The Pearl Diver (14 page)

I perked up at the mention of the Japanese-American group—could it be my group, WJFS, that he meant?—but stored the thought away as he continued talking.

“A lot of marriages like ours were breaking up. After Sadie left,
when I went through her things, I found that she’d taken her passport. It seemed clear that she wanted to go back.”

“Did the police check to see whether she traveled back to Japan?”

“They checked with Japanese immigration, sure. There was no record.”

“What time was this investigation?” I asked.

“Right away, in 1974. The investigation remained open—I mean, I kept hearing from the FBI—until ’77, when the body washed up.”

But if Sadako was still alive, she could have traveled later, and not been noticed. That was a happy thought except for the fact that it would mean she’d abandoned her daughter.

“I don’t understand,” I said carefully. “If what you say is true, that she didn’t commit suicide but pretended, and then ran away, why didn’t she take Andrea with her?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It seemed like the baby was the only thing that made her happy.”

We left half an hour later. I’d tried to linger, to give Andrea and her father a chance to talk, but Lorraine made it impossible. She cut Andrea off every time she tried to say something, kept looking at her watch and commenting on how she had to get back to work. I thought we might be able to outlast her, or sneak back to the restaurant so Andrea could talk to Robert, but he announced a sudden need to drive into Charlottesville for supplies.

“Y’all are welcome to the rest room before going back. It’s a long trip,” Lorraine said pointedly.

We all declined.

“Well, when’s your flight back?” Lorraine persisted.

“Not for several months,” I said, smiling widely. “Not until we learn all that can be learned about Sadako-san’s death.”

“Oh, really?” Lorraine’s expression froze.

“Yes, maybe you come see us in Washington if you remember something. We can meet at Andrea’s place,” I said, because Hugh’s apartment would not seem a likely living space for two ladies visiting from Japan.

“I don’t know about that—” Andrea started to say, just as Lorraine began exclaiming about how the pollution had caused
her such bad allergic reactions the last time she’d been in D.C. that she’d had to get a prescription.

So we left with the box of papers, but not much else. I backed out slowly from the driveway, Robert’s truck on one side of me and a sparkling silver Honda Accord parked on the other side. The Honda had to be Lorraine’s car. She’d parked it so close to the Lexus that I had to hold my breath when I got in the driver’s-side door.

Only Aunt Norie was pleased with how things had gone—we’d secured the box of papers, after all. But I’d hoped for more. I couldn’t imagine what Andrea was thinking.

As I drove north on the country roads at a safer speed than we’d traveled them before, Aunt Norie’s head lolled against the window. The jet lag from her long trip had hit her at last.

“What happened in the kitchen? I thought I heard you talking,” Andrea said.

“I asked your father more about what happened.” I filled Andrea in on the body that had been found and identified as her mother’s.

“It can’t be her,” Andrea said flatly. “I know it can’t.”

“Well, the problem is, your mother didn’t have dental records to be used as a comparison. But it is possible, don’t you think?”

“You want it to be her. You want to have a quick, easy answer like the rest of them.” Andrea sounded bitter.

“Look, I was able to help you obtain the box of papers,” I said. “Now you have them and you’re welcome to go through them on your own. And now your father knows where you work. He might want to get in touch when he’s not being scrutinized by that horrible second wife of his. Or Davon might want to, as well.”

“It’s a good idea,” Aunt Norie said between yawns from the back seat. “A family should know all members. I am going to find your Japanese family for you, too, when I return.”

“Say what?” Andrea erupted so loudly that I jumped and started to swerve off the road. “Listen, it’s pretty clear that my
friggin’ relatives here don’t want me, no way and no how. These are black people pushing me out. I can only imagine how it’ll be with the Japanese.”

“Obasan, maybe she has a point,” I said. “I may have gone too far, and I’m sorry for that. But, Andrea, you have to admit that you asked us to bring you here. You didn’t want to do it on your own.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want you to try to remake my life. I’m totally humiliated.”

“Let’s forget about it, then.” I needed to calm her down. “You’ve got that box of information. It’s yours, not mine to look at. And I suppose you don’t want to hear more of what your father said to me.”

