The Samurai's Daughter

by Sujata Massey

  I was the first out of the car when we got back to Green Street, gasping for cool, rainy air. I walked up the steps to the house, hoping against hope my mother hadn’t chosen the salmon just for me, because I didn’t know if I could eat it.

  I waited by the door, deep-breathing, as Hugh came up behind me.

  “Hey, what’s the rush? Your father lent me his key ring—which one is for the door?”

  “The old Yale one,” I said. But the moment I fit it into its keyhole, the door popped loose from the frame. “It’s unlocked. Whose fault was that?”

  “What?” my mother said, coming up behind me. “I’m sure I locked it earlier.”

  “What a perfect time for a break-in,” I said. “Christmas morning, while the presents are lying around downstairs and the family’s away at church. We must have been watched by someone.”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions,” my mother said, going straight into the house. “Let me count the silver in the dining room. You all can see if the presents are still here.” Yes, the silver was there. The ceramics were still in the cabinets and on the sideboard, the unwrapped presents were in the parlor, and in the kitchen a $20 bill was lying neatly on the Welsh dresser where my mother had left it. The checkbook was in the drawer.

  Nothing was wrong.

  My mother laughed with relief, although my father began chastising her for being careless enough to forget to pull the door all the way closed. She was the last one out the front door—she had to have been the culprit.

  Feeling glad I wasn’t the one to blame, I sank down in a soft sofa in the library.

  “Well, now that it seems everything’s all right, would anyone mind if I made a phone call? It’s getting late in the evening in Scotland, and I usually talk to my parents on Christmas.”

  “Oh, you must!” my mother exclaimed.

  Hugh took his new cell phone out of his jacket pocket. “This really was awfully handy. Thanks again.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s not on an international calling plan yet,” my father apologized. “I thought you might want to choose the carrier you were using before?”

  “I did that already,” Hugh said, smiling. “Before we went to the cathedral, I took a few moments.”

  “But you must use our home phone. We signed up for an excellent international calling plan when Rei went overseas—”

  “Even to the U.K.?” Hugh looked dubious.

  “Ten cents a minute. We’ll be offended if you don’t use it.”

  “Thanks,” Hugh said, and began dialing the old black-and-white phone that had been in the library for as long as I could remember.

  “I’m going to be sick,” I said. “Sick from nerves.”

  Hugh grinned at me. “They’ll love you just as much as I do. But speak slowly, hey? The Yank accent will throw them.”

  Hugh talked for the first ten minutes, and then handed the phone to me. I shouldn’t have worried because I could barely get a word in edgewise. Which was fine with me—Hugh’s mother had a gorgeous lilt that was similar to Hugh’s, but more charmingly colloquial. “Happy Christmas, but why aren’t you here with us?” she began. “When are you coming to visit? We need to finally clap eyes on the gal that’s stolen our eldest son’s heart—”

  “Stolen,” I heard echoing somewhere else, with a Japanese accent.

  Stolen?

  I turned my head to see that Manami and my parents had entered the room. My mother was pantomiming for me to end the phone call.

  “Pardon me, Mrs. Glendinning, my mother has something to say to me.” I rolled my eyes at my mother, completely irritated.

  “My name’s Lydia, dear. Please use it if you like and—”

  Hugh took the phone from me. “Mum, there’s a small problem here, so we’re going to have to ring off. No, don’t worry, I’ll get back to you in a few—oh, right, it’s the middle of the night. I’ll call you tomorrow. Right. Lots of love to everyone.”

  “Someone has been in my room,” Manami said in a small but angry voice when the phone had been hung up at last. “The papers on my desk are disorganized. And someone looked inside my backpack!”

  “It’s very strange,” my mother said.

  “Manami, I hope you don’t suspect me,” Hugh said. “Catherine showed me your door, so I knew not to go inside it—”

  “I did not mean to lay blame that way,” Manami said, but she kept her eyes to the ground.

