Authors: Sujata Massey
I jogged up the wide driveway, which led through a naturalistic garden filled with tall pines and cedars. The Emerald Forest, I thought to myself, because in my girlish frock, I felt a little bit like Judy Garland going up the yellow brick road toward Oz. My expectation that this house would have magical qualities was confirmed when I turned the bend that Ramzi had taken and saw a long, single-story stucco house, elegant in the same East-West style as the Haradas’ home at Setagaya. Under a tiled-roof carport, two cars were parked: a black Mercedes and a white Toyota Camry, both with Tokyo plates.
Two cars. I immediately got off the path and went behind a stand of trees. As I stopped and tried to still my breath, I thought frantically about possibilities. Had Mr. Harada received a call from the loyal potter and come here to spirit away the ibex ewer? I hadn’t believed that I’d given Kazu Sakurai the impression I was any kind of police officer or agent, but the fact that Harada was probably inside the house had to be connected to my visit. But why two cars, instead of one? And had Ramzi dared to go into the house when it appeared to have people inside?
He probably had, I realized when I heard dogs barking within the house. Kenichi Harada must have brought the guard dogs that had been shut up in his house during the memorial service in Setagaya. And judging from the timbre of their bark, they were not a small breed. Also, Ramzi had said something to me about the dogs. What was it—that they were German shepherds? Perhaps Mr. Harada might not call them off if they attacked an intruder.
I slipped my phone out of my bag and programmed in the digits 110. At the first sound of something ugly, I planned to call Japan’s nationwide police emergency number. The prickling feeling I’d had when I’d encountered the fake cop had come back. Something terrible was going to happen; I felt it.
The door slid open with a crash and two huge, furry beasts bounded out. The gate was too far away for me to get back to it. The only way I could go was up, and I’d always been rotten at climbing ropes. Still, I did my best, flailing my way four feet off the ground on the lean cedar. Why hadn’t I raced over to one of the large maple or ginkgo trees nearby? I cursed myself because the cedar had no large, sheltering limbs. The dogs surrounded me, barking raucously and jumping. The phone. I still had my lifeline to the outside world, even though I had to deal with it one-handed, because my other hand was hanging onto a limb. It was a fidgety thing to handle, and as I was searching for the “talk” button I lost my grip on it. The phone fell to the ground, and the larger dog took it, then spit it out a few feet away. The other one raced over, made a few circles around it, and then came back to me.
Did they think I was playing? I began feeling around the tree for a furry cedar branch I could snap and throw. If I got them far enough away, I could slide down and get my phone, which lay half-buried in a heap of red maple leaves.
Before I could attempt anything, I heard the crunching sound of leaves and someone walking. Timberland boots came into view before I saw Ramzi. I was getting ready to call to him about the phone, but then realized that he was not alone. He was followed by his uncle Ali Birand and Kenichi Harada.
Harada said a few words and the dogs came to stand behind him, their tails wagging. I was not a dog person, I thought to myself. Never had a dog, never wanted one. But now I wished I had the kind of dog savvy to befriend them, trick them into letting me get away.
“Oh, hello. Thank you. I didn’t know if they were playing,” I said in Japanese, striving to act normally—as if it could possibly be normal for a thirty-year-old Lolita to be climbing a tree in a locked-up garden.
“Why don’t you come down? Please.” The tone of Harada’s voice was anything but courteous. I also noticed that he’d spoken English—was it because he wanted to make sure the Birands understood?
I slid down faster than I intended, scratching my legs as I went. I smoothed down my short skirt as I landed, unable to stop feeling ridiculously vulnerable. I thought about picking up my phone, then thought better of doing something that seemed so obviously panicky. Instead, I continued in my faux friendly tone. “Well, then! What a coincidence to see Mr. Birand is here with you, Harada-san, when Ramzi and I had come out to the area to—pay our respects.”
“I called Birand-san here because I thought I needed to solve a faraway problem. But the problem’s right here.” Kenichi Harada spoke English and looked straight at me.
“And we found another problem in the house!” Ali Birand cuffed his nephew on the ear. Ramzi flinched but didn’t do anything in return. He looked as frightened as I felt.