“Of course I do!” Andrea exploded. “I want to know everything.”

“Well, your father said that she led a very closed life. She had trouble making friends. He said that she vanished with her passport, but there was never any indication she returned to Japan—although he admitted that the police hadn’t followed up with the immigration authorities every year. My thought is that she might have stayed in the U.S. for a few years longer, perhaps working, and then, when she had enough money, she could have flown back.”

“That I can find out,” Norie said sleepily. “When I return, I can check.”

There was silence all the way to 495, but as we surged into traffic—the afternoon rush hour, so slow moving that it put Aunt Norie to sleep—Andrea spoke again.

“I’m sorry I was so sharp. I thought maybe, because ten years had passed, it would be better, but it wasn’t. It never is.”

“I felt for you,” I said simply. The fact was, her father had been disappointing and her stepmother dreadful, but Andrea herself had been combative. Nobody had won prizes in the family Olympics that day.

“It’s okay now,” Andrea said shortly. “I’m starting to chill, a bit. And now that my dad knows where I work, maybe he’ll look me up sometime.”

I nodded in agreement, although I didn’t believe it for a minute.

The next morning, after Hugh had slipped out of the apartment just after dawn, I sleepily showered and went in the kitchen to set up a breakfast that I thought my aunt would enjoy: French toast with a homemade strawberry sauce, coffee, and freshly squeezed orange juice.

“You must be very clean.” Norie greeted me in Japanese when she stepped into the kitchen while I was sautéing strawberries in butter.

“
Heh
?” I looked down, and caught sight of a strawberry stain on my sweater. What was she talking about?

“This morning, you took two showers. I overheard the shower at five and then six-thirty. What’s wrong with you?”

I was speechless for a moment, then recovered. “I awoke early, showered, then went running. I had to shower afterward.”

“Ah so desu ka,”
Norie said, nodding. “Yes, that is a good idea if you will be trying on clothing this morning.”

“What do you mean, trying on clothing?” I asked, setting the French toast before her.

“We need to shop for your wedding dress. And in the evening, I was thinking about visiting your restaurant.” Norie tasted the French toast with strawberries, chewed, then smiled. “Delicious.”

“I could take you to Bento for lunch. I’d be happy to.” I was trying to remember what Marshall had said about my bringing guests. I was fairly certain that I had a house tab of some sort. I’d need it, because I was momentarily low on cash.

“Wouldn’t dinner be better? Then Hugh-san can join us.”

“He’s working late tonight. I’ll cook for the two of us.” In fact, Hugh had told me he was sick of the pub and had decided to eat and stay late at his office, where there was a couch.

“Don’t feed a caught fish,” Norie said in Japanese.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s an old Japanese saying. Before a fish is caught, it is fed and kept alive and treated very nicely. But once it is caught—” Norie raised her eyebrows. “No more special treatment.”

“Are you saying I should stay unmarried?” I was shocked.

“Of course not,” said Norie. “Just don’t cheat yourself of any pleasure while you still have a chance.”

“You and I will go out to dinner tonight,” I said with determination. “I’m sure that you’ll enjoy meeting Jiro, our Japanese executive chef.”

“Very good. Don’t you think seven o’clock will be about right? Now, we need to decide where to go for your wedding dress.”

Without much hope, I suggested we visit the close Maryland suburbs of Chevy Chase and Bethesda. Neiman Marcus, Saks-Jandel, and Saks Fifth Avenue would be considerably smaller than Japanese department stores, I warned her, but there were bridal boutiques in other suburbs that we could visit. But I wanted to start off in Chevy Chase so I could drop off my Japanese kites at the Washington-Japan Friendship Society. I also thought there was a slight chance WJFS might have, within its membership, someone who had known Sadako.

We traveled on the Metro against the morning rush hour, so we had seats, and Norie enjoyed the view of suburban northwest Washington and Maryland. It brought up her recollections of how undeveloped Yokohama had once been. I couldn’t think of the D.C. suburbs as undeveloped, but I could understand what she saw, from her Japanese perspective: a sky that was not filled up by boxy apartment complexes, but small houses, fifty years old, surrounded by green lawns. Hugh and I hadn’t come close to buying a home. I knew that a simple brick ranch house in one of these neighborhoods would go for more than a million. I mentioned the prices to Aunt Norie, but she nodded sagely.

