Noble House

That he loved her was beyond doubt. All she felt for him was giri, duty. He gave her money and her life was smooth, neither rich nor poor—even, like the country of their choice. His arrivals and departures had no pattern. When he was with her he always wanted her, wanted to be near her. Their pillowing satisfied him but not her, though she pretended, for his pleasure. But then, she told herself, you have had no other man to judge by.
He was a good man and it was as I told the tai-pan. I tried to be a good wife to him, to obey him in everything, to honor my mother's wish, to fulfill my giri to her, and to him. And now?
She looked down at her wedding ring and twisted it on her finger. For the first time since she had married she took it off and looked at it closely in the palm of her hand. Small, empty and uninteresting.
So many lonely nights, tears in the nights, waiting waiting waiting. Waiting for what? Children forbidden, friends forbidden, travel forbidden. Not forbidden as a Japanese would: Kin jiru! But, "Don't you think, my dear," he would say, "don't you think it would be better if you didn't go to Paris while I'm away? We can go the next time I'm here …" both of them knowing they would never go.
The time in Vienna had been terrible. It was the first year. They went for a week. "I have to go out tonight," he had told her the first night. "Please stay in the room, eat in the room till I get back." Two days passed and when he came back he was sallow-faced and drawn, frightened, and then at once, in the darkest part of the night, they had got into their hired car and fled back to Switzerland, going the long way, the wrong way, up through the Tyrolian mountains, his eyes constantly on the rear mirrors in case they were being followed, not talking to her until they were safe across the border once more.
"But why, why, Hans?"
"Because nothing! Please. You're not to ask questions, Riko. That was your agreement… our agreement. I'm sorry about the holiday. We'll go to Wengen or Biarritz, it will be grand, it will be grand there. Please remember your giri and that I love you with all my heart."
Love!
I do not understand that word, she thought, standing there at the window, looking at the harbor, sullen clouds, the light bad. Strange that in Japanese we do not have such a word. Only duty and shades of duty, affection and shades of affection. Not lieben. Ai? Ai really means respect though some use it for lieben.
Riko caught herself thinking in German and she smiled. Most times she thought in German though today, with the tai-pan, she had thought in Japanese. It's such a long time since I spoke my own language. What is my own language? Japanese? That's the language my parents and I spoke. German? That's the language of our part of Switzerland. English? That's the language of my husband even though he claimed that German was his first tongue.
Was he English?
She had asked herself that question many times. It was not that his German was not fluent, it was just attitudes. His attitudes were not German, like mine are not Japanese. Or are they?
I don't know. But now, now I can find out.
He had never told her what his work was and she had never asked. After Vienna it had been very easy to predict that it was clandestine and connected somehow to international crime or espionage. Hans was not the type to be in crime.
So from then on she had been even more cautious. Once or twice she had thought that they were under surveillance in Zurich and when they went skiing, but he had dismissed it and told her not to worry about him. "But be prepared in case of accidents. Keep all your valuables and private papers, passport and birth certificate in your traveling bag, Ri-chan," he had said, using her nickname. "Just in case, just in case."
With the death of her husband and his instructions almost all carried out, the money and the tai-pan's phone call and summons, everything had become new. Now she could start again. She was twenty-four. The past was past and karma was karma. The tai-pan's money would be more than enough for her needs for years.
On their wedding night, her husband had told her, "If anything happens to me, you will get a call from a man called Kiernan. Cut the phone wires as I will show you and leave Zurich instantly. Leave everything except the clothes you wear and your travel bag. Drive to Geneva. Here is a key. This key will open a safety deposit box in the Swiss Bank of Geneva on Rue Charles. In it there's money and some letters. Follow the instructions exactly, my darling, oh how I love you. Leave everything. Do exactly as I've said. . . ."
And she had. Exactly. It was her giri.
She had cut the phone wires with the wire snips as he had shown her, just behind the box that was attached to the wall so that the cut was hardly noticeable. In Geneva in the bank there had been a letter of instructions, $10,000 U.S. in cash in the safety deposit box, a new Swiss passport, stamped, with her photograph but a new name and new birthday and new birth certificate that documented she was born in the city of Berne twenty-three years ago. She had liked the new name he had chosen for her and she remembered how, in the safety of her hotel room overlooking the lovely lake, she had wept for him.
Also in the safety deposit box had been a savings book in her new name for $20,000 U.S. in this same bank, and a key, an address and a deed. The deed was for a small chalet on the lake, private and furnished and paid for, with a caretaker who knew her only by her new name and that she was a widow who had been abroad—the deed registered in her new name though purchased four years before, a few days prior to her marriage.
"Ah, mistress, I am so happy you have come home at long last. Traveling in all those foreign places must be very tiring," the pleasant, though simple old lady had said in greeting. "Oh, for the last year or so, your home has been rented to such a charming, quiet Englishman. He paid promptly every month, here are the accounts. Perhaps he will come back this year, he said, perhaps not. Your agent is on Avenue Firmet. . . ."
Later, wandering around the lovely house, the lake vast and clean in the bowl of mountains, the house clean like the mountains, pictures on the walls, flowers in vases, three bedrooms and a living room and verandas, tiny but perfect for her, the garden cherished, she had gone into the main bedroom. Among a kaleidoscope of small pictures of various shapes and sizes on one of the walls was what seemed to be part of an old letter in a glass-covered frame, the paper already yellowing. She recognized his writing. It was in English. "So many happy hours in your arms, Ri-chan, so many happy days in your company, how do I say that I love you? Forget me, I will never forget you. How do I beg God to grant you ten thousand days for every one of mine, my darling, my darling, my darling."
The huge double bed was almost convex with its thick eiderdown quilt, multicolored, the windows opened to the tender air, late summer perfumes within it, snow dusting the mountaintops. She had wept again, the chalet taking her to itself.
Within a few hours of being there Dunross had called and she had boarded the first jet and now she was here, most of her work completed, never a need to return, the past obliterated—if she wished it. The new passport was genuine as far as she could tell, and the birth certificate. No reason ever to return to Switzerland— except for the chalet. And the picture.
She had left it on the wall undisturbed. And she had resolved, as long as she owned the house, the picture would stay where he had placed it. Always.
76
5:10 P.M. :
Orlanda was driving her small car, Bartlett beside her, his hand resting lightly across her shoulders. They had just come over the pass from Aberdeen and now, still in cloud, were heading down the mountainside in Mid Levels toward her home in Rose Court. They were happy together, aware and filled with expectation. After lunch they had crossed to Hong Kong and she had driven to Shek-O on the southeastern tip of the Island to show him where some of the tai-pans had weekend houses. The countryside was rolling and sparsely populated, hills, ravines, the sea always near, sheer cliffs and rocks.