamura gave Hugh a pitiful look. “We are friends! What kinds of things are you telling people?”
“It would have been friendly to let me know what you had planned for the battery.” Hugh pulled a disc randomly from the Paul Smith bag, waving it as if it were the important one. Watch it, I wanted to say. I needed something to give Captain Okuhara.
“It’s quite natural for me to have information about product development—I’m a senior manager, after all.”
“If it’s so natural, why didn’t Mr. Sendai know about it?” Hugh put the disc back into the bag and smiled. “What a tremendous way for me to return to the company, saving the Eterna and exorcising a corrupt executive who would have sold it down the river.”
“Send her out so we can talk.” The salaryman inclined his head in my direction.
“I’m afraid I can’t. Rei’s become something of a partner.” Hugh squeezed my hand.
“If you want to make a deal, it’s between the two of us. Men.”
“Why?” I asked. “You had no trouble dealing with Keiko.”
“You’re a very rude young woman, aren’t you?” Nakamura barked.
“Rei, I’m sorry.” Hugh’s eyes seemed to be trying to telescope all kinds of things to me, but the only one I cared about was that he wanted me gone.
“Okay, I’m going. Good luck to you both in your man’s world.” I spat out the words and pulled my parka off the bed, inadvertenly knocking Mr. Nakamura’s costly peaches to the ground. Four of them rolled under the bed, and the one in my path got a savage, bruising kick as I sped to the door.
30
To my surprise, Richard and Mariko were back together in his room. This meant I slept comfortably and late. It was almost eleven when I ran into the Family Mart to get a rice ball for the road.
“Long time no see, Shimura-san! I thought you had moved away to the beautiful people downtown!” Mr. Waka greeted me with exuberance.
“It has been a long time,” I agreed. “Too long.”
“Look, look!” He held up the brand-new edition of the tabloid Friday, which had a cover photograph of me bowing to the camerawoman outside the hospital. The headline was “Rei no Rei!” or “Rei’s bow,” a pun on a second meaning of my name.
“It’s quite a good article. They interview your students, your friends, your cousin at the hospital all to discuss your true nature—whether you will bow to the needs of justice—which I’m sure you will! It was a very positive story, considering the circumstances.”
“Hmm.” I popped open a hot can of green tea I’d bought at the machine just outside his door.
“Young ladies are adopting your haircut, do you realize? They call it the Rei-Styru. It costs six thousand yen at a salon in Harajuku.”
“Oh, no.” I ran my fingers through my hair still wet from the shower.
“You must read this. I’ll give you the magazine for free because it’s such a special event. Please.” Mr. Waka looked so upset that I finally took the tabloid, rolling it up and sticking it in my backpack.
“You’re too kind to me,” I mumbled dutifully as I left.
“I’m not kind at all. Just a fan.”
On the way to the train station I took out Friday and began trying to read it. I couldn’t believe Richard had talked to them. And Tom. If only I could read more kanji; it was maddening not to understand what people were saying about me.
My face buried in the paper, I slowly climbed the metal stairs leading up the pedestrian overpass. The smell of diesel fuel was especially overwhelming because of the morning rush hour. The sputtering and roaring sounds of cars on the street below were a stark contrast from the peace of Aunt Norie’s neighborhood. A smart person would not have given up free room and board there.
A sharp gust of wind tore Friday out of my hand and as the slim magazine skipped through the air, I noticed the roaring traffic sounds were louder, as if there were a car behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw something comple
tely illegal: a huge black motorcycle soaring up the ramp for bicycles and onto the overpass itself.
The shiny black vehicle appeared to be heading straight for me. I moved out of its way and the driver, an anonymous, helmeted figure, adjusted his direction and increased speed. All these things I noticed in a matter of seconds; I heard people in the background crying out, but what pressed deep into my mind was the sound of the cycle, a horrible cross between a roar and a whine.
I was backed up flat against the security railing, like almost everyone on the pedestrian bridge. The kamikaze motorcyclist was now less than ten feet away. I was the undisputed target with nowhere to escape. Unless I jumped.
