Still Life with Plums (16 page)

Carmen leans close to one of the newspaper clippings. “I guess you really were a big star back then.”

“Still is,” Joe says, returning. “Look at this,” he says, pointing to a wall of photographs taken over the years: Lucky Baby with Dale Evans, Soupy Sales, Willard Scott. “And these,” Joe says, fanning out an eight-inch stack of birthday cards. “From all over the world,” he says. “See? Canada and Oregon and Milwaukee. Everybody still loves Lucky Baby.”

“Course they do,” Isabel says. “Carmen didn’t mean anything by it.”

Carmen picks up a photo of Baby in her high school graduation gown flanked by a middle-aged couple both wearing horn-rimmed glasses. “Who’s this?”

Baby looks at the couple in the frame, the man’s arm clamped around Baby’s shoulders, the woman wearing an orchid corsage. “My parents.”

“¿Cómo?” Carmen says, voice an octave too high. She holds the picture inches from her face.

“Her
foster
parents,” Isabel says.

“Oh,” Carmen says, banging the photo back down.

Everyone looks at the floor, the sculpted brown carpet.

“Why don’t you show Carmen the back yard?” Joe says.

“Yes!” Baby says, relieved. She walks them out onto the back patio and waves at the scalloped gardens with prickly pear cactus, the grape arbor. The old water pump Joe converted into a fountain. The detached garage that houses Joe’s ’56 Corvette, his
real
wife, Baby teases. The showpiece, of course, is the hot tub and cedar sauna. Baby centers Carmen before it and waits for her praise.

Carmen hugs her red purse. “Isn’t Texas a little hot for a sauna?”

Baby frowns. “Not in the winter,” she says. “Joe and I come out here late at night when it’s cool.”

“Seems a waste if you can’t use it year round,” Carmen says. “And even then only at night.”

Baby cracks her knuckles, one mighty pop after another.

“It’s nice,” Isabel says. “I used it last time I was here.”

“Must have cost a pretty penny,” Carmen adds. “Probably took every bit of that $20,000—”

Isabel nudges her sister. “Shhh!” she says. “¡Tranquila!”

Baby’s left eyebrow twitches. “We only used part of it for that.” She points toward Joe’s garage. “Most of it went for the—”

“Hush!” Joe says. “They aren’t interested in our finances. Now you all go inside where it’s cool and I’ll start up the barbeque.” He stomps over to the gas grill and heaves up the lid as the ladies go back inside.

Carmen and Isabel settle on the sofa across from the picture window while Baby fetches sweet tea from the kitchen. She mimics: “Seems like a waste of money if you can’t use it year round.”

Joe comes in the back door. “I told you to keep your mouth shut.”

Baby plunks ice into three glasses. “I didn’t say anything.”

Joe grabs the brisket from the refrigerator. “Not yet, but one thing leads to another and pretty soon you’ll blow the whole deal.”

“I won’t blow anything,” she says, setting the glasses on a plastic
tray next to a port-wine cheese ball surrounded by Triscuits. “And I still don’t see what’s the big deal.”

“You wouldn’t,” Joe says, banging out the back door.

When Baby brings the tea and hors d’oeuvres to her sisters, Isabel is close to Carmen’s face, furiously whispering.

“Okay,” Carmen says to Isabel. “Okay!”

Baby sets down the tray.

“You have a lovely home,” Carmen says, grinning stupidly.

“Thank you.”

“I brought pictures of my trip to Japan,” she says. “If you’re interested.”

“Course I’m interested,” Baby says. “Miguel is my brother, too.” She tries to sound genuine, but the truth is, she doesn’t remember him. How could she? She was two years old when he and their father left the camp. She doesn’t remember her father either.

“They’re in my suitcase,” Carmen says, standing. Baby points down the hall to the guest room. “Be right back,” Carmen says, leaving.

Isabel pats the vacant space beside her and Baby sits. “I missed you,” Baby says, and she means it. Isabel bumps her shoulder into her little sister’s. “Me, too. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it for Christmas.”

“I know.” Baby hands her sister a tumbler of tea. “Carmen hates me.”

Isabel takes a sip. “She doesn’t hate you. She’s just angry about this whole reparations thing and I guess she’s taking it out on you.”

“It’s not my fault,” she says, jabbing a knife in the cheese to carve out a healthy chunk.

“I know. She was just so disappointed in the outcome of the lawsuit. We all are. I mean, you all got $20,000 and the rest of us only get $5000. It just doesn’t seem fair.”