  “Remember, everyone, the front door was unlocked,” I said. “We thought a thief would be interested in the valuables on the first floor, but maybe not. Maybe it was someone who has a thing for Manami—you know, a person from the hospital—”

  I looked at Manami with her schoolgirl braids, and, on this day, in honor of the holiday, her neat gray skirt. She was not overtly sexy, but she might appeal to someone who liked the fifties schoolgirl look.

  “Before we jump to conclusions, let’s look in all our rooms,” my mother said. “And the bathrooms, too—most house-breakers are junkies.”

  “Good point,” I said, already halfway up the stairs. “Someone might very well know there are two doctors in the house and expect them to have hoards of Xanax.”

  That theory didn’t pan out. My room was untouched, as was my parent’s. But when Hugh came down from the third floor, his face was serious. “Just as Manami said, someone was up there and went through my suitcase and the drawers of the desk. I can’t figure out what’s gone; I’ll have to spend a few hours searching.”

  “Your briefcase? Was that touched?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Fortunately not, because that’s where all my legal notes are. I’d brought it downstairs earlier because I had to find the information on my telephone account. After I was through linking the cell phone to the provider, it was time to go to church. I didn’t have time to go up to the third floor, so I left it under the Christmas tree. See? It’s still there.”

  “It looks like a Christmas present,” I said, regarding the oxblood leather briefcase half-hidden by some torn wrapping paper.

  Hugh picked it up and opened it. “I’ll go through it carefully, but it seems as if everything’s here.”

  “Do we still keep a key under the hibachi on the front steps?” my father asked my mother.

  She nodded. “Yes, I put it back out when Manami came to live with us, just in case she came home when we weren’t here one day and was missing a key.”

  “I have not used it at all,” Manami said.

  “I’ll see if it’s in its proper place.” My father went out of the house, and then came back in. “It’s gone.”

  I glanced at Manami, whose face had gone pale. All of a sudden I felt what she had to be feeling—that this place that she’d thought was safe really wasn’t.

  “You should call the police,” I said.

  “Oh, I feel like such a fool to have left the key there. The police are going to scold me, aren’t they?” my mother fretted.

  “They’re not going to be happy to come out on Christmas, especially if nothing was stolen but a house key,” my father said. “They were so annoyed with us last month when we called about that loud group of teenagers. I hope we don’t get the same officer.”

  “Maybe it was those teenagers,” Hugh said to my parents. “They could have removed the key as a prank. That’s the kind of thing the local lads did back in my day.”

  “But if it was teenagers, why didn’t they take anything?” I mused aloud. “I can understand them skipping the antiques, but what about CDs or cash or electronic equipment? Why did they just snoop on the third floor?”

  “We need to have our locks changed,” my father said. “I’ll get on the phone to see if there’s a locksmith working today. I expect we’ll have to pay a premium.”

  “And I’ll call the police,” I offered. “You never know whether any other houses on the street might have been hit. If there’s a pattern, it could be easier to catch whoever was here.”

  I made my call, but was startled that
the police weren’t willing to come to our house. The matter of a missing house key and rustled possessions was deemed small enough for me to just relate the details over the phone. They took down the details for an incident report they said we could give to our insurance company, should we want to make a claim for the cost of having the locks changed. Finally, I was warned not to keep keys in safe places outside of houses, because no place was truly safe. Yes, I agreed. I’d tell everyone in the house.

  8

  Two new locks and four keys to match cost a breathtaking $800, something my father grumbled about all through lunch. At least the locksmith had come. Our castle was impenetrable again. Still, my parents were so depressed that I thought they needed a change of scenery. I reminded them of their invitation to a neighbor’s open house around the corner, and they departed with the plan to organize everyone there into a neighborhood watch group.

  Manami went upstairs to search her room again, just in case she’d missed something that had been taken. I sat down in the kitchen with a bowl of warm water, the silver polish, and some soft cloths; I’d promised my mother I’d polish her antique Stieff silver tea service for the forthcoming ALL party. Hugh sat down across from me, working on e-mail from his laptop computer.

