The Bride's Kimono Read Online Free PDF

made up of garments worn by his great-great-great-grandmother, who had been named Ai, and married into the Otani family in 1850.
    “I’m almost certain it is. Is there a record of what the American officer paid your father for the kimono in 1948?” I asked.
    “He didn’t pay with money, just rice and charcoal. He gave enough to last one winter.”
    I flushed, feeling guilty about the acquisitive nature of Americans abroad. After all, when I shopped at the Tokyo flea markets, I tried to get the best deal for myself. That’s what the officer had done. “I’ve only seen four of the kimono that belonged to Ai. The three that were formally appraised were valued together at a little over twenty million yen.” Two hundred thousand dollars, that was.
    “Ah. I believe my father gave a total of fifteen kimono. What a great value he gave away. The house waspleasantly warm that winter, though, I remember. That’s all that matters, isn’t it?” He smiled, but his eyes remained sad.
    Things were going to be difficult. I began, “Um, Mr. Otani, I wanted to say…in looking at the kimono that were worn by your great-great-great-grandmother, a few questions come to mind. They are so lavish and exquisite…especially the ones with longer sleeves, which were worn before Ai-san married. The themes are also very splendid. I don’t know if you’ve seen these kimono?”
    “They were always wrapped up in rice paper and stacked in a tansu in the family storehouse. I was a small boy. I wasn’t interested.”
    “The themes deal with court life. It makes me wonder whether you know anything about what Ai-san did before she got married.”
    “What she did ? Young ladies of the day did not have careers. It’s not like the women’s liberation of today.”
    “In those days, some women who worked as—courtesans.” I settled on that word because it was milder than “prostitutes.” “Some women lived in the Yoshiwara Pleasure Quarter, and some were in the court of Tokugawa Shogun.”
    “Are you saying—are you saying that my great-great-great-grandfather married a prostitute?” Mr. Otani sank down on a white velour-covered chair, leaving me standing awkwardly in front of him.
    “It could be, of course, that Ai-san was just a wealthy girl who preferred kimono with themes that were also popular in the floating world—” I sputtered a bit in my haste to save the situation.
    Mr. Otani shook his head. “We’re Osaka people. It’s impossible that my ancestor was in Yoshiwara, or the Shogun’s court.”
    “Very well,” I said, realizing the door had been closed. “I’m very excited about the kimono. As I told you on the phone, your family’s kimono were sought out by a top American museum because they are so splendid.”
    “Don’t call them my family’s kimono,” Mr. Otani snapped. “They belonged to a Lieutenant Commander Ashburn. He’s the one who made the profit.”
    “If it’s any consolation, in the sixties he couldn’t have possibly gotten what they’re worth now,” I said.
    “He received more than a winter’s worth of coal, I imagine.”
    I couldn’t disagree.
     
    M r. Otani never came through with more information about Ai, but then, I hadn’t thought he really would. Maybe I’d been crazy to try to find out more about the Otani kimono. The truth was, I had precious little about their history on paper from the Morioka Museum, even after I’d pored over the translated documents I’d been given. I might be able to do a little research in Washington, at the Textile Museum or the Smithsonian Institutions. At the moment my most serious task was getting all the kimono out of Japan without losing my cool.
    The morning of my departure, I went to the Morioka Museum to pick up the two five-foot-long acid-free cardboard boxes packed with kimono. Mr. Shima had already gone away on his vacation, so Mr. Nishio was the one who opened the boxes with me for the final condition analysis and count. Watching alongside