“The houses are large, but they are too expensive, still. It’s better to have an apartment in Japan. Fewer rooms are easier to clean,
neh
? I notice you have no time to clean the apartment here. If only it were smaller.”

I ignored the comment about my halfhearted cleaning attempts. “I’m trying to get back to Japan, Obasan.”

“How are you doing that?” she asked. We were both speaking in Japanese, which made me comfortable enough to relay the joke Hugh had made over a month ago.

“I’ve been advised that I need to accomplish something great that will be noticed by the Japanese government. Maybe I’ll become a singing sensation, earn millions of dollars, and then get knighted.”

“Very funny, Rei-chan, but ladies cannot be knighted. Actually, I’ve been thinking,
neh,
that if you can do something to aid the nation of Japan, you might be readmitted.”

“‘Aid the nation of Japan’?” I echoed her words. “If that means showing around a Japanese citizen and giving her a good understanding of the life and people here, I’d be happy to do it.”

“And, you could find the killer of an innocent Japanese citizen, a woman forgotten long ago by society, but who deserves justice. If you can do that, the government will be grateful and surely relent.”

“I don’t know that she was killed, Obasan. There’s no indication—”

Norie interrupted me. “What kind of Japanese woman disappears with her passport and then doesn’t go home?”

“A passport’s an important document to have, whether or not you plan to travel right away. Perhaps she wanted to start a new life in another part of the United States.”

“I wondered about that, too, except for what new Mrs. Norton said.”

“Oh?” I stopped looking out the window.

“While you were downstairs getting the papers with Mr. Norton, Andrea-chan was speaking with new Mrs. Norton. Andrea-chan said something about her mother perhaps being alive and somewhere else in America, but new Mrs. Norton said it was impossible. She works for a security administration, and she knows.”

New Mrs. Norton. I wished Norie had used that phrase in conversation with Lorraine so I could have caught the second wife’s reaction. “It’s called the Social Security Administration. She was wearing an ID tag on a chain around her neck.”

“New Mrs. Norton said to Andrea that if Sadako-san was alive and working anywhere, going to any hospital, or receiving any kind of benefit, her personal number would have been active.
Mrs. Norton has checked herself, the last time ten years ago, and there is no evidence. She says Sadako-san probably died in a tragic accident.”

“I wouldn’t believe everything Lorraine Norton says,” I told my aunt. “She has a powerful reason not to want Sadako to surface. If Sadako is still alive, it means that Robert committed bigamy by marrying Lorraine.” At least, I thought so. I would have to ask Hugh how the law would apply in that case.

In Bethesda, we bombed out at Claire Dratch’s salon because we hadn’t made an advance appointment. So we went on to Chevy Chase, where we visited shop after shop and I tried on the few dresses my aunt and I agreed on. I didn’t like the way I looked in any of them. Maybe it was because I wasn’t as rail thin as I’d been in Japan, or because I wasn’t used to seeing myself dressed like a cupcake.

Fortunately, the salesclerks at the boutiques seemed very familiar with this phenomenon of brides who tried but were hesitant to buy—especially when they heard it was my first day of shopping. Norie, on the other hand, was disturbed that I couldn’t commit.

“At least I haven’t spent thousands of dollars on something I don’t like,” I said as we dodged traffic on Wisconsin Avenue to get to Saks.

“If money is an issue, you must let me help you,” Norie said instantly. “You are saving me thousands in hotel bills. I should buy your dress.”

It was a good deal, but I couldn’t accept it—especially since I wasn’t in the mood to like anything at Saks. I also had other
things that I wanted to do, such as grab lunch and then drop the kites off at the WJFS office, which kept afternoon hours only.

“How about sushi for lunch?” I said brightly.

