Heart Mountain

by Ehrlich, Gretel;

  He met Mariko in the hallway, nodded, then ran to the door at the end of the hall. It opened out to the parking lot. He heard a train whistle and wondered when Madeleine was coming home and whether the steers had sold well. When his head cleared, he went back inside. Mariko was leaning against the wall with one hip stuck out. He approached.

  “They say you’re a painter,” he said at last.

  “Yes. Do you like painting?”

  “I saw some van Goghs once. And Gauguins and Picassos.…”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling.

  It was the first time McKay had seen her smile. He felt the flush in his face creep up. Mariko offered him a Gauloise. He thanked her but refused. They walked to the picture window at the end of the hall. Beyond was a cornfield. The dry stalks moved stiffly in the breeze and streaks of crimson climbed the bleached husks. The hall smelled like the inside of Snuff’s bar, McKay thought—heady and antiseptic. His head throbbed and he felt cold and hot at the same time like a piece of marble propped next to a fire.

  “They said your grandfather can go home tonight.”

  “Home?” Mariko repeated the word cynically.

  “I’m sorry. Look, I’m awfully sorry.”

  Mariko walked away, then stopped to dig a cigarette from the crumpled blue package. She turned to him.

  “Are we much hated here?” she asked, pulling on the cigarette. It hadn’t been lit right and the fire burned to one side, then went out. She smoothed the wadded package and stuffed the cigarette back in.

  “I don’t hate you at all,” McKay said.

  A quizzical smile came over Mariko’s face.

  She paced the hall. Once she stopped and peeked through the emergency room window; Pinkey was leaning on one elbow. His eyes were closed, and her grandfather rocked back and forth as Pinkey’s blood dripped into his arm.

  Mariko moved back toward McKay. He watched her soft, deliberate stride. Her feet seemed to reach too far forward as if trying to get away from ground that might break through. He thought he was going to cry. Then it passed. Mariko was standing in front of him. Her eyes were stern and sullen and swelled under the lids like dark waves coming in. She leaned forward and looked right into him. He knew she saw how his blood vibrated, how he was faltering, always faltering, like a wall pulling away from a beautiful half-built house.

  She smiled. McKay’s chest was so congested, he found it difficult to breathe. He had to turn away from her while he coughed. Then he saw his hand extend toward her. He didn’t know where he wanted to make it go, he only wanted to make peace with her for the terrible thing he had done. She clasped his wandering hand with both of hers. Her fingers were warm and a little rough on the ends. She looked at him as though to say something, but didn’t.

  When Pinkey’s head slipped off his hand, he jerked awake. At this, Mr. Abe’s elfish face lit up and he let out a peal of laughter. The nurse slipped the needle from his arm, then looked at Pinkey in disgust.

  “You might as well be renting a room here, the amount of time you spend in this hospital.”

  “Times are tough; that’s all, Betsy.”

  “Yeah, who needs a war when we’ve got you around.”

  Doc Hoffman came from a room at the end of the hall and joined McKay and Mariko. In the emergency room he took Mr. Abe’s pulse, checked the wound, and declared him “good as new,” speaking in the loud voice reserved for “foreigners,” as though volume compensated for words they didn’t understand.

  Mr. Abe dangled his feet over the edge of the table, then stood up. He was the same height as Pinkey, but birdlike. He bowed to the old cowboy.

  “Domo arrigato gozaimashita.”

  “You bet. Hell, we’re blood brothers now. You can’t get much closer than that,” Pinkey said proudly.

  The nurse with the fat arms pushed a wheelchair under Abe-san and made him sit down, then wheeled him from the room. Mariko turned to follow. She shook the doctor’s hand.

  “Ciao,” she said.

  Pinkey looked up. “Yea. That’s a good idea. Let’s eat.”

  9

  Am I like the optimist who, while falling ten stories from a building, says at each story, “I’m all right so far”?

