by Barry Eisler
Maria smiled as I took it all in. “Impressive, yes? There’s talk of designating this building a jūyōbunkazai. I think they will.”
Jūyōbunkazai, or Important Cultural Properties, were places so designated by the government because of their significance to Japanese culture, and thereafter subject to restrictions on alteration. There was an equivalent for people—the ningenkokuho, or Living National Treasures—masters of arts the perpetuation of which the government considered critical to the continuity of Japanese culture.
“I think that would be appropriate,” I said, still staring all around.
“Come, let’s meet Director Kurosawa. He’s expecting us. And then I’ll show you around. There’s so much to see.”
We went around the huge stairs, past a sign declaring in English and Japanese “Museum Staff Only,” and came to a massive doorway, mahogany with a glass transom on top. Maria knocked loudly on the open door. “Director Kurosawa?” she called out in Japanese. “I have someone I’d like you to meet.”
We walked into a room cluttered with hanging scrolls and folding screens and enough artifacts to strain the building’s foundation, with a single large window looking out onto a tranquil garden. In the middle of it all was a tiny man in a rumpled suit, his hair and wispy beard both entirely white, sitting at a wooden desk so massive it made him seem a child alongside it. He looked up from a book, pulled off one set of wire-rim spectacles and pulled on another, and used a cane to come to his feet.
“Yes, of course,” he said, adjusting his glasses and squinting at me. “You must be the gentleman Maria-san told me about. So you’re interested in museum work, is that it?”
I bowed, a little bewildered at how fast this all seemed to be happening. “Well, sir, I . . . yes, I’m certainly interested.”
He cupped an ear and inclined his head toward me. “Say that again, please?”
He was hard of hearing. I should have already realized that, from the way Maria had knocked and then called out to him. I repeated myself, louder this time, bowing again.
He gave me a small bow in return. “Where did you get your degree?”
“Sir, to be honest, most of my education is . . . informal.” That seemed a fair way of describing what I’d learned as a soldier and mercenary.
“Ah, well, a formal education is sometimes overrated. Maria-san herself is elegant proof of that. But your English? This would have to be top-level, because you would be conducting tours. Not just for tourists, mind you, but also for visiting dignitaries. The National Museum is a window onto the Japanese soul, you understand? It’s a first impression for many very important visitors to our country”—here he paused to glance at my faded jeans and scruffy boots—“and we want that first impression to be a good one. As our economy grows ever more international, much depends on that.”
“I grew up in Japan and America, sir,” I said, wishing I’d bothered to iron my shirt, if only for the sake of appearances. “My English is as native as my Japanese.”
“Good, very good. I wish I could say the same about mine, but it’s almost too embarrassingly weak to use. Yet another reason the museum needs the support of young, internationally minded people like Maria-san. Well, I’ll turn you over to her now.” He looked at Maria and beamed. “Maria-san, he seems like a good young man.”
We bowed and walked out. As we rounded the stairwell again, she said, “Do you not already adore him?”
“He seems . . . very nice.”
“I love him. He took a chance on me ten years ago even though I have no formal degree, and it practically saved my life.”
We maneuvered around a tour group and started up the stairs. “That’s a pretty strong characterization for a job opportunity,” I said, wondering if she thought she was doing something similar for me.
“Well, not literally. But it’s what I needed at the time. And he’s backed me ever since.”
At the top of the stairs, we turned in to one of the exhibits—Fashion of the Edo Period, featuring stunning examples of formal silk kimonos. The smell of the old wood flooring, the sound of footsteps echoing off the high ceiling . . . it was all making me unaccountably sad. Maybe because the last time I had been here, I’d been so innocent. And not nearly so alone.
“I started just as a tour guide,” she said quietly as we walked. “The first gaijin guide the museum ever had, because I speak English and Italian and Japanese. And some French and German, from university. But Director Kurosawa has given me more and more responsibility. In fact, later this week, we open a new exhibit that I curated—Treasures of Azuchi Castle and Nijo Castle. It’s a collection of sliding door panels and folding screens depicting views from the castles at the end of the Sengoku period. With cassette tours I narrated in Italian and English, and an accompanying coffee-table book I wrote. I could never have done any of it without Director Kurosawa.”
I liked that she honored him by calling him Director—kanchō, in Japanese—even when he wasn’t present.
“That’s amazing,” I said. “I’d love to see it.”
She smiled. “I’m glad, because we’re on our way.”
We left the fashion exhibit, and came to a red-velvet rope at the end of the corridor. She lifted it, replaced it behind us, and unlocked a small door—a rear entrance, I supposed, to an exhibit room. We went inside, but it was too dark to see anything. She turned on the lights and closed the door behind us.
Displayed before me were some of the most spectacular gold-leaf screens I had ever seen—enormous, evocative depictions of mountains and lakes and birds of prey, the gold leaf catching the light beautifully. Some of the sliding panels stretched to the ceiling, wooden dividers creating the illusion that we were looking through a window at a garden surrounding an ancient cypress tree.
“It’s . . . breathtaking,” I said, shaking my head slowly in wonder.
