Secrets of the Apple (5 page)

The two courses went on in tandem for two years, until his parents noticed that their son had become increasingly solitary, spending so much time at his books and lessons that he had little time to be a boy. His mother knew of his love for music, but after all he was not a prodigy, and his father had imbibed his parents’ view that music was a more feminine than masculine pursuit. Reluctantly they let the piano lessons go, with the hope that he would one day find time to pick it up again.

So it was that Ryoki reached manhood with the ability to kill a man with his bare hands, but only the sketchiest memory of where to find a G on the piano. His music collection was massive, though, especially rich in the piano.

Now he folded his hands together and rested his mouth on his knuckles as he watched Kate play. She didn’t close her eyes or make flourishing gestures with her hands, or add any of the theatrical indulgences committed by those who believe themselves carried away by art rather than by their own vanity. It seemed to Ryoki that she played lit from within, as one who plays for the sheer love of the sound, and nothing to prove to anybody. Because he knew the piece so intimately, he couldn’t help spotting the failures in her technique, those wooden moments when her dexterity couldn’t quite execute her intent. Yet there was something in her performance that reached out to him, an open-handed sharing that thrilled his skin like a caress.

Halfway through he understood why he’d been so absorbed as she read to the children. Kate had an innate gift for expression, puzzling together the plain and the astonishing, the way he envisioned Mozart created his music, like God creating man out of dust. Such power frightened him, but he clung to it nonetheless.

He could no longer look at Kate. He wanted to lean back and close his eyes, allowing the notes to swirl and twine around him, unmolested by his visual sense. He couldn’t, not here; in public he had to stay contained. He put his hands in his lap and kept very still, taking slow breaths to calm his rushing blood.

As the piece drew to a close, he looked up, watching Kate as she breathed into the final chord. Looking at the keys, she smiled to herself.

Ryoki wanted to kiss her.

Once the final sounds had died away, the spell was broken. He clasped his hands tightly, curling his lip at his own absurdity. It was the musician effect, nothing more, suckering him in. It was the same gaslight magic that explained why poor, scraggly haired musicians were famous for scoring hordes of otherwise sensible women. He knew that. Impossible he could have been snared, even momentarily, in such a ridiculous trap. Still, it seemed unfair that she had touched him so intimately without giving him a chance to touch back.

Kate closed the piano, staunchly refusing to sing on the grounds that Tom had kept his pants on. Ryoki was glad. To hear her sing could only have been a letdown. It was getting late and he was tired.

As the only outsider, it was up to him to break up the party. Grace and Brian walked him out, exchanging final pleasantries as he folded himself into his tiny car.

“I guess Kate will pick you up tomorrow at ten,” Grace said. “She’s been up to Napa with us, of course, but she’s never driven. I’ll give her directions, but you may have to make sure she doesn’t get lost.”

Ryoki smiled, put the car in reverse, backing up as he said the last goodnight. Brian and Grace stood waving, their arms around each other’s waists, leaning slightly together, like newlyweds. Before he was far down the block, Ryoki glanced in his rearview mirror so he could see them without appearing to. Their easy, open affection reminded him of his parents. Here in America, perhaps his parents would not have stood out so much.

* * *

His mother, Michiko, had been a foreigner, an American, a half. Her mother, the only daughter of an old and highly esteemed Samurai family, had succumbed to the charms of an American serviceman with curly black hair and blue eyes, and ran off with him to California where they raised their only child, a black-haired, blue-eyed daughter named Michiko. This serviceman had died unexpectedly while his daughter was at university, leaving his little family in reduced circumstances. It seemed to Ryoki that Americans tended die off younger than the Japanese, probably due to too many hamburgers and not enough fish. That alone should make marrying one a rather risky venture.

After her husband’s death, his maternal grandmother achieved a financially motivated reconciliation with her family on condition that she facilitate an arranged marriage between Michiko, her reputedly clever and beautiful daughter, with one of the wealthy families in Tokyo, thereby compensating the family for her past disloyalty.

