The Samurai's Daughter (10 page)

I wanted to catch Hugh's eye, but it was impossible with my father between us. Anyway, he seemed to be listening intently. I
guessed he hadn't had a clue about how passionate my father's civic involvement was.
All the more reason to run away,
I thought bleakly.

“And now, I have very auspicious news for the New Year. I would like to reintroduce my daughter Rei, who is with us for the holidays. Rei is one of ALL's very first students, and I think it is a credit to her fine teachers that she learned enough Japanese to live and work there for the last five years.”

There was a polite scattering of applause and warm smiles. I thought about how ordinary my father's description of me had been. He hadn't said what I did for a living, or even that I'd been a good student of Japanese. He'd reserved his praise for my teachers. Was it just Japanese manners at work, the manners that made it important not to praise one's children for their abilities—or was it a lingering reaction to the recent arguments we'd had?

Not daring to look at my father, I kept my attention on the crowd. I began to recognize a few faces. My first Japanese teacher was there, smiling warmly at me. How old she looked, as old as Rosa Munoz.

“The man next to me is my future son-in-law, Hugh Glendinning.” My father pronounced the last name slowly, as it was so vastly foreign. “Hugh is a native of Scotland, but he has worked in Japan, and plans to work there again, on a most important case that will surely be of interest to many here.”

“Please, let's not bore them,” Hugh said in his soft brogue, but my father soldiered on.

“Hugh is trying to file a class action suit on behalf of Asian people who had their civil rights violated by the Japanese during World War II. This issue may be of interest to some of our families, so please take the time to speak with Hugh if you like. People may have different reactions to the prospect of this lawsuit—as we have had in our own household.” My father coughed slightly. “Still, I am proud of my future son-in-law's concerns about justice for Asian people.”

When my father finished, I wanted to hide under the buffet table with all the toddlers. He could have broadcast the news from a megaphone on Coit Tower and had the same effect—or, for that
matter, sent a press release to the local Asian cable TV channel, since Mandy Oh, a Chinese-American woman who worked there, was at this event. I spotted her now. She had a gleam in her eye and was heading right for Hugh.

“How could you?” I said to my father.

“All I did was announce your engagement.” There was a hurt look on my father's face. “I'm trying to show you my support—”

“Why did you say there was a mixed reaction in this house? You're making it obvious that you don't approve.”

“You're too sensitive, Rei,” Hugh said. “It's not a big problem. I'll make the best of the, um, free publicity.”

“Well, it might be more than you bargained for,” I said. “That woman in blue coming your way is a TV reporter.”

Hugh followed my gaze to Mandy, who was trying to advance but was temporarily blocked by two tiny Vietnamese ladies bearing massive platters of summer rolls.

“Oh, no. I don't think I'm ready for that. Everything's got to be cleared with Charles—” Hugh's face had paled.

The door knocker sounded.

“Don't they know it's not locked?” I said.

My question was answered when the door swung open, revealing a blue-uniformed policeman.

“Oh, someone must have parked illegally,” my father said. “Let me go and settle things.”

“Don't avoid me,” I called after my father. “I'm still mad at you.”

He conferred with the policeman for a minute, and then came back with an odd look on his face.

“Uh, Hugh. The police.”

Hugh was busy talking to Mandy Oh, and looked distracted by my father's greeting, but kept on going. “Yes, madam, it's an issue that is of interest to the community, but at this point the company cannot be named—”

“Hugh, they want to talk to you.”

I shook Hugh's arm. “Did you and Eric park somewhere you shouldn't have?”

“No, we actually taxied it,” he said.

“We got a call from an electrician who was sent on a job to the residence of a Ms. Rosa Munoz.” The police officer had reached us. He flipped out his identification card quickly, but his name was short enough that I caught it. Ali. Officer Ali, with skin the color of café au lait, closely cropped hair, and a ruby earring in one lobe.

“I'm the one who made the call, actually. Did she not want to let him in?” I asked.

“She
couldn't
let him in,” the officer said.

