The Bride's Kimono (21 page)

I looked at Allison one last time and stepped slightly to the side. Why not give her all the space she wanted? She was the curator. There was no way that I could possibly interrupt her.

How much could the Japanese men in the front row follow? The two of them sat with faces as mild looking yet heavy as the great bronze Buddha in Kamakura. The rest of the audience didn’t seem to realize anything was amiss. Why should they? After all, Allison hadn’t mentioned that I was going to speak.

Finally, when it was eighteen minutes after twelve according to the clock on the wall, Allison hyperventilated and said, “We have with us a guest today—an American of Japanese heritage who has a special interest in kimono. Rei Shimura has generously offered to demonstrate how a kimono is worn. Feel free to make a quick demonstration now, Rei.”

My father was looking completely puzzled. My mother was ticked off; I could tell from the way she was tapping her Bally pump against the floor as if she wanted to decimate it. I had twelve minutes to give my talk, and Allison had just spoken about my demonstrating.

If you discounted my parents, Allison, and Mr. Shima and Mr. Morimoto, there were just six who had come for the kimono talk. Six people—a pretty negligible group. But I recognized the two tourists who had come the day before; the ones I’d told about the date of the lecture, who’d in fact come back to hear it. The ladies were beaming at me as if I were Santa Claus. I couldn’t let them down.

“The kimono,” I began, in a voice that cracked. “On a surface level, it’s a bit like a shroud—a way to conceal a body in a tightly wrapped length of silk. The kimono erases breasts, waist, and hips. It’s hard to imagine such a garment pushing women forward.” I paused. “Wearing this kimono today, I realize there are only two actions I can do comfortably: Stand. Or kneel.”

There was an intake of breath. Someone, somewhere,
got the message that I knew Allison was trying to subdue me.

“But the kimono, despite all of its layers, can also be seen as an empowering garment. The amount of nape of the neck—or the inner lining that you reveal—tells a lot about the kind of woman you are. And in an odd way, the garment is democratic; it looks as lovely on a sixty-year-old woman as it does on her five-year-old granddaughter. I won’t tell you about the subtle differences between Edo-period
kosode
and today’s kimono: Allison Powell already did that in her inimitable fashion. What I do hope to show you is how, as we wrap a kimono, we enfold ourselves in layers of culture and tradition.”

I began dressing my mannequin. I explained how important it was to flatten out the bust line, how buxom women would strap their chests down for the sake of a clean line. I talked about how there had originally been a series of three kimono worn on top of each other, but that most modern women wore two. Then on to the main kimono: in its fabric and design, themes of nature were important, but it was crucial to wear a robe that anticipated the coming season rather than simply stated what happened. In Japan, longing and waiting were everything.

At some point in my talk, I saw my father start to smile. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Allison rapping on her watch. I kept wrapping my mannequin; I’d barely gotten to the
obi
. I was now explaining the messages sent by the various bows. My six listeners seemed deeply fascinated. I demonstrated the complex turtle bow, which drew appreciative sighs from my mother and the two tourist ladies. The turtle was an intense feat, with a beautiful result—it made scarf tying look like child’s play.

“Can I answer any questions?” I asked at ten after one. The lecture should have been over at one, but I was determined to deliver my planned program.

“How much does a kimono like you’re wearing cost?” one of my tourist friends asked.

“This was a one-of-a-kind, custom-made design from the mid-sixties. Then it might have cost the equivalent of five thousand dollars, but for the same design custom-made today, I’d guess it might be ten to twenty thousand dollars, depending on the stature of the artisans involved. Interestingly, once a kimono has been purchased, its value decreases dramatically. There’s no market for used contemporary kimono like the one I’m wearing, because Japanese people don’t feel comfortable wearing garments that belonged to other people. The only used kimono that can be sold for high prices are those from the Edo period and earlier,” I said, with a wave of my arm to the kimono in the gallery.

