Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (9 page)

In the ballroom the agents ordered them to sit in the very same chairs they had been occupying previously. From there Henry counted at least a half dozen other agents, some with shotguns, pointing them into the crowd, shouting at some, pushing others out of the way.

Henry and Keiko both looked for Sheldon, who'd been lost in the jumbled shuffle of agents and members of the jazz orchestra, who were quietly and carefully putting their instruments away, protecting the valuables with which they earned a living.

Patrons grabbed their coats and hats if they were nearby; others left them behind, heading for the exits.

Henry and Keiko looked on as Oscar Holden himself stood at the edge of the stage, microphone in hand, imploring everyone to stay calm. He lost his cool when an FBI agent tried to shout him down at gunpoint. Oscar kept on hollering, "They just listening to music. Why you taking them away?" The old man in his white, sweat-stained shirt hoisted his suspenders, casting a long shadow across the dance floor from the halcyon lights behind him, like God yelling down from the mountain. In his shadow lay the Japanese patrons, both men and women--facedown on the dance floor, guns pointed to their heads.

Henry looked at Keiko, who was frozen--staring at a Japanese man sprawled on the floor. "Mr. Toyama?" Henry whispered.

Keiko nodded, slowly.

Oscar kept shouting until Sheldon broke through the crowd and peeled him away from the FBI agent who stood just below. Sax still in hand, he did his best to try to calm the bandleader, and the agent who had just chambered a shell in his shotgun.

The club seemed hollow without music, replaced by the barking of federal agents and the occasional clicking of handcuffs. The dimly lit dance hall still sparkled now and then as the candles on empty tables flickered light on half-empty martini glasses.

The six Japanese patrons were handcuffed and taken to the door, the women sniffling, the men asking
"Why?"
in English. Henry heard
"I'm an American"
being shouted as the last one was arrested and taken outside.

"What the heck are we supposed to do with these two?" the agent next to them shouted to a portly man in a dark brown suit. He looked older than the rest.

"What ... do we have here?" The brown-suited man holstered his pistol and removed his hat, rubbing his balding forehead. "A little young for spies, I'd say."

Henry slowly opened his coat, showing his button. "I am Chinese."

"Jeezus, Ray, you collared a couple of Chinks by mistake. They were probably just working the kitchen. Nice job. Good thing you didn't have to rough 'em up, they might have got the best of you."

"You leave them kids alone, they work for me!" Oscar slipped past Sheldon and barged through the remaining crowd, heading for the agents nearest Henry. "I didn't leave the South to come all the way up here and see people treated like that!"

Everyone darted out of his way. All but two younger agents, who hol-stered their guns, freeing both hands to restrain the larger man; a third agent wrestled his way in with a set of handcuffs. Oscar shook his arms free and pitched his shoulder into one of the agents, almost knocking him over a table--sending martini glasses to the ground, where they shattered with soft pinging sounds, dotting the floor with broken glass that crunched under their feet.

Sheldon did his best to keep things from getting even more out of hand. He managed to wedge himself between the agents and Oscar-- saving Oscar from the agents or the agents from the angry black man, Henry wasn't sure which. Sheldon backed his bandleader up once again as the agents shouted warnings but let them go. They'd already collared the Japanese they came for. There seemed to be little interest in busting up a gin joint, or its proprietor.

"Why are you taking those people?" Henry heard Keiko ask softly amid the fracas. The door that Mr. Toyama had been taken out of slammed shut, cutting off the remaining light from the outside world.

The brown-suited man put his hat back on, as if his job was finished and he was ready to go, "Collaborators, kid. Secretary of the Navy says there were Jap scouts working in Hawaii--all of them locals. That ain't happening around here. Too many ships over in Bremerton, and parked right out there." He thumbed in the direction of Puget Sound.

Henry stared at Keiko, wishing she could read his thoughts, hoping she would read his eyes.
Please don't say it. Don't tell him that man, Mr. Toyama, was your
schoolteacher.

"What's going to happen to them?" Keiko asked, the sound of concern in her small voice.

"They can get the death penalty if they're found guilty of treason, but they'll probably just spend a few years in a nice safe jail cell."

"But he's not a spy, he was--"

"It's almost dark, we have to go," Henry said, cutting her and the agent off, tugging at Keiko's elbow. "We can't be late, remember?"

Her face was wrinkled with confusion and flushed with anger. "But--"

"We have to go. Now." Henry urged her to the nearest exit. "Please ..."

A bulky agent stood aside to let them out the front door. Henry looked back and saw Sheldon guarding Oscar near the front of the stage, keeping him quiet. Sheldon looked back and waved, urging them to get home.

Past rows of dark police cars, Henry and Keiko stood on the stoop of an apartment building across the street. They watched as uniformed officers dispersed the crowd. A white reporter from
The Seattle Times
took notes and pictures, the flashbulbs from his camera sporadically lighting up the front of the Black Elks Club. He'd take out a handkerchief to change the hot bulb, dropping the old bulb on the ground, stepping on it, grinding it into the pavement. The reporter shouted questions at the nearest officer, whose

only reply was "No comment."

"I can't watch this anymore," Keiko said, stalking away.

"I'm sorry I brought you here," Henry offered as they walked to the edge of South Main, where they would split up for their separate walks home. "I'm sorry our big night was ruined."