At this point in telling her story, Ryoki’s mother had always paused to assure him of the anguish she was sure her mother must have felt in making her decision, holding her hand to her heart and recounting the promise her mother made to herself that she would concede to Michiko’s wishes if it came down to actual matrimony. After all, her daughter might very well like the boy, and there was no harm in going to Japan just to see. Anyway, the tickets had already been bought. Ryoki was seven before he spotted the first hole in the plot. “Did your mother ever tell you the real reason for your visit?”

His mother hemmed and hawed, and over time he asked more questions, gradually digging out all the puttied places until he’d gleaned what he believed to be the hard facts of his parents’ syrupy commencement, though in truth he would never get it all.

The family had already scouted a certain Hiroshi Tanaka, the only child of Izumi Tanaka, founder of Tanaka Inc., Shipping and Manufacturing. Though the Tanakas had been merchants for generations, the money was relatively new, but they were growing in power and influence with each passing year. Both families would benefit from a slough of advantageous connections, nearly evening out the bride’s unfortunate paternity.

Delegations from each family met on three carefully constructed social occasions, boy and girl in tow, each dropping an approving glance here and a promising word there, virtually guaranteeing mutual agreement and approbation once the formalities could be satisfied. Finally, under the guise of a traditional tea, the two families met, ready to complete the parley and move on toward the final consummation.

So it was that Michiko, who had allowed her attention to wander from the mysteries of the tea ceremony, suddenly found herself unofficially engaged, with no real idea of how it had happened. Shocked to discover that these near strangers were actually discussing her future, rather than the plot of some medieval novel, she leaped to her feet, nearly tripping on the restrictive formal kimono her grandmother had lent her. Tearing back the rice paper doors, she ran, or rather hobbled quickly, into the garden, yelling at her mother and anyone else within a solid square mile that she would take no part in such a barbaric practice.

The room dissolved into quiet chaos. The groom’s family taking indignant offense, expressed in angry postures and politely phrased invectives against the ungrateful bride. The bride’s family simply opened then closed their mouths in an abortive attempt to find the suitable words. Michiko’s grandfather alternately stood and knelt, torn between public shame and the blind murderous rage that, had he but realized it, originally drove his daughter to elope with her American.

Hiroshi, the kindhearted young groom, knelt unfazed, contemplating his tea, seemingly indifferent to the scene around him. From the moment he’d first laid eyes on Michiko, he’d studied her, not with the eyes of a lover, but more as a scholar bent on understanding the strange new creature before him. He recognized a difference in Michiko that he could not quite place. She was beautiful as advertised, yes, but he had seen beauty before. Could be the surprising blue eyes in an Asian face, maybe. Perhaps partly, because she was a foreigner, but he’d insisted on studying in America and had known many American girls.

Before her outburst in the teahouse, Michiko had knelt, holding herself properly, like a well-bred lady, though she did not bother with the high-pitched, indirect speech employed by most educated ladies when speaking to men. His family no had doubt noted the oversight, and simply put it down to her limited exposure to Japanese customs—something that, considering the girl’s beauty and illustrious pedigree, could be remedied with a good tutor. However, Hiroshi had met her gaze and knew with an inner understanding that her
difference
would never be corrected by a tutor. Nor was she as pliable as her family might have wished her to appear.  Hiroshi returned to drinking his tea and wondered how he would feel about having such a non-traditional wife.

In a moment he would later consider the luckiest of his life, he heard a bird twittering on the sill of the open window above Michiko’s head, and looked up to see it drop a single white feather. Fascinated, he watched as it floated down beside her cheek, and so he happened to be looking her full in the face when truth hit her like a freight train. Every semblance of propriety, of form, and of deference vanished, exposing Michiko herself, absolute and unvarnished, bold, beautiful and frightening. To Hiroshi she looked like a wild, exotic bird he had accidentally captured and was loathe to release. In that instant, he knew he would love her for the rest of his life.

Decision made, it was time to be practical. Hiroshi knew Michiko’s grandfather by reputation and believed him capable of having her strangled and flung into the ocean, perhaps claiming she had drowned herself in shame. When her grandfather began to mouth threats, Hiroshi knew it was time to act. Without a word, he went quietly into the garden to find the raging girl. He sat nearby, keeping a tactful distance and patiently waited for her to calm herself. Michiko had heard him come and was prepared to fight, but he gave her no provocation. Eventually her curiosity overcame her fury and she turned to look at him. He handed her his handkerchief. She dried her tears and neither spoke for a time, just gazed at each other in contemplative silence.

