Clark and Division

by Naomi Hirahara

  When I finally arrived back at the apartment, I was expecting my parents to be upset that I had been gone so long. Instead, they assumed that I had been having such a good time with my friends that I lost track of time. If they knew the truth, I would probably be prohibited from leaving the apartment for the rest of our stay in Chicago.

  After my parents were asleep, I tried to call Nancy a couple times, but every time I did, the person on the other end hung up on me when I introduced myself. I had become an anathema in the Kowalski household.

  The next morning, when I reported for work, our supervisor, Mrs. Cannon, came by the desk. “Miss Kowalski has resigned. We’ll be finding her a replacement soon.”

  Phillis and I exchanged glances.

  “What happened yesterday?” hissed Phillis after Mrs. Cannon had left.

  I gestured for her to follow me into a back room. “You were right, Phillis. Nancy had no business coming with me to Dr. McGrath’s office.” As I recounted everything that had happened on Sunday afternoon, Phillis’s dark eyes widened and her mouth fell open.

  One of the library’s pages delivered a stack of newspapers for us to prepare for patron circulation. I immediately noticed the headline on the front page, two physicians seized in abortion raid, and began reading the story. Phillis was doing the same with another Chicago newspaper. “This is not good,” Phillis said. “This is not good at all.”

  I was relieved at least that the only suspects mentioned by name were Dr. McGrath and his associate. “Nancy got off on bail. I’m sure that the police will drop all charges against her. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Sometimes being in the wrong place at the wrong time is the worst thing possible,” she said.

  As we perused the newspapers, Professor Rip Van Winkle rapped the desk. “Is Miss Kowalski here today?” he asked.

  Nancy was his favorite. Professor Rip Van Winkle, whose real name was Alexander Muller, was a retired professor with a grizzly beard long enough to braid. Nancy was the only one among us three to listen to his stories about the Lincoln presidency and North-South divide.

  “No, she won’t be in today. In fact, she’s resigned.”

  The retired academician staggered back a few steps. “She mentioned nothing to me. What has happened?”

  I absorbed his dismay. This wouldn’t do at all.

  I shrugged and fetched the books that he had requested. By the time I returned to the desk I knew what I had to do.

  “Phillis, you have to call her,” I insisted. “No one in her house will accept my calls.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Please. I know that you don’t want to be involved, but this is about Nancy and this job. And you said that we’re friends.”

  Phillis pursed her lips. She was not the type to say anything that wasn’t true, and the fact that I was repeating her exact words weighed heavily on her.

  “Fine,” she said. “During our break.”

  Phillis went to the rotary phone, which was reserved for calls to academic institutions. I looked in my notebook and recited the Kowalski phone number. Phillis, who had elegant fingers but unusual flat-shaped fingernails, took her time dialing the numbers. I waited patiently as the circular dial turned back in place before the next number in the sequence was selected. When the dialing was completed, I put my ear next to Phillis’s by the receiver.

  “Hello.” Nancy’s voice sounded uncharacteristically subdued.

  “Nancy, it’s Phillis. What happened? Why did you quit?”

  “Hold on, okay?” We heard some muffled voices in the background with Nancy telling someone, “It’s Phillis from work.” Returning to the phone conversation, she explained, “My parents said that as long as Aki is working at the Newberry, I can’t work there anymore.”

  I was aghast. The good news was that the charges were being dropped against Nancy. The bad news: the police had confiscated her camera.

  I grabbed the receiver from Phillis’s grip. “Nancy, it’s me. Come back to work. They won’t have to worry about you being around me.”

  Nancy didn’t reply, but I heard movement and footsteps. Finally, she whispered, “How did you get the money for my bail?”

  “Don’t worry about that. I was responsible. You were doing me a great favor.” I swallowed, fully understanding the ramifications of what I would say next. “I’m going to quit working here, Nancy. You can come back.”

