A Clean Kill in Tokyo

father just after I turned eight. He was killed by a rightist in the street demonstrations that rocked Tokyo when the Kishi administration ratified the 1960 U.S.-Japan Security Pact. My father had always approached me as though from a great distance when he was alive, and I sensed I was the source of some strain between him and my mother. But my understanding of all that came later. Meanwhile, I cried a small boy’s nightly tears for a long time after he was gone.
    My mother didn’t make it easy for me afterward, though I believe she tried her best. She had been a State Department staff lawyer in Occupation Tokyo with MacArthur’s Supreme Command of Allied Powers, part of the team MacArthur charged with drafting a new constitution to guide postwar Japan into the coming American Century. My father was part of Prime Minister Yoshida’s staff, responsible for translating and negotiating the document on terms favorable to Japan.
    Their romance, which became public shortly after the new constitution was signed into law in May 1947, scandalized both camps, each convinced its representative had made concessions on the pillow that could never have been achieved at the negotiating table. My mother’s future with the State Department was effectively ended, and she remained in Japan as my father’s wife.
    Her parents broke with her over the cross-cultural, mixed-race marriage, which she entered into against their command, and so my mother, in reaction to her
de facto
orphanage, adopted Japan, learning Japanese well enough to speak it at home with my father and with me. When she lost him, she lost her moorings to the new life she had built.
    Had Midori been close with her father? Perhaps not. Perhaps there had been awkwardness, even fights, over what to him might have seemed a frivolous career choice. And if there had been fights, and painful silences, and struggling attempts at mutual comprehension, had they had a chance to reconcile? Or was she left with so many things she wished she could have told him?
    The hell is with you?
I thought.
You’ve got nothing to do with her or her father. She’s attractive, it’s getting to you. Okay. But drop it.
    I looked around the room, and all the people seemed to be in pairs or larger groups.
    I wanted to get out, to find a place that held no memories.
    But where would that place be?
    So I listened to the music. I felt the notes zigzagging playfully away from me, and I grabbed on and let them pull me from the mood that was rising around me like black waters. I hung on to the music, the taste of Caol Ila in my throat, the melody in my ears, until Midori’s hands seemed to blur, until her profile was lost in her hair, until the heads I saw around me in the semidarkness and cigarette haze were rocking and hands were tapping tables and glasses, until her hands blurred faster and then stopped, leaving a moment of perfect silence to be filled with a burst of applause.
    A moment later, Midori and her trio made their way to a small table that was left open for them, and the room was filled with a low murmur of conversation and muffled laughter. Mama joined them. I knew I couldn’t slip away without paying my respects to Mama, but didn’t want to stop at Midori’s table. Besides, an early departure would look odd no matter what. I realized I was going to have to stay put.
    Admit it,
I thought to myself.
You want to hear the second set.
And it was true. Midori’s music had settled my roiled emotions, as jazz always does. I wasn’t upset at the prospect of staying for more. I would enjoy the second set, leave quietly, and remember this as a bizarre evening that somehow had turned out all right.
    That’s fine. Just no more of that shit about her father, okay?
    Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mama walking in my direction. I looked up and smiled as she sat next to me.
    “Well? What do you think?” she asked.
    I picked up my bottle, which was considerably less full than it had been when I arrived, and poured us each a glass. “An angry Thelonious Monk, just like you said. You’re right, she’s going to be a star.”
    Her eyes twinkled. “Would you like to meet her?”
    “That’s nice Mama, but I think I’m in more of a listening mood than a talking mood tonight.”
    “So? She can talk, and you can listen. Women like men who listen—they’re such rare birds, aren’t they?”
    “I don’t think she’d like me, Mama.”
    She leaned forward. “She asked about