Alicats,
When are you coming home? I miss you. I’m going crazy here without you. Please come back soon. We can work it out.
Love you,
C
She quickly folded up the paper as if to make it disappear. Had Kiyoshi read the fax? How could he not have? She watched as he finished off his second drink. Her stomach felt both hollow and leaden.
“Kiyoshi,” she started, not knowing what to say or how to say it. “About the fax.”
“It’s none of my business.” He sat down on a chair overlooking the harbor.
“I know I should’ve said something, told you what was going on with me.” Alison was tongue-tied and brain-tied. What did she say to explain something she didn’t understand?
Kiyoshi looked at Alison who was still hovering near the door. “Come sit down,” he said. Alison did as she was told. “I’ve known you were with someone, Alison. I’ve known for a while,” he said.
Alison was dumbfounded. What did he know? How could he know? “Huh?” was all she managed to say.
“Our friend online is the one who told me. He sent me some interesting pictures, too.”
Alison squinted her eyes closed and buried her face in her hands. Anger mixed with embarrassment. She winced imagining the sort of perverse images that the freak must have sent to Kiyoshi.
“Let me tell you what’s going on so you can hear it straight from me.” She took a deep breath. Might as well come out with it.
“In Tokyo, I live with someone. Charles is his name. We met in graduate school, years ago.”
Kiyoshi sat straight in his chair, listening.
Alison plowed ahead. “He’s an investment banker. He got transferred to his firm’s Tokyo office, and I joined him. I thought it would be wonderful. But instead, things between us have been…strained.”
“You don’t have to tell me any of this. I never asked.”
“No, I want to. It’s only fair. Charles and I have been going through a rocky time. Right before I left for Hong Kong, we had a huge fight. I don’t know if I even want to go back to be with him. We used to be so good together. Back when we were at school, it was so much fun and spontaneous and—” Alison stopped. Her rhapsodizing might not fall softly on Kiyoshi’s ears. “Charles and I are trying to see where we stand, what’s going on with our relationship.”
Kiyoshi sat unblinking, his glassy gaze fixed on the harbor.
“I’m so sorry, Kiyoshi. I didn’t mean to hurt you or mislead you. Being with you has been like a dream. So easy, so friendly, and so—” She looked away. “Can you understand what I’m trying to say?”
“Of course I can. When my ex-wife left me—” he began slowly.
“She left you?” Alison interrupted.
“Yes. There was someone else. Not with me, with her. Someone she met at a party. A party I took her to.” Kiyoshi focused on a distant image. From the lines etching his eyes, Alison could see his pain at the recollection of the betrayal.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
Kiyoshi tried to smile. “We were having our problems, too.” He moved next to Alison on the sofa. “I know it’s not easy sometimes. I’m not putting any pressure on you.”
Alison was the one who smiled now. “You’re unbelievable, Kiyoshi. Thank you. I need some sorting out time. To figure out what’s going on.”
“Take all the time you need. Come to Kobe if you want a change from Tokyo. We’ve got company apartments, and—”
“Thanks, but I need to work it out with Charles, one way or the other. In fact, I should probably make some reservations back to Tokyo.”
Alison went into a small sitting room in the suite, closing the door behind her. She called Cathay Pacific and was able to book a seat on a flight the following morning. Next came the harder call.
She dialed Charles’ office. A secretary answered his phone and told Alison that he was in Osaka.
“Would you tell Mr. Gordon that Alison is coming back to Tokyo tomorrow?” Alison relayed her flight information and hung up the phone.
She returned to the living room where Kiyoshi was working on a notebook computer. “Everything all right?” he asked.
“I got a reservation on a flight tomorrow morning.”
“That’s good. I mean, that’s terrible, but it’s good.”
“I know what you mean.” She liked this man all over again. “Kiyoshi, how about we stay in for dinner, get room service?”
“A quiet evening sounds perfect.”
“Who said anything about quiet?” Alison replied.
