Murder on the Cliff (14 page)

But the real star of the show was Akanohana.

Charlotte was mesmerized as she watched him defeat one opponent after another, his intelligence radiating from every movement. Unlike the other sumos, who tended to favor a single technique, Akanohana varied his according to the strengths or weaknesses of his opponent. In one bout, he patiently wore his opponent down, gradually penetrating his defenses; in the next, he deftly grounded his opponent with an elegantly executed arm throw; in still another, he struck with the flashing impact of a lightning bolt. He was cunning, skillful, and cool. It was no surprise that his nickname was The Fox. Coached by Spalding, Charlotte found herself cheering him on with the phrase,
Ganbare
! the rough translation of which was “Go for it.” Spalding cheered right along with her, and Charlotte was pleased to see him abandon his customary reserve. Even Lester cheered, temporarily forgetting Marianne’s romantic interest in Shawn. After four winning bouts, Akanohana predictably emerged as the winner, and Lani announced a break before the playoff with Takafuji.

As the audience resumed their seats for the playoff a few minutes later, the atmosphere in the stadium was electric. Once again, the announcer mounted the ring and called out the names of the contestants. Then they mounted the ring: Takafuji all strut and swagger, and Akanohana all cool and concentration. He reminded Charlotte of Line Crawford in a cinematic shoot-out on Main Street. Lani announced their statistics: The Warthog, Takafuji, was five feet eleven and three hundred and eighteen pounds; The Fox, Akanohana, was six foot one and two hundred seventy-five pounds. As sumo wrestlers went, they were pretty evenly matched. Lani went on to talk about the colors of their
mawashi:
as a purist, Akanohana wore a black loincloth in keeping with official rules that
mawashi
be black or a dark color like purple or navy blue, but Takafuji’s loincloth was a blinding chartreuse. Since the introduction of color television, many
rikishi
had chosen to ignore the unenforced rule on
mawashi
color, Lani explained.

“In my book, the chartreuse
mawashi
alone is reason enough not to like the guy,” Spalding whispered in her ear.

After mounting the ring, the
rikishi
performed the opening ritual, clapping their hands and raising their arms. Then they went to the center of the ring and stomped evil into the ground. Next came the salt-tossing ritual: drinking their power water, wiping their mouths with a special paper towel, throwing the salt into the ring, and finally taking up their positions at the center of the ring, crouching like coiled springs. By now, the noise of the audience was a roar, and Hayashi’s placard was bouncing up and down. They repeated the salt-tossing ritual several times: Takafuji glaring and stomping; Akanohana behaving with supreme disdain and Zen-like single-mindedness, as if his opponent were too insignificant even for his contempt. After some more posturing, the timekeeper signaled that the time was up, and a ring attendant handed the wrestlers towels to wipe off their sweat. Once they had braced for the opening charge, the referee raised his war fan from a horizontal to a vertical position, and the two
rikishi
came together with a bone-shattering thud. According to Spalding, the opening charge was the moment of truth. If the bout hadn’t already been decided in the stare-off, it would be when the two
rikishi
came together. The key to victory was a strong belt grip.

By now, Charlotte had a better idea of what was going on. If what Spalding said was true, Akanohana had the advantage. After charging his opponent with lightning speed, he had succeeded in getting hold of Takafuji’s chartreuse
mawashi
with both hands. For a few seconds, he skillfully pushed and pulled his opponent around as Takafuji tried in vain to free himself. Finally Akanohana succeeded in throwing Takafuji off balance and the match was decided. With Takafuji’s belt firmly in his grip, Akanohana hoisted the squirming and kicking wrestler into the air and deposited him outside the ring as summarily as a bouncer throwing a lightweight-but-troublesome patron out of a nightclub. He nearly landed in their laps.

It was a spectacular display of strength and skill for Akanaohana and a humiliating defeat for Takafuji. The referee pointed his fan at Akanohana; it was a perfect record—he hadn’t lost a single match.

“Unless anything unforeseen happens, Japan is about to see its first foreign
yokozuna
,” said Spalding as the crowd went wild.

