The Bride's Kimono (33 page)

“This is Mr. Jones calling from Professional Sentry Services, the company that has a contract with the museum. An alarm went off and I’m calling to check what the situation is. Is everything all right?”

I looked at Mr. Shima. He was nodding emphatically.

“Yes, everything’s fine.”

“And who are you?”

Again, he nodded and mouthed the word “Shimura.”

“Rei Shima—Shimura,” I said, as if I were merely stuttering. If there was a tape of the call, maybe someone would figure out later what I’d been trying to say.

“Ms. Shimura, we don’t have you listed in the computer as a museum staff member qualified to sign off on security concerns.”

“Um, it must be because I don’t normally work here,” I said, looking anxiously at Mr. Shima. He smiled. It was all going according to his plan.

“Just give me the password, and then I can sign it all off.”

“Let me see…I’m trying to remember. It’s been a while since it was given to me.” I paused. “Something about…cats, no, I think it was something about dogs. No, it was Japanese history—”

“It’s easy to forget. Do you have it written down somewhere?” The alarm company employee was entirely too accommodating—not very good for a security company that should be on the lookout for thieves, I thought. But that was beside the point. I had a minute more to talk before Mr. Shima killed me.

“Why don’t you try to think really hard, run through what seems most likely to you,” the security-company man suggested.

“Chippendale,” I said, knowing that there was no way in hell that it could be right.

Mr. Shima was so physically close that I could feel his head nodding alongside mine.

“Chippendale…that’s not right. I can give you a hint, if you can tell me the museum curator’s mother’s maiden name.”

I almost laughed. The ultimate irony is I knew Allison’s maiden name—Lancer. But not her mother’s.

“Howard,” I said, giving my mother’s own name.

“What’s that? I couldn’t quite hear you.”

“The alarm is so loud. I’m really sorry I set it off,” I said miserably, trying to speak louder. It did make it hard to hear the voice on the other end of the line.

“Don’t worry! It happens to many of our clients. Can you spell the maiden name for me?” Could the alarm-company guy be so stupid that he was willing to believe whatever word I made up? If so, nobody would ever come to look for my dead body that night. The only thing I could think of doing to delay was misspell the word. “Okay, I think it’s H-O-W-A—”

“I didn’t hear the third letter, can you repeat it all again from the start?”

“H-O-W—”

I fell backward as Mr. Shima gave a sudden jerk. Oh, God, this was it. He was stabbing me. No, he’d just fallen backward. Because I was on his lap, I fell, too—but in the next moment strong hands seized me under my arms and yanked me over the table.

“You okay?” asked a man wearing a baseball cap and black T-shirt with the word
POLICE
on it, setting me down on an antique Chinese chair that I knew the museum didn’t want anyone sitting on.

“How—How—” I broke off, not sure whether I should keep spelling my mother’s maiden name, or whether I should ask what had happened. “How did you get here?”

“We got the message from your friends outside—the ones who set off the alarm in the first place,” the man said as he snapped handcuffs onto Mr. Shima. “Because of the information you relayed when they called you, we were able to guess that you and the suspect were
downstairs near the reception area, and that the suspect was armed with a knife.”

I wasn’t going to have to explain my way out of anything, I thought with amazement, as I heard the SWAT man give Mr. Shima the Miranda warning. After he’d finished, the warning was repeated by a Japanese man I vaguely recognized from the Japanese embassy.

Mr. Shima was crying, but I didn’t feel sorry for him. He’d killed Hana and thrown her in the garbage, just because she got in the way of his
netsuke
smuggling operation. And he would have killed me.

“After you get your medical done, we’ll see you downtown,” the SWAT man said to me. “In the meantime you might as well catch a ride downtown in the black Lexus parked outside. You got a couple of friends in there who are very worried. They seem like out-of-towners, though—you think they’ll be able to find their way around town?”

“A couple of friends?” I repeated faintly. “You don’t mean—one Japanese and one Scottish?”

