Shimura Trouble Read online

  “No, you didn’t. And let me finish, please.” I elaborated about the letter and the newfound family, the eighty-eighth birthday, and Edwin’s legal and financial history.

  “I could run his name through a few databases for you—but Rei, I don’t think having a bad businessman for an uncle should be a deal-breaker. Hawaii’s gorgeous in July. As well as every other month in the year…”

  “I like Hawaii too. But I’m not willing to go there if it means getting mixed up with a bad character.”

  “It’s an old man’s birthday party.” Michael sounded reasonable. “Go to the party, get together a few times, and spend the rest of the time relaxing. You deserve the trip to Hawaii as much as your father.”

  “All I’ve been doing here is relaxing. I’m bored out of my mind.”

  “You told me that your father said the letter raised his spirits! You know, there’s supposed to be a link between mood and recovery from illnesses. I can email you a study proving it.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “I’m more interested in proof that Edwin Shimura’s ancestor, this picture bride called Harue Shimura, was in fact the girl who left my family. That’s the gist of it, Michael. We don’t even know if we’re related.”

  “Well, that’s research you can do yourself, if you’re so bored.” Now Michael sounded amused.

  “Well, I’ve already emailed a historical society in Honolulu that might have records for Japanese immigrants. And I’ll phone my Uncle Hiroshi in Japan, just in case he remembers more about the so-called whisperings.”

  “Don’t forget to check birth records with the state of Hawaii.”

  “But she was born in Japan.” I interrupted myself. “You probably mean I should check the birth certificate of Yoshitsune Shimura in order to reference the names of his parents?”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking. You do your thing, and I’ll do my part for you—when I can. I’m afraid that for the most part of this week I’m swamped.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

  “Very original. I do miss you, Brooks.” I used his code name, holding on to the last bit of intimacy, before the call ended.

  “Don’t change that feeling.”

  “What?” I was momentarily confused, especially when Michael made the sound of a kiss and hung up. I had a feeling that the CIA would not approve.

  MY UNCLE HIROSHI had never heard anything about a missing great-aunt. He’d also received a letter from Edwin Shimura, though, and as a result he and his son, my cousin Tom, were already condo-hunting for the visit.

  “If you and your father meet us there, it will be wonderful. When’s the last time we’ve all been together?” Uncle Hiroshi asked over the phone.

  Frankly, I would have been reassured if my beloved Aunt Norie was coming along, but apparently she was teaching a month of ikebana classes at the Kayama School right at the time of the beiju. And Chika, my younger cousin, was involved in her first job. She was as busy as my mother, who couldn’t come because the grand opening of the boutique hotel she was decorating was in mid-June. Tearfully, we spent many late nights together, talking about the past, her fears for my father, and how she felt duty-bound to work harder than she ever had in the event my father couldn’t resume his medical school professorship.

  I had work to do, too. I exchanged several emails with researchers at the Japanese Cultural Center in Honolulu, who confirmed the existence of a Harue Shimura who’d emigrated from Yokohama in 1924, at the age of twenty-two. She was married at the dock by a judge who also recorded the changing of name by her husband from Keijin Watanabe to Ken Shimura. The Territory of Hawaii had a birth record for a child born to her and Ken: Yoshitsune Shimura, eighty-nine years previously.

  So my father’s guess was right, that Harue’s husband had taken her name. But according to the record, Yoshitsune was older than eighty-eight. I showed the birth certificate copy to my father, but he assured me that in old Japan, in utero time was counted in a person’s age. Thus, my father was really sixty-four, not sixty-three. He went on to tell me I was actually thirty-one and not thirty, which really made me crazy.

  “It’s still wrong,” I said to my father. “If you count in an extra year according to Japanese custom, Yoshitsune Shimura should have celebrated his beiju two years ago.”

  “I’m sure we’ll learn their family customs when we arrive.” My father’s voice was placid.

  “I’VE LOST THE battle,” I reported to Michael the next time we talked on the phone. “We’re definitely going.”

