“Watch it. I presume you’re talking in the hallway?” Not that I was any better off, as my friends had completely stopped their conversation to listen.
“Actually, I’m on my cell phone standing on crutches in a foot of snow because I don’t trust a damn person inside the inn!” Hugh had lost all control and was shouting in the receiver. “Because I’ve lost two friends and the only person who can help me won’t. Think about that, Miss Prim!”
He clicked off, and somehow, I was left holding more than the phone.
I was a terror at the kanji game that night, surprising everyone. Granted, I’d had nothing to read except the dictionary in Shiroyama. I found myself drawing characters on Richard’s portable whiteboard with unusual speed. We played for a hundred yen coins, and by the end of the night I had collected twenty of them.
“Enough to buy a small piece of Roquefort cheese! You may serve it to me on a baguette next week,” Simone suggested.
“Or a ten-minute telephone call home. My parents would like that,” I countered.
“You could always spring for a five-pack of rubbers from Condomania!” Richard smirked.
“You are so vile,” Karen said, speaking for all the women. “It’s a wonder we let you stay in this group.”
It was odd we had all come together, I mused while washing out the pasta saucepan after Karen and Simone left for their train home. Richard and I were a natural team, struggling to teach English at Nichiyu. We’d met Simone selling Moroccan bracelets in Ueno Park. Simone had it tough, perpetually fleeing the Tokyo police with her briefcase of questionable baubles and sharing an apartment smaller than ours with three other French girls.
Karen, on the other hand, lived a life of relative luxury, As a magazine and TV model, she made enough to share a large one-bedroom with a Japanese boyfriend. It was true that blondes had an easier time than anyone in Tokyo, but I still liked Karen. She reminded me of the good-natured athletic girls who had taught me to swim, and she cut my hair for free. Above all, her earnest desire to learn to read and write Japanese impressed me, given that her career certainly didn’t demand it.
These were my friends, the people I belonged with. I reminded myself of that as I prepared for bed, but was unable to keep myself from dreaming that night about a mountain four hundred miles away with two men on it—one lame, the other probably dead.
11
When my parents telephoned the next morning, they received an account of my New Year’s trip that excluded murder, disappearances, and sex. I did mention that I had called Tom, which I thought would make my father happy—after all, he’d cinched my cousin’s medical fellowship in San Francisco. But I’d overlooked what mentioning my father’s family would do to my mother.
“I owe them a Christmas present,” she fretted. “Do you suppose it’s too late to send something?”
Even after thirty years with my father, my American mother remained deeply intimidated by Japanese etiquette. The handful of visits we’d made during my childhood always meant crash courses at Berlitz and tea ceremony school; when we reached Japan, she was understandably upset that my father’s family still treated her like a foreigner.
“People don’t usually give Christmas presents in Japan, Catherine,” my father said from the other extension, where he had been fairly silent up to now. “And I already sent a New Year’s greeting.”
“I could mail them some sun-dried tomatoes, the great big ones in extra virgin olive oil from Sonoma. When I brought them with me last time they seemed to like them. Rei, do you think that would be repetitive?”
“It’s a great idea. And send me some, while you’re at it. The dry kind. If olive oil leaks through the package, the post office will think it’s a bomb.”
“If you came home for Christmas you could have eaten all your favorite foods,” my mother sniffed, starting on a familiar theme.
“I know. I meant to come home. I just couldn’t afford it.”
“What are you talking about? We sent you a ticket last year that you still haven’t used,” my father grumbled.
“One way,” I reminded him. “You want me to come back and stay.”
“Every year that you delay work on a doctorate is a waste,” my father said. “You did so well with your master’s degree that you could resume your studies very easily.”
“Rei’s done enough graduate school,” my mother cut in. “She is going to work as an art consultant in my firm. It’s exactly what she wants to do.”
“If you want to see me, come here. You’re always welcome,” I said, striving for control.
“I don’t know, Rei. That terrible room you live in with that effeminate boy…” my mother’s voice trailed off.
