The Samurai's Daughter (14 page)

“That's when I met her,” Mr. Espinosa said. “We were both digging a tunnel. It was unusual for a young lady to do such hard work, but she had said she'd do anything not to have to return to the, ah, hotel where she'd worked with the other ladies. She was able to get the transfer, she told me, because she knew a high-ranking officer who arranged things.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Oh, no. Just a typical Japanese name. They didn't see each other after the war.”

“Rosa had such a hard time after the war,” I said. “Yes, she managed to reach California, but she didn't find a stable and respected position. She cleaned a bar for years. The apartment building where she lived was like—” I stopped, because I couldn't find words to describe it. In Japan, nobody had housing as bad as the tenement I'd visited.

“Still, Miss Shimura, she and I were so fortunate to survive.”

“But you were treated so badly, and not paid a salary.” I paused. “You are obviously a very forgiving person, but if you chose to tell your story truthfully to this lawyer, it could mean money and justice for everyone else, not to mention yourself.”

“You want me to stand up against this nation where I have earned a good living since the war?” He paused. “The pain for me is gone. What happened to my eyes was terrible, but one of the managers took pity on me and brought me to Japan after the war, and enrolled me in an acupuncture school for blind people. I made many good friends in that school, and I have wonderful patients and neighbors. All Japanese, Shimura-san. Things would have been more difficult if I'd been sent back to the Philippines after the war. I'd not live long as a blind beggar there.”

Suddenly, I saw the story behind the dark glasses that he wore. Perhaps it was an accident in the mines that had blinded him. The company had not thrown him out, but had provided for him. As it had prospered, so had he.

“You feel so grateful to the company for helping you after the war that you would never testify against them,” I said.

“Yes, that's the truth of it. Thank you for understanding.”

“I—actually, I feel pretty slow about the whole thing. I apologize for bothering you.”

“No, don't feel that way. I'm sorry to disappoint you. As I said, Miss Shimura, I know that you have trouble with your knees. If you like, you can come here sometime for a complimentary introductory treatment.”

“I'll keep it in mind, thanks,” I said, taking the business card he offered. “I'll leave you my card too, in case you change your mind.” I handed it to him.

“I will have my assistant read it to me,” he said. “Thank you for your visit. I had not thought of Rosa for a long time, and while I am sad to hear the news, perhaps it is a blessing she is away from the bad place you mentioned.”

It wasn't until I left, and was almost all the way home on the train, that it dawned on me that I shouldn't be feeling so warm and fuzzy about my short visit with the gentle Ramon Espinosa.

Ramon Espinosa had been cared for by Morita Incorporated after the war. He was grateful to them. Now he had a dangerous piece of information—information that a foreign lawyer was planning to sue Morita. I'd given out Hugh's full name, and because he was listed in Martindale-Hubble—the “who's who” of lawyers—it would be a snap to trace who he was, and for whom he was working.

The question was, did Ramon Espinosa still have a close contact at Morita Incorporated—someone whom he'd feel close enough to tell?

“Happy New Year!” Richard Randall screamed in my ear. The party at Simone's tiny flat in Shibuya had quickly outgrown its confines, and we had spilled into the street.

“It's not time yet,” I said, checking my watch. I'd made the decision to take Richard's party over the
soba
noodles at Aunt Norie's just because I could get back to my apartment easily the same night. Norie had said she understood why I'd changed my plan, and hoped I'd come for the ceremonial New Year's Day meal the next day.

In the meantime, while nursing a glass of bad white wine, I'd been calling my answering machine at the apartment to check if there were more messages from Hugh about his whereabouts. I'd called the number he'd given me at three o'clock, but he hadn't answered. And my answering machine hadn't recorded any messages. I was starting to think that perhaps I should have sat at home so that when the call came, I'd be there.

Richard thought it was no big deal, of course; he'd pressured me to go out with him because he wanted his new belt and because he wanted company. After Richard's comment about how staid and thirtyish I was becoming, I felt reluctant to stay at home. I was also reluctant to be a homebody because I was annoyed with Hugh for missing our meeting at Royal Host twelve hours earlier.
Surely he could have kissed me hello first, then gone on about his business.

I eyed Richard, a small blond sprite wearing a black leather jacket open over a T-shirt sporting the
anime
character Princess Nausica. On the bottom, he wore vintage Levi's highlighted by his new black belt trimmed in gleaming nickel. He looked exactly the same as when I'd met him five years ago, when we'd been roommates and fellow English teachers at a kitchenware company.

I was wearing something Richard had never seen before, and loved: an old crushed velvet dress from college that had turned up in my suitcase. I had a feeling Hugh had packed it when I wasn't looking. The dress was purple and only went to mid-thigh, and had the habit of creeping up when I danced. Now that we were outside, I'd covered the dress with a black Persian lamb swing coat that had belonged to my Baltimore grandmother in the 1950s. It had seemed like the perfect wrap when I'd left early in the evening. It wasn't lined with much, though, so I was starting to freeze.

