The Bride's Kimono (2 page)

“H
oney, I wouldn’t trust you to carry my favorite vintage Levi’s out of my apartment. And you’re saying that you’re going to carry a collection of antique kimonos out of the country?” Richard Randall, the twenty-five-year-old Canadian who was my best friend in Tokyo, shook his head as he stirred sugar into a tiny cup of coffee.

“‘Kimono’ is the preferred form of the plural for scholars,” I said frostily. We were at Appetito, my favorite
sanduitto
—the Japanese interpretation of sandwich shop. Lunch together at Appetito had become a Friday tradition because Richard had a shorter teaching day at It’s Happening! Language School, where he was a full-time English teacher.

“Kimono, then. Whatever! You aren’t going anywhere with them, babe.”

“I suppose you’re right. Well, it was a nice fantasy while it lasted.” I was depressed that Richard also agreed that I’d not be able to get antiques out of Japan. In the last few days, I’d worked myself into a frenzy of wanting to go. Looking at the odd little pastry called a “cheezu bagel” sitting on my lunch tray, I added, “I’m dying for an American bagel. Not to mention real cheese. Do you know how tired I am of going to over-
priced foreigner supermarkets here and finding nothing but Kraft singles?”

“You
are
a Kraft single,” Richard cackled. “That’s the problem. Who would trust a young single woman without Japanese citizenship to be responsible for Japanese cultural treasures? And why has the American museum asked you instead of someone from the Morioka to carry the goods? It all sounds fishy.”

“The Morioka guy said he couldn’t possibly travel, so the American museum is desperate. They want certain kimono from that museum. It would be difficult—from a manners standpoint—to ask a Japanese textile curator from a different museum to carry things from the Morioka. Anyway, that’s my guess. Maybe I’ll find out more today.” I was scheduled to be at the Morioka Museum in an hour and a half for an interview with the museum’s director, its textile curator, and its registrar.

“But you’ve never worked at a museum,” Richard said.

“Allison told me I’ve got a reputation for my knowledge of Japanese textiles. If it’s really true that I’m a known person, the people at the Morioka might have a favorable impression of me already.”

“Come on, girlfriend. The only reputation you have is for making it into tabloids.”

“Those pictures were taken just because of Takeo,” I protested. For the last half year, I’d been dating a rather dashing man my age named Takeo Kayama. Takeo was an odd sort, spending his days mulling over the rehabilitation of historic Japanese houses and advising various ecology groups. Because Takeo was the son of a famous flower-arranging-school headmaster, his moves were reported with some interest, especially when he did bizarre things like show up for a black-tie flower-arranging gala wearing jeans and a Greenpeace T-shirt.
I hadn’t cared about what Takeo wore that night, but I was mortified when our long good-night kiss at a taxi stand wound up being circulated to a million readers. Since then, Takeo and I hadn’t dared to go out together in public. Now we spent most of our time together at his country house, doing about the only thing possible in a place without a television set.

“Ha. I wonder if they’ll do an Internet search on you and come up with pictures of the boyfriend before him.”

“Don’t remind me.” I didn’t want to recall Hugh Glendinning, the Scottish lawyer who’d walked out of my life a little more than a year ago. When Takeo had come along, I’d decided that it was in my best interest to get involved with a Japanese man. Who else could I count on to want to live in my favorite city with me? Not that Takeo and I had reached the point of living
together,
or getting married. Takeo came from a prominent family, and I suspected that it would look better to his father if I were on firmer financial footing before we got really serious.

Feeling invigorated by thoughts of how powerful an alliance with a Japanese museum might be for my career, I parted with my best friend and walked to my appointment. Twenty minutes later I’d made my way through the boutique-lined streets of Omote-Sando and arrived at the entrance to the Morioka Museum, a small, elegant stucco building that had survived the World War II bombs and been home, for the last thirty years, to many of Japan’s great textile treasures.

A guard showed me down a hall and into the reception room of the director’s office. The room was decorated with framed posters of the museum’s past exhibitions. Its furniture was modern rosewood: a matching group of four chairs, each with a tiny table in front of it. Three
of the chairs faced one. I could tell right away where I was supposed to sit.