“I’ll book you into the Prince Hotel! Come on, I could use some company at the shrine sales.”
“I’ll think about it. But I’ve got two new houses to do, and Daddy’s teaching at the medical school this semester so he can’t possibly get away. You know I can’t handle the Shimuras without him.”
“I’ve got to run,” I said, sensing a new list of their alleged slights was forthcoming. The problem was separation: the way the Shimura men whisked my father off to the golf course, leaving my mother with Aunt Norie, who always forgot she didn’t like fish or other foods of the sea. My aunt had also laughed at my mother when she wanted to ship home an antique ceramic urinal. I was with my mother on that one. The blue-and-white urinal looked great planted with California poppies.
“What are you doing today?” My mother was unwilling to let me go.
“Oh, I thought I’d go shopping, maybe look for some wood-block illustrations,” I improvised.
“Really! Keep an eye out for me. Remember, I don’t care about age, I’m looking for color and line and as little water damage as possible…”
My mother and I both loved Japanese antiques. Since she was an interior decorator, looks were more important than history. I was more into age, but my budget limited me to small, often damaged pieces. Still, everything I bought filled me with joy. I also realized that if you hung enough kimono and wood-block prints on the walls, it diverted the eye from peeling paint and made things cozy enough that you almost forgot the lack of central heat.
I hung up the phone and started doing dishes under a trickle of cold water that I knew wouldn’t heat up until I was through. I thought about my mother’s request; it would be easy to go to Oriental Bazaar, a gleaming emporium aimed at foreigners, to find the kind of prints she wanted. That held no challenge, though.
The telephone rang again and I let the answering machine kick on. When I heard the voice of a Japanese man speaking fluent English, I shut off the sniveling tap and ran to pick up.
“You’re back sooner than I expected, cuz,” I greeted Tom Shimura, son of my mother’s mortal enemy.
“I’m still en route—at the train station, actually—but called in and got the message. What is up?” Tom’s enthusiasm for colloquialisms always made me smile.
“I have a Japanese medical document that I can’t understand.”
Tom’s voice lowered to a confidential level. “Is it your medical record? Don’t tell me you finally went in for your annual?”
The fact my cousin knew I was overdue for any kind of doctor visit annoyed me. Had he been through my St. Luke’s records himself? I steeled myself into politeness and said, “Actually, I haven’t. But I was wondering whether you know anything about autopsies?”
“Sure. I dictated plenty of them when I was training. Why?”
“I’ll tell you when we get together.”
“You want to see me today? I’ll be in Yokohama by lunchtime.”
“Tell me where,” I said, astounded at my luck. Tom was the busiest man I knew.
“Could you stand a trip to the suburbs? My father’s gone back to work in Hiroshima, so we’ve been quite lonely. Oksan—Mom—will be thrilled to have somebody new to cook for.”
“Please tell her not to go to any trouble.”
�
�Trouble? We’re still eating our way through the New Year’s leftovers. Consider yourself performing a public service.”
On the well-groomed street leading to my cousin’s house, every driveway held a car sparkling from the culturally-mandated New Year’s washing, some with holiday ornaments decorating the grilles. Tom’s Honda Accord was no exception. The decoration of pine twigs tied with washi paper looked like it had been crafted by the same person who had done the exuberant arrangement of pine, bamboo, and plum by the front door: Aunt Norie, Yokohama’s own Martha Stewart.
“Rei-chan, you shouldn’t have!” my aunt said when I presented her with a small jar of Indonesian vanilla beans. I would probably be “little Rei” to her the rest of my life, but didn’t really mind.
Tom came downstairs and gave me an awkward, light embrace that he’d probably learned in America, as no one else in his family had gotten to the point of touching me yet. Some things were just too foreign.
“Can you recognize me? This overwork at the hospital…I need to join a health club or something.” Tom poked at his barely rounded stomach.
“You look great, Tom,” I said. Aunt Norie had confided she’d received almost a dozen calls from brokers active in the arranged marriage scene. Tom, however, would have none of it.