38
Before the plane began its descent, Alison locked herself in the restroom, beating the crowd. In the cramped space, she fought to brush out her curls and bind up her hair in a severe French twist. She smoothed the front of her silk blouse under the lapel of her suit and traded her comfy travel loafers for conservative pumps. A string of pearls and reading glasses finished the look.
Faster than you could say “Clark Kent,” Alison’s transformation was complete. She was now a no-nonsense international lawyer returning from a business trip to Hong Kong. She would play it as the woman at the U.S. Embassy had suggested — costume, props and all. Alison wouldn’t have any problem clearing immigration now. And with her new visa, everything would go smooth as sake.
The “Return to Seat” light came on in the restroom as Alison was admiring her metamorphosis. She was ready for them. She returned to her seat, strapped in and prepared for reentry in Japan. Game on.
Putting on her lawyer’s face, a mask of imperturbable composure with a touch of arrogance, Alison walked down the concourse and rounded the corner leading to the arriving-passenger checkpoint. Long queues of disheveled, jet-lagged travelers stood at the immigration windows, trying to enter Japan. Not certain that her bladder could hold out for an indefinite duration, Alison made a restroom pit stop so that she wouldn’t have to break away from the line and lose her place.
She returned to the area for clearing “Alien” passports and moved slowly along the back wall. She wasn’t looking for the shortest line. Or the line with the most U.S. passport holders, which Charles said tended to move along faster than lines with mostly Asian nationals. Instead she was looking for an immigration officer who appeared friendly. Someone she could connect with. Someone who would be sympathetic in return.
Alison sauntered along, studying each officer, looking for her pigeon. Window after window was manned by a bitter-faced functionary. Officious attitudes and job tedium oozed from their sagging faces. She could do better. She continued walking while trying to not draw any attention to herself.
Bingo. She spotted her guy. Late twenties, cheerful demeanor. He even smiled at a baby in the arms of a woman at his window. Definitely the right line. She wheeled her bag and joined the long queue.
After thirty minutes in the slow-moving line, it was Alison’s turn to approach the window. She pulled up in front of the immigration officer and smiled.
“Passport, please,” he said. Alison made a show of opening her all-business briefcase to get out her passport and immigration forms. The officer took the documents.
He flipped through her passport and stopped on a page. Alison imagined it must be the page with the damning stamp of “FINAL EXTENSION” calling attention to the fact that she had overstayed her visa. Why hadn’t she just lost this passport and applied for a replacement at the U.S. consulate in Hong Kong? Too late now. On with the show.
“What is your reason for coming to Japan?” the officer inquired.
“I’m an attorney, and I have some business meetings in Tokyo.” She put extra emphasis on “attorney” and “business meetings.”
“Soo ka,” the officer said. He held open the inside front cover of Alison’s passport and cross-checked the number against a computer-generated list in a notebook. Alison caught his not-so-subtle glance up at her before he returned to examining her documentation.
With the back of a pen, he tapped each number in h
er passport. Tap tap tap, pause, tap tap tap, pause, tap tap tap. He then referred to a line in his notebook and drummed out the same nine beat rhythm.
The officer looked up. He sucked air through his teeth, while rubbing the back of his head. His scrunched face looked pained, as if he felt a migraine coming on.
Alison would’ve offered him an ibuprofen, but it might be construed as bribery. And no way was she going to chance anything that might jeopardize her reentry into Japan.
“Wait here, please,” he said. The officer left his booth, taking Alison’s passport with him. He walked down the length of the immigration desks to a glass-enclosed office.
What was going on? Where was the guy going with her passport? Alison couldn’t help but steal a glance in the direction of the office he entered. Her immigration guy was conferring with an older man sucking a cigarette. His face was so puckered it looked like it had been dehydrated.
Seeing her officer returning, Alison spun around to stare straight ahead. She attempted to muster a pleasant look, an unperturbed smile. She failed.
The immigration officer spoke to her, his eyes darting. “Please, go with this man.” He gestured to a policeman who had materialized at Alison’s side.