Desperation pumped through me and I scrambled over the railing, remembering belatedly that the huge safety net on the outside had been removed for repair. My idea was to hang on until danger had passed. I was halfway over as the motorcycle buzzed against the railing.
A black-gloved hand reached out and shoved me hard. I toppled over and reached wildly for the railings. My right hand fastened around a steel bar, but the rest of me dangled thirty feet above the railroad tracks.
It had happened fast, but I felt each detail in exquisite slow motion. My low-heeled pumps slipped off my feet and hit the ground; next went my backpack, which had been dangling off my left shoulder. I was beginning to feel extremely heavy. Every part of me seemed to sag downward. I swung my left arm uselessly; I wanted to grab the railing, but didn’t have the strength. I was rotten at pull-ups, had failed that part of my junior high gym class.
I was too scared to cry, too scared to do anything but breathe fast and watch the motorcycle rider execute a wheelie and zip back down the pedestrian ramp into the street.
“Be careful,” a woman in a business suit called to me from the safe side of the pedestrian bridge. A whole group of commuters was with her, making concerned sounds and arguing about what to do. Should they call the police or the fire department? It didn’t matter, I wanted to say, my grip could never last that long.
A rag-tag band of homeless men had moved directly under me, holding out various bags and pieces of their cardboard shacks, as if that would provide a safe landing net. In the distance I heard traffic and maybe a siren.
“Take this.” I heard a rough voice and looked up to see the grimy face of a street-sleeper I’d once stumbled over and given dinner. He was dangling the rope he used to secure blankets around his body.
The rope flew down and bounced off the rails. After a few misses, I caught it with my left hand. My rescuer and someone behind him began tugging upward. My left hand came back up to the railing, and strong hands reached under my arms and hauled me over.
I was safe. I lay hyperventilating on the steel walk-way.
“Sumimasen deshita. Sumimasen.” Between short breaths, I whimpered my apologies. I knew it was ludicrous, but I couldn’t stop. Maybe I was hysterical.
“That guy was probably Bszoku,” my rescuer spat. “Damn motorcycle gangs!”
“Did you see his license plate?” I gasped.
“There was no license plate!” The man leaned in and whispered so close to my face I smelled sake on his breath. “And don’t try to find out Bszoku are friends with the ya-san.”
A pair of policemen were jogging toward us, their feet making the pedestrian bridge spring up and down under my back. I struggled into a sitting position and my shaggy friend got up and melted into the crowd of commuters. As the policemen took their notebooks out, I started in a slow, shaky voice to tell them about the phantom cyclist.
The senior officer interrupted me. “Your alien registration card, please?”
I should have expected they’d fixate on that. I pointed at my backpack lying with my shoes on the tracks below and told them to get it.
I arrived at Nichiyu dusty and late, but went straight to the English teaching office and slapped an envelope on Mr. Katoh’s desk. His secretary Mrs. Bun kept her eyes on me, and I wondered if she’d investigate. Fifteen minutes later, I saw her whispering to the personnel director and knew she had.
I cleaned up in the lavatory but remained shell-shocked as I went in to teach my lunch-hour class. Everything was different. My teaching style had become formal and by-the-book. It was ironic that at a time when Tokyo’s reading population was entering a first-name relationship with me, I was holding distant the people I’d worked with for years. At the end of class, a few students bowed and said sayonara to me instead of the more typical “see you next week.” Perhaps they also sensed something was over.
Mr. Katoh called me into the conference room after I finished teaching. He spoke about the bad weather and made some disparaging comments about the way the media had behaved lately. Finally, he looked at me and said, “So you want to leave us.”
“I feel compelled.” I stared at the wall decorated with framed posters of Nichiyu’s proudest products. The bean-grinder combination coffee maker. The water heater with so fuzzy logic. I wouldn’t be around to see the “caffe ratte” maker ascend to its rightful framed position.
“You wrote about wanting to spare the company shame and humiliation. I feel directly responsible for the trouble, you know.” Mr. Katoh bowed his head. “It was I who suggested you take your holiday in Shiroyama.”
“That wasn’t your fault—”
“I don’t understand why you had to involve yourself so. There were other guests, but I do not see their names in the newspapers anymore. Only you and this Englishman.”