For lunch, Aunt Norie served scallops au gratin, a cucumber salad, sake-simmered lotus root, spinach-sesame rolls, and pickled eggplant left over from New Year’s. She said, “Please tell your mother how much we enjoy that vinegar she sent for my birthday! It’s on the salad. But I don’t understand what it is, exactly.”
“Balsamic,” I guessed. And too much of it. I had to keep from puckering my mouth as I ate.
“I mean to go on a natto diet, but Oksan keeps stuffing me with high-cholesterol meals,” Tom said, not looking like he minded a bit.
“You eat natto? I’m glad I don’t have to work with you.” I made a face at him. The smell of fermented soybeans was just as bad as its stringy texture, although millions swore it was a font of good health.
“Tomatsu, if you want to lose weight, get married. None of the girls today cook! Oh, I’m sorry, Rei-chan. You surely are an exception?”
“I hope so!” Had she forgotten the time I brought her imperfectly rolled, but nonetheless delicious, vegetarian sushi?
“How is the romantic life? Any nice new boyfriends?” My aunt probed.
Before I could say no, Tom came to my defense. “Leave Rei alone. After all, she came over for a professional consultation.”
Aunt Norie blushed and made excuses to do some vacuuming upstairs, perhaps fearing Tom would order me atop the dining table for some kind of exam. Instead, he led me into the living room and settled into a plush recliner. The chair uttered an electric groan and began vibrating along his shoulders. Tom sighed happily, reinforcing my suspicion he wouldn’t leave home anytime soon. He’d live in the massage chair until Aunt Norie finally found a bride with acceptable culinary skills.
As Tom read the autopsy, I wandered through the minimalist beige living room, sliding the floor-to-ceiling shji screens aside to look at the garden, where plum trees were already budding. Maybe my aunt would let me cut a branch to take back to my room.
“This reads like it was written twenty years ago. Country doctors!” Tom snorted.
“Tell me about it.” I sat down on the couch and opened the notebook I’d brought with me.
“It starts out quite normally, describing the subject as a forty-one-year-old female weighing forty-nine kilograms,” Tom told me. “The stomach contents were partially digested rice, fish, and vegetables, giving the impression she died four to six hours after eating.”
That would have been between eleven and one, when I’d gone out to hear the temple bells ring.
“Moving on, general X rays showed no fractures. The X ray of the skull revealed no fractures, although the coroner noted bruising behind both ears. A dental exam showed teeth to be intact with no lacerations of the tongue.”
So she hadn’t bit her tongue or had it pierced, I wrote, thinking of Richard.
“A pelvic exam revealed that she had given birth previously, and there was evidence of a well-healed tubal ligation.”
I was stunned. “It can’t be. She said she didn’t have children!”
“People lie. The body can’t.” Tom looked at me significantly. “The coroner went on to perform toxicology tests. In thirty cubic centimeters of blood taken from the left ventricle, there was a blood alcohol content of one hundred and five milligrams per deciliter.”
“The police said she was extremely drunk and passed out in the snow.”
Tom shook his head. “If she had been driving a car and been stopped by the police, she probably would have tested positive for alcohol. But given this very slight blood alcohol content, she wouldn’t have been falling-down drunk.”
“She seemed perfectly sharp when I talked to her after dinner that night. She drank a little sake.” I remembered with a pang the ceremonious way she had poured for Hugh.
“Eighteen c.c.s of water were present in her lungs. It looks like the coroner assumed it to be melted snow.”
That made me think of the bath. “Wait a minute. If someone were forcibly held underwater, how much water would show up in their lungs?”
“Not much, since the throat contracts against foreign substances. Drowning victims typically have twenty c.c.s or less in their lungs.” Tom handed the papers back. “They should have tested for liver and kidney disease but didn’t. That’s what I’m upset about. They shortcut things, neh?”
I didn’t want to discuss such boring things as livers and kidneys. “What about the possibility of assault? You mentioned some bruises behind the ears.”
