Mr. Ishida was pleased with the bread and went straight to the small kitchen in the back of the shop to fetch butter and a seasonal cherry-blossom jelly. He bade me to sit down with him on zabuton cushions set around a low paulownia wood table made a century earlier in Sendai. The scent of well-polished wood mixed with fragrant mikan oranges.
Mr. Ishida poured a mossy-tasting green tea from a cast-iron kettle I suspected was at least as old as him. As we ate and drank, he coaxed out the story of my emigration to Japan. He did not say, as others had, that it was irrational to keep trying for something better than teaching English. Instead, he told me I’d have to be quite smart about Japanese antiques; and that if I wanted to help him by staffing the shop when I had time, he would be very pleased. He couldn’t pay more than a clerk’s wages, but he would teach me all that he knew.
So I began visiting at least once a week and helping out; and traveling with him to antiques auctions and flea markets all over the country. And as four years passed, what Mr. Ishida gave me was far more than secret furniture-refinishing recipes. He trained me to recognize every possible sign of a genuine or faked antique and to look at my whole life in those terms.
More than once, he said: “Please remember, Shimura-san, not to pretend acceptance when your heart tells you otherwise. It is a flaw within many people and has led to more pain that can be measured.” And: “One fool’s heart knows the correct answer better than the heads of many people.”
Often I sensed he was cautioning me not to fall into the trap of a good Japanese girl. Why had Ishida-san chosen me? I hadn’t said anything particularly clever when we’d met. All I could conclude was that he’d liked my honesty, and San Francisco.
And now he was asking for my help. I felt haunted by the knowledge that if I’d still been in Japan, I would have certainly accompanied him to the March auctions. And if I’d been there, I would probably be in the shelter with him.
Unless I’d been among the thousands of unlucky people who’d died.
Chapter 6
Osaka was Japan’s other capital: the biggest city in western Japan, a business hub that was a major stop on the bullet train’s route to Kyoto, Nagano, and other western points. Today, I’d come by taxi from the city’s dock to the Shin-Osaka railway station, where I awaited a Hikari Express to Tokyo.
As Aunt Norie had said, Osaka was so far from Tohoku that its residents hadn’t felt any tremors when the earthquake hit. Japan Inc. was still flourishing in this part of the country. But Shin-Osaka’s commuters seemed preternaturally quiet. Many heads were turned to look at the station’s wall-mounted television sets tuned to coverage of the continuing Fukushima nuclear meltdown.
I heard from the ticket seller that national trains were fewer and mostly running late. Rolling electric blackouts meant that I’d wait about two hours, instead of the typical five to ten minutes, to catch a bullet train to Tokyo. This train would have added stops, changing the classic two-and-a-half hour journey to four.
From the time I’d left Honolulu, I’d been traveling, waiting, and traveling again for almost twenty-four hours. But I was lucky to have some downtime in Osaka, with its electricity, heat, and plentiful food and drink. I located a power outlet and plugged in my Japanese cell phone. I rang Michael first and found him in the middle of his workday with only two minutes to talk. He told me he was glad I’d made it to Japan; I imagined he wasn’t saying more because Hank was with him.
Then I called Aunt Norie in Yokohama, who asked what the food situation was at the station and advised me to bring as much as I could carry.
“I’ll get some bento box meals and pack dry ice around them. How many meals do you need?”
“Oh, we’re all right at the house. I am thinking of you. When you reach Tokyo, you might not be able to get a train to Yokohama for some hours. You need to carry food for yourself.”
The prospect of sitting around in Tokyo Station for a while, or possibly overnight, was unappealing. “My old friend Richard has an apartment in Roppongi. I probably could stay with him tonight.”
“The little American boy?” Aunt Norie sounded anxious.
“Canadian,” I answered while tapping out a text message to Richard. “And he’s not so little. He’s twenty-eight years old and has a partner.”
“You really should not stay overnight with any type of single man.” Aunt Norie sucked air through her teeth. “You are married now.”