“He’s Scottish, not English.” I stopped, aware I was veering away from the business of my resignation. “Mr. Katoh, I’ve had a very good experience working here, but I am no longer effective with my students. Like I said in my letter, they are distracted by what I’ve become.”
“When do you want to leave?” His voice was mournful.
“I have to see the police in Shiroyama next Monday.”
“Oh, no, Miss Shimura. Do you have a lawyer?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“It could all work out, I suppose.” He sounded less than hopeful.
“I’m very sorry about how this is all turning out,” I said.
“When you get out of this questioning, please call me. Maybe I can find something for you part-time. You recorded such a beautiful voice-over for the Caffe Ratte video. Surely none of our overseas vendors would know about your problems here.”
My brusque, paternal boss was trying to help me in a most unorthodox manner. Feeling moved, I tried to thank him, but he brushed it off.
“We still need to make changes in the language program. Having been here so long, you can advise me about…how best to encourage Mr. Randall to like Osaka?”
All I wanted to do was go home and bury my injured body under blankets, but I couldn’t forsake my appointment at Ishida Antiques. When I stepped inside, Mr. Ishida put the closed sign on the door and went back to his mini-kitchen to fill the kettle.
“So where were you yesterday? I telephoned a few times,” I complained when he came back out to clear his abacus and business receipts off the low kotatsu table and set it for tea.
“I was having a second meeting with my friend at the Tokyo National Museum. Honda-san is a man with many responsibilities, so I must go when he has time for me.” Mr. Ishida laid out a dark red Kutani teapot, cups, and a small strainer. Such special pieces; it was amazing he used them daily.
“And?”
“Patience, Miss Shimura.” My mentor went into the kitchen to take the whistling kettle off the stove. I toyed with the china, looking on the underside for its stamps.
When he came out, he poured me the first cup.
“Please try it,” he said.
“Itadakimasu.” I said grace before sampling the steaming, pale green liquid. “A little grassy tasting. Fresh.”
He looked pleased. “It is gyokuro, the highest grade of green tea. It comes from a farm that is eight generations old in Shizuoka Prefecture. I brewed it for exactly one minute.”
I drank more,
remaining quiet. His strange behavior might be influenced by my notoriety; perhaps he was checking to see if I were still the same person he knew.
“I’ve done something I’m not sure you will be pleased about,” he said when we were drinking our second cups. I knew then he must have been contacted by the press, tried to stick up for me, and had it go wrong.
“I understand,” I said. “Everyone’s talking, my colleagues, my old friends…”
“Talking?” He looked confused.
“You know, to the tabloid reporters.”
“Tabloids?” His face looked as dour as it had the time a shrine sale vendor had tried to sell us some reproduction wood block prints. “I stopped reading all but my art magazines five years ago. Is there some new trouble?”
“Yes, there is. But nothing that relates to our friendship,” I said carefully. “Please tell me what you thought might upset me.”
“It is about the box from Shiroyama.”
I sighed. So it was a fraud, after all.
“You see,” Mr. Ishida continued, “Although the box is not my property, I have arranged for its sale. I was unable to reach you to ask permission, so again, my apology.”
“Tell me—” I leaned toward him, putting both elbows on the tea table. Realizing my etiquette lapse, I jerked them off. Patience.
“The Shiroyama Folk Art Center is the buyer. My friend at the National Museum sent a close-up photograph and his appraisal of your box and they made a bid. It’s as simple as that.”
“Your friend authenticated it as Princess Miyo’s?”
“As well as anyone could. Princess Miyo was an odd young lady, neh?” Mr. Ishida smiled. “One strangeness was that she used her left hand for eating and writing. My colleague believes the carving was done by a left-handed person living in the mid-nineteenth century.”
“Is that enough to identify something? Surely—”
Mr. Ishida held up a hand, stilling me once again. “Even today, most left-handed people must use the right. You know that.”
That had been my father’s ordeal. Half a world away from his proper Yokohama upbringing, he at last felt free enough to write left-handed. Still, he would never dream of using the left hand for chopsticks.
The Salaryman's Wife Page 28
