Authors: Sujata Massey
“A box with room service and privacy,” Chika said. “If you don’t want your hotel room, I do. With the band coming in, I want to be staying nearby, and have, you know, freedom of movement.”
“Freedom?” Aunt Norie, carrying a pail of broken camellia branches, appeared in the entryway, a frown etched between her eyebrows. “What kind of freedom is that, can you explain to your mother?”
Chika looked down at the fuzzy balls on her house slippers, then at me, as if for help.
I cleared my throat and ad-libbed, “It’s just what I was explaining to her, that I once believed freedom of movement was so important, but now that I’m older I know it is family that counts. I wish I’d followed your advice and stayed here during the typhoon.”
“Ah so desu ka!
Yes, you do understand.” Norie turned her gaze toward me, fondly. “What a good surprise to see you today. I’m sorry that we don’t have hot water for you, or any electricity at all—we are using the old things you like, though, lanterns and hibachis and such—”
“Does your telephone work?” I asked.
Chika answered for her mother. “Not yet, but our neighbor heard that it may be restored by evening. I’m so worried that, you know, the band will arrive and not be able to reach me.”
“But Rei-san probably needs the telephone for work purposes, which is more serious. Especially since the cell networks are down.” Norie frowned at me. “I hope that our conditions don’t last so long they cause an imposition.”
I assured my aunt that they wouldn’t, and then, after I’d moved my suitcase into the downstairs tatami room and laid out the futon for myself, I started cleanup duty. For an hour I picked up branches in the garden, and then I ruthlessly cleaned out all the spoiled food in the fridge. Aunt Norie sent Chika and me on foot to the grocery store, because she wanted to conserve what gas was in the tank of the family car. Pumps wouldn’t be operable at gas stations until the power came back.
Chika and I came back with less than we’d hoped to get. All the bread was sold out, and the grocery store had the same issues of spoiled cold foods that we had in the house. We wound up with packages of Japanese curry sauce, a few vegetables and fruits, and canned soup, coffee, and beans—all things I reasoned that we could put in a pan and heat over the hibachi.
To my surprise, Norie already had a pot of rice and hot soup made when we returned—she’d grated the dried bonito fish she kept in a wooden box, and mixed in the homemade
miso
she fermented herself and stored under the kitchen floor. She garnished this perfect soup with some
shiso
leaf she’d grown in the garden.
While Chika set to making a curry from the vegetables and a packet of sauce, I complimented my aunt on her ability to run a calm household during a crisis. She shook off the praise. “Being here is easy,” she said, as she deftly peeled a potato she was holding in one hand. “Your uncle was stranded at his office for two days! I am looking forward to greeting him tonight after two days away. And Tsutomu, well, he should have come today, but he’s stayed on. The hospitals in Yokohama and the smaller places without power are sending the medical emergencies to Tokyo, so it’s quite a lot of work for St. Luke’s and all the other hospitals. I plan to go tomorrow morning to volunteer.”
“I’ll go with you,” I said, picking up the potato peels out of the sink and putting them in the trash.
“But what about your work?” Norie asked. “I don’t want to interfere with it. What do you still need to do, exactly?”
“Nothing, really,” I said. “I’m just hanging tight for a few days.”
“Will you see Takeo-kun again?” my aunt asked. It was the first time my aunt had mentioned him since the afternoon at the Kaikan.
“I—I don’t think I need to,” I said. “That meeting took care of all our unfinished business. Thank you for your help.”
“He didn’t seem so—pleased at the surprise. I’ve been worrying about what I should do the next time I am faced with him at a flower event.”
“There is no need to worry,” I said. “Really. I think you were right, it’s just about impossible for a man and woman in Japan to be friends. Especially after an engagement,” I added.
“Well, so now you know.”
Dealing with the electrical shortage had kept me from thinking about Takeo and Emi, but Norie’s questioning had brought back all the horror of the infidelity, the discovery, and the car crash. I didn’t have much to say during dinner, even though Uncle Hiroshi and Tom arrived home around eight, in time to eat with everyone around the hibachi. Now I watched the family eating the ready-made curry, proclaiming it as good as any from a restaurant downtown. To me, the sauce was too thick and overspiced, but I never liked Japanese versions of Indian food.
