Girl Fights Back (Go No Sen) (Emily Kane Adventures) (21 page)

After lunch, they strolled over to
Albert Park and found a bench with a view of the clock tower. The park was
usually crowded during the lunch hour, but by now most people had gone back to
work. They had the place pretty much to themselves. Yuki told her daughter all
about her father, how they met, how much she came to love him, about her early
childhood in Hawaii and later in Virginia. They both wept and held each other.
It was cathartic. They needed to live through their loss together, to work out
their feelings together. This was how they would become the family they had
never truly been before. It was almost dinner time before they looked up. They
drove back to the villa, feeling drained but also revived at the same time.

Naturally, Yuki and Andie had to
crow over all of Emily’s new clothes. They made her try everything on for them,
oohed and aahed over each outfit. Michael watched from a distance with a little
smile. Their son, Anthony, was a little too young at twelve to appreciate this
scene. Later, at the dinner table, they talked over all the events of the day.
After dinner, Emily sought a quiet moment with Michael to talk over some of the
trickier points of her going to college, the problem of changing the name on
her school records, and related matters. Michael had a couple of suggestions.

“Emily, you know I can change all
the records for you, seamlessly, craft an entire identity for you. You don’t
have to stay in Virginia any longer.” She knew he would propose something like
this, but it just didn’t suit her idea of a life.

“Don’t worry, I know you can,” she
said diplomatically. “But I want to have a genuine identity. I want to come
from the place where I really grew up. I can’t do that if I leave now.”

She was absolutely determined on
this point, and Michael saw this right away. He knew well enough the nature of
her determination. But he really wanted to find some way to be of service to
her, no matter what shape it eventually took.

“If you stay, you’ll have to stay
as Emily Kane, at least until graduation. You can change all your records after
that. There’s nothing shady or illegal about it. The only records that matter
are the school transcripts.”

“So far, I’ve been changing over
some things to Hsiao or Chung. Car registrations, driver’s license, that sort
of thing. And of course I came here as Chung. But in person, everyone who knows
me calls me Kane.”

“That’s probably the best you can
do, for now,” he said. “But any of those names you use now, you’ll have to
leave behind completely at graduation. Are you ready for that?”

“Yeah, I guess,” she replied
tentatively. “I’ll just tell everyone I was using an informal family name, and
that my legal name is Michiko Tenno.”

Michael was struck by the subtle
simplicity of her plan. Her friends and acquaintances, and the school officials
too, would recognize her by whatever name she offered them. After all, she had
the legal documentation for that name. He had always been impressed by the
contrivance of this identity. George and Yuki had crafted it on their own,
through their own connections, without his assistance. He had only heard about
it for the first time a few months ago. He knew for it to be of any real value,
it was important he not have any discoverable connection to it, no matter how
closely anyone looked.

“The problem of the recommendations
is a little stickier,” he sighed. “If you go to one of those schools, you’ll
have to change the records there after you’re admitted. That means you’ll
probably need someone from your high school to affirm that you are both people.
There’s a risk in that. It increases the number of people who know you under
both names.”

“I know,” Emily conceded. “I don’t
see any way around that. But once I’m living elsewhere, the high school won’t
have any record of where I’ve gone. And I can destroy whatever they have in
their files about Emily Kane once I’m enrolled someplace. A search for her
would come up empty.” Michael thought about this for a moment.

“There is another option,” he
began. “The service academies don’t base admissions decisions on recommendations
from teachers. They rely on congressional recommendations.”

Emily mulled this suggestion over.
It could resolve the difficulty about the letters, as well as allow her to
change over the records at her school sooner, insulate herself from her
dangerous identity more completely. And she had to admit the discipline of the
service academies appealed to her, even if it entailed some narrowing of
academic possibilities.

“But won’t the congressman who
recommends me want some documentation of who I am?” she asked.

“Yes, but as it happens, I have an
acquaintance on the House Armed Services Committee. I’m sure I can persuade him
to recommend you.”

Emily thought about this for a long
moment. The offer was distinctly enticing, but it would link her with Michael’s
influence inextricably. Even if the congressman could keep the secret, there
would be others in his office who might reveal the connection, even if only
inadvertently. No, she thought, Michiko Tenno was only completely safe if she
had no connection to Michael or anyone else associated with him.

“Michael, I’m going to need your
help in a thousand ways, I know,” Emily said, still a little uncomfortable
using his first name. “But I think I’m going to have to solve this problem on
my own. It’s not just about a name. I have to decide
who
I’m going to be”

“I see your point, Emily,” he
replied. “Here’s one thing you can do, right now to shore up Michiko’s history.
When you fly home you’ll have a stopover in Tokyo, and then fly home through
Hawaii. You should clear customs as Michiko, not Emily.”

Over the next few days, Michael
watched Yuki and Emily together. He wondered how Yuki could have been so near
Emily for all those years without revealing anything. It must have torn her
apart. He supposed the pain she felt then must have been roughly the reciprocal
of the joy that was written across her face now.

Andie noticed it too. She had known
Yuki since they first came to Virginia, when Emily was just a toddler. She had
always seemed reserved and enigmatic to her. Now her heart was an open book.
Andie was even more moved by the changes in Emily’s demeanor. The new clothes
revealed how pretty she is. But now she saw just how tender this girl could be
as well. She marveled at the way Emily could be so resolute yet so sympathetic,
so open to her mother. She was an impossible combination of grit and grace. She
was beautiful.

When Andie took her back to the
airport a couple of days later, she handed her a new thumb drive and some new
travel documents Michael had sent along. She sat with her in the airport cafe
for a few minutes before her flight.

“I hope you don’t mind about the
clothes,” Emily ventured half-apologetically. Andie smiled.

