The Samurai's Daughter (13 page)

I spent about half an hour listening to Mr. Endo discuss the narrative structure of
Paradise Lost
. When I finally stumbled out, I was filled with visions of hell and running slightly late for the meeting with Hugh. At the station, I passed down the wrong hallway before finding the Royal Host coffee shop. It was fifteen minutes after twelve, and he wasn't there. I sat down in an orange vinyl booth to wait.

Royal Host was a perfect example of an American fast food restaurant adapted to Japanese tastes. You could get a hamburger or an
okonomiyaki
squid pancake. I wasn't in the mood for much so I ordered a “hotcake” and coffee.

The syrup was artificial maple—unpalatable to a girl who had grown up spoiled by the real stuff from Vermont. I pushed aside the hotcake to sip coffee and watch the flood of travelers in the station corridor, looking for an easily recognizable tall figure with red-blond hair. At twelve-thirty, I began to worry. He'd called me before ten. Two and a half hours was plenty of time to get into the city. Maybe he'd gone to Royal Host early and left before I arrived.

I asked the waitress—who was looking disgustedly at me for staying so long with an empty cup—whether she'd seen anyone fitting Hugh's description. No, she answered, then made a check
with the other staff in the restaurant. No white foreigners yet that day; the only foreigner had been a
Filipin-jin
very early in the morning.

Too bad I hadn't seen the Filipino, I thought, because I could have chatted him up to get more information on Filipino neighborhoods in Tokyo. I ordered a sandwich and lingered for another thirty minutes until the lunch hour rush came and it was no longer fair to keep a table to myself. I left a note for Hugh in case he showed up later. It was rather detailed, with my address written out in Japanese, and with instructions to show it to the cabdriver.

I rode the short hop on the subway to Sendagi Station and walked home. My neighbors along the street had cleaned their windows and washed their cars. A few doorways were decorated with twisted straw roping tied with many small white paper strips. The strips signified troubles that people hoped would be over in the New Year. I could have used about ten of these: one over my door, and the rest on every window.

So much for the happy New Year. I would stay home that evening. I was in the mood neither for noodles with the Shimuras, nor tequila with Simone and Richard. I felt too unsettled to go out.

I opened the apartment door and headed straight for the telephone. Sure enough, the answering machine's red light was blinking. Three callers had left messages. The first was my father, wishing me a happy New Year in a voice that sounded tentative: neither warm nor cold.

The second call was from Hugh, who apologized profusely for not showing up at Royal Host. He said that en route to Tokyo, he'd received a call on his new cell phone—a message from the law firm about a plaintiff's address. He said he felt duty-bound to stop in, since it was right on the way. He left the cell phone number for me, asking that I call him after three.

I clicked my tongue in annoyance. I was glad that Hugh wasn't lost, but it seemed clear that he was back to his workaholic ways. Still, I could understand his eagerness to make contact with the plaintiff, who I guessed was probably Ramon Espinosa. But what he would accomplish without a translator, I couldn't imagine.

The next phone message was from the detective I'd hired, Shou
Idabashi. He said he had some information for me about Espinosa, and left Espinosa's address and telephone number in Kanda.

Perfect timing, I thought, and got ready to go out again. It was just after one—the odds were that if I made it to Ramon Espinosa's, I'd be there in time to help Hugh if he was still on site.

Kanda wasn't that far, and it was also one of my favorite districts in Tokyo, with a main street filled with lots of shops that sold used books. Of course, for someone who couldn't read Japanese the opportunities were limited, but I had bought many antique books with beautiful covers and endpapers and others illustrated with amusing woodblock print pictures. I also frequented a few bookstores with English language sections, like the Tuttle Company, where I would sometimes hide out for hours in the stacks, looking for the latest English women's novels, or mysteries written by Americans. The Tokyo booksellers charged double for foreign books, which was the reason I tried to read covertly without paying to take books home.

I turned off the main street leading from the station into a smaller one with a fire station, and then turned again to find the street Mr. Idabashi had described.

