“This reminds me of my younger brother’s room,” Hugh said, smiling. “Not the antiques, mind you, but the mess.”
“It’s all Rei,” Richard said. “My section of the apartment begins beyond those doors. I don’t suppose you’d want to see my adult video collection?”
I hadn’t been so embarrassed in ages. I ran around, stuffing stray clothing into the closet while Richard showed Hugh around—a five-second tour, given the size of the place.
“Do you own a telephone?” Hugh asked cautiously.
“Of course. But no long distance!” Richard ordered.
“Just calling my answering machine, I promise.” Hugh’s shoulders were shaking with laughter as he started punching his number in. I frowned at Richard—I didn’t like how swiftly he had appropriated Hugh—and pulled the photo album from one of the garbage bags. I settled down near the heater to look at it while Richard hung over my shoulder.
“Which one is Setsuko?”
“The pretty one on the left.” A nine- or ten-year-old Setsuko stared out of the page at us in a navy blue sailor suit. A slightly older, stout girl stood with her in front of a small, crumbling house with a tiled roof, the kind that didn’t get built much anymore.
“Is the plain Jane with her the sister?” Richard asked.
“Maybe.” I squinted at the faded picture. “No. It’s got to be Kiki, Mariko’s guardian.” There was something hard about Kiki’s mouth, even then, and I recognized her flat nose. Kiki was wearing her uniform as provocatively as she could given the circumstances, her skirt hitched up a bit, which only did the unfortunate thing of accenting her thick legs.
“Come on, it has to be Setsuko’s sister,” Richard insisted, flipping back through the album. “Even though they don’t look exactly like each other, they’re together in all these pictures.” There they were, dressed in flowery kimonos for the children’s coming-of-age holiday. I slowly paged through more pictures showing them in later childhood and adolescence. The last picture was most telling: teen-aged Setsuko and Kiki wearing tight mini-dresses, posing in a smoky nightclub with Japanese businessmen more than twice their age. So they had been hostesses together.
“What do we know about Mariko’s mother?” Hugh hung up the telephone and joined us, stretching out on the floor so he could rest his ankle.
“Setsuko’s sister Keiko died after giving birth to Mariko,” I said. “That’s what the aunt told me. I meant to research it at Yokosuka City Hall but haven’t had the time yet.”
“Mr. Ota did.” Hugh sounded smug. “I just received a message saying there’s no death record for Keiko Ozawa. He did locate a 1954 birth record for Keiko, and one showing Setsuko born in 1956. Keiko had the Japanese father and was listed as a legitimate, first-born daughter. Because Setsuko was illegitimate, her listing was something different—”
“Onna,” I said. It was a blunt term for woman that was rarely spoken. “This is completely different from what Mrs. Ozawa, the great aunt, said. She told me Setsuko was the older, legitimate one!”
“Not by any Japanese government records. Either Auntie was lying or we can be generous and say she might have Alzheimer’s.”
The heater had caused steam to condense on my window, and I rubbed a finger on the glass to see out into the street. And suddenly the truth was as clear as the neon sign flashing SAPPORO in stylized letters over the liquor store.
“If Setsuko was the younger sister, the American was her father. What Mariko told us was true,” I said.
“And Kiki is Mariko’s mother?” Richard quizzed me.
“Maybe not. Setsuko’s autopsy showed she had a baby,” I remembered. “Let’s see, Mariko is twenty-four. If she was born in 1973, Setsuko would have been only seventeen. I can understand why she gave up her own daughter.”
“To a sister just three years older?” Richard objected.
“But not as pretty. With fewer chances,” I said.
“I think it’s time for drinks at the Marimba, don’t you? Drinks and conversation with Mariko and Kiki.” Hugh looked at his watch.
“You’ll need me there, because I’m the one Mariko’s closest to,” Richard offered.
Hugh stiffened, but I glared at him until he said, “Men do usually attend these places in groups.”
“Naturally!” Richard was acting like he went to hostess bars on a regular basis.
“And they’re dressed well because they’ve come from the office,” Hugh challenged him.