My cousin Tom glanced over, raising his eyebrows at my lack of appetite, but I didn’t react, and he retreated back into his own distracted state. He’d been that way ever since he’d returned. The hospital was overflowing. People with chronic conditions who needed electricity to operate their ventilators and IVs had come in, along with those who had become dehydrated from lack of water, were cut by broken glass, or who had injured themselves falling over things in their dark houses. Tomorrow, he predicted grimly, there would be a new group with food poisoning. And to top it all, the victim of a bad car accident had been flown in by helicopter. The operating room had been completely full, so she’d had to be transferred by ambulance to a hospital on the east side.
The lights came back on midway through the meal, and everyone cheered. Norie rushed to turn on the television that usually formed the soundtrack to all household meals, and Chika excused herself to use the phone. Uncle Hiroshi was talking about floods at his favorite golf course, and while I nodded to show that I was listening, my thoughts remained focused on what Tom had said. The accident victim he’d mentioned sounded as if it could be Emi. I wanted to ask him about her, but not in front of anyone.
It took a long time to clean up, since the water was still off and we had to do things with a store of rainwater in the backyard. But finally, the dishes were as clean as they’d get, and I settled down with my relatives to watch the TV news at eleven.
There was news about Emi Harada. It wasn’t good. Norie, who of course hadn’t heard the earlier TV report, turned to me and gasped, but I kept my eyes on the screen, where a reporter was soberly telling the world that after three emergency surgeries and the efforts of eight doctors from two of Tokyo’s leading hospitals, eighteen-year-old Emi Harada had died.
I had a premonition of bad media, so I expected to find a flotilla of TV vehicles outside Norie’s house the next morning. But at six in the morning, I was still blessedly anonymous, albeit depressed. I’d do anything to undo my trip to Hayama; if I hadn’t been there with Takeo, Emi would still be alive.
I tiptoed downstairs to make tea for myself but discovered that Tom had beaten me to the task. He was at the dining table, a steaming cup at his side and the morning paper in front of him. He’d been reading an article about Emi Harada, I deduced from the photo that I spotted on the lower half of the folded paper.
“Is she—the patient you couldn’t admit?” I said, picking up the Imari teapot and pouring a cup of green tea for myself.
“How did you know?” Tom looked up at me, and I saw the pain on his face.
“I knew about her being airlifted to your hospital,” I said. “So it was a guess.”
“Well, you guessed right. But the fact was, we didn’t admit her.” Tom explained that the emergency airlift to St. Luke’s had been disastrous. He, the ER chief, hadn’t known she was coming in until the helicopter was ten minutes away. And both of the hospital’s operating rooms were in use. There was no space to treat her, so he’d had the hospital radio back to take the patient elsewhere. The helicopter wound up landing, anyway, and Emi had been transferred by one of St. Luke’s ambulances to Hiroo Hospital.
“What was it, actually, that caused her death? Bleeding or—”
“The article doesn’t mention the specific cause.” Tom shook his head. “Instead, there’s lots of detail about how she was going to marry Takeo Kayama next month. No wonder Mother was so upset yesterday evening, because of that connection.”
“Will you read the article to me?” I asked. Tom was one of the few people who knew that I had the reading level of only a Japanese third-grader.
“Certainly. But it doesn’t say much.” Tom read aloud the short article, which reported that Kenichi Harada had apologized for his daughter’s accident to the owners of the souvenir shop and the chief of police in Hayama.
“I know that people here apologize about as often as they breathe, but this is ridiculous!” I fumed, thinking of how futile being sorry was. I’d said it to Emi, and it had just sent her rushing off to the car. “He’s a man who’s lost a child. Why should he be organizing apologies right now?”
“Rei-chan, her death caused a huge use of police and fire vehicles when they were needed for storm relief. Think about how the families of suicide victims pay if someone jumps the tracks and causes a commuting delay. Frankly, if anyone else needs to offer an apology, it’s probably me,” he said glumly.
“You? But why?”
Tom folded the paper up, as if he could store away the trouble, before he spoke. “I did not stabilize her before sending her on, and she was clearly in shock, from the paramedics’ description.” He took a deep breath. “The hour that follows a trauma is what we call the golden hour. A patient has the very best chance for survival, if treatment comes during that hour.”
