The Samurai's Daughter

by Sujata Massey

I heard my father’s voice. My gaze jumped beyond my mother to see him push past her and grab a sheet of the bed to press to Manami’s middle. Of course. He was a doctor, concerned about someone who might be dying—no matter that the person had almost killed his daughter.

  I picked up the telephone next to Manami’s bed and dialed 911. After I’d given all the details, I rushed to my mother to throw my arms around her. “How did you know?”

  “Well, to be honest, your father and I enjoyed lunch so much we decided to cancel our afternoon appointments and come back home for a little…break. We saw your shoes by the door, and the filling bathtub. We felt you were here but weren’t sure where, so we came upstairs, and we heard it all.”

  “You came in here like a commando instead of calling for help,” I said, coming up beside her to look down on the woman she’d felled.

  “We didn’t bother, because by the time we got up here we realized that to make any move or sound might give us away—and result in danger to you,” my father said. “That sword. I never would have dreamed it could be put to such terrible use.”

  “But that’s what swords are all about,” I said. I remembered our ancestor who’d used it to save the daimyo and lost his arm in the process. In a sense, Manami had committed a similar act. She’d used the sword to protect her fantasy of what Japan once was, and should be again.

  I thought about it until the sirens wailed up to the front of the house, and then I went down to let in the paramedics.

  38

  A week later, I was at a cafe on Union Street with a used laptop on the table in front of me and a double latte in hand. In the days since the confrontation with Manami, I’d felt too spooked to be alone in the house. So I’d cadged the old laptop from one of my high school friends and persuaded my mother to teach me my way around the Internet. The net result was that I had finally figured out how to answer, file, and forward E-mail messages, and there was no better place to do it than this cybercafe. In just a few days, I’d become a cafe sitter—just like the people I’d gawked at a few weeks before.

  I clicked onto a website I’d bookmarked that advertised Hawaiian honeymoons:

  Try our Bird of Paradise Package! Complete seaside wedding ceremony followed by dinner for two—or two hundred! Five nights at an ocean-view suite with private pool, daily massages, convertible car, and kayak.

  Even though it was high season, it was still cheaper than what my mother wanted to do in San Francisco, and what Hugh had suggested doing in Scotland. Maybe I could please all of them by inviting them to Hawaii. Was a wedding in three weeks fair notice?

  “More coffee?” A waiter hovered over me solicitously.

  “Decaf this time, please,” I said. “Oh, and do you think it’s fair notice to invite people to a wedding with only three weeks’ advance warning?”

  “Ooh, is something, uh”—he coughed delicately—” baking in the oven?”

  “No,” I snapped, annoyed at his casual intimacy. “Though I would like another chocolate croissant. Can you add it to my tab?”

  Life was too short not to eat chocolate, I knew—and my time in San Francisco wouldn’t last forever. Hugh had complained about this mightily, because he’d been transferred from Japan back to Washington, D.C., where his firm had taken over the leadership role in the class action. All the lawyers at the different firms had voted Hugh to be the one running the show—and agreed that Charles Sharp had to disqualify himself and his firm, given the gift he’d taken from Morita Incorporated. Upon investigation, it turned out the $30,000 tansu was just one of three gifts that he’d already had shipped from Japan.

  Hugh’s promotion would mean even more work and travel than he would have had otherwise. We’d need the honeymoon in Hawaii, just to have a few moments of peace. The San Francisco Police Department’s investigation of Manami had taken a toll on me as well. Dozens of police had turned over our house, looking for evidence. They found potassium chloride in Manami’s bathroom cabinet, which matched the sample found in the soy sauce at Rosa’s apartment. Additionally, three different people recalled seeing Manami in the Tenderloin on December 26, the time she was supposed to be in the hospital on call.

  Despite all the evidence, I knew, it could take years for the governments to figure out which country Manami should be tried in. The Morita Incorporated class action would similarly be pending for a long time. Guilt was such a difficult thing to understand. Eric Gan’s attack on Ramon Espinosa was indisputable—and Eric would probably serve a year or two in a Japanese prison for it. I thought the sentence was just, but still I felt sad about it. Eric had been a normal boy and young man; greed was the element that had challenged him, and won.

