The Samurai's Daughter

by Sujata Massey

  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 go
al 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.”

  “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?

  15

  “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 tunne
ls 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.