by John Lutz
She sat upright. “Laker, pull over.”
“I can’t.”
They were crossing the Hudson on the Tappan Zee Bridge. There was no shoulder, and traffic was heavy but moving fairly fast. He glanced at Ava. She was leaning forward, hands clasped and squeezed between her thighs, her whole being transformed into a dart of eagerness.
“What is it?”
“I have to get something in the trunk. In my suitcase.”
“What?”
“The key text. I just realized. I’ve had it all along.”
They were still on the first section of the bridge, the trestled roadway low over the river, climbing slowly and sweeping in a broad curve to the cantilevered section, a framework of girders high above the middle of the Hudson. The sun had sunk below the hills on the far side. The water was black beneath them. For the moment there was nothing to do but follow tail lights. Ava was muttering to herself with impatience.
“You sure about this?” he asked.
“Yes. I’ve realized my mistake. I thought, this is a message from my grandmother to me. The encoding is only to keep others out. But it was meant to keep me out, too. For a while.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Tillie was a Washington operator for fifty years. She knew that when a secret has to come out, you’ve got to prepare the ground, time the release of information, control the story.”
“But this message was for you, not the DC press corps.”
“She wanted to keep me on her side. Even if she had something . . . something awful to tell me. She didn’t want me to know the whole truth, until I’d been to Honolulu, learned about Jenkins and Mannion and what they put her through. About Hirochi Ryo and her love for him.”
“You mean the key text is something you stumbled on in Honolulu?”
“Right. One of the addresses where she and Ryo met—the building wasn’t there anymore, but across the street was an old church from the missionary era. It was the first building I’d seen that would have been there in 1941, so I went to look at it. On the wall were some lines, some kind of exhortation to the faithful. I figured Tillie could have read them, so I wrote them down.”
In the middle of the bridge, traffic slowed to a crawl and he feared she was going to jump out of the car and run around to the trunk, but she waited stoically, digging the heels of her palms into her jeans-clad thighs. Eventually the jam opened up and they coasted down the long slope of the bridge to the other bank. As soon as the road shoulder appeared, he pulled over and clicked the trunk release. Ava was already out of her seat, leaving the door open.
In a moment she was back, with her notebook and the typed sheets of the coded message. “Here’s the cite. Matthew 22: 37–39.”
He handed her the smart phone he’d bought on the way back from the car rental office. “I expect you want to download Chapter 22 of St. Matthew’s gospel.”
“Yes. Thanks. The decoding is going to take a while. You might as well drive on.”
He checked his mirrors and pulled into the traffic lane. A mile went by. She hadn’t pushed any buttons on the phone yet. He glanced sideways at her.
She took a deep shuddering breath. “Grandma figured I would be ready to learn everything now. I hope she was right.”
29
April 2, 1942
In the lush hills of Oahu, Tillie has never seen a place so bleak as Honouliuli Camp. The rain forest has been scraped away, leaving hillsides bare except for scrub and tree stumps. The floor of the valley is covered with straight rows of wooden huts and canvas tents. The area is surrounded by twelve-foot-tall fences topped with barbed wire.
The bus she is riding in stops. Half a dozen MPs are waiting. The rims of their steel helmets shadow their eyes. Their M-1 rifles are slung. The door folds open and the visitors rise and descend. The MPs set them in line, roughly handling them, saying nothing. They seem to think these people, mostly Hawaiians of Japanese descent, can’t speak English. Tillie wonders what they make of the one white woman in the group. Perhaps nothing.
In single file between the soldiers, they walk along the fence to a long Quonset hut. Tillie feels dizzy. She hopes she will not faint. She gave birth only four days ago. She feels not lightened but empty. Her strength is not returning; her confused body is directing its resources to the production of unneeded milk. Reflexively she looks down the front of her dress for stains.
