The Black Isle (33 page)

“Did you study in England?” I asked. “I have a friend who studied at Oxford. You sound a bit like him, actually.”

“England?” He chuckled. “Oh no. But I had very good teachers.”

“Where did you study?”

“Japan.”

The back of my neck went tight.

“How…interesting,” I said carefully. “How long were you there?”

“All my life.” He threw me a dashing smile. “Perhaps I should have introduced myself. My name is Taro. It means ‘boy.’ I was the baby in my family, you see, with two older brothers. My parents called me Taro because they never wanted me to grow up. Unfortunately, I had to disappoint them.”

Now I was speechless—and frightened. Why was this Japanese man helping me? We cruised up the lush green lanes of Tanglewood, all of the properties shabby with untended lawns, before he spoke again.

“How long have you lived here—I mean, delivered fish to the people here?”

“About a year.”

He cast me a look of strange tenderness and continued giving me little smiles until my cheeks began to prickle. It was clear he’d seen through me. But instead of pointing out my deception, he stepped very gently on the brake, as if this slowing down would be a prelude to some sort of courtship, perhaps even a kiss.

Home was just fifty yards away now, the driveway packed with cars. I grew nervous. Mr. Wee’s secret friends were here. I looked at Taro, but nothing in his expression changed. He didn’t seem to find the cars unusual, thank heavens.

It was then that I heard a
vroom
and saw a military jeep pull up alongside us. In that moment, a chill ran through me. Taro remained calm; he gave the driver a solemn, respectful nod and waved for it to overtake us.

 I relaxed. But only for a second. Swerving suddenly, the jeep crashed through the Wees’ gate, speeding over the lawn and screeching to a halt in front of the mansion.

Taro placed one firm hand on my wrist. He watched, smiling, as four soldiers spilled out of the vehicle and barged into the Wee house—two through the front, two through the back. When I tried to bolt, his fingers tightened into a vise.

“You bastard!” I cried.

“That’s not a very ladylike thing to say.”

He drove us up the driveway in time to see Daniel and Violet stumbling out the front door, hands on their heads, tears streaming down their faces. A soldier followed close behind them, his rifle pressed against Daniel’s back.

When Daniel saw me, he gazed at me with eyes that were less accusing than hurt. Betrayed.

“Cassandra!” he cried. “Why?”

Taro glanced at me. “Your name’s Cassandra? Yet you didn’t
see
this coming.” He whipped out a pair of handcuffs and locked my wrist to his with a decisive click.

“Daniel,” I wailed, “listen to me! I didn’t know! I really didn’t!”

“I always knew there was something wrong about you!” Violet hissed, her venom rising to the surface. “I saw it first but none of them believed me! You’re evil! You’re pure evil! You’ve destroyed
everything
!”

Taro chuckled. “I think this one likes you.”

The soldier jabbed the back of Violet’s head with his rifle, nudging her and Daniel to the side of the house.

More prisoners were marched out the front door, six men in shirts and ties—Mr. Wee’s cabal, meeting in the afternoon for a change. These “conspirators” were brought out under the bright sun and displayed, I realized, for Taro’s benefit. Without their scarves, dark glasses, and the cover of night, they looked utterly ordinary and vulnerable, squinting in the light, white singlets showing through their thin cotton shirts. They were all on the short side, balding and paunchy, each the very picture of the typical Chinese towkay. There were no Resistance heroes here, only small, nervous men wearing bright rings and expensive watches.

Taro nodded quietly, registering each of their scared faces. Finally, the pièce de résistance was brought out in handcuffs: Ignatius Wee. He was followed by a soldier holding up a stack of papers and an intricate map, evidence of subterfuge, perhaps. Taro nodded again. Mr. Wee’s face was red with frustration. He couldn’t resist glancing at the confiscated map, like an inventor forcibly removed from his life’s work before he’d made his breakthrough. His eyes filled with shocked dismay when he spotted me in the car; this turned into a kind of dark puzzlement when he recognized Taro.