We went to Tako, a casual Japanese restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue, right around the corner from WJFS. Hugh had introduced me to the deliciously smoky grilled eel here when I’d first visited Washington. Grilled eel should go on Bento’s menu, I decided as I looked around the packed restaurant. I wondered how Bento was doing, now that it had started serving lunch. I should have checked yesterday, I thought guiltily. I should have let Marshall know when the woodblock prints we’d chosen a month earlier would be back from the framer’s and ready to hang. All in all, it was fortuitous that I was going to see him at the restaurant that night.

We each had miso soup to start. Norie pronounced it undrinkable, but it tasted yummy to me. My red snapper sushi was fresh and tender, but Norie was bent on comparing it to
tai
, a superlative, light-tasting fish that you couldn’t get in Washington, let alone most parts of the world outside Japan.

“You liked an American fish yesterday,” I reminded her.

“Yes, but it was cooked in the American fashion. That made it superb.”

I scrutinized my aunt. “I think you observe a double standard. You think that Japanese food should only be cooked and eaten in Japan, and American food here?”

“Usually, that would be the case. However, I’m sure the restaurant you are helping is wonderful. It has a Japanese chef,
neh
?”

“Yes. An Iron Chef, actually. He’s called Jiro Takeda.”

“I haven’t heard of him.” Norie frowned.

“He’s very good,” I said. “I’ve learned a few recipes from him already. Andrea’s working under him in the kitchen right now, learning all about food preparation.”

“I thought that she was a restaurant hostess?”

“She ran into a little trouble the first night, so Marshall took her off that duty. I think she’ll be restored to hostess later on.”

“But kitchen work is very special. Maybe she’ll learn so much that she can become a chef someday. Wouldn’t that be incredible?” Norie clasped her hands together.

“Not exactly,” I said. “There are women chefs here, as I’m sure there are in Japan.”

“Very few,” Norie said. “When I was a young lady, it was not considered a proper profession. Even today, I can’t say I’ve ever seen a woman sushi chef. They say our hands are too warm! Ridiculous,
neh
?”

Would Norie have liked to cook as a professional? I didn’t ask her, but as we left the restaurant and walked around the corner to the Washington-Japan Friendship Society, I thought about how good she would have been. Her
nabe
dishes—simmered, deep-tasting complex broths in which a variety of seafood, vegetables, or meat cooked—were like nobody else’s. So many cold nights in Japan I’d gone to her house for dinner, and huddled with the others around the
kotatsu
table draped with a quilt to keep the warmth of the heater going below, to warm our legs. But the real warmth was Aunt Norie’s
nabe
pot.

We were at the friendship society building now—or rather, the half of a 1930s single-story duplex that housed it. The other side of the building was a printing press, a little New Age venture that consisted of two long-haired, middle-aged white men infatuated enough with Japan to offer to help out with the printing of the forthcoming history. I explained this to Aunt Norie as one of the printers bowed solemnly to us through the window.

“I just have to drop off these kites for the festival,” I said, holding up the shopping bag that I’d been lugging around all morning. “It will take only a few minutes.”

The office was a small, cheerful room decorated with old Japan Tourist Organization posters advertising tourist destinations in Japan. There was a long table someone had probably gotten from a school, and it was covered with papers and envelopes.
Evidently, a mass mailing was in progress. A seventy-something Japanese-American man in a striped sweater sat at the table folding papers with precision, then sliding each one in an envelope. I didn’t know him, so I just nodded and smiled and tried to catch the attention of Betty Nagano, one of my better friends in the group. Betty was somewhere in her seventies and very well preserved, with a face the shape of a full moon—a happy, smiling moon, like out of children’s storybooks.

She was smiling at me now as she continued her conversation on the telephone. “Just get the cans of
inari-zushi-no-moto
, it comes in cute little cans with a picture of the stuffed tofu skins on the outside. And then, you’ll need to make rice.” Another pause. “Borrow or buy a rice cooker. They sell them at Asian stores as well.”

Under my breath I said to Aunt Norie, “It sounds as if she’s trying to teach someone to make
inarizushi
for the festival.”

“
Inarizushi
? Who needs a recipe for that?” Norie sounded incredulous.

Betty had hung up the phone and was smiling at us. “Sorry, Rei. I was just speaking with one of our younger members. She’s never actually made rice, only had it in restaurants. Isn’t that a shame?”

