Chapter One

Suzuki Kentaro, or, as English-speakers would say, Kentaro Suzuki, had dropped by his company in the Ginza district of Tokyo briefly that morning. No one questioned the actions of the president who was dressed in a dark business suit as he rummaged through a few files, found what he was looking for, exited and climbed into the luxury Toyota he had bought just before business began to drop off a few years earlier.

As Suzuki-san entered the Tomei Toll highway, headed south, Akihiro Hirota had already been at work in the family restaurant in Gotemba, cleaning and slicing fresh eel. He was not entirely happy with his youngest daughter, Yumiko's choice of the American teacher Will Mast for her husband. On the other hand, she was closer to 40 than 30 and the only one of his four children who had never married.

Akihiro-san adjusted the bandana on his head, and thought about his wife, Koto, who had been killed by a hit and run driver many years earlier. He wondered what she would have thought of her baby's choice and this new turn of events.

Akihiro-san blinked his thick, wrinkled eyes rapidly, then looked around to make sure none of the help had come in yet and seen him. He was in his early 70's yet seldom missed a day of work. He was expecting his daughter, Sanae, and employee and friend of the family, Aka-chan (Baby), his granddaughter (Sanae's daughter), Oryo, her foreign husband, George Olsen and their children (his great grandchildren), Mariko and Hiroshi. After all, George, who did not speak with a southern accent even though he hailed from Alabama, had