“Officer,” he said, clearly trying to keep his calm. “Lieutenant Colonel Rukumoto, I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding. I’ve been working with Colonel Nagata. Please call him. My friends and I were just discussing your plans for the factory. We were hoping to—”

“There’s no misunderstanding, Ignatius-san,” Taro replied coolly. “I’m sorry to break up your little tea party, but you know very well you were not to share these plans with anyone, not even your wife—were she still alive. ‘Not even the Pope’ I believe were Nagata-san’s exact words. Well, Colonel Nagata always said he trusted you because you’re such a quiet little man; I didn’t because you seemed
too
quiet,
too
obedient. I like to think I have a good nose for treason, and I’m always delighted when my suspicions are proven correct. So,
arigato
—thank you.”

Leaning his head out the car window, he gave orders to his men in gruff, guttural Japanese. The soldier watching over Daniel and Violet instantly began pushing them, using the blunt force of his rifle butt, toward the jeep. Another soldier leapt into the driver’s seat and waited for the two captives. As brother and sister passed in front of Taro’s car, Daniel cast his eyes away from me, whereas Violet shot me a glare boiling with the promise of vengeance.

“Daniel!” I couldn’t bear him thinking me treacherous. “I love you!”

At this, Taro turned again to me, diabolically tickled. “Tell him you’ll send him chocolates.”

Mr. Wee ran to Taro’s window, his face melting with panic. “Please, Lieutenant, I beg you. Don’t take my children. They have absolutely nothing to do with this. Nothing! Please, Rukumoto-san, have mercy. I’ll give you anything. You can have the house! Take my beach house as well. Just, please, leave my children. They’re completely innocent. They know nothing! I beg you!”

Taro waved, and instantly a soldier struck the back of Mr. Wee’s head with his rifle, knocking him to the ground. The poor man crawled on all fours as blood trickled darkly down his collar. The soldier yanked him up with one hand, slapped his face, and then, as Mr. Wee was still stumbling to find his feet, kicked him toward the back of the house.

Daniel and Violet were loaded onto the jeep, sobbing violently at the sight of their father in pain. I felt equally sick. This had all happened because I had placed my trust in a handsome stranger. Not true, of course, but it was how I felt at the time.

Violet shrieked her battle cry: “Cassandra, I’ll hunt you down!”

Taro raised his eyebrows and smiled.

“Where are they taking them?” I asked him. I was startled by how small my voice sounded.

“Where the children of traitors belong.”

“But they had
nothing
to do with their father’s dealings. I swear to you. Please!”

My words meant nothing. The jeep’s engine started with a jolt that nearly threw the driver off balance. Then it took off with Daniel, Violet, and their armed guard in the back.

As they disappeared, I realized all this business had been conducted by the lieutenant colonel without any show of force, without him even raising his voice or emerging from the car. It was his calm, not his men’s violence, that was most chilling.

Finally, he decided to step out of the Ford. I climbed out through the driver’s side after him, as we were literally chained, and followed him inside the house. Stepping into the foyer, he looked around with an exaggerated air of wonder, like a homebuyer come to claim his new manse. He closed the front door behind us.

“What a pleasant house,” he said. “Good bones.”

As we walked by the parlor, the large crucifix caught his eye. He raised his brows again but refrained from comment. In any case, it did not alarm him, as Mr. Wee had hoped. If anything, it only amused him.

I counted six discrete gunshots from the driveway, each louder and more appalling than the last. Six. This meant there was still a chance that one of the men, Mr. Wee, had been allowed to live. Then, as if to shatter my tiniest hope, Agnes began to bay in the courtyard behind the house.

“Come on, darling,” Taro said as he drew me up the stairs. “It’s about time we got better acquainted.”

He didn’t touch me that afternoon. What he did was odder.

“Where do you sleep?” he asked.

I showed him the bedroom Daniel and I shared. He instantly began looking through the wardrobe and drawers, fingering my undergarments one by one, pausing only to gaze at me with the same tenderness he’d given me in the car. Was he willing me to fall in love with him? Trying to convince me of his love? In either case, he sought my complicity. When he finished going through my things, satisfied that I’d hidden no weapon, he unlocked the handcuff binding me to him.

Immediately, I made a run for it. But he shut the door and leaned into it. When I rushed to the open window, he whipped out his revolver and aimed it at me.

“Do you really want to die?” he asked. “Because I will shoot you, you know, before you can even jump.”

He stood before our full-length mirror, and I peered at it to see if there were others in the room, encircling his body as they had once Daniel.

There was nothing; we were completely alone. Even the monsters had fled.

“What do you want from me?”

