Free Lord of All Things by Andreas Eschbach Page A

last. “From a rich family. Very rich. His parents wanted him to get a job in the company, but he wasn’t interested. He was crazy about Japan, collected everything he could about it. One day he came to Japan to study here even though his family was against it.”
    Hiroshi looked at her, stunned. He didn’t know what to think.
    “At first he lived in dormitories,” she went on. “He didn’t like it, though, because he was living with other foreigners, mostly Americans. So he looked for a room in the city, people who rented out to students. He went to see a family, who showed him a room he didn’t really like, because it was dark and didn’t have nice furniture, but just as he was about to say so a girl walked in. He fell in love on the spot and took the room.”
    “And who was that?” Hiroshi asked.
    “Your mother.”
    “Oh.”
    “He was so deeply in love that he stopped paying attention to his studies. He went into the travel agency where your mother worked and then acted surprised to see her there. He’d really followed her in secret, though.”
    Hiroshi had to grin. He thought of the photo of his father and tried to imagine him keeping a low profile in the streets of Tokyo. Everybody must have noticed him.
    “He was always thinking of ways to talk to your mother more often. She was very shy, but she spoke good English. He finally thought of asking her to help him with his Japanese lessons and improve his pronunciation. It was difficult, because she had to ask for her parents’ permission. They sat in the living room with them for the first few lessons and watched very closely.” She stopped and giggled suddenly.
    “What is it?”
    “Your father had a trick up his sleeve. After a few weeks your grandparents left the two of them alone. Your father made up a lesson that was full of sentences like ‘I love you’ and ‘You’re so beautiful’ and that sort of thing.” She giggled again, louder this time. “He had somebody at the university write them down, and then he mocked them up as a set of teaching materials that looked just like the real course. Then he deliberately mispronounced the sentences so that your mother had to correct him all the time. She blushed like crazy, but she went along with it…” Charlotte stopped again but didn’t giggle. This time she just smiled. “After the lesson they kissed.”
    Hiroshi looked at her, feeling flustered and uncomfortable. Girls liked that sort of thing—he knew that from school—but he hated kissing. It was quite enough that he would be seeing his grandparents soon and that they would kiss him. However, he knew that one day he would have no choice but to kiss a girl. Otherwise h e ’ d never be able to get married.
    “He wanted to marry your mother, but he didn’t dare without asking for his parents’ permission. That’s why he wanted your mother to come with him to America. The third time he asked her, she finally agreed. He wasn’t happy when she did, though, because he was so worried about what his family would think. Charlotte opened her eyes and handed the knife back to Hiroshi.
    “What else?”
    “Nothing else. After that he didn’t have the knife on him.”
    Hiroshi put it in his pocket. “I don’t know much about my father,” he admitted. “I didn’t know that he was from a rich family. I don’t even know if he’s still alive.”
    “Of course he’s still alive,” Charlotte said firmly.
    “Do you think so?”
    “Yes,” she said, getting up and brushing the soil from her dress. “If he had died, you’d have inherited something.”

    That evening, when Hiroshi’s mother came home from work, her back ached so much that she had to lie down. “We washed the curtains from both grand salons today and then hung them up again. That always leaves me feeling half-dead.”
    “Should I go get some painkillers?” Hiroshi offered.
    “Oh no.” She patted the futon beside her. “Sit down and tell me something. What have you been