The Salaryman's Wife(29)

Feeling disquieted, I said, “They look pretty clean to me, although anyone could have washed them off under a shower.”

“Very true,” Hugh said, going over to fiddle with the shower drain. It was disgusting work; I was glad I wasn’t doing it.

“You’re not finding anything, are you?” I asked after I’d spent ten more minutes trolling for evidence in the bath.

“Nothing you’d want to touch. Clumps of hair, mostly Japanese, though there are some light ones, probably mine or Chapman’s. It’s impossible to tell in this muck.”

We gave up after a while and went into the dressing room to dry off. Hugh was washing his hands when I heard a squeaking of vinyl against wood: the sound of someone walking quietly in slippers before halting at the door.

“Busted,” I mouthed at Hugh.

“Don’t worry. We’ll pretend we really went in,” he whispered, turning on the sink. He plunged his head under the faucet and I did the same.

Outside the door, Mrs. Yogetsu was waiting for us, her face wrinkled in a prune-like expression of disgust.

“Oh!” I said, for want of anything better.

“Is there a problem, darling?” Hugh murmured, kissing the top of my head.

“This is not a love hotel! It’s a decent place, and I will not stand for your screwing in public rooms.” Mrs. Yogetsu was using plain verb forms meant for inferiors, a slur I’d understand.

Hugh nuzzled my neck, continuing to play the role of lover. I kicked him and started apologizing.

“I am very, very sorry. It was a mistake we made, as foreigners. I’m so sorry, I won’t do it again.”

“Sumimasen” Hugh apologized with one of his sporadic Japanese expressions. Despite the humility of his words, I felt his body rumbling with silent laughter.

“People who walk in the night come into danger. It happened to the Nakamura woman. Watch that it doesn’t happen to you,” Mrs. Yogetsu spat before storming off to one of the nearby doors, presumably her private quarters. The belt to her robe caught in the door as she slammed it. The door creaked open again, and the belt was whipped inside.

I wanted to laugh, despite the gravity of the situation. But there was no place to do it.

“Come. I want you to have the autopsy,” Hugh whispered when we got upstairs

“Can’t we do this later?” I was still nerved out by Mrs. Yogetsu.

“It’s got to be now. I’m leaving at seven o’clock to ski.” He pushed me inside and locked the door.

“I don’t know why you insisted on concocting that false love scene if your reputation is so precious. What about your colleagues and Yamamoto?” As I shook out the wet robe and spread it to dry near the space heater, I answered the question for myself. The Japanese people around us would consider him virile; I’d be the tramp.

“She’s the important one. And the crucial thing is that she not know what we were up to. Here you are, Miss Prim.” He pulled a packet of papers out of his suitcase.

“Can I take this, work on it a little while?” I scanned four pages of tiny typed characters and realized how impossible it would be to translate.

“By all means. It does no good in my hands.”

“In the museum, I overheard some docents saying they didn’t like Mrs. Yogetsu. She overcharges them for flower-arranging lessons.” I sunk down on the edge of his futon. “I think she’s horribly arrogant but that’s not enough—”

“Not enough to make a murderer. Come here. If you go to sleep with a wet head, you’ll catch cold.” Hugh knelt behind me and started rubbing my wet hair with a towel like I was a dog that got caught in the rain.

“That’s not very Scottish of you. I hear your countrymen tramp around wintry moors wearing kilts with nothing underneath.” I spoke lightly to cover up the fact that his touch was making goose bumps break out all over me.

“A kilt is good cover, unlike that obscene sleeping costume you affect.”

“I explained to you earlier that this is Japanese thermal underwear. It’s indigenous clothing.”

“But you run around in it like you’re some kind of American boy! Let me advise you that you aren’t.”

I pulled away as the towel chafed my neck. “Oh, I forgot. Gaijin prefer an Oriental fantasy girl who always agrees.”

“I think you know me better than that,” he said shortly.

“I don’t think I know you at all,” I said, although in a way, I did. He anticipated my thoughts, finished up my sentences. And I knew the way his hands felt on me, which was another reality unto itself.

“If you are going to leave, do it now.” He’d taken away the towel and was stroking his fingers through my hair. “And I don’t want any changed minds or midnight visits where I have to tuck you in and lie awake the rest of the night slowly going mad—”