“I would like you to be yourself,” he said. “I would like you to behave as you would on any other ordinary day. Like an ordinary housewife.”

To behave as I normally would—at gunpoint? In front of the enemy?

I wanted to scream but my body betrayed me instead. A warm stream flowed down my legs, and the silk carpet beneath my feet grew soggy.

Taro clucked. “Is this what you call acting like yourself, Momoko?”

Momoko
? Was this a term of hate?

He put away his gun and folded his arms. “Clean yourself up. Remember, we’re civilized people, not monkeys.”

He sat by my bath. There was no hint of lasciviousness when he watched me, although his eyes were fixed upon my body. He observed me as a physician or tutor might—with curative, instructive intent, rather than as a man. I learned very quickly from this, and from the way he’d given orders from the car, that he was not one who liked to dirty his hands. If he wanted me dead, he would have a lackey do the deed; as long as we were alone, my life was unlikely to be in danger.

“What have you done with Daniel?” Just saying his name left me shuddering.

“As long as you’re good to me, Momoko, you will see him again.”

“What about Mr. Wee?”

“Momoko…”

He persisted in calling me that word, that name, which sounded like something one might call a child or a pet.

When I emerged from the bath, shivering though the day was warm, he picked out a red silk cheongsam from my wardrobe and laid it out on the bed. As I dressed, the smell of Cantonese cooking wafted up the stairs: soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine, braised green onions. The servants! Were they still in the house?

He escorted me downstairs with his arm wrapped firmly around my waist, like a man leading his fiancée to a ball. Nothing about him looked threatening, let alone murderous, and this was precisely his most unnerving aspect. He had mopped his face and neck with a wet towel as I dressed. Now, with his hair moistened and combed down and his shirt crisp, he looked polished enough for supper with royalty.

The dining table was set for two and lit with candles. No sign of the servants anywhere. Yet fluffy white rice filled our bowls, and a main platter held two fatty eels, braised in the cook’s recognizable style with chopped scallions as garnish. Just seeing these creatures, their heads still intact with cloudy eyes and serrated teeth, turned my hunger to revulsion. That poor girl at the tram stop…

“Won’t you dine with me, Momoko?” He sat me down first, then took his place across from me. I noticed the absence of knives, forks, or chopsticks.

“What have you done with the servants?”

“I’ve done nothing. They cooked and then they left.” He tipped an open bottle of red Bordeaux over my goblet and poured, then clinked his glass—pointedly empty—against mine. “Chin, chin.”

“But you aren’t drinking.” It could be a fatal mistake if I didn’t make him taste the wine first.

“Wine doesn’t agree with me. I prefer sake.”

I retracted my hands. “Well, I won’t drink alone.”

“Fair enough.” He poured himself a glass and took a big gulp, wincing with distaste. “But you ought to have gathered by now that I mean you no harm. Quite the contrary, Momoko.”

Smiling, he pushed the serving spoon into the belly of an eel. Instantly, the creature’s gills flexed and fluttered. It was still alive.

He placed the juicy fillet atop the rice in my bowl.

I tried to contain my horror. “After you,” I said.

“Thank you, but Chinese food…” He wrinkled his nose.

“Then why all this trouble?”

“Because I wanted to give you a final taste”—he cast me a smile that conveyed a galaxy of nostalgia—“of your old life. Isn’t this a classic Chinese delicacy? I was served a dish like this in Shanghai once—the body cooked, the head left alive. The chef very proudly said it proved that the fish was fresh, and I thought, ‘Barbarians.’ Now, eat.”

I did as I was told, spooning rice into my mouth without really tasting it. When he told me to have more wine, I did that, too. I sought oblivion, and the wine helped. Glass after glass, I drank it all down until my cheeks were burning.

I kept my eyes on the eel, hoping it would finally be still. But its gill continued to twitch.

Taro stood up theatrically, and with his eyes fixed on me, sauntered to my side.

I tried to appear calm. “Why do you call me Momoko?”

“You remind me of a girl I once knew named Momoko. The similarity is uncanny: the same penetrating eyes, the same stubborn jut of the chin, the same eagerness to flirt one moment and to scold the next. It’s as if you were put here to torture me with memories of her.” He paused. “Momoko was the love of my life. Every time I touched her between her legs, she would be silky wet. It was like stroking a live oyster.” He smiled. “Once upon a time, I was going to marry her.”