The Snow Kimono (8 page)

The following weekend, we went to Kamakura, to view the kites. We took the train.
Then the bus. We disembarked high above the beach. It was spring. The sun was shining.
Fumiko was walking or half-skipping along beside me. She carried our straw mat under
her arm. I carried our picnic basket.

We sat on a grassy embankment somewhat away from the rest of the crowd. Fumiko was
chattering away to me like a bird. I remember laughing at something she said.

Most of the crowd had already gathered at the foot of the slope which ran the length
of the beach. The mood was festive. Laughter floated on the air. Banners high on
poles swam eel-like in the breeze. There were vendors pushing their brightly canopied
carts back and forth. We could hear their strange
cries coming up to us intermittently
on the breeze. A bird seller, his cages hoisted like a giant corn cob over his shoulder,
was wandering from group to group.

Below us, on the beach itself, the kite flyers and their assistants were busy making
the final adjustments to their crafts. A few kites, not many, had already taken to
the air. Beyond them was the ocean. The repeated rise and fall of a small surf. To
the west I could see the velvet-blue mountains, where they rose abruptly out of the
narrow coastal plain.

Couldn’t we go a little closer, Fumiko said.

Let’s see what it looks like from here first, shall we. Then, if we don’t like it,
we can move. But, I said, I think you’ll find that this is the perfect spot.

I laid the straw mat on the ground, pulled its corners straight. Fumiko slipped her
shoes off, then sat in the middle of it.

We were protected from the wind, and the sun quickly began to warm us. As we sat
looking down at the beach, each new instant saw yet another kite—a swallow, a dragon,
a butterfly, a frowning face—take to the sky. It was only when you looked down to
see the tiny tent-peg figures of the kite flyers struggling beneath them on the beach,
their crab-like arms working away in front of them, that you realised just how enormous
these kites were. As one of them took to the sky, it lifted the man holding its ropes
three or four metres off the ground. I could see his legs running in the air.

Look, I said to Fumiko, pointing to him. She watched the man bounding along the sand,
his assistants running after him,
trying to catch the guy ropes dragging along the
ground.

Half an hour later, as I had anticipated, the wind began to change. Within minutes,
five gigantic samurai faces were ducking and weaving through the air above us. They
would swoop down, one after another, descending so rapidly, their sails roaring in
the wind, that it seemed impossible that they would not come crashing down on us.
But at the last moment, barely metres above our heads, they veered away across the
slope, then climbed serenely up into the sky again. Fumiko was lying on the blanket
in front of me, following the zigzagging trajectories of the duelling kites. I remember
her eyes, how closely they followed the changing fortunes of the battle, and her
mouth—now smiling, now with breath held.

This
is
the perfect spot, Father, she said.

Aren’t you forgetting something? I reached into the basket and held up the case.

She sat up.

Of course, she said.

I handed the case to her, showed her how to open it. She put it in her lap, pushed
the lid aside. The viewer lay snug and lustrous in its silk lining. She began to
prise it out with her child’s fingers. She held it up, examined first one end, then
the other.

But what is it, Father? she said.

It’s a viewer, I said. Here, if you hold it like this. I folded her fingers around
the opened handle. Now, if you look through these two holes.

I brought the viewer up to her eyes.

Now look through here, I said.

She drew in her breath.

Oh, Father, she said. It’s wonderful. Just wonderful.

She stayed like this for some time, looking at the soaring kites. Then she took the
viewer away from her face and closed her eyes.

It’s as though the whole world is just sky, and you’re floating in the middle of
it, she said. Just floating. And all these kites are spinning around and around and
around you.

She opened her eyes again. She held the viewer up in front of her. She turned it
around, and looked at its open end.

It’s beautiful, Fumiko said. Beautiful.

Perhaps I
am
a foolish old man, Omura said. But seeing Fumiko lying there, seeing
her smiling, I cannot tell you, Inspector, how much I had come to love this child.

That evening, on the way home, in the train, Fumiko sat by the window. At some point
I caught a glimpse of her reflection. Her face seemed to be floating in the darkness
outside. Seeing her like this, I was reminded of the first time I saw Sachiko, her
mother. And I was reminded yet again of all the terrible events that followed.

Chapter 6

AFTER that day at the beach, time seemed to evaporate. Years slipped by like days.
My legal practice at Fujimoto, Fujimoto and Co. expanded. I became a senior partner.
I began publishing articles in a number of legal journals. My reputation grew. As
a consequence, I was offered a professorship at the Imperial University. It was a
difficult decision. I enjoyed my work. There was also the question of loyalty. Fujimoto
and Co. had been good to me. And Fumiko. So I put a proposition to the university.
I would accept their offer on the condition that I was able to continue my private
practice. They agreed.

So, two days a week, I continued walking the kilometre and a half to my office, just
as I had been doing for years. And for a long time my life with Fumiko was settled.
Of course, there
were
times when she was curious about her mother. This was only
to be expected. I answered her questions by telling her that her mother had died
in childbirth, which was true. I showed her a
black-and-white photograph of Katsuo
and Mariko, his fiancée, and myself that had been taken on the terrace of Katsuo’s
house overlooking Osaka Bay. This was at a time when Katsuo and Mariko were still
happy.

In the photo, the bay was at our backs. I remember Katsuo showing Ume, his housekeeper,
how to operate the camera. It was late afternoon. Katsuo and I were wearing our dark
suits. He was holding his hat in his left hand by his side. Mariko was wearing a
long, white, pleated dress, like something from the twenties. A row of dark pearls
at her neck. On the stone balustrade beside us were two glasses of saké, each still
half-full.

