Devil's Trill

by Gerald Elias

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “It’s also obvious to me that somehow Yumi’s involved with this whole business, and that there was that girl who came in second in the Grimsley Competition in 1931 who you figure went to Japan, though you’re not even sure if she’s dead or alive. Now, I found out that stuff before Victoria was killed, so are you saying they have something to do with the theft?”

  Jacobus considered his options.

  “I’m not saying, Nathaniel. What I will tell you is that they may have information that will be helpful . . . crucial . . . and that I hope to receive their assistance. Other than that, you’ll have to trust me. But you have my word, the violin will be returned.”

  They stood in silence. Jacobus wasn’t going to show any more of his hand than that. He knew it wasn’t much, but now it was up to Nathaniel whether he would throw in his cards.

  “Jake,” said Nathaniel, “I just want to tell you one thing.”

  “Not two?”

  “Just one, you bastard. I just want you to know. I believe you.”

  “Thank you, Nathaniel. I appreciate that.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  The two found their way back to Furukawa and Yumi in the main room.

  After they removed their slippers in order to walk on the tatami, Furukawa led Jacobus, followed by Yumi and Nathaniel, to the low black-lacquered table in the center of the tatami room. Jacobus sat on floor cushions, as cross-legged as he could manage, the other three taking their own sides of the square. Jacobus placed his index fingers next to each other directly in front of him on the edge of the table, then moved them apart until his hands reached the corners. Having gauged the table’s size, he proceeded to nimbly feel around the setting in front of him, first for chopsticks, then for the seemingly limitless array of small dishes and glasses, all the while turning his head, listening, inhaling, discerning, discovering. He was able to identify almost everything that was being served.

  He found an abundance of traditional Japanese snacks in simple but elegant red-lacquered and blue-and-white porcelain bowls. There were rice crackers with bits of seaweed; various kinds of tiny dried and salted fish, eaten whole; sweet rice balls with toasted sesame seeds and wrapped in dried seaweed called nori; skewers of Japanese yakitori made from small pieces of chicken, chicken liver, and chicken skin; a large sliced squid broiled teriyaki style; colorful salty pickled vegetables; small cubes of fried tofu in a sweet soy sauce. All of these were complemented by an equally impressive array of drinks—large bottles of Sapporo beer; distinctive traditional carafes of sake, both hot and cold, to be drunk in small, square wooden sake cups; a local brew called shochu, a refreshing but potent combination of sake and fermented sweet potato liquor; a formidable assortment of Japanese whiskey; and a pitcher of cold wheat tea, especially refreshing for hot summer weather.

  Nathaniel chose sake. In customary fashion, Yumi poured first for Nathaniel, then for herself. Furukawa poured a glass of whiskey for Jacobus and finally one for himself.

  He stood up, and with Yumi translating, said, “I wish to officially welcome my old friend and my new friend to my home, and hope your stay will be a peaceful and successful one.”

  Amen to that, thought Jacobus, already planning how he would elicit his invitation to the Shinagawa household.

  “Campai!” Furukawa shouted in full voice, downing his whiskey.

  “Campai!” responded Jacobus and Yumi. Nathaniel, catching on, followed suit, and all downed their drink.

  “Ah!” said Jacobus, smacking his lips. “Suntory. President’s Special Blend, my favorite whiskey. You have a good memory too, Max.”

  Yumi, the intermediary, replied, “Furukawa-sensei says, ‘How could he ever forget the first night he drank with you and Mr. Goldbloom.’ That is why he has so many bottles on the table tonight.”

  Furukawa had first met Jacobus and Goldbloom when the Boston Symphony toured Japan in 1959. Furukawa had brought a few of his best students to their hotel room to play for both of them. When Jacobus and Goldbloom declined payment, Furukawa felt obligated to compensate them by other means. He took them from one elite geisha house to another, where they were wined and dined (costing Furukawa many times what the lessons would have cost) until the moment when Jacobus fell backward off his cushion and passed out. The night on the town cemented their friendship, and Jacobus returned regularly to Japan to work with Furukawa and his students, and to drink, until his blindness struck.

