The Snow Kimono (18 page)

So, late that night, I found myself walking down the hill beside the stone wall surrounding
Katsuo’s garden. I was thinking about the house, about Mariko, about Katsuo’s unbending
will, and the breakdown of their marriage. It seemed so long ago. So much had happened
in between.

Then I was standing by the iron gate, looking down into the garden, seeing it as
though for the first time. The lanterns, the elaborate terraces planted with bamboo,
the ferns, trees of all sorts. I could hear the sound of falling water. Here and
there, the serpentine flagstone paths reflected the light as they wound their way
up the mountainside. At the heart of the garden, barely visible, shrouded now by
masses of faintly transparent leaves, was the house itself.

All about me I could hear the odd amplified sounds of summer. Frogs calling to each
other. The endless thrumming of crickets. The slow tock, tock, tock of a water clock.
From far below, I could hear the muted stirrings of a harbour city coming to life.

I reached through the grill, pressing myself against the wall as I tried to locate
the latch pull I knew was concealed inside. The stone felt cool through my shirt.
As I stretched my arm out, a tiny movement caught my eye. A small, vividly green
lizard was clinging to an ivy leaf just centimetres above my head, its bulbous eye
staring down into mine. I was so close I could see its fat padded toes, its thick-rimmed
lips, in its side, the fluttering of its tiny heart.

The gate opened silently. A few metres in front of me there was a large ornamental
pond. Plate-sized water-lilies hovered in clusters about its perimeter. From some,
flowers cupped like white hands stood on stalks. Sour-faced fish floated through
the limbs of trees.

I crossed the stepping stones. I saw my shadow flicker
from tree to tree. A breeze
stirred, setting the leaves above me shimmering.

It was only then that I saw her. At the far end of the house, a young woman, sitting
motionless with her back against a pillar. She was wearing a ceremonial kimono, its
white dazzling against the surrounding darkness. Her hair had been intricately pinned.
Muted light spilled from the lantern above her.

She was so still she could have been arranged there. I heard Katsuo’s voice calling
from inside the house.

Sachiko…Sachiko?

His tone sounded vaguely urgent.

I slipped back into the shadows. I saw his silhouette appear against the lighted
doorway. He said something to the young woman, to Sachiko. Without replying, she
slipped down from the wall, knelt to gather up something from the ground, a book,
a small box. Light fell across her face. As she rose, she reached one hand up to
Katsuo’s face and kissed him. Then she disappeared into the house.

Katsuo remained in the doorway looking out into the garden for a few moments, listening.
Waiting. Then, he too turned and disappeared inside.

I made my way back to the gate, silently released the catch. I looked up to where
the lizard had been, but it was no longer there. Below me, I could see the brooding
stillness of the harbour. The sound of a foghorn, long and mournful, seemingly without
beginning or end, floated up to me. As it faded away, I started on the long, steep
descent into the city beneath me, my head
full of questions. Who was Sachiko; where
had she come from; why was she dressed the way she was; how long had she been there;
and, most of all, why was Katsuo keeping her hidden away from us, and the rest of
the world?

You know, Inspector, I wish I had never gone there that night. Sometimes I say to
myself: Tadashi, if only you had never gone there. If only you had never gone.

Chapter 17

A MEMORY comes back to him.

Tell Mariko the story about your father, Katsuo says.

What story?

And so Omura tells Jovert of this memory.

We, he says—Katsuo, Mariko and I—were standing out on the terrace of Katsuo’s new
house. Katsuo had just had it refurbished. He had arranged a huge party, to celebrate
the fact that the work on the house was finally done.

While the other guests congregated outside, or sat in what he now called ‘the long
room’—the sitting room that looked out onto the terrace—Katsuo showed me his special
creation, his ‘study’ as he called it, the secret room he had had constructed at
one end of the house, a room with a one-way mirror which
looked through to an elaborate
bathroom. I knew immediately where this had come from, and what it would be used
for. I had seen such a room many times before.