  Nancy hemmed and hawed, but I insisted. “I’m thinking of going to college, anyway,” I said, surprising myself. I had announced to the Nakasone family that I wanted to become a nurse. Maybe this was the time for me to do so.

  The head librarian, Mr. Geiger, didn’t quite know what to make of my announcement that I was going to resign. He removed his reading glasses, sat back in his chair and studied me from the other side of his expansive desk. “Has something happened in the department?” he asked.

  “Nancy Kowalski is coming back; that’s all that I can say,” I said. “And I will be leaving. I’m hoping to go back to college.”

  Mr. Geiger pulled at his sideburns. “We’ll miss you, Miss Ito,” he proclaimed. “You’ve been an asset to the library.”

  As I gathered my purse and brown-bag lunch to leave, Phillis watched from a distance behind a stack of monographs, looking almost betrayed. We had become an odd yet complementary threesome over these past five months. Our kinship was hard-earned and I had managed to throw it away on one Sunday afternoon.

  I wasn’t sure what I would tell my parents. They knew how fond I was of working at the Newberry and they boasted about my job to other Issei they met at the temple or English conversation classes. I was relieved to come home to an empty apartment without any pressure to devise a story. I took a brown-water bath and tried to pretend that I was soaking in tea instead of who-knows-what.

  While I was in the bathtub, I heard a rapping on our door but ignored it. I figured if it was important enough, the same person would return. After dressing myself in my striped dress, I went to the door and checked to see if anything had been left for us in the hallway. As it turned out, there was a white envelope placed against the wall.

  The envelope was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Gitaro Ito. The return address was the Chicago Coroner’s Office. It had been five months since Rose’s death, and I couldn’t imagine why they were communicating with us now. Unable to wait for my parents, I opened the envelope—not carefully with a knife as my father would have done, but by ripping it. I pulled out the contents, a two-page pathological report, from the jagged mouth of the envelope.

  As in the death certificate, cardiac arrest was listed as the medical cause of death. The force of the subway car had severed the brachial artery in Rose’s arm, leading to death in a matter of minutes. I was thankful, at least, that Rose hadn’t suffered long. The coroner reiterated that she had committed suicide by intentionally flinging herself into the path of the oncoming subway car. There was no evidence of the incident being an accident or the result of foul play, the coroner stated. I let out a breath of contempt. Had the coroner done any kind of investigation to come to that conclusion?

  I scanned the second page. There was nothing about Rose’s abortion.

  I remembered that in my meeting with the coroner, he had insisted that he had to include the procedure in his report. Had he had a change of heart? But why five months later? I checked—the report had been amended with yesterday’s date. It didn’t make sense.

  As I sat at the table, staring at water dripping from our leaky faucet, someone knocked at our door. Perhaps the same person who had left the report? I quickly went to the door and opened it without even asking who was there. It turned out to be a big hakujin man in a dark-blue uniform carrying a heavy canvas bag over his shoulder.

  “Iceman,” he announced. He had a full mustache the color of butterscotch and his chest was wide like a
n anvil.

  “Oh, is that today?” I said stupidly. I was unaware of our household schedule since I usually worked during the day.

  “You must be the daughter,” the iceman said, walking toward our Coolerator. He removed the leftover ice and put it in our sink before easily lifting the full block from his sack and placing it in the top compartment.

  “My parents didn’t tell me.”

  “Monday of every week. Came a little early today, so I’m glad you’re here,” he said. He had lines on his forehead and on the sides of his cheeks. He might have been a decade younger than my father. “Do you have the coupon?”

  “Ah, coupon.” I knew that my mother had purchased some kind of coupon book for the iceman. I looked through our one drawer in the kitchen. There it was, Booth’s Ice, in red ink. I paged through the book and found tickets in the back, each stating 20 lb. on the edge.

  I carefully tore out one of the tickets and handed it to him. As I did, something on the ticket seemed so familiar. That 20 in red ink—wasn’t it the same typeface as was on that piece of paper in Rose’s diary?