“He’s my best friend. Remember, I lived with Richard for almost four years.”
“Living together!” Norie sounded like she was choking.
I was relieved to see Richard’s quick return text: Hell yes. Stay as long as you like. I told my aunt, “Okay, I’m set for staying overnight in Tokyo. I’ll come to see you as soon as I can—mo sugu.”
Sugu, the Japanese word for soon, made a refrain in my head. Sugu-sugu-sugu became the sound, over and over, of the high-speed train rushing along its special track. When my train finally arrived, I had an assigned seat in the Green Car, where the seats were individual and soft. I closed my eyes, and from my head down through the rest of my body went the clickety rhythm: sugu-sugu-sugu.
Four hours was the perfect amount of time for a nap. Soon enough, I would be in Tokyo; and from there I’d have maybe one day before my next journey into the epicenter of trouble.
In Tokyo Station, only half the people who ordinarily would have been rushing around were there. It seemed like Sunday morning rather than Thursday night, except that nobody had the happy, today’s-a-day-off expression. People’s eyes were downcast and their mouths were set in tense lines. A quick can of hot coffee or a chilled energy drink might have helped, but the station’s numerous vending machines were flashing empty signs.
My tired spirits revived at the sight of Richard and Enrique waiting just inside the Central Yaesu exit. Richard was rocking a flaming-red North Face jacket, while Enrique wore a rainbow knit beret angled over his long, wavy hair. Even if they hadn’t been foreigners, they would have stood out.
I dropped my luggage to hug each of the boys. Richard took my wheeled suitcase and Enrique grabbed my duffel bag for the walk to Roppongi. I adjusted my backpack so it sat squarely between my shoulders and tried to keep up with their quick strides.
Richard fingered the sleeve of my boiled wool jacket, the warmest thing I could find at the Saks outlet in Waipahu. “I love that green; it’s like a Granny Smith apple. Who made it?”
“The designer label was unfortunately cut out—but thank you. Actually, I feel like a hunchbacked granny.” The backpack was heavy enough to pitch my body slightly forward.
“Look over there,” Richard said. “The city ordered a blackout of Tokyo Tower to save power for more essential icons.”
“That’s sad. It’s actually really kind of you to come all this way to bring me to Roppongi. I still know where you live.”
“You’d never find your way on foot. Most of the buses are shut down, not to mention the subway—”
Richard stopped talking as the sidewalk beneath us started vibrating. I was so disoriented by the rolling that I fell forward and only saved myself by grabbing onto the back of Enrique’s Lucky jeans.
All around I heard small shrieks as parents clutched children and those who were alone steadied themselves.
“Just another aftershock,” Richard crowed, as I awkwardly let go of Enrique with a mumbled apology. “I’ve lost count of how many we’ve had today.”
“At least five, wasn’t it?” Enrique turned to me. “Don’t be embarrassed for holding on. Are you okay, querida? Soon you’ll become used to it.”
I had hoped, almost a week after the quake, that the tremors would have stopped altogether. I shook my head and said, “As long as it’s not another big one.”
“We could easily have a really big quake,” Richard said. “Because of the way the fault line cracked, Tokyo’s at greater risk. Actually, Rei, I can’t believe Michael even let you travel here.”
“Michael’s not
my keeper,” I answered, having caught a tiny bit of contempt in Richard’s tone.
“But Michael was once your boss!” Richard teased. “Which is actually hot. It reminds me of a great little movie called Secretary.”
“Michael’s body is soo hot,” Enrique drawled. “In your Christmas card, I saw those washing board abs. Ay, caramba.”
Richard sniffed. “Yes, he’s physically appealing, but in that All-American Superman way—”
Now I regretted the photo of Michael and me canoeing on our holiday greeting card. “Stop it. You sound like you’re talking about a blow-up doll. And you know that I was never Michael’s secretary.”
“No offense meant.” Richard’s laugh was light and silvery. “Tonight, let’s just have fun. We’ll help Tokyo launch its economic recovery.”
