A Girl Like You (44 page)
“Yes?”
“It’s Dr. Harper and Mrs. Robinson,” Dr. Harper says in the strongest voice he can muster. Since his school days he has felt uneasy around the religious. When he was young it had to do with guilt for his boyhood sins, he supposes. Now he thinks it’s most likely the fear of a day of reckoning.
“Come through the yard and ring the visitors’ bell on the front door. Someone will come for you.”
Satomi is the first to enter the bitumen quadrangle. She takes a deep breath and sends Eriko an anxious smile. In place of flowers, litter is caught up in the tufts of needlegrass that grow at the base of the high wire fencing enclosing the playground.
“To keep the children from the road,” Eriko says quickly, as if to reassure Satomi. “At least it doesn’t turn in at the top.”
They are all thinking of the fencing at Manzanar, and look around nervously as though seeking gun towers, guards. A chalked map of hopscotch on the ground is fading under the sun. Garbage cans are lined up against the building, spilling over with refuse.
“It’s horrible, horrible,” Satomi says, feeling the sweat pooling under her arms and in the palms of her hands. The awful realization that Cora may be here feeling, herself forgotten, panics her.
“It’s not so bad, is it, Eriko?” Dr. Harper says. “The street is nice enough.”
“No, it’s not bad at all,” Eriko says. “Not bad at all.”
“She’s as fenced in here as she was at Manzanar,” Satomi says, not willing to be comforted.
Whenever she had thought of finding Cora, her imaginings had been kinder than the sight of this place. They had included lawns and flowers, trees to shade the child from the sun. She realizes now with shame that they were nothing but pretty pictures, good only for soothing herself.
There is a choice of bells on the black-painted door, a foot-high polished brass crucifix nailed to it. Satomi pushes the VISITORS bell and hears a faint ringing from deep in the house’s interior. It reminds her of the one in Mr. Beck’s lodgings.
Inside, on the checkered linoleum that runs the length of a narrow hall, so narrow that they have to walk in a line one behind the other, they file behind a nun, who has not spoken, only indicated that they should follow her. Something soapy sticks to the soles of their shoes as they walk, making them squeak. There’s a sickly scent of cheap beeswax, the trace of past meals in the air.
“It smells like the mess halls,” Eriko whispers.
“Institutional,” Dr. Harper says. “Mess halls, hospitals, they all smell the same.”
In the Mother Superior’s large and comfortable office, Sister Amata, a fluttery sort of woman in a brown habit, who coos somewhat like a pigeon, is sent to find Mary.
“She doesn’t know you are coming,” she says excitedly as she leaves the room.
The Reverend Mother too is a pale bird of a woman, hawk-nosed, with small brown eyes that Satomi fancies are seeking out quarry. But when she speaks, her voice is soft, her stance kind.
“She has no idea that you have been in touch,” she tells them. “She may not be the right one, your one. She came without papers from an orphanage that was being demolished. They called her Coral there, but she could have been Cora, I suppose. Coral
did not seem to us a suitable name, and we wished to spare her teasing, so we named her Mary. On the whole she is a helpful child, but she doesn’t speak much, and is subject to temper tantrums at times.”
Satomi wants to yell,
Of course she is. How could she not be?
The cost to Cora of being left, unloved, she is sure has been a terrible one. But a sudden dread stops her from speaking. Her chest feels heavy, her mouth dry as ash.
“Was she originally at Manzanar?” Dr. Harper asks, anxious now that he has projected Cora into the blurry photo, glad that he had decided against showing it to Satomi.
“I have no idea. I’ve never heard her speak of it.”
“So you have never asked her about the camp? Never wanted to know about her life before she came here?” Satomi, finding her voice, can’t keep the criticism out of it.
“No, we have been advised not to talk to the children about the camps. The Japanese children here are in the minority, it would set them apart from their fellows. In any case, all that’s better forgotten, don’t you think? The important thing here is that we are all Catholics, children of God.”