“Oh. Did he upset her in some way?” Hugh asked.

“No, that's not it.” Ali frowned at us. “If you people would stop interrupting me, I can tell you what I have to say. It's not good news.”

“Bad news,” I said, unable to stop myself. “You aren't saying that she's dead?”

His expression told me that was exactly the case.

“What makes you think that?” Officer Ali demanded.

“It was an educated guess. When you said it was bad news,” I added.

“Nobody's certain of the lady's identity. That's why I came for Mr. Glendinning here.” Officer Ali offered the business card that had Hugh's name and my parents' address handwritten underneath, as party guests crowded around.

“Let's find a private place to talk,” Hugh said in a low voice. “I'm afraid it's rather, uh, chaotic right here.”

“Who died?” someone in the crowd said loudly. Then they all took it up, pressing in closely to eavesdrop.

It seemed as if Officer Ali didn't like this any more than Hugh, because he suggested going out to the cruiser to finish the conversation.

“Actually, there are plenty of quiet rooms upstairs,” I suggested.

“Glendinning is her attorney, correct?” the officer asked pointedly.

I nodded.

“Then he's the only one I need.”

“How about me? I was in on all the interviews.” Eric Gan had come up behind us. “Are you also her attorney?” the cop asked Eric.

“No, I'm a translator—”

“Okay. The answer is no, then.”

“I'll see you both in a bit, Rei,” Hugh said quietly, and went to get his coat.

Now I had a bad feeling in my stomach. The last time the police had taken Hugh away to discuss something, he had wound up in prison.

I was left behind with Eric, and a feeling of doom. Eric offered a
lumpia
to me, but I shook my head. “I couldn't possibly.”

“So how did you get so involved?” Eric asked me, as the party moved back to its regular pace.

“We stopped by on Christmas Eve to bring her some food and a small gift. One of us had the idea of having her stove fixed—I can't remember who now.” I felt utterly distracted.

“Did she know you were Japanese?”

I smiled wryly. “She did. Actually, she said she knew my name. This made me think that one of the men who had hurt her must have been a Shimura.”

“Or,” said Julia, who had come up and put her arm around me, “she had gone to the post-trauma women's group at your dad's center and remembered his name from there.”

“He never said he treated her,” I said.

“Well, he can't! He's a psychiatrist—he has to maintain physician-patient confidentiality,” Julia said. “I'm sorry, Rei. I wish I had known more about this woman than what I just overheard. She's one we might have been able to help.”

I couldn't answer. I didn't know what to say. Rosa, dead. If she could have hung on a year, she would have had money. But she might have died right after that point. There was no certainty about anything.

Mandy Oh, the reporter, appeared with her notebook flipped open. She had already scribbled several notes. I hoped, rather futilely, that the notes were just a story about ALL.

“I need to talk to your fiancé about the class action for tomorrow's news broadcast,” she said. “When can I bring my crew? And do you want to do it here or at the law firm?”

I swallowed hard and said, “Mandy, I really can't make plans for him.”

“Sure you can—you're the wife!”

“Not yet,” I said. “But just between us, I think you'll get a better story when he's, uh, ready.”

“Did you know,” Mandy said, giving me a furious look, “that as a representative of a minority community media organization, I am frequently not even invited to press conferences? I'm not considered real media, you see. And here your friend is throwing out tempting bits of information about a story that
directly
impacts our community, and he won't give me the story?”

“It's gotten so complicated, Mandy…” I broke off. I had to think of something to distract her, to put a better face on things. “Actually, I do have a scoop for you. I'm working on a personal family history of the Shimuras. I have slides of family artifacts and quite a few reminiscences about how my grandparents and their grandparents lived in Japan. You know, the kinds of quilts they slept under, the dishes they ate from, the letters they received from notable people of the period. I'd be happy to give you an exclusive on this if you like.”

“That's just soft news; I couldn't sell it to my bosses,” Mandy said. “Anyway, I'd better circulate to get some more color. Bring Hugh to me when he gets back with that cop—or else.”

