Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (13 page)

H
enry burst into the little apartment he shared with his parents. His father sat in his easy chair calmly reading
Hsi Hua Pao,
the
Seattle Chinese Post.
His mother was in the kitchen, slicing vegetables from the sound of it – a knife rhythmically tapping a cutting board.

Henry handed a copy of the proclamation to his father, trying to breathe. He rubbed his side where it ached from running ten city blocks. Father glanced at it – Henry could tell by the look in his eyes that he was waiting for an explanation, in
American
, of why Henry was so upset. No, not this. Not now.
Just speak to me
was all Henry could think. He said the same in Chinese.

Father shook his head sternly, cutting Henry off as he tried to explain.

‘No! You can’t ignore me. Not anymore,’ Henry argued in English before slipping back into Chinese. ‘They’re taking
everyone away. All the Japanese. The army is taking everyone away!’

His father handed the proclamation back. ‘Better them than us.’

His mother appeared from the kitchen, speaking Chinese, looking for an explanation. ‘Henry, why does this matter? We’re at war. And we’re our own community. We take care of each other. You know this as well as anyone.’

Henry didn’t know what to say – or in which language to say it. He looked at both of his parents, and the words fell out. ‘It matters to me,’ he said in Chinese. Then he switched back to English. ‘It matters because
she’s
Japanese.’

He stormed to his bedroom, slamming the door. The images of his parents’ dumbfounded expressions lingering in his troubled mind. Through the door, he could hear them begin to argue.

Henry opened his window and climbed out onto the fire escape, leaning against the stiff metal railing, dejected. He could hear the army trucks thundering in the distance. Beyond the alley, in the streets of Chinatown, people simply went about their business; some were looking, talking, or pointing in the direction of Nihonmachi, but for the most part, everyone was calm.

Henry watched as a car packed to the windows with boxes rolled up to the back door of the Kau Kau restaurant. To his surprise a young Japanese couple hopped out as people from the restaurant poured into the alley, hauling boxes of what Henry could only presume were personal effects into the restaurant. The things left unboxed were what gave it away. A floor lamp. A long rug, rolled and tied to the roof of the rusty
green sedan. It all went inside, all but four suitcases, which the couple shouldered as best they could. There were hugs all around between this Japanese couple and their Chinese friends.

The Japanese couple walked off, out the alley and down the street, looking as though they were being dragged toward the train station. Henry looked up and down the alley one last time, thinking about Keiko and her family. About how they’d left the American Garden restaurant to try to make their own arrangements.

Henry went back inside and sprawled on his bed as his mother came in. He pawed through a stack of comic books, then saw the cover of
Marvel Mystery Comics Number 30
, the last issue he’d bought. The cover featured the Human Torch battling a Japanese submarine. The war is everywhere, Henry thought, shoving the comics under his bed as his mother set a plate of butter-almond cookies on his nightstand.

‘Do you need to talk, Henry? If so, then please talk to me.’ She spoke in Cantonese, her eyes not masking her concern for him.

He looked at the open window. The blackout curtains hung stiff and heavy, barely moving in the breeze. He couldn’t understand the chatter of the people on the street below. It drifted in and out like his longing to understand what was going on around him.

‘Why won’t he talk to me?’ Henry asked his mother in Cantonese, still looking out the window.

‘Who talk? Your father?’

After a long pause, Henry looked at her and nodded.

‘He talks to you every day. What do you mean, why won’t he talk?’

‘He talks, but he doesn’t listen to me.’

Henry sat there as she patted him on the arm, on his belly, searching for the words to make her son understand.

‘I don’t know how to tell you so it makes sense. You were born here.
You’re American.
Where your father comes from, it was nothing but war. War with Japan. They invaded northern China, killing many, many people. Not soldiers but women and children, the old and the sick. Your father, he grew up this way. He saw this happen to his
own family
.’ She pulled a knit handkerchief out from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes, even though she wasn’t crying. Maybe she couldn’t cry anymore, Henry thought. It was just habit now.

‘Your father came here, as an orphan, but he never forgot who he was, where he came from. Never forgot about his
home
.’