“Yeah, exactly that. Two good-looking guys with strange accents, both very concerned. They’re the ones who set off the alarm in the first place.”

“I see.” This was an etiquette situation that neither the American nor Japanese experts could tell me how to handle. But as my mother would say, it was the kind of problem more than a few women would like to have.

H
ugh hugged me first, wordlessly. His face was as wet as mine. Then Takeo took me in his arms, dry-cheeked, but murmuring an apology that I thought I’d never hear from him.

“I can’t believe this,” I said to them both as I stepped back and regarded the improbable sight of my East-West boyfriends standing together. “Because you talked to each other, you wound up saving my life. After I was so hard on both of you—”

“You were never awful,” Hugh said as I slid in next to Takeo in the backseat of the Lexus. It seemed the right place to be.

“You were torn between two men and two countries,” Takeo said softly. “I see it now.”

As Hugh drove, the two of them described how things had played out. Hugh had retrieved the phone message I left at his apartment, and gone to the museum, only to find it shut with an irate Takeo pacing in front of its door, convinced that I was still inside. It had been Takeo who had gotten on Hugh’s shoulders and thrown the rock that broke a museum window, setting off the alarm; and Takeo who had been standing close to Hugh’s cell phone, taking in the brutal words that Mr. Shima was whispering in Japanese. By the end of
the short, disjointed communication, both men knew that Mr. Shima was with me, and I was in serious trouble. So Hugh did what he did best: organize. In the space of a few minutes he’d gotten the 911 dispatcher to put him in touch with a SWAT team.

At the police station, I was questioned separately from Mr. Shima, and the name Dick Jemshaw must have come out in both conversations, because the police roared off to his house in Bethesda. And two hours later, when I was going over my statement for the umpteenth time, I heard the good news that the bride’s kimono had been found at Dick Jemshaw’s home—along with a collection of fifteen
netsuke
that had been sewn into the hem.

Takeo, sticking to his word, left Washington the next day for Tokyo. It was the same flight that Kyoko and Yoshi were taking, so he and I saw them at the gate at Dulles. Kyoko and Yoshi were very social and talkative at first—so giddy, almost, that I was beginning to think they might finally be comfortable with the idea that the two of them belonged together. When they saw the way that Takeo and I were looking at each other, though, they quietly made their way off to Starbucks for a few final purchases.

“I know that saying I’m sorry can’t make up for what I did to you,” Takeo said as we stood side by side, watching out the window at the runway. Two baggage carts had just arrived at the plane. “What I said yesterday in the restaurant was unforgivable. Then I led you to a place where you almost lost your life.”

“What you said to me in the hotel represents a bad five minutes. It doesn’t replace all that happened in the last year, since I met you.”

“I’m glad you had a good last year,” Takeo said.

I didn’t answer immediately because I was watching through the window some action on the runway. Four baggage handlers were transferring a long black box covered with a thick layer of plastic tarp into the plane’s hold. Hana. I was seeing her again at last.

“Why do you look so sad?” Takeo asked.

“It’s Hana. I think her coffin just went into the plane. I’ll always choose to believe that she went into my room to try on makeup…not to steal the kimono. Anyway, if she’d truly stolen the kimono and gotten away, she’d still be alive. A human life is worth so much more than cloth. Or
netsuke
.”

“Dick Jemshaw was the one who was going to sell the
netsuke,
you said to the police last night. Do you know whether he confessed to being involved in the murder, too?”

