Netsuke

Mr. Girardi had served in the army, stationed in Japan during the Occupation. While there, he developed a fascination for netsuke, miniature sculptures originating in the seventeenth century as toggles on cords to close little boxes that people carried things in, such as tobacco or money. Later artists created the ornate little sculptures on their own that grew popular among western collectors.

Perhaps Mr. Girardi never knew the total value of the netsuke he kept in an old cigar box under his bed. But then perhaps he did. "These are important," he said, his dark eyes dancing a little. "They all don't know."

Hannah had been visiting him after his stroke to see if there was anything he needed. At the time he was eighty-eight and dependent on help from illegal aliens he hired to live with him, one Polish woman and one Nicaraguan. Possibly they were robbing him blind, but no one had noticed the box under the bed and probably wouldn't know what the "junk" inside was should they see it.

"Who do you mean by they?  she had asked.

"Oh, my niece and nephew. They have no idea about these things."

Why was he telling her this? They were friends, but not so very close. She just felt bad for him that he'd been alone so many years since his wife, whom she'd never met, had died. She took him food now and then, casseroles or slices of cake.

At the time, she was married and had a four-year-old child. Things were tense with her husband; he was rarely home and she suspected that he was cheating with his supposed "good friend", Nina. The idea of divorce hung in the air but it terrified her. How would she live on her own? In no way could she support their overpriced house and their daughter, Violet. She was a Spanish teacher at the high school, a job about which she felt lukewarm but tried to make herself more enthusiastic

"If you want us to pay for your education," her mother had said back when she was applying to colleges, "you'll get a degree in education. That way you can always support yourself without a man in case your husband leaves you or dies."

What a way to choose a career, she'd thought, but had gone along with her mother's rules. After all, she couldn't pay for college herself. And now, years later, her marriage had grown cold and she'd found herself wishing daily that she was in a different profession, doing other things that might more happily fill her day. Like her smarter sister, Cecelia, who had never listened to their mother and had run off with her boyfriend to Sacramento, California, and eventually started her own business operating a vegetarian café. Cecelia was happy and independent now, the boyfriend long gone. The café had taken off, and being near Caltech, had a steady supply of hungry lunchers.

Hannah had said to Mr. Girardi after he'd shown her the netsuke and she had replaced the box under his bed, "Have you thought of moving to one of those places for senior citizens? You'd have your own apartment, but they do everything for you. You know, meals, cleaning, laundry, etc."

That had riled him up and she wished she'd kept her mouth shut. "I am not leaving my own house," he snapped. "Those places are horrible!"

He had given her a key to his house and now she felt that she'd betrayed him by suggesting something so distasteful to him. Over the next several weeks, he recovered amazingly well from his stroke. Soon he was up and about, albeit slowly and carefully, and back downstairs. He let the Polish woman go and kept the Nicaraguan who was called Yanara. She came in six days a week, cooked quite well, but cleaned less so.

Brian suddenly packed up and left, saying he was starting divorce proceedings. "It's nothing you've done or anything," he said, "but I'm in love with someone else. I didn't mean for it to happen."

The someone else was not, as Hannah had suspected, his good friend Nina, but the sister of a friend from the gym. There was little use in fighting it. The truth was that Hannah had wondered if she'd made a mistake right before the wedding but everything had been rolling along and she'd hoped the feeling would pass. Neither of them was in love with each other and he did not show much interest in his daughter. Whatever the case, she was alone then with house payments to make and all the things a four year old needed. Brian paid his child support most of the time but her own salary just wasn't enough to keep up the too expensive house.

"You look so down," Yanara said to her when she stopped over to visit Mr. Girardi. They often spoke in Spanish, which was good for keeping Hannah sharp, and she liked doing it, but she didn't like teaching it.

"Por que no?" Yanara asked, and Hannah tried to explain that it wasn't that she didn't like the kids, but that there was something about being in a school every day that depressed her and caused her to feel trapped.

"I'm just in the wrong profession. It's a feeling I can't explain. I know I should be somewhere else doing something else."

"You have no idea what?" said Yanara.

Hannah thought about this for probably the hundredth time. "I think psychology. Maybe I would like to be a therapist. Listen to other people's problems. I think that would be it."

"Why you can't go to school to learn it?" asked Yanara.

Hannah shook her head. "Not possible," she said. "I have to work to support myself and Violet. I don't want to take on a school loan since how would I pay it back when just living now takes everything I make? Day care, the house, etc. Even though she'll be starting kindergarten, I will still need someone to watch her half the time."

Yanara sighed in sympathy. "I know, I know," she said. She had children herself and understood.

When Hannah expressed this same lament to Mr. Girardi, he said quite firmly, "Then you ought to go back to school for something else," as if that was obvious.

"Well, I don't have the money," she said.

"Do what you have to do," was his reply. "In life you have to look after yourself. Have some gumption!"

An old-fashioned word, she thought. Gumption. Whatever he meant by it.

