Rebirth in Japan: The Heiress Who Conquered the World

Late at night, in the SIS underground laboratory.

Fluorescent light tubes hummed. Weber sat alone at his workbench, the Mo/Si multilayer sputtering experiment data sheet spread out before him, untouched for a long time.

His gaze was drawn to the small television on the side of the workbench. On the screen, NHK was broadcasting the German reunification celebration in front of the Brandenburg Gate. It was a recording.

He wasn’t watching the live broadcast; the excuse he gave himself was that he was too busy and had no time. Besides, he had long since acquired Japanese citizenship and was now Japanese. That country had nothing to do with him... did it?

Then why was his attention being drawn away by this small television?

Who knows...

On the screen, midnight fireworks bloomed over Berlin, and the black-red-gold flag flooded the entire frame. A young man rode on a friend’s shoulders, holding a bottle of beer in his hand, his mouth wide open, shouting something. The crowd was singing—the melody was blurry, but Weber could tell it was ”Ode to Joy.”

On TV, Federal President Weizsäcker was giving a speech. ”...This is a moment of happiness in the history of the German nation worth remembering...”

Weber stared at the screen, motionless. He gripped his experiment recording pen, the cap long unscrewed, and ink bled into a small blue stain on his fingertips.

Weber’s gaze was fixed on the federal flag on the screen.

Black, red, gold. He stared for a long time.

He had spent most of his life living under a different flag—one with a hammer and compass emblem in the center.

He thought of Jena, the scent of metal cutting fluid that always permeated the Carl Zeiss optical workshop. He thought of the fog drifting from the Saale River in winter, condensing on the outside of the laboratory window glass, where he could draw with his finger.

He thought of the overcooked potatoes and the eternally thin gravy in the cafeteria. He thought of the nights after work, squeezed into that small tavern next to the Marktplatz with colleagues, clinking glasses of cheap Nordhäuser.

Someone would tell vulgar jokes, someone would complain about rations, and someone would whisper things that couldn’t be heard by the table next to them.

Where were those people now?

He was a defector. In June 1989, he was packed into the base of a discarded machine tool by a Japanese girl, using dollars and the word ”freedom,” along with all the secrets of extreme ultraviolet lithography in his head, and transported out of the Iron Curtain.

He had betrayed that country.

But that country no longer existed now.

The Germans on TV were cheering. And he found he couldn’t cry, nor could he laugh. Should he cry? He didn’t know. Should he laugh? He didn’t know that either.

He just felt that a part of his chest had become very light. It was as if something had been pulled out, leaving behind a perfectly shaped void. He didn’t even have time to feel real guilt for his betrayal—because the object of his betrayal had already vanished.

Weber sat in a daze for a long time.

Until the small television blurred into a mass in his vision.

Just then, footsteps came from the end of the corridor. The sound of leather soles stepping on the concrete floor, with a steady rhythm.

Weber snapped back to reality, subconsciously thinking it was his assistant returning to get something left in the lab, and muttered in German, ”The door’s unlocked.”

Then he looked up.

The person standing outside the door made him freeze for nearly two seconds.

It was the person who had brought him out of the Iron Curtain, Saionji Satsuki.

She was still wearing the cream-colored cashmere cardigan from earlier that day, her hair tied loosely behind her head. It was obvious she had come straight from the main residence, not even changing her coat.

Her right hand carried a bottle of wine. Her left hand held two glasses, rims facing down, the stems wedged between her fingers.

Weber’s gaze landed on the red label. He froze for a second.

”...Good evening, Young Miss.” He immediately tried to stand up from his chair—facing the boss, this was basic etiquette.

Satsuki raised the hand holding the wine bottle and pressed it downward.

”Sit.”

Weber stopped his movement.

”No need to be formal, Mr. Weber. We aren’t talking about work tonight.”

The two pulled up two folding chairs in the open space in front of the television and sat down. The laboratory had no sofa or living room, basically just workbenches and metal racks, so the scene felt quite incongruous, like a ”picnic in the workshop.”

Satsuki placed the two glasses on a low table beside her—actually an upside-down plastic crate—picked up the wine bottle, and began to untwist the wire cage on the neck of the bottle.

As she opened the wine, she introduced it. ”This is Rotkäppchen Sekt—’Little Red Riding Hood’ sparkling wine. I specially got it from Berlin. It is said that in East Germany, every day worth celebrating would involve opening a bottle of this.” She loosened the wire cage and pressed her thumb against the cork.

”Today is the day of reunification. Using East German wine to bid farewell to East Germany should... be appropriate, I suppose.”

Weber watched the way Satsuki’s fingers exerted force on the cork, opened his mouth, wanting to say something.

Satsuki glanced at him, assuming this damn German was going to bring up the laboratory’s ”no eating or drinking” rule, and interrupted him first. ”It’s fine. I’ve made an exception. I approved the funding for this laboratory, so I make the rules.”

”...No, Young Miss, that’s not what I wanted to say.”

”Hm?”

Weber cleared his throat, looking serious. ”According to Article 1 of Japan’s ’Minor Drinking Prohibition Act’—persons under twenty years of age shall not consume alcoholic beverages. If I recall correctly, Young Miss is seventeen this year.”