In the photograph, Mariko’s dress glows in the late afternoon sun. I am standing
next to her. My right hand is resting on her shoulder. She has a small scar there,
like a tiny map of Japan, which she does nothing to conceal. Katsuo is standing off
to one side.

I used to look at this photograph from time to time. And every time I did so, I could
see why Katsuo had fallen in love with Mariko. With her half-smile, her self-possessed
gaze, Mariko was extraordinarily beautiful.

I told Fumiko that this was Sachiko, her mother. Who had died in childbirth. It was
a lie, but a small lie, one which she seemed happy to accept.

On the other hand, she never once questioned the monstrous lie that lay dormant just
below the surface of our lives, the lie that I was her father, a lie that I knew
would come back to haunt us. But by then, her childhood memories,
if they had ever
existed, had been erased.

Occasionally, little things would even conspire to reinforce this deception. Once,
I remember, we were eating our evening meal when Fumiko—she must have been twelve
at the time—turned to me and said: Do you remember, Father, how some months ago I
said I had noticed that in the afternoon the shadow of our apartment building climbed
your office tower, and that on the day of my birthday the corner seemed to pass right
through your window? And you said, well, in that case it would have to pass through
your window
twice
in one year. Do you remember?

Yes, I said.

I glanced up. Fumiko’s eyes were wide with excitement.

Well, she said. You were right. I’ve been watching and I’ve worked out that tomorrow
it’s going to pass through your window once again.

You mean to say you’ve been watching my window all this time?

Well, no, she said. Not really. But a month ago I noticed that the shadow had begun
to move back across your building.

I went to go on with my meal but when she didn’t continue I realised that we were
playing a familiar game, only now the roles had been reversed.

Go on, I said smiling.

Well, remember I said how strange it was that the shadow should pass through your
window on the very day of my birthday. I said it must mean something. You said it
wasn’t strange at all, it was just a coincidence.

Yes, I said.

Well, it’s tomorrow, she said. Tomorrow it’s going to happen again.

I must have looked puzzled.

Tomorrow!
she said.

She looked at me with her eyes bright, as if she were stating something obvious.

Tomorrow it’s
your
birthday. Don’t you see, Father? So it must mean something, after
all.

Father.
As the day of Katsuo’s release drew near, each time Fumiko said the word
I had so longed to hear it was like a blade being plunged into my heart. It astonished
me how often she said it. Father, could we go to the markets? Father, shall I pour
your tea? Father, there’s a letter here for you. And each time she said it, I was
reminded again of the lie my life had become, and of the inevitability of what lay
ahead, the moment when I would have to tell Fumiko the truth. About our life together.
And who her father really was.

Exactly three years to the day that Fumiko had reminded me of the shadow passing
down my building, the day of my birthday—it made me wonder whether Katsuo had planned
this, it would have been so characteristic of him—the letter which would undo my
life finally arrived. Fumiko was fifteen, just two years younger than Sachiko was
when she died.

After years of vigilance, its arrival caught me completely by surprise. As I knew
it would. Every morning I used to go through my mail expecting it to be there. You
cannot imagine what that did to me. How much my walk to work was coloured by the
expectation that today would be the day it arrived. How it—this waiting—tortured
me. Perhaps, I hoped, there would be another solution: Katsuo might die in jail,
he might disappear as he had done in the past, he might relinquish her. In my heart,
however, I knew that there was no escaping what was about to unfold—it had been written
into both our lives years before.

And now, on the morning of my fifty-fifth birthday, here it was.

I had taken the bus to my office instead of walking. It had been raining and I was
eager to finish the article I was writing.

I began working as soon as I arrived. At ten, Mrs Akimoto, my secretary, brought
me my mail. It lay bundled up in the tray on my desk. I looked up some minutes later
to see the thin sharp edge of a pale-blue envelope projecting slightly from the pile.
I sat looking at it, this edge, refusing to believe what I knew I was seeing. And
seeing it, I felt as though a vice was closing about my chest. I reached out, picked
up the bundle. My hand was shaking. I could barely breathe. I undid the piece of
string that bound the bundle together. I retrieved the envelope, held it up to my
face.

I recognised his handwriting immediately, the characters still beautiful, still perfectly
formed. And yet, the more closely I looked, I could see, here and there, an unmistakable
tremor, a
momentary loss of control, as if death were already stalking him. This
observation shocked me. I had never thought of Katsuo growing old. I had been aware
of my own decline. But Katsuo. I had always thought of him as young, immutable.

I could not open it. Not at first. I left it all day. I spoke to Mrs Akimoto. Cancelled
all my appointments. She had seemed perplexed. At one point, she knocked on my door.
I was by the window, looking out over the city, thinking that Fumiko would be home
from school by now. Then she knocked again. When she opened the door she was holding
a number of files in her arms.

Is everything all right, Mr Omura?

I saw her glance at the unopened letter lying on my desk.

Yes, thank you, Mrs Akimoto, I said.

Is there anything I can get you? she said.

No, I’m fine, I said. Thank you. Have Ryuichi call me tomorrow, will you.

Eventually, I sat down at my desk. I reached into my drawer, drew out my letter opener.
I inserted the blade under the flap of the envelope. A thin blue curl, like a tiny
breaking wave, began to unfold along its edge.

The writing paper took my breath away. A gift from me years before. I had no idea
he had kept it—the texture so beautiful, the grain so fine, the irony so perfect.
So characteristic. I
could
see him planning all of this. His foresight was, as always,
so cruelly precise.