  Manami’s sense of guilt was just as difficult to understand. My father thought that quite a few psychiatrists would view her behavior as that of a mentally ill person and that institutionalization would be a more humane remedy than prison. However, he pointed out, she was devious enough to trick Rosa into eating poisoned food, and later on returned to our house behaving normally, but waiting for the chance to kill. Her acts showed awareness of right and wrong.

  I remembered how I’d felt my life was about to end when she’d slid the sword out from behind her back. I still dreamed about it. I’d asked my parents if the sword could leave the house, and they’d readily consented. They were willing to sell it at the next Hopewell’s auction and give me the money as a nest egg for my local antiques business, but I wanted the sword to return to Japan. Uncle Hiroshi should decide what to do with it, I said. He might want to exhibit it on the family altar, or sell it on the Japanese antiques market, where he’d realize a higher price than was available in the United States, whose market was glutted with Japanese swords that had been brought back by the occupation forces.

  The waiter brought me the fresh coffee and croissant, and I toggled over from a vision of a Hawaiian sunset to check for E-mail. I’d been getting regular notes typed in hiragana from Yuki Moriuchi, Mrs. Moriuchi’s son. It was Yuki who’d informed me that Ramon had come out of his coma, and was undergoing physical therapy that allowed him to tap out messages with his toes. Ramon had also agreed to have his closed eyelids opened, and to let a cornea specialist use surgery to attempt to treat his blindness. A date for the surgery would be set soon.

  I sent my best wishes to Ramon via Yuki and then noticed that a new message had popped up from Hugh.

  Sorry to say I had some unexpected travel for work—won’t be able to speak on the phone tonight. But ponder this question—Washington or San Francisco? There’s a fantastic stone former boys’ school—a building from the 1890s—for sale on 16th Street. The ground floor has enough space for retail and upstairs there’s enough room for us and many, many children. Love, Hugh.

  San Francisco or Washington. One place was so familiar and dear and the other was new to me, but not entirely: Washington was close to Maryland, the seat of my mother’s people. I’d never paid much attention to them. Perhaps this was the right time to get to know them, since I had at least a year or two to kill in America.

  Not time to kill, I corrected myself—time to spend. If I spent a few years away from Japan leading an exemplary life, the Japanese government might relent and allow me to return. The deportation had, overall, been providential—if I hadn’t been forced to return to America, Manami might have killed my parents before I got there. I knew this, and in gratitude for all of us having been spared, I’d do everything I could to be good. I’d be considerate to my parents, and I’d resume a vegetarian diet. I’d volunteer as the Japanese-speaking contact at Eric’s sister’s hot line—if she would still let me help.

  A taxi pulled up, enveloping me in a cloud of carbon monoxide. I wrinkled my nose and added, I will drive only a hybrid car to my brand-new list of precepts.

  A door slammed and the taxi sped off again in a burst of fumes. When I was done coughing in my napkin, I heard the scraping sound of a chair being pulled close. I put the napkin down, and discovered Hugh settling in next
to me.

  “You tricked me,” I said, looking from him to the computer screen. “You just sent me mail saying that you had to travel for work!”

  “It’s true,” Hugh protested, grinning. “I just didn’t tell you where my work would take me. There are a few more plaintiff interviews to do here, and since Charles is out of the action, I’m the obvious choice to do them.”

  “I bet,” I said, and we kissed. We made it a luxuriously long kiss, since this was the first one since our brief, painful good-bye in Tokyo over a week ago. When we were through, the waiter who’d smirked about my being pregnant was looking grim.

  Another gorgeous man wasted on a woman, I imagined him thinking.

  But Hugh, typically impervious to his own charms, smiled and crooked a finger at him. “Hallo, can you bring me a pot of Darjeeling, please?”

  “I suppose so,” the waiter said, eyebrows rising at Hugh’s accent. “Would that be iced or hot?”

  “Boiled,” Hugh said with vehemence. “And can you bring some milk and sugar on the side? I’m afraid I’m quite particular. I have a serious thing about tea.”