“How can
anyone
buy a kimono that costs so much?” the tourist continued in a disbelieving tone.

“Young women don’t usually pay for them. Their grandmothers do, especially if it’s a coming-of-age kimono that a girl wears to visit the family shrine at age twenty. It’s quite common for a Japanese girl to be given a choice: her grandparents will pay for her college education, or for that over-the-top kimono. Look at the robes on display in here—what would you choose? What really lasts—silk brocade, or your essay on
Beowulf
?”

There was a subtle ripple of laughter. I fielded half a dozen more questions, and even though I saw Allison waving her hands like an umpire at a baseball game, I made sure that I answered every question. After all, if people didn’t want to hear me talk, they could leave.

At the end of it all, I received a tiny round of applause. Only eight were left—my parents, Mr. Shima
and Mr. Morimoto, Allison, and three museum visitors. After the people got out of their chairs, Allison came up to me with a horribly false smile and said, “Well done.”

Her praise couldn’t be fainter, I thought. “Thank you. I was surprised to hear you using a lot of points from my outline in your introduction. Is that why you wanted me to show you the outline ahead of time?”

“No.” But Allison at least had the good grace to blush.

“I know you!” my mother said, interrupting our tense moment. “You were at Wellesley. I was Catherine Howard from the class of ’sixty-eight.”

“Allison Lancer Powell, class of ’seventy,” Allison said, smiling at her. “I didn’t know there was another kimono lover at school.”

“Well, it’s not my life’s work. But I admire Japanese fabrics because I work as an interior designer.”

“Good for you. Perhaps I can talk to you a little about our museum’s advisory committee. It’s a group of professionals from the area who give us input and direction on our programs—”

“I’m quite busy with the board of trustees of the Japanese Museum in San Francisco. That’s where I live. I’m only here to see my daughter, Rei.”

Allison looked from my blond mother to me in confusion. The resemblance was not obvious—especially when I was dressed in a kimono. I knew I looked more like my father, who was at the moment making a covert inspection of Mr. Shima and Mr. Morimoto. I hadn’t had a chance to tell my father about the Japanese cultural attaché, and I guessed he was wondering if Mr. Morimoto was another representative of the Morioka Museum.

“Rei has done an outstanding job given the challenging circumstances,” Allison said.

My mother kept smiling, but I had a sense that she
was scrutinizing Allison. She’d been close enough to overhear what I said to Allison about her appropriation of my lecture outline.

Mr. Morimoto cleared his throat. “We are sorry to be taking you from your parents, Miss Shimura.”

“What’s that?” my father asked sharply. “There will be no taking of my child anywhere! She is a U.S. citizen living in America. She cannot be deported.”

“It’s all right, Dad,” I said quickly. “Mr. Morimoto is the cultural attaché at the Japanese embassy. He’d like to show me around at the embassy down the street.”

“I’d like to accompany you,” my father said in Japanese. He must have wanted to present them with the picture of a protective family.

I’d learned the hard way that it didn’t pay to go into unknown situations with my father as a witness. “Daddy, I’d rather go alone. Why don’t you and Mother have some lunch. I can catch up with you here in a couple of hours.”

“I’ll be happy for you to be my guests in the museum’s restaurant,” Allison said, surprising me.

“That would be lovely—if it really isn’t too much trouble,” my mother answered with a smile.

“When you are free, we shall be here, waiting for you.” My father looked reprovingly at Mr. Morimoto, as if to warn him that he’d storm the embassy if I wasn’t released.

“Don’t worry. It won’t be like yesterday,” I said.

“Did you have some problem yesterday?” Mr. Morimoto asked as we walked out of the museum together.

“Well, we were discussing some rather unpleasant news with the police. It turned out that a Japanese woman tourist carrying my passport was murdered. This is the woman who in all likelihood had the bridal kimono—”

“Please hush,” Mr. Morimoto said. “This is for discussion within the embassy walls.”