I stared at her as she retreated.

“Whew,” said Julia, “she wants a story. Can't say I blame her.”

“Well, why doesn't she want to write about your hot line or something? I'm sure you can use the publicity,” I grumbled.

“She has. Every year she does that story. Mandy Oh is our hero. I mean to say,
shero.
We've switched to that term lately.”

 

The rest of the party passed in a blur. I was surrounded by well-wishers from the old days. Half of them asked about the wedding plans, but the others were all abuzz about the lawsuit. I tried to say as little as possible, and threw myself into picking up all the leftover plates and glasses. People began to leave around eight. By nine the two dishwashers were going, with all the tables and surfaces cleared and five bags of trash headed for outdoors.

“This is unbelievable, Rei,” my mother said. “I can't believe how
much easier life is with you around. I know this sounds crazy coming from me, but wouldn't it…wouldn't it be nice if you and Hugh could live here with us, just like a real Japanese extended family…”

“Thanks,” I said, too upset to protest.

“We could do over the third floor entirely as an apartment for the two of you. You could even have one of our parking spaces in the driveway—”

“We're going to live in Japan,” I said, trying not to cry.

The doorbell rang.

“Who now?” my mother wondered aloud.

“Maybe Hugh's back,” I said, and went to the door. Remarkably, he was. I gave him an inquiring look, but he just shook his head at me.

Hugh had been away only about three hours, but he was transformed. His whole being seemed to sag; his suit was wrinkled, his skin looked paler, and his expression had a hollow kind of sadness.

“You were gone for a while,” I said. “What did they do to you?”

“Nothing. They thought I should be the one to make a positive ID on the body, since I was her lawyer and there was no one else who was closer. After that, I stopped in Washington Street to see Charles Sharp and talk things over with him.”

“Had she—been hurt?”

He shook his head. “It didn't look like it, thank God. They think it was natural causes, a heart attack or something, but they'll do an autopsy just to make certain.”

“But I can't believe it's natural. People live through their seventies in good health all the time now—”

“She's not another Mr. Ishida,” said Hugh, referring to my septuagenarian friend in Tokyo who was vigorous enough to practice tai chi.

“Okay, she's not. But think about the coincidence of the break-in at our house and the smashed window of my mother's car. Maybe someone was searching for something…information about Rosa. And once they got it, they killed her.”

“We'll wait for the autopsy,” Hugh said, but I could tell from the way he looked at me that he thought I might be right. We'd known
each other too long, and had had too many hard experiences with unnatural deaths, not to expect the worst.

“What is it?” My mother was suddenly standing just a few feet away.

Hugh cleared his throat. “I've had some bad news. My client passed away. I was taken to the morgue to make the identification.”

“Oh, my darlings, I'm sorry,” my mother said. “You obviously cared about her a great deal, since you were going to the effort of fixing the stove—”

“What about that stove?” I was still unable to quite believe my foul-play theory. “What if—the electrician screwed things up and it was the gas that killed her?”

“No, the electrician found her already dead when he entered the apartment. She was still warm, but wasn't breathing. She was in her chair, slumped over. It seems as if she'd died in the midst of eating—the police said there were takeout food containers and soy sauce on the table.” Hugh looked at my mother. “Catherine, I'm sorry. I'm not really up for talking anymore.”

“Not to me, but how about Toshiro?” my mother exclaimed. “He's quite good with issues of grieving and loss—”

“Not now, Mom.” I took Hugh by the arm as gently as if he were an old lady Rosa's age. “We're going upstairs.”

 

In my room, Hugh lay motionless on the bed. I sat in the chair across the room, staring out the window. Across the street I could see mostly darkened houses, with only one or two rooms glowing with light. In them, people sat in front of computers or televisions, tuned into other worlds. Our house was uncharacteristically blazing with light, but my spirit was dark.

At last Hugh spoke. “Somebody once advised me never to enter into personal relationships with clients. I understood that to mean the obvious—don't have affairs. But now I see it means more. Don't walk into people's homes unbidden, don't give them things, and don't try to remake their lives…”

“You didn't do anything wrong.”

