Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

by Jamie Ford

  Henry just smiled at his old friend. "I found something I thought you would like to have. Something I've been looking for--something you've been looking for--for years."

  Sheldon's wide, bloodshot eyes looked at Henry; youthful wonder filled out his sagging face. It was a look Henry hadn't seen in a long time.

  "You got a surprise for me, Henry?"

  Henry nodded, smiling. He knew that the old Oscar Holden record meant as much to Sheldon as it did to himself. Maybe for different reasons, but it meant the world to each of them. Oscar Holden had given Sheldon his big break back in 1942. He'd played with Holden for a year after the war ended and the club reopened. Then Sheldon had formed his own band when Oscar passed away years later. The street cred Oscar gave him landed him a lot of long-term gigs and even earned him a modest recording contract with a local label.

  "Well, I ain't getting any younger, and Christmas is coming," Sheldon said.

  "Now I found it, but there's one problem--it's going to need a little restoration before you can play it."

  "That don't matter none." As Sheldon spoke, a shaky finger tapped his forehead.

  "I still play that song in my head every night. I've heard it. I was there, remember?"

  Henry reached into his bag and pulled out the old 78 record, still in its original sleeve. He held it out to show Sheldon, reading him the words on the record label as his friend pawed the side table for his reading glasses. "Oscar Holden and ..."

  "The Midnight Blue." Sheldon finished Henry's sentence.

  Henry handed the record to his old friend, who draped it across his chest. His eyes closed as if he were listening to the music play somewhere, sometime, long ago.

  Waiting

  (1942)

  Henry woke up on a dingy, straw-filled mattress on the floor, hearing the rain leak through the roof and plip-plop into a half-full laundry basin in the middle of what was the Okabes' living room. To his right was a curtained area where Keiko and her little brother slept on one side, and her parents on the other.

  He could hear Keiko's mother snoring softly, along with the pinging of the rain on the tin roof--a relaxing, melodic sound that made Henry feel like he was still dreaming.

  Maybe it was a dream. Maybe he was really at home in his own bed, with his window overlooking Canton Alley, the window cracked open despite the wishes of his mother.

  Henry closed his eyes and inhaled, smelling the rain but not the fishy, salty air of Seattle.

  He was here. He had made it all the way to Minidoka. He'd made it even farther, all the way to Keiko's house.

  She didn't want him to leave, and he didn't want to go. So he'd met Keiko on the other side of the visitors' building. Everything was designed to keep people from escaping, not to keep people from sneaking in. And much to Henry's surprise, he didn't even have to try very hard. He'd just told a surprised yet approving Sheldon that he would meet him the next day, grabbed a stack of schoolbooks being carried by a group of Quaker schoolteachers, and followed them in past the guards. For once in his life, there was a benefit to Caucasian people thinking that he was one of them-- that he was Japanese.

  Henry rolled over, rubbing his eyes, and froze midyawn. Keiko was lying in her bed, facing him, her chin propped up on her arms and her pillow, staring at him. Her hair was messy, hanging down and sticking out at odd angles, yet somehow it just worked.

  She smiled, and Henry came alive. He couldn't believe he was here. Even more than that, he couldn't believe that her parents were okay with him being here. His would have thrown him out probably. But she'd said it would be okay and somehow it was. Her parents had looked flattered and strangely honored to have a guest in their makeshift home, surrounded by barbed wire, searchlights, and machine-gun towers.

  When Keiko had walked in, Henry could barely bring himself to step through the door. Her parents were bewildered and flattered that Henry had come all this way, but somehow, they didn't seem too surprised. He gathered that Keiko hadn't forgotten about him. In fact, it may have been quite the opposite.

  Henry turned around so he was closer to Keiko, wrapping the hand-sewn quilt around him as he lay down facing her. She was a few feet away, brushing the hair from her eyes.

  "I dreamed you came to see me last night," Keiko whispered. "I dreamed you came all this way because you missed me. And when I woke up, I was so sure it was a dream, and then I looked over and there you were."

  "I can't believe I'm here. I can't believe your parents--"

  "Henry, this isn't about us. I mean it is, but they don't define you by the button you wear. They define you by what you do, by what your actions say about you. And coming here, despite your parents, says a lot to them--and me. And they're Americans first. They don't see you as the enemy. They see you as a person."

  The words were a strange comfort. Was this acceptance? Was that what this was?

  The sense of belonging was foreign to him, something alien and awkward, like writing with your left hand or putting your pants on inside out. Henry looked at her parents sleeping. They seemed more restful here, in this cold, wet place, than his own parents in their warm, cozy home.

  "I'll have to leave today. Sheldon and I have a bus to catch tonight."

  "I know. I knew you couldn't stay forever. Besides, one of the other families might turn us in. You're a secret we wouldn't be able to keep forever."

  "Can you keep a secret?" Henry asked.

  Keiko sat up. That must have got her attention, Henry thought as she fluffed the pillow in her lap, pulling her blanket around her shoulders. She held up two fingers.