“What have you explained, so far?” I asked Ramzi. I needed to know the basic framework of what our excuse was going to be.
“I told my uncle that I was here to get what was mine,” he said stonily. “I said nothing about you. Why are you even here? You said you were staying outside.”
Now both men were staring at me, waiting.
“As I was saying, we traveled to Izu so Ramzi could pay his respects. I came into the garden because I was afraid for his safety,” I explained, wishing now that I had worn my usual clothes. It was hard to act convincingly like an adult while dressed like a Polly Pocket doll.
“I doubt that entirely. From my conversations with Birand-san and others around the country, it seems clear that you want to take something from me.” Harada watched me as he spoke.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” I said mildly. “All I’ve heard about is a gift from Ramzi to Emi that he wants back for his own personal sense of peace.”
“My nephew has no right to give away anything from our shops or storage areas,” Ali Birand said hotly. “This vessel was a gift my brother made to the ambassador. That’s all there is to the matter!”
“Please, that’s enough information. She knows too much already,” Harada said reprovingly to Birand.
“Who would say such a thing?” I asked, watching him.
“A colleague showing proper respect,” he said. “That’s all you need to know.”
Mr. Watanabe. He had become a mole, when it turned out that the scandal over the ibex vessel could taint a government official. The situation had turned out just as Michael had predicted. But Mr. Harada didn’t know that I knew Mr. Watanabe, or he wouldn’t have spoken the way he had. He still thought I was clueless. I would have to use that fact to my advantage.
“Which vessel are you talking about?” Ramzi seemed to have regained a bit of confidence. “All I wanted was my watch, which I left here by accident—the last time.”
“Really? What kind of watch?” I asked skeptically.
“A Tagheuer. It has my initials engraved on the inside. You know, Uncle—my watch!”
“Yes, yes, he does have a watch of that description—a gift from his father, his last birthday.” Ali Birand spoke in a placating way to Mr. Harada, who seemed to bristle a bit less.
Well, maybe. Maybe a Tagheuer was the kind of thing you wanted to take with you, no matter what. Or was it that Ramzi was trying to annoy Emi’s father by making it clear that he’d taken off his watch and clothes and slept with Emi in this house?
“The watch is irrelevant. You are not to disturb my household anymore. I know that your father and uncle made that clear.” Harada spoke to Ramzi firmly. Then he turned to Ali Birand. “So, this is what we will do. You and your nephew will go into the house and retrieve this watch, and then the two of you may drive back to the city. In the meantime, I will take Shimura-san out to the gate.”
Ramzi cast an awkward last look at me and went inside with his uncle. Obviously, Harada trusted the uncle in the house. But he didn’t trust me to walk to the gate.
“I can go alone.”
“I don’t think so.” Then he pointed me not toward the driveway at all but toward the woods behind the house.
“That’s not the way to the street,” I said, and for the first time I felt fear. Ramzi and his uncle wouldn’t know what had happened. Even if they came out in five minutes, it would be too late.
“It’s—how do you say it in English? A shortway.”
“Shortcut,” I said, and then switched to Japanese. “And it’s not a shorter way. It’s the wrong direction.”
“Ah, so Shimura-san thinks she knows the boundaries of my property better than I do.”
“I know the way out. After all, I just followed Ramzi in.” I thought about running down the path toward the gate, but there wasn’t enough space between us. And he had a small bulge in his pants pocket, something that couldn’t possibly be part of a Mae West joke. It might be a weapon. In Japan, there was gun control, but there were still guns. Gangsters had them, and diplomats who could travel without having their luggage examined might have them too. I knew for sure that this man, not Ali Birand, was the dangerous one.
“If you’re sure that I’m a thief, why don’t you call one-ten?” I asked. My two goals were delay and distraction. If only I could stay in place until the Birands emerged. Why was it taking so long to find the watch?
He didn’t answer, so I tried again.
“Yes, you went to great lengths to try to get rid of me. I almost wonder at times if it was revenge because of Emi. You know, I’m very sorry about that—”
He wrinkled up his nose. “Revenge? Because you desire to take her former fiancé, now that he’s free? That’s not of interest to me.”
