"Tam, I'm sorry. Somebody broke in a while back, and they must have stuck this fraud in my collection. It's not the one I thought it was."
"Sure." She just looked at me, with some sympathy. "Matthew, it's all right. Really. Lots of people own replicas of art. I have a few prints myself. It's not a crime." She touched my hand. "Don't worry. It doesn't matter—"
"You—" I bit my tongue to squelch the unpleasant word forming on my lips, stomped back upstairs, and returned with a real sword. Then I gave my lecture all over again, dwelling on every insignificant detail. I was going to bore the woman till she cried uncle. Finally I succeeded.
"Okay, you win. I apologize." She leaned back in the bubbles. "You really love this hardware, don't you?"
"Tam, I love the samurai ideals. I admire craftsmanship. I revere courage. The guys who made and used these blades had it all. If I'm going to collect art, why not something that inspires me."
She just looked at me and nodded. I think she really understood.
"Then let's make a pact, Matt, you and me." She finally spoke up. "We'll face Dai Nippon or MITI or whomever honorably. And we'll keep them honest."
"Samurai." I smiled. "Lineage to lineage. And may the best . . . person win."
I returned the sword and locked up, then lounged in the bedroom and chatted through the open door while she finished her soak. It didn't seem proper to lug a chair into the bath, and there was something too undignified about perching atop the loo. Why, I kept wondering, had somebody taken such elaborate pains to lift a single antique and plant a fake? So I wouldn't miss it? But why bother?
Finally she got into a robe and came out, whereupon we went downstairs and proceeded to put away more brandy, sleet slamming against the windows. That was when she refreshed my recollections of her early life, the peripatetic half-breed army brat. I think, truth be told, she was currently about as adrift as I was. She was too wary to admit it; I was too incapable of touching my own fractured emotions. So we talked around things, saying everything except that maybe we needed somebody. All the while the storm outside continued to rage. But once again I was feeling those stirrings that I'd kept on ice for way too long.