The Bride's Kimono Read online

When nobody picked up, I decided to try the city apartment where Takeo occasionally stayed during the week. Again, the phone rang with the same trill, and I felt as homesick as before.

  “Yes?” Takeo said briskly, picking up the phone after the sixth ring.

  “I’m so glad that you’re there, I’ve got a big problem—”

  “Rei?”

  Didn’t he recognize my voice? I answered crossly, “Yes, I’m calling from my hotel.”

  “Oh. I was just about to go out.”

  “Out? You never go out!” Was it my imagination, or was there the sound of someone else’s voice in the background? A woman’s voice. Well, it was probably his sister. Her apartment was next door to his.

  “Natsumi and I are going to the engagement party for a family friend. But you can tell me quickly what’s going on.”

  “Okay. I really just have one question. If you were responsible for something precious that belonged to another person, and that precious item disappeared, would you tell the person immediately or try your best to find it before confessing about the loss?”

  “Is the person in question Japanese?”

  “Yes.”

  “You lost my safety charm, didn’t you?” There was accusation in his tone.

  “No, no, it’s still in my carry-on bag.” I was irritated that Takeo was so wound up about his silly amulet. “One of the Morioka kimono that I brought was stolen from my room. I reported it to hotel security, but I haven’t done anything about the police yet because I think there might be a chance I can get it back. That is, if the person I suspect of taking it actually took it.”

  “Oh, no. That sounds complicated—”

  “It’s a complete disaster. It turns out that because this kimono was never listed on the Museum of Asian Art’s loan receipt, it might not be insured against loss. It’s worth fifty thousand dollars at least—not to mention that it’s a one-of-a-kind piece that can’t be replaced.”

  “Rei, I’m sorry. That’s such bad news—I wish I could help you, but I’ve got to go out right now.”

  “Just answer my question first. Do you think the Morioka people would be more disturbed if I don’t go to the police immediately?”

  “I don’t know. Theft is quite disturbing to the Japanese psyche, maybe because we have so little of it here, and everyone thinks it’s done by foreigners. It’s really unfortunate that the treasure was stolen in the U.S.”

  “Ironically, I think it might have been a Japanese thief.”

  “Who would believe you? The Morioka is a conservative Japanese institution. I suspect they’ll describe the crime as something done by the Americans against the Japanese.”

  “Oh, my God.” I thought it had been bad when the Japanese media had caught me in a clinch with Takeo, but this would be far worse. It could set back foreign relations between the two nations.

  “I’ll call you when I get a chance,” Takeo said. “Try to keep your spirits up.”

  He’d hung up before I could reply with similar good wishes. What a strange conversation. Still, he’d confirmed what I thought about not telling the Morioka the bad news too early.

  I had a quick room-service breakfast of a bagel and juice, then picked up my note cards relating to kimono and prepared to head down to the hotel’s business center. I still had to work up two lecture outlines for Allison. I looked at the clock and saw that it was not yet eight A.M.—the scheduled time of departure for the office ladies’ trip to Potomac Mills. There was one last thing I could do before going downstairs.

  I called Room 401, and a soft voice answered in Japanese. Kyoko, I thought, judging from the hopeful tone.

  “Hi, it’s Rei. Did Hana come back?” I said, sensing the answer.

  “No. I’m very worried.” Kyoko’s voice quavered.

  “Well, maybe she’s en route. It must have been a really fun night for her,” I said sarcastically, thinking about how hard my own evening had been.

  “Rei-san, what about your meeting with the lawyer? Is everything all right now?”

  “Not really,” I said. “The kimono’s still missing. By the way, I’d appreciate it if you keep that information private. I would be embarrassed if others knew of my misfortune.”

  “Of course,” Kyoko said. “I’m not a gossip like Hana was.”

  I felt a sense of foreboding twist in my stomach at her use of the past-tense verb. It was as if Kyoko had decided Hana had died. “About Hana,” I began. “Why don’t you tell Mrs. Chiyoda that she’s missing? You shouldn’t have to go through this misery alone. She might have given Hana some tips on where to look for guys—you never know. She is the tour group leader.”