So they wanted secrecy, I thought as I silently walked with the two men down S Street to Massachusetts Avenue. There was no hustle and bustle in this part of Washington, unlike Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan. Nobody could have heard us, and now that we weren’t talking, the silence was heavy and awkward. But it was their choice, not mine.

T
he embassy of Japan was, to my eyes, the most imposing of a long row of embassies on Massachusetts Avenue. It was not a matter of height or ornamentation; it was just that the long, cream stucco building looked as if it had been built to Japanese specifications, not converted from something originally meant as a private home. Unlike the other buildings, it looked as if it had always been an embassy rather than a home—in large part because of a striking series of tall, thin windows that gave it a Frank Lloyd Wright aura of streamlined elegance.

Inside the embassy, I didn’t have to sign in because I was being escorted by Mr. Morimoto, but I did have to pass through a metal detector. Then the diplomat ushered me into a room that felt like a large white box. There were no windows or pictures, just a long rosewood conference table that reflected the glare from the harsh fluorescent lights overhead. The chairs around the table were made from steel and plastic. The only other object in the room was a telephone. Still, I imagined there was a tape recorder, and maybe even a camera, hidden within the room’s walls. That was why Mr. Morimoto had wanted me to wait to speak.

Someone was waiting for us already—a young Japan
ese man who looked me over carefully and nodded without smiling. He was introduced to me as Mr. Yashiro, from the office of the consul. The three men sat on one side of the table. I sat on the other, recalling how I’d sat in a similar arrangement at the Morioka Museum.

“We understand that you’re an American citizen, Miss Shimura, who has lived in Japan for some time. Which language would you like to speak?” Mr. Yashiro asked in English.

“I’d rather speak Japanese,” I said. “And before I answer your questions, I’d like to say to Shima-san how very sorry I am about what has happened. I will explain to you exactly how the kimono was stolen from my locked room.”

“You know? This was something you witnessed?” Mr. Yashiro responded instantly.

“No, I mean to explain everything that came before.” I tried to stay calm. I must have tripped over my Japanese—I’d have to be careful and use simple language, words that couldn’t be misinterpreted.

I told them everything. I narrated how I’d kept the boxes close to me on the plane, even carrying them into the rest room; how I’d told Hana they were just souvenirs for my parents, but that she’d been disbelieving, and intrigued enough by what I was carrying to mention it to her roommate later on. I described how I’d carried the kimono as a group to the museum and was stunned to learn that the museum couldn’t accept the bridal kimono. I went on about how I’d hoped to put it in the hotel safe, and when that didn’t work out, that I planned to find a safe, locked storage place elsewhere.

“But you didn’t store it safely anywhere. Why not?” Mr. Shima asked at the end of my monologue.

“Well, because that very night it was stolen, either during a short outing I took to, um, a shopping mall, or
during the twenty minutes I took to get a cup of tea downstairs. I called the museum that night but didn’t get a reply. In the time since, I’ve done a lot of thinking. I believe that the woman I met on the plane is the most likely thief. My theory seems even more likely to be true since her dead body was found along with a key to my room and my passport.”

“But no kimono,” Mr. Morimoto said.

“That’s right. Whoever killed her must have taken it. It was the most valuable thing with her.” I paused. I wanted to say what I’d been thinking about Allison and Jamie possibly being involved, but I knew they wouldn’t believe it. They would regard Allison as an honorable person because she’d called Mr. Shima to alert him about the missing kimono.

“Miss Omori has just returned from Los Angeles to identify the body of the victim,” Mr. Morimoto said.

“Yes, I know. She checked into our hotel again. Are you going to interview her and Mr. Watanabe?”

“I was with Miss Omori and Mr. Watanabe today when they went to see the body,” Mr. Yashiro said. “We talked to each other then.”

“What do you think of the police handling of this situation?” I asked, thinking that the police might finally have some motivation to look for the kimono, since a diplomat had taken an interest.