Mr. Shima, the museum’s registrar, urged me to sit down right away, but I knew better: I shouldn’t appear to make myself comfortable until his boss had come. I wondered how much he really knew about textiles, judging from the boring gray wool-blend suit that he’d chosen to wear. It was interesting that the Morioka had a registrar, an administrative position that involved keeping a careful tally of the museum’s holdings. Most American museums had them, but in Japan, the job was still fairly rare; the Morioka obviously took its collections quite seriously to have established the office of registrar. I thought it was interesting, too, that Mr. Shima didn’t have the stereotyped geeky museum-employee appearance. He was in his mid-forties and looked fit. His hair was cut short in a fashionable style. His age meant that he was probably married, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he went to hostess bars or had a girlfriend on the side, from the way he had checked me out when I’d had to bend over for a second to get my business cards out of my backpack.

I was actually quite modestly dressed. I’d decided that to subtly show my passion for Japanese textiles, I would wear one. Thus I had layered an early-twentieth-century
haori
coat patterned with pink and orange
ikat
arrows over a simple black dress that went right to the knee. It seemed a better option than a skirted suit, not to mention that my suits were all out of style—the early-1990s Talbots vintage.

I bowed deeply when Mr. Shima introduced me to his boss, Mr. Ito. The museum’s director was as round as a Buddha, an interesting effect with a salaryman-blue suit stretched over his girth. It was hard to assign an age to the man, but I guessed that he was in his sixties. I couldn’t
sense how he felt about meeting me, so I trotted out my Japanese etiquette again and apologized profusely for taking him away from his management concerns.

Mr. Nishio, the textile curator who was supposed to have traveled to the U.S., swept in five minutes later. He made brief apologies to both Mr. Shima and Mr. Ito before bowing to me in a slight movement that didn’t communicate much respect. He seemed to be studying my clothing with an incredulous expression. Now I wished I had dressed more conservatively. Mr. Nishio might think that a woman who’d wear an antique
haori
with impunity would take it upon herself to slip into one of their antique kimono when nobody was looking.

I handed Mr. Nishio my business card, just as I’d handed cards to the two other men, but instead of reading it, he stuffed it into his pocket like a gum wrapper he would later discard.

Well, Mr. Nishio wasn’t the big boss, I told myself. He might be tense because he hadn’t really wanted to cancel his trip to Washington, D.C. People usually relished opportunities to shop abroad and buy luxury goods, like the Hermès tie he was wearing, for a lower price than in Japan.

We finally sat down, the three of them in the row of chairs facing me, as I’d expected. I sat on the lone chair on the west side of the table, pulling at the edge of my
haori
coat to cover the slight bit of thigh that was exposed. An office lady my age wafted in with a trayful of small cups of green tea. She served me first, as was customary since I was a guest, but I was careful not to sip before the men did.

“So you would like to take Nishio-san’s place as the lecturer in Washington,” Mr. Shima, the registrar, said. The way he phrased it let me know he was already offended at the prospect of my going to Washington.

“I’m not trying to take his place, exactly. I was told that he could not travel,” I said.

“Actually, we were both to have traveled together,” Mr. Shima said. “As registrar, I am accountable for the safety of our possessions. Nishio-san is the textile curator, with a subspecialty in traditional religious garments. We traveled together four years earlier to bring some altar cloths for an exhibition at the Museum of Asian Arts.”

“Ah, what a beautiful exhibition that must have been. I will do my best to follow you. You may have heard of my specialty in Japanese antique furniture, but I did write a paper on kimono while in the master’s program at the University of California at Berkeley.”

“So you’re a Californian?” The question came from Mr. Ito.

“I was born there, but my father’s from Yokohama,” I said, as always trying to qualify myself as Japanese.

“So you don’t really know Washington, D.C.” Mr. Ito’s voice was flat.

I’d stressed the wrong part of my identity. Now I quickly said, “I do! As an undergraduate, I visited the Museum of Asian Arts to do research. And my mother’s family is in the area—”

“How well do you know the staff?” Mr. Ito asked pointedly.