“Ah, grazie. I won’t deny, I’m very proud of it.”
“You should be.”
“Now you can see why I’m so fond of Director Kurosawa.”
“Yeah, I think I get it.”
“And that’s who you’d be working for. Interested?”
“I’m flattered. Really. But I think I’d disappoint you.”
“Shouldn’t you let me decide that?”
“My concern is, I think you would decide that.”
She laughed. “I’m not usually wrong about these things. Now, how about a private tour? I haven’t done a tour in a long time and it would be my pleasure.”
We spent an hour just in her exhibit. I was amazed by her knowledge of the art and the history behind it, and even more by her insights into the cultural forces that had produced the works on display.
When we were back in the corridor, she said, “What else can I show you? Zen Scrolls of the Kamakura Era? Ukiyo-e of the Edo Era? The Dawn of Japanese Art?”
I smiled. “When my mother took me here when I was small, she would always ask me the same questions. And I would always tell her I wanted to see the swords and armor.”
She laughed. “For some reason, I can so easily imagine that. But the Attire of the Military Elite exhibit is being refurbished, so it’s temporarily in storage. I can still show you, though, if you like.”
We took the stairs to the basement. Unlike the floors above, the corridors here were narrow, the ceilings low, the lighting barely adequate—clearly a part of the museum not intended or maintained for public consumption. At the end of the hall, we turned a corner, where Maria slid a key into an ordinary lock on an ordinary door. She flipped a light switch and I followed her in.
The room inside looked like a treasure cave—shelves crammed with artifacts; paintings and prints carefully aligned in cubicles; warrens of boxes containing who knew what. We moved left and right down the mazelike aisles, and there, in the very back, a corner crowded with swords and armor, none of it behind glass or otherwise inaccessible.
“You’re not worried about someone breaking in here?” I said, amazed at the
lack of security.
She shrugged. “There’s a guard at night. Besides, this is Japan, have you ever heard of a museum, mmm, heist here? Anyway, no one outside the museum knows where out-of-exhibit items are stored.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Only you now, so if something goes missing, I’ll know who took it.”
We walked over to the swords. There were at least a dozen, each resting on a wooden stand holding two components. On top of each stand was a koshirae scabbard and tsuka hilt, suggesting a sword at rest within. But the gorgeous lacquered scabbards and tsukaito ray-skin-and-silk grips were for combat, not storage; for the latter, on the lower tier of each stand was a shirasaya, a plain wooden scabbard, with the blade inside and a plain wooden hilt attached. Nearby were some white cloths alongside a couple of glass jars—probably choji, a mixture of mineral oil, clove oil, and powder employed to protect the steel from corrosion and mold. These swords were spectacular, and it was good to see they were well cared for.
“Do you remember any of them?” Maria said. “They’ve been with the museum for a long time.”
I nodded, feeling a little wistful, and pointed to the one I was already looking at—a classic katana resting in its shirasaya scabbard below a gold lacquer koshirae. “This one was always my favorite.”
“Would you like to handle it?”
I glanced at her, remembering how badly I’d wanted that as a boy. “Are you kidding?”
“Just please be careful.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt the exhibits.”
“I’m more worried about you than the exhibits. They’re extremely sharp. I know you know, but still.”
I gripped the shirasaya in my left hand and the wood tsuka with my right, lifted the sword from the stand, and then, taking care to draw the mune, the back, along the inside of the shirasaya so as to protect the ha, the edge, unsheathed the slightly curved blade. I held it horizontally at eye level, manipulating it with my wrist, watching the expertly worked steel catch the light, dazzled by the perfect weight and balance, the sudden sense that what I held in my hand was more than mere metal, but was instead alert, purposeful, almost alive. I gazed at the hamon, the temper pattern along the edge, wondering how many battles this weapon had seen, how many lives taken, and for a moment, I felt a strange connection to it—both of us born in Japan, both of us forged for killing.
“It suits you,” Maria said, her voice slightly strange.
I blinked, realizing I’d been gone for a second. “Hmm?”
She was frowning slightly. “Just . . . you seem very comfortable holding a sword. Not like when you wear a tuxedo.”
I didn’t know quite what she had seen, but instinctively wanted to conceal it. I looked at the blade again. “I just always liked the kotō, the old swords, better than the shintō, the newer ones. The shintō were expertly made, of course, with beautiful tempering patterns. But I think I liked the more utilitarian presentation of the classic blades. They were less about beauty, and more about business.”
She laughed, and the odd moment vanished. “Ah, listen to you, you are a tour guide already!”
We spent another hour touring the museum. She obviously loved showing off its treasures, and I could easily see why Kurosawa had supported her as she said—it would have been hard to imagine a more knowledgeable, passionate, and charming guide. As we walked and talked and I stole surreptitious glances at her hair and face and body, I became aware that I was grappling with what was becoming a fairly serious crush. I wasn’t sure what I should do about it.
No, that wasn’t quite right. I knew what I should do. I just wanted to do something else.
