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because there was nowhere else for me to go, no one I could turn to.'
        He frowned. 'Almost anyone your age can claim at least one relative kicking around somewhere… maybe not someone you know well or really care about, but a bona fide relative nonetheless.'
        Joanna shrugged, wishing he'd drop the subject. 'Well, if I do have any folks out there, I don't know about them.'
        His response was quick. 'I could help you search for them. After all, investigations are my trade.'
        'I couldn't afford your rates.'
        'Oh, I'm very reasonable.'
        'Yeah? You do buy Rolls-Royces with your fees.'
        'Just for you, I'd do it for the cost of a bicycle.'
        'A very large and ornate bicycle, I'll bet.'
        'I'll do it for a smile, Joanna.'
        She smiled. 'That's generous of you, but I couldn't accept.'
        'I'd charge it to overhead. The cost would be a tax writeoff.'
        Although she couldn't imagine his reasons, he was eager to dig into her past. This time, she wasn't suffering from her usual, irrational paranoia: He really was too curious.
        Nevertheless, she wanted to talk to him and be with him. There was good chemistry between them. He was a medicine for loneliness.
        'No,' she said. 'Forget it, Alex. Even if I've got folks out there someplace, they're strangers. I mean nothing to them. That's why it's important to me to get a solid grip on the history of Kyoto and Japan. This is my hometown now. It's my past and present and future. They've accepted me here.'
        'Which is rather odd, isn't it? The Japanese are pretty insular. They rarely accept immigrants who aren't at least half Japanese.'
        Ignoring his question, she said, 'I don't have roots like other people do. Mine have been dug up and burned. So maybe I can create new roots for myself, grow them right here, and maybe they'll be as strong and meaningful as the roots that were destroyed. In fact, it's something I have to do. I don't have any choice. I need to belong, not just as a successful immigrant but as an integral part of this lovely country. Belonging… being securely and deeply connected to it all, like a fiber in the cloth… that's what counts. I need to lose myself in Japan. A lot of days there's a terrible emptiness in me. Not all the time. Now and then. But when it comes, it's almost too much to bear. And I think… I know that if I melt completely into this society, then I won't have to suffer that emptiness any longer. 7
        She amazed herself, because with Alex Hunter she was allowing an unusual intimacy. She was telling him things that she had never told anyone before.
        He spoke so quietly that she could barely hear. ' "Emptiness." That's another odd word choice.'
        'I guess it is.'
        'What do you mean by it?'
        Joanna groped for Words that could convey the hollow-ness, the cold feeling of being different from all other people, the cancerous alienation that sometimes crept over her, usually when she least expected it. Periodically she fell victim to a brutal, disabling loneliness that bordered on despair. Bleak, unremitting loneliness, yet more than that, worse than that. Aloneness. That was a better term for it. Without apparent reason, she sometimes felt certain that she was separate, hideously unique. Aloneness. The depression that accompanied one of these inexplicable moods was a black pit out of which she could claw only with fierce determination.
        Haltingly she said, 'The emptiness is like… well, it's like I'm nobody.'
        'You mean… you're bothered that you have no one.'
        'No. That's not it. I feel that I am no one.'
        'I still don't understand.'
        'It's as if I'm not Joanna Rand… not anybody at all… just a shell… a cipher… hollow… not the same as other people… not even human. And when I'm like that, I wonder why I'm alive… what purpose I have. My connections seem so