Murder on the Cliff

by Stefanie Matteson

  The body reminded Charlotte of the geisha in the ghoulish Hokusai print.

  She remembered her sense of unfulfilled expectation from the night before. Was this what fate had had in store? The anticipated climax of the evening’s events? Tomorrow would be the hundredth anniversary of the day on which Okichi had plunged into the sea. She remembered what Okichi-mago had said about the camellia being considered an omen of death because of its tendency to drop prematurely from the branch. She also remembered Okichi-mago’s tears as she sang the ballad about the pitiless floating world. “Ah, for the man I love, my life I’d gladly give—what could I regret, leaving this evanescent life?” It must not have been long afterward that she had jumped; she was still wearing the seashell kimono. But Okichi had had good reason to commit suicide. What was Okichi-mago’s? Charlotte checked her watch; it was just after six. She would have to notify the police. Leaving the body as it was—she had learned that much from police work—she clambered back up the cliff, hanging onto the vines that clung to the lichen-studded rocks. Miako followed at her heels. She would call the police from Shimoda. She was about to cut through the Edgecliff property out to Ochre Point Avenue, when Miako showed her a shortcut. After charging between the posts of the balustrade and across the lawn, he disappeared through a hole in the hedge between the two properties. Charlotte followed, and found herself emerging at the rear of the Shimoda property, near the temple. Though she knew she should notify the police, she found herself being drawn to the temple. She wondered whether Okichi-mago had left a note, and if so, what it said. After crossing the lawn, she climbed the stone path to the temple. The tinkling of the wind chimes hanging from the pines sounded otherworldly in the morning stillness. The temple looked just as it had the night before except for a single pair of unclaimed shoes on the stepping stone at the foot of the stairs: Okichi-mago’s delicately rounded black-lacquered geta.

  The morning dew was still wet on the polished boards as Charlotte made her way around the building to the rear of the gallery. The spot from which Okichi-mago had jumped was on the south side, near the old pine tree whose branches stretched out so splendidly over the face of the cliff. Peering over the railing, she could see the body far below. A fresh scar on the wooden surface of the railing marked the spot where the pearl on Okichi-mago’s obi clasp had scraped against it as she went over. Turning away from the railing, Charlotte took off her shoes and entered the temple hall. The room had been cleaned up, but otherwise it was unchanged. The only evidence that a party had taken place there was the indentations that Dede’s heels had made in the tatami matting. And the smell: the sharp odor of stale beer hung in the air along with the faded scent of sandalwood incense, and … something else. It was the acrid smell of a charcoal fire. Looking around again, Charlotte noticed that the square tatami-covered board that concealed the sunken charcoal pit had been removed. A straw basket of charcoal sat on the floor next to it. Circling the low, lacquered table, she walked over to the pit. Arranged on the floor next to it were three objects: a green-glazed sake cup, and a gold lacquer comb and mirror, both inlaid with a camellia design in mother-of-pearl. Charlotte recognized them as Okichi’s mementos from the display cabinet inside the house. Inside the lacquered frame of the charcoal pit were the remains of a fire: a few blackened pieces of charcoal on a bed of white ashes. Among the remains was a singed business card with Japanese characters. Picking it carefully out of the ashes, she turned it over. The other side read: “Hiroshi Tanaka, president and chief executive officer of Yoshino Electronics, Inc.”