  No, I’m not. Because the news that Abe-san was shot by a hakujin—a white person—whose ranch borders this camp shocked me out of the lethargy I’d been feeling. Are we going to be picked off like geese, one by one? Will Okubo jumped to the conclusion that it wasn’t an accident and insisted I do some “investigative reporting.” Now how in the hell am I supposed to do that from behind barbed wire? Went to the director’s office and asked for a special pass to interview the sheriff and the doctor who treated Abe-san. The pass was denied. So much for muckraking. “I’m sitting on it for now,” I told Will when he asked. “Like a hen,” he said, glowering.

  The weather is godawful—blustery winds and spitting snow. I don’t feel warm anywhere. The tip of Heart Mountain is white. It comes and goes inside clouds and looks “like a man being carried on a palanquin,” my father said; the mountain moves, the sky is still. Tried refilling my fountain pen this morning and the ink was half-frozen. I went back to bed. Mom and Pop were off early—she goes to her class in ikebana, and Pop to his in English-language. Optimism is for the fainthearted, I decided, lying there. How much more absurd can things get? There’s a war on and my mother spends her days learning to arrange flowers.

  Sunday. Spent the day shoveling dirt against the foundations of the barracks to keep the cold from coming in. Pop joined in and we worked in a line with Mariko and Will. Just before sundown, the smell of cooked liver permeated the Camp. Will tied a scarf around his nose and mouth. When we cleaned up and went to dinner, he sat alone in his room. For such a tough thinker, his senses are easily offended. Later, I shared one of those foul-smelling French cigarettes with him and listened to the Issei fire patrol clacking wooden blocks as they strolled through the Camp. “It’s the old way,” Mom explained. “Back home.” (By which she meant Hikari.) “They still do it this way. Japanese buildings are nothing but wood and paper. Very old; very dry. Many fires … very bad. I remember one house that went up in flames down the street from us. Old man there had gone crazy. Poured gasoline all over the house and himself, then lit a match. Fire destroy three houses, kill five people, and took half of Shinto shrine at the end of the street. He kill himself and many others.”

  This morning, helped Ben pass a petition around to keep the War Relocation Authority from stringing barbed wire completely around the Camp. Some kids joined us, singing, “Don’t Fence Me In.” Strolling through this square mile of humanity is an education in itself. Such variety! We met and talked to farmers and fishermen, tough guys from downtown Los Angeles, Buddhist priests, and rich housewives, schoolteachers and koto-players.… One Issei told me that when he came to America by ship, they fed him bread and butter. He had never seen butter and the taste of it made him sick. The first hakujin he saw had red hair and green eyes. He thought the person was sick. “I didn’t know there were different colors of hair and eyes then,” he told me and laughed.

  Halfway around the Camp, Emi joined us. Ben had introduced us a few days before. She’s fresh-faced and smart and already I’ve grown quite fond of her. As we walked between barracks, she told me that her mother was a picture bride and their first house was a shack on the edge of a field of onions, with no water and a dirt floor. “My father loved gambling more than rice,” she said. “He’d work all day, then disappear in the basement of someone’s house and gamble his day’s wages away. Sometimes he won, but mostly he lost. We never knew what the next week would bring.” She said he died one night in his sleep and the next day they were informed that he had lost everything they owned in his last bet—even the samurai sword that had been in the family for centuries.… “So this camp doesn’t seem all that bad to me,” she said. Almost cheerfully.

  Tuesday. Abe-san came home today. In lieu of investigative reporting, I merely recorded his arrival. An ama
teur photographer from the town of Lovell donated a press camera, so I was there when the staff car pulled up. Mariko was with him and helped him from the car. As he stood, bandaged arm in view, I pressed the button and there was a minor explosive flash.

  Abe-san hid his face. “Why you do that to me?” he asked angrily.

  I told him I had never used this camera before and didn’t know it would go off like that. Will laughed. I followed them from the car, down the lane, to their unit, and asked at the door if I could come in. Abe-san nodded.

  “Put that thing away,” he said, pointing to the camera, and I laid it on the floor, then took my pad and pencil out to get the story.

  Abe-san looked right through me and said nothing. Finally I asked him if he thought it was an accident and if he had thought of bringing charges against the guy.

  Abe-san looked amused. “Why he waste bullet on old man like me? Better for him to come and shoot you young people …,” he said, laughing.