“The police told me that Dick Jemshaw admitted asking Mr. Shima to smuggle the stolen
netsuke
for him in exchange for fifty percent of the profits. Then Mr. Shima had his—complication—with Hana, and he told Dick. Dick told him to get rid of the body…so he did know. So he’s an accessory.” I thought of how Hana had talked to me about accessories while we were on the plane—what a weird, alternate meaning of the word applied to Dick Jemshaw. At the same time I knew that it was very lucky for Jamie that the police had found the
netsuke
at Dick’s house, and not her apartment—where I had worried they might be. The only mystery I hadn’t figured out was who had slashed Hugh’s car tires. Mr. Shima swore he’d lost our trail and not gone into Georgetown, and Kyoko hadn’t done it—at least, according to the Café Milano staff who’d seen her go into the rest room and then straight back to her table. My final conclusion was that the vandalism on the Lexus
had been done by the parking intimidation expert in the Bob Marley T-shirt. There would never be a way to prove it, of course. And even I had to admit that this kind of crime was small potatoes compared with what had happened to Hana.

I shook myself and went back to the topic that interested Takeo. “Dick Jemshaw will probably serve five to ten years in prison—at least, that’s what Hugh thinks.”

“Hugh’s a good thinker,” Takeo said softly. “He’s perfect for you.”

“I wouldn’t say perfect.” I felt as awkward about the situation as when I’d first walked out of the museum.

“We had time to talk when we were sitting in his car and you were trapped inside. We both were going crazy knowing that you could die. We talked about nothing but you. And I realized that I want you, but I do not have the same kind of attachment that he does. I’m just so different—I can never live your way. Or his. All the people you want to see, the places you want to go. You have so much heart, so much energy.”

“It sounds as if you’ve given up,” I said, feeling sad again.

“It’s not giving up—it’s facing reality. In my own irresponsible way I do love you, but I never felt like saying it, because I wasn’t sure. After my behavior yesterday—well, I think you understand how hellish I would be to live with. But I’ll be around in Japan, if you ever change your mind and come back.”

“Of course I’m coming back. I’m going to get my passport straightened out this week—”

“Take your time deciding. You should explore some business possibilities here, and see what it’s like to be with someone who loves you enough to want to marry.” The last few words Takeo seemed to choke on. I knew how hard this was for him.

I took Takeo’s hands in mine. “I’ll never forget this.”

“I know. But would you do me a favor and please leave? I want to compose myself before I get on the plane. The longer you look at me, the closer I come to breaking down.”

I left the gate in a haze of tears, understanding that there could be no happy ending for Takeo, just as there hadn’t been for Hana, or Yoshi, or Kyoko. Americans had been affected by the kimono scandal, too. Jamie, I knew, was quietly miserable, even though I had reassured her privately, during a quick phone conversation earlier that morning, that I didn’t bear her any grudge. I remembered how my reputation had almost collapsed because of a stupid, reckless moment on a Metro train. Jamie was twenty-three and deserved to go on with her life, to make better choices.

Allison Powell had taken a sudden leave of absence from the museum, which meant that Jamie would temporarily assume her responsibilities. I suspected Allison’s leave might become permanent, because it was now widely known that she’d been warned of a risk to the kimono exhibition but hadn’t beefed up security. Jamie had said to me that Marina Billings considered me the one who had saved the museum’s collection from a devastating crime while all of them had been too distracted to notice what had been going on. The museum’s director would go on to repeat her flattering quote for reporters from
The Washington Post, Washington Times,
and
USA Today,
not to mention the various television networks.

Marina wanted me to deliver my kimono lecture again on Wednesday, the date that a harried editorial assistant at the
Post
had mistakenly typed in as that of my
speaking engagement. Given the avalanche of publicity the exhibition had received, and the extra speaking fee I’d receive, I said yes. After all, I still needed to do some souvenir shopping—a Versace belt for Richard Randall was high on my list.

I was relieved that the two men who had been distrustful of me at the Japanese embassy had sent flowers and a note congratulating me on great personal bravery. And then, from Japan, the Morioka Museum’s director, Mr. Ito, faxed a letter of thanks for saving the museum’s collection. He and Mr. Nishio and the Japanese police were beginning a full-scale investigation of their holdings in case Mr. Shima had been pilfering museum storage for a while. Mr. Ito added that he wanted to have a talk about my doing more work for his museum, after I’d returned to Japan and had a chance to think things through.