  “Yes, that’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll get a chance to speak to her before we leave for Potomac Mills.”

  I hung up with Kyoko and went downstairs to the hotel’s business center, which was a conference room that had a couple of computer terminals, a printer, a fax machine, and Saundra, the hotel’s gum-chewing “business associate.”

  “Do you want to check e-mail?” Saundra asked when I checked in at her desk.

  Instead of snapping at her that I didn’t believe in e-mail, I said, “I’d like to write something and print it out. Do you have a word processor or electric typewriter?”

  “We used to have a word processor, but when it broke, nobody around here could fix it. Most guests know how to keyboard on the computers—we have both a Mac and an IBM compatible. Which do you want?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know how to use either,” I said, feeling stupid. How had I managed to go so long in my life without using computers? At home in Japan, I still used a word processor that I’d gotten secondhand from the office of the kitchenware company where I once taught English.

  Saundra looked sadly at me and said, “With tutorial instruction—that means, me helping you—the fee is fifteen dollars per quarter hour. Once you get started, I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

  She was right. It didn’t take more than ten minutes for me to learn how to format, save, and print my work. The harder part was bringing in the two specific women and their clothing to illustrate the power that Japanese women had in fostering opulent kimono design in the Edo period—and to show how, with Japan’s increasing wealth during this time, kimono styles, as well as roles for women, became more circumscribed. I’d thought this all through back in Japan, but putting it down on paper for Allison Powell’s inspection was a bit unwieldy.

  As I bluffed my way along, I thought that in a sense, what had happened with kimono design in the past was recurring with modern office ladies’ shopping mania. Because Hana and Kyoko’s fathers were solid providers, the girls were able to spend their own income on travel and luxuries. They would marry new providers, and if luck was with them, keep shopping. Hana had talked about escaping this routine with an overseas sex fling, but still, she was looking forward to a future as tightly bound in tradition as that of my Japanese aunt or my grandmother.

  After two hours, I printed out what I had composed, signed the bill that Saundra prepared for me, and went up to my room to dress for Washington. Then I went down to the front desk, where Julie, the woman who had helped me with my key card the first time around, was checking in some new guests.

  “I’m Rei Shimura. Yesterday I had a problem with my key card. I don’t know if you remember,” I began.

  “Oh, yes, Miss Shy-myoore.”

  “Well, yesterday evening I reported a theft from my room. I don’t know if you heard about it?”

  “I saw it on the log that the night manager leaves for the next manager on duty. I’m sorry you’re missing some items, but as you must know from the sign on your door, the hotel cannot be held liable for items guests claim are missing from their rooms.”

  “I see. How often does this kind of thing happen here?”

  “Not often at all,” Julie said, sounding defensive. “Most of our guests like to use safety-deposit boxes. I know I showed you one yesterday, but you turned it down—”

&n
bsp; “The item that I had was too large.”

  “The kimono, maybe, but not the passport and plane tickets.”

  Brian had written a surprisingly thorough report, but Julie still didn’t seem to care. I looked at the front-desk manager, trying to think how I could coax her into action. She seemed a rather prissy sort. I’d have to play on that.

  “Yesterday, you quite properly asked me for identification when I told you that I needed my key card to be altered to get into my room,” I said.

  Julie nodded. “It’s hotel policy.”

  “Brian mentioned to me later that there were a few other Japanese ladies having trouble with their key cards. Did you handle more key-card requests than the one from me?”

  “Yes, if I remember correctly, I did. There were a couple of Japanese girls needing help, but it turned out their key cards were fine; they were just putting them in upside down.”

  “Do you keep a log of the guests who request help with the key cards?”

  “No. It’s a small enough matter, plus we know everything’s safe because we check for ID each time we do it.”

  I nodded, thinking that Julie would be the last one to let a crook slip by. “Have you heard anything from maintenance or housekeeping about the kimono being found?”