  “Well, did he act like he wanted to hurt you?” I asked. I was already feeling frustrated.

  “No. He’s good boy.”

  “Who’s a good boy?” I asked.

  Abe-san turned to Mariko. “What’s his name?”

  “McKay Allison,” she said.

  “Sooo … good memory,” he said.

  I looked from one to the other in disbelief.

  “You might have been killed …,” I said.

  Abe-san scowled. “Oh … yes …,” he said, then smiled.

  “Frankly, I don’t see what’s so funny about it.”

  “It’s not,” he said matter-of-factly. “It was accident. Like stubbing toe.”

  “Death is like stubbing your toe?” I asked.

  “Hai.”

  What could I do but shrug it off? Another crazy conversation with this madman.

  “But if you changed your mind and did decide to bring charges, would you—or any of us—have any legal rights here? I mean, if they can abrogate some of our democratic rights, can’t they do away with others?”

  A twinge of pain crossed Abe-san’s face. He held his wounded arm. “Why meet bullet with anger? That makes you just like bullet.”

  “No it doesn’t,” Will whispered.

  Abe-san ignored him and stared at me. “Understand, desu-ne?”

  Understand? Not really. I understand the theory, all right, but how to put it into practice without closing my eyes to reality, without being naive? I don’t trust myself, and I don’t know what to think of Abe-san.

  Friday. Went to press. I was one of the lucky ones who got to go to Cody with the paper. It’s printed at night on the big flatbed presses of the Cody weekly. While it gets printed, we go for a steak at the Mayflower and sometimes catch part of a movie in town. We get some stares, all right, but so far, no one’s shot at us! Then we go back, fold the paper, and take the whole load to Camp for delivery.

  Sunday. Another black day. For twenty-three years I’ve looked in the mirror and never seen my face as “Japanese.” How naive could I have been? Now I hate what I’ve come from. I try to appear calm and good-natured, but inside I’m seething. How can a nation that purports to fight fascism use fascist techniques to solve problems at home—and expect not to get caught in its lie. And that would be the worst thing—the hypocrisy is one thing, but getting away with it would be the real tragedy.

  Monday. Snowed like hell, then warmed a little, then froze again last night. Went skating between the barracks with some young kids. They ordered their skates out of the Monkey Ward catalogue. They laughed every time I fell down. Said my ankles looked like udon.

  Thursday. Yesterday, the last of the evacuees from the assembly camps in California arrived here. Good-bye horse stalls, see you later Seabiscuit, I say. It’s reported that 107,000 Nisei and Issei are in ten camps now and here at Heart Mountain, we’ve reached our quota of 10,767. I found one little kid in a sandbox crying and when I asked what was wrong he said, “I don’t like Japan. I want to go home to America.”

  The guards say it will snow within the week and this time, we should expect it to stay on the ground until spring. How can we expect something we’ve never experienced? The children are ecstatic. They can’t wait to build snowmen. All I know is that with no more trains coming in, it feels settled in an odd sort of way.

  10

  The day after Thanksgiving Carol Lyman drove her retarded, pear-shaped son, Willard, to the grocery store where he worked. In the mornings he scattered fresh sawdust behind the butcher counter and swept the aisles. His mother let him off on the street corner, threw him a kiss, and drove away. The pale pink willow branch he took everywhere with him waved in the wake of the car. The horse trader’s truck appeared at the edge of town. It was green with a red stock rack and rolled passed Willard like a Christmas tree. Two sorrel horses in back swung their heads from side to side, nostrils flared. When the horse trader nodded hello, Willard raised his willow high in the air, as high and sailing as the horses’ heads, he thought, and pumped it up and down like a baton.

  “Morning, Willard.”

  Rose bent over the shelf which held peaches and fruit cocktail and stamped “12 cents” on top of each can. Her platinum bun, encased in a hairnet, teetered as she leaned.

  “You put the willow down and get to sweeping. We’re quitting at noon. Don’t you remember?” she said. Then she grabbed Willard’s wrist and wrote “12 cents” on the back of his hand with her grease pencil. Willard laughed out loud like a horse squealing.

