The Garden of Dead Dreams (29 page)

Portland’s Chinatown was surprisingly deserted for a Monday morning. According to Peggy, Portland’s Japantown, Nihonmachi, once stood here. But it all but disappeared in the spring of 1942 when the Japanese on the West Coast were rounded up and moved to ten different internment camps in the interior of the country. “Gila, Granada, Heart Mountain, Jerome, Manzanar, Minidoka, Poston, Rohwer, Topaz, and Tule Lake,” Peggy had listed off the camps from memory.

“Tanaka Grocery?” Peggy put the phone down while she went to find a tourist map the Nissei Center had reconstructed of Nihonmachi in the twenties. When she was back on the line, her voice even more chirpy than it had been before. “Oh yes. Four hundred NW Third. It’s called Eastern Imports now. It’s near the garden. The tourists love their cheap imports, you know?”

“Is there any possibility that the same family still owns it?”

“It’s unlikely. After the exclusion order, the Nikkei were forced to sell their homes and businesses in only a week. Some sold to white friends, sympathizers, people they trusted, hoping they could get their property back someday. I suppose it’s possible the Tanaka family did something like this and resumed ownership when they returned home.” Peggy was silent for a few moments. “The owner of Eastern Imports is active at the Nikkei Center. I’m sure of it. I just don’t recall his name. The brain doesn’t work as well at my age. I could look it up for you. I have a list of donors somewhere. It might take me awhile to find it though.”

Etta told Peggy that wouldn’t be necessary, mostly because she needed to get on the road if she were going to make it to Portland before dark and find a hotel. Peggy told Etta about the reparations given to the internees in 1988 and about the Japanese American Historical Plaza built on the banks of the Columbia River in 1990. But Etta’s mind wandered.

Katashi Tanaka had left Portland long before the Exclusion Order of 1942. He’d taken his family back to Kyoto in 1929 and had never returned as far as Etta knew. But one Tanaka definitely had returned to the United States at some point. Etta closed her eyes and tried to remember exactly what Galen had said:
That Jap-Lover sent me to rot in a head case house while his geisha’s boy ran that store.
Vincent Buchanan and Sakura must have had a son.

The faded embossment on the glass door was the same logo as on the inside on the tin box.
Tanaka Grocery. Selling Asian goods since 1917.
She collapsed the umbrella and reached for the brass door handle.

Bells jangled overhead. A sea of paper lanterns swayed from the ceiling. A wooden table in front of the door overflowed with ceramic tea sets, dishes, and brightly-painted enamel jars with red sale tags attached to them. The bells clanged again, and Etta realized she’d let the door handle slip between her fingers.

She moved toward the long counter that ran along one wall of the store. A sign behind it read Chinese Green Tea by the ounce in block letters. Bronze canisters filled the two glass shelves beneath the sign, each of them labeled with Chinese characters. The counter was bare except for an old cash register.

A girl’s face rose from behind the counter, and Etta stepped backward. The girl was young—eighteen at the most. She had dark eyes, high cheekbones, and streaky blond hair. Her cheeks sparkled with pink glitter. She stared at Etta then plucked the white headphones from her ears, unleashing the faint bass of hip hop music.

“Hi.” Etta’s cheeks filled with heat. “Do you work here?”

The girl rolled her eye, her blue mascara-coated lashes flicking up and down. “No. I just like it back here.”

Etta forced a smile. “Is the owner here?” She held her breath.

The girl studied Etta for a moment then reached down and switched her music player off. Black polish chipped off the tips of her fingernails. “Shit. Are you the new accountant? Please don’t tell Dad what I said. If he finds out I was listening to my music, he’ll take it away, and it’s deadly here without it.” She pushed a piece of hair off her face. “Are you starting today?”

Etta stared at her for a minute then nodded, hoping the girl would continue.

“Please don’t tell him. Will you?”

Etta watched the girl’s eyes.

“I mean, he complains about Ojiisan making him work here, and he does the same thing to me. It’s, like, a human rights violation. ”

Ojiisan. It sounded Japanese. A rush of heat raced up Etta’s spine. “Ojiisan?” she said aloud.