“What do
you
think?” Mr. Yashiro turned the question on me.

“They seem very interested in finding a solution to Hana Matsura’s murder, but they don’t have an accurate understanding of her character. Also, I’m sad to say that I think they’re not going to search for the kimono at all.”

“We know that you spoke to them at their headquarters,” Mr. Shima said. “It was very shocking when they
said you are part of the Floating World, and you had no good answer.”

I took a deep breath and said, “They have no more understanding of the Japanese Floating World than of the proper way to eat rice. They’re trying to make me a scapegoat, because they don’t want to look for a thief.”

“What’s your personal insurance situation, Miss Shimura?” Mr. Yashiro asked.

“None,” I said. “The goods I was carrying over were already insured by Metropolitan, the museum’s insurance carrier. Usually, I have travel insurance when I buy plane tickets using my credit card, but this time the ticket was paid for by the Museum of Asian Arts.”

“A free trip? Very nice for you,” Mr. Morimoto commented with a slight sneer.

“Have you filed any insurance claim for the bridal kimono?” Mr. Yashiro persisted.

“As I just explained to you, I didn’t make an insurance plan for it because I believed that it was covered with the group of other kimono traveling. The only reports I’ve made are to hotel security, who informed me that the hotel can’t pay for items missing from rooms, and to the police.”

“So there’s no money coming to you?” Mr. Morimoto asked.

“None at all. If I had it, of course I would give it to the museum.”

Mr. Shima said, in a low voice, “There’s no point. That
uchikake
is irreplaceable.”

“I know. I can only tell you how sorry I am that it was stolen. I try so many times, in my mind, to think of what I could have done to save it.”

“I wonder if you did save it,” Mr. Yashiro, the consular officer, said. “I wonder if you caught Miss Matsura in the act of taking the robe from your room, and
committed an act of such savage defense that you killed her. During the fight, the robe was probably ruined. You knew you could not return it to Mr. Shima, so you reported it stolen.”

I caught my breath. Mr. Yashiro’s fantasy was straight out of an old samurai drama. Did he really think I was capable of killing? Was he watching to see if I showed the right, or wrong, reaction?

“If I killed Hana in my room, how could I have discreetly moved her dead body out of a crowded hotel and all the way to a shopping-mall Dumpster? I would have had to take a taxi. Blood and guts would have been everywhere. The police would surely have me locked up by now.”

“Police must have all evidence in hand before they make an arrest,” Mr. Yashiro said. “I’m sure, given your previous encounters with the law, you know that.”

The embassy must have located the Japanese media accounts—the things that Richard had mentioned a few weeks ago when we had lunch at Appetito. I’d brooded then that my slightly colorful past would have kept the Morioka from seeing me as a worthwhile art courier. Now I had more to worry about.

“So, I’ve been around a few people who passed away, but the Japanese police never charged me with a crime; in fact, you could argue that I helped out in their investigations.”

“Needless to say, what has happened here is more serious than anything before,” Mr. Yashiro said. I wondered if he’d trained as a lawyer—he was really good at intimidation.

I tried to seem cool by leaning back a little in my chair. However, I couldn’t proceed beyond fifteen degrees because of the big
obi
bow centered in the middle of my back.

I sat up straight again. “It would be easy if you could blame it all on me: what a clever way to wrap up the sad story of a lost national treasure and a dead young woman. If this happened in Japan, you could have had the police hold me in prison for days without a warrant.”

“What’s the point of what you are saying?” Mr. Yashiro sounded bored.

I’d been speaking Japanese, but now I switched to English. “This is my country, and I know my rights. One of them is the right to due process. I’ve given you some very useful information, but apparently, you’ve already made up your minds. All I can say is that if you remain trapped inside your tiny box of stereotypes, you’ll never find the kimono.”