  Julie shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s red, isn’t it? That would have shown up easily if it got mixed up in the laundry. But there’s a bulletin in the employee area about it, so everyone’s keeping their eyes peeled.”

  I skipped lunch because I was disheartened, choosing to walk the two miles to the West Falls Church Metro Station in my sensible low heels. I passed the length of the mall and thought how odd it was I wasn’t seeing other people. All were enclosed in their automobiles, despite the fact that it was a sunny day in the sixties.

  Hana had gone to the mall, and she’d never come back. Had she been kidnapped? I recalled the urban legend that swirls around every American shopping mall. It involves a kidnapper taking a child into a rest room and cutting and dyeing the child’s hair just before an alarm is raised. The kidnapper always vanishes, and the child is always found. The story is scary enough to be titillating, but not so devastating that it would keep people from shopping at the mall.

  I couldn’t imagine that a woman as fit and young as Hana could easily be kidnapped, unless there was a weapon involved. It was easier to believe that she could have gone somewhere willingly with a one-night stand who had wanted more than sex. Something much worse.

  I thought about Hana all the way into Washington, and then, as I got out of the Metro and started my trek to Kalorama, I moved on to the problem of how I’d tell Allison and Jamie about the kimono loss. In a way, they deserved to hear about it, because it wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t rejected the uchikake for the exhibition.

  A dark thought that had flitted through my mind returned. What if Jamie had raised the ruckus about not letting the kimono stay in the museum because she’d wanted it to be at risk?

  It didn’t seem likely, especially since she hadn’t known that the bride’s kimono was coming. Still, it was possible. By the time I reached the museum entrance, I’d decided to hold off telling Allison and Jamie what had happened. I would nose around them a bit longer and learn whether my suspicions were justified.

  12

  I arrived close to one so, unlike the previous day, the museum lobby was filled. I stood in line behind a half-dozen tourists paying admission at the reception desk. The tourists right in front of me had heard about the kimono exhibition from reading The Washington Post that morning and were disappointed that the kimono couldn’t yet be seen.

  “I’m sorry it’s not open yet,” I said, taking it upon myself to do a little public relations. “On Friday, when everything opens, I’ll be delivering the lecture. I hope you’ll come back.”

  “We were planning on going to the Smithsonian Friday,” the first tourist said, still sounding annoyed.

  “I think we can come back. Especially if it’s a free lecture,” her companion said.

  After the two ladies had left, I heard Allison’s voice behind me. “Rei, you seem to be taking over our receptionist’s job.”

  “I thought I should explain the correct time so they’d come back,” I said, my confidence suddenly faltering. “Was that wrong?”

  “No, it’s fine,” Allison said, but from the way she was looking at me, I could tell I’d overstepped. I felt myself start to sweat under my tight-fitting vintage silk knit Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress. I’d made an etiquette blunder in the country of my birth.

  Upstairs in the curator’s spacious office, Allison sat down at her handsome mahogany desk to read the outline I’d brought. I sat on a more standard-issue business chair—black rubber handles and a wool-blend upholstery—that was pulled up to a computer workstation made of melamine. Computer furniture was comfortable, but usually so ugly—yet another reason for me not to turn my Tokyo apartment into an up-to-date high-tech office.

  The computer was on, and the screen in front of me filled with a jumble of advertisements, some of which were even blinking. So this was what the Internet was about: advertising. Buying things. I wondered what possible role it could play in a nonprofit museum.

  I turned when I heard footsteps. Jamie had clattered into the room wearing a short black dress. Her feet were shod in unsexy Doc Martens, but even that couldn’t disguise her long, beautiful legs. “Oh, hi, Rei.” She was acting friendly, as if there had been no tension the day before. “Do you want to check your e-mail?”

  “I don’t have an e-mail address. Frankly, I don’t know how you navigate your way past these blinking advertisements to get to e-mail.”