  “Well, don’t worry too much about it. I ran the FBI check and neither your Uncle Edwin nor his wife Margaret nor the great-uncle have robbed banks or murdered anyone.”

  “Great.” But I didn’t mean it. I’d been hoping for a last-minute reprieve.

  “And I have something even better for you. A surprise.”

  “What?” I asked dubiously.

  “I’ll see you in Hawaii a week and a half after you get in. If the winds are with me.”

  I was surprised—and elated. “If the winds are with you? Is that something for me to decode?”

  Michael laughed. “I’m talking about the Transpac.”

  “What the hell is that? It sounds like a military exercise.”

  “It’s the longest sailing race in the world: over two and a half thousand miles. One of my old Naval Academy classmates has been trying to rustle up an extra crew member, and after squaring things here at Langley, I can actually sail with them.”

  “Super. So are you leaving from Annapolis?”

  “No, there’s a staggered start for the various classes of yachts in Southern California. My buddy Parker Drummond, who’s based in LA, splurged a few years ago on a forty-foot schooner. It should be able to make the trip in under two weeks if the winds are with us and we push ourselves.”

  “Where in Hawaii does the race end?”

  “The finish line is when you pass that huge old volcano, Diamond Head. We’ll dock at the Waikiki Yacht Club, and another guy on the crew, my friend Kurt, has booked our group into the Hale Koa, which is the military hotel right in the heart of Waikiki.”

  “So you’re staying in Hawaii just a week,” I thought aloud. “That means you’ll be at sea longer than on land.”

  “Yes, that’s the way it works. I wish I had more time to spend on land with you, Rei, but getting these three weeks together is kind of a miracle. I gave Len the full sob story, how Kurt survived three tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and it was a dream for us all—Eric, Parker, Kurt and me—to sail together once again just like we did in Annapolis.”

  “It’ll be a great bonding experience,” I said, trying not to be too jealous that most of Michael’s vacation would be with three men, and not me. “I hope you have a wonderful time out in the Pacific.”

  “Well, it’s not like it’s going to be a two-week party,” Michael said. “It’s doubtful we’ll get more than four hours’ sleep per twenty-four period.”

  Trying to sound casual, I said, “If you get a chance, call me from your cell when you’re pulling into port. I’d like to greet you.”

  “I hope to be able to reach you using the boat’s satellite phone even earlier than that. I’d love you to meet my boat—it’s been a long time since anyone’s done that.” Michael’s voice was wistful, and I knew without asking who this must have been—Jennifer, Michael’s young wife who’d been killed in an airplane bombing in the late 1990s. Jennifer was the chief reason he still didn’t have a girlfriend—and also the reason I’d been sitting on my hands whenever we’d been together. Who could compete with a ghost?

  Trying to shake my morbid mood, I asked, “So when does the race start?”

  “Three weeks. We’ll actually be leaving before you.”

  “That’s weird, isn’t it? That I might be passing over you, in the sky?”

  “You’re flying Hawaiian Airlines, right, on the fifteenth?”

  “Yes.” I
’d sent him my itinerary, at his request.

  “Great. That day, I’ll just keep my eye out for planes with purple tails, and I’ll toast each one that flies over me.”

  WHEN I FLY for work with Michael’s group, OCI, it’s usually in business class. I’ve become accustomed to free drinks and semi-decent food and kind attentions from flight attendants. But this time the flight was economy, and the rear cabin where my father and I sat was freezing cold. I demanded extra blankets, but there was only one, so I gave it to my father. Not even the wine was free, so I asked for guava juice. My father took one as well.

  “Just wait till we can make our own fresh guava juice in Hawaii,” I told my father. “Not to mention that passion fruit and mangoes are going to be in season.”

  “I don’t believe you packed a juicer,” my father said.

  He was right. I’d packed many things, but not the giant juicer that sat in state in our San Francisco kitchen. “The townhouse is supposed to be fully furnished, and that means kitchen utensils. If there isn’t a mechanical juicer, maybe I can buy a wooden hand tool.”

  “I don’t need pampering,” my father said. “I hear that everything in Hawaii is expensive. Canned juice is fine.”