Damn it, I shouldn’t have mentioned my mother. Too unprofessional. In a more subdued voice, I said, “I have spoken several times with Powell-san, and I think we have a good working relationship.”

“Powell-san mentioned that you plan to remove some treasures from our collection to exhibit in Washington.” Mr. Shima spoke up.

“I have been requested by the Asian Arts Museum to bring some items, yes.” I fumbled for a rejoinder and
came up with, “I understand that you had already approved a specific group of textiles that could travel.”

“This is a very last-minute request for a courier. That makes it…difficult,” Mr. Shima said, looking sideways at his boss, Mr. Ito.

Aha. Now I sensed what was going on. The museum’s administration had decided against participating in the Museum of Asian Arts exhibit. Mr. Ito, the museum director, was the good cop, Mr. Shima was the bad one, and Mr. Nishio was the mute. The important thing was, they were all against me.

I fixed my attention on all three men and said: “As someone who grew up in the United States, I would like to explain something about the nature of American museum culture. American museums promote their programs many months in advance. The highlights of the exhibits are described in magazines and newspapers. Powell-san has planned an opening reception for six hundred guests—including high Japanese government dignitaries from the Japanese embassy. She believes up to ten thousand visitors will come to admire the kimono during their three-month exhibition. The visitors hope to see the treasures of the Morioka. If you withdraw, the American museum may be so injured by loss of status that it will not recover.”

“You really think…our
kosode
will be the highlight?” Mr. Ito said, after a pause.

“Absolutely! The centerpiece! And the talk I’ll give—why, I’ll go beyond discussing just the textiles you’ve brought, but bring attention to the importance of the Morioka as Japan’s leading textile museum.”

I sensed I was gaining ground until Mr. Nishio finally spoke. “I understand you have a good feeling for American museums, even though you’ve never worked in one. But surely you must admit that it is unusual for the
museum to ask a freelance antiques buyer—someone who doesn’t have her own shop, not to mention museum ties here—to be the speaker.”

Smiling apologetically, I said, “I know that I am young and not as experienced as you. I imagine they chose me in part for my bilingual ability.”

“What makes you think there are no skilled English speakers here?” Mr. Shima demanded.

It was the Morioka’s policy to hire only native Japanese; I was told that when I was turned down for an internship four years ago. But I couldn’t say that; it was too combative. Instead, I widened my eyes and said, “I understand Mr. Nishio was the first choice, but apparently he told them that he could not go?”

Mr. Ito shot a surprised look at Mr. Shima, and Mr. Nishio looked down at the floor.

Mr. Shima said, “That’s right. He is needed here to do work on our next exhibition, and to oversee some of my work during my vacation. I’m very sorry that I must go—”

“Completely understandable,” Mr. Ito said in a brisk voice. “Shima-san has not taken a day off in five years. The Japanese government has asked managers to encourage all employees to take their vacation times so they will not die of heart attacks from overworking.”

Mr. Shima coughed. “I feel guilty about the loss of service to my museum, as well as the American museum being inconvenienced. Perhaps we should present the prospect of Miss Shimura’s travel plan at our committee next week.”

Enough of all the fake apologies. I looked straight at each man again and said, “The problem is that I’m scheduled to travel twenty days from now. If you’re not interested in having your kimono included, I must warn Miss Powell so she may organize with another mu
seum.” This was a bluff, because I knew Allison wanted kimono only from the Morioka—and it would be impossible to organize a kimono loan elsewhere.

There was silence, and I wondered if I’d gone too far.

“Regarding the Asian Arts Museum travel plan, we will try to give an answer as soon as possible,” Mr. Ito said. “But please understand that Japanese museums make plans carefully.”

“American ones do, too,” I said. “This exhibit was two years in the making. It’s sad that because of some last-minute employee-scheduling conflict, the centerpiece might be missing.”

We all said a few more things, none of them constructive. I left the museum with nothing but Mr. Ito’s hollow promise that one of his men would call me. Yeah, sure. I’d heard that one before.