  “Domestic bliss,” I said as I finished rubbing the sugar bowl to a sparkle.

  “It would be, if I weren’t so on edge,” Hugh said. “I’ve received an e-mail from Charles Sharp ordering utmost confidentiality. I hate to think what might have happened if my briefcase had been stolen. We came close to utter disaster.”

  “No thief would know what to make of your notes,” I tried to reassure him.

  He pressed his lips together. “Well, it didn’t happen, that’s the important thing. But I’m on edge. Let’s go out, do something more cheerful.”

  I agreed wholeheartedly. I placed all the finished silver on the sideboard, and then ran up the two flights of stairs to check if Manami wanted to come along.

  “No, thank you. I’d rather stay here and read,” Manami said somberly.

  “What about dinner—would you like to go out with us?”

  “Oh, no. Today’s food was enough. It was delicious, but so heavy. If I become hungry, I will boil some Japanese noodles.”

  Feeling secretly relieved that I’d now have some time alone with Hugh, I went downstairs to tell him we were at liberty.

  “Great. Do you think your mother would mind if we borrowed her car? I’d like to see something more of the city, especially since I have to work tomorrow.”

  “I’m sure it’s no problem,” I said, going into the kitchen to find my mother’s car keys in the dresser. “What do you want to see?”

  “Well, I’m a bit embarrassed, because it’s so touristy…”

  I winked at him. “Let me guess. The Golden Gate Bridge?”

  I was right, of course. It wasn’t a particularly good day to see the bridge, because of all the fog and the fact that it was getting late; however, there would be no rush hour traffic, given that it was Christmas. I brought a travel mug of tea for each of us and a map, just in case we became lost. I didn’t feel as sure on the streets as I used to. My plan was to take Van Ness to Lombard and drive through the Presidio. We would wind up in Sausalito after we’d crossed the bridge. I would find a place open for dinner there, and spend a few more hours away from home.

  A household intrusion shouldn’t shake me up this much, I thought. I’d suffered worse in my lifetime. But the truth was, the house on Green Street had always seemed like a sanctuary to me. Now it had been violated. We had new locks and a set of special keys the locksmith swore couldn’t be duplicated by anyone but my parents, whose names would be on register at the shop. But that didn’t seem like enough.

  “You’re so quiet,” Hugh said, taking my hand.

  “I’m sorry Christmas turned out this way,” I said. “You would have been better off in Scotland.”

  “Not really,” Hugh said. “Can you stop?”

  “Stop what?”

  “The car.”

  “We’re still a few miles from the bridge.” In fact we were just driving through Presidio, an old military installation that was one of the city’s prettiest parks.

  “Please, Rei.”

  There was something in his voice that alerted me that this was really serious. Ready for bad news, I turned off into a parking area. I pulled over in a spot marked reserved, and turned off the car.

  “If we walk down this trail, you’ll really see the water,” I said. I led him around a massive stand of eucalyptus that had been planted long ago to camouflage the layout of the base, and there we had it: the Pacific Ocean, gray-blue and endless.

  “Two more days and I’ll be flying over it,” I said.

  “Soon enough, we’ll be there together.”

  “Just like old times,” I said.

  “But I don’t want it to be like the old times,” Hugh said.

  Aha. So he was going to break something to me. What? I had a feeling of panic. Was he so pressed with work that he wanted to postpone our relationship?

  Hugh didn’t meet my eyes. He was busy digging in his pocket, taking something out. When I saw the small red parcel, a wave of relief rushed over me.

  “I thought the G-string in the book was the private present,” I said.

  “No, that was a joke,” Hugh said.

  This isn’t. That was the unspoken message. My fingers tore clumsily at the paper. I had once opened a box like this expecting a ring, and it hadn’t been. I had no idea what could be within this box—earrings? A pendant? I wasn’t going to expect anything, I swore to myself.