  “You’re getting pretty high-priced, aren’t you?” Larry, the butcher, wrapped a pound of hamburger in white paper. “You can take this home to your Mom tonight, okay, Will?”

  Willard stared hard at the meat case. It was white with a big window in front and inside, on shaved ice, a few steaks and chops and sausages. He thought it looked like the insides of someone’s body.

  At noon, Rose, Willard, and Larry ate egg salad sandwiches in the back office, then went out on the street. Some of the men had cut a big fir and placed it where the one paved street in town ended at the railroad tracks. They made a stand for the tree in the highway maintenance shop—once the livery stable—and Willard watched as they nailed the tree trunk to it, saw the sap dropping like opals smeared over the bark by the men’s big hands; bent down and put his face into the soft needles and drew in his breath; saw the tree tipped up, brushing past his cheek and ear until it stood straight again.

  The smaller trees, the pines, were wired to the streetlights as Willard sorted bulbs into foot-high piles by color. Rose and Larry carried a large box of tinsel between them down the alley. Later, when the lights had been strung and the dark had come down on the town, Rose gave Willard his own tinsel. The thin package, damaged in shipping, was torn open and the long skein of silver wrapped on shirt cardboard pushed through the cellophane window at front, disheveled like hair. Willard pulled out a handful and held it to his willow branch as if the tinsel were hay and the branch could eat. Then he dabbed the bright stuff onto nearly leafless twigs and began to walk. He held the decorated branch like a torch and marched down the nearly empty street. The little pines, the ones held captive to the lampposts, flickered with light, and loudspeakers, attached that same afternoon to the eaves of the Mormon church, blared Christmas carols, and a river of cold wind came down hard and all at once and blew every strand of tinsel away.

  Pinkey stood at the window and looked down at the street. The door behind him slammed shut because of the wind. He had moved to town from the ranch during the week, taken a room at Rose’s boardinghouse because McKay had kicked him out after he hacksawed the lock off the liquor cabinet again and began mixing drinks. He had pulled the bottles McKay’s father had brought home with him after cowboying in Mexico—tequila, mescal, Kahlúa—as well as the ancient bottle of Benedictine he had given to his wife on Valentine’s Day the first year they were married. Pinkey arranged three glasses in front of him and poured crème de menthe, scotch, and schnapps into one; vermouth, bl
ackberry brandy, and mescal into another; Kahlúa, gin, and bourbon in a third; and drained the glasses one by one, licking his lips clean.

  McKay had awakened Pinkey by poking him in the ribs with his boot. He had passed out on the Navajo rug in the living room. McKay told the cowboy to get out and not come home until he was ready to work.

  Nor was Rose happy to see Pinkey. She led him into the dining room, where a hot lunch was being served family style, and dangled a room key in front of his face.

  “If you can hold your dinner down, you can have a room.”

  Pinkey hadn’t shaved for five days. His whiskers had grown in silver and his red cheeks sprouted above the stubble like hothouse bulbs. The wind howled. It was already dark and strings of Christmas tree lights had fallen from the small pines in long loops and whipped like tails against the sidewalks. For days a blizzard of tinsel filled the air and fell in bright shoals against the buildings. When the five o’clock train pulled into the station at the edge of town, Pinkey leaned out over the windowsill to see. Canvas sacks of letters and packages were unloaded, then a black coffin was pushed to the edge of the boxcar. The coffin was long and dark like a tree trunk felled in the rain. A hearse backed up to the train and three men slid the coffin into its dark hold.

  Pinkey reeled backward and sat on the bed. His hands felt clammy. A gust of wind tore another string of lights from a pine across the street. Who the hell’s in that box, he wondered. The pavement shone under the Christmas tree. Pinkey stood again, steadying himself at the window. When he looked down everything was in twos—like a dowser’s stick, he thought. Then there were two of him—one in the room and the other one, the proud one, trying to make the two one again.

  When he sat the bedsprings squeaked. He heard the train’s steam engine pant in the dark, heard the whistle pierce the roaring wind with another kind of roaring and the train moving away. He would go back to the ranch now, he decided. He was ready. He would go downstairs and call McKay. His broken leg ached all the way into his groin. He reached under the mattress for the bottle.