  It was a re-staging of Okichi’s death, right down to the business card. Charlotte remembered the scene from Soiled Dove: carefully laying the fire on rocky headlands, then burning her few possessions and her personal papers, including Harris-san’s business card. Setting out the sake cup, the comb, and the mirror. And finally, plunging off the edge of the cliff. In the final scene her things are discovered by a village official. “What does it mean?” asks a baffled onlooker. “The comb is the symbol of leave-taking, the mirror is the symbol of the soul,” the official replies. “These symbols mean Okichi has left us forever.” Pan to the waves lapping against the rocks at the foot of the cliff. “What does it mean?” Charlotte asked herself, just as the baffled onlooker had asked in the movie. Why had Okichi-mago burned Tanaka’s business card? Had she taken her life because she was ashamed at having humiliated the man who was her patron? If so, why hadn’t she stayed with him in the first place? And why make such a production of her suicide? She remembered what Okichi-mago had said about capitalizing shamelessly on the Okichi legend. Was she taking advantage of the legend even in death? Leaving the brazier, Charlotte went back out to the gallery to retrieve her shoes. Then she headed toward the house, Miako trotting along purposefully beside her, his agitation allayed now that his mission was completed. As she walked along the gravel path, she imagined the sensation the Japanese scandal sheets would make of Okichi-mago’s suicide. In Japan, there was a long history of appreciation for suicide as an art form. It was said that the Japanese were as obsessed with suicide as Americans were with murder. She thought of the novelist who had committed ritual disembowelment after an impassioned appeal for the revival of Japan’s ancient heroic spirit. According to the ritual, a second was supposed to have stepped in and chopped off his head with a sword, but the second had botched it, and a third had finally had to finish the job. It was forty minutes or more before he finally died. At least Okichi-mago had had style enough to succeed. For that matter, her death had style enough to land her a permanent place in the annals of Japanese suicide.

  As Charlotte approached the rear of the house, Paul emerged from the front parlor. He was wearing a cotton kimono and holding a mug of coffee. He awaited her on the long wisteriashaded veranda with a look of bewilderment.

  “What is it?” he asked as she drew near, seeing from her manner that something was wrong.

  “It’s Okichi-mago,” Charlotte replied. “She’s dead. I found her body lying down on the rocks below the temple a few minutes ago. It looks as if she jumped from the gallery.”

  The blood drained from his face. “Are you sure it’s her?” he asked. “Maybe it was one of the others.” His brown eyes searched her face, not wanting to see the truth.

  “I’m sure,” she replied softly. “She still had the camellias in her hair. Her ankles were broken in the fall. I’m very sorry,” she added.

  His hand shaking, he set his coffee mug down on a table, and then seemed to lurch from one piece of furniture to another, like a drunk hanging onto the wall of a building. Finally he headed over to a hydrangea bush at the end of the veranda and quietly threw up.

  Charlotte took a seat and waited. His vomiting was probably as much hangover as it was shock.

  After a few minutes, he returned and slumped into an old-fashioned wrought-iron garden chair. For a few minutes, he stared quietly at the floor. Then his face crumpled in sorrow, and he began to cry. Wrenching sobs racked his small frame. Sitting at his ankles, Miako whined in sympathy.

  “Can I get you a drink of water?” she asked once he had stopped.

  He shook his head. “When?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure. I think it must have been last night, after the party.” She waited for his response, but there was none. He stared blankly at the floor, his hands clasped tightly between his knees. “We’ll have to notify the police,” she continued. “May I use your phone?”

  He waved an arm vaguely toward the inside of the house.

  Charlotte found the phone on an antique desk in the front parlor—Paul’s parlor—and, after making the call, rejoined him on the veranda. He was still staring blankly at the floor.

  “Someone will also have to notify the family,” she said. “I understand from what you said last night that there’s a guardian in Japan.”

  “Yes,” he said quietly. He sat motionless for a moment. Then he shook his head, and started to cry again.

  He seemed oddly affected fo
r a man who barely knew her. But then, people often reacted to death, especially sudden death, in strange ways. Charlotte had seen more than one family become unhinged in such circumstances. If he was in love with her, as everyone else seemed to be …

  She sat quietly, looking out at the sea, which was framed by the wisteria vines. Although most of the flowers had already bloomed, a few tardy blossoms lingered, and bumblebees hovered around the long, fragrant flower clusters.

  “Did she leave a note?” he asked after a while.

  “Not a note exactly.” She described finding Okichi’s mementos and the half-burned business card. “I thought she might have been distraught over the scandal involving Mr. Tanaka,” Charlotte said. “Do you have any ideas?”

  He shook his head.

  In the distance, they could hear police sirens wailing.