“S
o, how much do you think it would cost me to have a sex change?” I asked Takeo Kayama, from my position curled up near the space heater in the traditional living room of his country house in Hayama the next evening. We had been eating our supper of an octopus-and-corn pizza on a short-legged
kotatsu
table that had a tiny heater underneath it, to warm our feet. There was nothing else in the room except for the
zabuton
cushions we sat on and a casual arrangement of pampas grass and bittersweet in a vase in the room’s ceremonial alcove.

“Well, you’d lose the chance to sleep with me,” said Takeo. He was lounging on the
tatami
-mat floor looking like a handsome cat burglar in his black cashmere turtleneck and jeans. The only thing marring his elegant appearance was a pair of thick ragg wool socks on his feet, necessary protection against the cold.

“Now, if I were a Japanese man, the Morioka Museum would without question let me take the kimono to America. I wouldn’t have lost a night of sleep worrying.” I didn’t think I’d get much more sleep at Takeo’s place. The
shoji
screens were rattling fiercely from the strong winds that went with the onset of typhoon season.

“I’m glad you’re not going to America. I’d rather have you around here.” Takeo smiled lazily at me, and pulled me against his body.

“Well, what if I
do
get permission to go? Would you come with me? It would be about a week to ten days.” I knew that he’d be free, because Takeo didn’t really have a job. He sat on a few environmental organizations’ boards, worked on and off on the restoration of his family’s country house, and arranged flowers and gardened.

“I haven’t been back to the U.S. since I graduated from Santa Cruz. What was that, six years ago?”

“Well, maybe it’s time. You could come to California with me when I’m visiting my parents at the tail end of the trip. Before that, you’d be in Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital—there’s an arboretum and a botanical garden you might like.”

Takeo snorted. “I can’t think of worse torture than going back to the country where ketchup is a vegetable and anyone can buy a gun. I don’t like the thought of you being anywhere outside the museum, your hotel, and your parents’ place. It’s simply too dangerous.”

“Okay,” I said, “I disinvite you, then—if ‘disinvite’ is a word. I’ve been away from my own country so long I’ve practically forgotten the language.” I rolled away from him, and waited for him to come after me. He didn’t, so I spoke again. “You know, Takeo, what you say about the world being dangerous bothers me. I miss going out. I can hardly remember the last time we went to the Kabuki theater or saw a foreign film at the Yebisu Garden Cinema or even had dinner at Aunt Norie’s house—”

“Everything you mention relates to consumption. You want to go places and spend money.”

“Not at my aunt’s.”

“Well, we’ve got to take her some kind of gourmet gift.”

“I always buy the gift,” I said pointedly.

“I wish you wouldn’t harp on this. When we started seeing each other, I was impressed because you seemed to be the one woman who didn’t want things from me. Now you want to trot me out everywhere like a showpiece.”

“So you think I’m causing the tabloid problems? Actually, if you hadn’t been so overly passionate with me on the street, we wouldn’t have been photographed.”

“It bothers me that you believe the tabloid invasion came about because of me. I think
you
are the one they’re really interested in.”

“Me? The daughter of a little-known interior decorator and a professor of psychiatry? I’m hardly as fascinating as the young heir to the eighth-richest man in Japan.” I could have bitten my tongue after the words came out, because I didn’t mean to rub Takeo’s father in his face.

“Your parents don’t matter, but
you
do,” Takeo accused. “For the last two years the papers have been full of tiny but perfectly placed mentions of Rei Shimura. You’ve helped the police solve murders, you’ve rescued long-lost historic treasures, and you’d go dancing every night if the clubs you favored didn’t keep getting raided.”

“If that’s supposed to be a compliment, I’m not taking it,” I said tightly. “In fact, I’m not going to stay here. There are still a couple of trains back to the city tonight.”

Takeo shrugged. “It’s your choice.”

“Thanks for the pizza and your extreme kindness.” I used the super-polite Japanese phrase with deep sarcasm. I’d expected to be defeated by the men at the Morioka, but not by the boyfriend who’d been intimate
with me an hour earlier. The trickling, sinking feeling I had as I left Takeo’s house that night was not a good one.

T
he next week, I heard nothing from Takeo, even though I’d called to leave a message, and nothing from the museum. Thursday evening I went to have dinner with my aunt Norie, and she spent half the time trying to figure out why Takeo wasn’t with me. I couldn’t possibly tell her that he’d rather just have sex with me in his house than eat
shabu-shabu
with all of us.