“But you had no available operating room, you said.”
“I could have stabilized her for transit. Made sure she had adequate IV fluids, at least.” He looked down at the folded paper, then back at me. “Why are you so interested in this, anyway? It is my problem, not yours.”
“Actually, the problem is kind of—ours.”
“How so?” Tom looked at me warily.
“I was introduced to her through Takeo.”
“Really! Was she a nice person? Did you like her?”
I nodded slowly, because the truth was that I’d thought she was shallow, until the end when I’d realized that she actually loved Takeo. And now—she was gone. There was no chance for her to rebuild her relationship with Takeo, or to reconsider her life and wait to get married to somebody who was really right for her. I felt terrible.
“You’re crying.” Tom grabbed a paper napkin out of the holder in the table’s center.
“I don’t mean to, I’m sorry.”
“You must explain more, because this is not a normal reaction,” Tom said.
“Emi thought I wanted to take him away from her. That’s why she died.”
“That makes no sense,” Tom said. “How do you know what she was thinking, anyway? You just met her briefly at the auction house, right?”
“When she saw us—socializing—at Takeo’s house, she became so upset that she jumped into her father’s car and drove off.” I spoke in a monotone, trying to keep from crying again. “She was so distraught, Tom, I wonder if she willfully crashed the car—”
“Just because you were socializing with an old friend?” Tom looked at me hard. “What form, exactly, did this socializing take?”
“We were just there, together.” I couldn’t bring myself to explain the full story. “But she mistakenly thought we’d become a serious romantic couple. Of course she didn’t know about Hugh.”
“Do you mean to say that—during the typhoon—you were in Hayama?” Tom interrupted, his voice incredulous. “You must have been. That’s where the accident happened.”
I nodded glumly. “Please don’t tell anyone. I am still in a panic that the whole story will get out, somehow.”
“Why? Do you think that she mentioned you to her parents? Or anyone else in her family?”
“She’s an only child, and she couldn’t have talked to her parents that fast. She literally saw me, put things together in her mind about what happened, started yelling at Takeo, threw—threw—a piece of china—and ran out of the house into the car.” I paused. “But there was the driver of the car, who arrived at the house. He saw me.”
There was a sound of movement upstairs. Aunt Norie was getting ready to come down.
“That’s a shame,” Tom said. “I’d say that we need to arm ourselves with a bit of knowledge about the causes of her death.” Tom paused. “I have a colleague at Hiroo Hospital who may have some information.”
“But that—that action could cause more attention,” I said. “And why do we need to know the minutiae? She’s dead, that’s enough for me. I feel bad enough already.”
Tom shook his head. “Emi’s father is very powerful. We need to know who’s at fault in the death, because he could ask for an investigation into the emergency transport for her medical care. And in any case, I’m going to make my own apology to him.”
“Do you mean—you’ll write a letter?” I cringed at this idea of Tom declaring himself at fault on paper. And given the mood he was in, he’d probably expose me, too.
“I’ll see him at the funeral services at their home in Setagaya. It makes sense, because last night, after you went to bed, Mother was on the telephone with her flower arranging friends getting information about the memorial. I know she’s going. I’ll go, too, if I can find someone to cover for me at work.”
The Japanese mourn quickly. Emi’s cremation, which was attended by close family members, was set for the very next evening. And to my dismay, Aunt Norie was insistent that I also attend.
“It doesn’t seem right that I go, Obasan,” I said to her, when she first raised the issue with me. We were doing the laundry, for her a daily ritual that had been postponed during the time of the typhoon. Norie was ironing, and I was folding the ironed things.
“But you must. Already I’ve determined that Hiroshi and Chika cannot go because of his office schedule. For me to go alone, without family, is embarrassing.”
“But your son Tsutomu’s going to be there.” Absently, I matched one of my cousin’s black socks with a brown one, then caught myself.
“Yes, but he’s a bundle of nerves. He won’t do much good at my side, whereas you are like the elder daughter I never had. You will be a good reflection on us and the Kayama School.” Aunt Norie kept her eyes on me as she ironed, completely in control.