  After lunch, Charlotte set off with Spalding in his old Chevy down Bellevue Avenue. They were heading to the Newport Casino, the scene of a Meet the Sumos reception, which would be followed by the sumo tournament, the second in the two-day exhibition match. Connie had elected to stay at home. In her opinion, watching a sumo match was like watching “two elephants wrestling each other to death.” Bellevue Avenue was slow going: on weekends—starting on Friday afternoons—Newport was crowded with day-trippers and weekenders who came to go to the beach or to visit the half a dozen or more mansions that were open to the public. Long lines of people waited for admission to Marble House, Beechwood, and Rosecliff. Ahead, a tour guide blared out anecdotes about Newport’s Gilded Age over a public address system to a busload of tourists. It reminded Charlotte of Beverly Hills. As the tour guide described the dogs’ dinner, Charlotte and Spalding talked about Okichi-mago. Now that she was dead, Spalding had spent the latter part of the morning conferring with the other members of the Black Ships Festival Committee on what to do about the Afternoon of Japanese Culture scheduled for the next day. Finally they had decided that the show must go on: the other geishas would perform without her. Charlotte had been drafted to take her place as mistress of ceremonies. With the practical matters out of the way, Spalding was now trying to explain Okichi-mago’s suicide in terms of the cultural concept of giri.

  “Giri means obligation,” he explained. “To the Japanese, no act is ever an isolated event; every favor must be repaid in kind. To fail to fulfill one’s obligation is the worst sin a self-respecting Japanese can commit. The whole country runs on the principle of giri: giri to your boss, giri to your family, giri to your business clients.”

  “And Okichi-mago failed to fulfill her obligation to Tanaka?”

  “She certainly did,” Spalding replied. “Tanaka was her hanna, her patron. He showered her with magnanimous gifts, as he was expected to. He set her up in her own teahouse. She in turn was supposed to reserve her sexual favors for him; or, if she did take a lover, to be discreet about it. Not only was she indiscreet, she was practically shouting about her affair from the rooftops.”

  “The press was shouting about it from the rooftops,” Charlotte corrected. She spoke as one who was sensitive to having her private affairs splashed across the front pages of the scandal sheets.

  Spalding shrugged.

  “I’ll grant you that she was indiscreet, but at least she was honest,” Charlotte continued. “Obviously she must have been conscience-stricken about continuing to accept Tanaka’s patronage in the face of her relationship with Shawn. Instead of carrying on in secret as someone else might have done, she accepted the responsibility for her actions and publicly severed her relationship with Tanaka. I think that’s commendable.”

  “She may have thought she was behaving responsibly and you may have thought she was behaving responsibly, but to most Japanese, she was being irresponsible, disloyal, and selfish. That’s why she was vilified in the press. To the Japanese, style is more important than substance: it didn’t matter that she had a relationship with Shawn as long as she kept up the appearance of loyalty to her patron.”

  “She made Tanaka lose face.”

  Spalding nodded.

  “But Spalding, he didn’t seem to me to be acting like a humiliated man. Did he to you? In fact, he struck me as a man who was handling the situation with tact and sophistication, even humor.”

  “Which is what made the burden of her obligation to him all the greater. If he’d publicly denounced her or publicly attacked Shawn, she would have lost face in return, and they would have been returned to an equal footing. But he behaved like a perfect gentleman.” Spalding harrumphed. “I wish he’d displayed the same degree of tact when he gave his talk at the opening ceremonies.”

  “His only reproach was the marionette song,” Charlotte said, remembering Tanaka’s high, clear voice singing the song about the marionette whose heart “flip-flops and changes.”

  “Exactly,” said Spalding. “Not only did he behave like a perfect gentleman, he behaved with impeccable style.”

  “Giving her no out but to take her own life, leaving his half-burned business card as the only clue to the reason why.”

  “Yes. To atone for her debt of honor. A modern young woman wouldn’t even consider atoning for her disgrace in such a situation—look at the bar hostess who was blackmailing a cabinet minister to keep their relations a secret—but geishas in general, and Okichi-mago in particular as one of Japan’s foremost geishas, are different. The world they inhabit is an anachronism; they are the guardians of traditional values.”

