The Salaryman's Wife(109)

I drank more, remaining quiet. His strange behavior might be influenced by my notoriety; perhaps he was checking to see if I were still the same person he knew.

“I’ve done something I’m not sure you will be pleased about,” he said when we were drinking our second cups. I knew then he must have been contacted by the press, tried to stick up for me, and had it go wrong.

“I understand,” I said. “Everyone’s talking, my colleagues, my old friends…”

“Talking?” He looked confused.

“You know, to the tabloid reporters.”

“Tabloids?” His face looked as dour as it had the time a shrine sale vendor had tried to sell us some reproduction wood block prints. “I stopped reading all but my art magazines five years ago. Is there some new trouble?”

“Yes, there is. But nothing that relates to our friendship,” I said carefully. “Please tell me what you thought might upset me.”

“It is about the box from Shiroyama.”

I sighed. So it was a fraud, after all.

“You see,” Mr. Ishida continued, “Although the box is not my property, I have arranged for its sale. I was unable to reach you to ask permission, so again, my apology.”

“Tell me—” I leaned toward him, putting both elbows on the tea table. Realizing my etiquette lapse, I jerked them off. Patience.

“The Shiroyama Folk Art Center is the buyer. My friend at the National Museum sent a close-up photograph and his appraisal of your box and they made a bid. It’s as simple as that.”

“Your friend authenticated it as Princess Miyo’s?”

“As well as anyone could. Princess Miyo was an odd young lady, neh?” Mr. Ishida smiled. “One strangeness was that she used her left hand for eating and writing. My colleague believes the carving was done by a left-handed person living in the mid-nineteenth century.”

“Is that enough to identify something? Surely—”

Mr. Ishida held up a hand, stilling me once again. “Even today, most left-handed people must use the right. You know that.”

That had been my father’s ordeal. Half a world away from his proper Yokohama upbringing, he at last felt free enough to write left-handed. Still, he would never dream of using the left hand for chopsticks.

“The box itself, as you recognized, was not especially high quality, and was produced at the workshop of Koichi Hashimoto between 1850 and 1860 in Hakone. At that time, it would have sold for just a few sen. My friend believes Princess Miyo was probably given the box by a relative or friend of the family, someone who had stopped in Hakone while traveling along the Tokaido Road.”

How ironic the antiques business was! For years I had strived to buy the finest quality I could afford; now I’d bought a piece of nineteenth-century junk and it meant something. Something major, in fact, to the small town where it came from.

“The reason I suggest you sell the box is that it has limited interest and won’t appreciate in value,” Mr. Ishida told me. “It is, however, of great significance to the Shiroyama Folk Art Center.”

“I’d be happy to donate it, since I hardly paid anything and took it from the town where it belongs,” I suggested.

Mr. Ishida was shaking his head. “And have your reputation as an antiques dealer vanish like a trace of smoke? I will not allow it.”

“But I’m not a dealer,” I said, although I had started thinking about the money.

“Miss Shimura, I insist on payment. I have arranged everything, and it would be a massive loss of face if you cancel this agreement.”

“May I ask how much they’ll pay?” My blunt question hung in the air, embarrassing me.

“One-point-two million yen. At first they were hesitant to exceed the million yen mark, but they changed their mind. That’s why I’d be embarrassed if you decline.”

I made him repeat the figure to ensure I’d gotten it right. He was talking about ten thousand dollars for a box that had cost me fifty dollars, the going price for a Rei-Styru haircut.

“They can afford that?” I was amazed, remembering the small gallery.

“The center is supported by descendants of the Shiroyama family, who have a significant lumber fortune. And the trustees know that what they pay you will be easily surpassed through increased admissions. They plan to use the box as a focus for a new public relations campaign, with articles and advertisements in the local and national press and a search made for the family that once owned the treasure you unearthed.”

“People will finally know that Princess Miyo escaped. Maybe even who she became.” It was oddly similar to my search for Setsuko.