Less than a week later, Mr. Girardi suffered a second, this time massive stroke, and died. Yanara stayed on while the niece and nephew handled the cremation and removed what they wanted from the house. They did not notice the cigar box under Mr. Girardi's bed, but Hannah didn't discover that until after they had gone and left a note in her mailbox to let her know that a salvage company would be coming the following week to clear the place out before they sold it. They were unaware that Hannah had a key of her own.

That was a Friday and the next day, she stepped out the back door, glanced around to see if anyone was looking, and went into Mr. Girardi's house. Her key was for his back door since that was the one everyone had used, having parked on the side or back of the house.

The place felt so empty. She tried to send out mental tendrils to feel if his spirit was maybe still there but felt nothing. She worried that someone might catch her inside; possibly the niece or nephew could suddenly return, or even Yanara. She'd had a chance to say adios to her, and they had exchanged telephone numbers, but it was unlikely they would meet again.

What would she say if someone caught her inside there? Maybe that she had lent Mr. Girardi a book and had come to get it? But what book?

She walked up the stairs and into his bedroom. The cigar box was still where he'd left it. Carefully, she slid it out and opened it. The netsuke were still all in there, nine or ten of them. Had Mr. Girardi perhaps mentioned them in his will? Had he ever talked to his relatives about them?  He had said that they were very valuable. But if the niece and nephew had known about them, why hadn't they taken them? Maybe they hadn't read the will yet and maybe he had described them in it and explained where they were and then soon those two would be back to get them?

She couldn't possibly know, but now as if guided by some rather naughty spirit, she opened the box and looked the little sculptures over. Two of them particularly appealed to her, one of a cunningly carved dog and the other a tiny tiger. She grabbed both of them and stuck them into her pockets. Then, heart pounding disturbingly, she shoved the box back under the bed and cleared out. And to get rid of any evidence, she tossed Mr. Girardi's housekey into the kitchen trashcan, tied the bag shut and took it out to the garage to drop in the garbage can.

Her heart raced off and on for two days and more than once she started out the backdoor to root through the trash for the key to return the netsuke to the cigar box. But on Monday she dragged the garbage can to the end of the driveway for trash pickup and soon it was gone. The netsuke, she hid in one of her handbags hanging in her closet.

The salvage company arrived and for the rest of the week, cleared out Mr. Girardi's house. Hannah didn't know if anything the men took was passed on to the niece and nephew or all was disposed of some other way. Should she have taken all of the netsuke? Or would that have been too dangerous?  If the things were given to the niece and nephew and they had a list of what was supposed to be in the box, would they blame Yanara and the Polish woman who'd worked for Mr. Girardi earlier? And yet, if his will had mentioned the box of netsuke, wouldn't they have rushed back to get them? Surely, they wouldn't have trusted them to an estate cleanout service.

Hannah worried herself sick, but after a while, she forced herself to stop and then something happened that pushed her into another life.

The high school in the neighboring district had a mass shooting. Eleven students and two teachers were killed, four people wounded. She knew two of the teachers there from conferences, neither of them killed or wounded but still, they would be horribly traumatized forever. As usual, the killer was a student with a long history of being mistreated. As usual, people had either not noticed his dark misery or pretended not to. And as usual, there were many speeches and candlelight ceremonies with piles of mementos left along fences by the school and worthless "thoughts and prayers" by politicians and local churches

"I wish I had never gone into teaching," she heard from colleagues over and over, which only added to her own dissatisfaction. "They don't pay us enough to live in fear," they said, and she felt the end had finally been reached.

"I can't do it anymore," she told her sister on the phone. "I just can't."

"Come out here, then," Cecelia said. "I've told you that over and over."

"But how would I make a living? I don't want to be dependent on you - you'd hate us invading your space."

"You can get a loan or something, or work at something else and take courses in the evening. We'll find someone to watch Violet."

All of that seemed overwhelming, but fortunately summer was only two months away and Hannah met with a realtor. She would finish out the school year and hand in her resignation.

The drive across the country was thrilling and terrifying. She had sold her furnishings, using the same estate clean out service as had been at Mr. Girardi's. While they worked, she hovered over them, casually remarking that Mr. Girardi must have had some interesting old stuff, but the two men did not take the bait. Possibly, they'd just sold everything at auction, including that cigar box. Someone somewhere had made a killing, or possibly some unknowing old lady or little girl now lined the tiny sculptures up on a shelf without any idea of what they were worth.

She had looked the objects up online and been very surprised. And then, as she and Violet rode to California, it came to her that she could sell them. But would she be risking trouble? What if they were registered or something? Like to Mr. Girardi, and there was a police list? And to whom would she sell them?

"One of my waiters quit," Cecelia said when they finally arrived, dusty and tired. "He got an acting job and returned to Las Angeles. Remember when you waitressed at Denny's ages ago? Well, this is much more upscale but if you want a job while you figure out what you really want to do, I can train you. If you're good, the tips are good. Most of my customers are from Caltech and they're generally a nice bunch. Professors and TA's and such. Generous with tips and advice."