So he didn’t know about that night. He wasn’t out to avenge Emi. But he still felt strongly enough to want to walk me into the woods, away from the Birands, and get rid of me.
Why was he so worried about the vessel? It was more than a gift. Something my aunt had taught me early on came back, all of a sudden; that once you gave someone a present, he was duty-bound to give you one in return, something that was worth the same.
I wondered what the Birands might have received in exchange for an ancient, indescribably gorgeous piece of pottery. A favor, perhaps. What had it been? I tried to recall how long Ali Birand had been living in Tokyo. When was it that Ramzi had said that his uncle was granted a visa?
The visa
. I remembered Simone and Richard talking about visas, and my own hassles. It was very difficult for most foreigners except Americans and northern Europeans to get visas to live and work in Japan. Ramzi had used a French passport to get in. Yet Ali Birand, a citizen of Turkey, had gotten a visa and been able to secure a business address in a top-flight section of Tokyo. That was what frightened Kenichi Harada—the threat of exposure of how he’d abused his government privilege for a gift.
“Go,” he ordered me, in the imperative form used with inferiors. “If you don’t do as I say, I’ll set the dogs on you!”
I eyed the dogs, judging my chances against the two of them. If they attacked me and the Birands came out, he’d say it was my fault. And even if they doubted him, they’d be afraid enough of the dogs—and of what might happen to them as foreigners in the Japanese judicial system—to agree with whatever he wanted them to do, or say.
My survival was contingent on the Birands’ coming out before I was dragged into the woods. Delay was the only strategy I had left. If I could get Kenichi Harada invested in finding out more about what I knew, I’d live.
In a steady voice, I said, “The Birands were able to give you the ewer because they couldn’t possibly sell it. But I feel worried that maybe it was an unfair thing that happened to you—how could you know its origin?”
“Obviously, there’s something important about it, if you came all the way here to take it from me. But that is not the point. All I know is that you have invaded my property with the purpose of theft, and I plan to exercise my right to order you to leave.” Again, he waved his hand in the direction of the woods.
Keeping my gaze on him, I asked, “As I was trying to explain to you, the history of the vessel is unusual. It was stolen from the National Museum in Iraq.”
Kenichi Harada’s face flushed deep red. “I never heard that. I’m completely innocent in this situation. As Birand told you himself, it was a simple gift—”
“You must have had some inkling it was stolen property, because you didn’t exhibit it in your house in Setagaya with all your other beautiful, legally acquired things.” I paused. “I wonder what other treasures are in your house. Was that your game? Gifts of art and antiques in exchange for visas?”
“Whom do you work for?” Harada asked quietly.
“I work for people who know my suspicions about you. If you take me into the woods and shoot me, the first person they’ll interview will be you.” At least, I hoped so. Mr. Harada would find a way to pin things on the Birands, who had the bad luck of being on the scene in Izu, too. The foreigners, not the government minister, would make the police suspicious.
“I want you to start walking now, quietly. Don’t make me angry.”
“I won’t go,” I repeated. “You shouldn’t, either. You should call the police and tell them you want to turn over something that you’ve just discovered is a missing international treasure—”
I’d meant to give him a way out, but I’d gone too far. He reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out something small and hard and wrapped my hand around it.
I opened it up and saw a vial of pills—lots of them, small and red and stacked almost to the top.
“I want you to swallow them. My idea about taking you through the woods was to make it easier. There’s a stream there; you could have had water. But now, you’ll have to swallow them without. Take them all. I tell you it will make you happy for a short while—or if you’d rather, I’ll tell the dogs to do their job.”
I did then what I should have done the minute the Birands disappeared into the house. I screamed, yelling the names of Ali and Ramzi, beseeching them to call the police. Then I shouted out again, this time in Japanese, in the unlikely event that anyone in the neighborhood would help.
“You fool. Give it to me—” He came at me, and I turned and hurled the vial as far as I could. I expected that the dogs would go after it, and the pair of them did, joyfully.
My plan was working. With the dogs and Harada diverted, I started my run for the gate. Behind me came Ramzi’s voice. “What’s going on, Rei?”