Fifty Words for Rain(80)

“Mother taught me,” he said simply. “I had piano in the mornings and violin in the evenings for years. Not to mention with Will here, I could hardly be outdone.”

She started to feel faint. “You never played in front of me!”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t ready to share it with you.”

Nori felt her palms start to sweat. “And now you are?”

He offered her a small smile. “I suppose I am.”

“Is it possible for you to be bad at something?” she said irritably. “And here I thought I was catching up.”

He smirked. “Maybe next year.”

She felt a new passion seize her. She wiped her hands on her dress. “The pianist they have there will be good, I’m sure.”

“Certainly. I am just a poor standin so you can learn the piece.”

Nori tilted her bow. “From the top, then.”

They played well into the early hours of the morning. It was like being transported to another realm, where they needed neither food nor rest. The sunlight began to pour in, and still, neither of them stopped.

When Ayame came in to tell them it was time for Akira to go, Nori finally put down her violin.

Wordlessly, she went to sit beside him on the bench. The spell they’d cast was broken.

Her eyes filled with tears. This was the beginning of the end of life as they knew it.

He leaned down and grazed his lips across the dimple in her left cheek.

“I know you can do it. I taught you myself all of these years, you must have learned something.”

She nodded. “Hai, Oniichan.”

“Behave.”

“Yes.”

“And watch your trills. You are always sloppy on your trills.”

“Oh, Oniichan, can’t you stay? At least until after the concert. Please don’t make me do it alone.”

He sighed. “I’m sorry, Nori. Not this time.”

She buried her face in his chest.

Please, God. Bring him back to me.



* * *





November passed uneventfully. There were no letters from Akira.

Nori did her best not to be disappointed.

She put her mother’s final diary aside, for now. There was no time for it, and if she was being honest, she was afraid. Eventually, it was bound to get to the part about her. About her father. And Nori didn’t know if she really wanted to know these things after all.

She spent her days practicing incessantly. She was quite sure that the servants all hated her, but she couldn’t be bothered to care.

Her nights were spent knitting a series of scarves for Akira. Vienna was bound to be cold. Once they were perfect, she’d mail them all off at once.

She had the address of his hotel written on a scrap of paper that she kept in her violin case.

She slept fitfully or not at all. Her anxiety gnawed at her like fleas. She had tiny red marks all over her arms and legs from pinching herself.

She sat by the fire and watched the windows mist over with frost. She had never really liked the snow, but this year for whatever reason she felt differently about it. It was beautiful.

Bundled up in her coat and scarf, she walked outside in the garden every night. It was a far cry from the neglected ruin it had been when she first arrived. Akira had seen it restored to glory, and though he never said it was a gift for her, she knew that it was.



Tokyo, Japan

December 24th, 1956

They sent a car for her a little after seven o’clock in the morning. The event was at Hiromoto’s country estate about an hour outside of the city. So much for being a poor man. According to Ayame, he’d recently come into a great deal of money from some trade ventures abroad. These events were his way of sucking up to the city’s elite, of trying to get his grubby, lowborn feet in the door.

Nori thought he was an odd little man, but she rather liked him.

He insisted on sending his own driver to fetch her. Nori curled up in the back seat and watched the city slowly fade away outside her window. The world was blanketed in a thick layer of snow.

She thought about rolling down the window and feeling the cold on her face, but she decided against it. She didn’t want the driver to scold her.

Nori drummed her fingers against her lap. She’d memorized all the pieces down to that last fermata.

She understood what Akira was trying to do by making her do this. Really, she did.

But she still didn’t want to.

Akira had spent his life trying to be extraordinary in his own right. He would never be able to comprehend what it was to want to be in the background.

When they pulled up in front of the manor, the driver got out and opened her door.

“Madam.”

She thanked him, picked up her violin case, and went inside.

This house appeared to be newly built, on an empty plot of land surrounded by nothing but trees and bordering the edge of a man-made lake.

Nori wondered why anyone would build a house in the middle of the woods and then laughed at herself for wondering. It was exactly the type of thing she would do.

She was immediately led into the foyer, which appeared to take up most of the house. It had marble floors that looked new and floor-to-ceiling glass windows. The caterers were already setting up long tables with gaudy gold tablecloths. There was a raised platform in the corner with a grand piano and fifteen chairs.