The Salaryman's Wife(24)

“You sure you want to stay on here, honey? For what we’re paying, you’d expect central heating!” Mrs. Chapman was outraged.

“Actually I don’t expect it,” I said, sensing more disapproval from Yuki and Taro. “I don’t expect this to be a little America.”

“Well, I’ve done all I can with no heat and the rabbit diet.” Mrs. Chapman peered into her bowl of miso soup and put the lid back on. “I’ll get on to Singapore and some real food, if I can get a flight out today.”

“Today? You need to talk to a travel agent because it’s the middle of the holiday season! What are you going to do in Osaka if there’s no connecting flight?” I had a terrible vision of her with a pile of luggage and no one to help.

She refused all logical arguments, though, and wound up having Taro call an agent. No space, as I’d expected. Since she was so sulky, Taro helped book her on a day tour of the Alps with an English-speaking guide. I agreed to take her to Alpenhof myself to meet the bus.

Half an hour later, as I slipped into my boots at the minshuku entrance, Mrs. Yogetsu marched up to me.

“You made a lot of noise last night and tore the shoji paper over your window.” Her voice was as frigid as the wind that had blown through it.

“That’s because the heater in my room broke. I could have died from gas poisoning!”

“If you don’t know how to use a heater, please ask for help.”

She had a lot of nerve to treat me like a foreigner, given all her lectures to me were in Japanese. I figured the only way to fight back would be to give her a taste of my American mother’s haughtiness. In a cold voice, I told her, “I do know how to use a heater, and I know the one in my room is broken. I’ll need a new appliance or a new room tonight—your choice. Just have it done by the time I come back.”

At the Alpenhof Hotel, I carried Mrs. Chapman’s overweight carry-on bag into the bus and saw her settled among a nice group of senior citizens from Canada. I waved until the bus disappeared into a red blur against the winter landscape. Then I was alone, feeling worse than I’d expected.

I had to do something. Anything. I wandered like a zombie through the town until I found the Shiroyama Folk Art Center, a gallery nestled in the downstairs rooms of an old merchant’s house. The curators had assembled an excellent exhibit on three centuries of regional lacquerware, so I forced myself to study the spare elegance of the shunkei handicrafts Setsuko Nakamura had lectured us about in the living room on New Year’s Eve.

Thinking of her made me sad again. If I had gotten off on the right foot, we could have become confidantes. I could have told her about the Tokyo group I knew who helped women break away from abusive marriages. I might have given her a reason not to walk out in the snow to her death.


Back at the minshuku in mid-afternoon, I struggled to open my bedroom door, this time from the outside. I fiddled with it and at last the obstruction, a small, stiff wedge of paper, dropped to the ground. I lay on my futon and unfurled it. A Lotte chewing-gum wrapper. What did it remind me of?

When it hit me I was off the futon and groping wildly in the pockets of the jeans I had worn the two previous days. I slid my hands to the very corners. Nothing.

I must have thrown away the similarly tiny scrap of paper that had been stuck in the bathroom door New Year’s morning. But there wasn’t a waste basket in the dressing room; I’d taken it with me. Then I’d reused it. I closed my eyes, recalling the feel of the paper in my hands, how I’d unfolded it to wrap the chopstick rest before taking it upstairs for safe-keeping.

I began rummaging through the tea caddy where I’d stashed the chopstick rest. My hands quickly sorted the spare coins and receipts I’d been collecting and pulled up the small piece of blue and white ceramic. Its wrapper was gone.





8


Hugh had not returned from the Sendai meeting at the Alpenhof, although Mr. Yamamoto had. He answered my questions about Hugh’s whereabouts in a sullen tone that made me think he had been closed out of something. It was tough to be the youngest person in a Japanese company, I knew from experience. I offered a sympathetic look which was not returned.

I went back to my room, combed my hair, and changed into the plaid miniskirt I’d worn on the train. It had a slimy residual feeling about it, but it would look better than my snow- and salt-drenched jeans. It was already five P.M. and dark; I thought Hugh might be knocking off in the bar with his colleagues.

I’d guessed wrong. The concierge told me the Sendai group was still in session. All the tables in the bar were taken, so I wound up leaning against the circular wooden bar with a half-pint of Asahi Super-Dry beer. I eventually found a seat next to a middle-aged skier who couldn’t get over my funny accent—did I come from Hokkaido or somewhere like that? I didn’t agree or disagree, just wondered how long I could last.