“It’s not,” Baby says, trying to sound like a disinterested party.

“Here they are!” Carmen says, shuffling in with a Wal-Mart shopping bag. She reaches in to pull out a fat envelope and squeezes between the two sisters, sliding out photos, passing them right and left.

“Here’s a shot from the plane,” Carmen says. “And this is the airport. The baggage claim area.”

Baby nods and smiles and occasionally grunts, but she’s wondering if she should put the Jell-O mold back in the refrigerator, and if the mail has come. She looks out the front window for the mail truck. No. It’s not there.

“Here is Miguel,” Carmen says. “He has Mami’s eyes, see?”

Baby squints at the picture: A stooped, old man next to a speckled dog. Both looking malnourished. It’s hard to believe this is her brother. He sent her a photo once, of himself and his wife in front of the Hiroshima memorial. He wrote her a long letter, seven pages, in Spanish. She had to have her dental hygienist translate it, having long since forgotten the Spanish she spoke as a child in the camp. She wrote him back in English, but he never replied. She thinks of him, from time to time, when the Weather Channel reports on typhoons in Japan, or earthquakes, or volcano activity. She offers a prayer for his safety, and his wife’s, and the niece and two nephews she has never met.

“Here’s Papi’s grave,” Carmen says. And there it is. A patch of grass inlaid with a tiny rectangular stone that reads: Born Lima, Peru 1900; Died Nagasaki, Japan 1945. Baby tries to muster some sadness, grief, but it just won’t come, even as she hears her sisters’ sniffles, sees the wetness in their eyes, on their cheeks. Then her eyes are moist, too. Not for Papi, for herself. At least Carmen and Isabel had him for awhile. They have memories. She has nothing.

“What were they like?” Baby asks.

“What?” Isabel says.

“Mami and Papi.” These words feel strange in her mouth. Foreign.
They don’t roll off her tongue the way Mama and Daddy Adkins so naturally do.

Carmen and Isabel look at each other, then at their little sister. Carmen’s shoulders go down and she pats Baby’s knee. “Mami was like a bird,” she says. “Singing all day. Made up songs about butterflies and frogs—”

“And stars that played hooky,” Isabel says.

“¡Aí, sí!” Carmen says, laughing.

“She would have loved you,” Isabel says.

“She would have pinched your chubby cheeks,” Carmen adds. “You were such a fat baby. Gordita.”

“Papi made sure of that,” Isabel says. “All our camp milk rations went into your bottle.”

“That’s why I have such bad teeth,” Carmen says, tapping a gray incisor.

Baby frowns.

Carmen squeezes Baby’s knee. “I’m just kidding. You kept Papi alive after Mami died. You have her nose.”

“And her smile,” Isabel adds.

“Sí. Papi doted on you. Showed you off to all the other internees. Oh the fuss they made over you.”

“Even the Germans and Italians thought you were a beautiful baby,” Isabel says. “Schönes mädchen, they said. Bambina bella!”

“It’s no wonder Cowboy Bob wanted you,” Carmen says.

Baby is cowed. This is the first true compliment she has received from Carmen. She looks at her sister, but Carmen’s eyes are downcast, glazed over as if she is miles away. Or years.

“But we wanted you, too,” she whispers. “After they traded Papi and Miguel for American soldiers, we wanted you all for ourselves. Algo bonito all for ourselves.”

“Hush,” Isabel whispers. “No use reliving it. And besides. We have her now. Right here.”

Carmen lifts her head and surprises them all when she chucks her finger under Baby’s chin. “Sí,” she says. “Ahora, sí.” She looks deep into Baby’s eyes searching for something, desperate to find something. Baby is afraid she won’t find it, or maybe she will, so she looks away fast.

“Shall I give her our present?” Carmen says.

Isabel nods.

Carmen reaches in the Wal-Mart bag and pulls out a fat package wrapped in red paper. “Feliz cumpleaños,” she says.

“Happy birthday,” Isabel says.

Baby unwraps the gift: a photo album with a leather tongue and brass latch to keep it closed. Baby clicks the latch, flips the cover, and sees a crinkled photo of a middle aged man posing stoically in traditional Japanese garb. Dark hair slicked back. Thick mustache covering his upper lip. The inscription reads:
Grandpa Takei, 1899
.

Isabel says, “That was taken right before he and Grandma moved to Peru.”

“Where’s Grandma?” Baby asks, more interested in her outfit than her image.

Carmen shrugs. “Camera shy, I guess, but imagine a couple their age starting over like that.”

