“I’m guessing, Irina, I can’t be sure. That was the year my great-grandfather Isaac died.”
He told her about Isaac’s two funerals, and how it was only then that the family learned of all the good the patriarch had done in the course of his life, the people he had defended for nothing as a lawyer, the money he gave or lent to anyone having a hard time, the children he helped educate, and the good causes he supported. Seth had discovered that the Fukuda family owed him many favors, and respected and loved him. He deduced that they must have gone to one of the funerals. According to family legend, shortly before Isaac’s death the Fukudas dug up an ancient sword they had buried at Sea Cliff. The plaque Isaac had placed to mark the spot was still there. It seemed most likely that this was when Alma and Ichimei met again.
“It’s fiftysomething years from 1955 to 2013, more or less what Alma told Lenny,” Irina calculated.
“If my grandfather Nathaniel suspected his wife had a lover, he pretended not to know. In my family, appearances are more important than the truth.”
“For you too?”
“No, I’m the black sheep. Just look at me, I’m in love with a girl who’s as pale as a Moldovan vampire.”
“Vampires are from Transylvania, Seth.”
March 3, 2004
Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about Isaac Belasco, because my son Mike turned forty and I decided to hand him the katana of the Fukudas; it is his responsibility to look after it. Your uncle Isaac called me one day early in 1962 to tell me perhaps the moment had come to retrieve the sword that had been buried for twenty years in the Sea Cliff garden. Doubtless he already suspected he was very ill and his end was near. All of those left in our family went: my mother, my sister, and me. We were accompanied by Kemi Morita, Oomoto’s spiritual leader. On the day of the ceremony in the garden you were away on a journey with your husband. Perhaps your uncle chose that date to avoid having you and I meet. What did he know about us? Very little, I suppose, but he was very astute.
Ichi
Whereas Irina drank green tea with her sushi, Seth drank more hot sake than he could cope with. The contents of the tiny cup disappeared in a sip, while Irina, distracted by their conversation, kept refilling it. Neither of them noticed when the waiter, dressed in a blue kimono with a bandana around his forehead, brought them a second bottle. Over their dessert—caramel ice cream—Irina saw Seth’s inebriated, pleading look and decided the moment had come to say good-bye before things became awkward, but realized she couldn’t leave him in this state. The waiter offered to call a taxi, but Seth refused. He stumbled out, leaning heavily on Irina. In the street, the cold air revived the effects of the sake.
“I don’t think I ought to ride my bike . . . C-Can I spend the night with you?” he stammered, tripping over his tongue.
“What will you do with your bike? It could get stolen here.”
“To hell with it.”
They walked the ten blocks to Irina’s room. It took them almost an hour because Seth meandered like a crab. She had lived in worse places, but in Seth’s company she felt ashamed of this run-down, dirty old house. She shared the house with fourteen other lodgers, crammed into rooms made from particleboard partitions, some of them with no window or ventilation. It was one of those rent-controlled buildings in Berkeley that the owners did not bother to maintain because they could not raise the rent. Only patches of the exterior paint had survived, the shutters had come off their hinges, and the yard was full of useless objects: split tires, bits of bikes, an avocado-colored toilet that had been there for years. Indoors the smell was a mixture of patchouli and rancid cauliflower soup. Nobody cleaned the hallways or the shared bathrooms. Irina took her showers at Lark House.
“Why do you live in this pigsty?” asked Seth, scandalized.
“Because it’s cheap.”