The Salaryman's Wife (23 page)

“I’ll stay down in the car, so as not to blow your maid’s image.” Hugh looked like a giant, gray flannel-covered snail curled up between the car seat and floor. It would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous.

We went over the plan one last time. I would drive the car around to the back of the house and get out with the cleaning supplies. Hugh would wait a few minutes to ensure no one was looking, then drive on to a discreet parking place and return on foot.

A couple of neighborhood housewives were chatting and sweeping leaves from the street in front of the Nakamura house. I passed them, turning into the narrow alley running behind the block. I parked outside the Nakamura’s garden gate.

“If we get out of this unscathed, you owe me,” I said in parting.

“I offered you money before.” He peered up at me from his uncomfortable position.

“That’s not what I want.” I slid out and slammed the door.

My first feeling upon entering the Nakamura house was gratitude. Gratitude that the key had worked and no one was inside and the caterers had cleaned up the
tsuya
so well that my stab at cleaning would be minimal. Taking my shoes off and walking through the first floor, I decided the only place I’d have to expend serious energy was the kitchen.

Japanese kitchens were awful. It always amazed me that the zealous hygiene applied to the human body did not enter areas of food preparation. In the Nakamura kitchen, the small sink and counter were coated with grime. Oil-filmed cabinets were crammed every which way with boxes and jars. Atop the cabinets, blenders, and other small appliances had their cords hanging down, inviting accident. The drying rack was overloaded with a precarious array of dishes and cutlery; one false move and it could all crash down.

I switched on the hot water heater to fill my bucket.
As I surveyed the dull linoleum floor, a steel-edged square in the middle caught my eye. The
yukashita
, the under-the-floor storage pocket, was a prime hiding place. I used the one in my kitchen to store favorite foods I didn’t want Richard to consume.

Prying the lid up, I looked into a neatly organized space containing a crock of miso and a bag of onions. There was also a very large, dead spider, which led me to breathe a little faster and slam down the lid.

I went through the cupboards, finding no secrets but enough space to store the dishes and cutlery from the counter. I was wiping everything down with a lot of detergent when the doorbell sounded.

I cracked open the back door and didn’t see Hugh. For some reason, he must have gone to the front. I padded out to the entryway and whispered a greeting into the intercom.

“
Konnichiwa
,” Hugh greeted me heartily, holding the large book aloft. “Jehovah’s Witness calling.”

I put my shoes on and walked outside, keeping my head down. There I bowed, opened the gate, and led him inward.

“Some housewives were staring at me when I parked the car, so I felt I had to stick to the main road. Remember how my head was down in the car? I never saw the house! It took me a while to identify the gate, but I recognized the name over the post box because the
kanji
is like the one in your surname.”

“
Mura
, which means village. What have you been doing, studying?”

“I can see my breath in here. It’s like Shiroyama.”
Hugh strode into the dining room and switched on an electric heater mounted high on a wall. Warm, dry air rushed out. “Shall I start here?”

“As long as you remember to vacuum and dust.” I was determined that he clean along with me. When I came back half an hour later, my work in the kitchen done, I found him making faint dusting gestures around a
tansu
.

“Come see what’s in this chest.” He slid open the ornamental front panel to show a steel safe.

“Can’t you open it?” I asked.

“I’m not
that
kind of spy.”

“Wait a minute.” In my handbag, I had a scrap of paper with the code Mariko had found in Setsuko’s address book. I elbowed Hugh aside and tried it three times without success.

“What was that all about?” Hugh’s voice was impatient. “There’s nothing more we can do in here. I have to hurry if I’m going to find the discs.”

“Try Mr. Nakamura’s study. End of the hall, to the right.”

“Thanks.” He hobbled away and I went into the room where the coffin had been. All funeral trappings were gone, and a low table was in the center, stacked with a few magazines and photo albums. I set aside the one with the oldest-looking pictures to look at later.

Upstairs, I started in a small bedroom that was probably designed for a child—or husband, judging from the single bed that was unmade. I changed the sheets and straightened up before attacking the bookcase. I paged through some Japanese classics and thrillers I decided were Mr. Nakamura’s books, and the
ones I guessed were Setsuko’s: international and Japanese travel guides, Shizuko Natsuki mysteries, and a few books on Japanese art and antiques. I began methodically going through her collection, shaking each book open to look for hidden papers. When I found a book of wood-blocks by Utamaro, the foremost painter of courtesans in the Edo period, I paged more slowly. I paused at a picture of a lovely young woman with a glass of sake in one hand and a steamed crab in the other. The translated title was something like “Young Hussy Viewed Through the Moralizing Spectacles of Her Parents.” I smiled.