  And I have a serious thing about you, I thought as I shut down my computer.

  Tokyo, San Francisco, or Washington—the places didn’t really matter.

  What mattered were the people I loved.

  A READING GROUP GUIDE TO

  The Samurai’s Daughter

  Discussion Questions

  Please note that print page references are not accurate in the e-Book edition.

  “My feelings about food, my hometown, and my father were about as mixed up as the Buddhist rules” (page 3). Discuss Rei’s confusion with these elements in her life. Do you think Rei is prejudiced against Americans or simply prefers the Japanese lifestyle?

  Rei’s father describes Manami as a “girl in a box” (page 4). What does he mean by that?

  “Shinto, the ancient religion of Japan, fostered a belief that swords contained the soul of a samurai” (page 21). Discuss the irony and relevance of this statement in regard to the novel’s climax.

  “When a country loses its culture, it loses its soul” (page 23). Rei’s father believes that artifacts taken from other countries should be returned to its people. Do you think he disagrees with his daughter’s choice to be an antiques dealer?

  “I just wanted to get back to my old life, where there was nobody I cared about enough that I could get shaken to the core” (page 95). Discuss how Rei’s feelings about Japan and its culture change throughout the novel.

  How does the author use food in this novel? What do you make of Rei’s on-and-off vegetarianism?

  The author poses questions about guilt and responsibility in the larger context of Asian history as well as in the personal choices we make today. Take a closer look at some of the characters in this novel—Rei, Toshiro, Hugh, Eric, Ramon, and Mr. Ishida—and discuss what guilt, if any, they carry due to the choices they have made or the history they have inherited.

  “History is worth much more than money. It’s our nation’s heritage. The problem here is that nobody will speak up about his or her life. We say water washes everything away—that it’s unimportant. So the stories, like pieces of old furniture, are lost” (page 177). Mr. Ishida is referring to his nation of Japan. Do you think we have a similar problem here in the United States? Or do you think we suffer from the opposite—dwelling on our past, be it historical or personal?

  Do you think Eric Gan’s ending is just?

  Whom did you suspect of murdering Rosa Munoz? Did your suspicions change throughout the novel? What clues did the author leave for you?

  What do you think Rei learned from researching her family history? Do you think it will change her relationship with her father?

  Here’s a sneak preview of

  The Pearl Diver

  by Sujata Massey

  Available in August 2004 in hardcover from

  HarperCollins Publishers

  1

  I’d scored a single line and a shadow.

  Or were they double lines? I squinted at the plastic wand lying on the edge of the bathroom sink. One line meant negative, two positive. There was no definition for one line and the vague suggestion of a shadow.

  “What’s the verdict? I’m about to dash,” Hugh called from the other side of the door.

  “Inconclusive,” I said, opening the door and holding out the EPT stick like an obscene hors d’oeuvre. “You do the math.”

  “One. That’s easy.”

  “Don’t you see that shadowy line next to it?”

  “A line would be pink. That’s just a wrinkle in the material.” He was already pulling on his Burberry. It was early spring in Washington and had rained for almost a solid week.

  “I wish there was an explanation for shadows—”

  “Shadows that only you can see. Darling, if you’re really anxious, you could call the consumer help line.”

  “If I do that, I’m sure they’ll tell me to consult my doctor.”

  “Maybe this means you’re a little bit pregnant.” Hugh paused in putting on his coat and slipped his hand inside my flannel pajamas to stroke my bare stomach.

  “A surprise pregnancy would be a delight, without even a wedding date on the horizon,” I said, removing his hand. Hugh and I had been engaged for exactly three months. We had considered a quickie elopement, on the beach in Hawaii, but once our families had gotten wind of the idea, they’d guilt-tripped us out of it. Now we thought we should set the wedding in Washington. But progress was slow. I didn’t know the area well and was totally stymied about locations and caterers. I had nothing to show for myself except the guy.