  “You look grim,” Hugh said.

  I didn’t answer, but let the wind carry away the last shreds of paper and looked down on a faded blue velvet box. It had to be family jewelry, I thought, and my heart began pounding.

  “My grandfather gave this to my grandmother in the early thirties,” Hugh said. “If it’s too art decoish for you, we can change it—”

  “No,” I said, after I opened the box and saw the ring lying nestled on creamy silk. A rectangular emerald was surrounded by tiny pavé diamonds set in narrower rectangles. The band was a luminous metal that I knew had to be platinum.

  “No?” Hugh breathed. “You mean that you don’t want it?”

  “No, that’s not it. I said no because I wouldn’t dream of changing it! Oh, Hugh, it’s exquisite.”

  “This is the fourth time I’m asking you to marry me,” Hugh said.

  “Fifth,” I said, laughing. “Four’s an unlucky number, remember?”

  “Will you?” He took the box from me, and took the ring out of its cushioning.

  “Of course.” I found that I was choking up. “I didn’t expect this, but I do—I do want it. I want you always.”

  As we kissed each other, I had the strangest feeling of being in a play—maybe it was because of the perfectly styled setting in front of the Bay, or because it was Christmas. But I knew the way I felt about Hugh was sincere. He had grown and changed so much for the better in the few years that I’d known him. I hoped I had, too.

  I felt the ring slide on my finger, and it rolled about a little loosely.

  “It’s too big,” Hugh said mournfully. “Well, I should have expected that. My grandmother was a big woman, six feet tall.”

  “They can resize it at Hopewell’s,” I said, sniffling a bit. “I’ll go there tomorrow. Do you want to come with me?”

  “I have to work,” Hugh said gently. “That’s why I was so hell-bent on getting this time with you today. Tomorrow I work, and the day after you go back to Japan. I wanted to settle things.”

  “Your timing is auspicious,” I said, smiling at him. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we could start sleeping under the same roof in my parents’ house tonight.”

  “Do you really think so?” Hugh’s eyes gleamed. “Well, let’s go back and tell them. I’m too excited to continue sightseeing.”

  “Can you imagine,” I
said as we ambled back to the car, “how my mother’s going to spring into action? The question is whether she’s going to push for a wedding right away, so we don’t get cold feet, or make us wait a year so she can organize things perfectly.”

  “I wonder—oh, shite.” He broke off, and I followed his line of vision to my mother’s car. The passenger window had been thoroughly smashed. Thousands of tiny bubbles of glass on the street made me think, absurdly, of Christmas stars. “Rei, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have insisted you stop—”

  “It happens. Life in America, you know.” I walked up to the car and looked in. “The question is what was stolen. I hope my mom didn’t have anything valuable in the car.”

  “Oh,” Hugh said. “Wow. Look, my new cell phone and even that little shortbread tin I brought with us is gone. We’re completely cleaned out.”

  Fortunately, he’d left his briefcase at home, just as I’d left my backpack. The break-in was more of an annoyance than anything else.

  But it was the second break-in in the same day.

  I found it hard to believe it was a coincidence.

  The police didn’t come out to solve this crime, either. Once again, a phone report was the order of the day. Though, as Hugh pointed out, if they’d come and seen where I’d parked, I’d probably have gotten a ticket for parking in a reserved space.

  “Two bad things have happened to us in one day,” I protested over the phone to the sergeant on telephone duty. “It seems as if it could be a pattern!”

  “Well, lady, do you have anyone in your life who doesn’t like you? Ex-husband, ex-best friend, someone with a vendetta?”

  The truth was, I had recently seen Eric Gan, and it seemed clear that he was annoyed that Hugh and I were together. But his livelihood depended on working on the class action with Hugh; it would be stupid of him to stalk us. After a long pause, I said, “No.”

  “Well, I’ll write up an incident report to use for—”