“This isn’t a library.” Hugh spoke in my ear, making me jump.

“You’re finished downstairs?” I slammed the book shut.

“Yes madam. I found a cache of discs, none labeled the way Yamamoto had described, but I’ve copied it all to go through at home.”

“I’ve found a lot of travel books on California, Florida, the East Coast…also England and Scotland. Were you planning to take Setsuko back to the UK?”

“No! How many times must I tell you we weren’t together?” Hugh sounded irate.

“There are also a couple of American phone books from Dallas and San Diego. Maybe she was looking for someone in America,” I quickly said.

“But you told me she knew her father.” Hugh took the Dallas book from me and looked at the spine. “Damn it, these were taken from the TAC library. They’ll have my head.”

“Maybe her father’s name is inside…or some other family members?”

“Well, there’s no time for reading now.” He loaded the books into an opaque trash bag.

This master bedroom was utterly Setsuko, furnished only by a bed set on a black lacquered platform and covered in mauve silk. A long, gilded screen painted with butterflies and summer grasses hung over the bed, which was flanked by a couple of low
tansu
chests. Very Zen, very elegant. A thin layer of dust over the furniture and the tucked-in covers told me Mr. Nakamura probably hadn’t slept there in a while.

I went through the chests, finding toiletries and Setsuko’s undergarments, soft swirls of silk and nylon that were a lot nicer than anything I owned. We surveyed the closet. Nakamura’s side was obvious: suits, shirts, and golf clothes. A black lace teddy was tucked in with them which Hugh pulled out with a flourish.

“You think he’s a cross-dresser?” Hugh asked.

“Too small. This is practically my size,” I said.

“But the fabric’s too cheap to have been something of Setsuko’s, and her unmentionables are in the chest.” Hugh eyed me as I sniffed at the underarms, which bore traces of a powdery deodorant. When the telephone rang, we both jumped.

“Maybe it’s someone from the neighborhood, checking.” Despite the cold, I felt myself start to sweat in the black polyester uniform.

“The answering machine should kick in,” Hugh said.

It didn’t. I counted six peals before the caller hung up.

“We should get out of here,” I said, but Hugh continued as deliberately as before, moving on to Setsuko’s side of the closet. I watched his hands move gently through the pale silk blouses and the delicate knit suits. As if they were still a part of her, I thought with a sick lurch in my stomach.

“I wonder when he’ll get rid of her things,” I said, but Hugh didn’t seem to hear me. He was moving faster through the clothes, checking the labels.

“It’s not here,” he said. “A red Gianni Versace suit I bought for her at Mitsutan. Was she buried in it?”

“The coffin was closed so I don’t know for certain, but I really doubt the funeral people would dress her in red. Too loud.”

“Where could the Versace be, then?” He paced the room.

“She probably returned it,” I told him.

“She wouldn’t! It was fabulous on her. Besides, I had the credit card and receipt.”

“At Japanese department stores you can return things you charged for a cash refund, no questions asked. Setsuko did that a lot. I found out last Sunday.”

“So you’re saying she cheated me?” Hugh sat down on the bed, denting the immaculate coverlet.

“Come on, you were paying for information! Does it matter whether it was in the form of goods or cash?” I explained what Miss Yokoyama had intimated.

“It’s being tricked that bothers me,” Hugh muttered as we made a final clean sweep upstairs. “If I had known she wanted money I would have gladly paid it. But she seemed thrilled about the clothes.”

“Women in Japan aren’t supposed to desire money. That’s reflected in the salaries paid to those of us who do work. You earn five times what I do,” I said, bumping the heavy bag filled with the telephone books downstairs.

“I didn’t know that. Still, aren’t you’re doing what you love?” He began a slower descent behind me.

Ha. A picture of myself riding the bullet train to my horrible new job in Osaka ran through my mind as I walked around turning off lights and heaters. We had a short spat over whether the living room door had been open or not; I threw up my hands at last and allowed him to close it.

“Is the front door locked?”

“Check!” I called back. In the kitchen, I remembered to turn off the water heater and collected my cleaning supplies in the pail. Then Hugh slipped out the back door with his law book and I began the process of waiting. Somehow, those last minutes alone were the worst; what my watch told me was really twelve minutes felt like half an hour. At last I heard the Windom purring down the back alley, and I slipped out of the door with the books and my trash bags.