“Papi said it was because of the Meiji Restoration,” Isabel says. “Everything becoming modern and Westernized. All those growing pains. He said it was a difficult time for farmers, for everyone, really.”

This all sounds vaguely familiar to Baby, like something she saw on the History Channel, not a tale passed down from her kin.

Baby turns the page and sucks in her breath: a photo of her mother and father on their wedding day. Both standing so stiff in
their fine cloths, father’s chest puffed up, right hand slipped into his vest. Mother’s hair piled high on her head, held in place by an elaborate comb. She holds an unfolded fan to her chest. Baby has never seen her image before. All the family history was lost back in Peru: photos, birth certificates, snippets of hair. Or so Baby thought. Her eyes cloud as she touches the face that looks so much like hers. The crooked smile. Head cocked to the side.

She flips the page and there she is again, her mother, standing on a vast veranda crowded with plants, an infant in her arms.

“That’s Miguel,” Carmen says. “And the house where we were born.”

“All except you,” Isabel adds, an apology.

In the next one her father stands on a tree stump, a young boy at his side, maybe seven or eight. Miguel, no doubt. They are surrounded by workers, their hats in their hands, some holding bandsaws and scythes.

“Papi’s rubber plantation,” Isabel says. “I used to love to run through the trees with my arms outstretched.”

“And hide for hours so you wouldn’t have to do your chores,” Carmen scolds.

“Especially during a storm when you could stay dry under those enormous leaves and listen to thunder cracking overhead, roaring rain.”

“And Mami and me making supper in the kitchen wondering where you were.”

Baby sifts through photo after photo: the plantation; Mami and Papi with Miguel; then Carmen; then Isabel. All looking so content.

In the last photo Papi and Miguel sit in claw-footed chairs. Isabel and Carmen sit on low stools beside them. Mami stands behind her husband. Carmen taps her fingernail on Mami’s face. “You know why she is behind this chair?”

“Why?” Baby says.

“To hide her bulging stomach. She was four months pregnant with you.”

“Ah!” Isabel says. “So this really is the whole family.”

“No,” Baby whispers, wanting to move that chair to see, to believe that she was ever a part of this family, this culture that is as foreign to her as Japan must have been to her father and brother when they were sent there.

“Sí,” Carmen says. “Together for such a brief time.”

Amazed, Baby stares at the picture trying desperately to accept that this is her family, her blood. But this photo belongs in another era, another country, another family’s scrapbook.

“Where did you get these?” is all she can say.

Carmen sighs deeply. “The night they came for us, one of the workers—”

“Felix Rios,” Isabel says.

“Sí. Felix snuck in and grabbed these from the walls.”

“Not a minute too soon, either. Officials soon returned to steal everything they could find.”

Baby’s mind fills with flitting sepia images of soldiers rifling through her family’s jewelry boxes and china cabinets and toy chests in the middle of the night.

“I bet the townspeople helped themselves, too,” Carmen says. “They hated us even before the war.
¡Salir Nips!”
she says. “I remember The Night of Plundering. So many Japanese businesses and homes destroyed.” Her eyes harden at a memory Baby doesn’t dare ask to be shared.

“Not everyone felt that way. Some were our good friends,” Isabel says.

“Pah,” Carmen says. “Friends who wouldn’t let us back in our own country after the war.
Good riddance,”
she says. “They probably danced on the pier when our boats sailed.”

Suddenly Baby is immersed in her own memory, just a snippet that she buried long ago under piles of fan letters and interview requests and autograph signings. She and Cowboy Bob riding in a black convertible, waving at bystanders during a Christmas parade. Or was it Easter? Baby isn’t sure, but she is absolutely certain about the gang of men who rushed the car yelling:
Zipperhead go home!
Throwing something, not rocks, but eggs, at the car, at her, until local police chased the men away.

“Look how long Felix looked for us just to return these,” Isabel adds, patting the album.

Carmen purses her lips, but Baby is trying to understand her thunking heart. She puts a hand to her chest. “People loved me,” she whispers, conjuring images of bright-faced studio audiences, their hearty applause, the Lucky Baby look-alike contests. She takes all of that, heaps it on the bad memory, and tamps it down hard.

The doorbell rings and Baby is jolted back to the present, to her squat house on a cul-de-sac in Tormenta Falls, Texas.

“I’ll get it!” Joe calls from the kitchen. He bursts out, Kiss the Cook apron dangling from his neck. Joe opens the door and in walks a nearly six-foot blonde in a tangerine dress.