June 21, 1989
Place Vendôme, Paris
Twilight turned the Vendôme Column into a spear of blood. Cast from twelve hundred melted bronze cannons, it rose above the square like a scar from another century, while the grand eighteenth-century façades around it loomed in the dusk like stone giants silently observing the visitors from the East gathered at their feet.
A line of black Mercedes glided into the square and stopped before the revolving doors of the Ritz Hotel.
This was Paris's living room, the place where Hemingway once said he'd choose to haunt even in death.
The car doors opened.
The boys from Seika Academy emerged first. They wore high-collared black uniforms or razor-sharp suits with their hair combed into perfect order, and as they stepped onto the cobbles each one simply tugged his cuffs straight and stood waiting, as if posing for a portrait that had already been painted.
Bellhops and attendants rushed forward to handle the luggage, but the boys acknowledged them with only the slightest nods before turning their attention upward to study the Ritz's Baroque portico like art critics appraising a familiar masterpiece.
Next came the girls. They'd changed out of their school uniforms on the plane and now wore the kind of clothes money doesn't shout about: tailored trench coats and silk dresses that moved like water.
They didn't dawdle, and in pairs and trios they crossed into the lobby with their laughter kept low and controlled. Their eyes swept the marble and gilt with curiosity rather than awe, and they carried themselves like people who'd seen Versailles before breakfast and found it pleasant but not surprising.
The bellhops, who had braced for a mob of loud new money, blinked in confusion. These Japanese teenagers carried themselves with a quiet that felt older than the building itself, and as they murmured to each other in smooth French or English they seemed entirely at ease with the crystal and the liveried staff, as if Paris were a second home they'd simply been away from too long.
Inside, the lobby glittered. Crystal chandeliers threw fractured light across the marble, and the air smelled of amber, musk, and lemon oil rubbed into antique wood.
"This is preposterous!"
The shout cracked across the hush from the front desk.
A white-haired European in a charcoal three-piece suit was rapping his cane against the floor, and each strike landed sharp as a gunshot. A tarnished medal sagged on his lapel while his tie listed to one side like a sinking ship.
"I've been waiting fifteen minutes! Is this the service the Ritz is famous for?" he bellowed in heavily accented French. "Tell these Asians to move! Where is my suite? I am Vicomte Victor de Valmont! My family has stayed here for three generations!"
The manager bent nearly in half with sweat beading on his brow.
"Monsieur le Vicomte, I am deeply sorry, but these two floors have been reserved in full by Seika Academy—"
"Reserved? Ha!"
The old Vicomte's laugh was thin and ugly as he swept a disdainful glare over the students checking in.
"A pack of monkeys from the Far East thinks it can buy Versailles because it stumbled into some dirty money? Look at them, because I'd bet my title they don't even know which fork to use! This is a disgrace to Paris!"
His voice bounced off the vaulted ceiling, and though it was loud, it came across as theater rather than genuine anger.
Yoshino Ayako and Isokawa Reiko broke off their conversation. A few of the boys frowned and smoothed their cuffs, and while irritation flickered in their eyes, none of them rose to the bait. Their breeding had taught them that shouting in a lobby was like a dog yapping at a carriage, and you didn't yell back—you simply drove on.
The air went brittle.
Then came the click of heels, precise as a metronome.
Satsuki stepped from the back of the group.
She'd slipped off her trench coat to reveal a black velvet dress that clung to her frame, set off by a single, simple strand of pearls.
She walked straight to the Vicomte and stopped with no anger in her face and no heat in her manner. She studied him with a tilt of her head, the way a curator might examine a cracked artifact, with a detached pity.
"Monsieur," she said.
Her French was flawless, not just fluent but aristocratic, carrying the rounded vowels of the old court at Versailles, and it was cleaner than the Vicomte's own provincial burr.
He froze with his cane half-raised.
"Your tie is crooked," Satsuki said.
Before he could sputter, her white-gloved hand reached out to pinch the loose Windsor knot, and with a deft twist and a tug the silk snapped into place, sharp and symmetrical.
"For a gentleman to shout at ladies while dressed in disarray hardly seems in keeping with the traditions of House Valmont," she said as she brushed an invisible speck of lint from his lapel. The gesture was casual and almost maternal, as if she were correcting a forgetful footman. She met his eyes and smiled, small and cool.
"Besides, we didn't book the hotel to put on a show," she continued as her gaze glided over her classmates who waited in perfect silence. "We simply require some privacy to avoid being disturbed by uncultured noise, and I'm sure you, as a Vicomte, understand the need for discretion?"
The old man's face went the color of raw liver. His mouth worked, but no sound came out, because this girl barely reached his chest yet carried herself like she owned the building's deed and his family portrait.
It wasn't just money that silenced him. It was something older than money: absolute certainty.
Satsuki turned her head slightly. "Fujita."
"Yes, Milady."
"The gentleman seems upset from his wait, and that's impolite of us."
