Girl Rides the Wind by Jacques Antoine Page A

her brother as she walked across the tarmac to the terminal, a breeze straining to ruffle the severe skirt of her blue suit. The year after she graduated from college, finally bold enough to take some matters into her own hands, she’d found the Okamotos a place managing one of the farms at the southern edge of their extensive land holdings in Tottori. The time would come when agricultural reforms, and worse things, would require them to sell off much of the estate, even if Ojii-san had managed to keep the regulators at bay long after less influential families had been forced to comply with the law. But with his attention focused on preserving the cattle and horse ranches, he gave scant attention to a few hundred acres devoted to rice paddies and a cherry orchard.
    Haru-chan was enrolled in the village school, and her auntie Go-Go would come visit whenever she could get away from her civil service job. The pleasure of watching the girl scamper like a mountain goat up and down the hillsides behind the orchard was considerable.
    “I’m home, Grandfather,” she called up the stairs. Sheets still covered the furniture, and a distant clatter came from the east wing – probably Hana making lunch for the old man. Of course, he wouldn’t answer, even if he had heard. “It is done, Grandfather,” she said, once she’d closed the door to his room with an audible click.
    “Gyo-chan,” he croaked out. “My favorite granddaughter.”
    “Your only granddaughter, you mean,” she said, as she sat on the edge of the bed.
    “Will the Soga live up to their word?”
    “They are as hungry as you are.” She glowered at him for a moment, wishing he had asked her brother to handle this, though she knew perfectly well why he couldn’t be trusted with anything this serious.
    “They came up with the money?”
    “Yes, Grandfather, another eighty million yen to pay off a destroyer captain.” As she reported the fact, she couldn’t help feeling a revulsion at having to deal with such mercenary types. What sort of noble cause has to manufacture its occasions through the use of such people? “I’m not sure… I mean, what does it say…” She paused to reset herself, wondering the whole time if she could really discuss her misgivings with him.
    “And another two hundred million for the General?”
    Gyoshin winced as she confirmed the figure. Jin Soga had made a little joke as she showed her the money, stacks of renminbi in a silver-sided case, the point of which was to belittle her family’s contribution to the effort – “It’s a good thing your name is still worth something.” But that didn’t sting as much as the reminder of another errand she had this day, and Ojii-san probably wouldn’t even have noticed it, content to think that his name could still fetch a price. Gyoshin’s only consolation came in recognizing Jin’s incompletely concealed envy that, poor as they were, the Heiji name still carried more weight than all of her money.
    But for all his aristocratic hauteur , both his sons had lacked his character, stern and austere, and no amount of his fire-breathing sufficed to lend them any steel. They were more interested in enjoying the perks of their fading social position. Speed-boating around Miho Bay, chasing thrills in fast cars and last-minute junkets around Asia and Europe – the old man expressed his displeasure, but had no other heirs, and despised the more distant cousins – and when the brothers crashed their private plane in a densely populated neighborhood in Takamatsu, the financial settlements practically bankrupted the family. With Takako dead, all that remained of the next generation was Gyoshin and her brother… Grandfather retreated to his bedroom to scheme and dream ever more outlandishly.
    “I’ll go check on your lunch,” she said, having heard a slight commotion downstairs and not wishing his attention to be drawn in that direction. From the landing, she heard Hana shushing a little