Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (35 page)

Looking over, he saw his parents' door was all but closed. Henry wasn't sure what surprised him more. That his mother had left such a nice dinner for him, or that she wasn't sitting here waiting for him, ready to pounce on his every excuse.

The silence was numbing.

He grabbed a pair of chopsticks and took the plate of food to his room, setting his small suitcase down just inside. He was stunned and confused as he looked at his bed and saw a large black suit laying there. On the floor were a pair of brown leather dress shoes that looked two sizes too big. The suit jacket was Western in cut but had an embroidered spiral design on the pocket, his mother's doing--modern, but giving it a touch of the Orient. A sense of place in a modern world.

Then it hit him.
My father's dead.

Henry had never worn such a fine suit in his entire life. The nicest clothes he had were the ones he wore again and again to Rainier Elementary. He wore them several days in a row, doing his best to keep them clean, then his mother would hand-wash and dry them and he'd wear them again. His appearance was more important to her than the fact that he was teased mercilessly for being too poor to have any other school clothes.

But as Henry touched the fine fabric of the suit, he remembered that it wasn't white. If Henry were to wear such a suit to his father's traditional funeral, surely his mother would have insisted that he, as the birthright son, wear the color of his father's traditions. White was a funeral color, not black. This suit would never do.

Henry opened his door and stepped across the hall to his parents' room. Peeking in, he could see his mother sleeping, and the outline of his father. Henry could her his father's jangled breathing, no better, but no worse than when he'd left three days ago. His father hadn't died. Henry sighed and felt his guilt make room for quiet relief Back in his room, Henry sat on the bed, looking at the suit, eating his cold dinner.

The sausage was sweet and chewy. Fresh too. His mother must have made it while he was away. Chewing the last bite, he noticed the corner of a small envelope that must have been tucked in the inside breast pocket of the suit jacket.

Reaching in, he opened the jacket, which now looked too big for him. It was his mother's way. Everything had to have room to grow. Everything had to last.

Pulling out the envelope, he touched the label, which read "China Mutual Steam Navigation Co."--it was a cruise line. Henry didn't have to open it to know what was inside. It would be tickets--passage to China.

"It's for you. From your father and me." His mother was standing in his doorway, wrapping herself in a flowered robe, speaking to Henry in his familial Cantonese, a language he hadn't spoken all weekend. "Japan is losing," she said. "The Kuomintang has forced the Japanese Imperial Army north once and for all. Your father has decided you can go to Canton now. To finish your Chinese schooling."

Henry stood by the bed, facing his mother. On the bus ride home, he had heard the latest reports on the fighting on Guadalcanal. But to his parents, the war with Japan was always seen from the Chinese side. They fought a different war. Still, Henry was thirteen now, a man's age in his father's eyes. Those same eyes that no longer regarded Henry as his son. Yet here he was, being given the one thing his father had always wanted most for Henry--a chance for him to return to China, a place he'd never known, never been, to live with relatives he'd never met. To his father, this was the most precious thing he could give Henry. And as much as Henry had feared this day would come, part of him wanted to go, at least to be able to come back with an understanding of what made his father who he was.

But Henry knew better. "He's just doing this to keep me from her," he said. He studied his mother's face, searching for a confirmation in her expression, in her reaction.

"This is his dream. He's worked and saved for years to give this to you. To do
this
for
you. So you can know where you came from. Haven't you dishonored him enough?"

The words stung. But Henry had been stung before. "Why now?"

"The army ... the Japanese ... it's finally safe ..."

"Why now? Why today? It's not any safer getting there. The Japanese submarines have been sinking half the ships in and out of southern China. Why do I know all this?

Because that's all he's talked about for my entire life!"

"This is his house. You are his son!" his mother snapped back, not loud enough to wake Henry's father but in a forceful way he'd never seen before. His mother had always walked the fence of conflict between him and his father. Striding with one foot firmly planted on each side of the neutral zone that Henry and his father never crossed. Now she was exerting her own will. She loved Henry as a son, he had no doubt, but she had no choice but to honor her husband's wishes. Henry's father was bedridden and could barely speak or move, but he still was head of the home.

"I don't want to go. This is his dream. Not mine! I was born
here
, I don't even speak the same dialect as the village he came from. I won't fit in
there
any more than I fit in at the all-white school he sent me to. Haven't I done enough?"

"Done enough? You have done plenty! You have taken sides with the enemy. The enemy of China--
and
America. We are
allies.
They are the enemy. You have become his enemy. And still he does this for you. For you!"

"It's not for me," Henry said softly. "And I didn't do this to him." As the words came out, he almost believed them. Almost. But looking at his mother--tears streaming down her face, the anger and frustration so measured she was shaking--he knew he'd always be haunted by this, by the effect his actions had had on his father.

Henry looked down at the suit. It was hand-tailored, and expensive. The tickets were expensive too. He had no idea where he'd be going, where he'd be staying, or for how long. And, looking at his crying mother, who now spent her days caring for her dying husband, for his dying father, Henry felt his resolve crumble. Maybe thirteen wasn't old enough to escape the pain and pressures of his family. Maybe he'd never escape.

"When do I leave?" The words fell out of his mouth, rising like a white flag of surrender. He thought about Keiko, feeling farther and farther away from her as each moment passed, as if his heart were already onboard the ocean liner and being pulled far away, to the sweltering hot South China Sea.

"Next week," his mother whispered.

"For how long?" Henry asked.