After the glare of the noonday sun, it seems dim inside the hut, and stuffy. She labors to breathe in the press of sweaty bodies. There are long rows of wooden tables with benches. Picnic tables, probably moved from some seaside park that is now an observation post or machine-gun nest. Hawaii still lives in fear of Japanese invasion. They are ordered to sit. Tillie lifts one leg over the bench, an awkward movement in her long, tight skirt. It feels good to sit. The visitors become still, and now the buzzing of flies can be heard.
There is an addition to the rough wooden planks of the tables, a foot-tall metal barrier, on which is stenciled DO NOT REACH BEYOND.
Good advice, Tillie thinks. Reaching beyond was her mistake. Not contenting herself with what was expected of a girl of her class. Refusing her family’s insistence that she go husband-hunting on the mainland. Accepting the Navy’s call to serve her country. The vital job that only she could do, as Jennings and Mannion had put it.
Look where it has gotten her.
She squares her shoulders. Blinks and swallows. Hirochi is not going to find her in tears.
The prisoners—internees, she corrects herself—are filing in under heavy guard. There are happy exclamations as relatives see each other. Soon a roar of English, Hawaiian, and Japanese fills the Quonset hut to its curved metal roof. From both sides of the barrier hands reach toward one another, hesitate, are withdrawn.
Hirochi is standing opposite her. How tall he is. She’d almost forgotten. He has lost a lot of weight and his cheekbones seem sharper, his dark eyes more prominent. He has a rough prison haircut, semi-circles of bare skin showing above his ears, a spiky forelock projecting from his brow. He wears the same blue denim uniform as the other prisoners. Internees.
Sitting down, he places both hands flat on the table, fingers stretched toward her. She aligns her own fingers with his. They smile.
“You are as sweet a sight as ever. Your wonderful blue eyes.”
The face so Japanese. The voice as American as her own. She’s as startled as the first time she heard him speak. It has been a long time since she last saw him.
He stops smiling. “I hope you didn’t suffer much.”
“Not enough, according to the nursing sisters. They were disappointed I didn’t pay the full wages of my sin.”
“And the child?”
“A healthy girl. They let me see her. She takes after you.”
“Unfortunate, considering the times.”
“They told me there are many children of mixed race at the orphanage. But she will be raised an American and an Episcopalian. She will never know our names or anything about us.”
Hirochi asks no more questions. Which is good, because she’s told him all she knows. Their daughter has been born into even more unpromising circumstances than other illegitimate children. Lawyers for the Navy and the North family have agreed that the wall of secrecy that will separate her from her mother all their lives will have no chinks.
“How are you?” she asks. “So many months, locked up in this dreadful place.”
“I have no complaints against the American authorities. If they hadn’t arrested me on the morning of December 7, I would’ve been lynched by nightfall. And I deserve to be here. I’m the enemy. The rest of these poor people have done nothing wrong. They’ve been locked up only because they had a Japanese parent or grandparent. Tadashi Kurita is here, you know. In the bunkhouse next to mine.”
She nods. She’s heard that the friend who’d provided them with his beautiful house in the mountains for their trysting place was interned. She says, “Any idea how much longer
you’ll be here?”
“My status changed December 7. From diplomat to bargaining chip. Washington and Tokyo are negotiating an exchange of internees. I can only wait.”
“I hope you wait a long time.” She probably shouldn’t say this, but can’t help herself. “Even if they never let us see each other again, I like to think of you here. Safe.”
“I’m eager to resume my work. My real work.”
They gaze into each other’s eyes. They can say no more. It’s unlikely, but not impossible, that the wizened grandmother sitting next to her, weeping as she talks to her son, is an agent who will report their conversation.
She knows what his real work is. For the Communist cause. When she told him she was pregnant, all barriers dropped between them. They shared every secret. They never had any hope of a future together. That only made it more important that they love and trust each other for whatever time they had.
He says, “My guess is that I’ll be sent back fairly soon.”
She bows her head to hide her expression. Only now does she realize how afraid she is for him. The risk of exposure and death he will run every day in Tokyo.