  “But not as rich in fiber and anti-oxidants,” I pointed out.

  “Are you going to talk about health the whole trip?” my father grumped at me. “If so, I want those headphones of yours. I see the flight magazine lists a channel for traditional Japanese music.”

  “Here.” I handed over my noise-reducing headphones and showed him how to turn them on. After a few seconds, a look of wonder spread over his face.

  “These are very nice.” My father sighed, then closed his eyes and leaned his head against the window.

  The Bose headphones had been given to me by Michael, a gift before my last trip to Japan. I paid $5 to rent cheapies from the flight attendant and plugged into the same Japanese station that my father was listening to. Then I buried myself in a mystery set in 1940s Hawaii, The Mamo Murders, which kept my attention all the way until we landed.

  MY FATHER SURVIVED the flight without a second stroke, but I practically had my own upon arrival in Honolulu. I’d advised Uncle Hiroshi and my cousin Tom, who were scheduled to arrive four hours earlier, to get their baggage, have a snack, and meet us at our gate. But nobody was there, and my calls to Tom’s cell phone went unanswered. Had they made it after all? I finally learned that there was a separate terminal for flights to and from Japan. Adding to the confusion, all passengers—Japanese or not—collected baggage in a third terminal a shuttle-bus ride away.

  “Uncle Hiroshi and Tom might never find us,” I fretted as my father and I sat sandwiched together in the steamy little bus. “I had no idea this airport had so many terminals! It wasn’t like this the last time I was here.”

  “Oh, I’m sure we’ll hear from them.” My father seemed relaxed and happy as we shuffled off the hot bus and joined a massive wave going into a building, and then down an escalator to a series of baggage carousels. My father called out, waving, and then I too saw Uncle Hiroshi, short and solid like my father, in a green polo shirt and khakis, and my cousin Tom, taller and handsome in his crisp blue jeans and a yellow polo. Hanging from their necks were leis made of what looked like huge, shiny black nuts, plus red carnations and purple orchids. When my father, uncle and cousin met, all bowed—an underwhelming reaction for brothers who’d not been together for three years, but one that was completely in keeping with family tradition. Greetings were exchanged in Japanese, and I looked around for Edwin Shimura. He must have already met Hiroshi and Tom, since they were wearing leis, but where was he now?

  “You must be very tired, waiting for us,” I said to my uncle in Japanese, because he wasn’t much of an English speaker.

  “Not at all,” Hiroshi demurred. “We have been visiting with Edwin-san. He’s just gone off briefly to check on the rental car.”

  “That’s nice of him,” I said. “By the way, does he speak Japanese?”

  “Yes,” Tom replied. “But it’s a strange Japanese.”

  “It’s a bit like the way peasants speak,” Hiroshi explained. “I mean inaka Japanese, from the nineteenth-century countryside. At times, I thought I was hearing a film.”

  I laughed and said, “Well, the countryside is where most of the original Japanese emigrants to Hawaii have their roots. Perhaps the Japanese language in Hawaii has retained this bit of old Japan.”

  Not Japanese personal style, though. Five minutes later, Edwin Shimura bustled into the terminal, two more leis outstretched toward us—a jumble of pink, red, purple and white flowers in one hand, yellow carnations and black seed pods in the other. Everything about him seemed as loud as the flowers, from his orange and red floral patterned aloha shirt to his shouted welcome.

  “Aloha, irasshaimase! Welcome! So happy to meet you guys!” He plopped the lei over my head and then crushed me into a hug that smelled of orchids, perspiration and cologne. He bowed to my father, bestowed him with the lei, and said warmly, “At last. My cousin, I thrilled to meet you.”

  Cousin Edwin was speaking the Hawaii-style English I remembered from my school trip. It was softer than mainland American English, with extended vowel sounds, and ds that sounded like soft ts, and plenty of dropped prepositions. I could understand him perfectly, but I wasn’t sure how the others were faring.

  “How was the flight?” Edwin asked, grinning as if he anticipated a rapturous reply.

  “It was fine,” I answered for both my father and myself. “Thank you for staying to meet us. I know you must have been waiting for a while.”