Waiting on the customers wasn't terrible by any means, nothing at all like Denny's, and several were Japanese. There was, in fact, a large population of Japanese in the area. "Did you meet Mr. Sakurai yet?" Cecelia asked Hannah one evening.

"I don't know," she said. "There are several Asian men and I-"

"He's the one in the wheelchair. Around seventy years old - a young looking seventy."

"Oh," said Hannah.

"A wonderful man. Unfortunately, he has MS. That doesn't stop him from teaching neurobiology courses. And I hear he doesn't shy away from describing his own disease. He has a lovely wife who takes good care of him."

"Is he your favorite customer?" Hannah asked.

"One of them," said Cecelia, “but I mention him because he's Japanese-American. I am thinking that you could maybe approach him about your little statue thingies. He might know someone who deals with them. If they're as valuable as you think they are..."

Hannah actually enjoyed working in her sister's café but she knew it was not something she wanted to do for the rest of her life. As she dealt with customers day after day, she realized that she loved listening to people talk about their problems and various issues, which she got to do by eavesdropping in the restaurant. But she wanted to listen more in depth, not in passing. A therapist was indeed what she felt she was meant to be. But again, that issue of money.

Inside, she was torn by the desire to see if she could sell the netsuke and raise enough to go back to school and the ever present, low-level terror that she might be found out as a thief and end up in prison. But one day things built to a pitch inside of her and she approached Mr. Sakurai while he ate his favorite lunch, the Zoodle Bowl. He was alone and looked up at her expectantly.

She stammered and hem-hawed but finally asked, "Do you know anything about netsuke?"

Surprised, he shakily set down his fork. "Odd you should ask," he said. "I have a small collection. I know people with better ones."

She swallowed and took the plunge. "Mr. Sakurai, I have two netsuke that I inherited from a family friend." She thought she would go that route instead of claiming they were from a relative.

He studied her for a long moment. "You want to sell them?" His dark eyes flashed a little, almost with humor.

She stuttered a little and said, "Yes, I do. I'm not a collector and I could use the money."

He was quiet for a long moment and said, "Would you care to bring them over for me to look at? This evening, perhaps?"

They agreed on the time, and she went about the rest of her workday with butterflies in her stomach. And then she was pulling into the flower-lined driveway of Mr. Sakurai's house and being served tea and cookies by his wife.

He had set out on the table a black velvet cloth with tools lined up beside it, magnifying glasses, etc. She'd wrapped her little sculptures in scarves and now unwrapped and laid them on the cloth. He was silent as he carefully observed them and took what seemed a really long time. Finally, he spoke.

"These are Edo period. That is 1615–1868. Very old, Hannah. Very valuable. I am certain that they were made by Tomotada who worked in the 19th century. The strange thing is that my father collected this sort of Netsuke. My grandfather handed them down to my father who was a solder in World War II. For Japan. After the war, my family was very poor for a while and the story went that Father sold his netsuke to an American soldier who was stationed there during the Occupation. For much less than they were worth, of course. This dog is typical of the exquisite work of Tomotada. The tiger figure also; I believe his later work. I remember my father said he had a dog carving. He didn't talk about the tiger but it is definitely Tomotada's style."

Hannah was temporarily speechless. Could it be that Mr. Girardi was the one who had bought this man's father's prize possessions?

"Do you know the name of the soldier who bought them?" she whispered.

"No," he said. "I do not."

She had the idea that she should give them to Mr. Sakurai but then thought of Violet and the need to provide for her and of her own desires to finally do work she would enjoy, and she said, "Do you know what they are worth, Mr. Sakurai?"

He touched the tiger. He was careful, since his hands were shaky, to not let the pieces near the edge of the black cloth. "What they are worth is probably more than I could pay. I imagine that you could get over two hundred thousand dollars."

"What can you afford to pay?" she asked.

"Half of that," he said.

She looked at him a long time and made up her mind. A hundred thousand would get her off to a good start. If Cecelia let her and Violet stay in her house for a couple of years, with the education she already had, she could get her Master's in psychology while continuing to work at the café. Violet would be going to kindergarten in the fall.

"It's a deal," she told Mr. Sakurai. "I want to go to school, that's what matters."

He smiled for the first time and they shook hands.

She was doing a half good, better than no good, she told herself.

After a year and establishing California residency, she enrolled at Sacramento State and began what would eventually become her new professional life. She often talked to Mr. Girardi, whether he heard her or not. "Forgive me and thank you," she always said.

Author’s Biography

Margaret Karmazin’s credits include stories published in literary and SF magazines, including Rosebud, Chrysalis Reader, North Atlantic Review, Mobius, Confrontation, Pennsylvania Review, The Speculative Edge, Aphelion and Another Realm. Her stories in The MacGuffin, Eureka Literary Magazine, Licking River Review and Mobius were nominated for Pushcart awards. She has stories included in several anthologies, published a YA novel, REPLACING FIONA, a children’s book, FLICK-FLICK & DREAMER and a collection of short stories, RISK.