  His work boots scraped our linoleum floor as he made his way to our door. Before he left, I asked him, “By the way, does your company have any Japanese icemen?”

  He turned, the lines on his forehead becoming deeper. “No one full-time. But we do have a Japanese boy who helps us from time to time. He has another job, too. He’s the desk clerk at the Mark Twain Hotel.”

  The muscular Nisei with the curly hair—what was his name? Ken, Kenichi, no, Keizo. I was lost in my thoughts and didn’t notice at first that the iceman had left. I ran to the bedroom and pulled out the envelope that I had left in my purse. Taking it to the dining-room table, I fished out the ripped stub, the piece of evidence that had been left behind. I compared it to the tickets in the ice company’s coupon book. A perfect match. Had Keizo been the one who had taken my sister away from me?

  Chapter 24

  I stood outside the Mark Twain Hotel, glancing at my notebook as if I was waiting for someone on the corner. Instead of Keizo, a middle-aged hakujin man with a funny nose that looked smashed in was at the front desk, organizing some papers on the counter. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I saw Keizo. I wanted to look into his eyes and see what he would do—avert his gaze in shame and guilt, or perhaps stare coldly with no trace of humanity.

  “Aki, what are you doing out here?” Peggy had her hands full with a bundle of shampoo smocks and a bag of folded towels.

  “Oh, let me help you.” I put the notebook in my purse and took the bag from her.

  As we walked into the lobby, I searched for Keizo perhaps hiding in the wings. My imagination was getting the best of me.

  I waited for Peggy to open the door of her shop. Once we were in, she turned on the lights and dropped the smocks onto an open chair.

  “You’re a lifesaver,” she said, taking the bag from me. “I hope I didn’t keep you from something important. Were you meeting someone?”

  My heart started racing and I tried to slow down my thoughts. I didn’t want to say anything improper in front of this woman whom I had become so fond of. “I was wondering, how well do you know the Nisei boy that works the front desk? Keizo?”

  “You’re not dating him, are you?” Peggy’s usual sunny face took on a grim expression.

  “Oh, no.”

  Peggy looked relieved. “I didn’t want to say anything. I think he’s a bit troubled. He’s scared some of my customers, the young ones. He actually followed one of them to her apartment, can you believe that? I had to have a talk with him a couple of weeks ago, and now he stays away from me.” She went to put on her beautician’s smock, which was hanging from the wall. “Why are you asking?”

  I didn’t want to reveal too much, because I was only going by my hunch and had no evidence. “He has some information that I need about iceboxes. Do you know where he lives?”

  Peggy shook her head. “I really don’t know much about him at all. I don’t even know his last name.”

  I wondered if I should try to speak to his manager or maybe a co-worker. I had to be careful, because I didn’t want to tip him off in any way.

  “Here, get into a chair. I’d like to trim the sides of your hair. It’s getting a bit shaggy. Free of charge.”

  I tried to politely refuse but Peggy was insistent. She considered it her mission to make sure that my hair was in the best possible shape. A few snips here and there, and my face instantaneously appeared thinner. Peggy was a magician with her hair clippers. Being alone with her in the shop like this made me want to share my secret. “I’m engaged,” I blurted out.

  “What?” Peggy grabbed my hands to look at my ring finger and I blushed.

  “Ah, we’re not telling anyone. That’s why I’m not wearing the ring,” I lied.

  “Who is he?”

  “His name is Art Nakasone. He’s actually from Chicago. He got drafted so he’s away at basic training.”

  “Oh, honey, that must be so hard for you.”

  So much had happened lately that I hadn’t had much time to really miss Art. I began to worry that meant something was wrong with our relationship.

  “Is that why you wanted a Lana Turner hairdo the other day?”

  I nodded.

  “I thought it was for someone special.” She dusted the loose hair off my smock before taking it off. “I won’t tell a soul. I’m good at keeping secrets.”