As we approached the Roppongi Crossing intersection, I noticed that the popular Café Almond restaurant had its sign unlit and windows dark. “If Café Almond’s closed, there’s no hope much else is open in Roppongi. And I’m pretty tired; I’d just as soon get to your apartment and sleep.”
“You will, in due time,” Richard answered. “We should check the nightclub buildings around the corner before turning in.”
But the nightclub towers were dark, too. Everywhere, shop, restaurant, and bar doors had closed signs hanging on them, if the missing lights didn’t give enough of a message.
“We’ve got to find somewhere. It’s effing Thursday night. We always go out on Thursdays.” Richard’s voice sounded strained.
“I’ll call Salsa Salsa to see if it’s open.” Enrique pulled his cell phone out of his jeans jacket pocket and looked at me. “Do you remember that it’s near Azabu Crossing? A bit more walking for us, if we go.”
I didn’t answer. From the animated conversation Enrique began with someone on the other end of the phone, it seemed clear he’d struck gold and found an open establishment.
“Let’s go!” Richard said when Enrique had rung off.
After all they’d done for me, the least I could do was pay for a few drinks.
There was no electricity at Salsa Salsa, but candles glowed in the windows and random people were performing on the club’s small stage. The usual glasses of water on the tables were missing; however, there was booze being poured at the bar crowded with eager customers. I stirred a room-temperature mojito while the men slammed down cosmopolitans. A Latin-Japanese girl came by with a platter of six empanadas. She said, “Complimentary!”
Richard reached for one and then made a face. “These aren’t even heated.”
Enrique said to him, “Don’t take it, querido. There is no working refrigerator, remember?”
“But I’m hungry.” Richard sulked. “I haven’t had anything since our last crusts of bread this morning. The rice cooker won’t work without electricity, and the instant ramen packages are finished.”
Now I was glad for my heavy backpack and its contents from Shin-Osaka station. I handed each of them a bento box, explaining the regional specialties within: the breaded fried vegetable cutlets called kushi-katsu, the savory octopus dumplings, pickled vegetables, and hako-zushi, a kind of box-pressed sushi. “Michael suggested I bring packages of dry ice. You’re welcome to drop some in your cosmo, too.”
“Rei’s hermano has beauty and brains,” Enrique commented, opening his bento box with enthusiasm. At the tables around us, people looked on, their stern gazes alerting me that bringing outside food into a place desperately trying to unload its spoiling inventory was impolite.
“No, please,” said a young male waiter, hurrying over. “We cannot permit the serving of food from other places.”
Then Enrique popped an octopus dumpling in the waiter’s mouth. With a furtive look to the side, the waiter chewed it fast and departed without saying anything else.
“This may be the best meal we’ve ever eaten together,” Richard opined as he finished his box five minutes later. “Thanks for sharing. But why aren’t you eating anything?”
“My time clock’s crazy. Right now it’s midnight.” I yawned as I heard someone tuning an acoustic guitar. “I’m amazed that there’s even a show here tonight. What’s the saying about fiddling while Rome burns?”
“Tonight is amateur night, live and unplugged,” Enrique said. “I may join them. It’s not so frightening for me to sing when there’s no microphone.”
“Singing the oldies is Enrique’s new hobby,” Richard explained to me as his partner skipped up to the front of the room.
As Enrique crooned an old INXS ballad, “Don’t Change,” he stayed on key and looked deeply at both the girls and guys in the audience, which elicted plenty of giggling and cheers.
I turned to Richard to see if he was admiring his partner’s talents, but his expression was critical and squarely on me.
He reached out to push back some hair that had fallen across my face. “Please let me cut that. It looks like a spent dandelion.”
Self-consciously, I touched my shoulder-length layers. “I was trying out wearing it long. I thought it looked okay.”
“Your hair was so gamine before, with zero maintenance. And if you’re going into an earthquake zone, you’re not going to have access to a curling iron. You really need something short, cute, and practical.”
“Are you kidding? Michael would go into mourning if all my hair vanished.” He liked it sweeping over his body as I bent over him.