“Is there a problem, sir?” she asked. “And, I’d like my passport back, please.” Alison didn’t want to budge from the line, but she didn’t want to appear uncooperative, either. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry.
The formerly cheery immigration officer’s face was now red and flustered. “Go, please.” He gestured for Alison to accompany the policeman who was now standing so close to her that she could smell his BO.
A cloud of confusion immersed Alison in déj? vu. Why was she being detained? She had her ticket out of the country and a roll of money to flash, everything the U.S. Embassy woman had suggested would facilitate smooth sailing with Japanese immigration.
At the consulate in Hong Kong she’d said her mea culpas and paid her fines for overstaying. Now what did they want — her first-born?
She wished Kiyoshi were there to help her. Or even Charles.
Alison adjusted her glasses. With wheeling bag in one hand and briefcase in the other, she accompanied the policeman who marched her toward the glass room.
The policeman held open the door to the office which, despite its see-through walls, was as claustrophobia-inducing as a two-person submarine. The prune-faced cigarette-smoking immigration official sat behind a metal desk. Alison’s passport and immigration papers lay spread out in front of him. Her police escort retreated to position beside the office door.
Inquisitive passersby peered inside to catch a glimpse of something they were sure glad wasn’t happening to them. Alison felt like an exotic specimen in a fish tank.
“Have a seat, Miss Crane,” Prune Face said. He motioned for Alison to sit down in the empty chair in front of his desk. “I see you are arriving from Hong Kong. Did you enjoy your time there?” He smiled, revealing tobacco-stained teeth.
What was with the chitchat? Was he trying to lure her into a false sense of security through some sadistic cat-and-mouse game? She’d play along. She had no choice.
“The food was quite good and the harbor sights were amazing.” She tried to match his breezy tone.
“Was it your first visit to Hong Kong?”
“Yes, it was.” He could see that from her passport. Why the hell didn’t he get to the point?
“What did you do in Hong Kong?” He sat forward in his chair and, through half-closed reptilian eyes, analyzed Alison. She felt that he was reading her every little gesture, her every eye movement.
Alison tilted her head and tried to look unruffled despite the fact that she could feel her silk blouse sticking to her sweaty armpits. “I did some sightseeing, rode on the Star Ferry.” She hoped to sound like the innocent abroad. Hell, she was innocent.
“And I see you visited the Japan Consulate,” he added, holding up her passport.
Alison nodded. “Since I’m in Japan on business, I thought I should have a proper business visa, not a tourist visa like I had before.”
Prune Face silently smoked his cigarette, his eyes locked on Alison. Was he waiting for her to elaborate? To confess to her relatively minor visa infraction? Alison swallowed, her mouth dry.
“I miscounted the number of days I could stay here on a tourist visa. As soon as I realized my mistake, I immediately contacted the immigration office in Otemachi. And my embassy.” Would mentioning the U.S. Embassy to this functionary encourage him to go easy on her? It was worth a try.
“I see.” He didn’t sound impressed by her diligence. “Is this the address where you plan to stay during your visit in Japan?” He pointed to her immigration papers. “Nishi-Azabu?”
“Yes, it is.”
“That is a house, correct?”
“Yes, it is.” She could behave like a well-trained witness testifying on the stand, offering only minimal answers. The less she said, the better. At least until she understood where he was going with his questioning and why she had been specially selected for the fish tank interrogation.
“Who owns the house?” the official persisted. He was all business. His breezy tone had blown away.
“Uh, it’s my — it’s rented by the firm a friend of mine works for.”
“What is your friend’s name?”
Alison didn’t want to answer any of these questions. But she didn’t see any alternative.
“His name is Charles Gordon.”
“And his company?”
“Morgan Sachs.” Alison hoped this wasn’t going to make trouble for Charles at his job.
“I see. Did you make any special trips for Morgan Sachs during your stay in Hong Kong?”
“No. I don’t understand what you mean. I was in Hong Kong for personal reasons.”