“You will be leaving soon yourself,” Hirochi says. “Going back to the mainland.”
“I suppose. Now that the baby’s born. I don’t much care, really. But there’s a job waiting for me. They arranged it as a reward for services rendered. Jenkins and Mannion, I mean.”
Hirochi’s eyes narrow in warning. If the wizened grandmother is a spy, it was Jenkins and Mannion who sent her. As a professional, Hirochi disapproves of her indiscretion. She doesn’t care. “It’s Rear Admiral Jenkins and Captain Mannion now. I’m sure they’re happy there’s a war on. Good for their careers. Mine, too. They’ve arranged for me to be a secretary at the Navy Department in Washington.”
Hirochi takes this in. “Your family—”
“Safe and sound in Boston. Ready to welcome me back into the fold. They’re happy there’s a war on, too. It’ll drown out any whispers of my scandalous affair, they hope.”
Hirochi is looking thoughtful. After a moment he smiles and says, “Washington. I enjoyed my time there. It will make me happy to think of you in Washington. The city will offer limitless opportunities to a person of your talents.”
“Please. No. I can’t bear to think about the future.”
“Not now. But you have a long and glorious life ahead of you. I’m sure of it.” He hesitated again. “That is why I must burden you with something.”
She pushes herself back on the bench. Away from him. She has an idea what he means. It terrifies her. “No,” she says.
“Ah,” he says, in a cheery tone meant to mislead an eavesdropper, if there is one. “You know what I mean.”
He can only be talking about the names of the American officers he has recruited to serve the Soviet Union. She knows they exist, but that is all. She’s made sure to learn as little as possible.
“I think, I hope that you’ll never have to take any action in this matter.” His tone is bland, as if he’s talking about a minor chore that bores him. He’s a professional. She’s not. “But if for any reason I’m unable to—”
“Don’t say that. I won’t—I can’t take this responsibility. You know what will happen to them if I ever—”
“No. I don’t know.”
His eyes implore her to say no more. So she keeps silent. Considers his words and realizes he’s right. There’s no telling what would happen to the men if she revealed their names. When they said yes to Hirochi, they committed treason. Agreed to serve a feared and hated enemy nation. But now Russia and America are allies against Germany. Soon Russia may join America against Japan. Does that mean the men are no longer traitors?
“The only thing I can predict about the future,” Hirochi says, “is that you will see it.”
No point in hesitating any longer. She can refuse him nothing. With the slightest nod, she accepts.
“Thanks,” he says, in the casual tone meant to fool a listener. “Just ask Bette for the briefcase I left with her.”
Now the MPs are moving down the aisles between tables, shouting. Visiting time is over. The roar of talk around Tillie stops for a moment, then resumes, even louder, as people rush to say the last things that need to be said.
Hirochi leans closer. Earnestly, softly, he says, “It’s good to have a secret. To know something more important than yourself. It gets you through the days, however you feel.”
The MPs are beginning to grasp internees by the arms, to pull them to their feet. Hirochi doesn’t wait for them to come to him. He rises and turns away, and doesn’t look back.
Tillie stands. Waits for the dizziness to pass, clambers ungracefully over the bench. Tomorrow she will go see Bette, Tadashi Kurita’s secretary, in her office at the Kurita shipping firm in Honolulu, and collect the briefcase. If there are other papers, she will burn them. She will keep only the list of names.
When she returns to the mainland, she will hide it where no one can find it. Hope she will never set eyes on it again.
Just as she will never see her daughter again.
30
Annette staggered into the lobby. Behind her the auditorium resounded with the applause of the rest of the audience. The splendors of the lobby of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts—acres of red carpet, tall windows overlooking the Potomac, large bust of JFK on a pedestal—were wasted on her. She was blinded by tears.
Her nose would be running, too—it turned into a Niagara when she wept. She pawed in her bag for a handkerchief. She was going to drip down the front of her red frock and ruin it. She’d packed it so carefully back home in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, steamed out its wrinkles in the hotel bathroom—and for what? So she could feel overdressed and embarrassed. It turned out people didn’t dress up for the opera in Washington, D.C. Everybody else was in slacks.