On Friday morning, my telephone finally rang. Mr. Shima told me the museum’s high committee had ruled that I could carry seven robes to the Museum of Asian Arts—not the original eight, because upon recent examination, one was deemed too fragile.

I hung up the phone and screamed. I’d won! Even though I could take only seven robes instead of eight, I was back to Washington on $500 a day.

I returned to the Morioka the following Monday to look at the kimono. Mr. Shima met me with a weak smile.

“Shimura-san, I’m pleased that we can allow you to carry the collection of
kosode
.”

“I am, too. Thank you for your generous consideration,” I said, wondering if Mr. Shima was really glad or employing
tatamae
—the surface courtesy that made Japanese social encounters as smooth as raked sand in a Zen garden. Some foreigners railed against
tatamae
: they called it phony and insincere. I thought
tatamae
prevented fights and ugly situations, and it also enabled people who had disagreed to find their way to compromise and take care of business as needed.

Mr. Nishio still didn’t look happy to see me. Silently,
he slipped on a pair of spotless cotton gloves and opened a long acid-free cardboard box. He withdrew a flat rectangle wrapped in tissue paper: the identical manner in which my aunt and I stored our own kimono. The acid-free tissue paper, as well as a stronger external rice-paper wrapper, protected against the pervasive moisture in Japanese air, although I also imagined that the museum’s storage was climate-controlled.

Mr. Nishio unfolded the kimono and laid it out on a long table covered by a clean muslin cloth. The garment was a dramatic red silk
furisode,
the name for any woman’s kimono that had very long sleeves. The kimono had been decorated with an elegant design of palace curtains, clouds, and fans using
shibori
and
yuzen
dyeing techniques, appliqué, and silk thread and metallic thread embroidery. Its style was exuberant and exquisite all at once.

“This kimono has not seen light for more than thirty years,” Mr. Shima commented. “I’m pleased to see that its condition has stayed constant. We have a climate-controlled storage, of course, but one always worries.”

“What an outstanding example of Edo-period design.” I stretched out my hand toward a sleeve, then pulled it back. What was I doing, trying to touch a museum object that was so fragile?

“Don’t touch without gloves,” Mr. Nishio said sharply.

“Actually, she will need to touch when she hands the items over,” Mr. Shima said in an almost apologetic voice to his colleague. “Why don’t we give her a pair of gloves?”

“Are you sure? Thanks,” I said, putting on the gloves and lightly touching the embroidery. “I’ve never seen one so lovely as this. The embroidery is completely intact, and the design is so bold—that’s
nuishime shi
bori,
” I said, mentioning a style of tie-dyeing that became very popular during the Edo period.

“The tie-dyeing techniques are
kanoko
and
nuishime shibori,
” Mr. Shima said. “Now Nishio-san will show you our technique for refolding the kimono; we fold sleeves in the opposite direction, using acid-free tissue paper as cushioning in order to avoid degradation of the fibers. You will need to do this in case you are asked to unfold some of the robes at customs.”

Moving slowly and deliberately, reminding me of a Noh theater actor, Mr. Nishio refolded the kimono and set it aside.

“Time for number two,” Mr. Shima said cheerily.

This kimono was what was classified as
kosode,
a shorter-sleeved robe befitting a more mature woman than the red
furisode
. It was adorned with a graceful pattern of orchids covered with small drifts of snow, using a stunning combination of two styles of
shibori
tie-dyeing, and silk thread and metallic thread embroidery.

The third kimono was actually a
juban,
an under-jacket worn by men and women. This one was a creamy silk decorated with a pattern of books. “A woman’s
juban,
” I said. “Not many have survived, so this is really special. First half of the nineteenth century?”

“Why do you think that it belonged to a woman?” Mr. Shima asked me.

I didn’t have a good answer for this, because although the books on the robe were dyed in attractive greens and purples, these colors could be worn by men as well as women. “The writing on the kimono is in
hiragana
. In the Edo period, not all women read
kanji
characters.”

