“My father’s OK, but itching to travel,” I said.
“So am I. The streets of San Francisco beckon, but travel doesn’t seem to be in my cards right now.”
Michael and I had become attached during our time working on our last Tokyo assignment-so closely attached, in fact, that Michael had felt duty-bound to report his feelings to our superiors at Langley. The result had been private conversations with a CIA psychiatrist for both of us. According to the psychiatrist, Michael and I shared an almost telepathic bond that had sprung out of our work. Relationships like these were common among soldiers and police;-people who worked closely with a partner in dangerous situations. He thought we were no danger to anyone, especially not to each other.
“Well, what’s the problem?” Michael asked. “You don’t usually call this early.”
“I know. I’ve been up all night. My dad’s been out of the hospital a few days and suddenly he wants to fly to Hawaii.”
“That doesn’t sound like a problem to me.” Michael snorted. “I’d go to Hawaii with him in a flash. Did I ever tell you that I lived there when my father was stationed at Pearl?”
“No, you didn’t. And let me finish, please.” I elaborated about the letter and the newfound family, the eighty-eighth birthday, and Edwin’s legal and financial history.
“I could run his name through a few databases for you-but Rei, I don’t think having a bad businessman for an uncle should be a deal-breaker. Hawaii’s gorgeous in July. As well as every other month in the year…”
“I like Hawaii too. But I’m not willing to go there if it means getting mixed up with a bad character.”
“It’s an old man’s birthday party.” Michael sounded reasonable. “Go to the party, get together a few times, and spend the rest of the time relaxing. You deserve the trip to Hawaii as much as your father.”
“All I’ve been doing here is relaxing. I’m bored out of my mind.”
“You told me that your father said the letter raised his spirits! You know, there’s supposed to be a link between mood and recovery from illnesses. I can email you a study proving it.”
“Hmm,” I said. “I’m more interested in proof that Edwin Shimura’s ancestor, this picture bride called Harue Shimura, was in fact the girl who left my family. That’s the gist of it, Michael. We don’t even know if we’re related.”
“Well, that’s research you can do yourself, if you’re so bored.” Now Michael sounded amused.
“Well, I’ve already emailed a historical society in Honolulu that might have records for Japanese immigrants. And I’ll phone my Uncle Hiroshi in Japan, just in case he remembers more about the so-called whisperings.”
“Don’t forget to check birth records with the state of Hawaii.”
“But she was born in Japan.” I interrupted myself. “You probably mean I should check the birth certificate of Yoshitsune Shimura in order to reference the names of his parents?”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. You do your thing, and I’ll do my part for you-when I can. I’m afraid that for the most part of this week I’m swamped.”
“What’s going on?”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
“Very original. I do miss you, Brooks.” I used his code name, holding on to the last bit of intimacy, before the call ended.
“Don’t change that feeling.”
“What?” I was momentarily confused, especially when Michael made the sound of a kiss and hung up. I had a feeling that the CIA would not approve.
MY UNCLE HIROSHI had never heard anything about a missing great-aunt. He’d also received a letter from Edwin Shimura, though, and as a result he and his son, my cousin Tom, were already condo-hunting for the visit.
“If you and your father meet us there, it will be wonderful. When’s the last time we’ve all been together?” Uncle Hiroshi asked over the phone.
Frankly, I would have been reassured if my beloved Aunt Norie was coming along, but apparently she was teaching a month of ikebana classes at the Kayama School right at the time of the beiju. And Chika, my younger cousin, was involved in her first job. She was as busy as my mother, who couldn’t come because the grand opening of the boutique hotel she was decorating was in mid-June. Tearfully, we spent many late nights together, talking about the past, her fears for my father, and how she felt duty-bound to work harder than she ever had in the event my father couldn’t resume his medical school professorship.
I had work to do, too. I exchanged several emails with researchers at the Japanese Cultural Center in Honolulu, who confirmed the existence of a Harue Shimura who’d emigrated from Yokohama in 1924, at the age of twenty-two. She was married at the dock by a judge who also recorded the changing of name by her husband from Keijin Watanabe to Ken Shimura. The Territory of Hawaii had a birth record for a child born to her and Ken: Yoshitsune Shimura, eighty-nine years previously.
So my father’s guess was right, that Harue’s husband had taken her name. But according to the record, Yoshitsune was older than eighty-eight. I showed the birth certificate copy to my father, but he assured me that in old Japan, in utero time was counted in a person’s age. Thus, my father was really sixty-four, not sixty-three. He went on to tell me I was actually thirty-one and not thirty, which really made me crazy.
“It’s still wrong,” I said to my father. “If you count in an extra year according to Japanese custom, Yoshitsune Shimura should have celebrated his beiju two years ago.”
“I’m sure we’ll learn their family customs when we arrive.” My father’s voice was placid.
“I’VE LOST THE battle,” I reported to Michael the next time we talked on the phone. “We’re definitely going.”
“Well, don’t worry too much about it. I ran the FBI check and neither your Uncle Edwin nor his wife Margaret nor the great-uncle have robbed banks or murdered anyone.”
“Great.” But I didn’t mean it. I’d been hoping for a last-minute reprieve.
“And I have something even better for you. A surprise.”
“What?” I asked dubiously.
“I’ll see you in Hawaii a week and a half after you get in. If the winds are with me.”
I was surprised-and elated. “If the winds are with you? Is that something for me to decode?”
Michael laughed. “I’m talking about the Transpac.”
“What the hell is that? It sounds like a military exercise.”
“It’s the longest sailing race in the world: over two and a half thousand miles. One of my old Naval Academy classmates has been trying to rustle up an extra crew member, and after squaring things here at Langley, I can actually sail with them.”
“Super. So are you leaving from Annapolis?”
“No, there’s a staggered start for the various classes of yachts in Southern California. My buddy Parker Drummond, who’s based in LA, splurged a few years ago on a forty-foot schooner. It should be able to make the trip in under two weeks if the winds are with us and we push ourselves.”
“Where in Hawaii does the race end?”
“The finish line is when you pass that huge old volcano, Diamond Head. We’ll dock at the Waikiki Yacht Club, and another guy on the crew, my friend Kurt, has booked our group into the Hale Koa, which is the military hotel right in the heart of Waikiki.”
“So you’re staying in Hawaii just a week,” I thought aloud. “That means you’ll be at sea longer than on land.”
“Yes, that’s the way it works. I wish I had more time to spend on land with you, Rei, but getting these three weeks together is kind of a miracle. I gave Len the full sob story, how Kurt survived three tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and it was a dream for us all-Eric, Parker, Kurt and me-to sail together once again just like we did in Annapolis.”