You know, he had said to me once, Utamaro, Shigenobu, Eisen, all the great artists
did their best work from life. From careful observation. You should come down with
me one night to The Peony. I could get you in. You could observe one of your favourite
tableaux come to life. And see what you’re missing out on.

I have often wondered, Omura told Jovert, what it must have been like to be him,
to be inside his skin, just for a few hours, a day, to experience the world that
inhabited him. How extraordinary it must have been.

You know the one, Katsuo said. The story about your father and the jigsaw puzzles.

Which jigsaw story? I said, even though I knew.

The one about your father…The one where he goes out and buys one of those western-style
jigsaw puzzles.

I don’t think so, I said.

Oh, come, come, Tadashi, my dear friend. Please. Mariko wants to hear it.

But I remained silent. I knew better than to trust Katsuo when he was drunk.

Katsuo started to tell Mariko the story himself. I had only told it to him once but
was unsurprised to hear Katsuo using almost exactly the same words I had used. It
was as if I was speaking. I thought again of how he used to observe us. How powerful
his memory was. He even acted out the part of my father with uncanny accuracy.

And Tadashi, tell Mariko what you told your father when he saw that the half-completed
image was the same as the image on the box in which the puzzle had come. What did
you say to him? What words of pathetic encouragement did you give him? No? Okay,
let me see. He pretended to think for a moment. Katsuo knew exactly what he was going
to say. He raised himself momentarily on his toes. I had never realised that I did
this until I saw him do it that day. I saw how foolish I must seem.

Imitating my slightly clipped way of speaking, he said: Perhaps there’s another way
of looking at it, Father. Perhaps it means something like this—that it doesn’t matter
where you start, if you keep going, you will always find…you will always… Now, what
was it? Oh dear. You-will-always-find…

Completion, I said.

That’s it.
Completion
.

He repeated the word slowly. Completion.

He started to laugh.

Ah Tadashi, he said. You are
such
a comedian.

Mariko had one arm around her waist. The other crooked
into her side, holding her
cigarette up to her face. She was turning slightly from side to side, her body rippling
with suppressed laughter. Katsuo had turned away from me, his arms outstretched on
the balustrade. But I could see that he too was laughing uncontrollably. It was as
if they were sharing some private, oft-repeated joke I knew nothing about.

Mariko inhaled deeply on her cigarette, blew the broken smoke up into the night.

Come on, Katsuo, Mariko said. Leave poor, sad Tadashi alone.

She looked around. At the people dancing on the far side of the terrace. At the lights.
The orchestra. The cars that littered the enormous forecourt below. At the city twinkling
in the distance. Mariko had clearly grown tired of this game. She must have heard
this kind of thing a hundred times before, after they had left some gathering or
other, after she had watched Katsuo play the magnanimous host, the habitual centre
of attention.

I’m so, so,
so
bored, Mariko said to Katsuo. Let’s go and find Kimiko. Almost immediately,
she changed her mind. No, she said, her eyes wide. I have a better idea. Let’s go
down to the waterfront. Have some
real
fun.

She swirled the last of her drink in her glass, finished it with a flourish, set
the glass down on the balustrade, flicked its rim with her fingernail.

Look around, Katsuo, no one’s going to miss us.

As the two of them drifted through the glittering lights and jaunty music, the ragtime
crowd parted and closed in their wake.
I knew if I looked down a few minutes later
that I would see the sleek, phantom shape of Katsuo’s great car edging its way past
the line of lesser marques crowding the driveway, down towards the wrought-iron gates
that were already opening. I would see it pull out onto the road that led to town.
The sumptuous roar of its multi-valved engine accelerating down the hill would drift
up to me. I would see its receding headlights twisting effortlessly through the trees.
In my mind I could see the two of them sitting together in the back of the car, already
doing who knew what to each other as they sped breathlessly on towards the sordid
pleasures that lay waiting for them in the shadowy recesses of the city below.