  “Tell Max that he doesn’t need to get me drunk again to impress me. I just came here to be with my old friend again.”

  “Furukawa-sensei is honored to have you visit but is sorry he didn’t have more time to prepare better for your arrival.”

  “Tell Max that it has been a long year and I decided to reward myself. It is obvious from his hospitality that I have made the right decision.”

  “Furukawa-sensei says he hopes you will enjoy the food and drink he has put in front of you, even though at this late hour he is serving only this small snack. He remembers what you like. He also thanks you deeply for bringing Mr. Williams and me with you.”

  “Tell Max it would have been difficult to enjoy a conversation with him without your presence as a translator, and that I couldn’t imagine a better introduction to Japan for my good friend Mr. Williams than by giving him an opportunity to experience Max’s wonderful hospitality.”

  Nathaniel added, “I didn’t expect to say this, but I have to admit I’m overwhelmed at your hospitality. But I do have one problem.”

  “What is the problem?” asked Yumi.

  “I can’t move my legs!” cried Nathaniel. “I wasn’t made for sitting like this!”

  Furukawa laughed. Yumi tried to help Nathaniel stand, but Jacobus could hear that her success was limited. Furukawa said something. Yumi laughed.

  “What’s so funny now?” asked Nathaniel.

  “Furukawa-sensei says you look like the sumo wrestler who got kicked in the wrong place.”

  “Well, at least that’s a step up from Cinderella.”

  Furukawa, still chuckling, continued.

  Yumi translated, “And to you, Mr. Jacobus, he says he is so sorry that you will be in Japan only briefly, because it will surely take Mr. Williams longer than that to learn to sit in the Japanese style.”

  “Tell Max that I’d have to spend the rest of my life here if I had to wait for Mr. Williams to learn how to sit. Unfortunately I am obligated to return to the United States as soon as possible, but tell Max that one day with him is worth a week with anyone else.”

  Jacobus knew that it would not be long before the whereabouts of his unlikely trio—an unkempt blind man, a large bearded black man, and an attractive Japanese girl with green eyes—became pinpointed, even in this out-of-the-way place.

  Furukawa was silent for a moment before replying. Jacobus heard him sip his whiskey.

  “Furukawa-sensei says he understands and would like to know how you are enjoying teaching me.” The slightest tremor, an almost undetectable waver of worry, bent Yumi’s voice.

  Jacobus chuckled. “Not easy to be a translator and the subject of discussion at the same time, is it?”

  “No,” said Yumi.

  “Well, you can tell Max that if all his students play as well as you, he can send all of them to me.”

  “Furukawa-sensei says thank you but that will not be possible.”

  “Why not?” asked Jacobus, alarmed.

  “Because,” said Yumi, “I was sensei’s final student. He has retired.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “Furukawa-sensei says he is very happy to be retired. He believes he has accomplished his task as a teacher. He now devotes himself to many of the things he didn’t have time for when he was teaching, like fishing and playing chess and singing with his karaoke machine. He hopes you will have time to play chess with him.”

  Real-life chess, thought Jacobus. And not just with you, my friend.

  Furukawa suggested they refresh themselve
s with some garden air. Nathaniel declined, unaccustomed to the combined potency of sake, shochu, and Suntory drunk in copious quantities. “I haven’t seen any beds in this house,” he said. “But if there are any I wouldn’t mind one bein’ under me right now.”

  Yumi asked Nathaniel to wait while she retrieved bedding from a closet. By the time she returned with the futon and feather comforter, Nathaniel was already snoring on the tatami. Jacobus got out of the way as she unfolded the mattress and placed a traditional soybean-stuffed pillow at the head of the makeshift bed. Then, with great exertion, Jacobus, Furukawa, and Yumi rolled Nathaniel onto it.

  “Furukawa-sensei says he hopes you will sleep comfortably.” Yumi, still on her knees, slightly winded, bowed to the unconscious Nathaniel.