7

Charlotte took the man’s business card and tucked it into her purse. The card identified him as Mr. Junichi Kanazashi, chairman of the Shimoda Board of Education. He looked disappointed that she hadn’t offered him one in return. She knew that the exchange of business cards was a major preoccupation of the Japanese, but a business card was something Charlotte had never needed. After fifty years in front of the cameras, her face was as familiar to most Americans as their best friend’s. Failing a business card, she introduced herself as Charlotte Graham and explained that she had played Okichi in
Soiled Dove
.

With the reference to
Soiled Dove
, Kanazashi’s face lit up. He stepped back to size up her full height. “Miss Graham, of course,” he said, pumping her arm vigorously. “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. You are so tall—much too tall for a geisha.”

Thanks to
Soiled Dove
, Charlotte was famous throughout the Orient as well. Playing Okichi was to the Japanese what playing Joan of Arc would have been to the French, or Queen Christina to the Swedes. Almost without knowing it, she had become a cultural icon.

“I could never have played Okichi on stage,” she agreed. With her white skin and black hair, she had made a fairly believable geisha as long as the camera camouflaged her height.

Kanazashi laughed. Reaching into his breast pocket, he withdrew a leather notebook. He ripped off a sheet of paper and extended it to her. “Please, may I have your autograph?” he asked.

Charlotte signed the paper with her round, bold scrawl. She was not the kind of star who scorned her fans. For fifty years, her fans had been her bread and butter, and she had been happy to oblige.

They were standing on the rear loggia of Edgecliff, the mansion that was the scene of the Mikado Ball. The light of the setting sun bathed the landscape in a tropical yellow light tinged with orange: an ochre light. She wondered if Ochre Point has taken its name from the light of the setting sun or from the ochre with which its fabulous mansions had been built.

She handed her autograph back to Kanazashi, who gazed at it as fondly as if it were a fifty-dollar bill that he’d just picked up off the sidewalk. “I’m going to frame this and hang it in the museum in Shimoda.”

“I hardly think it’s a museum piece,” said Charlotte.

She was happy to have found this genial Japanese man. Since arriving at the ball, she’d been subjected to a series of lectures on what was wrong with America. One man she had talked with had even written a book called
The War Between Japan and America Is Not Over
. Apparently the Japanese trade group that owned Edgecliff was a hotbed of Japanese right-wing nationalism.

“You know, Miss Graham, because of
Soiled Dove
, Shimoda has gone from a sleepy fishing village to a major tourist attraction. I, for one, have grown rich from the Okichi legend,” he added, explaining that the hotel he owned was the site of the annual Shimoda Conference, a gathering of Japanese and American intellectuals and businessmen.

Their conversation was interrupted by a young woman in a flowered kimono who offered them a tray of hors d’oeuvres.

“Have you been back to Shimoda since you filmed the movie?” asked Kanazashi as he helped himself to a cracker heaped with caviar.

Charlotte shook her head. She had always meant to return. The little fishing village at the edge of the mountain-rimmed harbor was one of the most beautiful places she had ever seen.

“Oh, you should see it now! We have”—he counted on his fingers—“three museums with displays on Okichi. Make that four—the new Shimoda Port Memorial Hall also has an Okichi exhibit.” He held up the piece of paper. “That’s where your autograph is going to hang. Even the restaurant that Okichi opened a few years before she died has a display. We also have an Okichi Festival.”

“An Okichi Festival too?”

“Along with our own Black Ships Festival in mid-May. Not to criticize the way you do things here in the United States …”

That was all right, everybody else was, Charlotte thought.

“… but you could make a lot more of the Black Ships Festival than you do. We celebrate for three days: parades, parties, fireworks. The children are let out of school. It would be very good for the tourist business of Newport.” A look of sadness crossed his face. “Of course, it is terrible about Okichi-
mago
committing suicide on the one hundredth anniversary of Okichi’s death.”

“Yes, it is,” Charlotte agreed.

He continued: “But I don’t think her suicide will hurt the Black Ships Festival in Newport. In fact, it will enhance it, just as the tragic story of Okichi’s death has enhanced tourism for Shimoda. I think tourists will be very interested in seeing Townsend Harris’s replica of the Temple of Great Repose and the place where Okichi-
mago
jumped off the cliff.”