I didn’t know whether to feel flattered, or unnerved, that Betty didn’t consider me one of the group’s younger members. “Mrs. Nagano, I’d like you to meet my aunt Norie Shimura. She’s visiting from Japan.”

“Betty, please.” Betty Nagano gave me a mock-scolding look, then bowed deeply and greeted Norie with the customary words in Japanese. Norie bowed even lower and uttered the matching pleasantries. Then the two ladies stood stiffly, smiling at each other. And the older man folding envelopes was looking with interest at Norie now.

“This is my husband, Yuji,” Betty said. “You haven’t met Rei before, have you, Yuji? And this is her aunt, Shimura Norie-san. “

From Yuji Nagano’s grunt, I could tell he was really from Japan, unlike his wife, Betty, who spoke good, ladylike Hawaiian Japanese.
Now I remembered her telling me that Yuji had immigrated to Hawaii in the early 1940s with his rice farmer parents, but their dreams were put on hold when the whole family was sent to an internment camp after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. The Naganos lost their farm to unscrupulous people who’d promised to protect it for them during the war years, but at least Yuji had found the treasure of Betty—a close childhood friend from the camp whom he married in the 1950s.

I wished I could tell this all to my aunt, who was bowing to Mr. Nagano and asking him where he came from in Japan. Nagano, fittingly, the province that bore his name.

“I’ve brought you two carp kites,” I said. “I thought it might be useful at the festival. They really do fly, so the children might enjoy them.”

“Oh, how nice of you. May I see?” Betty said, and motioned for me to take the first kite out of the shopping bag in which I’d been carrying it. As I laid it out, Mr. Nagano gathered up his papers and envelopes carefully, giving me room to unfurl the faded red-and-orange fish.

“But this looks antique!” Betty exclaimed.

“Oh, no, it’s just a bit old. Fifty years, I think. The other one’s the same vintage, but blue and green. I wasn’t sure which color you’d like better, or if you could use both.”

“The kite was my brother’s,” Norie said. “I gave it to Rei years ago, when I was helping my parents organize. I couldn’t imagine why she wanted it.”

“It’s so beautiful,” Betty said, looking at the kite in awe. “But I’m worried that it might be damaged if the children get their hands on it. It’s certainly not the kind of durable polyester kite we usually let them play with.”

I paused and thought about what she was really saying. Maybe she didn’t like the kite, thought it looked too drab compared with the brightly colored ones wrapped in plastic that I saw stashed in a corner of a room.

“If you’d rather we didn’t use it, that’s fine,” I said.

“It looks old and a bit dirty,” Norie said quickly. She was identifying with me and denigrating, in the true Japanese fashion, what we’d offered.

“No, no, I really like it,” Betty insisted. “I just think we should put anything this special in a place of honor…maybe a display area where we’ll be promoting our community history book. Yes, that might draw people over to it quite nicely.”

“I saw your call for submissions. I don’t think I’ve lived here long enough to be helpful in telling your history, but I could help in editing or something like that,” I offered. I had done so little for the society that I was embarrassed.

“We don’t have much yet,” Betty said. “My husband’s not much of a writer, but he has the best memory of anyone, so he’s been talking at night and I’ve been trying to record it.”

“Betty, was the society active during the 1970s?”

“Yes, indeed. It was formed in the late forties to help the war brides who’d started coming over.”

“Are there records of members from the seventies?”

“Sure. It’s all in that file cabinet in the corner.” Betty paused. “If you don’t mind my asking, why are you interested in this particular time period?”

I took a deep breath. “I’m curious about your membership rolls because I have a close girlfriend whose mother came here from Ky
sh
during that time. The daughter and mother lost touch, and the daughter’s hoping to find out what happened.”

“Oh, really? What’s the range of years that you want to see, and what is her mother’s name?” Betty had already gone to the file cabinet, and had opened the middle drawer.

“1971 through 1974,” I said. “The woman’s name is Sadako Tsuchiya. Her married name was Norton.”

“Oh! The girl from Ky
sh
who was married to a black soldier?” Betty asked.