  Outside, the mountain air was chilly, but the heat from the furo imbued Jacobus’s body with lasting warmth under his yukata. In the darkness, their careful footsteps quietly followed the stone path of the garden as crickets chirped and frogs grunted contentedly. Furukawa was side by side with Jacobus; Yumi’s light step, slightly out of his rhythm, was just behind them. The dim light emanating through the house’s shoji screens did not reach Jacobus and Furukawa.

  “There are fireflies here, just like at your home,” Yumi said to Jacobus. “It is difficult to tell them apart from the stars. Furukawasensei’s garden is not a typical Japanese formal garden. The trees and shrubs are not artistically sculpted or strategically placed.”

  Jacobus remembered all this from his earlier days here, but he did not interrupt Yumi. This was the first time she had spoken on her own. She spoke quietly, maybe so as not to disturb the tranquillity of the night, maybe because it was more a matter of will than of cordiality. What was the message she was trying to convey? Letting bygones be bygones? He didn’t think so.

  “It is more of an orchard. There are dozens of fruit trees and vines crowded together in this small space; they are carefully pruned for functional rather than aesthetic purposes.”

  Jacobus could smell the air, pungent with blossoms and of rotting fruit that lay on the moist, fertile ground.

  Furukawa put his hand on Jacobus’s arm, stopping him. Furukawa spoke.

  Yumi translated. “This is a biwa tree. Please try the fruit.”

  He heard her tug at a branch, the leaves swishing as it recoiled.

  “I don’t think you have these in America. They are at the perfect stage of ripeness.”

  Furukawa spoke again, at greater length, and laughed.

  “Furukawa-sensei asks me to tell you a story about this tree,” Yumi said hesitantly.

  “Go ahead. Don’t be shy.”

  “When I first started to study the violin with Furukawa-sensei, I was very young, ten years old. I wanted to be a baseball player more than a violinist.”

  “Yeah? Red Sox or Yankees fan?”

  “What? Yomiuri Giants, I suppose.”

  “Diplomatic answer.”

  “As you may know, I have no brothers or sisters, so my father, who I believe wanted a son to teach to play baseball, taught me instead. I loved to play nevertheless and at first did not want so much to study violin with Furukawa-sensei. So after my first lesson here, I came out to the garden and picked the biwa fruit from this tree. I then threw several of them through Furukawa-sensei’s shoji screens.”

  “How far are we from the house?” asked Jacobus. “Thirty feet?”

  “Maybe along the path. But a straight line? I think not so much. Maybe twenty feet.”

  “Still, pretty good throw for a ten-year-old. Furukawa-san must have been pissed off!”

  “He never told me what he felt.”

  “Ask him!”

  “I couldn’t do that!”

  “Hey, Miss Biwa Yomiuri Giants fan, this isn’t you asking. It’s me. Ask.”

  Yumi reluctantly complied. Furukawa’s laughing response was equally brief and animated.

  “Furukawa-sensei says that a little mischief is necessary to be successful in life. He calls this biwa tree ‘Feelings Tree’—it’s hard to translate—because this is where I expressed my true feelings. Of course, after time it became clear to me that I would not become a baseball player and that I loved the violin more.”

  “Ask Max if he has any other trees that he has named.”

  Jacobus waited for a reply.

  “I don’t hear him say anything.”

  “Furukawa-sensei made a hand gesture we Japanese understand, like a backhand flick of the wrist with fingers pointed down. To Americans it looks like ‘go away’—I think you say ‘shoo’—but in Japanese it means ‘follow me.’ Even if you had seen it, I would have had to translate anyway.”

  They walked along the path to what must have been the edge of Furukawa’s garden. Jacobus felt Furukawa take one of his hands in his and place it on a tree. The bark felt coarse and deeply furrowed.

  Sure as hell not a fruit tree, Jacobus thought.