I had miscalculated. The car that stopped at the gate was a white Mercedes. I darted behind a camellia bush and listened. The car door opened and footsteps clipped the garden path. I caught a glimpse of shiny black wing-tip shoes and dark blue trousers.

I looked further up to Seiji Nakamura’s face.

He paused, looking around. He obviously knew a maid was scheduled, because he’d left an envelope
with cash payment in the entry hall. We’d taken it to avoid causing suspicion.

Another thought hit me—what if he had been hoping to rendezvous with the maid? Why else would he be out, driving around, during work hours? I remembered the lace teddy hanging in Setsuko’s closet.

The footsteps came closer. I couldn’t let myself be found. Equally nightmarish was the prospect of Hugh arriving. Nakamura had passed me without seeming to notice and was now creeping along the kitchen wall, looking in the windows. He was suspicious.

Escape would be now or never. I straightened up from my hiding position and started tiptoeing toward the garden gate.

Wind rushed against the garbage bags full of supplies that I was carrying, creating a crinkling sound. I picked up my pace, intent on getting off the property as fast as I could. I heard the scraping of Nakamura’s steps on the cement path, coming back.

The humming sound of an engine approached.
Don’t stop here
, I thought as I fumbled with the latch and at last pushed through to the alley.

“Who’s that?” Seiji Nakamura’s voice bellowed behind me as Hugh drove into the alley. I sprinted past Nakamura’s Mercedes, counting on Hugh to keep driving at a slow pace, following and picking me up on the main road.

That didn’t happen. Hugh put the Windom in reverse and backed up, smoothly sailing around the corner and vanishing to points unknown.

I kept running, moving like someone had poured
super-strength gas in my tank. I heard Mr. Nakamura yelling as I ran past a couple of gawking housewives. Initially, I was only afraid of being nabbed by Nakamura, but now I thought of the police.

I jerked a glance over my shoulder and did not see Nakamura; I slowed to a walk, gasping as much from terror as the exertion. My situation was bad. I was lost without money in a Japanese suburb several miles from a train station. I also had no idea how I’d find Hugh. The creamy houses that had looked so enticing the first time I’d entered the neighborhood now looked alternately mocking and menacing. I was out of my league, they seemed to tell me. I’d failed.

I’d walked all the way down the hill to the convenience store when the Windom pulled up.

“He saw me!” I fell into the car with the torn garbage bags I’d carried the whole way.

“Who? What? And why did you take off like a ninny just when I was arriving?”

“Nakamura! He came in that white Mercedes. I thought you saw it.”

“That car was blocking the alley. I couldn’t get through, so I reversed. I never thought—”

“He saw the back of me. Maybe he’ll think the maid was shy. He’ll certainly find his house clean,” I added glumly.

“Right. We must not panic,” Hugh said as if to convince himself while making a dangerous right in front of oncoming traffic. I screamed. He ran two red lights on the way out of town. I shut my eyes and didn’t open
them until he’d gotten on the toll road and set the cruise control to ninety-eight kilometers per hour.

“It was a set-up,” I decided. “The maid must have told him we were coming. Or your secretary, Hikari.”

Hugh shook his head, remaining silent. After a while I couldn’t stand it and stretched my hand toward the radio dial.

“Do you mind?” Hugh barked, snapping J-WAVE off. He was obviously quite shaken. Well, he had more to lose than I did.

After fifteen minutes, he took his left hand off the steering wheel and closed it over my right. He was probably trying to apologize or needed some comfort. I squeezed his hand back and then made a move to release it. But he hung on, his fingers tracing my ring finger.

“What’s this?” He took his eyes off the road for a moment.

“I got it for Christmas.” It was a piece of modern sterling silver set with onyx and mother-of-pearl that my mother had sent me.

“Why didn’t you wear it in Shiroyama?”

“I don’t travel with valuables.”

Hugh put his hand back on the wheel. I stared out the window, watching the evergreens and mountains slowly give way to gray forests of skyscrapers and factories. When the Shuto Expressway loomed, I started reading him the directions we had assembled before starting the trip.

“I’m fine from here, thanks,” he snapped.

It was dark when we arrived back at Roppongi Hills, where the portico was filled by a mini-traffic
jam of media vehicles. Hugh sped past and turned to enter the garage. But a young man waiting by the entrance swung a camera toward us while darting under the rising door. Hugh backed up with a horrible screech and shot down an alley.