Richard sniffed.“Straight men usually have a long-hair complex. Tell Michael you don’t want to play Asian Barbie for him.”
“You and your game playing,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Give my husband a break. Your bento dinner would have been spoiled if it wasn’t for his dry ice.”
“I suppose boring also can mean smart,” Richard said as the whole bar began singing “We Are The World.” “When you leave for Hawaii, maybe I’ll join you and Mr. Handsome Hendricks for a few quiet days. Then I’d travel on to Winnipeg.”
“That would be nice—but rather unexpected,” I said. “Is everything okay with Enrique?”
“Better than ever.” Richard paused. “But what if the radiation can’t be contained? It could keep on rising until we all turn into Godzillas. Enrique’s been through worse stuff when he lived in Peru, but this is the closest I’ve ever come to death.”
I wanted to shake Richard for his drama. “Hey! When the quake came last week, you didn’t die or even lose your apartment. Tokyo desperately needs foreign hairstylists. And how could you ever leave Enrique behind? It would be nearly impossible for him to get an immigration visa to the US or Canada. You aren’t married.”
“I know.” Richard sighed. “I guess we’re stuck here.”
“I wish you two could live together wherever you want.” It was on the tip of my tongue to add, and get married like Michael and me, but that would be pressing a tender point.
“I know. Well, sweetie, I hope you get Mr. Ishida out of the tsunami zone fast and solve whatever other problems he might have. In an e-mail, you were saying something about a dog?”
“That’s right. I don’t know where his dog, Hachiko, is right now. It could be that he took her along to sniff out termites.” As Richard gaped, I explained, “Some beagles are trained to detect whether furniture is infested.”
“You could go by his shop and look in the windows,” Richard suggested. “I guess you have no way of getting inside.”
I didn’t answer. Back when we worked in the same office, Michael taught me the art of picking locks and unscrambling combinations to safes. I’d spent more than a month learning the skills. And since getting married, we’d developed a private lock-picking game. This one dealt with undoing the other person’s zippers and buttons and clasps using anything except for one’s fingers.
I blushed at the memory of the last afternoon we’d played. In fact, the particulars and outcome of that lock-picking game might have convinced Richard that Michael wasn’t such a bore.
But this married lady wouldn’t talk.
Usually I awoke too early when I flew into Japan. This time, I could barely open my eyes. What did it was a heavy weight on my chest—Richard’s cat Mutsu. We locked eyes, and she leapt off lightly, as she’d done her job.
It was already eight o’clock, and Richard was ambling around the apartment. I guessed that Enrique had already left for his morning capoeira workout.
“One good sign of life is people are walking to the subway,” Richard said when I stretched and yawned a good morning. “I’ve lit the flame for the water heater—you can shower if it’s not too long.”
“That’s great. I’ve got something for our breakfast.” I dug into my luggage and pulled out a loaf of round, sweet Hawaiian bread.
“Oh, that’s going to be perfect with my Georgia brand instant coffee.” Richard showed me the water kettle he was heating atop his Tokyo City Gas heater. “Were you warm enough last night?”
“Yes, I was quite cozy in my sleeping bag plus your extra blanket. Hey, is there a car rental place around here?” I asked.
“A few blocks away, but even if you could rent a car to drive a few hundred miles out of here, how would you refill it? Most of the filling stations are closed. And you would need a lot of yen. I bet you forgot how expensive gas is here, even in the best of times.”
He had a point. “What I need before anything else is more Japanese money. I have less than a thousand yen to my name, which in today’s exchange is like twelve dollars, right? I only made it to Tokyo because I could charge my bullet train ticket.”
After taking a very short shower, I put on makeup and one of the few “city” outfits I’d brought: gray flannel pants and a cream-white angora turtleneck I found on sale years ago at Mitsutan. This went underneath the spring-green jacket. Around my neck, Richard tied my vintage green-and-gold Hanae Mori scarf into a complex, elegant knot.
The Kizuna Coast: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mysteries Book 11) Page 4