Father: Hideki

Mother: Musako

Brother: Takao

Sister-in-Law: Chizumi

Mistress: Naori

Nephew: Hiro

However, if one looked deeply enough, with Japanese eyes, it was plain enough who really mattered in Crown Group--theoretically a co-operative venture: Tenou Hideki, who had the blood of the Kusorama and many other families of the old nobility. In fact, in some quarters, it was even whispered that he had a claim to the Chrysanthemum Throne itself, should the male line fail . . .

Tenou Takao, as the first and only son of Tenou Hideki, had lived the life of a prince since birth. In truth, he had turned out remarkably well for someone born into such privilege. He wasn't a bully, for instance, and he didn't look for scapegoats when he made mistakes. On the other hand, he was quite used to getting his own way, now, and he had little patience. He tended to start projects and abandon them. Typically he changed mistresses once every year or so. No hard feelings on his part, it was just time for a change.

Technically, Chikuma Naori was his ex-mistress when he went with a drive with her in a drive in on a summer Saturday afternoon in 2009. But they remained friends, and they had another connection . . .

"This is the girl?" asked Hideki, pointing to her picture on the screen.

"Yes," said Musako. "Here is a better picture." Musako was only a decade younger than her husband, but that seemed to be a critical decade--she had adapted to the world of computerized communication; he had everything presented to him by assistants at work and by her at home.

"She is very dark," said Hideki. "Is she an African of some sort?"

"No," said Musako. "Our daughter explains that her parents both had Gypsy ancestors. They are a dark-skinned people who came from India to Europe long ago."

"Ne," muttered Hideki, shaking his head. "Why would she do such a thing? This is the child of her enemies. She is no Christian who must make a show of loving her enemies!"

Musako shrugged. "She didn't mention the Tokyo appearance this time. Perhaps Descartes-san has found a more lucrative booking?"

"At least she married a man with a good head for business," sighed Hideki. "I suppose that is something."

"More likely she has changed her mind about coming," said Musako. Before shutting down, she checked the message center one last time. "Nothing from Taka-chan."

"If there were anything to worry about, Chizumi would have called by now."

"No," said Musako, who knew her long-suffering daughter-in-law very well. "She never wants to make Taka-chan look bad to us."

"Our son is a man," said Hideki. "He is probably doing something he does not want to trouble us with."

"He promised to tell me whether or not he would be coming tomorrow night," said Musako firmly. "Taka-chan is far from perfect, but he does keep his word."

Hideki laughed. "Probably he has found some new girl, woman. I don't know why I don't!"

"He can't be running around with girls and run the company!" asserted Musako. "Not the way you do!"

"Taka-chan has his own way, woman," said Hideki. "He is not a man for details. But he is a man who knows how to pick the right men, and how to make them get along. Let him have his fun while he is still young." He reached for his wife. "Come, woman. I'm not too old for some fun myself."

Tenou Haruka was not the only one who liked fast cars. Tenou Takao had collected quite a number over the years, handing them over to his sister as peace offerings after he tired of them until she had told him to stop. He enjoyed driving fast, and didn't mind paying tickets. He had both talent and luck when driving. But he did not have patience, not the kind of patience that had made his younger sibling a world-class driver and motorcycle rider in her teens. And he had the money to buy cars that were a challenge to anyone's skill . . .

Chikuma Naori refused to show fear.

Takao was driving his car closer to the limit than usual. It was a new car, this one, and that meant he would probably give her the old one. She would then sell his last gift car, a familiar process. One should never take the generosity of wealthy men for granted; that much she had learned from her mother, even if she had not taken the training of a true geisha. So she held her tongue about his driving, as ever. Since she could not talk about that, she talked about things far removed from the car. Perhaps something that would distract him from his little game? She knew that he knew she was frightened, but it was also part of the game not to let him know that she knew that he knew.

"A terrible thing in America," she said. "Your sister was there, wasn't she?" He hadn't spoken of it yet.