Satsuki’s hand, twisting the cork, paused.

Silence for a second.

Then, she slowly turned her head and looked at Weber. The corners of her mouth curved up, and her eyes curved as well. She revealed a smile that was flawless to the point of being impeccable.

That kind of smile. Weber gave it a name in his heart: ”Mask Smile.”

Every time the Young Miss put on this smile, it usually meant someone was going to be in trouble.

”Oh?” Satsuki’s voice was cloyingly sweet. ”So, Mr. Weber, are you planning to report me to the police station?”

As she spoke, her thumb pushed—

Pop.

The cork popped out. White bubbles surged from the bottle mouth, flowing down through her fingers.

Weber froze.

Later, when he recalled this scene, he was certain that the temperature of his spine had dropped by at least two degrees at that moment.

A seventeen-year-old girl smiled at him. And he—a defector who had stayed on both sides of the Cold War Iron Curtain—actually felt an indescribable fear.

”Ab... absolutely not that thought.” Weber quickly waved his hands in front of him, his movements as stiff as an un-oiled robot. ”Please pretend I said nothing, Boss.”

Satsuki’s smile lasted exactly three seconds. Then, like a crack on an ice surface, it began to loosen from the corners of her mouth, turning into a genuine, slightly smug chuckle.

”Mr. Weber.” She tilted the foaming wine bottle, and golden liquid poured into the first glass. ”You are the most ’German’ German I have ever met.”

There was no mockery in the tone of this sentence, and it even carried a hint of appreciation.

She pushed the first glass in front of Weber. Then she poured a second glass for herself.

”Tonight,” Satsuki raised her glass, tilting her head to look at the Berlin fireworks blooming on the TV screen, ”let’s just pretend it’s two people watching fireworks.”

The two clinked glasses.

The bubbles of the Rotkäppchen were very fine. Upon entry, there was a refreshing green apple acidity, with a hint of bread yeast warmth in the finish.

Weber took a sip. His eyes felt hot for a moment.

This taste.

The last time he drank Rotkäppchen was Christmas 1988. The year-end party at the Carl Zeiss workshop. Hans opened three bottles in the cafeteria, and everyone stood around the folding table clinking glasses.

It was snowing outside the window. Someone played ”Silent Night” on an accordion. It was ridiculously out of tune, but everyone was laughing.

That was his last Christmas in East Germany.

Satsuki did not urge him to speak. She drank her wine quietly, her gaze fixed on the TV screen.

The silence lasted about two minutes. It was Weber who spoke first.

”How does the Young Miss see this matter?” Weber’s voice was a bit hoarse, and he pointed his chin toward the TV. ”Reunification.”

Satsuki raised her glass to her lips, looking at him through the golden liquid surface of the bubbles. ”I want to hear yours first.”

Weber gave a bitter smile. He traced a circle on the glass wall with his finger.

”Honestly... I don’t know how to see it.” His gaze fell into some void. ”If you ask any East German, ’Are you happy?’ they would certainly answer ’Happy.’ Sincerely. But if you look into their eyes for one more second, you will find that what’s inside is very, very complex.”

He took a sip of wine. The bubbles burst on his tongue, the green apple acidity wrapped in the warmth of yeast.

”That country had too many absurd things.” Weber’s voice lowered by half a degree, as if talking to himself. ”Supplies were always scarce. A Stasi informant could be sitting at the desk right next to you. Want to leave the country? Unless you have special permission, otherwise you couldn’t even go to Hungary.”

”Buying a Trabant required waiting in line for two years, and after paying, waiting another three. Five years, just for a car made of cardboard.”

He shook his head. A faint arc appeared at the corners of his mouth.

”But...” Weber paused for two seconds. ”Absurdity is absurdity, but life still had to be lived. And those days were indeed mine.” His gaze became distant.

”The electric bell that rang at 6:45 every morning in the Carl Zeiss workshop—twenty-three years, not a single day off. Walking along the Saale River on Sunday mornings, there was fog on the river, enough to swallow half of the church spire on the other bank.”

”That Aunt Schmidt downstairs, every autumn she would pickle a large vat of pickles, using a recipe passed down from her grandmother—adding dill and mustard seeds, the whole corridor would smell like that.”

He stopped.

”These things were real too. Just as real as that absurdity.”

Satsuki did not respond. She held her glass, her fingers occasionally stroking the wall of the glass gently.

Weber downed another mouthful of wine and wiped the corner of his mouth.

”Kohl said one sentence at the reunification ceremony—’blooming landscapes.’ Blühende Landschaften.” His tone suddenly carried a hint of sharpness. ”Saying that East Germany would soon become as prosperous as West Germany.”

He turned to look at Satsuki.

”Politicians’ promises, I’ve heard too many of them under both systems. During the DDR, they said ’the people are the masters’; now that they’ve changed the flag, they say ’blooming landscapes.’”

Satsuki put down her glass. The bottom of the glass landed on the plastic crate, making a soft sound.

”When a country disappears,” her voice was very light, ”the first things to be forgotten are always ordinary people.”

Weber was silent.

The glass in his hand was held in mid-air, his posture stiff for several seconds.

Then he nodded slowly.

The movement was small, but heavy.