Mr. Espinosa's apartment building looked as if it had been built about twenty years before—old by Tokyo standards, where things were often torn down within ten years. The building wasn't what was typically called a “mansion”—those apartment blocks were more like the Western ideal, supertall and wide—but it looked very nice. It was in better condition than the old stucco building I lived in, and it had the pleasant addition of balconies attached to each unit. The futons airing on the balconies were bright and new-looking, and there was a row of shiny bicycles parked in a rack near the door. The bikes had all the old traces of mud washed off for the New Year. As with most apartment buildings, each apartment had its own external entrance. Outdoor staircases ran up both the east and west sides of the apartment block.

I entered the vestibule and saw the mailbox with Espinosa written in katakana, the Japanese phonetic alphabet used for foreign names. I trudged up the building's concrete staircase to the third floor, where I presumed apartment 31 was located. I thought I'd
caught a hint of Hugh's Grey Flannel aftershave, but it turned out to be fragrant incense wafting from unit 32, which was labeled with the family name Moriuchi.

Briskly, I rang the buzzer on Mr. Espinosa's door.

“Hai?”
a strong-sounding male voice called out. The Japanese inflection, in this small word, was perfect; it didn't sound like a foreigner speaking.

“My name is Shimura Rei,” I answered in the proper Japanese backward fashion. “I'm looking for Espinosa-san, please.”

The door swung open, and I faced a figure smaller than I—a man with deeply creased skin the color of strong tea and a head that was bent lower than mine. He was wearing a white coat with a high collar and styling that reminded me of the way dentists used to dress. He bowed immediately, and I bowed back. As I straightened to look at him again, I noticed that his eyes were hidden behind black glasses.

He was blind, I realized suddenly. And not being able to see me meant he had no idea who I was. “Espinosa-san, I would like to explain who I am. I am a Japanese-American who has come from California to speak to you about something very important. I carry news about an old acquaintance of yours—”

“Oh?” Mr. Espinosa sounded pleased. ‘Please come in, then.”

I slipped off my shoes and followed him into a room with a long metal doctor's table covered by a white towel. There were also bookcases and tables stacked with small boxes made from brass, steel, and carved woods. There was a calendar on a wall with dates punched out in dots that I realized had to be Braille.

“You're a doctor,” I blurted. “I should have addressed you as ‘sensei'—I'm sorry.”

“Oh, I'm just an acupuncturist,” Mr. Espinosa said, laughing. “And only since after the war. I am hardly an expert.”

“‘Only since after the war'? That's fifty-seven years. I would say that's plenty of experience.”

“Do you see the tea table to the right, with cushions around it? Please make yourself comfortable, Miss Shimura. Tell me, have you had acupuncture treatments before?”

I had to crane my head to see around a tower of boxes, but sure
enough, there was a tea table with a couple of new-looking black-and-red cushions around it.

“No, I haven't had a treatment before,” I said. “As I mentioned, I come here with news.”

“You are a young lady, but you are not pain-free, I would think,” Mr. Espinosa said. He sat down next to me, and without saying anything picked up my wrist and held it—picked up my wrist, when he couldn't even see me. He must have used his sense of hearing to judge the location of my body, I realized with amazement.

“Are you tired?”

“Yes, but it's just because I came back from the U.S., and have jet lag.”

“Any pains anywhere?”

“Around the knee sometimes, but that's from running—”

“Pain on either side of the knee might also be a symptom of a liver problem. It's quite serious. It can also impact relationships…Do you have frustration in your relationships, Miss Shimura? A temper?”

I looked at the blind man sitting with such a peaceful expression at my side, and understood that he must have already had a deep talk with my fiancé I sighed and said, “You're correct about that, I'm afraid. You must have spoken to Hugh.”

“Who? I did speak to a
gaijin
on the telephone, Miss Shimura, but he did not mention you.”

I caught my breath. “Then how do you know all those things?”

“I feel the flow of energy at your pulse. If I did an abdominal examination, I would know more about how I can help you. Right now, I can already make a guess that the wood nature in your system is off-balance. But since you are not here for treatment, can I give you tea?”