“How could I,” she teased. “You
look so great in them. I wish I looked that good.” Emily blushed. Andie wiped
away a little tear from her left eye.

“Well I’m glad you feel that way.
Your clothes really helped me find my way when I needed to. I hope that makes
sense.”

“It does, don’t worry. I think I
know what you mean.”

“Well, I’m grateful.”

Andie looked at her face and was
struck by how simple and open she was. She looked in those deep black eyes and
saw a perfectly innocent soul. She had always thought of Emily as a tough,
resourceful kid. Now she saw her as a mature young woman with the heart of a
small child. As they got up to go to the gate, Andie put her arms around her
and held her tight, like she was her own daughter. She whispered in her ear.

“We are all very proud of you,
sweetheart. Let us help you if you ever need us.”

Emily smiled
and nodded. Then she turned and walked to her gate. Andie watched her make her
way through the terminal, smiled wistfully and headed back to the villa.

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Chapter 17
:
Kyoto

Emily landed at Kansai Airport,
built on an artificial island in Osaka Bay, one of the most expensive public
works projects in human history. The trick had been to keep the island from
sinking into the silt of the bay under the weight of the terminal structures
and the runways. It was a monument to civic resolve, or perhaps it was just
stubbornness. Emily passed through border control as Michiko Tenno, native,
citizen of Japan. She had spoken Japanese from childhood. Yuki had made a point
of it, speaking to her in her native tongue whenever possible. Her vocabulary
was limited, but her feel for the character of the language was practically
that of a native speaker. She felt at home in it. A semester’s study in high
school showed her how the grammatical presentation of a language cold and
unhelpful. She already knew more from her mother than this class could teach
her. It felt especially good to speak her mother’s tongue now.

Michael had arranged for her to
have a layover here for a few days. She would fly out of Narita airport in
Tokyo and on to Honolulu, finally from there to the mainland. Each leg of her
journey was booked independently of the others. It was a long trip, but Michael
wanted her to have an opportunity to size up her situation along the way, not
leave a trail directly back to her home. Perhaps he also wanted her to have a
chance to spend some time in one of her homelands.

Whatever Michael intended, Emily
took a train to Kyoto and checked into a little ryokan near the Yoshida shrine
on the west end of the city. There was something wonderfully familiar in the
feel of the city to her. Maybe it was just seeing herself surrounded by crowds
of people with long, straight black hair, people who looked like her. She loved
the sound of their voices, the smell of their food, the bustle of their busy
lives. She could walk around the city in almost perfect invisibility, except
for the fact of how tall she was. She was not absurdly tall, but she was still
a good five or six inches taller than most of the women she saw. She also
walked differently, with a calm self-assurance that was noteworthy. There was
nothing deferential in her manner. She strode through the streets of Kyoto for
the next couple of days like a tomboy, the gait so familiar to her friends in
Virginia.

She visited the important shrines and
temples, the Shogun’s castle, played the tourist for a while. The university
also captured some of her attention. Perhaps she was looking for a clue to her
own future in the young people bustling about the campus. They weren’t really
all that different from the students she had watched at the university in
Charlottesville. They carried books in backpacks, walked to and fro with
friends, listened to music, idled in the plazas, walked along the avenues. The
campus of Kyoto University was not as pastoral as the one in Charlottesville.
There were more tall buildings, fewer trees and lawns. It felt more industrial.
Learning here seemed to be a product, there a leisure activity.

Emily eventually attracted a little
more attention than she wanted. As she sat in one of the campus cafés, she
noticed a couple of girls arguing with two young men who looked to be a bit
older than they were. One of the girls noticed Emily sitting alone and pulled
the other girl over to her table. She asked very politely if they could join
her, and then promptly sat down without waiting for a response. After a
quizzical glance, Emily asked if there was a problem. Before they could answer,
the older boys came over and yelled at the second girl that she should come
away with them immediately. She shuddered and buried her face in her hands.
Emily could see she was frightened. The first girl yelled at them to leave, and
stood up in their faces. They pushed her down rudely. As the girl fell
backwards, Emily stepped out of her chair and propped her up.

She glared at the men, staring
directly into their faces. They were unused to such a direct challenge, and
perhaps they found her glower a little unnerving, not to mention the fact that
she was as tall as they were. “Can I help you,” she asked, in perfectly polite
Japanese.

“You’re not wanted here,” the
larger one spat back at her as he turned toward the crying girl. He reached as
if to grab her arm, but Emily quickly inserted herself between them.

“You’re the one not welcome,” she
hissed at him. As she said this, she grabbed his hand, twisted it back and
pushed him to the floor. Everything in the room seemed to stop for a brief
moment. It felt to Emily as if every eye was turned her way. In fact, almost no
one was paying any attention.

The young man on the floor writhed
in agony from the insult he felt he had just received. He sprang up and surged
toward her, uncertain as to whether he could actually strike her in public.
Emily appeared unmoved, which only infuriated him further. He reached for her,
as if he meant to grab her arm and shake her. His friend moved to seize the
girl at the same time. Emily spun the first man into his friend and sent them
both sprawling. She stood over them and growled “Stay down, unless you want to
risk even greater humiliation.” Now people in the room began to take notice.

The two men looked up into her eyes
and thought better of it. They weren’t exactly afraid of her. But they had no
confidence they would be able to save face in this sort of confrontation. They
slowly edged away from her looming figure, picked themselves up and tried to
walk away with some dignity. Just as they left the room, the first man hurled a
curse over his shoulder at Emily. She shrugged her shoulders and turned back to
the girls.

They were dumbstruck. It obviously
had never occurred to them that they could stand up to men in such a way.
Still, they had been drawn to seek shelter at Emily’s table. On some level they
must have sensed something reassuring there. They looked at Emily with a mixture
of amazement and horror in their eyes. She had protected them, but at what
cost?