I wasn’t sure when I’d go home, because I still hadn’t made any effort to replace my passport. In the meantime I was living like an exhausted young woman who had too few pennies in her pocket. It would take another twenty-four hours for the museum to come through with a check for me, so, from the airport where I’d dropped off Takeo, I decided to take the Washington Suites’ free shuttle bus back to the hotel. There, I packed up my goods and said good-bye. Brian Hunter took a Polaroid snapshot of me in the lobby and asked me to autograph it.

On the outside, I was solvent, but inside, I was a wreck. I’d been close to death before, but the extended time with Mr. Shima had been more disturbing than anything I’d experienced. He’d cut the back of my neck with a bride’s knife; the cut had been fairly deep, it turned out, deep enough for the female plastic surgeon to warn me that I might have a scar—not that a scar on the back of the neck was any kind of problem, she’d
hastened to add. I wouldn’t go through the trauma that women did who’d had their faces, or breasts, disfigured.

It wasn’t until after Takeo had kissed me good-bye at the airport that I thought about how the nape of the neck was considered the most erotic part of a Japanese woman. If I wore a kimono again, I’d have to pull the collar snugly against my neck, hiding the ugly marks. I was going to have to call my aunt Norie about it before I went home—I knew she’d cry when she saw my nape.

Feeling somber, I shuttled my suitcases on the Metro and then trudged from Dupont Circle to Hugh’s apartment, letting myself in with the extra key that he’d given me. Hugh had gone to work for a few hours but would be back by supper. It was good to have a few hours to myself in the late afternoon, in an apartment with old gas-electric fixtures that shone with a cozy glow. I unpacked the beautiful dresses and the suit my mother had helped me buy, and hung them in a small section of Hugh’s closet. I stored everything else in one drawer, so that it wouldn’t seem as if I were moving in.

I’d stay for a little while, just long enough to have a sense of peace and happiness again. I’d said as much to Hugh the night before, which he’d spent holding me tightly in my old room at the Washington Suites. Hugh had repeated that wherever I wanted to live, he’d follow—but only at my invitation.

I smiled to myself, thinking that the greatest luxury in the world surely was the gift of unconditional love. The promise of a quiet evening with Hugh slipped around me as softly as the finest
rinzu
silk.

Now it was five o’clock, and I lit a fire in the living room and poured myself a small glass of sherry. I was almost completely unpacked. The only things I couldn’t find an obvious place for were the three long rectangular packages that belonged to Aunt Norie—the kimono
she’d lent me. Now I opened up the rice-paper covering to examine the last kimono, the one that I’d never worn, made of the green silk that reminded me of Hugh’s eyes. As I looked at it again, I decided that the green was just as close to the color of the moss Takeo cultivated in his garden in Hayama. Green, the color that had proved to be more significant to me than any other.

I took a shower, taking care to protect the area of my neck that had been taped. Then I began dressing. First came new, shimmering peach-colored lingerie and the half-slip that my mother had bought me. Over that went a gold silk underkimono, which was followed by the various waist ties, and then the green kimono, more sashes around the waist, and finally the
obi
. I spent the next fifteen minutes in front of the armoire’s full-length mirror tying the black-and-gold
obi
with a wide and splendid bow. Then I rotated the sash so that the bow rested on the proper place in the middle of my back. I tied orange and gold
obi-jime
cords over the
obi
as the final decorative flourish.

I was almost done. Standing sideways so I could see the back of my neck in the mirrored armoire door, I adjusted the back collar of my kimono. The tape over my injury showed, but I found I didn’t mind it as much as I’d thought. The mark was a symbol of a rite of passage—a passage to a stronger identity. Now I knew that I didn’t need to stand alone to be strong.

I perked up my ears at the sound of a key opening the vestibule door a flight below. Hugh bounded up the stairs, softly singing “Honey,” a song I’d been getting to know. He sounded better than Moby, but I guess I was biased.

Hugh was moving quickly, but I wanted to beat him. Before he could reach his front door, I’d unlocked it.