  “My cousin was married with new baby in arms and it was the best wedding anyone had been to in years,” Hugh said, spinning his rolled-up umbrella through the air before catching it neatly. He was such an optimist: about babies, about the outcome of the class-action suit he was trying to organize, about life in general. He didn’t even mind the Washington rain, because it reminded him of Edinburgh. I preferred the hard, blinding rain that made a rock-and-roll sonata on the tile roofs in Japan in the fall, or the warm, humid rains that marked spring’s rainy season. But I’d take the Washington rain, because it came with Hugh, and the promise of our future.

  After we negotiated the night’s dinner plan—risotto with browned onions and sea scallops if I could find them, and a simple green salad—Hugh left, and I made myself a quick o-nigiri. I’d kept last night’s rice warm in the rice cooker, and I had a small piece of leftover salmon in the fridge. I tucked the salmon into the rice and folded the triangular wedge into a sheet of seaweed that I quickly roasted on the stove.

  I ate the rice ball with my left hand and used my right to scroll through the Daily Yomiuri online. I’d been away from Japan about six months now, and I could feel the language beginning to slip. It was my duty as a hafu—a half-Japanese, half-American—to keep up. I bypassed woeful economic news and went straight to the language-teaching column aimed at foreigners. The word of the day was zurekin, which meant “off-peak commuting,” an idea strongly encouraged by the government but not quite adopted by the working world. It was easier, calmer, better for people and the environment

  At least, that’s how it sounded on paper. My whole life had gone from frenetic to zurekin—and I wasn’t sure I liked it. I’d spent my twenties working in Japan, where I’d lived simply and worked hard, and come to believe that everything Japanese was wonderful, even the crowded trains. The problem was, I couldn’t live in Japan anymore. I’d been thrown out, for an indefinite length of time, by the government for a misdeed I’d committed in the name of something more important. Now, because of the black mark in my passport, I had to make the best of it in Washington, complaining like all the other Washingtonians about crowded Metro trains that I considered only half-full, and so on. The only thing I truly agreed with was that Washington real estate was as insanely priced as Tokyo’s—though the spaces were bigger.


  Hugh’s apartment, for instance, a two-bedroom on the second floor of an old town house, had lots to admire—high ceilings, old parquet floors, a bay window in the living room. It was lovely, but so…foreign. The telephone rang, and even that sounded different. I picked it up.

  “Hi, honey, what are you doing for lunch?” The throaty voice on the other end of the line belonged to my cousin Kendall Howard Johnson, who lived in Bethesda.

  “Kendall?” It annoyed me when people didn’t introduce themselves on the phone.

  “Yes, Rei.” She drew my name out in the exaggerated way she’d pronounced it since we were little. Raaay, it sounded like.

  Kendall had grown up in Bethesda, so I’d run into her plenty of times on my childhood visits to my mother’s home forty minutes to the north, in Baltimore. Grandmother always called Kendall and me the ladybug team because of Kendall’s red and my black hair; a set of cousins the same age who seemed destined to go together, but didn’t really. I’d never forget the humiliation of the summer when Kendall was fifteen and she’d taken me in the backyard bushes and produced a joint. I hadn’t known how to strike a match, let alone inhale, and I was from the Bay Area, where everyone was supposed to know how to roll. But at the coed boarding school Kendall went to in Virginia, she’d already learned lots of things that I hadn’t. Horseback riding, joint rolling, how to sneak backstage at concerts without being stopped. Kendall, who’d worked as a corporate fund-raiser for a few years after college graduation, was always more advanced than I, and she’d maintained her advantage. The trust fund our grandmother had set up was now open for her use. Kendall dipped into it for her wedding, her first house payment, and even political donations that she’d begun to make as she began her careful ascent in grown-up Washington. My mother hinted that if I spent more time with my grandmother, she’d feel more benevolent toward me, but the fact was, I didn’t feel comfortable with Grand, as everyone called her, and the last thing I wanted to do was suck up to her for the money that all the Maryland cousins received, and that I, the lone Californian who hardly ever visited, didn’t. Then again, my exclusion from the trust might have occurred because my mother had jumped into a marriage that had felt like a death blow to the Howards. If my father had been black, the marriage would have broken Maryland law at that time. An Asian husband wasn’t quite as shocking as a black one, but my parents’ wedding hadn’t been a family affair.