  "Scout's honor, Kemosabe."

  "I came here thinking I'd be sneaking you out, not you sneaking me in."

  "And how were you going to do that?"

  "I don't know. I guess I thought I'd give you my button, like at the train station--"

  "You are the sweetest, Henry. And I wish I could, I really do. But you're going to be in enough trouble when you get home. If you came home with me, you'd really get it.

  We'd both be thrown in jail.

  "Do

  you want to know a secret?"

  Henry liked this game, nodding.

  "I would go. So don't ask, because I would go back with you. I'd try anyway."

  Henry was flattered. Touched even. The meaning sank in.

  "Then I guess I'll just wait for you."

  "And I'll write," Keiko said.

  "This can't last forever, right?"

  They both turned toward the window, looking out at the nearby buildings through the rain-streaked glass. Keiko lost her smile.

  "I don't care how long. I'll wait for you," Henry said.

  Keiko's mother stopped snoring and stirred, waking up. She looked at Henry, confused for a moment, then smiled brightly. "Good morning, Henry. How's it feel to be a prisoner for a day?"

  Henry looked at Keiko. "Best day of my life."

  Keiko found her smile all over again.

  Breakfast with Keiko's family was rice and tamago-- eggs, hard-boiled. It wasn't fancy, but it was filling, and Henry enjoyed it immensely. The Okabes seemed happy to be settled into someplace more permanent than the ramshackle horse stalls of the Puyallup Fairgrounds. Keiko's mother made a pot of tea while her father read a newspaper printed inside the camp. Aside from the simple confines and their modest clothing, they seemed like any other American family.

  "Is it nice not having to go to the mess hall all the time?" Henry tried his best to make polite table conversation in English.

  "On rainy days, it's always nice," Keiko's mother said, smiling between bites.

  "I still can't believe I'm here. Thank you."

  "There are almost four thousand of us here now, Henry, and you're our first guest, we're delighted," Mr. Okabe said. "There's supposed to be another six thousand coming in the next month, can you believe that?"

  Ten thousand? It was a number that still seemed unimaginable to Henry. "With that many people, what's to keep you from just taking over the
camp?"

  Mr. Okabe poured his wife another cup of tea. "Ah, that's a very profound question, Henry. And it's one I've thought about. There are probably two hundred guards and army personnel--and there are so many of us. Even if you counted just the men, we'd have a whole regiment in here. You know what keeps us from doing just that?"

  Henry shook his head. He had no idea.

  "Loyalty.

  We're

  still loyal to the United States of America. Why? Because we too are Americans. We don't agree, but we will show our loyalty by our obedience. Do you understand, Henry?"

  All Henry could do was sigh and nod. He knew that concept all too well.

  Painfully well. Obedience as a sign of loyalty, as an expression of honor, even as an act of love, was a well-worn theme in his household. Especially between him and his father.

  But that wasn't the case now, was it? Did I cause my father's stroke? Was it brought on by my disobedience? As much as Henry reasoned otherwise, he had a hard time convincing himself the answer was no. His guilt remained.

  "But even that's not enough for them," Keiko's mother added.

  "It's true, in a way," Mr. Okabe said, sipping his tea. "There is a rumor that the War Relocation Authority plans to have each male seventeen and over sign an oath of loyalty to the United States."

  "Why?" Henry asked, confused. "How can they put you here and then expect you to swear an oath of loyalty to them?"

  Keiko broke in. "Because they want us to go to war for them. They want to draft men to fight the Germans."

  That made about as much sense to Henry as his father sending him to an all-white school wearing an "I am Chinese" button.

  "And we would go, gladly. I would go," Mr. Okabe said. "Many of us offered to join the army right after the bombings at Pearl Harbor. Most were refused, many were attacked outright."

  "But why would you do that, why would you want to?" Henry asked.

  Mr. Okabe laughed. "Look around you, Henry. It's not like we're living on Park Avenue. And anything I could do to help ease the suffering, and even more, the scrutiny and dishonor done to my family, I would do that. Many of us would do that. But what's more, for some, the only way we can prove we are American is to bleed for America's cause--despite what's being done to us. In fact, it's even more important, in the face of what's been done."

  Henry began to understand and appreciate the sentiment within that complex web of injustice and contradiction. "When are they going to let you fight?" he asked.

  Mr. Okabe didn't know, but he suspected it wouldn't be long after the completion of the camp. Once their labor here was done, they could be used elsewhere.

  "Enough about all that fighting, Henry," Keiko's mother interrupted. "We need to figure out how we're going to get you out of here today."

  "She's right," said Mr. Okabe. "We're honored that you would come all this way to court Keiko, but it is a very dangerous place. We're so used to it that the soldiers seem normal to us. But there was a shooting a week before we arrived here."

  Henry blanched a little, feeling the color drain from his face. He wasn't sure what made him more nervous: that his being here was considered part of a formal courtship, which he supposed it was, or that someone had been shot.

