In the Age of Love and Chocolate (Birthright #3)(49)

Even from behind, the woman appeared overcome. Her shoulders shook, and she was whispering. I thought she might be praying, though I could not make out the words or the language. She lifted her hand and moved it in a way that could have been the sign of the cross. The longer I regarded her, the more her hair seemed to take on the waxy quality of a wig. Something was off. I stood and walked the three steps to the altar. I meant to set my hand on the woman’s shoulder, but I caught her hair instead. The black wig slipped down to reveal brown hair.

Sophia Bitter turned around. Her large dark eyes were red and her eyelids were swollen like lips. “Anya,” she said, “did you imagine I wouldn’t come to the funeral of my best friend?”

“I did actually,” I said. “Seeing as you killed him, good manners would dictate that you should sit this one out.”

“I don’t have good manners,” she said. “Besides, I only killed him because I loved him.”

“That is not love.”

“And what would you know about love, liebchen? Did you marry Yuji for love?”

I pushed her against the casket. We were attracting the attention of other funeral-goers.

“He betrayed me,” Sophia insisted. “You know that he did.”

I felt my fingers begin to spread toward my machete. I thought of Yuji asking me to kill her, but for better or for worse, I was still not the murdering kind. Sophia Bitter had committed atrocious acts, but in my memory flashed a picture of the girl Yuji had described. Sophia had once been young and unpopular and embarrassed. She had thought herself ugly, though she couldn’t have ever been more than plain. She had murdered perhaps the only person in the world who had loved her. And for what? For power? For money? For chocolate? For jealousy? For love? I know she told herself it was for love, but it could not have been.

“Go,” I said. “You’ve paid your respects, for what they are worth, and now you should leave.”

“I will be seeing you, Anya. Good luck opening the rest of the clubs in Japan.”

“Is that a threat?” I imagined her making a disturbance at one of our openings.

“You’re a very suspicious young woman,” she said.

“Probably so. If we were in America, I’d have you arrested.”

“But we are not. And poisoning is the perfect crime. It takes patience, but it’s so very hard to prove.”

“By the way, what are your plans after the funeral?”

“Will we be having lunch?” she asked. “Girl talk and chocolate. Unfortunately, I leave tomorrow. You are not the only one with a business to run, though you act as if you are. This leaves no time for you and me to catch up. What a pity.”

“I feel so sorry for you,” I said. “He loved you, and you killed him, and now no one will ever love you again.”

Her eyes turned black with hate. I knew even as I was saying it that nothing except the belief that others found her pitiable could have had such an effect on that woman. She lunged toward me, but I wasn’t scared of her. She was weak and stupid. I called Kazuo over and asked him to show her the door.

XIX

I VOW TO BE ALONE

THOUGH IT WAS THE MIDDLE of the day, I went back to Yuji’s house to my room to sleep. I was psychically tired, if not physically so. I lay down on my bed, not even bothering to remove my black kimono.

When I awoke, it was past midnight, and the room felt cramped and musty. My clothes reeked of incense, and I craved a walk, a bit of fresh air. Though I was not particularly concerned for my safety, I strapped my machete underneath the kimono.

I took the same stone path I had traveled with Yuji not so many days earlier. I arrived at the koi pond and sat down on the ancient stone bench. I watched the orange, red, and white fish as they swam and jumped about. I contemplated these fish. It was so late—were these a peculiar breed of party fish? When did fish sleep? Did they sleep?

I loosened my kimono, which the servant had tied too tightly.

I looked at my hands and at my wedding band. So much for that experiment, I thought.

There was much moonshine that night, and I was able to see my reflection in the water. I looked at Anya Balanchine as the fish swam across her face. She seemed on the verge of tears, and I hated her for that. I took off my wedding band and threw it at her. “You chose this,” I said. “You don’t get to feel sad.”

I was twenty years old. I had married and now I was a widow. In that moment, I determined that I would never marry again. I did not like the jewelry that said you were owned, the pretentious pageantry of weddings, or the fact that joining your life to someone meant inviting sadness in your door. For love or for any other reason, I was not for marriage, or perhaps marriage was not for me.

The business had made sense with Yuji, but the whole arrangement had become so complicated. I could see no reason to join my life to anyone else’s in the future. If you married for love, you always fell out of love (cf. my parents, Win’s parents). If you married for business, the relationship refused to stay business. Furthermore, I had worked hard, made tough choices, and built something other than a starry-eyed teenager’s house of dreams. I did not wish to inherit anyone else’s history and mistakes nor did I wish mine on anyone. Besides, who could I be with who wouldn’t judge me? Who would ever understand why I had done all these things I’d done? I sat on that rigid stone bench in a foreign country in the middle of the night, and I thought, Why on earth would I ever get married again?