  Jamie laughed. “Funny that you say ‘navigate’—that’s the name of our software program. I could show you how easy it is.”

  “Jamie, it would be better if you went off-line so we can go into Word and revise Rei’s outline,” Allison said.

  I glanced at Allison, realizing that she really was in a bad mood that morning. Jamie’s face was pink with embarrassment, and I got up to let her have the chair in front of the computer. She moved about the plastic handle that I’d learned was called a mouse. Suddenly the page of advertisements vanished, and the screen was filled with something called eBay. In the brief time that it was up, I saw that it held a list of various antique furniture pieces with prices next to them—as if it were an auction site. Now this was interesting—auctions on the Internet? But Jamie made the Internet vanish and got busy typing descriptions of kimono.

  “How long are you planning to take questions, Rei?” Allison asked, breaking into my thoughts.

  “As long as you’d like,” I said quickly. “I thought for the noontime session I’d talk for thirty minutes, and then spend about fifteen minutes doing kimono wrapping, during which time I could certainly answer questions. Does that sound good?”

  “Sure. For the VIP reception, though, you shouldn’t speak so long—twenty minutes would be perfect, with ten for question-and-answer.”

  “You both must be very busy with last-minute details for the reception,” I said, trying to finesse my way into some hard questions. “How late did you work last night?”

  “Are you talking to me?” Allison asked sharply.

  “Um, well, I was curious about you both. I’m interested in the contrast between Japanese museum culture and the culture here.”

  “As professional employees, neither Jamie nor I clocks in.” Allison wrinkled her nose, as if I’d made her think of distasteful pink-collar jobs.

  “So how late did you work last night?” I repeated.

  “Jamie left at five-thirty and I was gone by six. We leave before the guard sets the alarm, just to make things simpler,” Allison said frostily.

  Jamie bit her lip and said, “Allison mentioned that you were looking to do more research on courtesans and their kimono.”

  “That’s true—and not only courtesans, but the women who lived in the infamous Yoshiwara Pleasu
re Quarter.”

  “I was just thinking about books. When I was in school, I read a really lively and detailed text about life in late Tokugawa Japan written by an Englishman—Dunstan or something like that. It might have been called The Sun Sinks or something similar.”

  I paused and thought. It had been a long time since I’d read Tokugawa history. “It doesn’t sound familiar. Is it recent?”

  “Not in the slightest. It was published in the 1850s, and what I saw was a photocopy of the original text, which makes me think there were no reprints. There was a lot about kimono design in there; that’s why we had to read it.”

  “So you’re telling me about a good book that’s completely unavailable?” That, or she was making a point of showing off in front of Allison.

  “I don’t know that for sure,” Jamie said. “You could always check at the Textile Museum down the street, or at the Library of Congress.”

  “Perhaps I will. But can someone like me walk in and be allowed to handle the books?”

  Allison sighed. “Rei, you’re a guest scholar at our museum. Of course other museums will let you do research, once you sign a visitor’s card. Just explain who you are.”

  I left the Museum of Asian Arts not quite sure what had happened. Perhaps Jamie was trying to throw me off her trail by offering me a supposedly helpful tidbit for my research. As I thought more about the name Dunstan, something snapped into my memory. There was a tombstone in the Aoyama Foreigners’ Cemetery that belonged to Dunstan Lanning, an Englishman who’d somehow sneaked into Japan before the country allowed foreigners and had been executed by the Shogun government for disrespect. I could guess that what he wrote was hard-hitting and far from the topic of textiles, but now that Jamie had mentioned him, and Allison had heard her, I felt obligated to follow up.

  The Textile Museum didn’t have the book, so I decided to try the Library of Congress. It hadn’t looked that far away on the map, but by the time I got there, I was thoroughly confused. Again, I was in for some grand architecture—this was a conglomeration of grand white buildings that looked like the last place anyone could borrow a book. I found my way to the Jefferson Building, and as Allison had said, all I needed to do was fill out a brief form in order to gain entrée to the collections.