“Who knows? She was doing fine until we showed up with the promise of making her final days better. Maybe it was what your father said about stirring up old memories for her. That could have caused enough stress for a heart attack.”

“Maybe the class action stirred up old memories for someone else,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Hugh turned his face and I could finally see his red eyes.

“Both the American and Japanese governments have argued against giving the comfort women a chance at getting reparations, right? Neither side wants to upset the cozy relationship between the two countries. And those are just the governments themselves. There must be thousands of like-minded people in the U.S., and millions in Japan. If Rosa's death had happened after my parents' party—after all those Japanese-American guests heard about the plan—I would wonder if one of them had done it.”

Hugh reached out and stroked my arm. “Get some sleep, darling. You're so tired you're turning racist.”

But he was a fine one to tell me to sleep. Hugh tossed and turned plenty, and since my single bed was too small for both of us, it made drifting off impossible. Finally I told Hugh that I needed to sleep somewhere else, with more space for my body, in order to function the next day. Hugh kissed me and said a mournful good-bye as I carried my pillow up to the third-floor guest room where he had been sleeping. I didn't like to leave him, but I knew it was for the best.

There was a sliver of light under Manami's door, which was slightly cracked open; as I moved down the hall the door was closed quickly, and I heard her put the hook on it, locking it tightly. I smiled to myself, realizing that she must have thought it was Hugh, and she was protecting her modesty.

“Manami-san, it's just me. Rei,” I called to her quietly in Japanese.

The lock came undone, and she peeped out at me. I had a flashback to Rosa doing the same thing at her apartment door.

“I'm sleeping in Hugh's room,” I whispered. “I think I'll sleep better.”

“But your parents!”

I realized then that Manami didn't know anything about the engagement. “It's okay. He's sleeping alone in my room, and I'll be up here near you. I hope you don't mind?”

“Of course not. I'll be—more comfortable. I've been afraid,” she said.

“Oh, sure, the break-in would make anyone nervous.” I'd almost forgotten about it, because of what had happened to Rosa. “Well, good night.”

“Just a minute, Rei-san. I'm going to the hospital early tomorrow morning, so I won't be able to say good-bye to you when you and Hugh-san leave for Japan.”

“Yes, we can say our good-byes now, but you should know that Hugh will still be around.

“Oh? Why isn't he going with you?”

“Well, there's been a—complication. Remember the class action suit Hugh described at dinner the other night?”

Manami nodded. “Oh, yes. The one against the Japanese companies.”

“Well, the lead plaintiff for the case suddenly died. Hugh's not entirely sure the lawsuit will come together.” I decided to withhold what I'd been thinking about the death's being unnatural, because, as Hugh said, there was no evidence yet. And Manami was such a timid soul; the last thing I wanted to do was frighten her.

“Oh, so you cannot both be living in Japan. How sad!” she exclaimed.

“I hope it can still work out. I don't know if you heard it from anyone, but we decided to get married. It happened when we were out yesterday afternoon. He gave me an old family ring.”

“Your mother told me tonight.” She smiled slightly. “Congratulations. Your ring is very pretty. And please don't believe things are ruined. Hugh-san worked in Japan before for a
zaibatsu
. Your father already suggested that he could do that again.”

“Hugh did like working for Sendai, though it was very long hours and a lot of travel. But this new job was so much more…meaningful! He felt he would be doing something to right a wrong that had been made.”

“Right wrong? What does that mean?”

“It's colloquial…” I struggled for a minute to find the words. “To right a wrong means to correct something bad that happened before. Hugh felt that if he could get Japanese companies to pay money to these people they'd hurt during the time of war, it would make everyone feel better. Not everyone agrees with that, of course. Well, good night, Manami. I have to get my rest tonight, because I've got to get up early for the airport.”

“Good night, Rei-san.
Ii tabi, wo.”
She spoke the phrase that meant, “Have a good trip” with the proper cheerful emphasis.