  "Um, I suppose I haven't asked permission ...," Henry said.

  "To leave?" said Keiko's mother.

  "No. Permission to court your daughter." Henry reminded himself again that he was now the same age his father had been when he was betrothed to his mother. "May I?"

  Henry felt awkward and strange. Not because he still felt so young but because he'd grown up with the Chinese tradition of a go-between-- someone who would act as a mediator between families. Traditional courtship involved an exchange of gifts from family to family, tokens of betrothal. None of that was possible now.

  Mr. Okabe gave him a proud look, the kind Henry always wished his father had given him. "Henry, you have been incredibly honorable in your intentions toward my daughter, and you are a constant help to us as a family. You have my full permission--as if being here sleeping on our floor wasn't permission enough."

  Henry perked up, disbelieving what he had asked and what he'd heard in reply. He grimaced a bit as he worried about his father, then saw Keiko smiling at him from across the table. She reached over and poured Henry a fresh cup of tea, offering it to him.

  "Thank you. For everything." Henry sipped his tea still stunned. The Okabes were so casual and relaxed, so American. Even in the way they mentioned the terrible things that happened to them at Camp Minidoka.

  "What was that about a shooting?" Henry asked.

  "Oh that ..." The way Mr. Okabe said it made it sound all the more strange. It was obviously something bad, but he was so used to living with the pain. Living here must do that to a person, Henry thought.

  "A man, I think his name was Okamoto, was shot for stopping a construction truck from going the wrong way. One of the soldiers escorting the convoy shot him.

  Killed him right there," Mr. Okabe said, swallowing hard.

  "What happened to him?" Henry asked. "The soldier, not the man who was shot."

  "Nothing. They fined him for unauthorized use of government property, and that was it."

  Henry felt the silence settle heavily on all of them.

  "What use? What property?" he asked after a moment.

  Mr. Okabe choked up as he looked to his wife and drew a deep breath.

  "The bullet, Henry." Keiko's mother finished the story. "He was fined for the unauthorized use of the bullet that killed Mr. Okamoto."

  Farewell

  (1942)

  Since it was Saturday, Keiko had no school, and since Henry was a very special visitor, her parents let her skip her chores for the day---just this once. So while her mother did the laundry and the mending, and her father helped new families settle in on their block, Henry sat on the steps outside their building and talked to Keiko for the better part of the afternoon. If there had been a more quiet, more romantic part of the camp, they would have found it. But there wasn't a park, or even a tree taller than a shrub for that matter. So they sat on cement blocks, side by side, their feet touching.

  "When are you leaving?" Keiko asked.

  "I'm going to leave with the volunteers when the five-thirty whistle blows. I'll just cluster in with them at the gate, wear my button, and hope to get through. That's where Sheldon will be meeting me, so at least I'll have someone to vouch for me."

  "And what if you get caught?"

  "That wouldn't be so bad, would it? I'd get to stay here with you."

  Keiko smiled and rested her head on Henry's shoulder. "I'm going to miss you."

  "Me too," Henry said. "But I'll be waiting for you when this is all over."

  "What if it's years?"

  "I'll still wait. Besides, I need time to get a good job and save money." Henry could hardly believe what he was saying. A year ago, he'd been working in the kitchen of Rainier Elementary. Now he was talking about taking care of someone. It sounded so grown-up and somewhat frightening. He hadn't even dated Keiko, really, not when they were both on the outside of the fences. But a courtship could take a year, or several years.

  Even in his family, where his parents often argued over the tradition of using a matchmaker for Henry, nothing was decided. Would they even let him date American girls? It didn't matter now that his father was so frail. Despite Henry's guilt, he would have to make his own decisions from now on. He'd follow the intent of his own heart.

  "How long will you wait for me, Henry?"

  "As long as it takes, I don't care what my father says."

  "What if I'm an old woman?" Keiko said, laughing. "What if I'm in here until I'm old and my hair is gray--"

  "Then I'll bring you a cane."

  "You'd wait for me?"

  Henry smiled, nodded, and took Keiko's hand. He didn't even look, their two hands just seemed to fall together. They spent the better part of the day beneath that cloudy sky. Henry l
ooked up expecting rain, but the wind, which kept them a little chilly, blew the clouds south of the camp. There would be no more rain.

  As the hours passed, they talked about music, Oscar Holden, and what life would be like when Keiko's family came back to Seattle. Henry couldn't bear to tell her that Nihonmachi was disappearing. Building by building and block by block, it was being transformed, bought out and renovated. He wondered how much, if anything, would be left by the time they got out. The Panama Hotel, like the rest of Japantown, was boarded up now, slumbering like a patient in a coma--you never knew if they would sit up, or just drift off and never wake up again.

  As the evening shift changed for the many volunteers who worked inside Camp Minidoka, Henry said good-bye to Keiko's family once again. Her little brother even seemed to regard Henry with a sense of longing. I guess even he knows I have a