“It could be that because she was lying down, her blood flowed to the back of her head and caused the marking.”
“The bath contained some special kind of mineral water,” I mused. “Why didn’t they test it? Then they could tell it wasn’t snow—”
“It looked clear to them, I assume.” Tom looked at me. “Now are you going to tell me why you even have a copy of this document?”
I hesitated before saying, I can’t tell you. It’s confidential.”
“But this is Setsuko Nakamura, the woman who’s been in all the newspapers for the last three days. How did you get hold of her autopsy?”
“I’m helping a friend of hers. We have a theory that she was drowned by her husband. What you told me about the autopsy shows that he certainly had the time to do it.”
“Maybe had the time. Nothing about the autopsy’s firm, Rei.”
“What do you mean?”
Tom chucked me under the chin. “Forensics cannot offer firm answers.”
“Then what’s the point?” I let my exasperation show.
“Listen, cousin. This woman died between four and six hours after eating dinner—no one can say for certain. The water might have been snow, or it could have been from the bath. And she may or may not have had a head injury.”
“Okay,” I said, standing up to go. Maybe was not as good as certainly, but it was a step in the right direction. And now I knew she’d had a child.
“I’m really grateful, Tom,” I began. “I owe you.”
“That’s all right.” He gestured at the papers I was tucking away. “What are you going to do with it?”
“I’ll return the autopsy to my friend. Case closed,” I said, wishing I could believe it.
I carried three curved plum branches home and arranged them in a chipped Satsuma vase I’d rescued from the neighborhood’s oversized trash pickup a month ago. Even with the addition of flowers, I found myself thinking my small apartment was a dump compared to Aunt Norie’s house. Kimono and wood-block prints couldn’t hide the electrical cords draping the walls like an ugly spider web, and nothing could be done to camouflage the ancient linoleum floor. What finished the disaster off were my cardboard boxes overflowing with books and shrine sale miscellany, and my sorry wardrobe hanging on
a rod that spanned the length of one short wall. No wonder my mother refused to stay with me.
I slid the kotatsu table on its side against the wall so I’d have room for to unroll my futon. I laid across it with the autopsy notes in front of me. I wished I’d studied Setsuko more closely when I found her. All I really had was a memory of her snow-shrouded figure and her long, black hair frozen stiff like a piece of bark. Her hair. I thought about it and suddenly had another question.
Aunt Norie said Tom had gone to the hospital. The St. Luke’s operator told me he was unavailable. I tapped a pen restlessly against the table, thinking. Tomorrow I had to go back to work. I needed to put this problem away.
Thirty minutes later I was outside St. Luke’s, the sleek, sand-colored building which was perhaps the most luxurious hospital in Japan. St. Luke’s had been founded in 1900 by an American doctor, a fact that protected it from U.S. bombs during World War II. The hospital was haven again following the 1995 subway gas attack by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult. Five cult members punctured bags containing nerve gas on several commuter trains; when the fumes began to escape, people began pouring off the trains, half-blinded and ill.
Eleven died and approximately 3,800 people were injured, many of them going to St. Luke’s. Tom had over-seen the emergency room that morning. He told me the most amazing thing had been the stoic calm of the victims. Nobody cried, just waited patiently for their turn.
Unlike me. I walked straight into the emergency room, presented my card to the head nurse and demanded to see Dr. Shimura immediately. Shortly thereafter my cousin emerged from a curtained-off area wearing a white coat and look of irritation.
“Just five minutes,” I said. “I want to ask you more about bruises.”
“If I don’t come with you, I suppose you’ll never leave.” Tom sighed and showed me into the hospital café, a cheerful blue and yellow room decorated with faux Grecian columns. A table full of nurses stared at my cousin with undisguised longing. He didn’t seem to notice.
“So you want to know about bruises.” Tom swirled cream into a small cup of coffee. “On a most basic level, they form when some kind of trauma breaks the blood vessels and allows blood to seep through tissue.”
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