The Reverend Mother finds herself hoping that her Mary is not their Cora. If she is, she will not, she thinks, be brought up in the faith. And after all, it’s not as if they have a blood claim on the child. But the promise of Joseph Rodman’s astonishingly generous check if she is the child they are looking for is surely a gift from God, a benediction. They could expand, take more children, build a schoolhouse, the possibilities are endless.
And the Mother House, their spiritual home is expecting to receive a good portion of the money. It is only through donations, after all, that the order survives, that it can fulfill its calling in the world, where there is so much human misery to alleviate. One small child in exchange for so much, how can she say no? Mary’s
soul is not in the balance, after all. Their bishop, on hearing that the child may have found a home, had hurried to confirm her in the faith so that her soul is already saved. And the Blessed Virgin Mary, the child’s namesake, has her in her sights.
“We have given the children extra playtime in honor of your visit,” Sister Amata trills on her return. You will be able to see Mary at play, make your decision without the child knowing.”
In the yard the children dart about. Their cries are distracting and it takes time for Satomi to start singling out the girls one from another. Some of them are at hopscotch, some skipping, but Satomi hardly looks at them. She thinks that Cora will be standing alone, indulging in the lonely child’s habit of watching, but she is nowhere to be seen.
“She’s there, right there.” Eriko grasps Satomi’s hand and points out Cora, who is next up to play hopscotch.
Dr. Harper and Eriko are smiling, there’s no mistaking that it’s Cora. She hasn’t grown that much, legs a little longer, and her hair too, but she is still a narrow child, small for her age, pretty as ever.
At the sight of her, Satomi draws in her breath, her hand flies to her mouth, tears stab in her eyes. There’s no mistaking that it’s Cora, and she can’t quite believe it. She finds herself yearning for Tamura. That blue-black hair, the girlishness, the bow perched as precariously on her head as one of Tamura’s hats.
“Oh, Cora, little Cora.”
After all her imaginings of running to the child, their joyful reunion, she is suddenly afraid, can’t seem to move. Sister Amata puts her hand on Satomi’s shoulder and propels her forward.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” she says, and Satomi nods.
Slowly, as one by one the children stop to watch the visitors, Satomi moves toward Cora.
“It’s Satomi, Cora. Do you remember me?” She is trembling, her voice not her own.
Cora takes a step backward, hangs her head, and looks at the ground.
“No,” she says quietly.
“From Manzanar, Cora. I’m Tamura’s daughter. Your friend. You know me, Cora.”
Cora has pictures in her head of the camp, of Tamura and Eriko, and especially of Satomi. They are, she thinks, the people of her dreams, the people she suspects she has made up. It’s scary to see them now in the flesh, not knowing what they have come for.
“You will have to forgive me for taking so long to come,” Satomi says. “I’m sorry, Cora, so very sorry.”
She longs to kiss the child’s sweet tilting lips, hug her to herself, but she doesn’t want to frighten her.
“I want to take you home with me, Cora. We have a lovely house to share. We will be like sisters. Will you come with me?”
Cora doesn’t answer; she just stands staring at Satomi, her body swaying a little, her hands clasped tightly together.
“Speak up, Mary,” Sister Amata says. “You must answer the lady.”
“Don’t hurry her,” Satomi snaps. “Give her time.”
Cora narrows her eyes, she is thinking, figuring things out. She recalls now her time on a bus, the way she had watched Satomi standing in the dust, waving and crying. And now Satomi is crying again, it’s strange to see a grown-up crying. Satomi’s not her mother, but she knows now she belongs to her in some way, some good way.
“Do you remember me?” Eriko can’t resist.
Cora looks at her and nods. Splashes of memory are filling her head. She does know Eriko somehow. Even the man with the white hair is familiar. She remembers rooms made from wood, she remembers playing in the dust and the glimmer of kindling burning in a stove. It’s all connected with the things that she
keeps in a bundle under her bed. She gives a faint smile, then turns suddenly and runs back into the house.
“I’ll go,” Sister Amata says, raising her hand in a gesture for them to stay where they are. “She is frightened, I think.”
But before she reaches the house, Cora comes flying out the door, rushing past her. Her face is flushed, she is excited.
