Mrs. Ogawa didn’t seem bothered by the tremor that had shaken me awake. “Chiisai! Chiisai!” she said, smiling and bobbing. Just a little one! She held her palms a few inches apart, in case I hadn’t gotten the message. She was in good form all round, acing the first page of Clair de Lune. She even managed some real emotion where Debussy’s directions are to slow down and savor the moment. I gave her a thumbs-up. She blushed.
On the street, though, Tokyo seemed twitchy. And once I began my long train journey to Akiko’s house, the mood turned downright dark. Maybe the aftershocks and the rationed water were getting to people. Tokyoites on trains were reserved at the best of times. No conversation, no eye contact, much twiddling of cell phones. But today people were even stonier than usual. I was glad to escape, find my noodle shop and lose myself in steam and cigarette smoke.
When I got to Akiko’s house, even her fish seemed out of sorts, sliding behind an overhanging rock and ignoring the possibility of food I represented. Something else was different—there was another car shoehorned in behind Akiko’s Lexus. There was no way Akiko could have gotten out. Whoever he was, politeness wasn’t his strong suit.
I hesitated at the polished cypress door. Should I walk away? Come back later? But Akiko was Japanese, too polite not to keep her appointment. I pushed the button.
Usually, there was a long delay before the door swung silently open, as though Akiko had to float down from some other part of her house. This time it was different. I heard a muffled thump. Then a door slammed and a man walked through the carport. He was carrying a briefcase, not as fancy as the crocodile one Goto had, but thick enough to carry a substantial stash of—what? Money? Drugs? He saw me, turned, bowed slightly and got unhurriedly into his car. The man was stocky, suited and with a strangely shaped head. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been watching his boss tip me for my rendition of “The Lady Is a Tramp.” Chisel Face. Goto’s man.
Then the front door opened.
The lesson that followed took awkwardness to new heights. Akiko didn’t look at me once. And after I caught a glimpse of the goose egg welling up on her smooth forehead, I didn’t catch her eye either. Her wrists, when she extended them over the keys, were raw and red. Her hair, which was normally in a long braid, looked as though it had been used as a mop, and the neckline of her T-shirt was loopy and stretched. The shirt had sparkles on the front, two cats embracing.
“Nice,” I said, when she’d finished the piece. And it was, too. She’d worked hard. “Are you okay?”
She pointed to a spot in the music. “Left hand is still difficult.”
I knew that assaults on women were still under-reported in Japan, but the person next to me had been tossed around like a doll. “Shouldn’t you call the police?” I said. Akiko gave the slightest of sighs and tapped the page again. The manicured fingernail was broken off. I sneaked a look at her face. It was as stony as a TEPCO boss’s. I was never going to lift that mask.
“Okay. Let’s see if a different fingering works.” I picked up a pencil from the music desk and wrote one in. Then we tiptoed through the rest of the hour. When I left she didn’t follow me to the door. She just sat staring at the dense cluster of notes on the music score, as though there might be some safety there for her. “Good luck,” I said, like an idiot.
Outside, the koi were still in hiding. What passes for twilight in Tokyo had started to fall. I walked back to the station in a haze of lingering heat, car exhaust and confusion. Akiko lived in a neighborhood so classy that even the manhole covers were cast in an elegant cherry-blossom motif. Yet she refused to acknowledge that large men kept feeding her a diet of money and punches. She was becoming toxic for me.
The need to see Momo was suddenly acute, as though she represented everything Akiko didn’t. By the time the 8:03 pulled in, I’d decided. Akiko was bad news. If Momo was sitting where she usually did, I’d make her my ticket to happiness.
The doors sighed open. A tide of passengers flowed out onto the platform. And there she was.