The girl rolled her eyes again. “Are they making you come to the party? I don’t know why Mom insists on throwing another one for him. She’s incapable of listening to anyone. He wants us to celebrate on New Year’s, that’s the Japanese way, but Mom ignores him every year. Sorry they’re making you come. It’s a family business, they’re always saying. That’s probably what drove Rachel out in the first place. The whole forced family thing’s a little creepy, kind of like the mafia, don’t you think?”

“Rachel?”

“The last victim. I mean accountant.”

Etta laughed. “Ojiisan. That’s your grandfather’s name?”

The girl looked at Etta as though it was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard. Etta tried to smile. “I mean, can you remind me again, what’s his name?”

Every movement the girl made exuded boredom, from the downward turn of her lips to the way she mindlessly chewed on the tips of her fingernails to her blue lashes clumping lazily up and down. “It’s the same as dad’s. Joseph Thompson.”

Etta’s fingers went numb. She’d been so sure the girl would say Buchanan that she couldn’t speak. She glanced behind her, not knowing what to do next. “Do you think it would be possible for me to talk to him? Or to your father. It’s really important that I speak with one of them. Right now.”

The girl blinked at Etta. Etta wrapped her fingers around the tin box. Tears welled near the surface of her eyes, pulsing with a knot of tension at the base of her spine. She tried to push both down. The girl shrugged and nodded toward a curtain at the back of the store next to a display of Chinese silk pajamas. She inserted one headphone back in an ear. “Oji’s back there, as usual.”

Etta forced a smile and pulled the tin box toward her chest. She tried to propel herself toward the curtain despite a wave of dizziness.

“Hey,” the girl called. Etta stopped. “Shout. He’s like totally deaf.”

* * *

The old man sat craned over a table reading a newspaper. Steam rose from a teacup next to him, glistening into the beams of the track lighting. Boxes were stacked all around him, teetering next to dusty rice paper floor lamps, teak chairs and tables, stacks of prayer cushions and tatami mats, and a table scattered with porcelain dolls. The newspaper crackled and Etta snapped her gaze to the old man. She gasped and stepped backward. He was peering at her, his shriveled hands folded atop the newspaper.

Etta took a step toward him and introduced herself.

The old man stared back at her vacantly. She repeated herself, louder this time. Her voice shook. He just gazed back at her and panic knotted through her chest. She was sure he’d heard her this time, but still he said nothing.

Etta pulled the tin box from the plastic bag, walked to the table, and dropped it in front of the old man. She leaned her umbrella against the chair adjacent to him and jammed her trembling hands into her pockets.

He stared at the tin box then reached for it. He turned it over in his hands and opened the lid. Rust flakes scattered across his newspaper. He looked up at Etta. His face was jowly, his white hair thinning and slicked back, his mouth and flat nose strangely puckered. Grooves laced out from his black eyes. “Where are the letters?” he whispered, meeting Etta’s gaze.

“You knew Matthew Lowther.” Etta’s voice echoed into the room.

The old man dropped the box. He leaned forward, pressed his hands onto the table, and pushed himself up. His chair fell backward and thwacked the floor.

The hair on Etta’s arms prickled. She’d seen something in his eyes. She was sure of it.

“Who are you?” The old man’s voice was deep and nasal.

“You knew him? Matthew Lowther?” Etta couldn’t stop the tears now. They burned down her face. At first the sound of the words tumbling from her lips startled her. She hadn’t realized she was going to tell him everything, but she couldn’t stop herself. She told him about the Buchanan Academy, the play, Olivia’s disappearance, reading “Cherry Blossom,” Galen’s insistence that Matthew Lowther had left some kind of manuscript. Her voice got louder as she talked and took on a frenetic quality that she hardly recognized. “This is it. This is all he left.” She picked up the tin box and thrust it toward the old man. “Maybe it’s a clue. Maybe he was trying to tell his roommate where he left the manuscript. That’s all I can think of. Maybe it’s here?” She let the words trail off. The old man’s dark gaze did not move from her face. He was just a stranger again, an old man with a crooked back and frightened eyes. But there was that moment. She was sure he’d recognized Matthew Lowther’s name.

“Go away. Leave me alone.” Joseph Thompson shuffled away from her, weaving around the tangle of tables and boxes. Etta followed. Before she could reach him, the old man exited through a door, which clapped shut behind him. A lock engaged. Etta halted in the middle of the room next to a tall wooden mask with a crack down the middle, which leaned against a stack of boxes.