Keiko halted and looked at Henry. She looked down at his button, the one his father made him wear. "You
are
Chinese, aren't you, Henry?"

He nodded, not knowing how to answer.

"That's fine. Be who you are," she said, turning away, a look of disappointment in her eyes. "But
I'm
an American."

I Am Japanese

(1986)

Henry woke to the sound of a police cruiser, its siren wailing in the distance. He'd dozed off a bit, daydreaming, on the long bus ride from Lake View Cemetery all the way back down to the International District--the I.D., as Marty called it.

Henry covered his mouth in a yawn and looked out the window. To him the area northeast of the Kingdome was simply Chinatown. That's what he'd called it growing up, and he wasn't likely to change now--despite the influx of Vietnamese karaoke clubs, Korean video stores, and the occasional sushi bar, frequented by a mainly Caucasian lunch crowd.

Marty didn't know much about Henry's childhood. Henry talked about his youth only in reflection, as he told stories about his own parents--Marty's grandmother, mainly.

Or occasionally the grandfather Marty never knew. The lack of meaningful communication between father and son was based on a lifetime of isolation. Henry had been an only child, without siblings around to talk to, to share things with constantly.

And Marty was the same. Whatever stumbling methods of communication Henry had used with his own father seemed to have been passed down to Marty. Over the years, they'd both used Ethel to bridge that gap, but now Henry would have to ford the divide himself He just wasn't sure what to tell his son and when. For one growing up Chinese, decorum and timing were everything. After all, Henry hadn't spoken to his own parents, not much anyway, for three years--during the war.

But now, deep down, Henry wanted to tell his son everything. How seemingly unfair life was in retrospect, and how remarkable it was that they'd all just accepted what they had and made the best of it. He wanted to tell his son about Keiko--and about the Panama Hotel. But Ethel had only been gone six months. Sure, she'd been gone seven years and six months, but Marty probably wouldn't understand. It was too soon to tell him. And besides, what was there to tell now? Henry didn't know exactly.

Thinking of that painted bamboo parasol, Henry did his best to reconcile his feelings--the loss of Ethel, and the possibility of something to be found in the basement of that broken-down hotel. He'd lamented what else might be down there, right under his nose all these years, and wondered how much he could allow himself to hope for, how much his heart could take. But he couldn't wait any longer. A few days had passed, the news had come and gone. It was time to find out.

So Henry found himself stepping off the bus three stops early and wandering over to the Panama Hotel, a place between worlds when he was a child, a place between times now that he was a grown man. A place he had avoided for years, but now he couldn't keep himself away.

Inside, there were dusty workers in hard hats everywhere Henry looked. The water-stained ceiling tiles were being replaced. The floor was being sanded down to its original finish. The walls in the upstairs hallway were being sandblasted. The noise from the compressor alone made Henry cover his ears as he watched dust and grit settle at the top of the staircase.

Aside from the occasional transient who broke in a back window, or the flocks of pigeons that made their roost in the rooms of the upper floor, no one had occupied the hotel since 1949. Even when Henry was a boy, it had been sparse and half-empty Especially during and after the war, from around 1942 all the way to V-J Day. Since then it had been abandoned.

"Is Mr. Pettison here?" Henry yelled the question over the screaming sounds of power saws and sandblasters to the construction worker closest to him. The man looked up and pried back his ear protection.

"Who?"

"I'm looking for Palmer Pettison."

The worker pointed to an old coatroom that appeared to have been transformed into a temporary office while the building was undergoing its rehab. From the various blueprints and construction documents pinned to a corkboard just outside the room, it looked like the hotel was on its way back to its former glory.

Henry took his hat off and stuck his head in. "Hello, I'm looking for Mr. Pettison."

"I'm

Ms.
Pettison--Palmyra Pettison. I'm the owner, if that's who you're looking for. Who am I talking to?"

Henry nervously introduced himself, talking faster than he normally would. His heart was racing just being in the old hotel--the place frightened and excited him. It was a forbidden place, according to his father's rules, a place deeply mysterious and beautiful.

Even with all the neglect and water damage, the hotel was still stunning inside.

"I'm interested in the personal belongings that were found in the basement--the stored belongings."

"Really? It was an amazing discovery. I bought the building five years ago, but it took me five whole years to get the financing and approvals for the renovation. Before we started doing some of the interior demolition, I wandered down to the basement to inspect the furnace--and there it all was. Steamer trunks and suitcases, row after row, piled to the ceiling in some places. Are you looking to buy something?"

"No, I'm ..."

"Are you from some museum?"

"No

..."

"Then what can I do for you, Mr. Lee?"

Henry rubbed his forehead, a little flustered. He wasn't used to dealing with fast-talking business folk. "I don't know how to say this--I'm just looking for
something
, I don't really know what it is, but I'll know it when I see it."

Ms. Pettison closed the ledger at her desk. The look on her face somehow told Henry that she understood. "Then you must be a relative?"

Henry was surprised that after forty-some-odd years, people still on occasion thought he was Japanese. He thought about the button his father had made him wear each and every day--all those months at school, even during the summer. How he was taught by his parents to be ultra-Chinese, that his family's well-being depended on that ethnic distinction. How he had hated being called a Jap at school. But life is nothing if not ironic.