The Salaryman's Wife(21)

“Okay.” I leaned against the wall outside my room, glad Taro and Yuki were out of earshot.

“What the hell have you been telling people about Setsuko?”

“What is this, the Scottish inquisition?” The nervousness I’d tried to subdue all day flared.

“Oh, come on,” he chided me. “You were giving them all an earful about possibilities of suicide and murder. I thought that was between us.”

“People thought up those things on their own. Besides, why do you care? As you said, the uncertainties surrounding her death have been solved.”

“Nothing’s been solved. Just a lot of bows made and sayonaras said before Nakamura hopped the four-thirty limited express to make funeral arrangements. As I’d expected.”

This was the first time since the divorce comment he had said anything remotely suspicious of Nakamura.

“What can you do about it?” I whispered. “You’re in an impossible position.”

“But you aren’t.” He looked steadily at me. “You’re a naturally nosy person and you pass for Japanese. With your language and looks you can ask questions that I can’t.”

“Hah. You don’t know the trouble that looking like this causes,” I said, thinking of the many rude discussions about my ethnicity I’d endured.

“I do know. That’s why I tried to buy you lunch yesterday.” As I started telling him I was immune to his blather, he touched a finger to my lips. A spark flew, and we both jumped back.

“You can help me. You’re already doing it, just with no sense of discretion.”

“I don’t want to.” I felt belligerent. Setsuko Nakamura had eaten out of his hand, and I saw where it had gotten her. Death in the snow, a quick write-off by the coroner.

“Why don’t we talk about it again tomorrow? Just sleep on it.” He leaned down, bringing his face so close I could practically inhale him. Sensing he was slightly off balance, I ducked under his arm.

“You’re violating my space,” I hissed. “Good night.”

Safely inside my room, I collapsed. Doing anything with Hugh Glendinning was a very bad idea. It would be one thing to assist out of the goodness of my heart, but the fact was I had disliked Setsuko Nakamura. My initial passion to learn about her background was for my own self-preservation. Now that I was out of harm’s way, any passion I felt had a different origin.

This was a dangerous trajectory, the worst since Shin Hatsuda, the ponytailed painter who had swept me off my feet at a party in Harajuku. Shin’s crime had been departing ten months ago with half my art books and more of my self esteem; Hugh Glendinning could reap even more damage. I don’t do gaijin, I once said to Karen when she wanted to fix me up with a blue-eyed investment banker. It was not why I’d traveled halfway around the world.

I pulled off my sweater, belatedly remembering the window exposing me to the street. I grabbed my yukata around my shoulders and turned, finding the screen in place after all. I was losing my mind. I snapped off the light and burrowed into the chilly futon.

I had been dreaming about being on my high school debate team, lined up to go on stage with my teammates: Mr. Nakamura, Mr. Yamamoto, Mrs. Chapman, and Hugh. Standing at the podium in her ivory Chanel dress, Setsuko Nakamura was ready to lead us. She opened her mouth to say something. Then she pulled out a perfume atomizer and started spraying the audience with a noxious chemical scent.

I awakened in blackness. A burnt odor filled my nose: gas, strong enough that I was choking. I pulled myself out of the blankets and began crawling to the heater. There was no flame, but I could feel with my hand that the control switch was rigged between on and off. I tried turning it, but it wouldn’t budge.

Oh, God. The personal prayer I hadn’t been able to think of on New Year’s Eve came to me now. I needed to get out. I pulled myself along on my stomach toward the thin wedge of light shining under the door.

I had locked the door before bed. Now the knob wouldn’t turn at all; some force held it tight. I pounded and tried to call out, but couldn’t manage more than a cough. Feeling along the wall for the switch to the fluorescent overhead light, I flipped it with no effect. My energy spent, I curled up on the floor for a minute, trying to calm myself. As my hand stretched up once again to try the door, it suddenly opened. I fell gasping into the lighted hallway and onto a pair of large, Argyle-covered feet.





7


“What are you doing in there? The smell!” Hugh coughed.

I sucked in the hall’s fresh, frigid air for a minute before croaking, “Gas leak.”

He swept past me into the bedroom, and I heard first a tearing sound of the shji paper screen and then the window slamming open. The next sound was of the heater’s tubing being yanked from the wall. He came back and half-dragged me across the hall and into his room.