“Richard, why don't we go into a bar or something. This hanging out on the street is no good. Somebody's going to call the police, I'm sure.”

The way most of my old friends looked translated to hoodlumism in Japan. Pierced noses and ears, strategically ripped denim, black hair that was dyed yellow, and vice versa—these were the looks of typical Japanese teenagers, but not of twentysomethings. By the time most Japanese reached their late twenties, they were working at respectable jobs, and had looks to match. But Richard and Simone and their ilk had freewheeling jobs teaching English part-time and serving drinks in bars. About the most respectable person in the bunch was a guy from Yokota Air Base, and that was because of his sheared military haircut, not his behavior—he'd pulled up to the party in a van with a telltale military license plate, decorated with offensive bumper stickers that I hoped few Japanese could translate. Since his arrival, he'd proceeded to drink an entire six-pack of Budweiser—he'd brought plenty of cheap booze from the PX—and was working on another.

“Richard, I think I'm going to call it a night,” I said. “I'm still tired from the jet lag.”

“What's the point of going out for the New Year if you leave before midnight?” Richard protested.

“Not much, I guess. I think I'm just too worried about Hugh not showing up. Seriously, what if he's gone to Ueno Station again?”

“The trains stop running in fifteen minutes,” Richard said. “If he's there, he's going to have to leave. Unless he wants to sleep in the tunnels, ha-ha.”

Richard's mention of the tunnels made me think of Ramon Espinosa working in the mine. Ramon, who was loyal to the company that had allowed him to be blinded in an accident, and might be telling them, on January 3 or whenever they reopened for business, about Hugh's plan.

“Seriously, Richard, I'm going to head out. You don't need me here—you're having a great time with all the others.”

Richard and everyone else gave me last, boozy hugs and early New Year's kisses, and I moved off, rapidly, because I wanted to catch that last train out of Shibuya Station back to northeast Tokyo.

Roppongi used to be the ultimate party spot in Tokyo, but in the last few years, Shibuya had taken over the prime position. Endless high-rises were packed with tiny nightclubs, which spilled over with young Japanese. On the streets, they were grooving to music that blared from shops and restaurants on the ground level.

I hurried past a glowing billboard for Puffy's latest album, and then one for Morita Incorporated. The ad was of a young woman in shorts and a skimpy tank top, lying on her back on a pine floor, her legs tossed up in the air. Morita's new model of cordless telephone was in her hand, and a perfect orchid leaned in a terra-cot pot in the corner of the room. There was nothing else.

Nothing else. The dream in so many Japanese ads was of space, simplicity, comfort; but I couldn't help thinking now of a lost generation of women on their backs—comfort women, women who when they were worn out from those labors were shepherded into the mine-building project for the benefit of the Morita Power Company. These women, of course, were mostly Filipina and Chinese and Korean—not Japanese, like the young model on the billboard. No, I thought, stopping to stare a minute longer. The model had Occidental eyelids.

Half-and-half models had been popular in Japan ever since the teenaged Rie Miyazawa showed her semi-American face in the late 1980s.
The ideal for advertising, but not the ideal for real life,
I thought, giving her one last annoyed look before moving on. I was half and half, and what had it gotten me? I'd never had any lucrative English teaching jobs, because I looked too Asian. Not to mention I didn't have the height and youth and beauty to break into modeling or acting anytime soon.

I soldiered on toward the station. Several light-haired foreigners were inconsiderately blocking my path; I would have to dash into the street and risk being run down by a motorcycle or car. Everyone was out tonight, cruising.

Just as I reached them and was deliberating whether to bull my way through, as most Japanese would have, or just say “Excuse me,” they cut into a fashionable restaurant called Grapes.

It had a clear glass front, but I could see a rosewood bar with gleaming brass taps behind it, though most of the people at the bar had wineglasses. It was an older, wealthier-looking foreign crowd than I ran with; they looked to me like stockbrokers and investment bankers.

I'd met that crowd years before through Hugh, and not really fit in. But I'd envied them—for their cost-of-living allowances that allowed them central heat, the chance to shop at all the best department stores, and opportunities to meet friends for drinks in places such as Grapes, which Richard had said charged about ten thousand yen, or about $100 U.S., for two glasses of wine and an hors d'oeuvre.

As I gave one last amused look at the convivial scene in Grapes, I caught a flash of red-gold hair. I was missing Hugh too much, I thought, as I paused again to study the back of the man in the bar with the thick, slightly wavy hair. He was wearing a black waxed-cotton coat with a corduroy collar, just like Hugh's Barbour.

I felt a prickle of unease, and instead of proceeding toward Shibuya Station, I walked through the glass door of Grapes, just to double-check.

Hugh Glendinning was seated at the bar, one khakied leg crossed over the other, bent attentively toward someone smaller
sitting next to him. I didn't have to crane my neck to know it was a woman. A
girl,
to be honest—she didn't look older than twenty-one. She must have had super connections to land herself a seat at a sophisticated spot such as Grapes on New Year's Eve. She was wearing a yellow sweater-dress that showed off a slim figure, and had crossed her legs to reveal that she was wearing sharp stilettos that made my own high heels appear modest. She was what people called a parasite single, a young Japanese person who lived to dress fabulously, and who spent all her income on pleasure.