From her handbag she drew a crisp five-hundred-franc note. She didn't hand it to the Vicomte, and instead slid it between two fingers and tucked it into the manager's breast pocket.
"Take the Vicomte for a glass of your best brandy. On me."
Without waiting for thanks she pivoted toward the elevators.
"Come on, Ayako, Reiko. The air in here has gone stale."
Behind her, the Vicomte stood frozen with his cane trembling. The Seika boys followed Satsuki with the corners of their mouths quirking into identical, razor-thin smiles, and they adjusted their collars and moved as if the scene had never happened.
The lobby exhaled.
The staff, who'd eyed the students with thinly veiled judgment minutes ago, now watched them differently, because here the yen wasn't just currency.
It was the new aristocracy.
Night fell.
The lamps of Place Vendôme bloomed to life, gilding the arcade's arches.
L'Espadon
Seika Academy had bought out the Ritz's Michelin-starred restaurant for the evening.
Beneath massive chandeliers, long tables gleamed with white linen, silver candelabras, and blood-red roses. Waiters moved like ghosts, ferrying out plates that belonged in museums.
The first course was Escargots de Bourgogne. Butter still sizzled in the shells, filling the air with garlic and herbs.
"The garlic's a little heavy in the snails," Yoshino Ayako murmured as she set down her tongs and dabbed her lips with a napkin, "though it does pair well with the '82 Montrachet, because the wine's acidity cuts right through the butter."
Beside her, Isokawa Reiko cut a sliver of foie gras and let it melt on her tongue with her eyes closing in appreciation.
"True," Reiko said, gesturing at the gilded carvings on the walls. "I heard this place used to serve royalty exclusively, and now the French government has to issue bonds just to fund the Louvre's renovations, so there's a taste of decline in this foie gras that's bitter underneath the richness."
A ripple of soft laughter ran through the girls. It wasn't cruel, and it was simply the quiet confidence of people who knew they were holding the checkbook.
Satsuki sat at the head of the table.
On her plate, the escargot had gone cold, and the butter had congealed into a pale ring around the shell because she hadn't touched her silverware.
Her gaze was fixed past the floor-to-ceiling windows on the square outside.
There stood the Vendôme Column.
Napoleon had raised it to commemorate Austerlitz by melting down twelve hundred captured Russian and Austrian cannons to do it, and at its peak a bronze Napoleon in Roman robes held a statue of Nike aloft, staring down at Paris like he still owned it.
"Napoleon..." Satsuki whispered the name.
Once, he'd conquered Europe with gunpowder and bayonets, then forged his trophies into that column. Now, she and her classmates sat at its feet, conquering the same city with exchange rates and signatures on checks.
"How similar," she thought.
She picked up her napkin and touched the corner of her mouth, though it was already clean.
Cannons eventually rust and columns can be torn down, just as exchange rates swing and bubbles pop.
This kind of conquest, built on money, looked as solid as bronze but was as fragile as glass, because one storm would be enough to shatter it.
"Satsuki, aren't you eating?" Ayako leaned over with concern in her voice. "The foie gras is perfect."
"I'm full," Satsuki said as she set her napkin down. "It's a bit rich."
...Eleven o'clock. Late night.
Royal Suite, top floor of the Ritz.
The balcony doors stood open. Wind tore at Satsuki's nightgown as she stood barefoot on the cold stone with a glass of water in her hand.
Place Vendôme below had gone quiet. The luxury boutiques left their displays lit, painting the empty street in pools of honeyed light.
Suddenly, an engine roared and shattered the silence.
A double-decker tour bus lurched into the square and shuddered to a stop before the doors hissed open.
A group of middle-aged Japanese salarymen in wrinkled suits spilled out with their ties askew and their faces flushed with liquor. It was clearly an incentive trip, and they'd come straight from the Moulin Rouge or Crazy Horse and brought the party with them.
"Hey! Tanaka! Is that Napoleon's thing?"
"So tall! Bigger than the president's golf club!"
"Hahaha! Come on! Everyone, sing!"
One of them started, and the rest linked arms and bellowed into the sacred square, off-key and arm-in-arm.
"Ware wa yuku, aojiroki hoho no mama de..."
I shall depart, with my pale cheeks...
It was Shinji Tanimura's "Subaru," the anthem of Japan's bubble years, and here in the dead of Paris night it sounded absurd, like a funeral dirge sung by drunks who thought it was a victory march.
The echoes startled a flock of pigeons into the dark. A few French passersby frowned and hurried away, muttering.
Satsuki watched from the balcony high above as her countrymen made spectacles of themselves. They waved their arms while one urinated against the bronze base of the column, and they shouted company slogans like they'd laid siege to Paris and won.
"So noisy," Satsuki whispered.
She tipped her glass.
The water scattered in the night air, turning to a brief, silent rain that disappeared before it could touch them, because it couldn't wash away the hollow, drunken euphoria below.
"This fake age of prosperity," she said to no one.
She stepped back inside.