"Yes, Haruka was there," said Takao. He didn't sound as if he wanted to say more.

Naori persisted. "Has she told you anything special about it, Tenou-san?"

"No," he said, and nothing more for quite some time.

The wild ride stopped for awhile. They were trapped behind a slow-moving truck crawling up a long upgrade. Like so many roads in rural Japan, this one was quite narrow, and the truck with its load was much too wide to pass. Takao fumed in frustration. At last they reached a turnout--but the truck did not use it. Takao struck the wheel with his palm and muttered "Baka!" and then pulled off. "Might as well get out. We won't be getting around him!"

Naori silently thanked the anonymous driver of that rickety, overloaded truck as she got her son out of the car seat. He asked to be let down, but she said, "No, not here. See? You might fall off the mountain. Here, look." And she showed him the long drop. He buried his face in her bosom.

Naori sat in the car and amused little Hiro while Takao paced and smoked one cigarette after another, taking care that he stayed downwind of his son, who did not like smoke at all. He was angry, but he would not take it out on her and certainly not the boy. <A good man, this one, overall,> thought Chikuma Naori. <A boy, like most 'men,' but with a good heart.> Of course, there was no chance he would ever leave his wife and marry her, but there had always been an excellent chance he would recognize Hiro one day . . .

Should she tell him about Chizumi's visit? <Not yet,> Naori decided. She had never really doubted that his wife did not know all about herself and Hiro, but meeting the woman was a different matter. Proud and polite, just as Naori had expected she would be, but with a will of iron underneath. Much more like her mother than she would ever believed earlier.

Give up Hiro? Her heart was breaking as she looked at Takao, smiling just the way her mother would have. But what could she do, really? This was a chance Hiro might never have again. <He doesn't know,> she thought in wonder. <He really doesn't know . . .>

Eventually Tenou Takao ran out of cigarettes. They started out again. Sometime in the hour or so when they were stopped, the truck turned off; they would have come across before ten more minutes had gone by at the rate Tenou Takao was driving and the rate the truck had been moving.

So simple. An oil-stain, on a curve, on a road less-traveled. Hardly an earthshaking priority. Who would dream someone would try to take that curve at 140 kph? Yet Tenou Takao had made corners like that even faster before. But he did not see the oil, not in time, not at all. One instant he was in control, sneaking a glance at Naori trying so hard not to show fear, hearing the child laughing at the thrill-ride acceleration. The next instant, the tires lost traction. The next, smashing through the guardrail as if it were tinfoil. And then free-fall that seemed to go on forever, and, in fact, went on for the rest of his life.

The driver of the old truck noticed that the guard rail was broken when he returned that night. He actually stopped, but he could see and hear nothing. He reported to the police in the first town he reached. The car wasn't found until after dawn the next day . . .

"Have they found the child yet?"

"No."

That question and that answer were repeated in that order many times, in a surprising number of languages, in the 48 hours after the smashed car of Tenou Takao was discovered. Not even the Chinese or Koreans truly understand Japan completely, but every country in the world that mattered paid more serious attention to Japan than the United States, and there were far more Europeans and non-Asian Japanese than Americans who had an inkling that this incident was more than a sad little family tragedy.

The question and the answer continued to be asked and answered in the following days, but others were asked more urgently from then onward . . .

"Okasan?"

"Hai, Nao-chan," answered the most familiar voice in Chikuma Naori's life.

"Where is Hiro-chan?"

"He has not been found yet," her mother said with as much mercy as she could.

Tears flowed down her face. Her mother wiped them away with something--maybe her mother; a moving blur that smelled like her mother and came from the direction her voice had come from. When she was finished crying, for now, Naori asked, "Tenou-san?"

"Your Tenou-san died," said her mother.

"My Tenou-san?"

"His father has had a stroke. Probably from the news, everyone thinks. People are talking more about him than your Tenou-san now."

"His father was the more important man, of course," said Chikuma Naori. Her sight had not returned, but a large part of her composure had. "What of his wife?"