  “‘To die with honor, when it is impossible to live with honor,’” said Charlotte. She explained: “The words that Butterfly reads before she takes her life: the words inscribed on the blade of her knife.” Charlotte had played Butterfly in the screen version of Puccini’s opera. After Soiled Dove’s success, she’d played Oriental women in a whole string of films. That was the Hollywood recipe for success: if it worked, repeat it ad nauseam.

  “Ah yes, another story based on the Okichi legend,” said Spalding.

  As they rode, Charlotte looked out the window. She never tired of this lovely avenue. But this afternoon she saw a sight that disturbed her. The enormous fern-leafed beeches in front of a sprawling Victorian were being cut down. Their beautiful sculptured gray trunks bore huge white scars where limbs had been amputated in preparation for felling the entire tree. They looked like mutilated bodies.

  “Spalding, why are they cutting down those trees?”

  “Sickening, isn’t it?” he said. “I can hardly bear to look at it. It’s Nadine Ogilvie’s property, Strawberry Lodge. She’s selling off a lot on Bellevue Avenue. She’s planning to move the entrance to her house from Bellevue Avenue to the side street. Several others have done the same thing. They make money from selling off the lot, plus they save on their real estate taxes as a result of no longer having Bellevue Avenue frontage.”

  “What a shame,” she said.

  “Yes. I’d rather have seen her sell off the entire property to someone who could afford to keep it up, and move to a smaller place. But people will do anything to hang on to their houses on Bellevue Avenue, even if they have to enter from a side street. They sell off a lot, they sell off the furnishings, they fail to keep the place up, until eventually all that’s left is a big rundown house on a tiny lot with nothing of substance left in it.”

  “You’d think the developer would have the good sense to at least try to save the trees,” said Charlotte.

  “Several have tried, but it doesn’t work. They start to die when they dig the foundation hole. Beeches are shallow-rooted, which makes them very sensitive to any ground disturbance. The Preservation Society’s trees are dying too, either from old age or from ground compression caused by the footsteps of all the tourists. They have a program to replace them with young trees, but it will be a long time before they reach full maturity.”

  “What does Paul think about Nadine’s cutting down the trees?” asked Charlotte. She imagined that an ardent preservationist like Paul would be horrified at the prospect.

  �
��I don’t know,” replied Spalding. “As you know, Connie and her cousin aren’t that close,” he added, with his usual talent for understatement. “But I’ve heard from other members of the Preservation Society board that it’s been a source of contention between them.”

  Charlotte nodded. She would miss these graceful trees whose airy, delicate foliage turned Bellevue Avenue into a leafy bower. Nadine’s trees were only three or four among dozens, but their absence would make a difference.

  As they rode, Charlotte’s thoughts turned back to the idea of giri. It was a concept that she still had trouble with, though it helped to think of it as an informal system of IOU’s.

  “Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” asked Charlotte.

  “What’s that?” asked Spalding.

  “Oh, giri,” she said. “I’m back on that. If Okichi-mago committed suicide because of her obligation to Tanaka, and if she was forced to do so because of her affair with Shawn, then what kind of ah obligation does that impose on Shawn?” she asked. “And what does Shawn then have to do to free himself of the burden of that obligation? Is he obligated to redress the balance by taking his own life because their affair forced her to take hers?”

  “You’re getting the hang of it. The answer is ‘maybe.’ The ramifications and counter-ramifications of giri can get pretty Byzantine, to say the least.”

  “But if Okichi-mago’s commitment to tradition was so great that she took her life on account of it, why didn’t she conduct her affair in secret, as you suggested that tradition dictates she should have?”

  “Ah, now you’re getting into another aspect of Japanese culture: ninjo, or the demands of the tenderer feelings. She was carried away by ninjo, by love. The conflict between giri and ninjo is a major theme in Japanese literature. The story usually involves the illicit love between a geisha and a young actor or sumo wrestler. Sumo wrestlers in particular. The worlds of the geisha and the wrestling ring have always been closely associated.”