A Black Lily for the Prince

In the presence of so exalted a person as the Crown Prince Akihito. 24, the young girl who guided his tour of Lake Akan on the northern island of Hokkaido last week had observed the strictest decorum. But suddenly, for no apparent reason at all, she burst into an island song. "The black lily," she crooned, "is the flower of love. Shall I give this flower to you?" Then she presented the surprised prince with a real black lily "to symbolize our hope that he will soon marry a beautiful girl as his princess." The girl who spoke out of turn was only expressing a wish that was agitating almost every reader of Japan's excited press.

Ever since Akihito turned 18 six years ago, his father's Imperial Household Board has been looking for a bride for him, and the Japanese have been in an agony of suspense over who their 125th Empress will be. To find her, the Board, whose staid members are the guardians of protocol, has canvassed the families of 860 former princes, counts, viscounts, barons and assorted daimyo (warlords). It has investigated the state of each family's finances, made copious notes on the looks, talents, and IQs of all eligible daughters. It also sent emissaries to all local ward offices, which keep such complete genealogical records that they can trace a scandal, a case of insanity or an illegitimacy back for centuries. In Japan such precautions are important: Akihito's own mother almost lost out as fiancee to her crown prince when a rival accused her of being color-blind and insisted that she would taint the royal line.

False Addresses. While the Household Board worked away at its list, Japan's major newspapers set up "special sections" of 30 to 170 staffmen to pry out the favorites. The papers knew that all the eligible girls would be past or present students at the Gakushuin, the Tokyo peers' school. Armed with pocket cameras, reporters followed girls to school, trailed them when they went home at night. One paper smuggled a woman reporter into the school disguised as a student. Another tried to get a list of all girls enrolled--something that is by tradition kept secret --by saying that it wanted to send them "bargain-sale circulars."

The newshawk squads hounded the Household Board just as relentlessly. In self-defense, board members invented a special code to use over the telephone, gave false addresses to taxi drivers to confuse reporters. "I myself." says Board Director Takeshi Usami. "have been forced into such subterfuges as abandoning my own car and using streetcars, and then getting off the streetcar to walk, just in order to throw the press off my trail."

Warm & Willowy. Meanwhile, from his palace at No. 1 Tokiwamatsu. Shibuya, in Tokyo. Akihito has been doing some private investigating of his own. Though he will get only a short list to choose from and cannot reject them all, he has made no secret of the kind of wife he wants. "I don't like plump girls." he has told his friends, "or ones with thick legs. I prefer the slender, willowy kind. My bride must have a warm personality, a sense of humor, must like sports as much as I do, appreciate light and serious music, be a good dancer, and, of course, an excellent hostess." If all that were not enough, the Prince, who is 5 ft. 5 in. tall, had one more stipulation: "My bride must be shorter than I."

As one by one. his friends at the peers' school gave the once-over to the candidates on the Board's list. Akihito filled a notebook with such comments as "flat-chested . . . terrible figure . . . stubborn and self-willed . . . cold and calculating." But the process of elimination was not wholly a one-way affair. Akihito. who was removed from his parents' palace at the age of three, leads an unenviable life that was the subject of a Japanese bestseller two years ago, pointedly called The Lonely Man.

Though the prince has friends close enough to call him by the affectionate nickname of Chabu (Brown Pig), he lives, as he himself puts it, behind a "chrysanthemum curtain." can visit his mother and father only on Sundays, must otherwise wait for a formal invitation to see them, which can come only once a month. Appalled at the idea of sharing such a life, some candidates have taken the precaution of eliminating themselves by marrying mere commoners. By last week, rumor had it that the names on the board's list were now down to three:

P: Hatsuko Kitashirakawa, 18, a sports-loving cousin, whose grandmother, the seventh daughter of the Emperor Meiji, is Mistress of Festival Ceremonies of the Grand Shrines of Ise. Unfortunately, Hatsuko's family has been dogged by tragedy, which the Japanese regard as an ill omen: her great-grandfather was murdered by savages on Formosa, her father was killed in an airplane accident in Manchuria. Even worse. Hatsuko, who is 5 ft. 3 1/2 in. tall, would be at least as tall as Akihito in her shoes, and she is still growing.

P: Akiko Fushimi. a blueblood. was Akihito's childhood playmate, was captain of the Gakushuin women's riding team when he was captain of the men's. Though pretty and a good dancer, Akiko is 24--too old. say many Japanese, for Akihito.

P: Sumiko Shimazu, 20, whose father, a former prince, now heads the Japanese Red Cross. Sumiko's chief drawback: her mother's long illness, which is considered another bad omen.

There are signs that the prince's bride-to-be will be known soon. In spite of Akihito's public statements that all he wants is a small house and a close family life, so unlike his own, the government is already building an $800,000 palace for him and his wife. And last week, the Household Board finally let it be known that "if all goes smoothly, the prince's bride will be selected this year."

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