Because of my attire, I couldn’t storm out. I rose awkwardly from my chair and made a slow, awkward exit because of the tightness of the kimono and the flopping
zori
on my feet. Despite my appearance as a traditional Japanese girl, I couldn’t mask the woman I’d become during my lean and desperate years in Japan—and, even more unsettling, the woman the American police, and Japanese government, suspected I’d become.

M
y parents were buying Hmong Christmas-tree ornaments in the gift shop when I found them. I assured them that nothing disastrous had happened during my time at the embassy, and that I was ready to go back to the hotel and change my clothes. I was tired of being a Japanese doll.

My mother started talking to me about Allison Powell as soon as we hit S Street.

“Rei, she’s
divorced,
” my mother said.

“So what? Aren’t three-quarters of my friends’ parents divorced?”

“This is
quite
a divorce,” my mother said. “Her husband was some muckety-muck at the World Bank. She used to live right in Kalorama. But he got the house—to live in with the second missus. I got the feeling that she’s very frustrated and short on cash. She could very well have needed that bridal kimono for more than aesthetic reasons.”

“I don’t know how she dragged out so many personal details,” my father said. “I can’t get so far with some patients after six months.”

“I can’t believe it either,” I said. “Allison was very casual and impersonal with me.”

“You’re her junior, sweetie, but we went to school together. When I was going into my unconventional marriage, my own mother once came to me, waving the Wellesley alumnae magazine, asking why I couldn’t just marry a nice American banker like the other girls were doing. The alumnae note she was pointing to was about Allison, ironically.”

I bit my lip, thinking of my conventional Scottish lawyer, the one who’d suddenly turned into the bad catch—the dangerous one, the one who made my heart ache. Who would have known?

“Rei, I think your mother should have married James Bond,” my father said. “The way she conducted covert intelligence on this woman was so disturbing that I felt I had to leave. I spent the rest of the time looking at Korean pottery.”

My mother beamed. “After you left, darling, we had some wine and got even deeper in conversation. I told her all about how disappointed I was that Rei had chosen to work in Japan, where things are so difficult. Allison said then that she was very sorry she hadn’t been able to keep that bride’s kimono you lost—I mean, that was stolen.”

“She said that I lost it?”

“Yes,” my mother said after a moment’s reflection. “I think she said it was a lost kimono. Anyway, she told me the bride’s kimono hadn’t been insured under her museum’s policy, so it seemed as if you might be held responsible for the loss to the Morioka. She was feeling around, I think, to see if Daddy and I would be willing to help you financially. She was worried for you, she said.”

“I don’t think I’m in that much danger,” I said, steadfastly refusing to think about the tense conversation at the embassy of Japan. “You see, the museum in Japan released it to me without bothering to check about insurance. A lawyer told me that that could be counted as negligence on the Moriokas’ part.”

“A lawyer?” my mother said, looking at me closely.

“Okay, it was Hugh. But the important thing you’ve found out for me is that Allison must have heard from Mr. Shima that the Morioka Museum may sue. Even if I win the case, as Hugh thinks I might, it would be a disaster for my reputation. I could hardly work in Japan again.”

“Oh, really?” my mother said, a gleam in her eye. “Then you’d have to work here! If you don’t want to be so close to Daddy and me in California, your grandmother has enough connections to help you find a nice job in Baltimore or Washington. Why don’t you come with us to Baltimore for dinner this evening? There’s plenty of room at Grandmother’s for all of us to stay overnight.”

“Sorry, but I committed to taking out Kyoko and Yoshi this evening, since they’re all alone and have been through such a nightmare.” I didn’t mention that Hugh Glendinning was coming along. I wanted to make it sound like all work and no pleasure.

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” my father said. “You can see your grandmother later during our visit.”

“Great,” I said, feeling faint. My solo trip to the United States was turning out to be full of friends and relatives. How ironic it was that as the well-wishers closed me in a tight embrace, I had never felt more alone.