A heater clicked on. Rain pattered against the windows. A buzzing coursed through Etta. She wiped at her tears with the back of her hand then wove around the boxes and pounded on the door. “Mr. Thompson, please.” She didn’t even know where it went. Maybe he was outside, in another building. She couldn’t control the sobs. Her voice sounded high-pitched, hysterical. “Matthew Lowther was murdered. My best friend disappeared. They’re trying to kill me. They’ll find you. They’ll find your family.” She collapsed into the door and thought she heard movement behind it, but it didn’t open. “You have to talk to me.”

Energy surged through Etta. She clenched her fists and pounded on the door again. “I know who your father was. I know Vincent Buchanan spied for the Japanese. I know he was a traitor.”

The door swung open. He was in a closet. A bare light bulb swung over his head, and inches behind him a wall safe stood open. He was clutching a box in both hands. “You don’t know anything.”

Etta’s entire body pulsed, the blood surging through it in waves. She could wrest it from his hands. He was an old man. How hard would it be? He looked frailer standing than he had when he was sitting, gravity dragging his spine down. But something about his face, the way it had sunken in on itself, the way his body curled toward the floor, made Etta step backward. “That’s it?” Her voice was a whisper.

“My uncle Katashi always said, ‘Let what is past flow downstream.’ You do not follow this advice either, I see.” The old man walked past her and shuffled toward the table. Etta followed. He sat and set the box on the table. He poured water in his teacup, his hand trembling then took a drink and licked at his thin lips. Etta sat across from him. “Tell me, why would a brave family live in shame?” he asked. He hardly opened his mouth when he talked, and his words came out with a slight lisp.

He gazed at her as though he was waiting for her to answer his question. Silence settled between them. When Etta couldn’t stand the sound of the heater and the rain anymore, she spoke. “Were Vincent Buchanan and Sakura Tanaka your parents?” She slid her fingers into her bag and pulled out the stack of books and papers inside. “Cherry Blossom” was on top. She wanted to tell him how beautiful his parents’ love story was. She wanted to show him Sakura’s letter, but she only sat staring, her hands shaking.

“Matthew Lowther.” He gazed at the short story. “He’s why you’ve come? I did not know him. He came to visit me once.”

Etta felt as though she would collapse, as she waited for him to speak again.

“He asked me to read what is in here.” He rested his withered hands on the box. “He said he would be publishing it and wanted me to read it first. He would return in two weeks. He told me it might be hard for me to read, that it would change the way I think of my family. I could not sleep for many days. Maybe I knew what was inside. Maybe I did not. I did not want to know. Then in a dream, my cousin Sakura came to me and told me a man would bring our family from the shadows.

“Sakura had been dead for a long time, and my father had just passed on after a long illness. That morning I awoke weeping. Then Mr. Lowther came, and I felt weightless. You might not understand this feeling, but I carried my ancestors with me every day. Then these two weeks, I could breathe again. We would stop living in shame.

“When Mr. Lowther returned, I would tell him to publish whatever he wished. But I would not read it. I worked in the store all day and stayed until long after the sun went down, pacing back and forth, watching the headlights pass by through the windows. He never arrived, and then I was relieved. I almost set this aflame that night. I had a match lit beneath it.” The old man dropped his eyes to the box.

Etta coughed against the spicy scent of incense easing its way in from the front room. “I don’t understand. Sakura wasn’t your mother?”

The man glanced at the curtain separating them from the front room. “That was the beginning of our lies. My mother was Sakura’s aunt, Yoshizaki Sinobu. I never knew her. She died in 1929, just after my family returned to Kyoto when I was only months old. From then on I lived with my aunt, my uncle Katashi, and my cousins Sakura, Miki, and Natsuki. It was not easy for my aunt and uncle to have a haafu in their home during that time. I brought them many years of shame.”

Etta rubbed her hands on her black slacks. “A haafu?”

“Mixed blood. Half and half.”

Etta gasped. “So Vincent Buchanan was your father?”

The old man smiled. It was the first time Etta had seen his expression change. “Vincent Buchanan was a deity. I met him once when I was a baby, when I was too young to remember such things. I only knew his loyalty was as wide as the Pacific Ocean. To my uncle Katashi, this man was not mortal. It was only many years later I discovered he was flesh-and-blood. He was my uncle.”