“No, no, I don't want to trouble you,” I said, out of rote politeness. Actually, a cup of green tea would have soothed me and given me something to hold while I thought about how I'd bring up the topic of Rosa.

“It's no trouble at all,” Mr. Espinosa said, and he moved with a measured pace toward the tiled counter and range at the back wall—what passed for a kitchenette in Japan. With his left hand he
lifted a blue-and-white ceramic teapot that had been drying upside down on a plate rack, and at the same time, he pulled a tea canister from a cupboard with his right. He shook the equivalent of two tablespoons of green tea into the teapot, then brought the pot to the table before me. He moved next into the center of the room, where he lifted a steaming cast-iron kettle from its perch atop the space heater. Kneeling at the tea table, he filled the teapot with the boiling water and then replaced the kettle on the space heater. All had been accomplished without a false step. I realized that even with the benefit of twenty-twenty vision, I couldn't possibly have served tea to a guest so quickly.

“Itadakimasu.”
I murmured the word that was the standard Japanese grace, and I sipped. The tea was very good—as good as the tea my elderly antiques dealer friend Mr. Ishida served. In more than a few ways, Mr. Espinosa was reminding me of Mr. Ishida.

“Mr. Espinosa, since you haven't met yet with my friend Hugh, I'm not sure how much I should tell you. I think he has a good deal to explain.”

“As do you,” Mr. Espinosa said calmly.

I nodded before remembering he couldn't see the gesture. “Yes. But first, I have to ask: Did you ever know a woman called Rosa Munoz?”

For the first time since I'd arrived, his face moved. The sagging skin around his mouth trembled. “Rosa. Oh, yes! Do you know her?”

“She survived the war and emigrated to California—San Francisco, which is my hometown. I met her on Christmas Eve.”

“How wonderful! And is she well?”

There was no easy way to do this. And he couldn't see my face, pick up the cues that anyone else could have. I said simply, “I'm sorry, but she died just a few days ago.”

He was silent for a long time. “She must have been seventy-five. Well, I suppose it is a blessing that she lived that long at all.”

He knew her age. What an incredible detail to be able to calculate rapidly, after all the years. They must have been good friends, or more.

“She had a heart attack,” I said. “It was incredibly tragic, because she was close to coming into some money, and a better life. At least, that was what we were hoping for.”

“What do you mean?” He stiffened visibly.

“She was poor,” I said cautiously, wondering where I'd gone wrong. “She had worked as a cleaner, and the apartment she lived in was very shabby, in a rough neighborhood. She had nobody to take care of her, but we were trying to change that.”

“‘We'?” Ramon Espinosa repeated, as if confused.

“I shouldn't say ‘we.' I—I knew Rosa, but I'm not a representative of the law firm that's been in contact with you.”

“You mean—that firm in San Francisco,” he said.

“Yes. I presume you offered to give testimony?”

“No, I didn't.” His voice was quavering. “They found out about me somehow, and passed a message on through the Acupuncturists' Association. But I never agreed to talk.”

This was something I hadn't expected. But I sensed it wasn't right for me to try to talk him into anything. My father had said that bringing up traumatic memories could send people over the edge.

“Oh, I'm sorry. I've misunderstood everything,” I said. “Should I leave?”

He shook his head. “Please tell me about Rosa first. What did she say to the law firm?”

“All I can speak for is what she said when I was there with her,” I said. “Rosa told my fiancé—a man named Hugh Glendinning, who was hoping to meet you—that she would testify about everything she'd been forced to do during the war. Hugh's goal was that the Japanese company that enslaved her—and you—would pay reparations that would make your lives easier, and that this would set an example for the human rights struggle worldwide.”

“Rosa's situation was far worse than mine,” Mr. Espinosa said. “She was, ah…” His voice trailed off. I imagined he was too genteel to say “a comfort woman.”

“I do know the terrible exploitation of her,” I said, choosing to speak euphemistically to keep him at ease. “There hasn't seemed much chance for reparations from the Japanese government that
fostered the brothels. The law firm thinks it's going to be much more rewarding to sue the company that used Asians and American POWs to dig its mines.”