  He tried to run his hands around the circumference of the tree the same way he had felt the dimensions of the dinner table, but found that even with his arms outstretched he couldn’t reach halfway. It was immense. He pressed his body against the tree and inched around to the other side. Suddenly he pitched forward. The whole side of the tree was gone! Jacobus literally stumbled into the center of the tree, still probing, feeling its rocklike hardness, finally emerging and creeping his way back to where he had begun. One last measurement, he put both hands on the tree and reached up as high as he could but felt no branches.

  “This tree’s ancient! Smells like cedar. But how does it survive? Most of it’s missing.”

  After the translations, Yumi responded for Furukawa.

  “This tree was planted by Furukawa-sensei’s ancestors seventeen generations ago, more than four hundred years. His family has lived here ever since and has cared for this tree. That is why it is simply called ‘Family Tree.’ But Furukawa-sensei says what the tree means to him is that beauty comes in many forms and cannot be rushed.”

  When Yumi finished, Furukawa continued in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “He says he does not like Japanese bonsai plants because they take new, healthy plants and try to make them look old and sick using wires and other unnatural means. Nor does he much prefer the American style of pruning old trees to make them look young, even though that might keep them living longer.”

  Furukawa had undoubtedly taken him to these trees for a reason. What he was explaining must have greater significance. So far, the biwa story reconfirmed his conclusions regarding Yumi’s strong will. A damn good arm too. What else? Jacobus needed to explore further.

  “Ask Max what’s his ideal.”

  “Ideal?”

  “Yeah. His way of caring for the trees. If he doesn’t like the Japanese way or the American way, what does he like?”

  “I see.” She translated.

  “Furukawa-sensei says a thing must be what it is. Sometimes the beauty of a plant is apparent almost immediately, like with annual flowers. Other times it takes years or even lifetimes before its beauty is perceived, as with this tree. When it was one hundred, two hundred, even three hundred years old it looked similar to many other trees. But a century ago lightning hit this tree. Nature has made it unique and has drawn out the tree’s true character. Beauty is always inside things and if we just care for them rather than manipulate them, the beauty will always come out eventually.”

  “Does Max apply this philosophy to his teaching?”

  Yumi translated his response.

  “He feels his true job is to take small seedlings and nurture them until they are strong and healthy. He says he provides his students, these small seedlings, with . . . with fertilizer.”

  Yumi asked Furukawa what he meant by fertilizer.

  “He means the skills and understanding necessary to begin their path to mature artistry.”

  Jacobus was still groping for his own understanding. Is Furukawa just shoveling me another kind of fertilizer?

  “Then
why has he given his students to me?”

  “Furukawa-sensei says his students are like small tomato plants in a greenhouse. They get just the right amount of nourishment and attention so that they are all healthy. But he doesn’t approve of forcing them to become something they’re not ready to be. Unlike tomatoes, students take many years to ripen and must learn to live on the outside of the greenhouse. So he sends them to you because you can teach them to flourish—is that the word?—flourish in a world where they must be able to know how to use their skills and their artistry without the benefit of controlled conditions.”

  Jacobus had assumed the answer would be something like that, and he appreciated it, but he still didn’t know in what direction Furukawa was trying to lead him. He knew he was being led, he just wasn’t sure where. How was he going to get from Point A to Point Z? Where was Point Z? Hard to walk in a straight line in the dark. Jacobus was at a loss as to how he should continue.

  It was very late. It must almost be dawn. No one was saying anything. Jacobus stood there listening to frogs and crickets, to Furukawa and Yumi breathing; he smelled the tree, smelled the soil and the sweetness of rotting fruit. What more was there? What had he not asked?

  Furukawa spoke.

  Yumi said, “Furukawa-sensei says that you should sleep, that perhaps tomorrow you will be busy.”

  Jacobus was about to agree when he suddenly realized that Furukawa had already told him what he needed to know. Yes, Max was trying to help.

  Furukawa had said his job had been to take small seedlings. Nurture them. Not plant them. He didn’t actually plant them. Maybe he did see the path Furukawa was showing him.

  “Tell Max that I understand that he helps the seedlings grow and I help them develop into mature trees, but please ask where he gets the seedlings from. Who plants the seeds and helps them germinate?”