Japanese tourists might be interested, but Charlotte doubted that American tourists would. To say nothing of the fact that neither Paul nor Marianne would ever have anything to do with such a scheme.

“Maybe you could arrange a tour to Newport for the Japanese,” Charlotte said. She was speaking half-facetiously, but he took her seriously.

“Yes, you’re right!” he said, his face lighting up again. “That’s a very good idea. I am going to look into it right away.” Pulling out his notebook again, he made a notation. “An Okichi tour to Shimoda’s sister city. I think it would be a very big success.”

They were interrupted by the whirring of a helicopter rotor. A helicopter was approaching over the ocean from the direction of Providence, to the north. Directed by national guardsmen, the helicopter landed on the lawn, and the governor emerged with his wife—he in black tie, she in a full-length gown.

“I guess the ball has officially begun,” said Kanzashi.

Following the crowd, they drifted inside for the opening ceremonies, which were held in the Great Hall, a majestic gilt-encrusted arcaded hall rising three stories. From the outside, Edgecliff was undistinguished: a Gothic pile of red sandstone that Charlotte had mentally dubbed the Smithsonian-by-the-Sea. But the interior was palatial. As the usual dignitaries gave the usual speeches, she studied the surroundings. Overhead, an enormous mural depicted Zeus at the Banquet of the Gods. Above the windows, gilded figures in bas-relief represented the industrial and liberal arts. The curving staircase was lined with a balustrade of white marble dolphins and cupids. Like Marianne’s parlor, nothing made any sense, but it had a kind of mad magnificence.

After the speeches, the guests headed toward the adjacent oak-paneled library, where dinner was to be served. Charlotte went in search of her table. A Black Ships committee member at the door had told her that she was assigned to table number twenty-three.

She found her table on the other side of the library. Her tablemates included a young couple who identified themselves as Japanophiles, several Newport city councilmen and their wives, and the city solicitor and his wife. Charlotte sat between the last couple: a handsome, light-skinned black man named Lewis Farrell and his beautiful Hispanic wife, Toni. They were a charming couple, and she was pleased to find herself in such pleasant company.

Charlotte had no intention of asking him how a black man had ended up in Newport, but he told her anyway. It appeared to be a favorite story. He explained that he was a descendant of slaves who were brought to Newport in 1690, a time when Newport rivaled Boston as the country’s busiest seaport, and was the center of the slave trade.

“I love to see the reactions of some of these snobby Colonial Dames types when I tell them that my ancestors have been in New England longer than theirs,” he said, his eyes crinkling in a good-natured smile. He had a long, narrow face and a stylishly droopy mustache, and wore round glasses with gold wire rims that gave him a professorial air.

He also filled her in on his wife’s ancestry: she was descended from Portuguese fishermen who had emigrated to Newport from the Cape Verde Islands.

It was this variety that Charlotte loved about Newport. Dozens of diverse groups—the blacks, the Portuguese, the socialites, the sailing crowd, the intellectuals, the artists, the Naval War College personnel, the college students, the fortune hunters, the day-trippers, the summer residents, and the merchants and shopkeepers—each existing in their own little world on this idyllic New England island.

From Lew and Toni’s ancestry, the topic of conversation at the table shifted briefly to
Soiled Dove
and then to Shimoda, which the young couple who’d said they were Japanophiles had just visited.

“The chairman of Shimoda’s board of education was just telling me that there are several museums there devoted to the memory of Okichi,” said Charlotte.

“Not museums really,” said the young man. “There are exhibits in several of the temples, but they don’t really amount to much. There’s a memorial museum with a few mementos in Okichi’s family temple. Her grave is also there—just behind the temple. They still keep incense burning in her memory.”

“What about the other temple?” prompted the wife.

The husband looked embarrassed.

“Tell them,” she urged.

The husband took a breath. “There’s another temple in which they have a display of Okichi’s palanquin and some other mementos. Next to it there’s another building in which there’s a display of—I don’t know quite how to describe them—they call them ‘Buddhist images symbolizing ecstasy.’”

“‘In commemoration of Okichi’s amorous exploits,’” the wife said, raising her fingers to indicate quotations marks around the words.