Mr. Nishio cleared his throat and said, “This
juban,
and the orchid-patterned kimono, were worn by Ryohei Tokugawa’s wife.”

I knew, of course, about the Tokugawa clan, which was the last family dynasty that ruled Japan as Shoguns. But I hadn’t heard of Ryohei Tokugawa. There was no point in hiding my ignorance. “Are you talking about one of the Shogun’s relations?”

“Yes, a cousin to Yoshinobu—the last Shogun,” Mr. Nishio added pointedly, as if I might not know.

“Do you have a lot of Ryohei’s wife’s clothing?”

“Some of it. Many kimono were given away to her courtiers. We have a full description in this diary photocopy we have prepared for you.”

Photocopies that I’d have to have translated because my
kanji
knowledge was so poor, I thought ruefully. “If it’s not too much trouble—could you talk about this as we go along?”

“Yes, please tell her. The lecture will only go more smoothly,” Mr. Shima said to his colleague.

In a halting voice, as if he really couldn’t bear to share any secrets with me, Mr. Nishio talked. He showed me the various tiny places that showed signs of age and fragility on a formal black kimono with the Tokugawa crest, and the ancient soy-sauce stain on a girl-child’s kimono that was embroidered with cherry blossoms. It was believed that the girl who’d worn the kimono might have been the child of Ryohei and his wife.

We moved on from the Tokugawa kimono to some others, which, I found to my surprise, were even lovelier. I sighed over a cool blue
furisode
patterned with images of palace curtains, and another striking long-sleeved robe dyed and embroidered with streams, flowers, and pavilions upon which rested bamboo cages holding crickets—the era’s favorite musical performers. Mr. Nishio said that these kimono came from the same source—a tea merchant’s wife who was alive at the same time as Mrs. Ryohei Tokugawa.

It seemed bizarre to me that the more splendid kimono belonged to a tea merchant’s wife, not to the wife who was part of the Shogun’s family. I wanted to get the translations of the photocopies done so I could read them for myself.

“Do you know the tea merchant’s name?” I asked.

“Otani.” Mr. Shima mentioned one of the most common names in Japan. “The Otani heirs donated quite a collection, including a splendid
uchikake
we can guess Mrs. Otani wore at her own wedding.”

“What a gorgeous piece that must be,” I said, wanting to hear more.

“Yes. The Otanis became poor during the war, so they sold their collection of family textiles to an American officer living here during the occupation years. That American sold the kimono to our museum in the 1960s.”

I paused. An idea was growing, but I was hesitant to express the whole thing before I’d thought it through. “If it’s not too much trouble, I would like to see the rest of the Otani collection. I’d like to learn as much as I can before speaking to Americans about your holdings.”

Mr. Shima raised his eyebrows. “It would be easier for the library staff to show you the slides first; then, if you’re still interested, I shall bring the robe.”

“That sounds fine.” I was glad for the chance to study something on my own, without either of the men standing like a black cloud over my shoulder.

Inside the museum’s small library, a studious-looking young woman brought slides and accompanying notes to me within a few minutes. Since everything was all written in Japanese, I did what I always do in such situations: photocopy, and arrange for translation later, on my own time. The slides were easier for me to appreciate. The tea merchant’s family had a vast assortment of
kimono that seemed to range in age from early nineteenth century to the 1920s. It was the early-nineteenth-century robes that I was interested in, and as I’d suspected, a number of them had images that would have been appropriate for a courtesan to wear: in addition to exquisite florals, there were vistas of teahouses and symbols of an incense-smelling game. These were not the kimono of a typical housewife—not even a rich one. I had a sense of the kind of woman they might have belonged to, but it would take a bit of independent research before I could confirm this fact for myself.

The last slide I looked at was that of the
uchikake
I’d heard about. It was a scarlet silk satin robe decorated with pairs of mandarin ducks diving through a pond that rippled with tie-dyed
shibori
droplets of water. Blossoming cherry trees created with meticulous embroidery added to the charming picture. This kimono was not as grandly decadent as some Mr. Shima had shown me, but it was sweet, romantic, and amusing. It would serve beautifully as the highlight for my talk.