“I have it,” she says to Satomi. “I have it here.”
The little wooden titmouse sits in the middle of her open palm, rocking as though it is breathing. Silence gathers as they all stare down at it. Dr. Harper is the first to move; he reaches out, gently touching its wing, connecting himself for a moment to Tamura.
“You have it, Cora,” Satomi whispers. “You have our sweet bird.”
Cora puts her hand into Satomi’s. “You’re real,” she says. “I thought that you were from a story.”
Satomi takes Cora’s hand and turns toward the gate. She is thinking of their white-shingled home, where there is fresh linen on the beds and there are puzzles and dolls waiting for Cora, cookies in big glass jars, and the shiny brown chocolate box with its trinkets of hope.
Tamura would have approved of the dresses hung behind the door in Cora’s bedroom. Against her own taste, she has bought the prettiest she could find. And best of all there are books,
Gulliver’s Travels
,
Anne of Green Gables
,
Heidi
, stories to nourish the child’s soul.
Cora will play at the edge of the ocean in the clean air, with the water licking her feet. She will collect shells and ammonite pebbles, make sand castles. And she will run shrieking from the scuttling crabs, hear the whales sounding out in the bay. There is still enough of childhood left to turn the tide.
And for herself, whiskey in the kitchen cupboard, fresh-ground
coffee, the big-bellied stove that works like a dream, and no shortage of wood. If happiness can be willed, she will set herself to the task, make it hers and Cora’s.
She will open Dr. Harper’s archive boxes and go through them with Cora. They will relive their life at Manzanar together, so that Cora will know her own life’s journey.
She will make an index of the archive, write her own story of the camp, and, when the time is right, show it to the world. And surely the time will be right soon. So much depends on good timing.
She thinks of the sea at the Cape, the way it laces itself around the caterpillar of land at Eastham, turning at its end in the shape of a question mark. And the East, she thinks, is the place, the place where Pilgrims landed, where seasons have their time, where the sun rises.
It is such a pleasure to thank all the friends and colleagues who have helped me with the writing of
A Girl Like You
.
My heartfelt thanks go to my editor, Alexandra Pringle, for thinking me worth the risk, and for sticking with me through the difficult times. And thank you to Erica Jarnes at Bloomsbury UK, for her insightful suggestions and calming presence. I am grateful to Nikki Baldauf, Lea Beresford, and Dave Cole from Bloomsbury USA for a great job in overseeing the American production of the book.
So many thanks to the talented Gillian Stern for her outstanding guidance. Gillian gives 100 percent at all times, as well as a master class in “less is more.” I’m grateful to my agent, Robert Caskie, who saw the potential of the story in the brief outline I presented him with, and enthusiastically took it to Bloomsbury. May he always be so successful. As always my thanks go to Clive Lindley, for his invaluable advice, his knowledge, and his generous help. I would like to thank Roy Kakuda from the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, a child of the camps, who shared his time and memories with me. I am indebted to Richard Gregson for his invaluable help with the first draft. Thank you to Jenny Clifford for Oahu cemetery. Those others who
helped with read-throughs, with research and in so many helpful ways, were Lucy Dundas, Isabel Evans, and the ever encouraging “shedettes.” I would also like to thank Trina Middlecote for keeping the technology working.
Maureen Lindley was born in Berkshire and grew up in Scotland. Having worked as a photographer, antique dealer, and dress designer, she eventually trained as a psychotherapist. Her first novel,
The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel
, was published in 2009. She lives in the Wye Valley on the Welsh borders with her husband.
The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel
Copyright © 2013 by Maureen Lindley
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018.
Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lindley, Maureen.
A girl like you : a novel / Maureen Lindley.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-60819-453-7
1. Japanese American families—California—Fiction. 2. Japanese
Americans—Evacuation and relocation, 1942–1945—Fiction.
3. World War, 1939–1945—Japanese Americans—Fiction.
4. World War, 1939–1945—California—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6112.I49G57 2013
823'.92—dc23
2012035081
First U.S. edition 2013
Electronic edition published in June 2013