Several ideas flashed through me. The first was that it was typical of Hugh to find out Tokyo's hottest new hangout within twenty-four hours of arrival, and to be there with an office lady from his old company. That was the most charitable interpretation of the girl that I could make. The excitement I'd felt upon finding him was definitely tinged with paranoia.

I twisted the emerald ring—this was becoming my new nervous habit—and walked forward, silently rehearsing my greeting. But before I had to break the ice, Hugh had swiveled around on his stool and was beaming at me.

“Darling! You got the message after all.”

“I didn't,” I said, backing away from the embrace he seemed to be threatening me with. “I just happened to be walking by—” I decided not to say “to go home,” because it sounded too pathetic to be turning in as early as this on New Year's Eve.

“Ohisashi buri, neh?”
the girl with him bleated, then lunged forward unexpectedly and snuggled her arms around me. “Long time no see” was a weird thing for someone I didn't recognize to be saying to me. And I could only guess she was hugging me because she was drunk, since the Japanese didn't touch people casually.

I patted her back quickly and set her on her feet, looking into her face. Who in the world was this person? I wished Hugh would introduce her, but he'd bounced up and gone looking for another bar stool. Apparently, I was being invited to join their tête-à-tête.

“Rei-chan, let me see the rock.” The girl grabbed my left hand and ogled. “Oh, very nice. That's the kind I want. Oh, and one just like him. He's a sweetie!”

Well, the competition was awfully friendly. Calling me little Rei, even though I should have been Shimura-san to her. Hugh must have been talking about me. I hadn't needed to be jealous after all. I smiled warmly and asked, “Is this the first time you've met Hugh?”

“Yes, of course! Mama sent me to find him, after giving me a perfect description.”

Mama.
Now my back went up. Was she some kind of bar girl or hooker with a Mama-san employer?

Hugh came back. “I can't find an extra stool, love. Why don't you take my stool so you can sit next to your cousin.” He stood up, stretched, and sighed. “You won't believe the wild-goose chase I went on today. I got a voice mail left on my phone that the guy we were looking for—you know, the potential plaintiff—was at a certain address in Kawasaki. When I got there, I found out it didn't exist. Imagine me with my pitiful Japanese trying to find out from the neighbors if this person ever lived there. Of course, he didn't. What I'd like to say to the paralegal who sent me out on the road all day for nothing—well, I can't say it, not in front of your cousin.”

Cousin.
He said it again. Was Hugh's mystery woman my cousin Chika—Norie and Hiroshi's daughter, and Tom's little sister? She'd been seventeen the last time I'd seen her. If this was her, say she'd grown up would have been an understatement.

“Rei-chan, what's wrong?” the girl asked. “Are you ill?”

“Chika? I—I didn't recognize you.” I leaned over and hugged her again, this time with feeling.

“None for me?” Hugh made an expression of mock anxiety.

“Later,” I said, giving him my first real smile of the evening.

“Well, Chika is a good sport. She's delayed going to her friends' New Year's party to escort me to your apartment. Apparently, your aunt had a key and directions.”

“You're awfully far from my apartment,” I commented.

“This was to be our meeting place. The Toyoko Line comes to Shibuya, as you know,” Chika said. “I told Hugh-san to meet me in this place so I wouldn't get cold waiting outside.”

Or targeted by a rapist,
I thought, taking a sip from the glass of champagne the smiling Australian tending bar set before me, unbidden. It was good—the first decent booze I'd had all night.

“Good, isn't it? We had a glass of that already. Don't worry, I checked to make sure she really was twenty-one.” Hugh winked at the bartender.

“I would have guessed twenty-five,” I said, and Chika smiled. She was still young enough to want to look older. I turned to Hugh again. “Anyway, I'm so glad you made it! But before I get totally looped, I've got to bring you up to speed.”

“Actually, Rei, why don't you leave that till later, after we've seen Chika off.”

“I can get to the party myself,” Chika protested. “It's just a few blocks away.”

Hugh and I exchanged amused glances, and I realized all of a sudden what it might feel like to be parents.

 

After I finished the glass of champagne, we did walk Chika to the party. It turned out to be more like a mile away, but at least we saw that the guests were really her age, and not the older lecherous types I'd feared they'd be. After we said good-bye to Chika, we placed a quick call to Norie on Hugh's cell phone to let her know where Chika was. Then midnight struck, and the temple bells began clanging. Hugh and I kissed—our first real kiss of the night, and of the New Year.

The subway was definitely closed by now, so we went straight to a busy corner to wait for a taxi. In a low voice, I told Hugh about how I'd met Ramon Espinosa—and how doubtful I was that he'd want to be part of the class action.

“Let's go back together and I'll take a try,” Hugh said. “Tomorrow. We can bring him a New Year's present.”

“I don't like that idea,” I said quietly. It reminded me too much of what we'd done with Rosa.