He watched her pause. This was obviously hard on her as well. She was sending him away, fulfilling the wishes of her husband, letting go of her only son. Henry looked up at her, not wanting to go.

"Three, maybe four years."

Silence.

Henry mulled it over. Realistically, he had no idea when Keiko would be coming home, if she ever came home. After all, what home did she have to come back to? Maybe the war would go on forever. Maybe she'd be sent to Japan. It was all unknown.
But four
years?
It was unthinkable. Henry had never been away from his parents for
four days.
"I

... can't do that."

"You must. You have no choice. This is decided."

"I will decide. I'm the same age Father was when he left, when he made his own choices. If I go, it will be my choice, not his," Henry said. He sensed the conflict in his mother--wanting to obey her husband's wishes but not wanting to lose her son. "My choice, not his. Not yours."

"What will I tell him? What would you have me say?"

"Tell him I'll go, but not now. Not until the war's over. Not until she comes back.

I told her I'd wait. I made a promise."

"But you won't even see her--for years maybe."

"Then I'll write to her every week."

"I cannot tell him--"

"Then do as I've done these past years. Say nothing."

She put her head in her hands, rubbing her temples. Rocking back and forth. "You are stubborn. Just like your father."

"He made me what I am." Henry hated saying it, but it was true, wasn't it?

Letters

(1943)

Henry wrote to Keiko, telling her about his father's ill-timed intention to send him away. Back to China, a small village where his father grew up, just outside of Canton. Henry still had distant relatives there. People he'd never met. Some not even blood relatives, but they were
calabash
, as Henry's father put it, using some strange slang of quasi-English. They were together. They were of one mind. Everyone in the village was considered family. And they looked forward to visitors from America--Henry knew from his father's stories that his visit would include a warm
homecoming
, and a lot of work as well. Part of him wanted to go. But part of him wanted nothing to do with what his father had manipulatively planned for him.

And he couldn't go now. Keiko or her family might need him, and they knew so few people outside the camps. He was all they had.

Much to Henry's surprise, Keiko thought he should go.
Why not?
she'd asked in her most recent letter from Camp Minidoka. She was a prisoner, they were apart anyway,
might as well use this time
, she'd said--for Henry to complete the schooling so many parents of American-born children wished for their sons.

Stubbornly Henry refused to give in to his father's wishes. His father wanted nothing to do with Keiko. And had disowned him. Henry couldn't set that aside. So he stayed, and continued
scholarshipping.

He also wrote to Keiko, every week.

Henry spent his days at school, helping Mrs. Beatty and his free evenings wandering up and down South Jackson listening to the brightest jazz musicians the city had to offer. He caught Oscar Holden and Sheldon when he could, but other nights he just stayed home and wrote to Keiko.

In return she sent Henry notes, with sketches from inside the camp and even outside, when she was allowed beyond the fences. The stringent rules had been eased a bit after the camp had been completely settled--Keiko's Girl Scout troop was even allowed beyond the barbed wire to have an overnight campout.
Amazing
, Henry thought.

Prisoners being allowed outside, only to return freely. But that was where their families were, and besides, where else could they go?

At least she kept busy. Henry did too, walking down to the old post office on South King, near the Yong Kick noodle factory. As the months rolled by, his weekly journey had become more of a habit--one still filled with anticipation.

"One letter--overland carriage, please," Henry requested, handing over the small envelope with the letter to Keiko he'd written the night before.

The skinny girl who normally worked the counter looked to Henry to be about his age--maybe fourteen, with dark hair and rich olive skin. He assumed she was the daughter of the postmaster assigned to Chinatown, helping out her parents in Chinese fashion. "Another letter? This one carriage mail, you say? That's going to get expensive--twelve cents this time."

Henry counted out the change from his pocket as she stamped it. He didn't know what else to say, he'd done this routine dozens of times now. Long enough to know what was coming next, already seeing the disappointment in the young clerk's eyes.

"I'm sorry, Henry. No mail for you today. Maybe tomorrow?"

It'd been three weeks now, and no letter from Keiko. He knew that military mail had priority over all domestic shipments, especially letters going to someone with a Japanese surname--not to mention that mail in and out of the prison camps was notoriously slow. But this was troubling, on the verge of heartbreaking. So much that Henry began mailing all his letters by overland carriage--special bus service that cost ten times the normal postage but got there quicker. Or so he was always told.

Still, no word from Camp Minidoka. No word from Keiko. On the walk home, Henry caught Sheldon wrapping up an afternoon gig on the corner of South Jackson.

"I thought you were playing at the Black Elks Club these days?" Henry asked, pausing on the street where he used to give Sheldon his lunch each day.

"Still do. Still do, that's for certain. More sold-out shows than ever. Oscar's packing them in every night, even more now that there's so many white folks moving their business into these parts."

Henry offered a solemn nod of agreement, looking down toward what was left of Japantown. Most businesses had been sold for pennies on the dollar, or the local banks had seized the frozen businesses and resold the real estate for a profit. Those that were funded by local Japanese-owned banks were the last to fold, but fold they did as the banks themselves became insolvent since their owners had been sent to places like Minidoka, Manzanar, and Tule Lake.

"I guess I just like to come down and reminisce with my horn once in a while.

Think about the good ol' days, you know?" Sheldon winked at Henry, who didn't feel like smiling. Those times were gone. Things were different.
I'm different
, Henry thought.

"Looks like you're heading home empty-handed?" Sheldon half-asked, half-stated--as if Henry's sad walk home from the post office would be made any better that way.