  “No sweat,” said Edwin, whose forehead told me otherwise. “I chance going to the car rental and get a better car for you this whole trip.”

  “The sedan with GPS that I reserved was not available,” Tom said in his impeccable English. “So Edwin-san did some research and found there was a car available at one of his friend’s lots.”

  “I used to work in travel, so I have lots of friends working in and near the airport. I got you guys a minivan with a handheld GPS! And of course, a minivan has much more room than a full-size sedan. I figured you’d have lots of luggage, once I heard you were bringing a daughter along!”

  I was sorely tempted to snap at him, but instead I walked off to the luggage carousel, which had finally creaked into action.

  “Ojisan, you stay with the others. I’ll help Rei-chan,” Tom said to my father. As we waited at the carousel together, he asked, “What do you think of him?”

  “I haven’t known him long enough to make a judgment,” I answered carefully. “But you’ve been together a few hours. What’s your opinion?”

  “I’m concerned about the change in car companies,” Tom said. “I think they might have given us an upgrade since the car we reserved was gone, if we had stayed to talk. Uncle Edwin insisted on our leaving the place, because he said that his friend’s rental car agency would have the car we wanted. The minivan we’ve got is $5 more expensive than the car we reserved at Hertz.”

  “Well, I’m sorry about the change, but $5 more isn’t that bad, at last minute. Though I guess I’m a little worried, since Edwin did all this re-arranging before I arrived, that I’m not going to be permitted as the third driver of that car…”

  “It’s five dollars more per day,” Tom said. “And we’re here for a month, which means $150 more. And as far as your driving goes, the agency owner said that he listed you, providing that you telephone him with driver’s license information. And there was an extra three dollars a day to allow you to drive!

  “At least the doctor refused to let Dad drive,” I said. “If we had to add him on to the contract, we might as well buy a car, instead of rent one.”

  “And don’t expect much comfort,” Tom said. “It’s not so clean, and it makes loud noises. I don’t mean to be rude, but…”

  I stared at my Uncle Edwin, who was having an animated conversation with my father. What a jerk! As I was wa
tching him, Edwin suddenly looked past my father and met my gaze.

  His mouth still formed a smile, but he looked as if he sensed what I was thinking. This was not a comfortable situation at all.

  NO ONE PROTESTED when I offered to take the wheel for our drive to the resort where we had rented a house. Perhaps it was because everyone was tired, or because the minivan was such a rat-trap. There appeared to be taco chip crumbs all over the front seat, and some kind of unknown sticky substance in the driver’s side cup-holder. It was the worst spot in a vehicle with stained upholstery, air-conditioning that blew in hot air, and a very loud engine.

  “Now, Rei, you can just follow my car out H-1 West as I drive straight home and we’ll start the reunion! Margaret’s working today, but I can stop off and get a nice pupu platter somewhere,” Edwin said after we’d all settled ourselves, more or less, in the minivan.

  In the rear-view mirror, I caught Hiroshi and Tom exchanging anxious glances. I didn’t need to look at my father, in the seat next to mine, to know that he was also too fatigued to eat Hawaiian hors d’oeuvres at Edwin’s house. “I’m so sorry, but I wonder if we could come to visit tomorrow? We are all a bit tired right now.”

  “Yes, I apologize, but I would really like to get to the resort, unpack and lie down,” my father said.

  “For health reasons,” Uncle Hiroshi added.

  “What health reason?” Edwin looked at my father curiously, and I realized then that my father must not have communicated anything about the stroke.

  “My father’s recovering from surgery,” I volunteered.

  Edwin blinked. “For what?”

  “Nothing serious,” my father said shortly, and Edwin nodded.

  “OK, OK! You come by when you ready. I gotta advise you that this place you thinking of staying, Kainani, is not a place where you can experience what it’s really like living in Hawaii. You gonna be cooped up in a time-share tower with a lot of mainlanders. My buddy Irwin’s got some rental cottages up the coast at Makaha Point you wouldn’t believe, and there’s a three bedroom available—”