Her mother made a motion that might have been a shrug. "She has asked about you."

"Ask her to help with Hiro's funeral," said Chikuma Naori.

"Hiro has not been found yet."

"I understand that . . . what time is it?"

"It is just past seven in the morning."

"It is barely light, then. I'm sure they will soon--"

"It is Thursday morning, Nao-chan. Five days since the crash."

Chikuma Naori began to weep again.

September

Chikuma Naori's sight would never be as it was, but after the latest operation she could at least see out of one eye well enough to read with the help of a magnifier. Everything further away than a meter was mostly guesswork. Still, Naori was getting better at guesswork; someone unfamiliar had just entered.

"Are you from the hospital, or are you lost?" Naori asked the newcomer. Thanks to the generosity of Tadeo's family she had a private room--sequestered from the curious. Japan has its share of nosy reporters, so the generosity could not be entirely out of compassion . . . <Has an investigator found me?>

"If you are Chikuma Naori, I am not lost," said the stranger. It was a deep voice, though not quite as deep as--"

"You are Tadeo's sister, aren't you?"

"Hai," said the newcomer. Someone else was with her. Tadeo's sister said something in Eigo to the other person, and whoever it was left. Perhaps a woman or a girl; the hair was long, but the person was wearing pants and a bulky jacket . . . a worker she hadn't seen before? . . . Tadeo's sister closed the door and came close enough so she could be heard without speaking overloud.

"It is bad weather we are having today," remarked Naori. "I can't see much of it, but I hear the rain and the wind outside. I hope you didn't get cold and wet coming to visit me."

Tadeo's sister might have smiled or even begun an unfinished laugh, but she could not be sure. "No, I am quite warm and dry."

"That is fortunate," said Naori with practiced politeness. <Why is she here?> "How considerate of you to visit me here. Tadeo never did introduce us."

"Your manners are excellent, Chikuma-san," said the low, strong voice. "But we can't stay long enough to play pleasant games tonight. Shall we speak frankly?"

"What can you do but wish me well, Tenou-san? I have no call on your fortune. My son is dead, and I will hire no gaijin lawyers to extort more money for sleeping with your brother. There will be no books, no interviews. You can be sure of it. Had Hiro lived, well, I might have done anything for his sake if I thought it best. But I won't rob his little corpse . . . Am I being frank and honest enough for you, Tenou Haruka?" Chikuma Naori said all those bitter words in sweet even tones, almost worthy of her mother or any other professional pleaser of the wealthy and powerful.

"Your son still might live," said the woman, tilting her head just the way Takao had when he was hurt but holding his peace.

"Probably foxes got to him before I was found," said Chikuma Naori. "It does not really matter to me whether he is scattered bones or a box of ashes. He is gone. You inherit now. You and your children, of course."

"Better the children of a well-bred notorious bisexual than the son of a half-Okinawan, half-Korean?" Before Naori could respond, fingers pressed on her lips. "My mother said that to Takao's widow. She did not think anyone could hear. My companion's daughter has very excellent hearing, however . . . that was at the wake. Mother had had too much to drink, of course."

The fingers released her lips, and she was aware that the long-haired person had returned. Not alone. How had so many entered so quickly? She heard the squeak of the narrow rubber wheels of a wheelchair--how had she not noticed someone in a wheelchair coming in?

The long-haired one and the other newcomers spoke, in Eigo and in an utterly strange language. Then Haruka spoke again. "You must not do it."

"What do you mean?"

An unfamiliar voice spoke, much higher, and yet with far more authority. "You must not try to follow your son into death. He may yet live, Chikuma Naori."

It was whoever was in the wheelchair . . .

"And that is all I really remember," Naori said to her mother.

"What a strange, terrible dream," said Chikuma Tatsuko.

"It seemed very real," said Naori pleasantly.

She did not tell her mother that the sleeping pills she had been hoarding had vanished.