‘This is his home now,’ Henry protested.

His mother got up and looked out the window before closing it. ‘This is where he
lives
, but it will never be his home. Look at what is happening to Japantown. Your father is afraid that might happen to us someday. That’s why – as much as he loves his China – he wants this to be your home. For you to be accepted here.’

‘There are other families …’

‘I know. There are some families. Chinese families. American families. Families that right now, even as we are speaking, are hiding Japanese. Taking their belongings.
Very dangerous
. You, me, all of us risk going to jail if we help them. I know you have a friend. The one who calls on the telephone. The girl from the Rainier school?
She is Japanese
?’ 

Henry didn’t see her as Japanese anymore. ‘She’s just my friend,’ he said in English.
And I miss her.

‘Hah?’ his mother said, not understanding.

Henry switched back to Cantonese, thinking of what to say, how much to say. He looked his mother in the eye. ‘She’s my best friend.’

His mother looked at the ceiling, letting out a heavy sigh. The kind of sigh you give when you just accept that something bad has happened. When a relative dies, and you say, ‘At least he lived a long life.’ Or when your house burns to the ground and you think, ‘At least we have our health.’ It was a sigh of resigned disappointment. A consolation prize, of coming in second and having nothing to show for it. Of coming up empty, having wasted your time, because in the end, what you do, and who you are, doesn’t matter one lousy bit. Nothing does.

For the rest of the weekend Henry’s father wouldn’t speak of what was going on in Japantown. Henry tried arguing, but his father cut him off every time he attempted to speak to him in Chinese. His mother had softened a bit, if only to ease his unhappiness. She had argued with Henry’s father, a rare occurrence, about Keiko – about Henry’s friend – but now it was time to move on, and she too found little value in Henry discussing it further. Being told in Cantonese that he’d understand it all when he was older only infuriated him. And all Henry could do was grumble about it in English, to no one.

He even tried calling Keiko before his parents woke up Sunday morning, but there was no answer. The operator thought the phone had been disconnected. School on Monday
did nothing to lessen his anxiety. Keiko was absent there as well. Everyone in Nihonmachi had become occupied with packing – or selling what they couldn’t carry.

So on Tuesday morning, instead of walking to school, Henry ran toward Union Station, which had become the central assembly area for the residents of Nihonmachi. Running down South Jackson, he saw lines of Pullman cars stretched out on the tracks leading toward the train depot. Greyhound buses too, creaking and groaning, filled to capacity with soldiers, who looked out of place stepping off with rifles slung over their shoulders.

They’re taking them away, Henry thought. They’re taking all of them away. There must be five thousand Japanese. How can they take them all? Where will they go?

A few blocks from the station itself, crowds filled the street. There was a mix of crying toddlers, shuffling suitcases, and soldiers checking the paperwork of local citizens – most of whom were dressed in their Sunday best, the one or two suitcases they were allowed packed to the point of bursting. Each person wore a plain white tag, the kind you’d see on a piece of furniture, dangling from a coat button.

Public Proclamation 1 instructed all Japanese citizens, foreign-born and even second-generation Americans, like Keiko, to gather at the train station by nine in the morning. They would be leaving in waves, by neighborhood, until they were all removed. Henry had no idea where they’d be going. The Japanese from Bainbridge Island had been sent to Manzanar – someplace in California, near the Nevada border. But one camp couldn’t possibly handle the crowd that had been herded to the train station.

Scanning the area for Keiko, Henry tried to ignore the mobs of angry whites who stood behind barricades, shouting at the families walking by. The entire span of the sky bridge leading to the ferry terminal was packed as well, no one moving, everyone lingering over the railing, staring down at the cordoned-off military zone. It seemed that eyes were everywhere. Men and women alike perched in open office windows high above the street, whistling.

Henry hadn’t spoken to Keiko since they left the restaurant. He’d called again from a pay phone on the way over, but the phone just rang and rang until an operator cut in asking if there was a problem. He hung up. If he was to find them, this was the place. But had they left already? He had to find her. He hated the thought of going back to school without her and was surprised at how much he missed her already.