No handkerchief. Turning toward the wall, she wiped her nose with her bare forearm. And she’d only bought the opera ticket so she could wear the dress. She’d never been to an opera and assumed it would be pretty boring.
If only it had been.
The beautiful music had swept out into the auditorium, picked her up and pulled her into the hopes and heartbreaks of Madame Butterfly. She’d had a pretty good idea how it would end, but that turned out to be no defense.
In the last moment before the curtain fell, Butterfly’s poor little son, Sorrow, waved his American flag, as Lt. Pinkerton, his lying, conceited, irresponsible father—just like Annette’s last boyfriend—arrived to claim him, and his abandoned mother plunged a knife into her breast. Annette burst into tears and fled up the aisle.
She was still crying. She’d have to pull herself together before she went outside and joined the line for taxis. Even when she was in good shape she could barely handle taxis. In Wilkes-Barre people drove themselves. Swallowing a sob, she turned away from the wall and straightened her back.
The auditorium doors opened and the audience poured out. There was that funny little man again, the Japanese tourist she’d noticed during intermission, walking around the lobby taking pictures with his expensive-looking Nikon. It made her feel better to see another lone tourist who was even more clueless than she. Annette was overdressed, but at least tastefully overdressed. This guy was wearing a necktie in a loud pattern that clashed with his plaid sport coat. He was almost a caricature of the Japanese tourists she’d seen all over the city, with his hunched posture, as if he was halfway into a bow, and his heavy-framed glasses and permanent bucktooth smile.
But now his smile faded. He’d noticed her sobbing and was heading her way.
Oh God, the last person she wanted to talk to was a Japanese! The opera had left her feeling embarrassed about being a countryman of Pinkerton.
“Miss? Don’t cry.”
She was about to turn away, but he was holding out to her a handkerchief, crisp white cotton, and it was just what she needed. She took it, brokenly mumbling her than
ks.
“You should have stayed. You’d have seen, Butterfly was fine. She was smiling. Everybody was smiling as they bowed to the applause. Well, except for poor Pinkerton. A few people actually booed him.” The Japanese tittered.
“Good,” said Annette. “I hate him. Waltzing into Butterfly’s house with his new wife, taking away her child—”
“His child, too.”
“Poor little Sorrow. He’ll grow up in a foreign land. With a woman who’s not his mother and a father he ought to hate.”
The Japanese took this in, nodding gravely. It seemed the opera had affected him, too. Then his mood changed. The smile returned and the narrow black eyes turned into slits. “But Pinkerton did him a great favor. Though he won’t appreciate it for many years.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, where does the opera take place?”
“I don’t know. Japan.”
The smile grew even broader. “Nagasaki.”
She blinked at him, not understanding.
“It would have been Sorrow’s fate to die at the age of fifty, when the city was destroyed by an American nuclear bomb. Being in America, he probably lived another twenty years or more.”
“Oh.” How could anybody, especially a Japanese, make a joke like that? She wanted to get away from this guy. But his handkerchief was now a ball in her hand, damp and streaked with her makeup. She couldn’t give it back to him like that. She didn’t know what to do.
He gently took her arm. “Let me help you find a taxi.”
Annette hesitated. She did need help. And though this guy had a twisted sense of humor, it was kind of him to try to cheer her up. She allowed him to draw her toward the doors.
31
Morning sun creeping under the window blinds of her hotel room awakened Annette. She opened her eyes. Tadeo’s side of the bed was empty. Had he left?
No. She could hear water running. He was in the bathroom.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Usually it made her feel bad when a guy she’d hooked up with slipped away in the night. But in Tadeo’s case it might have been for the best. The way he changed, once they got into the room last night—she’d been a little drunk at the time and just accepted it. But thinking it over now, it was strange. Scary even.