She walked me out when we were finished. The sun was lower, the air slightly cooler, and the crowds had thinned. A team of gardeners in traditional denim momohiki pants and hanten coats and conical bamboo hats had deployed across the grounds. I watched for a moment as they went about trimming bushes; edging the grass; most of all, raking and sweeping the brightly colored ochiba, fallen leaves, the gentle scraping of their bamboo rakes and brooms like a little aria of autumn in old Tokyo. It made me nostalgic for the days when my mother had taken me here as a child, when I’d also seen the gardeners, always late in the day, I supposed because working at closing time and probably after made them less obtrusive.
When we were clear of the museum, Maria took my arm. I was acutely aware of the warmth of her hand through my shirtsleeve. Was she flirting with me just to get me to take the job? Or was it something more? Or both?
Or worst of all, was I just reading too much into it?
“I have to tell you,” I said as we walked. “I think it’s amazing you learned all this yourself. I mean, people go to college to acquire this kind of knowledge. Graduate school, even.”
“Well, I’m not completely self-taught. I majored in Asian art at Sapienza University for two years, but didn’t get my degree.”
“Why not?”
“My husband was a visiting lecturer there. I came back to Japan with him and we got married.”
There must have been a whole history, a whole world, beneath that bland statement. Came back with Sugihara when she was what, twenty? Dropped out of college? Did they have an affair? Had she gotten pregnant or something?
But her face had been carefully expressionless as she said it, her tone as neutral as someone delivering a weather report. It was clear she didn’t want to discuss more than the bare facts of it.
Still, because it related to her husband, I couldn’t resist probing a little. “Do you . . . are there children?”
“We had a boy. But he’s gone.”
The way she said “gone” left no ambiguity as to her meaning. I stopped and looked at her, suddenly aware of how much pain surrounded and emanated from those seven simple words, and moved by the dignity and self-control behind them.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She shook her head. “It was a long time ago.”
“I don’t think something like that can ever be a long time ago. It’s not how time works.”
She looked at me as though trying to decide whether to advance or retreat. In the distance, I heard the sound of a Yamanote train’s arrival bells.
“No,” she said quietly after a moment. “That’s true. And thank you.”
“Thank you for telling me. And I’m sorry for bringing up something so painful.”
“No, it’s all right. Sometimes it’s hard to avoid. Because it’s attached to everything, you know? It affects everything.”
“But your husband,” I went on, feeling dirty for pressing for something operational at the very moment she had shared something so intimate and so painful. “What was a politician doing lecturing on art in Rome?”
She smiled, and I could see she was glad I had changed the subject. Or at least changed the focus.
“This was a long time before he was a politician. In his first, mmm, incarnation, he had a graduate degree in fine art. He was a professor in the conservation of historical property and historical culture at the Kyoto University of Art and Design.”
“I’m not even sure what that is. Still think I’d be right for this job?”
She smiled. “It means he was an expert in restoring and preserving relics—sculptures, paintings, ceramics, those kinds of things. It’s an important field and the background is unusual—typically some combination of chemistry and art history. Anyway, now you know. See how fast you can learn with a good teacher?”
I laughed. “So how did an expert in restoring and preserving relics become a politician?”
She took my arm and we started walking again. “His father was the Diet member for Yamanashi Prefecture. My husband never wanted anything to do with politics, but when his father died, a lot of LDP people pushed my husband to run for his father’s seat. And his mother pushed him, too. He was the only son, and these Diet seats . . . well, you know how it is. The samurai are gone, but politics in this country still has a lot to do with inheritance and lineage.”
“So he r
an for office?”
“Yes, he was elected in 1960 and we moved to Tokyo. I was so sad to leave Kyoto. Because you know, where else in the world would a lover of Japanese art want to live? But Tokyo isn’t so bad. My husband has to go back and forth to Yamanashi, of course, to stay close with his constituents, but I spend most of my time here.”
I wondered whether there was anything in there that might be useful. I wasn’t sure yet.
“But it wasn’t quite what you wanted.”
She glanced at me, and again I had the sense that she was trying to gauge how much to say. After a moment, she smiled with what seemed a little effort and said, “Not exactly. And what about you? Where did you go to school?”
She was changing the subject. I wanted to press, but sensed I’d do better to wait.
“I didn’t. I didn’t even finish high school. Still want to hire me?”
“It’s like Director Kurosawa said—formal education can be overrated. Still, I’m surprised. You seem, I don’t know, educated.”
I laughed. “I don’t even know how to hold a champagne flute.”
“No, you do. I taught you, remember?”
I laughed again. “That’s true. But still.”
“It’s the way you carry yourself, I think. You were uncomfortable at that party, weren’t you? That I could tell. But you didn’t seem, mmm, insecure. You know, some people without a formal education feel like less because of it. You don’t strike me that way.”
I considered. “That’s fair, I think.”
“Which makes me think you got an education elsewhere.”
“Fair again.”
“May I ask where?”
I glanced at her. “Is this part of the interview?”
“Definitely.”
“I dropped out of high school and joined the army at seventeen. Then spent three years in Vietnam.”
“My God.”
“Surprised?”