Prune Face took a long drag on his cigarette before crushing it in the glass ashtray. “You stay in a house rented by Morgan Sachs, they paid for your airfare to Hong Kong as well as for your hotel accommodations. And yet you claim you went to Hong Kong for personal reasons?”
“I — my boyfriend, my fiancé, Charles, he offered to pay for the ticket. It was charged to his firm, but I’m going to pay him back.”
“Miss Crane, your answers are — I will say — insufficient.”
“It’s the truth.” Alison crossed her arms, wrinkling her power suit. She was off her game, shrinking and sweating and on the defensive.
What was the relevance of this new line of inquiry about where she was staying in Tokyo and who had paid for her hotel? It wasn’t complicated. She’d fucking overstayed her fucking tourist visa.
Did she need a lawyer? Did she even have the right under Japanese law to request a lawyer? She swallowed again. Her throat was parched from answering so many questions.
“May I have some water, please?” she asked the immigration official. He tapped another cigarette out of the pack of Mild Sevens on his desk, lit up and enjoyed a protracted inhale, ignoring her request.
Fuck the old prune. He needed hydrating more than she did.
“Tell me. Why did you leave your plane and walk directly into the ladies’ restroom, Miss Crane?”
Was this guy kidding? Alison wanted to come back with a smartass retort except for the fact that she was in a foreign country being interrogated. The joke would be on her. “I had to use the facilities,” she said.
“A restroom can be a convenient place to rearrange cargo, wouldn’t you agree, Miss Crane?”
“Cargo? No. I mean, I don’t—”
“What are you carrying with you, Miss Crane?” Prune Face tapped the ash off of his cigarette and hit it yet again. Hadn’t he heard anything about the dangers of smoking? Not to mention the effect of the secondhand smoke he was imposing on his detainees. But given the circumstances, Alison didn’t feel compelled to object.
“I have my passport, plane ticket, documents, clothes. The usual things.”
“What did you collect in Hong
Kong that you’re concealing now? What did Morgan Sachs arrange for you to transport?”
“Nothing. I don’t know how you got the idea that I was trying to bring something into the country without—”
The official picked up his desk phone, snarled at the person on the other end, and hung up. Before the prune had a chance to suck on his cigarette, a pudgy woman with the downturned mouth of a catfish entered the office.
“We need to conduct a search, Miss Crane. Please go with Ikeda-san.”
“A search? What are you talking about? I want to call the American Embassy. I have the right to call the United States Embassy.”
“Certainly, you may call, Miss Crane. As soon as we finish.” He nodded at Ikeda.
“Leave your bags and follow me,” the woman said. She snapped on a pair of latex gloves as she led Alison into an adjoining room.
01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111
Standing naked in the bright room, bending over when told, submitting to being poked and probed, Alison squeezed her eyes shut so hard that she saw searing red-orange flames behind her lids. She bit her top lip to keep the tears at bay.
What the hell were they looking for? Why did they think she was concealing something in her privates? She was a lawyer, goddammit. Not some mule for a Golden Triangle drug dealer.
After inspecting Alison’s every bodily crevice, the sadistic customs officer from hell told her she could get dressed. Alison quickly put back on her underwear, pantyhose and power suit. Evidently, her power suit wasn’t powerful enough. She stepped into her pumps and exited the torture chamber.
The lizard-eyed old prune, still sitting at his desk, flashed his tobacco-browned teeth at Alison and held out her travel documents. Through a veil of smoke he said, “Welcome to Japan, Miss Crane.”
“And what a warm welcome.” Under her breath she added, “Prune-faced bastard.” Alison snatched up her passport and immigration papers, retrieved her bags and bolted out of the glass prison.
Her body burned with the humiliation of the invasive search. What was with that inquest? Why had she been singled out for the special treatment? Walking down the stairs to the Customs area, she considered reporting her experience to the U.S. Embassy, but decided against it. When it came to immigration matters, she realized she was on her own. And one thing she was sure of, having learned the hard way, was that the Japanese take their immigration laws very seriously.
Tokyo Firewall: a novel of international suspense Page 19