  Peggy had confirmed that Keizo was worth scrutiny, but where could I find him? The Nisei weren’t staying put long enough to have telephones, and if they did, they wouldn’t be listed in the phone book. I stopped by the front desk after getting cleaned up by Peggy. The snub-nosed worker had big bulging eyes, which made him look like a sick goldfish. When I asked about Keizo, he responded with a blank stare.

  “You know, the Japanese fellow. He works here.” I tried my best not to sound exasperated.

  “Oh, he’s off today.”

  “Do you have a home address for him? Maybe a last name?”

  “He keeps to himself,” the desk clerk declared and moved on to a guest waiting behind me.

  Harriet would have been my next choice in getting information about a Nisei resettler, but after the fiasco surrounding Nancy’s arrest, I wasn’t sure how open she’d be to my prying. Still, I had to determine if Rose was connected to Keizo, so I trekked to my sister’s old apartment. I didn’t expect anyone to be home, but I went there anyway, just to check.

  After I knocked, Louise swung open the door. She was dolled up in an adorable copper-colored jumpsuit and had a flowered scarf around her head. “Aki! I haven’t seen you in ages. I’m off to meet Joey.”

  “Oh, I wanted to ask you about something.”

  “I’m walking over to the Olivet.” Louise locked the door behind her. “Come with me and we can talk on the way there.” Olivet Institute was located about a mile away at 1441 North Cleveland in Old Town, where Joey both worked and lived. The Olivet was a social service agency that had previously worked with Italian immigrant youth before the Nisei arrived en masse. Joey was an early Japanese American hire and now he was reaching out to young Nisei boys.

  Louise’s stride was long and quick; I was practically running to keep up. “How’s Art doing?” she asked.

  “I think he’s lost some weight.” I thought about his last letter: I’m down ten pounds, darling. I wonder if you’ll recognize me.

  “He didn’t have much to lose in the first place.”

  “It’s all that running in basic training.”

  “I bet you miss him like mad.”

  Again, another reminder that my affection for my fiancé might be lacking.

  We stopped at a busy intersection and waited for the light to turn green. Louise readjusted the knot in her scarf that was tied at the nape of her neck. “You wanted to talk to
me about something?”

  I caught my breath. “What iceman do you use?”

  Louise wrinkled her nose at my ridiculously mundane question. “We use Booth’s Ice. Why?”

  “Do you remember a Nisei boy coming around from the company?”

  We started crossing the street.

  “A Nisei? No, I’ve solely dealt with Mr. Booth.”

  So much for my suspicion.

  “Wait a minute, there was a Nisei who would come sometimes. Last year, when Rose, Tomi and I were all living together.”

  “Was his name Keizo?”

  “I don’t know. He stopped coming around this winter. I never really talked to him but I handled his deliveries because I was the one most likely to be home in the mornings. We can ask Joey if he knows him. He knows everyone.”

  By this time, we had arrived at Olivet’s gym, one of its main features. Joey was playing basketball with a handful of high-school students, both Italian and Nisei. Somehow all his awkwardness disappeared when he was on the court, catching the basketball and throwing it toward the hoop.

  Placing her hands in her jumpsuit’s pockets, Louise slouched against the wall and grinned at him. I wouldn’t be surprised if they officially announced their engagement soon.

  After their game was over and the group dispersed, Joey wiped the sweat dripping down his face with a white towel that had olivet stamped on it. “Hi, Aki,” he finally acknowledged me.

  “You’re pretty good.”

  “Do you know anything about basketball?”

  “You’re supposed to get the ball into the hoop, I know that much. And you did it a couple of times.”

  “Aki’s not here to cheer you on, Joey,” Louise interrupted. “She wanted to ask you about a Nisei iceman.”

  “An iceman?”

  “His name is Keizo. He also works the desk at the Mark Twain Hotel.”

  Joey shook his head. “Sorry. Should I know him?”

  “I wonder if Hammer would know him,” I mused out loud. “Or maybe Manju.”

  When I mentioned Manju’s name, Joey and Louise exchanged looks.