“I don’t want to go.” But as I said it, I was thinking of what Michael wanted me to do, to find out more about the art and antiques holdings of the Haradas. This would be a way to get that done, all at once. But it felt like preying on Emi’s family at a rough time—a time that had come about because of the injection of me into Emi and Takeo’s romance. Emi’s death was my fault.
“You look sickly, Rei-chan,” my aunt said, expertly flipping over a pair of my underpants to iron its other side. I always fought against her ironing my underwear, but she always won.
“It’s—it’s the smell of that spray starch,” I said.
“Well, you’ve not left this house—except once, to go to the store—since your arrival. I need you beside me. I can hardly believe that you would refuse to pay your respects to the young woman who was going to be the
iemoto
’s wife, the future of our flower arranging school.”
And so it came to be that a few hours later, I was squeezed next to my aunt on the Toyoko Line train bound for Setagaya. Tom, who had gone into work hours earlier, would meet us on the platform promptly at 5:02.
“So, is everyone from the flower arranging school coming?” I hoped so, because if there was a large crowd I was less likely to be noticed by the people I was loath to see: Emi’s family, their chauffeur, and Takeo.
“Oh, no,” my aunt said. “Apparently, Takeo-san asked only the top administrators to be there—and of course, the few teachers who had been involved in Emi-san’s training.”
“Did you teach Emi?” I asked, startled by this revelation.
My aunt dropped her gaze to her lap and smoothed the black wool crepe skirt she was wearing. I was in black, too—a business suit taken out of Chika’s closet that was almost perfect, except that the skirt was a few inches too short. My aunt had given me a silk handkerchief she’d ironed that morning to spread over my knees to protect my modesty.
“Well, I was supposed to teach her.”
“Aha,” I said. “So it didn’t actually happen?”
My aunt glanced around, as if she feared she might be overheard. The seats we’d taken together actually had some empty spaces around them, because although it was rush hour, we were headed into the city instead of out. “Emi-san was scheduled to take a private morning workshop with me twice a week, but actually, she didn’t come after the first time. Maybe it was because she had so much trouble.”
I felt a flash of sympathy for Emi. “She couldn’t be worse than I was. Don’t you remember all those embarrassing times for me at the school?”
My aunt shook her head. “It’s true, Rei-chan, you do not have a natural gift for flower arrangement, but you can concentrate and follow directions. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but Emi seemed—distracted. Not quite there. I imagine she was thinking exciting thoughts about her engagement, needed to shop for clothes and china—that kind of thing.”
It was true that Emi loved to buy things. Maybe my aunt was right. I nodded and said, “Well, anyway, it will be good to go with you. I’m not the greatest at knowing what to do at funerals. I’ll just follow your lead.”
“Oh, I’m a very poor example to follow,” Norie said. “I failed to involve her enough in
ikebana
. I just couldn’t understand her.” Norie put her hand in her purse and touched the
kouden
, a small envelope containing cash that she was bringing to the funeral. I’d contributed 5,000 yen of my own to the envelope, bringing the total to 15,000. I doubted that her family needed financial help with funeral expenses, but bringing
kouden
was important as a show of respect.
“You’re an excellent teacher. It’s a shame she didn’t come back for a second lesson.”
Norie sighed. “I just couldn’t understand her, in the same way that I can’t understand the situation with Takeo-san.”
“Really,” I said cagily.
“I find it strange that there has been so little mentioned in the media about Takeo-san. He was shown briefly on television last night; I recognized him. And surely, she was visiting him in Hayama, though why so soon after the storm, when the roads are bad, I don’t understand. Unless…” My aunt’s voice trailed off.
“Unless what?” I asked dutifully, wondering if she had guessed anything about my role. Tom wouldn’t rat on me, I was sure of that.
“Unless Emi spent the night of the storm with him, in his house. Yes, that must be it!” Norie’s voice was low, but strong with conviction. “No parent would ever want the news to be known that his daughter spent her last hours at an overnight visit with a boyfriend.”
“I suppose not,” I said, relieved that the heat was off. “But surely Takeo will be at the funeral?”
“I’m sure that he will. And he will need kindness from all of us, and who knows, perhaps in a year or so he will be ready to think about marriage again. Although it will be harder for him, with this scandal on his record.”