There were a few Chinese people, mainly rail workers, here and there. No one Henry recognized. He picked them out of the crowd by the buttons they wore, identical to his. Once the army and military police had arrived, the small print shop that was making them had run out.
This is what gold feels like,
Henry thought, touching the button he wore.
Small and precious.

Standing on a red, white, and blue mailbox, he frantically scanned the crowd, which crept slowly in the direction of the train station. Henry watched another large army truck rumble mercilessly through and stop, but instead of soldiers, the canvas-covered flatbed was filled with elderly Japanese. Some appeared to be almost crippled by the way they walked. Soldiers helped them down, putting some in wheelchairs, their hair unkempt and messy. A Japanese doctor was in tow.
Henry realized what was happening. They had cleared the hospital. The sick and infirm were being evacuated as well. Many looked bewildered, obviously not knowing what was happening to them, or why.

Henry watched a white man holding hands with a Japanese woman. He couldn’t help but wonder what must be happening to those families where a Caucasian had taken a Japanese bride. Mixed marriages were illegal. Then again, maybe they’d be spared the hardship of internment after all. But he thought otherwise when he saw the suitcase in the woman’s hand and the baby stroller.

Watching the crowd mill by, he heard the nine o’clock whistle go off miles away at Boeing Field. He’d been searching the crowd for – what? – forty minutes now. Henry knew time was slipping away, and he was beginning to panic. ‘Keiko!’ he shouted from atop the mailbox. He felt people’s stares on him as they passed by. They must think I’m mad. Maybe I am. Maybe it’s OK to be mad. ‘Keiko! Keiko Okabe!’ he shouted until a soldier looked at him as though he were disturbing the peaceful reverie of the morning. Then he saw something. A familiar sight.

Yes, there it is
! Mr Okabe’s Cary Grant hat looked regal even as he crossed the street carrying his only remaining belongings. Henry recognized his dignified posture, but his charming demeanor had been replaced with a detached stare. He walked slowly, holding his wife’s hand. She in turn was holding Keiko’s. Keiko’s little brother walked in front, playing with a wooden airplane, spinning the propeller, unaware that today was unlike any other day.

Henry waved his arms and shouted. It didn’t matter, they
didn’t notice. They might not have noticed if it were raining or the buildings around them were on fire. Like most of the Japanese families heading toward the train station, they had their heads down, eyes ahead, or stayed busy keeping track of one another.

One person did notice Henry, though.

It was Chaz. Even from where Henry stood, he recognized the bully’s ruddy, pimpled face. Chaz stood behind the barricade laughing, waving at Henry, smiling before going back to screaming at the children and crying mothers walking by.

Henry spied the button Chaz wore and dropped down off the mailbox, pressing through the crowd, zeroing in on Chaz’s flattop haircut, following the sound of his cackling laugh.
He’s going to kill me,
Henry thought. He’s bigger, faster. But I don’t care anymore. Henry’s spine had fused with anger.

Chaz sneered as Henry slipped beneath the barricade directly in front of him. ‘Knew I’d find you here, Henry ol’ buddy. How’s your daddy doing?’

‘What are you doing here?’ Henry asked.

‘Just enjoying the sights like everyone else. Thought I’d take a stroll down here and see who’s not leaving. But it looks like everybody is going bye-bye. Guess I’m going to be busy looking after their things while they’re gone.’ Chaz stuck out his lower lip, pretending to pout.

Henry had heard about the looting that had begun the night before in some neighborhoods. Families hadn’t even left, and people strolled right in and took lamps, furniture, anything that wasn’t nailed down. If it was, they had claw hammers to fix that too.

‘Since the army closed off Nip-ville, there’s not much to see. Just thought I’d come down here and say
sayonara
. You were just a bonus find.’ As he said it, Chaz grabbed a handful of Henry’s collar.

Henry struggled against his grip. Chaz was a whole foot taller, looming over him. Henry scanned the crowd for a friendly face, but no one noticed. No one cared.
Who am I in all this
?
What do I matter
?