“I’m Hiroshi,” he said when at last her tears were dry and her chest had finished its ragged heaving.

“I’m—Michiko.”

They did not hear music or fly into each others’ arms, propelled by some sudden, mystic recognition of a kindred soul. Instead they began to talk about nothing in particular. In the teahouse both families eventually ceased their vicious politeness and went looking for Michiko and Hiroshi in the garden. Fortunately an astute aunt saw the young couple in time and stopped the herd from interfering. Only the two mothers remained behind, maintaining a discreet presence as chaperones. Both women sat serenely watchful, any observer would think them equally content.

Michiko’s mother had a romantic heart that swelled and fluttered as she watched her daughter begin to laugh with her handsome beau. After a while her attention strayed and her thoughts drifted to her own beloved husband, whom, it turned out, she would not long survive.

Hiroshi’s mother, the only grandmother Ryoki would ever know, had a stone in the center of her chest. She would never love Michiko.

A
t 3:00 a.m. Ryoki’s eyes snapped wide open. He hadn’t slept well, plagued by a pernicious recurring nightmare in which he had to take a final exam for a class he’d forgotten to attend. He rolled back and forth in bed, bunching the blankets and hugging them in a fruitless attempt to achieve some sense of peace and oblivion. By 3:30 he had wrestled with his sheets and blankets until they’d twisted into a trap, pinning him to the mattress. Kicking violently, he swung his legs over the side and rubbed his eyes, the viscid dark pressing at his skin, lonesome and still. He went to the windows and jerked back the blackout drapes to catch the movement of shadows along the walls, proof of life outside.

At 3:52 a.m., showered and dressed, he powered up his laptop and worked steadily until 9:15 when he began to openly hate his computer. Maybe she’d be early, he thought. He checked his watch—9:30 … 9:40 … 9:47 … 9:52. At 9:55 he powered down and put away his papers. 10:00 … 10:05 … 10:10 … 10:12. Was it 10:00? Surely Kate said 10:00. What if it was 11:00? No, it was definitely 10:00. Kate had confirmed it before he left last night.

10:20. He watched his finger touch the power button, the screen blipping and blinking against the dry sting in his eyes. It wasn’t that he really yearned to see Napa Valley; the disappointment was the thing, the expectation not met.

10:22. Settled in for the day, dejectedly scrolling through the spreadsheet with his head propped on one hand.

10:28. Startled by a sharp
rat-a-tat-tat.
He slid back the locks and opened the door. Kate held up the “Do Not Disturb” sign, looking chic and fresh with her hair pulled back, navy blazer, starched white shirt, and crisp kaki slacks.

“I hope I didn’t disturb.”

“No, no, I was just working,” he said, which of course sounded like she had disturbed him. He bit his lip, hoping she wouldn’t take the hint and bolt.

He moved out of the doorway, extending his arm to usher her into his room, then turned quickly to shut down his laptop, hunching over as he stowed his papers so she wouldn’t catch the relief in his face, the drowning man being pulled into a lifeboat. He picked up his jacket and looked at her carefully, consciously attempting to divorce this morning’s flesh and blood female from the pink goddess of the previous night. Before going to sleep he’d considered the merits of spending his down time with an off-limits woman. He’d never had a casual female friend, at least, not a really pretty one.  He forced himself to look at her face carefully and critically as he searched for flaws, the smelly feet behind the polished persona.

There it was—

One faintly crooked incisor, upper left.

One eyebrow slightly shorter, outside right.

A thin scar peeking out of her open collar.

A larger scar—

She caught him looking and started to laugh, some private mirth bubbling to the surface that eclipsed the scars, the shortened eyebrow and the crooked tooth. She turned her head, clearing her throat in a pretense of seriousness, exposing the delicate nape of her neck. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. Better not to look. That must be the key to having female friends.